BOSTON — If you’ve ever seen the movie “Moneyball” (or did it the old-fashioned way and read the book), then you know the Red Sox played a part in the Oakland Athletics’ storied 2002 season.
But they didn’t necessarily mean to.
As the story goes, the 2002 MLB draft was a turning point for the A’s and their quest to replace the likes of Jason Giambi and Johnny Damon, whom Oakland lost in free agency. But the A’s shift to recruiting players who weren’t your prototypical superstars by using analytics actually happened because of the 2001 draft.
“I think the seminal moment for us, at least in terms of amateur players, came in a draft before the 2002 draft,” former Athletics assistant Paul DePodesta said Friday during a “Moneyball Reunion” panel at the 2016 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. “And that centered around Kevin Youkilis.
“What actually transpired was that we were talking about this guy Kevin Youkilis, and our reports actually — the summary in our reports were quite favorable of him, saying this is an Oakland A’s kind of player, doesn’t look the part, but he really grinds out at-bats, etc., etc. But then the grades on him were very low. Low enough to put him further down in the draft.”
DePodesta said the A’s thought they’d be able to pick Youkilis in the 10th round, but he was scooped up in the eighth by Boston, where he collected three All-Star nods, a Gold Glove and two World Series championships. Youkilis became a “hot point of debate” for Oakland when the team worked on its draft strategy for 2002.
“The draft rolled around, and it was pretty rapid fire in those days, and over the speaker phone you hear ‘Boston Red Sox select Kevin Youkilis’ and you could hear a pin drop in our room,” DePodesta said. “And I could feel everybody just staring at me, and finally I said, ‘Guys, I’ve never even seen him.’ But that was a big moment for us because I think after that draft was over (A’s general manager) Billy (Beane) and I spent a lot of time talking about how can we do this differently.”
And Oakland did do it differently, assembling a team of carefully scouted free agents en route to a 103-59 record in a season best known for featuring a 20-game win streak. But perhaps it wouldn’t have gone that way had Youkilis started his career in green and gold.
Thumbnail photo via Bob DeChiara/USA TODAY Sports Images
