By now, most baseball nuts have seen Moneyball, an entertaining movie about General Manager Billy Beane's struggle to put a winning team on the field in Oakland despite being hamstrung with a ridiculously low budget. Billy Beane is faced with this predicament after the 2001 season - How do you replace the bats of impending free agents Jason Giambi and Johnny Damon in the lineup? Beane and Paul DePodesta have an innovative solution. There is no single player who can replace Giambi (at least not on such a tight budget), but you can replace Giambi, CF Damon, and DH Olmedo Saenz with Jason's brother Jeremy, who would play left field, and the aging David Justice would be installed as the designated hitter. Terrence Long would play center field, and Boston catcher Scott Hatteberg would be signed as a free agent and converted to play 1B. A cost-effective plan, yes. But is the Moneyball account completely accurate? Probably not. There's something that Billy Beane, author Michael Lewis, Brad Pitt, and Jonah Hill aren't telling us. They are not telling us about Carlos Pena.
One of the better scenes in Moneyball is when Billy Beane shows up unannounced at Scott Hatteberg's house in the offseason. Billy is prepared to offer the skeptical Scott Hatteberg a contract to be the A's new first baseman. According to baseball-reference.com, Hatteberg signs his new contract with Oakland on January 2, 2002. With David Justice already in the fold (he was acquired from the Mets in December 2001), Billy Beane's master plan was already in place, right? Well, not entirely so. There is a major trade that Moneyball conveniently omits.
On January 14, 2002, a mere twelve days after Oakland supposedly acquires his new first baseman, Billy Beane makes a major trade to acquire another first baseman. This was no minor trade of spare parts or non-prospects, either. The Oakland A's traded prospects Ryan Ludwick, Gerald Laird, Jason Hart, and Mario Ramos to the Texas Rangers for Carlos Pena and relief pitcher Mike Venafro. Carlos Pena, who played no other position besides first base, in actuality was the player acquired to replace Jason Giambi at first.
Carlos Pena was quickly rising through the Texas Rangers' minor league system after he was drafted out of Northeastern in the 1st round of the 1998 amateur draft. In 1999, Pena hit 18 home runs for Charlotte (High Single-A) of the Florida State League. In 2000, Carlos hit 28 home runs for Double-A Tulsa. After Pena's productive season in Double-A, he was rated as the #11 prospect in the minor leagues by Baseball America. Pena's good fortune continued in 2001, when he hit 23 home runs for Triple-A Oklahoma in only 119 games before earning a September call-up with the Rangers. Carlos Pena handled himself well as a 23-year old prospect in his first stint in the major leagues, hitting .258 with 3 home runs in 62 at-bats. At the conclusion of the 2001 season, Pena was now ranked as the #5 prospect by Baseball America.
But there is yet another reason why Billy Beane likely believed that Carlos Pena fit the Moneyball profile - It was Pena's ability to get on base. This was the main reason why David Justice and Scott Hatteberg were so valuable and in part why Johnny Damon was replaceable, at least according to Moneyball. Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill viewed on base percentage as an undervalued quality in the baseball marketplace. If you look at Carlos Pena's statistics in the two seasons prior to his trade to Oakland, he got on base .... a lot. In 2000, Pena's Double-A on base percentage was an impressive .414. He walked 101 times in 138 games. In 2001, Carlos continued to impress in Triple-A. He walked 80 times in 119 games for a .408 on base percentage. Carlos Pena fit the profile of everything that Billy Beane wanted in a player. He got on base and he came cheap. Pena was a top prospect who was heading into his rookie year in 2002, a dream acquisition for a small market General Manager.
However, if we are to believe Moneyball, then Scott Hatteberg was the guy Billy Beane wanted all along. But if you study Hatteberg's pre-Oakland numbers, they don't exactly jump off the page. In his Boston career, Hatteberg batted a decent .267 with a pretty good on base percentage of .357. His slugging percentage of .414 wasn't exactly what a General Manager is looking for in a first baseman.
While it is true that Billy Beane made a savvy decision by signing an undervalued Hatteberg, the book and movie sweep the Carlos Pena trade under the rug. Why is that so? It is because Pena slumped in May of 2002 and a productive April, and he needed to be 'written out of the script'. After all, this was a trade that was made under Billy Beane's watch.
The result on the big screen is that Carlos Pena is portrayed as a flawed player who needed to be moved so Scott Hatteberg could man first base. This leads to some serious questions. If Scott Hatteberg is the embodiment of the Moneyball theory, then why did Billy Beane trade for Carlos Pena twelve days after the Hatteberg signing? If Carlos Pena was such a flawed player in May (note - Pena was not traded while in the majors. He actually was send down to Triple-A in May 2002 and then traded several weeks later), then why did Billy Beane trade 4 players to get him four months earlier in January, when he was the #5 prospect in baseball? Is Billy Beane cherry-picking only the player acquisitions that portray him in a positive light?
Does it even matter? After all, Billy Beane was portrayed by Brad Pitt in the big screen. He is the one who has the last laugh.
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