Well Doug, first of all, thank you for taking not only the time to read but the time to respond to my article.  I’d also like to apologize for taking so long to get back to you.  I’ve been battling a bit of a stomach virus.

 Now while it’s possible that teams like the White Sox, Rockies and Marlins may have just gotten lucky, in those cases – particularly with the Marlins who drafted by Josh Johnson and Scott Olsen that year – I tend to discount that and instead I give credit to the organizations for doing their homework well.  In the absence of further statistical data either way, I will generally defer to their greater wisdom.  I don’t believe that teams go into the draft uninformed about the players they are about to select.  I certainly cannot say that I’ve done extensive research on those team’s drafts and if so that could prove true, but it would not surprise me to know they’ve done well in the past and since. 

Take the Giants for instance.  They are often maligned in the media for their inability to get prospects to the majors but since Brian Sabean took over as GM in 1996, no fewer than 34 prospects he drafted have played with someone the majors, and this season alone no less than 15 of his picks have been on the Giants roster and it’s not even September 1 yet.  One of those players of course is Matt Cain, a high school pitcher – the type that Lewis portrayed Beane as having such disdain for – who was chosen ahead of McCurdy.

Time will tell for sure if Beane’s method is truly more successful than other methods but I’m not even sure Beane himself believes that any more as he himself seems to have altered his own approach to the draft. 

Now it’s actually too soon really to completely evaluate the 2002 draft, and even more so the subsequent years picks.  But what is really interesting is how over the last two years the A’s have drafted several high school pitchers.  In 2005, 5 of the first 6 pitchers he selected were out of high school.  This year, void of a first round pick due to the curious signing of Esteban Loaiza, he chose a high school kid with his top pick in the second round.  In fact, of the four pitchers he selected in the first 7 rounds, 2 were out of high school. 

I wouldn’t say that he’s abandoned the Moneyball approach, but he certainly seems to have tweaked its original form.