billy beane
William Lamar “Billy” Beane (born March 29, 1962, in Orlando, Florida) is a former Major League Baseball player and the current general manager and minority owner of the Oakland Athletics. [1]
In 1997, Alderson left the A’s to become a vice-president of Major League Baseball, and Billy Beane, by now Alderson’s right-hand man, suddenly found himself the youngest general manager in the game. [2]
The A’s are 3 games ahead in the AL West Division, and that margin is probably due to Billy Beane signing Frank Thomas. [3]
The New York Mets got that opportunity, taking Billy with the 20 pick in the first round of the 1980 baseball amateur draft. [4]
Billy Beane’s explanation is that when the A’s saw that Chad Gaudin needed surgery and other players were still recovering, they decided they couldn’t compete in ‘08 and should deal Dan Haren for prospects, thus ending their interest in Bonds. [5]
Despite having one of the lowest payrolls in the Major Leagues year after year, and consistently losing his best players to other, more wealthy teams, Beane has guided the A’s to playoff contention year after year by simply being smarter than his counterparts in other franchises. [2]
Billy Beane was selected by the New York Mets in the first round of the 1980 amateur draft. [3]
The first lesson Beane had to learn was to mistrust traditional and conventional baseball wisdom, especially as represented by the tradition-bound fraternity of professional baseball scouts. [2]
This has lead to short term complaints when he has elected not to re-sign popular players such as Jason Giambi and Miguel Tejada, or when he traded Mark Mulder and Tim Hudson. [3]
In addition, Oakland A’s players have garnered numerous individual accolades during his tenure as general manager. [6]
He never lived up to the hype as a player, but today he is best known for being the controversial GM of the Oakland A’s and the focus of the also-controversial Michael Lewis book Moneyball. [3]
Billy climbed the minor league ladder to make his first Major League appearance in 1984, four years after his journey began. [4]
The A’s five postseason appearances since the 2000 season are tied for the fourth most among all Major League teams, trailing only New York-AL (8), Atlanta (6) and St. Louis (6). [6]
And yet, with a miniscule payroll off $39 million, the A’s went on to compile a major league best 103 victories in 2002 - tied with the Yankees who also won 103 games…with a payroll that exceeded $125 million. [2]
In 1989, he played 37 more games with the Oakland Athletics, in a year when Oakland won the World Series under the managerial leadership of Tony LaRussa. [3]
Sources:
[1] Billy Beane - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[2] Billy Beane@Everything2.com
[3] Billy Beane - BR Bullpen
[4] Career Interviews for Career Exploration ” Blog Archive ” On …
[5] SFGate: Oakland Athletics : The Drumbeat : Billy Beane
[6] Oakland A’s: Executive Profiles