2002 seasons. However, the team’s total salary always remained around
the lowest out of 30 teams.^12
Oakland used to have significant spending on players, but as the new
Oakland’s owner Stephen Schott drastically curtails the team spending in
1994, they had to give up on players with high salaries. To overcome this
situation, Oakland's general manager, Sandy Alderson, started to show
interest in sabermetrics, which evaluates the value of players based on
statistical data instead of the original way of judging with scouter’s eyes
and sentiments. Back then, sabermetrics was an unfamiliar concept, but
rather it was an attractive method to scout cost-efficient players who are
underrated by original evaluation of their values. Later, Billy Beane took
Alderson’s position and explored extensively on Anderson’s concepts to
analyze which players can contribute more in wins, and which tools are
more important.^12 Beane knew that OBP is underrated even though it
has high correlation to more runs, so he formed his team with players
with high OBP but with low market prices.^7
Beane’s strategy was very weird back then, deciding to trade excellent
batters with 0.330 BA but instead going for batters with less BA, who
doesn’t seem as excellent. However, Beane was scouting and trading
underrated players based on his firmly established standards in rating
player’s value, and Athletics made high standings every year with a lower
budget than other teams.^12 Especially in 2002, Athletics had the top
standing in American League with the lowest team budget, including 20
consecutive wins between August 13 and September 4.^7