Beane Counter

"He can't hit," says Billy.

"He's not that bad a hitter," says the old scout.

"Yeah, what happens when he doesn't know a fastball is coming?" says Billy.

"He's a tools guy," says the old scout, defensively. The old scouts aren't built to argue; they're built to agree. They're part of a tightly woven class of former baseball players. The scout looks left and right for support. It doesn't arrive.

"But can he hit? asks Billy.

"He can hit," says the old scout, unconvincingly. Paul reads the player's college batting statistics. They contain a conspicuous lack of extra base hits and walks.

"My only question," says Billy, "is, if he's that good a hitter, why doesn't he hit better?"

"The swing needs some work. You have to reinvent him. But he can hit."

"Pro baseball's not real good at reinventing guys," says Billy. Whenever an older man who'd failed to become a big league star looks at a younger man in hopes of divining whether he might become a big league star, Billy wants nothing to do with it. He'd been on the receiving end of the dreams of older men and he knew what they were worth. Over and over the old scouts say, "The guy has a great body," or "This guy may be the best body in the draft." And every time they do, Billy will say, "We're not selling jeans here," and scratch yet another highly touted player, beloved by the scouts, from his list. One after another, the players the scouts rated highly vanish from the white board until it's empty. If the Oakland A's aren't going to use their seven first-round draft picks to take the players their scouts loved, who on earth are they going to take? That question begins to be answered when Billy Beane, after tossing another name on the slag heap, inserts a new one:

BROWN