If you've watched the movie Moneyball, and loved it as I have, you may have learned about the game from a new perspective. Billy Beane baseball is something that I was unaccustomed to, and it raised one of my eyebrows in learning his approach to winning games. I played ball ever since I could stand on my own two feet and could put a bat on my shoulders, and continued until I had to be practically carried off the field in college with a severe ankle injury, much like Jose Reyes'. I have been learning the game since I was sporting diapers, and thankfully, an injury has not slowed that train. Something that caught me the end of Moneyball has brought me a broader perspective to compare different styles of playing the game.
The theme of the entire movie is a battle of strategy and conceptualizations. It's about century-old strategy against statistical probability. History vs. Innovation. The Oakland A's have not made an appearance in the World Series since 1990. To be fair, the Kansas City Royals hadn't either since 1985... until this year (2014). The Oakland A's still employ the sort of statistical probability of working their way to winning games, while the Royals are masters at playing what we call "small ball," that is, bunting, stealing, sacrificing, etc. This is in contrast to the A's, where in Moneyball, Beane tells his players that they would no longer be stealing or bunting, as those bring a higher probability of outs.
So, it's not fair to compare the two teams and say that one style worked better than the other, based solely on historical data of the past 10-15 years. But there is one conclusion that I came to, based on their face-off in the 2014 Wild Card game: that small ball helped the Royals advance. There is no denying that the 7 stolen bases by the Royals put them in position to win...literally.
In the bottom of the 9th inning, Oakland had KC down 7-6. Not to disregard 8 important innings, but let's recap that half-inning:
KC's first batter, Willingham, singled to right. Royals substitute Jarrod Dyson to pinch run.
Next batter up: Alcides Escobar. A sacrifice bunt by Escobar places Dyson on 2nd, one out.
Dyson successfully steals 3rd base, still only one out.
Next batter, Nori Aoki, flies out to RF, allowing Dyson to score from 3rd. Now two outs, score 7-7.
Last batter: Lorenzo Cain lines out for the third out.
Arguably, Dyson wouldn't have scored, but for both the sacrifice bunt that moved him to second, as well as stealing third. None of those other at-bats would have sufficed to bring home the score. Thus, the Royals would have lost the game. At a minimum, it is easy to say that those small ball tactics put them into position to keep their playoff hopes alive.
Let's advance once more to the 12th and final inning of the game. Once again, the A's had the Royals down by one run after a single brought home Josh Reddick for an Oakland run. Bottom of the 12th, it's score-or-go-home once again for KC.
1st batter: Lorenzo Cain grounds out; one out.
2nd batter: Hosmer triples.
3rd batter: Christian Colon with an infield single to score Hosmer (who, in my opinion, is the fastest 1B in MLB). Tie game 8-8 with still only one out.
Next batter: Alex Gordon fouls out. 2 down.
Final batter: Salvador Perez to the plate.
Colon steals 2nd. Perez hits a single to LF, scoring Colon. KC walks off 9-8.
Note that I have underlined the key plays that set the Royals up. Only one of the 4 plays involves a typical run-of-the-mill, no special situational call on--that's the triple putting Hosmer on third and a Christian Colon single to score him. Other than that, the other 3 plays involve small ball: a sac bunt and two stolen bases to move the runner into scoring position.
I know it may only be speculative to analyze the situations that didn't happen, but it cannot be controverted that the Royals' small ball tactics scored the runs that took the game for them. Yes, there are multiple aspects to every baseball game including pitching, defense, base running, batting, etc. Sure, the other aspects helped to set up the scenario to win, but in the times that the game was on the line, small ball proved to crown the Royals.
Some of the last commentary at the end of Moneyball was a discussion that analyzed the A's shortcomings. It said that the Billy Beane tactics were great at bringing your team to the playoffs, but October baseball is a different picture. To win in October, you still have to bunt and steal in order to win. And these games have made it hard to disagree. (It's also how I grew up playing the game.)
Oakland did not steal a base or bunt until the 11th inning. In the top of the 11th, Fuld attempted a bunt single (not a sacrifice) that proved unsuccessful. There were no Oakland steals during the game, only advances on passed balls. The only attempted sacrifice was in the 12th inning that moved Josh Reddick to 2nd...and he eventually scored on a single by Alberto Callaspo after advancing to 3rd on a wild pitch.
In the end, it was the very tactics that the A's avoid that led to the end of their season. The Royals continue to play small ball, and have now found themselves in the 2014 World Series. Yes, the team who lacked a 15-win pitcher, who lacked a batter with 20 HR, who lacked a batter with 75 RBI--they are the ones who found themselves a League Champion.
This is the team that instead had 5 players that stole 10 or more bases (2 of whom had 30+ SB). Their highest OBP (with more than 250 plate appearances) was .351. They had one batter with more than 43 walks. Their pitcher with the highest number of games played (71) had exactly a 1.00 ERA (and another pitcher appearing in 70 games with a 1.41 ERA). They had 4 qualified fielders with over a .990 fielding percentage. I could go on, but you get the point. You see how this team does the small things well.
I would love to see this team, who plays the small things so well, go on to win it all. These next 2 weeks could potentially tell the story of how small ball won it all.
