Review of Moneyball (2011) by Mjt — 22 Oct 2011

I really enjoyed the movie and Brad Pitt is excellent. The problem I have with the movie is I have the disadvantage of actually knowing something about the 2002 Oakland A's. The film is dishonest because it willfully overstates the impact of a few baseball scrubs and completely ignores the great players the A's already had.

Not only that it willfully misrepresents the fact that Jeremy Giambi (Jason Giambi's brother) played in 124 games for the A's the year before in 2001! He wasn't a new discovery. How could the filmmaker not even mention that the A's had one of the best pitching staffs in baseball in 2001 and they were back for 2002: Barry Zito won 23 games in 2001 and won the Cy Young Award as the league's best pitcher, Mark Mulder won 19 games, Tim Hudson won 15 games.

They are literally never mentioned in the film! Miguel Tejada is barely mentioned and he was the League MVP batting over .300 with 34 home runs and 131 runs batted in. Eric Chavez is never mentioned and he hit 34 homers and drove in 109 runs.

David Justice, meanwhile, was kind of a wash out and Scott Hatteberg was important to the team--but, certainly there was already a key group of players in place. Also, the concept of on base percentage was not new.

..and the previous A's general manager Sandy Alderson was instrumental in using statistical analysis before Billy Beane arrived. And, Johnny Damon had had a terrible 2001 season, so letting him go was not without reason anyway.

Also, the Minnesota Twins, who beat the A's in the playoffs, had virtually an identical small payroll and continued to be a more competitive team than the A's over the next decade. So, my main problem with the film is not to say that the "moneyball" approach didn't do anything for the A's--it did.

But, it didn't do everything and they were not alone in using statistical analysis to discover value. But, that's Hollywood--overstating and making things black and white is their specialty. Brad Pitt is really getting to be a much better actor as he ages though--he's excellent in the movie.