Moneyball

[Del Murder]

I'm sure I could count the baseball fans that frequent this site on one hand, and the Oakland A's fans on one finger. But my girlfriend saw this movie with me and she liked it, and she doesn't even know what a sacrifice fly is.

I thought this was a good movie. I was unsure how they would take a book that didn't really have much of a narrative to it and make it into a movie, but it was done really well. I really liked the interactions between Pitt & Hill and Pitt & Seymour Hoffman, especially the latter because that's exactly how I pictured the old school Art Howe and the new school Billy Beane going at each other. That was the best part of the movie, and good thing, since that was most of the movie. Also the parts in the scouting meetings were very good for the same reason.

My main critique is that it didn't really flow at times, mainly because it's hard to show statistics in a movie. The parts where they showed close ups of box scores or whatever were weird, but I don't know how else it could have showed the results of the new system.

It is really amazing what Billy did for the sport of baseball (and with no small credit to Bill James, who gets only a brief mention in the film). I wish there was a better way to show that yes, Billy's system did work, he did change the game, but that's hard since this isn't a typical sports movie where the team wins the championship in the end and hoists the GM on their shoulders. The focus of this movie is in the back office, not on the field.

So go see this movie if you like baseball, Brad Pitt, Aaron Sorkin, or good movies in general.

[Miriel]

I very much dislike baseball and math, so it really says something that I enjoyed this movie.

I'd give it a solid B+

[Del Murder]

[Kirobaito]

I thought it was pretty good as a movie, but last time I checked Scott Hatteberg and a can-do spirit didn't win 100 games for the A's in 2002. I think that was Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder, Barry Zito, and a roided-up Miguel Tejada, two of which don't get a single mention in the entire movie. Sandy Alderson is also not really mentioned, even though he brought all of them to the team and actually started using sabermetrics as GM of the A's while Peter Brand/Paul DePodesta was still in school. And I found the most interesting part of the book to be the draft portion, which wasn't in the film at all.

I also found it a little strange that the film attributed the 2004 World Series win by the Red Sox to the same philosophy as Moneyball... last time I checked, that team had a $100 million payroll.

That strategy for a franchise has for the most part failed now that every other team uses sabermetrics (ergo negating the competitive advantage), but I guess it worked to a certain extent then. I'm glad the Rangers employ it (in the front office, though, not on the field - to its benefit), even though they still heavily rely on the opinion of scouts (as they often draft high-schoolers and have a huge Latin American contingent now).

So, yeah, good sports movie, though I think it gives way too much credit to Billy Beane and not enough credit to the things that actually made that team go.

[Del Murder]

I think for the purposes of narrative they couldn't do that. It is true that the Big 3 and Tejada contributed to the bulk of the A's wins, but what Billy and 'Peter' did should not be discounted. And I don't think the point was that Boston won playing 'Moneyball', but that they won with their money while also employing some of the strategies made popular by Billy and the A's.

I wouldn't consider the strategy 'failing' if every other team started doing it. I'd consider that a success. It would only be a matter of time before the richer teams caught on and caught up, and that's no fault of Billy's. In a world of perfect information the $140 million payroll team will beat the $40 million team almost every time and there's not much you can do about that.

I do agree that the best part of the book was the draft and that wasn't touched on. They briefly mentioned Jeremy Brown but only in a comical sense. Maybe they didn't think having a draft in the middle of the season would derail the buildup to the 20 game streak?

[Bubba]

I haven't seen the film but will definitely check it out if it ever gets shown in the UK! I'm a huge baseball fan (My Dad was American, originally from Conneticut) and I grew up with (unpopularly) the Yankees.

I'll be up late tonight watching them comfortably beat the Tigers in game 5!

[nirojan]

I wanted to watch this for Bobby Kotick, Activision-Blizzard's CEO

[Flying Arrow]

Wait, so this movie is actually about Billy Beane's team-building philosophy and sabrmetrics? And it's entertaining? I need to see it to believe it. I remember seeing the title and thinking no way it's actually about what I think it's about. The title's just a coincidence.

I thought it was pretty good as a movie, but last time I checked Scott Hatteberg and a can-do spirit didn't win 100 games for the A's in 2002. I think that was Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder, Barry Zito, and a roided-up Miguel Tejada, two of which don't get a single mention in the entire movie.

So it's just a BS-filled feel-good movie?

[Del Murder]

No, it is not. There are some of those elements in it mostly to fill time and give it an actual plot. I thought the feel-good part of it and the sabermetrics part of it were well balanced.