Moneyball (Movie Tie-In Edition) (Movie Tie-In Editions) (29 page)

And Billy Beane now attempts to do what he has done so many times in the past: insert himself in the middle of a deal that is none of his business.

“Omar,” he says. “You’re in the catbird seat here. All you need to do is let the market come to you.”

He then explains: Omar can have the Red Sox’s money and he can have the Red Sox’s players
plus
another player from the Oakland A’s minor league system. Just about any player he wants, within reason. All he has to do is agree to give Cliff Floyd to Billy Beane for a few minutes, and let Billy negotiate with the Red Sox. He is explaining, without putting too fine a point on it, that Omar is not getting all he could get out of the Red Sox for Cliff Floyd.

The Red Sox were in their usual undignified pant to make the play-offs. They had twisted themselves into a position in their own minds where they could not
not
get Cliff Floyd. They were among the many foolish teams that thought all their questions could be answered by a single player. Cliff Floyd was the answer. Cliff Floyd was a guy the Boston newspapers would praise them for acquiring. Cliff Floyd would bring false hope to Fenway Park. Cliff Floyd, in short, was a guy for whom the Red Sox simply had to overpay. And if Omar Minaya hasn’t the stomach to extract every last hunk of flesh the Boston Red Sox are willing to part with in exchange for Floyd, Billy will do it for him. And once he’s done it, he will give Omar the players he was going to get anyway
plus
a minor leaguer from the Oakland farm system.

Billy Beane never had the first hope of landing Cliff Floyd. For Cliff Floyd to become an Oakland A, the Montreal Expos would have had to agree to pay the rest of Floyd’s 2002 salary. The Expos were now officially a failed enterprise, owned and operated by Major League Baseball. By Bud Selig. There is not the slightest chance that Bud Selig would pay a star to play for a team fighting for a spot in the play-offs. Billy had to have known that; what he’d been doing, all along, was making a place for himself in the conversation about Cliff Floyd. Everyone else in that conversation had money. All he had was chutzpah.

Omar’s now curious. He wants to know exactly how this new deal would work. Billy spells it out: you give me Floyd and I will deliver to you Arrojo and Song Song—or whatever his name is—plus someone else. Some other minor leaguer from the Oakland A’s system.

Omar still doesn’t quite follow: how will he do that? Billy explains that he will use Floyd to get Arrojo and Song Song
and
some other things too, from the Boston Red Sox. It goes without saying that he will keep those other things.

Omar now follows. He says it sounds messy

“Okay, Omar,” says Billy. “Let’s do this. Here’s what you do. Call them back and tell them that you want one other player, in addition to Arrojo and Song Song. His name is Youkilis.”

Euclis.

The Greek god of walks.

Youkilis, an eighth-round draft choice the previous year. Youkilis, the first college player turned up by Paul DePodesta’s computer, and ignored by the Oakland A’s scouting department. Youkilis, a man who but for the last residue of old baseball wisdom in Billy’s scouting department would have been taken by the Oakland A’s in the third round of the 2001 draft. Youkilis was the Jeremy Brown of the 2001 draft. He was tearing up Double-A ball, and was on the fast track to the big leagues. He played as if he was trying to break the world record for walking, and for wearing out the arms of opposing pitchers.

From the moment he started to talk to Omar Minaya about Cliff Floyd, Billy Beane was after Youkilis.

Omar has no idea who Youkilis is. “
Kevin
Youkilis,” says Billy, as if that helps. “Omar, he’s nobody. He’s just a fat Double-A third baseman.” A fat Double-A third baseman who is
the Greek god of walks.
Who just happened to have walked into some power last year. Yes: the Greek god of walks was now hitting a few more home runs. Which is, of course, the true destiny of the Greek god of walks.

Omar doesn’t understand how he can get Youkilis from the Red Sox, who have said they’ve made their best offer. “No, Omar,” says Billy. “Here’s how you do it. If I walk you through this, Omar, you can take it to the freaking bank. Trust me on this, Omar. He [Floyd’s agent] wants him in Boston. You know why? Boston can pay him. You don’t ask them for Youkilis. You just tell them Youkilis is in the deal. You just call them and tell them that without Youkilis they don’t have a deal. Then hang up. I guarantee you they’ll call you right back and give you Youkilis. Who is
Youkilis
?”

He speaks the name as he has never before, as if he can summon only contempt for anyone with an interest in this
Youkilis
. “Youkilis for Cliff Floyd?” he says “It’s ridiculous. Of course they’ll do it. Fucking Larry Lucchino [the Red Sox president] doesn’t know who the fuck Youkilis is. How are they going to explain to people that they didn’t get Cliff Floyd because they wouldn’t give up Youkilis?”

Poor teams enjoy one advantage over rich teams: immunity from public ridicule. Billy may not care for the Oakland press but it is really very tame next to the Boston press, and it certainly has no effect on his behavior, other than to infuriate him once a week or so. Oakland A’s fans, too, were apathetic compared to the maniacs in Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium. He could safely ignore their howls.

Omar doesn’t buy it. He thinks maybe Billy Beane is screwing up his deal.

“Omar, all I’m trying to do is give you a free player from me. And if they don’t do it, what have you lost? You can still do the deal.”

Omar says he’s worried about losing his deal. He’s got Bud Selig sitting on his shoulder. Omar, thanks to Bud Selig, is in violation of Billy Beane’s Trading Rule #2: “The day you say you have to do something, you’re screwed. Because you are going to make a bad deal.”

“Omar,” Billy says, “if they think they are going to get Floyd, Kevin Youkilis is not going to get in the way.” Billy Beane helps Omar to imagine the Boston headlines.
NEW RED SOX OWNERS LOSE PENNANT TO KEEP FAT MINOR LEAGUER
.

Now Omar understands; now Omar very nearly believes. But Omar is also curious: who is this Youkilis fellow that has Billy Beane so worked up? Perhaps Youkilis is someone who should be not an Oakland A, but a Montreal Expo.

“Youkilis?” says Billy, as if he’s only just heard of the guy and very nearly forgot his name. “Just a fat kid in Double-A. Look at your reports. He’s a ‘no’ for you. He’s a ‘maybe’ for me. From our standpoint he’s just a guy we like because he gets on base.”

(Silly us!)

Now Omar wants to make it more complicated than it is.

“Omar, Omar,” says Billy, “the point is I think you can get him in the deal and if you do I’m getting you something for nothing.”

He puts down the phone. “He’ll call Boston but I don’t think he’s going to push them,” he says.

A’s president Mike Crowley pokes his head into Billy’s office. “Steve’s on the phone.” Steve in this case is Steve Schott, A’s owner.

Billy’s thoughts linger on Youkilis. He imagines, fairly accurately as it turns out, the next words he’ll hear from the Red Sox. They’ll know of course that it was he, and not Omar, who has dropped the stink bomb of Youkilis. They’ll know because he, and no one else, has tried to get Youkilis from them in the past. They’ll know, also, because the Red Sox assistant GM, Theo Epstein, talks to Billy Beane as often as he can. Epstein is a twenty-eight-year-old Yale graduate who has known for some time that he’d like to be the general manager of a big league team and, when he is, which general manager he’d most like to be. The Boston Red Sox are moments away from joining Billy Beane in his crusade to emancipate fat guys who don’t make outs. All this Billy knows, and he still thinks Boston will give up Youkilis. What he doesn’t know is that Theo Epstein has new powers—new Red Sox owner John Henry listens to everything he says—and has used them to establish Kevin Youkilis as the poster child for the Boston Red Sox farm system. (“Three months earlier,” Epstein will later say, “and Billy would have had him.”)

“Billy, Steve’s still waiting to talk!” Mike Crowley again. His owner again. Billy looks around as if he’s forgotten something; he’s spent too much time on Youkilis. He needs to raise some cash. He goes back to his phone and calls Steve Phillips, the Mets GM, one last time. “Steve. Here’s the deal. I don’t want Rincon pitching against me tonight.” He listens for a bit, and hears nothing that makes him happy. When he hangs up, he says, “He has no money. He needs what he has to sign Kazmir.” (Kazmir is the high school pitcher—now the high school pitching holdout—drafted by the Mets nearly two months earlier.)

The Mets have no money to waste. This is new, too. The market for baseball players, like the market for stocks and bonds, is always changing. To trade it well you needed to be adaptable.

Every minute that passes is a minute Brian Sabean—or even Steve Phillips!—has to talk Mark Shapiro into backing out of the two-hour promise he’s made Billy. Billy hollers to Mike Crowley: “Tell Schott that if we don’t move Venafro, I’ll sell Rincon for twice the price next year. No. Tell him that I’ll make him a deal. If I don’t do it, I’ll cover it. But I keep anything over twice the savings.”

Mike Crowley doesn’t know what to do with this. His GM, who earns
400 grand
a year, is telling his owner that he’ll take an equity stake in a single player. Go down this road and Billy Beane could make himself a very rich man, simply by dealing players as well as he has done. No reply comes back from the owner, and Billy assumes he is free to do what he wants with Rincon. (Later, and after the fact, the owners will indeed give him authority to do the deal.) He gives the Mets and Giants fifteen minutes more. Finally, he decides. He’ll take the risk. He picks up the phone to call Mark Shapiro to acquire Rincon.

Phone in hand, almost casually, Billy says to Paul DePodesta, now seated on Billy’s sofa, “Do you want to go down and release Magnante?”

“Do
I
want to?” says Paul. He looks right, then left, as if Billy must be talking to some other person, someone who enjoys telling a thirty-seven-year-old relief pitcher that he’s washed up. When he looks left he can see the Coliseum a few yards away, through Billy’s office window. It wasn’t that Mags was just four days short of his ten-year goal. He’d get his pension. It was that, in all likelihood, Mags was finished in the big leagues.

“Someone’s got to talk to him,” says Billy. Now, suddenly, there is a difference between trading stocks and bonds and trading human beings. There’s a discomfort. Billy never lets it affect what he does. He is able to think of players as pieces in a board game. That’s why he trades them so well.

“Call Art,” says Paul. “That’s his job.”

Billy starts to call Art and then remembers that he hasn’t actually made the trade, and so reverses himself and calls Mark Shapiro in Cleveland. It’s 6:30
P.M
. The game against the Indians starts in thirty-five minutes.

“Mike Magnante has just thrown his last pitch in the big leagues,” says Paul.

“Sorry I took so long, Mark,” says Billy.

No problem, But since you did, do you want to wait until after the game to take Rincon?

“No, we want him now. We want to get him in our dugout tonight.”

Why the rush?

“By and large Magnante cost us the game last night and Rincon won the game.”

Okay. No big deal. We’ll do it now.

“You feel comfortable with Ricardo’s health, right?”

Right.

“We’re going to have to release a guy before the game,” says Billy. “In the spirit of speeding things up, you wanna call Joel?” Joel is Joel Skinner, the Indians manager. Panic rises on Billy’s face. “Oh shit,” he says. “McDougal. He has a little tweak in his leg. You know about that, right?” McDougal’s the player Billy’s giving up. McDougal’s also been dogging it during workouts. He’s conveyed to the A’s minor league coaching staff a certain lack of commitment to the game. But these things the Cleveland Indians are required to learn the hard way.

No problem. I know about the tweak.

Billy hangs up and dials Art Howe’s number. The A’s manager has just returned to his office beside the clubhouse.

“Art. It’s Billy. I have some good news and some bad news.”

Art gives a little nervous chuckle. “Okay.”

“The good news is you’ve got Rincon.”

“Do I?”

“The bad news is you gotta release Magnante.”

Silence on the other end of the line. “Okay,” Art finally says.

“And you’ve got to do it before the game.”

“Okay.”

“I know it’s not the best way to get rid of a guy but we got a good pitcher.”

“Okay.”

Billy hangs up and turns to Paul, “Can we designate Magnante for assignment?” This is a prettier way to release a player because it leaves open the possibility that some other club will claim him, and take his salary off Oakland’s hands. When you designate a guy for assignment, Billy explains, “you put him in baseball purgatory. But he can’t pray his way out.”

He then makes several quick calls. He calls the A’s equipment manager, Steve Vucinich. “Voos. We gotta get rid of Mags by game time. Yeah. You have twenty-five minutes to get him out of there.” He calls the Mets’ Steve Phillips. “Steve, I got the guy I wanted. Rincon.” (For you, it’s Venafro or nothing.) He calls the Giants’ Brian Sabean. “Brian. Hey, Brian. Hey, it’s Billy. I’ve made a deal for Rincon right now.” (So don’t think you can wait me out.) He calls Peter Gammons and tells him what he’s done, and that he’s not doing anything else.

Then he brings in the Oakland A’s public relations man, Jim Young, who agrees he should have a press release ready before the game. He also says Billy should make himself available to the media. “Do I have to go talk to them?” Billy asks. He’s already talked to everyone he wants to talk to.

“Yes.”

After the final call, his phone rings. He looks at his caller ID and sees it’s from the visitors’ clubhouse. He picks it up.