Moneyball (2011- 133 mins) Brad Pitt, Robin Wright and Jonah Hill 

I am a huge baseball fan and I am also a pretty big believer in the whole “saber-metrics” craze that Bill James wrote about, which Billy Beane brought to the bigs in the late 90’s early 00’s. So naturally I was wanting to see how it all translated to the big screen with Pitt playing Beane himself. To summarize to non-baseball people in quick terms, in the old adage homeruns were sexy and hitting for average with a good swing makes for a great ball player. Which is all fine and good for the Yankees and RedSox and all, who can afford to throw hundreds of millions of dollars at players but the Oakland A’s don’t have that type of money and can’t afford the high priced talent. So they need to find a way to score runs and win games.

In steps Beane with with his secret weapon statistician Peter Brand (Hill). Brand manages to convince Beane that not only can they compete but they can do it cheaply by working in on base percentage (OBP) as a higher weighted measure of talent then power (OBP basically factors in walks plus batting average to show how good they are at getting “on base”). The movie is a good story and is told quite well. It is quite engaging and really keeps you interested the whole way through. Pitt is excellent when he plays a charasmatic part and is able to carry the movie. Hill holds his own as the shy side-kick-brainiac behind the whole scheme retooling of minds.

Verdict —>For the movie it’s good, well real good in fact. It’s good in a way that people who don’t even like baseball will like it. Those people might think it’s a bit long tho. Yet, for those of us who love baseball or even those who mildly like or tolerate it, you will likely love it. I say no matter who you are it’s a top recommendation, and I think an early front runner for one of my best when 2012 is over with.

After the Verdict—> So for anyone who is curious how a lot of this shakes out or how much is true vs false, I am here to give you some more of my take on the whole “moneyball” revolution in baseball, or the love of OBP. Now before I start let me say again, I do like the idea of saber-metrics and using OBP in evaluating players, but it’s not the end all be all of stats. It’s great that Beane embraced it but what the movie fails to tell you is that sure, he won some games but they haven’t been to the World Series in his tenure as GM, even with some pretty decent rosters. See, you need to mix those players with SOME high priced guys and give up on others when it’s just not the right thing to do (I am looking at you Eric Chavez). Their biggest problem is they get good young players and don’t keep em around long enough to let them be impact guys or to get some loyalty to the city. They trade or let go anyone who is nearing that arbitration period or free agency time. Beane is still in Oakland and they generally competed well the early and mid 2000’s  (5 trips to the post season but only winning 1 round total), but then they fell off the map being pretty crappy the last 5 years.

So is “Moneyball” the end all be all and way to the promise land? Nope. But, I think what it shows is that the game is evolving and changing. But to evolve you can’t just throw things upside down. You incorporate new things into the old and roll with it. I think some of the teams that have succeeded the most in the last ten years (Red Sox, Yankees, Phillies) have done this. The smart GM’s/Owners have seen that there is some new ways of thinking and brought it in and molded it into their own and that is the real success of the “moneyball” revolution.

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