Moneyball Movie Review

Moneyball (2011)

Rent Moneyball on Amazon Video // Buy the book
Written by: Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin (screenplay), Stan Chervin  (story), Michael Lewis (book) 
Directed by: Bennett Miller
Starring: Brad Pitt, Robin Wright, Jonah Hill, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Chris Pratt, Reed Diamond
Rated: PG-13
Watch the trailer

Plot
Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane's successful attempt to assemble a baseball team on a lean budget by utilizing advanced analysis to acquire under rated players.

Verdict
It's a well made movie from the script to the look and performances. This captures the intricacies of baseball while still being accessible to a non-fan. This is an underdog story that transcends baseball. Can Billy Beane's plan to revolutionize how baseball players are valued work? The knowledgeable veterans tell Beane it can't. This basically dramatizes spreadsheets of player data creating an engrossing narrative. We see a bit of the ball game, the front office, and trades. There's no villain, just the realization that life is unfair and Oakland doesn't have the resources to compete.
I'll watch any movie even tangentially related to baseball and I'm a fan of analyzing economics to solve a problem.
Watch it.

Review
Michael Lewis is a prolific writer, his books also include The Big Short (read my review) and The Blind Side. 

I saw this movie not long after it came out. I had stopped following baseball closely, but since then I've gotten back into baseball with a passion so the advanced stats actually had a meaning to me this time around. This is more than a baseball movie. It's a problem solving movie using an economic viewpoint to provide an advantage. I try to approach life like that. This is also an underdog story.

The Oakland A's made the playoffs but lost to the Yankees The Yankees had a budget nearly triple theirs and now the A's cant' afford to keep their three biggest stars due to free agency. General manage Billy Beane is competitive, but can't get any money out of ownership to rebuild the team.

Beane meets with the scouts to figure out which players they will attempt to acquire, but Beane is frustrated with the scouts. They have an old school point of view talking about potential and how players swing the bat. Beane asks them how they can call a guy a good hitter with a good swing when he's never hit well in the minor leagues. The scouts are praising non-existent numbers.

The A's are a small market team that can't compete. It's an unfair system and Beane needs an advantage. Beane stumbles upon Peter Brand who states that baseball scouts misjudge players. You shouldn't buy players but wins. The appraisal system is flat out wrong and Brand states you have to find value where others don't see it or don't want to see it. Scouts judge based on perceived defects. A guy throws weird and the scouts conclude he can't succeed by doing something different from the standard.
Beane sees the value in what Brand is saying and hires him because Brand is an undervalued asset.

Oakland did something revolutionary and then everyone else started doing it too. Even with the realization that performance should be valued over looks, it still happens. Houston Astros second baseman José Altuve was discounted because he's only five foot six. He's one of the top players in the game, but from little leagues to the major leagues the short guy, the kid that throws side arm, or the guy with a funky swing will be discounted.

Throughout the movie we get flashbacks to Billy Beane as a teenager. He was a highly recruited can't miss prospect who did miss. Beane realizes scouts can be wrong. If they can be wrong about a player they project to be a star, they can be wrong about a player they project to not be a star. It's hard to judge talent and even more difficult before they've played in the pros. Those flashbacks underscore that predication are inexact.

Beane and Brand are looking at guys that can get on base. It's a crucial stat and one of my favorites. The old school scouts hem and haw that the players are defective, that they need home runs, but they're also players that are affordable. Beans wants catcher Scott Hatteberg, who can't catch do to an injury. Beane wants him to learn to play first base, telling him it's not that hard. "Tell him." Beane implores a coach. The coach responds deadpan, "It's incredibly hard."

Beane builds a team from scrap and they lose games, lots of game. They're a terrible team, but part of that is manager Art Howe not playing the team Beane and Brand built. Everyone discounts the new approach, blaming Beane despite Howe not doing as told. Beane fully commits to his plan, trading away good players like Carlos Pena and Jeremy Giambi to force Howe to play Hatteberg.

When the team starts to win Howe is praised, not Beane, when Howe was the big impediment. There are a lot of factors as to why teams win and lose and that blame isn't always assigned accurately. Who should get the credit? General managers like Beane do shape the team, but managers have to motivate the players and control personalities. A team is going to function the best when the general manager and team manager work together.

The movie does a great job of capturing all these different facets of the game. I love the wheeling and dealing Beane does to get relief pitcher Rincon from Cleveland. He offers to trade with San Francisco, his main competitor on Rincon, then calls the Mets to heat up the market on the pitcher he offered San Francisco. Beane gets Rincon.

The movie is very dark, the images themselves. A lot of the shots are indoors and even a few of the baseball action shots look like they're in a twilight lit stadium, but they look really good. It's very different from how a baseball movie usually looks and that's an advantage.
The script is solid. It does a great job of setting everything up from the Rincon trade to the Hatteberg payoff. All the players mentioned are actual players.

This moneyball team loses in the playoffs and the critics state the team were fundamentally flawed and that you can't reinvent the game, but man, they were close. They got that far on a shoestring budget. If they had won they'd get all the praise. They lose and they're written off. Beane pioneered a way of thinking, and everyone followed. Then Oakland is still a small market team and your advantage is gone.