Uncoventional Wisdom Challenges Baseball Establishment -- Pitt's Outstanding Performance Almost Made Me an A's Fan

Rating: 9/10 (25 September 2011)

In most fields, particularly those which have been around for 100 years or more, the so-called "conventional wisdom" often dominates decision-making in business. And yet over and over again, business wants to adhere to conventional wisdom, until it's debunked when someone brilliant comes along and demonstrates different approaches to the "tried and true". These conventions are often misconceptions usually based on faulty logic and/or faulty information. "Moneyball" starring Brad Pitt is largely about challenging the conventional wisdom and ultimately the status quo of Major League Baseball, a sport with an approximate 170-year history.
In Major League Baseball, the conventional wisdom has been that big stars with big salaries make winning teams. Billie Beane (Brad Pitt in an Oscar-caliber performance), a little known GM of the Oakland Athletics, challenged that convention and made winning teams with a much smaller budget and no big star players, or at least former stars in the latter part of their careers. Most of his players were undervalued performers who would play for far less money than the big superstars. Moneyball, based on the book by Michael Lewis, chronicles Beane's new unconventional approach.
For help, he solicits a young economics wizard Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) who has been using techniques to analyze players at a much deeper level. Instead of scouting players in the usual way, by simply watching them at ball parks either at the high school or college level, Brand would look at all their statistics. Not just batting averages, but on-base percentage, runs scored, and even how well they do against other players. They also derive how many runs total the team will need to score in the course of a season to enter the playoffs, and they figure out how many base runners they will need to accomplish this goal.
The use of statistics to tell larger unseen stories was begun by baseball statistician innovator Bill James, which he calls Sabermetrics. Sabermetrics looks much deeper into players' performance in terms of their contribution to the team as a whole, rather than just looking at speed, batting average and on-field errors. The system also analyzes how well a team's offense bats as a whole, called base runs, not just team batting average. Before James, traditional scouting often relied on simply watching players in action a few times and determining speed and build, and even such things that have nothing to do with the game, such as how attractive they were as well their girlfriends!
Beane and Brand take these theories of using much deeper statistics to the management and their scouts to assemble a roster of undervalued talent and misfits at a fraction of the price of teams like the NY Yankees. At first there is much resistance in upper management and also then A's manager Art Howe. According to the film, Howe is resistant to play the players in the way they were designed. And the team suffers, losing many games. Commentators and even the A's' owners begin questioning Beane's methods. For example, Scott Hatteberg was recruited because of his high on-base percentage, but had been a catcher with the Red Sox who lost his throwing ability due to injury. Most scouts believed his career was over. But Beane and Brand believe he could contribute to the A's. Only, Hatteberg would have to play first base, but Howe was reluctant to play him. In a daring move, Beane trades their rookie first baseman and other players mid-season, forcing Howe to play Hatteberg at first base. Then, all of a sudden, something magical happens.
This is truly an inspiring film about a true-to-life baseball story. I have been an SF Giants fan all my life, but this film almost made me an A's fan. The SF Giants finally achieved a World Series win in 2010, also with a bunch of misfits and undervalued players. The Red Sox finally overcame the Bambino Curse with a World Series win 2004. I have to believe both the Red Sox and the Giants used Beane's methods to assemble unlikely teams of undervalued players to achieve success. Even though the A's and Beane did not quite win world series rings, they may have fundamentally changed the game which only about a half dozen people can claim in the history of baseball. It's one thing to make a great contribution as a player. It is even more significant to change how major league teams operate. Beane may have made the most significant contribution to professional baseball since Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson and broke the color barrier in 1946. It doesn't get much better than that.