The Oakland Athletics seem to be in a state of slow freefall. In 2006, they finished first in the AL West with a 93-69 record. Since then, they’ve finished third (76-86), third (75-86) and fourth (75-87). A’s general manager Billy Beane has found himself contending with low payrolls and a dwindling talent pool. To deal with it, he has had to find unique and creative ways to evaluate young talent, coming up with a system that is well documented in Michael Lewis’ 2003 book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, where Beane is the primary character. For years his formula worked, but now it might be time to go back to the drawing board.

Being the general manager of a small-market team presents a set of challenges, and Beane’s triumphs and failures have arguably been better documented than most, largely because of his celebrity-esque status due to the book. As a player, Beane’s natural talent could have taken him anywhere, but his mindset ruined what should have been a fantastic career. So Beane took the road towards general manager, and put together one of the most successful low-payroll teams in history. Four straight playoff appearances between 2000 and 2003 is not an easy accomplishment in the American League West. The eventual problem for Beane was that he couldn’t afford to keep the players he had, and replacements were not nearly as good.

Moneyball continually talks about Beane’s inability as a player to cope with failure at a mature level, and one can only imagine what’s going through his mind during recent years. His philosophy has been to re-load virtually after every season. Word is out on his aggressive GM tactics, and it’s only going to get harder for him in the future. No longer can he be the only one aware of the usefulness of on-base percentage over batting average or that even the “fatter” players can have a place in the game. In fact, many other teams have hired analysts to scout young players very much the same way the Athletics scouting department did.

Michael Lewis has announced that he intends to write a sequel to Moneyball, titled Underdogs, which will revisit some of the players that were featured in the 2003 best-seller and how their careers have gone since then. There is not much information out about the new project, but you would have to expect that Beane has at least been contacted about it. Whether or not he’s willing to share his updated story is a different matter. Regardless, Beane has some work to do this offseason. Things haven’t been this bad for Oakland for years, and if nothing else, Beane will certainly go out and do what he does best.