Billy Beane
Billy Beane
William Lamar "Billy" Beane IIIis an American former professional baseball player and current front office executive. He is the Executive Vice President of Baseball Operations and minority owner of the Oakland Athletics of Major League Baseball. Prior to his front office career, he played in MLB as an outfielder between 1984 and 1989 for the New York Mets, Minnesota Twins, Detroit Tigers, and Oakland Athletics. He joined the Athletics front office as a scout in 1990. He was named general...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBaseball Player
Date of Birth29 March 1962
CityOrlando, FL
CountryUnited States of America
There was a real sense of determination in talking to him. You could get carried away with superlatives with Frank Thomas. Arguably, he is one of the greatest offensive players of his generation.
Trying to build a team over the course of the winter to put on the field is really just half the job. Because if your best players go down, it's not so much him going down as who you replace him with, which ultimately might have the biggest impact on how you end up finishing. So you want to have both a belt and suspenders for support.
Paul has seen the ups and down of developing young players and trusting the three, four years they've had in the minor leagues and discounting their first few months in the majors. Developing young players can be a lot of fun, but you've got to have the discipline to live with their mistakes and understand their trend line isn't always going to go straight up.
I don't view having too many good players as a problem.
He is one of the greatest offensive players of his generation. He is nirvana for us as far as what we look for in an offensive player.
Having too many players that deserve to play is not a bad problem to have. We've certainly been on the other side of it. We've never been a club that's had a tremendous amount of depth. (Trading a player) is not something that's on our list to do.
You could probably get carried away with superlatives when it comes to Frank Thomas. He's arguably one of the greatest offensive players of his generation.
I'm sure we'll have some sort of conversation. That's going to be a challenge, even if we start negotiations. He's a talented guy who is going to command a lot.
I know we didn't get to see the real Dan Meyer. He says he feels great now, and he could be a real shot in the arm for us.
It's something you have to consider, no question. And that's out of respect for the guys already here.
It's something we didn't know about, but he came forward with the information, so I commend him for that.
It was Ken, ... He called. I think it was probably not an easy phone call for him to make.
It's not always possible in our situation to get your perfect guy. As always we're going to make any improvements we can, whatever it is. If Sandy Koufax wanted to come to pitch for us, I don't think I'd say, 'No Sandy, we need a right-handed bat, you'll have to come back later.' It's just the nature of our situation.
Is this the best way you can play this?