With the White Sox claiming the World Series Championship (congratulations to the White Sox and their fans) and the Boston Red Sox front office falling apart, national media outlets have quickly been crediting old-school scouting while tearing apart the"Moneyball" philosophy. I think that is a rash step, since the exact opposite happened last year after the Boston Red Sox won it all.

First of all I'm not a big fan of labeling teams that value statistical performance as a way to judge talent as a "Moneyball" team. Really that is a misnomer. If you have read the book you know it has a lot more to do than just crunching numbers. A lot of it had to do with valuing certain aspects of the game that may not be valued as much as they should be in an attempt to build a ballclub cost effectively by investing money in players whose attributes may not be as valued as what they should be on the current market. The book itself was originally going to be entitled "Valueball" because it was more about getting the most bang for your buck.

With the second highest payroll in all of baseball, throw out the Red Sox from that category right there (speaking of which, how the Red Sox can call the Yankees the "Evil Empire" due to their spending seems extremely hypocritical from the perspective of teams like the Royals, A's, Pirates, etc., but I digress). You can do the same with the Dodgers, who were thrown onto the same pile since their recently departed General Manager, Paul DePodesta, was Billy Beane's assistant in Oakland. How much was "Valueball" a part of DePodesta's decision when he signed J.D. Drew to a five-year, $55 million dollar contract?

The night Theo Epstein decided to resign from the Boston Red Sox there was a poll placed on the homepage of ESPN, and one of the questions was pretty cut and dry (I'm paraphrasing): Now that the White Sox have won the World Series, and the Red Sox failed to repeat with Epstein now stepping down, is Moneyball, a.) Still the philosophy to follow, or b.) Dead in the water? That's quite a big difference.

Do you know what the White Sox proved? That you can build a successful ballclub in a number of ways. From the Angels to the Marlins to the Red Sox to the White Sox, each team was built a completely different way. If you read these columns you may remember that I questioned the White Sox' insistence on building with speed and smallball last offseason, but it worked perfectly for them this year. I would argue that I didn't expect their pitching to be this good, and I doubt many others did either, and I also would point out that they led the Major Leagues in one-run victories, and epitomized their season success by winning the fourth and final game of the World Series 1-0. Teams that have a high number of one-run wins typically are called unusually lucky, as one-run wins and losses can sway dramatically from one year to the next. The Nationals led the Majors in one-run leads in the first half and their luck dried up after the All-Star break. I guess I'm saying that they had better not ride out what they have into next year hoping that the same kind of luck continues.

And the Red Sox, with or without Theo Epstein, are likely to be right in the middle of the hunt next year. They have the talent to be there and the financial resources to buy more talent. I'm not saying Epstein had an easy job, but his job in my opinion was easier than Billy Beane's in Oakland, who has less money to work with and truly does have to abide by many of the principles that were pointed out in the book "Moneyball." To Epstein's credit, he did rebuild a sagging farm system, one that has ten times the talent now than it did when he took the job, and you can never take away the importance of winning the World Series.

I'm not here to argue for or against the points of "Moneyball," and while I definitely value and understand the importance of scouts and scouting departments, I do believe statistical evaluation has its place. Last year everyone said the time of the scout is over, this year they're starting to say the time of the statistic is over. Neither will prove to be correct, as scouts and stats will move forward with baseball as much as they ever have.