How To Play Beane Ball

Sidebar: Beane Counting

How do you build a great ball team on a shoestring? Look at the numbers. Here's data on the 10 winningest major-league baseball clubs from 1999 to 2002. OPS is their average rank (among the 30 pro teams) for the combined statistic of on-base percentage and slugging percentage -- hitters' ability to get on base and hit for power. WHIP ranks the teams' pitchers on their ability to keep opposing runners off the bases. Teams that rank the highest in both categories -- like the A's -- tend to win the most games. The kicker: Oakland does it spending far less money -- about half as much per win as the next-most-frugal team and less than one-third of the most spendthrift.

Sidebar: The Beane-Ball Handbook

Over the past five years, general manager Billy Beane has made the Oakland Athletics one of pro baseball's most consistent winners -- and he has done so on one of the sport's most meager budgets. Here's how Beane turns a double play, making one into more.

The real highlights don't happen on the field. "It used to be, general managers just evaluated players on their ability. Today, the economics drive every decision. You have to evaluate talent not just on playing ability, but also on economic feasibility -- and not just a player's current feasibility, but also his future trend. Every single decision, down to drafting a kid out of high school, has economic ramifications."

It may be a team sport -- but there's only one boss. "We have a pretty tight inner circle. First and foremost, it's my responsibility what happens here. I give my directors a lot of autonomy, because they're good at what they do. But that's a small group, and ultimately, in critical decisions, I want to be involved. We don't have a lot of bureaucracy here. We don't get together for huge organizational meetings. We don't have a lot of patience for four-hour meetings and a hundred opinions. That's my worst nightmare."

Hit 'em where the big guys ain't. "We can do some things that the Yankees can't. We can trade for a guy like Corey Lidle and make him our fifth starter, even though he was a middle reliever who hadn't done much. I kid with [Yankees general manager] Brian Cashman all the time: He can't do that, because New York demands higher-profile players. When Jason Giambi left us [in 2002, for the Yankees], we could sign Scott Hatteberg, a backup catcher, and put him at first and get away with it. We're allowed to take what are perceived as risks."

Sweat the details -- but remember that it's a long season. "This is an intense job, because you're being judged every day. It's not like being a CEO, where you just have to give a conference call once a quarter. Every day, we play a game, and it's in the paper. All the data is on the Internet. Everything is public. And I'm guilty of it too. This sport is an emotional business, and I have to be careful not to make sound-bite decisions."

Even an MVP can't do it all. "Getting to the play-offs isn't random: Over 162 games, if you have the right team, the odds work out. But once you get to the postseason, everything becomes random. In a 5-game series, you can flip a coin five times, and you might come up tails five times. In our market and many others, we can't build a team that's specifically geared for 162 games and also for a 5-game play-off. That I don't think we'll ever overcome."

Keith H. Hammonds (khammonds@fastcompany.com) is a Fast Company senior editor and a die-hard Yankees fan.