GM Scores: Billy Beane

The first in the series will be the Oakland A’s Boy Genius, Billy Beane. Beane has been the GM in Oakland for 13 seasons. Beane has made 119 trades and 134 signings.

Beane averages 16.9 WAR per year due to his moves. He’s added a total of 220.0 WAR over his tenure. The yearly totals:
1998: 40.7
1999: 50.2
2000: 16.4
2001: 32.4
2002: 18.9
2003: -5.9
2004: 31.6
2005: 21.0
2006: 8.3
2007: 10.5
2008: -8.7
2009: -6.2
2010: 4.3

Trades
For Beane’s trades, he’s given up 155.5 WAR and received 171.2 WAR; it’s a net WAR of 15.7.

Top 5 Deals
20.4 Net WAR – 12/18/2004: Traded Mark Mulder for Daric Barton, Kiko Calero, and Dan Haren
19.3 Net WAR – 01/08/2001: Traded Angel Berroa, Ben Grieve, and A.J. Hinch for Johnny Damon, Mark Ellis, and Cory Lidle
10.0 Net WAR – 03/19/2002: Traded Luis Vizcaino for Justin Duchscherer
8.0 Net WAR – 05/03/2007: Traded Cash for Jack Cust
7.9 Net WAR – 01/03/2008: Trade Nick Swisher for Fautino de los Santos, Gio Gonzalez, and Ryan Sweeney

Of these trades, the A’s are still adding WAR with the Mulder Deal (Barton) and the Swisher Deal (all 3 players). The other teams are not receiving additional WAR.

Bottom 5 Deals
-15.1 Net WAR – 12/16/2004: Traded Tim Hudson for Juan Cruz, Dan Meyers, and Charles Thomas
-14.5 Net WAR – 07/30/2003: Traded Jeff Bruksch, Aaron Harang, and Joe Valentine for Jose Guillen
-9.6 Net WAR – 11/18/2007: Traded Marco Scutaro for Kristian Bell and Graham Godfrey
-8.9 Net WAR – 12/13/2005: Traded Andre Ethier for Milton Bradley and Antonio Perez
-7.5 Net WAR – 06/24/2004: Traded Mark Teahen and Mike Wood for Octavio Dotel

Of these trades, the A’s are still getting hit for Ethier. They aren’t receiving WAR from anyone in these deals. Also note that another trade will over take the last one:
11/10/2008: Traded Carlos Gonzalez, Huston Street, and Greg Smith for Matt Holliday

This deal sits at a -6.5 WAR for the A’s.

Of the GMs I’ve looked at so far, Beane is the only GM with a positive trade WAR.

Free Agents
With Oakland normally strapped for cash, I was curious to see how he did. Overall, he does well with his signings.

Beane’s WAR for signings is 77.4. He finds a lot of value in minor league free agents and the waiver wire (10.9 Net WAR). With his limited payroll, he doesn’t sign many big name free agents; when he does, he’s careful about who it is.

Top 5 Signings
15.3 WAR – 03/04/2004: Eric Chavez (Extension)
6.3 WAR – 12/16/1997: Gil Heredia
5.8 WAR – 06/16/2004: Brad Ziegler
4.7 WAR – 10/09/2003: Marco Scutaro (Waiver Claim)
4.4 WAR – 01/02/2002: Scott Hatteberg

Ziegler was an interesting case because his contract was purchased from the Schaumburg Flyers of the Northern League. He was originally drafted by the Phillies, but was released. After a short stint in Indy Ball, the A’s signed him.

Chavez’s extension looked good at first, but by the end he couldn’t stay healthy.

Bottom 5 Signings
-1.6 WAR – 12/06/2007: Jay Marshall
-1.0 WAR – 02/06/2004: Eric Karros
-0.8 WAR – 01/08/2000: Omar Olivares
-0.8 WAR – 03/28/2010: Chad Gaudin
-0.8 WAR – 08/03/2010: Jeff Larish (Waivers)

Most of the guys Beane missed on have a WAR between 0 and -0.5. This goes back to the fact that he doesn’t miss much since he’s on a limited budget.

Draft
The draft was a little trickier. The guys I looked at played initially for Oakland; any player traded before playing for Oakland does not qualify for Beane’s WAR.

Beane has a total WAR of 126.9 for the draft. You can’t see the effect of the recent drafts yet, but Beane’s seen dividends as recently as the 2008 drafts.

1998 – 25.6 Net WAR (Mark Mulder, Eric Byrnes)
1999 – 28.8 Net WAR (Barry Zito)
2000 – 8.5 Net WAR (Freddie Bynum, Rich Harden, Ron Flores)
2001 – 8.3 Net WAR (Bobby Crosby, Dan Johnson, Mike Wood)
2002 – 18.0 Net WAR (Nick Swisher, Joe Blanton, Jeremy Brown, Shane Komine)
2003 – 0.0 Net WAR (Omar Quintanilla)
2004 – 20.1 Net WAR (Landon Powell, Danny Putnam, Huston Street, Kurt Suzuki, Jason Windsor, Kevin Melillo, Tommy Everidge, Dallas Braden, Connor Robertson, Jeff Gray)
2005 – 5.5 Net WAR (Cliff Pennington, Travis Buck, Vin Mazzaro, Jeff Baisley, Brad Kilby)
2006 – 12.4 Net WAR (Trevor Cahill, Andrew Bailey)
2007 – None
2008 – -0.3 Net WAR (Tyson Ross)
2009 – None
2010 – None

This will continue to change as more players in the system hit the majors.

There were plenty of players the A’s drafted in this time period that made it to the majors with other teams, such as Ryan Ludwick, Gerald Liard, and Jeremy Bonderman.

Grade
I can’t officially do grades until I’m finished, but Beane is probably sitting well. The only thing he’s missing is a championship. I would have like to see what he could have done with a budget, like in Boston 2003. I think eventually we’ll see him join a large market team.