“He had even allowed the scouts to choose a lot of their own guys in the higher rounds.  That changed about five seconds after the 2001 draft, which had been an expensive disaster.” pg. 15

In this excerpt from Moneyball Billy Beane shares his thoughts about how horrible the the 2001 draft had gone for the Oakland Athletics.  First of all, the Oakland Athletics were paying for expensive contracts.  Second, the athletes who were drafted may have been worse than some of the cheaper players that could have been picked.  After this moment, the gears started turning in Billy Beane’s head.  From that point forward he knew that he would have to change his approach to the game in order to win against higher salary teams.  According to the MLB drafts in previous years, first round draft picks were paid very high signing bonuses.  In the long run, many of those players failed to be a valuable return on the investment. This shows that you don’t need to have the “big buck” players in order to succeed; a player that shows skill over potential can be more beneficial to a ball club.