Let's Go Tribe, a Cleveland Indians community

"The surprising Indians ran to the top of the American League with a defense that ranked second in the AL in Defensive Efficiency as recently as May 23, but a 4-14 slump in their ensuing 18 games was joined by a drastic decline in their defensive performance. Cleveland currently ranks 23rd in Defensive Efficiency, 11th in the American League."

To summarize his argument, "Moneyball" is dead because: 1. OBP was never all that cool to begin with--the A's were great in the early 2000s because of Mark Mulder, Tim Hudson, and Barry Zito, as evidenced primarily by the fact that they won a combined 149 games over three seasons [no circular reasoning going on there!]. 2. "Only" 3 of Beane's 7 draft picks detailed in the book are still in the majors [he conveniently leaves out the fact that two of these draft picks, Joe Blanton and Nick Swisher, have played major roles on the two teams currently favored to make the World Series]. 3. In 2009, the playoffs have been dominated by big-budget teams [never mind that the Twins and Rockies made the playoffs, or that the Rays reached the World Series last year, or that the Indians and the Rockies made deep postseason runs in 2007]. I hate this "debate," because it's tired, stupid, and really only matters to writers like Bissinger, as the rest of baseball has moved on. But I thought this piece was noteworthy in its poor reasoning and use of cherry-picked evidence.