Besides my family, baseball, movies, and music are the things that occupy the most time in my brain. So when 'Moneyball' opened in theaters back in September, I was at the first showing on the first day. And guess what...I hated it. And apparently so did a couple other people. During the showing, three people got up and left the theater. I remember thinking that the movie was slow, almost boring. Anyway, it looks like some disagree with me: 'Moneyball’ gets 6 Oscar nominations: How many can it win? - Yahoo! Sports. "Moneyball" the movie continues to surprise and excel. It received six Academy Award nominations Monday, including four biggies: best picture, lead actor (Brad Pitt), supporting actor (Jonah Hill), adapted screenplay, film editing and sound mixing." A couple of weeks ago Rob Neyer wrote this: Live-Blogging 'Moneyball' - Baseball Nation. It's an interesting exercise in blogging.
In case you missed it: Prince Fielder signs a nine-year, $214 million deal with the Tigers - HardballTalk. Craig Calcaterra writes, "This is really off-the-wall. Partially because (a) the Tigers just last week said they weren’t going to go down that road; (b) the Tigers already have an all-world first baseman in Miguel Cabrera and, after this year anyway, a really good DH in Victor Martinez to whom they owe a lot of money through 2014; (c) Prince Fielder doesn’t get along with his dad, and if he goes to Detroit he’s going to get Cecil Fielder questions all the time." Off-the-wall is right, as a couple links after the break will point out...
MORE LINKS AFTER THE BREAK...
Rob Neyer goes through his Twitter feed in reviewing the Fielder signing: Prince Fielder According To Twitter - Baseball Nation. "So apparently this was his (Boras) strategy all along: Bypass the front office -- you know, the people who know what baseball players are actually worth -- and go straight to the top, to the guys who think it's a good idea to put pineapple on top of pizzas." I also found an interesting tweet regarding Fielder: Twitter / @jonmorosi: "Jon Morosi #Tigers are indeed pursuing Johnny Damon, source says. At this point, he's a stronger possibility than Derrek Lee." Okay, that was sort of unfair as that tweet was from a couple of days ago, but it does point out how out of left field the Fielder to Detroit was. Just yesterday morning Mark Saxon wrote this: Exploring Bobby Abreu's future - ESPN Los Angeles. "It could be that the Angels and Tigers are deep into talks about how much of Abreu's salary Detroit will pick up. It could be the Angels are waiting until they get more information on Morales." Or the Tigers are waiting on more information on that other guy they're talking to.
Easy question, at least for me: Would You Rather Have: Pujols or Fielder? - CBSSports.com. "Obviously if Fielder signed for half what Pujols did -- especially being younger -- he'd be the choice. But we now have contracts that are essentially apples to apples, as they're close enough in average annual value."
Finally! It was just yesterday I was lamenting having to endure more Cordero rumors: Report: Blue Jays sign Francisco Cordero - CBSSports.com. "The Blue Jays have signed free agent reliever Francisco Cordero to a one-year, $4.5 million contract" Looks like that's a pretty team-friendly contract. I wonder what the terms were the Angels had offered (if they did indeed make an offer)?
OC Register's Mark Whicker has used that photo-story thing the Register is so fond of: Early look at pumped-up American League - The Orange County Register. Here's the best part of the post, "Reader Comments Comments are encouraged, but you must follow our User Agreement. 1. Keep it civil and stay on topic. 2. No profanity, vulgarity, racial slurs or personal attacks. 3. People who harass others or joke about tragedies will be blocked." Yesterday's post is even worse: Angels: Will they live up to the hype?
Here's an interesting development: Yoenis Cespedes establishes residency in Dominican Republic, already a free agent? - HardballTalk. "Cespedes recently told Dionisio Soldevila of the Associated Press that the Cubs, Marlins, White Sox, Orioles, Tigers and Indians have shown the most interest in him. However, it’s possible the Tigers will be less willing to pony up after agreeing to a nine-year, $214 million contract with Fielder earlier today. Still, most expect the 26-year-old outfielder will end up with a contract richer than the $30.25 million deal Cuban left-hander Aroldis Chapman signed with the Reds two years ago." After Trout, the Angels seem to be lacking an impact player in the outfield. How fun would it be to see an outfield of Trout, Bourjos, and Cespedes in 2013? Of course, that is if he lives up to the hype. Here's a little more on the Cuban defector: Report: Cespedes gains Dominican residency - CBSSports.com. ""He's a five-tool guy, built like an NFL running back," one scout told Danny Knobler of CBSSports.com. "He has tremendous raw power, with all the tools to be a 30-30 guy in the big leagues. His mother pitched on the Cuban national softball team, so he has athleticism in the family."
Source: Koji Uehara rejects trade to Toronto - ESPN Dallas. "Texas Rangers reliever Koji Uehara refused a trade to the Toronto Blue Jays, according to a source. Uehara has a limited no-trade clause that includes six teams and Toronto is one of those." Although he had a horrible post-season, Uehara still seems like he'd be a decent addition to a bullpen...unless Texas knows something no one else does.
Here's a cool story: Spinning Yarn: Last Pitch - Baseball Prospectus. "Today marks my last official writing for Baseball Prospectus, as I am joining the front office of the Houston Astros. I am excited about the opportunity to work with Jeff Luhnow, Sig Mejdal, and the rest of the Astros organization. I am eager to bring winning baseball back to Houston, and hopefully a championship club, too. The vision that Jeff and Sig have laid out is very inspiring, and I am excited about contributing my part to implementing and expanding it." I've had the opportunity to trade a few emails with Mike over the last couple years, and in our brief interaction, he's been awesome in answering my questions and providing resources. Best of luck Mike!
0recs |
77
comments
Comments
Weasel Word Saxon
“it could be” that he is pulling stuff out of his ass. Oh wait, no,it is in fact exactly how he conducts himself professionally: he shits.
I am one who put “Great” for “Moneyball”. I don’t view it as a historically-accurate document (beginning with anachronistic music in the soundtrack), but it did illustrate the pushback a GM would have had in 2002 to go against “conventional wisdom” and use science instead of gut.
We can debate day and night how good the Oakland 2002 draft was (or wasn’t) but I thought it was engaging watch Beane/Pitt go through the motions of doing something different (and have tremendous self-doubt along the way), then hit that “what the hell, we’re all in” moment in trading Pena and Jeremy Giambi to get the team to play in the manner he wanted.
And no, I don’t see the reason for Jonah Hill to get a nomination, but I thought Pitt was exceptional.
Otherwise, I think it is interesting that Texas has decided that Uehara is the odd man out, after taking so much credit for snapping him up in the first place from the Orioles.
And what did DiPoto offer Cordero? The opportunity NOT to have to pitch to Albert Pujols. There might not have been any salary involved.
1.) they really try to give a sense that hill’s character invented on base percentage. If you had never looked at a baseball card as a kid, you would think it was something no one had ever looked at or thought about before he and beane. The fact is though, in the steroid era OBP was less significant than how much you could mash a baseball.
2) They completely ignore the fact the A’s had a bunch of good pitchers that contributed to their success.
The acting was good so I could see a few nominations, but the story was pretty one dimensional.
The movie centers around the 2002 season. The season in which Miguel Tejada was AL MVP! Yet he isn’t mentioned in the film once as i recall. Eric Chavez also had a monster year in 02 and isn’t mentioned at all. Zito(who won the Cy Young in 02!!) Mulder and Hudson are also not mentioned at all. They do however mention Carlos Pena at length and act as though Beane’s decision to trade him was some crazy maverick move. They even went so far as to say he was going to be an all star. Meanwhile he was batting .218 and just terrible in general when they traded him.
I enjoyed the movie for what it was, but it definitely tried WAY too hard to give all the credit for that team to Beane and Superbad .You would think Scott Hatteberg and Chad Bradford won those 20 games in row by themselves based on the info given by the film.
I give it a 4/5, but the fact Mulder, Hudson, Zito were barely mentioned (if at all) bothered me as a baseball fan. It was more or less irrelevant to the point of the movie I suppose, but still.
That wasn’t the point of the film. It was not made to be a biography of the 2002 A’s. The movie was a fictionalized narrative of the book Moneyball about the character Billy Beane. Making a film about a team with really good players playing really well is not an interesting story. If that’s what you want, go watch a documentary on the 2002 A’s.
The movie could have been about Schmilly Schmeane and the Brooklyn Bees if the film was meant to be a complete work of fiction. They went to the effort of using the real guy, the real team, the real rosters, the real events of that season, and then just left out all of the actual reasons the team was good. And while I agree that this served to make the film more entertaining, it also opens the door to criticism for revising history.
Brooklyn Bees for example wouldn’t mean anything to anyone. Major league teams are familiar to people and is a much better sell. Moneyball is a book that made money and got people interested. People familiar with baseball know who Billy Beane is and are interested in him. Therefore it was an easy choice to dramatize this story. And in the dramatization of it, they took what was workable in terms of crafting a narrative and utilized it. The film industry is a business, Moneyball is something that could be sold. While I see what you are saying about “revising history” but that isn’t a concern to Hollywood and as a viewer you should never go in to a movie expecting a “true story” because you’ll always be disappointed.
It was that he wrote a program which did the calculation on the players’ stats.
We need to remember that we take for granted the fact that the Register’s website can provide a reasonable amount of stats on any player, but a decade ago about all the average fan could find was batting average, ERA, W/L, RBI and HR. What “DiPodesta” had done was write the spreadsheet calculator so that he could generate the stats on any player as long as he had access to the rudimentary data.
You could go grab a set of baseball cards and get the info
Its not like we are talking a revolution of the game. From the earliest days of baseball people have valued those that get on base. Was putting the info into excel a good idea? Sure. But it wasn’t really the transformation they try to make it.
they try pretty hard to make the point that the a’s spend less than the yankees but dont give the viewer any reasons why. The movie just doesn’t give a full our truthful account of either the a’s success, the financial situation in the mlb, or the use of advanced stats.
That was the heart of the whole Moneyball concept: OBP was valued above all, more than raw power, more than base running speed. The concept was, if the guy gets on base, he’ll come around to score. In the book and the movie, Kevin Youkilis was mentioned as embodying the Moneyball ideal, but he wasn’t picked up by Boston until the 8th round. It may have been on the back of baseball cards, but it was not a widely accepted method of selecting players at that time.
But “conventional wisdom” (as embodied by the Greek Chorus of scouts in the war room) kept going with gut, and Beane knew first hand that gut was no more reliable than anything else. He had scouts tell him that he was can’t-miss, and he flamed out spectacularly, Brandon-Woodly. The purpose of Moneyball was to use stats to identify the players who were being ignored by the other clubs, since Oakland lacked the budget to spend lavishly on high draft choices, instead of using the “gut” of the scouts.
If the movie failed to convey some of these concepts, it is because that film is global and there needed to be a LOT of expository dialog to explain to those who don’t know baseball well (much less sabermetrics) what the numbers were about and why they were important to DiPodesta and Beane. That also meant condensing some of the stories and characters to save time and for greater economy in storytelling. It happens. The work of adapting a book into a screenplay is often very messy. Peter Jackson still gets nastygrams from folks who took exception to his adaptation of “Lord of the Rings”.
The movie sucked because it failed to explain its basic premise- what moneyball is
Watch the movie and think about what someone who doesnt know much about baseball would think. They would come away thinking beane invented obp and that invention made the A’s win all those games even though the evil big market teams beat them in the postseason. It would leave you thinking the yankees are ruining baseball by buying up all the best players and beane beat them at it for a year by buying the best players that no one knew.
It ignores the fact that those scouts beane is so disgusted with drafted the very players responsible for the team’s success. It ignores that as good as hatteberg was at getting on base, he only scored 58 runs that year; Justice only scored 54 times.
The entire presentation of the idea of sabermetrics is flawed because (in the movie) it is based on a faulty premise: that the A’s were a good team because they signed Hatteberg, justice and giambi. It leaves the viewer thinking that it wasnt until these 3 were in the lineup that the A’s could win. It gives those who dont understand the study of advanced measures in baseball something to point to when criticizing them.
Was the movie entertaining? yes. Was it accurate or insightful into why sabermetrics has become an important tool for GM’s? no.
The movie pays no mind to run prevention. There are two sides to winning. They both boil down to outscoring your opponent, but the movie completely dismissing the pitching and defensive elements that play a big role. Groundball pitchers with great infields, flyball pitchers with great outfields, stopping runners, these things all matter. And the movie took a big steaming pile on the idea that a good defense mattera.
I think the theater you saw the film in had bad equipment
The script directly references Bill James and his work in pioneering sabermetrics, so nobody was claiming Beane “invented” anything.
The ONLY significance was that Beane made the decision to rely exclusively on numbers and not scouts.Yes, it doesn’t mention the players already on the team before the 2002 season, but the point was in how the team was rebuilt after losing key players to free agency. Giambi represented 10.4 WAR in 2001 alone, and that was just one of the players the team lost. Since the team lacked the financial resources to sign Giambi for more money than the Yankees, nor could they sign a comparable player, the decision was to attempt to remake the team’s offense in a different style.
So while it wasn’t an in-depth discussion of sabermetrics—it wasn’t a documentary, after all—I think it did a good job of explaining why it was Oakland couldn’t fight fire with fire. It had to use a different strategy.
I thought the film took a tad too much artistic license
Especially in creating villains in people like Art Howe. The villains are obvious – they’re the Yankees. And also, the movie portrayed the team as a ragtag group of guys no one wanted. The movie could have succeeded by presenting the core of Zito/Hudson/Mulder/Chavez/Tejada and showing how complementing these traditionally valued players with undervalued role players made the team so good that year. It’s a more subtle story, sure, but it also doesn’t leave some AMAZING players as extras we only see occasioanlly on the field.
The characterization of the trim DePodesta as a fat schlub was also rather insulting. “Look at the nerd, enjoying the game in a nerdy way!” For a guy who gave Jeremy Malina such a good
“nerd” role (including hot girlfriend in Sports Night), Sorkin sure left the guys with glasses in the cold this time around.
I don’t care too mucha bout the timeline of drafts and acquisitions because the end result is the same, but for me, the movie seemed to meander some. I didn’t know where the core was. And the whole father-daughter thing seemed a bit forced.
But hey, Princess Buttercup was in it, and I always, always love movies where there’s “New Husband Who’s Kind of a Wuss” in them. So I liked it all right. It was about baseball, so that’s two stars right there, and it was interesting. It just wasn’t great.
There are two writers credited with the final screenplay, the other being Steve Zaillian, who wrote such scripts as “Hannibal”, “Clear and Present Danger”, “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and “Schindler’s List”—clearly a very different writer from Sorkin. Note also, all the above are adaptations of high-profile best-sellers.
But in true Hollywood fashion, there are fingerprints from perhaps a dozen different writers on this script. This script was bouncing around for years, almost made a couple of times and then the project was aborted, until it was finally made.
Unlike a Sorkin show (like “Sports Night”), he was just a gun for hire on this film, following several other writers in modifying their work, instead of producing an original draft.
But I read an article about how the script was pieced together, how the script was updated time and time again, and how Sorkin would paste bits in at the end that were then integrated into the movie, sometimes pretty close to the shooting of the scenes he was helping with.
As an outsider I’m sure I don’t “get” it, but screenwriting sounds so, so terrible.
I actually just watched this video interview with DePodesta earlier.
I find it amusing that the entire premise of the movie seemed to be billy and him v.s. everyone around them and apparently it was anything but. that said, I enjoyed the movie as the piece of fiction that it was and it let me geek out about baseball a little while on a date, which is usually frowned upon in this establishment =p.
Judging Moneyball NOT as a baseball fan reveals some issues....
After seeing it a second time while on a plane, Moneyball is actually, kind of a weak film.
Holes:
Why does Billy at one point pick up his daughter from his ex-wifes house and then there are two or three other scenes of her arriving by plane. Wait…what?
*Beane says he would never make a decision based on money again. Thus, we can assume thats why he didn’t take the job with the Red Sox. But then during his interview with them…Billy responds that he came , “because its the Red Sox.” SO….why didn’t he take the job again?
It could also be implied that he didn’t take the job because his daughter lives nearby judging from the ending with him listening to his daughter’s song. But then, once again, if she has to arrive by plane, then she probably doesnt live close anyway, right? Sooooooooooooooooooooooooo…??!?!?!?
Other issues:
There is actually a entire 7 second scene of Peter Brand with his back turned to the camera, waiting for two pieces of paper to print from a printer. WHY??
In less than two mins, we go from the A’s winning 20 games, to them losing in the playoffs. What the fuck? My lady went to the bathroom and came back and was like, what happened? “Oh the A’s lost in the playoffs.” “WHAT???” It just shows how there was very little to make a movie off of. Thus causing some serious imbalance to the flick.
I took away that he flew down to take her for the weekend for her birthday. Thus, fly to Lindbergh and rent a car to drive up to Del Mar (or wherever). If I remember correctly, it was the off-season at that time, prepping for the 2002 season.
The Red Sox line was pretty self-evident to me. It’s like even if you don’t care for the current President of the US, you don’t refuse an invite to the White House.
then the movie decides to imply that he is actually staying because of his daughter due to the ending. But its confusing in regards to where the hell she lives.
Sorry, wife is in an MFA program at Columbia for Fiction….she (as do i) get caught up in shit like plot and a characters motivation…
Aaron Sorkin’s tidy but empty writing has always irked me. He selects the facts he likes and omits what doesn’t fit into his ‘thesis’. The result always feels manufactured rather than human. This is true of The West Wing, Social Network—basically anything with his name on it.
I voted that Moneyball was good but with this caveat.
When I think of Moneyball as piece of fiction, it’s a pretty good baseball movie. A little slow in parts. Certainly not a classic. But pretty good. As I told my Dodger fan sister before she went to see it, think of it as Major League 4: This Time It’s The A’s…and We Had No Budget for Jokes.
Now, if I were to think of Moneyball as the feel good biopic of the year it was supposed to be, then it’s absolutely terrible.
I really enjoyed Moneyball, very good performances, engaging script and fantastic editing
A lot of you guys discuss the movie as if it is a film about the 2002 A’s. It’s not. It’s about the character Billy Beane. Everybody knows what happened with the 2002 A’s, that isn’t interesting so the filmmakers wisely did not construct a story about that. What was interesting is what how the character of Beane reacts and changes as a result of everything that’s going on around him.
it was a movie about Beane and his relationships with Hatteberg, Justice, Art Howe, the fictional Brand, his daughter. What was interesting is that moneyball is supposed to be about stats and not about humans and relationships but the movie was about relationships both inside and outside the game. I did not think I would like the movie but I did. I even liked Ron Washington (the actor portraying him) in the movie.
Moneyball had one stand out difference vs other baseball movies
Did anyone else notice that Moneyball was the first baseball movie in recent memory where the team was playing in the correct stadium?
Major League was in Milwaukee
ML2 was shot in Baltimore.
Angels In The Outfield – Oakland.
The Naked Gun – The Angels playing at Dodger Stadium in the 80’s?
The names on the jerseys were accurate and they tried to reenact actual plays. Moneyball’s one stand out appeal was it’s accuracy of the game on the field. For that reason I think the movie is good.
Glad to see that SBNation has finally picked up on the trend of pushing an app on me every time I try to browse its mobile site. I really look forward to the day when we no longer need the web, just a big app market full of dodgy software to download, install, and execute whenever I want to visit a site.
I liked it, but not sure I would have much if I weren’t a baseball fan. I also don’t think it deserved 6 Oscar nominations. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close only got 2 nominations and I thought it was extremely and incredibly excellent.
Weasel Word Saxon
“it could be” that he is pulling stuff out of his ass. Oh wait, no,it is in fact exactly how he conducts himself professionally: he shits.
Rev Halofan - January 25, 2012
A few notes...
I am one who put “Great” for “Moneyball”. I don’t view it as a historically-accurate document (beginning with anachronistic music in the soundtrack), but it did illustrate the pushback a GM would have had in 2002 to go against “conventional wisdom” and use science instead of gut.
We can debate day and night how good the Oakland 2002 draft was (or wasn’t) but I thought it was engaging watch Beane/Pitt go through the motions of doing something different (and have tremendous self-doubt along the way), then hit that “what the hell, we’re all in” moment in trading Pena and Jeremy Giambi to get the team to play in the manner he wanted.
And no, I don’t see the reason for Jonah Hill to get a nomination, but I thought Pitt was exceptional.
Otherwise, I think it is interesting that Texas has decided that Uehara is the odd man out, after taking so much credit for snapping him up in the first place from the Orioles.
And what did DiPoto offer Cordero? The opportunity NOT to have to pitch to Albert Pujols. There might not have been any salary involved.
George Kaplan - January 25, 2012
I just watched moneyball and two things stood out
1.) they really try to give a sense that hill’s character invented on base percentage. If you had never looked at a baseball card as a kid, you would think it was something no one had ever looked at or thought about before he and beane. The fact is though, in the steroid era OBP was less significant than how much you could mash a baseball.
2) They completely ignore the fact the A’s had a bunch of good pitchers that contributed to their success.
The acting was good so I could see a few nominations, but the story was pretty one dimensional.
Balls and Strikes - January 25, 2012
They ignored alot more than the pitchers.
The movie centers around the 2002 season. The season in which Miguel Tejada was AL MVP! Yet he isn’t mentioned in the film once as i recall. Eric Chavez also had a monster year in 02 and isn’t mentioned at all. Zito(who won the Cy Young in 02!!) Mulder and Hudson are also not mentioned at all. They do however mention Carlos Pena at length and act as though Beane’s decision to trade him was some crazy maverick move. They even went so far as to say he was going to be an all star. Meanwhile he was batting .218 and just terrible in general when they traded him.
I enjoyed the movie for what it was, but it definitely tried WAY too hard to give all the credit for that team to Beane and Superbad .You would think Scott Hatteberg and Chad Bradford won those 20 games in row by themselves based on the info given by the film.
No Bologna Polonia - January 25, 2012
There were video clips showing the jerseys of the players which were not verbally mentioned.
wumbug - January 25, 2012
What I especially enjoyed were the different scenes with Ron Washington as their coach.
wumbug - January 25, 2012
#2 bothered me the most about the movie
I give it a 4/5, but the fact Mulder, Hudson, Zito were barely mentioned (if at all) bothered me as a baseball fan. It was more or less irrelevant to the point of the movie I suppose, but still.
stevefinleyallstars - January 25, 2012
Regarding #2
That wasn’t the point of the film. It was not made to be a biography of the 2002 A’s. The movie was a fictionalized narrative of the book Moneyball about the character Billy Beane. Making a film about a team with really good players playing really well is not an interesting story. If that’s what you want, go watch a documentary on the 2002 A’s.
ryanfea - January 25, 2012
That's a pretty lazy response
The movie could have been about Schmilly Schmeane and the Brooklyn Bees if the film was meant to be a complete work of fiction. They went to the effort of using the real guy, the real team, the real rosters, the real events of that season, and then just left out all of the actual reasons the team was good. And while I agree that this served to make the film more entertaining, it also opens the door to criticism for revising history.
No Bologna Polonia - January 25, 2012
Hollywood needs something to sell
Brooklyn Bees for example wouldn’t mean anything to anyone. Major league teams are familiar to people and is a much better sell. Moneyball is a book that made money and got people interested. People familiar with baseball know who Billy Beane is and are interested in him. Therefore it was an easy choice to dramatize this story. And in the dramatization of it, they took what was workable in terms of crafting a narrative and utilized it. The film industry is a business, Moneyball is something that could be sold. While I see what you are saying about “revising history” but that isn’t a concern to Hollywood and as a viewer you should never go in to a movie expecting a “true story” because you’ll always be disappointed.
ryanfea - January 25, 2012
You say we create the honey, but not the money?
Me siento decepcionado
eyespy - January 25, 2012
It wasn't that he invented OBP
It was that he wrote a program which did the calculation on the players’ stats.
We need to remember that we take for granted the fact that the Register’s website can provide a reasonable amount of stats on any player, but a decade ago about all the average fan could find was batting average, ERA, W/L, RBI and HR. What “DiPodesta” had done was write the spreadsheet calculator so that he could generate the stats on any player as long as he had access to the rudimentary data.
George Kaplan - January 25, 2012
You could go grab a set of baseball cards and get the info
Its not like we are talking a revolution of the game. From the earliest days of baseball people have valued those that get on base. Was putting the info into excel a good idea? Sure. But it wasn’t really the transformation they try to make it.
they try pretty hard to make the point that the a’s spend less than the yankees but dont give the viewer any reasons why. The movie just doesn’t give a full our truthful account of either the a’s success, the financial situation in the mlb, or the use of advanced stats.
Balls and Strikes - January 25, 2012 via mobile
Disagree
That was the heart of the whole Moneyball concept: OBP was valued above all, more than raw power, more than base running speed. The concept was, if the guy gets on base, he’ll come around to score. In the book and the movie, Kevin Youkilis was mentioned as embodying the Moneyball ideal, but he wasn’t picked up by Boston until the 8th round. It may have been on the back of baseball cards, but it was not a widely accepted method of selecting players at that time.
But “conventional wisdom” (as embodied by the Greek Chorus of scouts in the war room) kept going with gut, and Beane knew first hand that gut was no more reliable than anything else. He had scouts tell him that he was can’t-miss, and he flamed out spectacularly, Brandon-Woodly. The purpose of Moneyball was to use stats to identify the players who were being ignored by the other clubs, since Oakland lacked the budget to spend lavishly on high draft choices, instead of using the “gut” of the scouts.
If the movie failed to convey some of these concepts, it is because that film is global and there needed to be a LOT of expository dialog to explain to those who don’t know baseball well (much less sabermetrics) what the numbers were about and why they were important to DiPodesta and Beane. That also meant condensing some of the stories and characters to save time and for greater economy in storytelling. It happens. The work of adapting a book into a screenplay is often very messy. Peter Jackson still gets nastygrams from folks who took exception to his adaptation of “Lord of the Rings”.
George Kaplan - January 25, 2012
The movie sucked because it failed to explain its basic premise- what moneyball is
Watch the movie and think about what someone who doesnt know much about baseball would think. They would come away thinking beane invented obp and that invention made the A’s win all those games even though the evil big market teams beat them in the postseason. It would leave you thinking the yankees are ruining baseball by buying up all the best players and beane beat them at it for a year by buying the best players that no one knew.
It ignores the fact that those scouts beane is so disgusted with drafted the very players responsible for the team’s success. It ignores that as good as hatteberg was at getting on base, he only scored 58 runs that year; Justice only scored 54 times.
The entire presentation of the idea of sabermetrics is flawed because (in the movie) it is based on a faulty premise: that the A’s were a good team because they signed Hatteberg, justice and giambi. It leaves the viewer thinking that it wasnt until these 3 were in the lineup that the A’s could win. It gives those who dont understand the study of advanced measures in baseball something to point to when criticizing them.
Was the movie entertaining? yes. Was it accurate or insightful into why sabermetrics has become an important tool for GM’s? no.
Balls and Strikes - January 25, 2012
With the caveat that I've never read Moneyball
The movie pays no mind to run prevention. There are two sides to winning. They both boil down to outscoring your opponent, but the movie completely dismissing the pitching and defensive elements that play a big role. Groundball pitchers with great infields, flyball pitchers with great outfields, stopping runners, these things all matter. And the movie took a big steaming pile on the idea that a good defense mattera.
Kernel - January 26, 2012
I think the theater you saw the film in had bad equipment
The script directly references Bill James and his work in pioneering sabermetrics, so nobody was claiming Beane “invented” anything.
The ONLY significance was that Beane made the decision to rely exclusively on numbers and not scouts.Yes, it doesn’t mention the players already on the team before the 2002 season, but the point was in how the team was rebuilt after losing key players to free agency. Giambi represented 10.4 WAR in 2001 alone, and that was just one of the players the team lost. Since the team lacked the financial resources to sign Giambi for more money than the Yankees, nor could they sign a comparable player, the decision was to attempt to remake the team’s offense in a different style.
So while it wasn’t an in-depth discussion of sabermetrics—it wasn’t a documentary, after all—I think it did a good job of explaining why it was Oakland couldn’t fight fire with fire. It had to use a different strategy.
George Kaplan - January 27, 2012
My problems
1. The Big 3 had an awful lot to do with their back to back 100 win seasons. No mention.
2. They make Beane seem like an idiot who knows nothing about stats and hires a stats guy.
hauldog - January 25, 2012
I thought the film took a tad too much artistic license
Especially in creating villains in people like Art Howe. The villains are obvious – they’re the Yankees. And also, the movie portrayed the team as a ragtag group of guys no one wanted. The movie could have succeeded by presenting the core of Zito/Hudson/Mulder/Chavez/Tejada and showing how complementing these traditionally valued players with undervalued role players made the team so good that year. It’s a more subtle story, sure, but it also doesn’t leave some AMAZING players as extras we only see occasioanlly on the field.
The characterization of the trim DePodesta as a fat schlub was also rather insulting. “Look at the nerd, enjoying the game in a nerdy way!” For a guy who gave Jeremy Malina such a good
“nerd” role (including hot girlfriend in Sports Night), Sorkin sure left the guys with glasses in the cold this time around.
I don’t care too mucha bout the timeline of drafts and acquisitions because the end result is the same, but for me, the movie seemed to meander some. I didn’t know where the core was. And the whole father-daughter thing seemed a bit forced.
But hey, Princess Buttercup was in it, and I always, always love movies where there’s “New Husband Who’s Kind of a Wuss” in them. So I liked it all right. It was about baseball, so that’s two stars right there, and it was interesting. It just wasn’t great.
Kernel - January 25, 2012
The Sorkin thing is overrated
There are two writers credited with the final screenplay, the other being Steve Zaillian, who wrote such scripts as “Hannibal”, “Clear and Present Danger”, “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and “Schindler’s List”—clearly a very different writer from Sorkin. Note also, all the above are adaptations of high-profile best-sellers.
But in true Hollywood fashion, there are fingerprints from perhaps a dozen different writers on this script. This script was bouncing around for years, almost made a couple of times and then the project was aborted, until it was finally made.
Unlike a Sorkin show (like “Sports Night”), he was just a gun for hire on this film, following several other writers in modifying their work, instead of producing an original draft.
George Kaplan - January 25, 2012
I Forget Where I Saw It
But I read an article about how the script was pieced together, how the script was updated time and time again, and how Sorkin would paste bits in at the end that were then integrated into the movie, sometimes pretty close to the shooting of the scenes he was helping with.
As an outsider I’m sure I don’t “get” it, but screenwriting sounds so, so terrible.
Kernel - January 25, 2012
I actually just watched this video interview with DePodesta earlier.
I find it amusing that the entire premise of the movie seemed to be billy and him v.s. everyone around them and apparently it was anything but. that said, I enjoyed the movie as the piece of fiction that it was and it let me geek out about baseball a little while on a date, which is usually frowned upon in this establishment =p.
http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=20072407&topic_id=7417714&c_id=mlb&tcid=vpp_copy_20072407&v=3
Darth Duane - January 25, 2012
Judging Moneyball NOT as a baseball fan reveals some issues....
After seeing it a second time while on a plane, Moneyball is actually, kind of a weak film.
Holes:
*Beane says he would never make a decision based on money again. Thus, we can assume thats why he didn’t take the job with the Red Sox. But then during his interview with them…Billy responds that he came , “because its the Red Sox.” SO….why didn’t he take the job again?
Other issues:
BryanHarvey'sMoustache - January 25, 2012
The printing scene was funny.
Why did they exclude the scene when Beane bangs the cocktail waitress?
hauldog - January 25, 2012
Sorry, funny that is was included
hauldog - January 25, 2012
I think his daughter lived in San Diego at the time
You can drive there sometimes, especially if you go watch the A’s play in Anaheim.
mattwelch - January 25, 2012
I thought she lived in Orange County
That being said movie Beane did not travel with the team.
hauldog - January 25, 2012
She lived with her mom in SD
I took away that he flew down to take her for the weekend for her birthday. Thus, fly to Lindbergh and rent a car to drive up to Del Mar (or wherever). If I remember correctly, it was the off-season at that time, prepping for the 2002 season.
The Red Sox line was pretty self-evident to me. It’s like even if you don’t care for the current President of the US, you don’t refuse an invite to the White House.
George Kaplan - January 25, 2012
Right but....
then the movie decides to imply that he is actually staying because of his daughter due to the ending. But its confusing in regards to where the hell she lives.
Sorry, wife is in an MFA program at Columbia for Fiction….she (as do i) get caught up in shit like plot and a characters motivation…
BryanHarvey'sMoustache - January 25, 2012
I had no problem with the Red Sox line
As much as I hate them I know they are one of the premier franchises.
hauldog - January 25, 2012
Fine...we know that being from California....
but it was never explained. And left me confused as to what that was all about. Put in one or two lines about it and everything is fixed.
BryanHarvey'sMoustache - January 25, 2012
Moneyball was garbage
Aaron Sorkin’s tidy but empty writing has always irked me. He selects the facts he likes and omits what doesn’t fit into his ‘thesis’. The result always feels manufactured rather than human. This is true of The West Wing, Social Network—basically anything with his name on it.
tolbs1010 - January 25, 2012
Yeah, but you gotta admit that he has a knack for bringing entertainment to subjects that seem totally boring....
politics
baseball stats
social media.
BryanHarvey'sMoustache - January 25, 2012
it is a movie
art is the opposite of facts
Rev Halofan - January 25, 2012
Only if it's not presented as facts or history
tolbs1010 - January 25, 2012
It's not
It is quite obviously meant to be dramatized fiction. You seem to be not at all familiar with Hollywood.
ryanfea - January 25, 2012
Art is truth, Rev!
5thStarter - January 25, 2012
Much like surfing's the source.
5thStarter - January 25, 2012
Facts are not necessarily truth
So yeah.
Rev Halofan - January 25, 2012
You just blew my mind.
5thStarter - January 25, 2012
Fact, bears eat beets.
snowhor - January 25, 2012
Battlestar Galactica.
5thStarter - January 25, 2012
I pretty much love anything Sorkin does
So I’m going to disagree.
Gorbachav5 - January 25, 2012
HEY
Sports Night was GOOD.
Kernel - January 25, 2012
A couple of weeks ago, I rented "Moneyball" from RedBox for $1.20 plus tax, watched it twice, and had it back
by 6:00 pm the next evening. I thought it was very good, not six-nominations good.
Regarding Cespedes fantacies, is anyone attractive ever going to bat left handed again?
Why no link about Lincecum’s two-year deal with SFGiants? Interesting that the Giants controlled him for two years anyway.
wumbug - January 25, 2012
"...not six-nominations good."
Exactly. Jonah Hill gets a nod? Really? I know this is an easy statement to make, but anyone could have played that role.
5thStarter - January 25, 2012
We Need a Fat Guy To Wear Glasses
Is there anyone on this planet who can act nervous and nerdy? ANYONE?
Kernel - January 25, 2012
I was much more excited
When Demitri Martin was attached to the film.
TheTypingFiend - January 25, 2012 via Android app
What ever happened to his cool show
Important Things With Demitri Martin?
LanaBanana - January 25, 2012
I imagine he started to forget to show up
While telling jokes to no one in particular at his home.
Kernel - January 25, 2012
It was put on hiatus...
I think Comedy Central realized that their shows need to have comedy in them.
5thStarter - January 25, 2012
I loved him in his prime with the Golddiggers
Of course, he just pretended to be drunk.
George Kaplan - January 25, 2012
I voted that Moneyball was good but with this caveat.
When I think of Moneyball as piece of fiction, it’s a pretty good baseball movie. A little slow in parts. Certainly not a classic. But pretty good. As I told my Dodger fan sister before she went to see it, think of it as Major League 4: This Time It’s The A’s…and We Had No Budget for Jokes.
Now, if I were to think of Moneyball as the feel good biopic of the year it was supposed to be, then it’s absolutely terrible.
blithescribe - January 25, 2012
exactly
fiction based on real events to examine the human condition.
Without boobs.
Rev Halofan - January 25, 2012
You had me
right up until the end.
NathanielS - January 25, 2012
His mother pitched on the softball team so he has athleticism in the family?
Back up the brinks truck
hauldog - January 25, 2012
Never got around to seeing Moneyball
If I want to watch a movie about how the 2002 season went, I’ll watch this instead:
Evan Gillette - January 25, 2012
+1
Darth Duane - January 25, 2012
I'll always love Speeze's look there
Tapatio Man - January 25, 2012 via mobile
I've watched this so many times I can say the dialouge
It will probably get another play or two between now and Spring Training.
JeffJoiner - January 25, 2012
I'm still geeking out on the 2011 WS, Games 6 and 7.
I watch both of them every other week or so.
5thStarter - January 25, 2012
All I need to know is the last few lines...
Erstad says he’s got it… Erstad…. MAKES THE CATCH!!!! And the Anaheim Angels are the Champions of Baseball!!!!
red floyd - January 25, 2012
You spoiled it for me
I voted that I didn’t see it. Don’t cha know.
eyespy - January 25, 2012
That movie has much more dramatic dialogue.
But the Angels Weren’t Quite Finished…
Not if Barry Bonds Had Something To Say About It…
Do You Believe in Miracles?
It’s like the entire narration was written with a headline, and then they didn’t bother with the article itself.
Sometimes that’s cool, and sometimes it’s too corny even for this big softy.
Kernel - January 25, 2012
I really enjoyed Moneyball, very good performances, engaging script and fantastic editing
A lot of you guys discuss the movie as if it is a film about the 2002 A’s. It’s not. It’s about the character Billy Beane. Everybody knows what happened with the 2002 A’s, that isn’t interesting so the filmmakers wisely did not construct a story about that. What was interesting is what how the character of Beane reacts and changes as a result of everything that’s going on around him.
ryanfea - January 25, 2012
yeah
it was a movie about Beane and his relationships with Hatteberg, Justice, Art Howe, the fictional Brand, his daughter. What was interesting is that moneyball is supposed to be about stats and not about humans and relationships but the movie was about relationships both inside and outside the game. I did not think I would like the movie but I did. I even liked Ron Washington (the actor portraying him) in the movie.
tanana40 - January 25, 2012
Actually Loved The Wash Performance
I had forgotten he was around until I saw the actor they chose, and I thought, “oh my God, they got a Ron Washington Looking Guy.”
Kernel - January 25, 2012
Moneyball had one stand out difference vs other baseball movies
Did anyone else notice that Moneyball was the first baseball movie in recent memory where the team was playing in the correct stadium?
Major League was in Milwaukee
ML2 was shot in Baltimore.
Angels In The Outfield – Oakland.
The Naked Gun – The Angels playing at Dodger Stadium in the 80’s?
The names on the jerseys were accurate and they tried to reenact actual plays. Moneyball’s one stand out appeal was it’s accuracy of the game on the field. For that reason I think the movie is good.
alcor805 - January 25, 2012
Brad Pitt, in that picture
Looks like the goat that cursed the Cubs!
Howie's Batting Title - January 25, 2012 via mobile
You didn't have the option of
Haven’t seen it – yet but plan to.
Unclearnie - January 25, 2012
DOWNLOADOURAPP!!!
Glad to see that SBNation has finally picked up on the trend of pushing an app on me every time I try to browse its mobile site. I really look forward to the day when we no longer need the web, just a big app market full of dodgy software to download, install, and execute whenever I want to visit a site.
Suboptimal - January 25, 2012
But, like, in 20 years, the internet's gonna be in our heads, man!
5thStarter - January 25, 2012
Great
Then SBN will be crashing my brain instead of my phone.
Suboptimal - January 25, 2012
The iPhone app is close to useless
I can’t imagine the Android version is any better.
George Kaplan - January 25, 2012
It's not, unfortunately
Suboptimal - January 25, 2012
I just liked that Andy from Parks & Rec was in it
2pintsofbooze - January 25, 2012
Saw it tonight.
I liked it, but not sure I would have much if I weren’t a baseball fan. I also don’t think it deserved 6 Oscar nominations. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close only got 2 nominations and I thought it was extremely and incredibly excellent.
LanaBanana - January 27, 2012
You must Login with your SB Nation account and be a member of Halos Heaven to post a comment.