Reviewing Moneyball the Movie

Guest post by Ken Krause, Life in the Fastpitch Lane blog

Over the weekend I had the opportunity to see the movie Moneyball starring Brad Pitt as Oakland As GM Billy Beane. If you're not familiar with the original book — which is a great read by the way — it chronicles the story of how Beane changed the game of baseball by focusing on a few key statistics rather than the conventional wisdom of the time, which was (and still is in some cases) whether a player "looks" like a ballplayer.

Of course, Beane didn't do it alone. He was assisted greatly by Paul DePodesta, a young Harvard graduate (here played by Jonah Hill and using the pseduonym Peter Brand) with a fondness for Bill James' Baseball Abstract, computers and a love of stats.

You can read about the values of the movie from countless professional movie reviewers. What I found interesting was Beane's reasons for taking such an interest in this radical approach, and the differences between his public and private faces while doing it. Those are things I think most of us can relate to.

Essentially, Billy Beane is in a tough spot. His team's three biggest stars leave the team for more money after taking the As to the playoffs. He asks his owner for more money to replace them, but is told the budget is the budget. That means he has to find another solution to his dilemma if the As are going to compete the next year.

The answer turns out to be using statistics to find under-valued players — good ballplayers the rest of baseball is ignoring. As Brand explains it, the single most important stat is on base percentage (OBP). You have to get on base to score, so the more players are on base the more likely the team is to score. Yet many of these players get on base by walking, which isn't very highly valued by the baseball establishment.

How many times have you found yourself in that situation, with a team that doesn't seem to match up by conventional standards? If you don't have a dominant pitcher, do you just figure you won't have a good season? Or do you work on finding a different solution?

Can you score enough runs to make up for what you lack? Do you put your lineup together in a way that makes that happen? That's what Beane does — he takes a position against the advice of his scouts and other experts, and he sticks with it.

Which brings me to the other interesting point, and one I'm sure many of us can relate to. Outwardly, Beane tells management, the press and whoever else is asking that it will take time but he's sure this revolutionary approach to the game will work. Inwardly, though, we see the self-doubt. He's not nearly as sure he made the right decision as he appears, and at several points he seems resigned to the fact that he will probably be fired by the end of the season.

Yet he still stays with it. In fact, at one pivotal point where he's making some player decisions even Brand, the guy who convinced him to go this route, is advising against moving a couple of players due to their popularity in Oakland. Beane point blank asks him whether he believes in what they're doing or not. When Brand says yes, the decision is made.

Have you ever faced that type of tough situation? One where the popular decision would be to do X, but you go ahead and do Y because deep down you believe it's the right thing to do?

It could be sticking with a pitcher, or letting your hitters swing away early in the season when everyone else is playing the short game. It could be that you're willing to lose a few games or a tournament early in the season in order to develop players you think have potential.

Whatever it was, it's certainly good to know that even the professionals and the people who ultimately change the game have doubts about what they're doing at some point. That alone makes the movie worth watching.

One caution, though: if your significant other isn't into the nuances of the sport, don't let the reviewers fool you. He/she probably won't enjoy the movie quite as much, because it really does help to know how the sport was before to understand the significance of what's going on. Or to care.

One last thought, too: at the time, this revolutionary thinking gave the As a definite advantage in player selection v. budget. Today, though, just about every team has a Peter Brand poring over stats, which means the As are once again at a disadvantage.

And that's the problem with being a pioneer. As Geoffrey Moore says, pioneers often wind up with arrows in their back.

Still, for all of that it's a movie well worth seeing. Then read the book.

Anyway, that's the way I see it.