Given our circumstances as a low revenue club, we had to take a different approach to building a team.
With the growing amount of data and information available we felt a more objective approach
would give us the best opportunity to compete."8 As GM, Beane soon began to alter the direction
and composition of the Oakland front office. He valued education and analytical capabilities over
a traditional baseball background, which did not sit well with baseball traditionalists who viewed
industry experience as a prerequisite to a front office career path. •Nonetheless, Beane moved
forward in a bold new direction that would begin to change the way baseball was managed.