Not So On The Money (Ball)

I'm as big an Oakland A's fan and Billy Beane fan as there is. Although this season will be painful, I like the fact that he sold high on what talent he had left and reloaded for 2010.

But it's time to face the facts.

Five and a half years after the much-ballyhooed 2002 draft and four years after the release of "Moneyball," the book chronicling Oakland's spendthrift ways and outside-the-box thinking, the seven guys they took in the first round that year, with a few exceptions, weren't all that special.

With the 16th overall pick, they took Nick Swisher...no arguments there. He's a solid player, has 80 career homeruns and a .361 OBP in, what amounts to 3 big league seasons. Plus, his batting average has gone up each year he's been in the league. I hate to see him go to the White Sox, but they got a lot in return for him. High schoolers Cole Hamels, James Loney, and Jeff Francoeur went right after him, though.

With the 24th pick, they took Joe Blanton. He's a solid number 3 starter, but probably will never be an All-Star, probably will never win more than 17 games and probably will never have an ERA below 3.50. He's definitely durable though, having made almost 100 starts in the last 3 years. During that time, he's 8 games over .500 with an ERA just above 4.00. Matt Cain was the next player taken.

With the 26th pick, they took John McCurdy, an infielder from the University of Maryland. He was released by the club last April and had a career .302 OBP in more than 1700 career minor league at-bats, mostly below double-A. A tremendous college player, but not "the next Jeff Kent" as the book predicted.

A few picks later at 30, they took Benjamin Fritz, a pitcher from Fresno State. He went 11-11 at double-A last year with a 5.67 ERA, 88 strikeouts, 68 walks, and 6 wild pitches in nearly 150 IP and has yet to appear in the major leagues.

With the 35th pick, the A's took Alabama catcher Jeremy Brown, noted as being "huge in the ass" in the book- thus the reason he was overlooked. Brown just retired from baseball a few days ago, despite hitting .276 with 14 homers at triple-A last year. He went 3 for 10 with 2 doubles, a run scored, and a walk in a brief stint with the big club in '06.

At 37, the A's took Stephen Obenchain, a pitcher from the University of Evansville. He, too was released last season and played in the Independent League in '07. He never made it past double-A, and owns a 19-20 career record in 96 minor league games (52 starts) along with a 4.15 ERA.

And finally, their last first-round pick at 39, was Mark Teahen, who's now with the Kansas City Royals. An outfielder now because of Alex Gordon, he had a nice 2006 season, going .290/18/69 with 10 steals in less than 400 ABs, but his 2007 was a pretty big disappointment. In 150 more at-bats, he hit 11 fewer homeruns, drove in 9 less, saw his slugging percentage dip more than 100 points and walked just 15 more times. He's still slated to be KC's Opening Day right fielder.

So out of their 7 picks, 3 players are big league starters (although none have won major awards or been selected to an All-Star team), 3 have yet to see an inning of action in the majors, one had a cup of coffee, and only two are still in the Oakland organization. Sounds like a pretty typical draft to me.