I believe the author's argument is that the Red Sox could have achieved more and/or spent less money with Beane as manager. I find the argument plausible, but (

I believe the author's argument is that the Red Sox could have achieved more and/or spent less money with Beane as manager. I find the argument plausible, but (like many things on 538 of the same nature), it seems like they oversell the case: I also find it plausible that Beane would not have achieved similar results either due to sabermetrics not performing well in winning championships or his particularly advantages/idiosyncrasies not working as well when applied to higher paid players.