We often reference our “Moneyball” signings, and it honestly couldn’t be more true. Woods, Brown, Klemmer (?), Tevaga, TKO… For those that do not know the reference to Moneyball, you should watch the movie, but I feel Seibs saw this scene and was sold on this approach to recruitment – and to be fair, he’s not wrong, but these type of signings are also not the answer to the problem. Here’s a quote from Billy Beane (aka Anthony Seibold), the GM of the Oakland A’s addressing his recruitment committee:
“The problem we're trying to solve is that this is an unfair game. There are rich teams, poor teams, 50 feet of crap and then there's us. […] If we try to play like the Yankees in here, we're not going to be able to play with them out there.”