Oakland's famous for relying on stats instead of live scouting.
PANatsfan, I think you need to put "Moneyball" on your summer reading list. Really, any baseball fan should read the book, for several reasons. For one, its ideas have been adopted by a number of teams, and thus it sort of "outed" Beane's strategies and ignited a trend towards including SABR measurements in addition to scouting in making personnel decisions. For another, it remains a controversial book and is often referred to, so it's nice be able to follow the conversations where it is invoked. And finally, it's a very entertaining read, not a bit overloaded with dense statistical jargon.
I've read it and own it. I question it's success, however. Beane himself doesn't seem to subscribe to it anymore, signing crap marginal players to play the field (Shannon Stewart, Mike Piazza) -and of all the players he drooled over in the book - the only star was Swisher, who Beane admitted didn't fit the Moneyball profile (Teahen might pan out, but Beane didn't stick with him). Like I said, Brown will never see the Majors, Beane made that clear when he traded Kendall and had an opportunity to call him up.
His college drafting strategy for pitchers has its good points - you know a guy can stay healthy over a season that's longer than the HS season, more statistics, more mature guys. There are downsides to college players, too - possibly bad coaching for 3 years, more wear-and-tear (especially because a lot of college pitchers play the field, too), and some of the best players get picked up in the draft after HS.
I have a solid background in statistics, but I don't have time or money to scour SABR reports and Baseball America.
I'm basically trying to say that when it comes to marginal pitchers (the type the FO is concentrating on), maybe the FO needs to look at Oakland.
