Moneyball’s Nick Swisher: ‘Most players were signing cards, we were signing books’

The 2002 Major League Baseball draft saw a healthy crop of future All-Stars – such as Zack Greinke, Cole Hamels and Prince Fielder – pen their first professional contracts. It also produced a misguided selection widely regarded as one of the all-time biggest busts, when the Pittsburgh Pirates took pitcher Bryan Bullington with the No 1 overall pick.

But the 2002 class will forever be associated with a book that sent ripples around the sporting world. Michael Lewis’ Moneyball told the story of Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane and his ground-breaking, analytics-based approach to recruitment during the 2002 draft and MLB season. It was turned into a movie starring Brad Pitt in 2011 and continues to shape thinking across many sports.

And 20 years on, the 16th pick of the Moneyball draft still vividly remembers how Beane, and Lewis’ book, launched his career.

“This was before all the rankings and the systems and the predictors,” says Nick Swisher, the former A’s and New York Yankees outfielder and first-baseman. “A bunch of scouts would come to watch you play – ‘Can the kid play or can you not?’ So I’m glad a bunch of those guys thought I could actually play. The night before [the draft], I received a phone call from Billy Beane telling me, ‘Swish, if you’re there at 16, we’re taking you.’ I got goosebumps.

“Billy Beane was like a father figure to me. I can’t thank him enough for that opportunity. In the grand scheme of things, just to be part of that book and to be part of analytics before analytics were even analytics, that was pretty badass.”

Swisher featured prominently in sections of Moneyball owing to the fact he was a rare example of a player on whom Beane – who prized on-base percentage above intangibles and