Athletics' Beane has been Beaned

IT HAS BEEN 8 years since "Moneyball" raised the morale of baseball's poor and huddled bottom feeders yearning to win on the cheap.

Their patron saint, Oakland general manager Billy Beane, used a little SABR math, some really good scouts and a lot of luck to prove you could make the postseason on a consistent basis without spending like the Yankees.

The A's bypassed seven-figure, iffy, high school phenoms in the draft. They looked for college players who made up for what they lacked in projectable talent with solid now results. The A's went for position players who put up good numbers in good programs, run scorers and high OBP guys. They also were big on BA with RISP, OPS, players who could get on base and score. Contact hitting was more sought after than longballing.

And it worked. For a while.

There is a long list of successful players who fit the Moneyball mold shaped by judicious use of Sabermetrics as opposed to the traditional BA, RBI-driven yardsticks used for more than 100 years. (I've got no problem with a lot of the Sabermetric stuff, as long as it does not ignore that the object of the game is to score one more run than the other guy. I regard OPS as the most useful way to measure a player's offensive contribution.)

But Moneyball has hit the wall for Beane. The reason the A's have not been back to the postseason since 2006 and are 45 games under .500 since then is that the system is so attractive economically, all the bottom feeders are into it. A number of top feeders, as well.

Bottom line: No pennant, despite two 100-plus-win seasons since 2000, six 90-plus-win seasons and five postseason appearances. Attendance in the Oakland Mausoleum has ranged from an American League eight best 2.170 million in 2002 to a dead-last 1.41 million in 2009. They are No. 14 again this year.

Across the bay, the Giants are the world champs and they did it because Brian Sabean out-Beaned Beane. Sabean did last year what the salary-maxed Phils are doing this year, using overwhelming pitching depth to overcome puny offense. But Sabean did it for $96.28 million in 2010 and is doing it so far this season for $118.2 million.

The contending Pirates are the feel-good story of the season on a $42.05 million payroll.