MLB's Billy Bean Has Died

[TheBigA]

Billy Bean has died at age 60:

Billy Bean, former MLB outfielder and LGBTQ advocate, dies at 60: 'He made baseball a better institution'

Bean was the second MLB player to come out publicly as gay

www.cbssports.com

 

[Don CT]

You could argue he changed baseball but also ruined it.

 

[Mike Raffone]

You could argue he changed baseball but also ruined it.

Are you thinking of Billy BEANE?

 

[JLBCLT]

Are you thinking of Billy BEANE?

no. different. This is Billy Bean. Have a lot of respect for Billy Bean. RIP. How did he ruin baseball?

 

[radiofan2023]

no. different. This is Billy Bean. Have a lot of respect for Billy Bean. RIP. How did he ruin baseball?

He was asking @Don CT, that’s why he quoted his post.

 

[CTListener]

Billy Beane -- no relation to Billy Bean -- was a baseball analytics pioneer who, while GM of the Oakland A's, "ruined baseball" by finding value in players conventional baseball thinkers regarded as undesirable -- power hitters with low batting averages who drew high numbers of walks, for instance. Such players were cheaper to acquire and pay than those who met traditional standards for success (batting averages over .300, proficiency in hitting singles, etc.), and enabled Beane to build a strong, contending A's team for much less money than, say, the Yankees.

 

[Don CT]

Billy Beane -- no relation to Billy Bean -- was a baseball analytics pioneer who, while GM of the Oakland A's, "ruined baseball" by finding value in players conventional baseball thinkers regarded as undesirable -- power hitters with low batting averages who drew high numbers of walks, for instance. Such players were cheaper to acquire and pay than those who met traditional standards for success (batting averages over .300, proficiency in hitting singles, etc.), and enabled Beane to build a strong, contending A's team for much less money than, say, the Yankees.

He also ushered in analytics and that is what really ruined the sport.

 

[Don CT]

So my confusion in getting the two names mixed up.

 

[CTListener]

He also ushered in analytics and that is what really ruined the sport.

That's what I said -- analytics pioneer. The sad thing about analytics is that the hypotheses they are based on are, in fact, true. You'll score more runs and win more games with a lineup of nine .215 hitters who hit 30 homers and walk 100 times than you will with nine .315 hitters who hit 5 homers and walk 15 times. It makes baseball a less interesting game to watch, I agree, but it's hard to force people in the game -- whose job it is to win -- to go back to the old assumptions just to make the game more eye-appealing. Eliminating the shift has worked to an extent, but high-strikeout, low-contact, high-power, high-walk baseball is likely here to stay.