Oakland A's - It's Déjà Vu All Over Again
By Rick Speciale - Feature Writer
10/17/2006
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - Just like Bill Murray in the movie Groundhog Day, the Oakland A’s keep waking up to the same nightmare over and over again. The club has gone home, yet again without advancing to the World Series. The latest scapegoat is former A’s head coach, Ken Macha, who was fired yesterday despite leading the team to perform beyond expectations with an upset of the Minnesota Twins.
The club has been remarkably consistent in delivering playoff caliber teams - year in and year out. Much of this success is attributed to General Manager Billy Beane, who has acquired or developed players who fit a very specific mold. His hitters are ones that may not bat for high average, but get on base and take what the opposition gives them. His teams also generally don’t make mistakes, by virtue of conservative play that includes little or no base stealing.
A gaggle of statistics show this risk avoidance style, over time, yields more wins than losses. The problem occurs when the opposition makes no mistakes or peaks in performance as the Tigers have in the playoffs. Beane’s proven road map for success is derived from a 162 game season, but the postseason is a new season altogether, and a much shorter a time frame to play the averages out to a world series birth.
Maybe the next challenge is to use more timely “small ball techniques” such as stealing, bunting and more aggressive hitting to advance in the playoffs. The other option is to continue the revolving door of ex coaches and post season disappointments until (maybe 20 years later) the law of averages smile in Beane’s favour. It worked for Bill Murray…eventually.
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