Moneyball

In 2002 the Oakland Athletics fielded a team of undervalued, under appreciated players expected by many to turn in a lackluster season in last place. Constrained by a low payroll and losing several prominent star players to larger markets during the off season it looked like the city of Oakland was being set up for another disappointing baseball season. But that didn’t happen. Thanks to some clever maneuvering and outside-the-box thinking the Athletics managed to pull together a winning team that went on to the American League Division Series. It wasn’t a World Series run but it proved that the current way of thinking when it came to putting together a team was antiquated and led to overspending and bloated budgets that left smaller market teams in the dust picking up the scraps. The following year a book outlining how this feat was accomplished was published titled: Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game.  This book became the basis for the film Moneyball and chronicled just how General Manager of the Oakland Athletics, Billy Beane, his hands figuratively tied, took what little he had and built a competitive team out of it and, by doing so, changed the way recruiting players was handled. 

The story follows Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) who has just seen his two best players move on to bigger markets at the end of the 2001 season. Knowing he needs replacements he cannot afford he goes to the owner of the team and begs for more money. He’s told there isn’t any extra money to give and will have to work within the budget restraints he already has. While on a business trip to Cleveland in an attempt to sweet talk the GM of the Indians into a trade he notices one of the GM’s assistants whisper something to him that leads to the trade falling through. The player, seemingly less than ideal, should have made for an easy trade yet one whispered conversation from this assistant ended any discussion on it. Billy approaches the assistant after the meeting wondering what was said to change the GM’s mind about the trade and what he hears shocks him.

The assistant, Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), brings up statistics that routinely don’t factor into the worth of a player. These numbers begin to paint a different picture of the player and his value on the team. It becomes apparent that many things factor into the worth of a player, not all of them legitimate reasons. An older player may be in good shape and still able to play great but teams won’t want him because of age alone. Likewise, a player that throws the ball in a weird way or bats with a strange stance will also be valued lower. Other things factor into the value as well. Billy begins to see an alternate way to staff a competent, competitive team without breaking the bank to do it. He hires Peter to help him make this a reality. This new line of thinking, though, causes clashes both with the team scouts and the head coach who seems more interested in negotiating an extension on his contract than going along with his bosses new plan.  

How do you take a plot that is heavy on analytics and make it appeal to the average movie goer who may like the sport but couldn’t give a care in the world about how their favorite team finds and develops their talent? Perhaps you can’t. I’m hardly the one to judge that part of the picture. As an avid Red Sox fan who has watched my team over the last three years try to make the stuff in this film work and have failed at it it is fascinating to watch these moments play out on screen and see how this kind of thinking works. Players are reduced to stats, numbers on a screen. When two major players are leaving the team for richer pastures Billy and Peter combine their batting averages and look for a handful of players that combine to make the same number. The scouts roll their eyes at this approach and rightfully so. For well over a hundred years scouting potential new players was not about numbers like this and the old guard is unable to shift their focus like that. It doesn’t take long before things reach an impasse and some of the scouts have to be let go. 

Likewise there is friction between this new process and the coach who has to make up the lineups for every game. Art Howe (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) who managed the Athletics from 1996 through this 2002 season, butted heads with Billy constantly. Hoffman plays Howe as a stubborn traditionalist unwilling to play along with Billy’s new methods, pushing Billy to trade players away to force Howe to play certain players the way Billy envisions. When the new methods work and the team begins winning it is credited to Howe’s managerial style rather than Billy’s and Peter’s sabremetrics and Howe does nothing to dissuade those misconceptions. The real Howe took offense to how he was portrayed both in the film and in the novel.  He felt that he was a team player despite his doubts. 

Billy Beane is depicted as a family man conflicted with his past when he was a player who was heavily desired for the major leagues only to not pan out on the field. This helps fuel his desire to change the way the game is looked at and not rely so heavily on the traditional scouting method. He’s also motivated by self-preservation because he’s putting his job on the line over this whole thing. If it doesn’t pan out he could find himself “working at Dick’s Sporting Goods next year.” One of the first things he asks Peter Brand is, looking at his stats before the draft, would Peter have drafted him in the first round the way he had been. Peter is uncomfortable at first with this question but begrudgingly admits that he would not. Going by the numbers alone, Billy would not have gotten as big an offer as he did, something that makes a point to him about how they can find good solid players for very little cash that can do one thing well, get on base and getting on base translates into getting runs which then translates into getting wins.

Peter Brand is an amalgamation of several people but is mostly based on Paul DePodesta, a man Billy Beane hired specifically to look at and incorporate sabremetrics into the recruiting and trading aspects of the game. The real Paul was unhappy his methods were featured so heavily in the book and movie but was perfectly fine with how his character was portrayed by Jonah Hill. It is a flattering performance, too. Peter is presented as smart, with an instinct that was undervalued in his previous employment with the Cleveland Indians. Billy sees something in him and offers him a job based on just a few short minutes with the man. Peter is a little awkward and shy but knows his stuff and plays a key role in building the 2002 Athletics. The real Paul DePodesta took a lot of heat for reducing the players down to nothing but statistics and perhaps there is something to that but fans of the Athletics cannot deny what that did for their team. 

When watching Moneyball in 2024 there is one elephant in the room that cannot be ignored anymore and that is the current state of things in the Oakland organization. Billy Beane is still with them but in a higher executive role. The team, however, is in shambles with a relocation to Las Vegas on the horizon. They lost their lease to play in the Oakland Coliseum and will play in a smaller venue until the relocation happens. It’s a sad time for Athletics fans, most of which are boycotting the home games to show their dislike for the current owners. Watching home games now it’s startling just how empty the Coliseum is with attendance averaging less than 10,000 a game, sometimes much less. The current state of the team and its fans were forefront in my mind when watching Moneyball recently.

For a movie about analytics and sabremetrics this movie does have plenty of heart, too. Players who thought their careers were over are offered a second chance in Oakland. Scott Hatteberg (Chris Pratt), a catcher who’s injured arm has seemingly put an end to his career is offered a spot at first base, a position he’s never played, because he is more valuable swinging a bat than he is in his ability to throw the ball. Billy is driven partially by his love for his daughter who sings a beautiful song that closes out the film, telling her father in the lyrics to just enjoy watching the games. There is also a poignant moment towards the end when Billy is looking at his achievement for the year and considering it a failure since the Athletics didn’t make the World Series. Peter shows him a clip of a batter hitting a home run without realizing it is a home run. The man trips over first base, falling on his face, then scrambles back to the base thinking he may get thrown out there. The first base umpire informs the batter that the ball was knocked out of the park and directs him to round the bases and head for home as his teammates cheer and pat him on the back. It’s a perfect metaphor for Billy and the 2002 Athletics. They didn’t win it all but a home run is still a home run.

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Picture: Michael De Luca, Rachael Horovitz and Brad Pitt

Best Actor: Brad Pitt

Best Supporting Actor: Jonah Hill

Best Adapted Screenplay: Stan Chervin, Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zaillian

Best Film Editing: Christopher Tellefsen

Best Sound Mixing: Deb Adair, Ron Bochar, David Giammarco and Ed Novick

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Release Date: September 23, 2011

Running Time: 133 Minutes

Rated PG-13

Starring: Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill and Phillip Seymour Hoffman

Directed By: Bennett Miller