In baseball, maybe even more so than in other fields, it takes a brief amount of time for a novel idea to become meaningless jargon. And so went the central thesis of Michael Lewis’s 2003 bestseller “Moneyball,” which proposed that the success of the Oakland A’s was due to their conscious search for market inefficiencies. To a point, this was a mere tautology: Everyone involved in any sort of business is looking for inefficiencies in the market, whether or not they phrase it that way. What was novel about the A’s approach, Lewis implied, was that rather than looking at their needs and then looking for the most efficient possible solutions, the A’s looked at the market with an eye toward bargains, and then shaped their team around what they found.

As things turned out, the whole idea of exploiting market inefficiencies quickly became a bad joke. Rather than expressing a concrete idea, “Moneyball” became a magic wand allowing one to justify any number of silly ideas made by executives who are thought to be playing the market with a certain amount of self-awareness. Yet making a bad trade for an overpaid bum is nothing more than exploiting an inefficiency in the market for overpaid bums.

Although the idea of the heroic GM as market exploiter is one for the dustbin, market inefficiencies are quite real, and in a market where players are being valued at something like 70% more than they were last year, being on the right or wrong side of them is the most important thing marking the difference between winners and losers. This year, with Barry Zito, Andy Pettitte, Jeff Suppan, Jeff Weaver, and others still available, the average annual salary paid a free agent starter has risen to $8.2 million. Toss in Boston’s posting fee for Daisuke Matsuzaka, and that number rises to $11.4 million.

In such a rapidly shifting climate, it’s nearly impossible to tell why certain decisions are made. Take the cases of two free agent starters, both of whom finished up the year with the Texas Rangers. Both are 29-year-old sinker/slider righties without great stuff or great control; both still have a bit of shine on them from when they were touted young prospects. Both also stink. In the last three years, one has pitched 365.2 innings with a 5.06 ERA; the other has pitched 393 innings with a 4.58 ERA. Given park effects, neither performance is anywhere remotely near league average. The first pitcher threw 44.1 innings this past year, while struggling through shoulder problems; the second threw 65 while dealing with an injured finger tendon that’s cost him time in the past. The first pitcher, in 2002 and 2003, ranked among the better young pitchers in baseball, throwing just under 200 innings each year with ERAs of 3.58 and 3.28; the second has had one season in which he had an ERA better than league average, after accounting for park effects.

How would you value these pitchers? Who would you rather have, dollars aside? On one hand, you have a pitcher who’s proved he can be highly effective in the big leagues, but who’s also coming off a shoulder injury, perhaps the worst kind of injury a pitcher can have. On the other hand, you have a pitcher who’s never proved he can be either durable or effective, coming off a serious injury of his own. You can’t count on either one of them to take the ball for you, and neither, if healthy, is going to dominate.

It seems that there isn’t much difference between these two. If you liked either one for whatever reason — good scouting reports, a gut hunch, a feeling that they might benefit from your ballpark — they might be worth a cheap one-year deal, but neither seems very valuable.

Last week, both pitchers signed free agent deals. The first pitcher, Kip Wells, signed with the St. Louis Cardinals for one year and $4 million. The second, Adam Eaton, signed with the Philadelphia Phillies for three years and $24.5 million. The market has said that Eaton is 600% as valuable as Wells. This would seem to be the definition of inefficiency.

To bring the point back around, a traditional general manager is like a chef who goes grocery shopping with ideas about what he’d like to cook — having decided to make chicken, he looks for the best ingredients he can afford. Under the A’s model, a GM is more like a chef who goes out looking for the best ingredients he can afford and then decides what he’s going to make. He may want to make chicken, but if it’s pricey, he’s willing to buy zucchini and squash instead. It’s not a small difference.

The volatility we’re seeing right now can be traced to the ways in which the A’s approach has really taken root. It has nothing to do with on-base average or statistical analysis, but rather a conscious mind-set, an awareness that you can’t prepare a meal for which the ingredients aren’t for sale. You can pay Adam Eaton all the money in the world, but it won’t make him the no. 4 starter you need; you can give Carlos Lee a $100 million contract, but he’s still a fat no. 6 hitter with a bad glove.

As you look at each deal going down, forget about the money involved — whether it be in absolute terms or relative to the market — and instead ask whether the player fits the team’s needs. (Is the problem that the Cubs paid Alfonso Soriano $136 million, or is it that they needed a power-hitting center fielder with a good batting eye and instead got an undisciplined power-hitting left fielder?) That’s the question, and it points to the biggest inefficiency of all, the one that will never go away — there will always be someone willing to buy what he doesn’t need.

tmarchman@nysun.com