Moneyball

Moneyball, as penned by Michael Lewis, is about the ability of statistics to contradict what the naked eye interprets, especially as it applies to Major League Baseball. If advanced quantitative analysis actually did improve decision-making processes for the Oakland Athletics, as Lewis claims in the book, then the film Moneyball is more a celebration of this fact than an explanation of it.

Indeed, A’s General Manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) and newly minted assistant-to-the-GM Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) hardly ever discuss sabermetrics in Moneyball, save for a few sparse allusions to on-base percentage. More often than not, the two are pictured bonding over some shared distaste for established baseball practices: two rebels in an old-timey scout empire. Jonah Hill provides his usual clown-like theatrics as a geeky Yale economics graduate for baseball hire, more or less playing the same role he did in Get Him to the Greek, with Pitt in place of Russell Brand. Like Brand did in Greek, Pitt portrays an eccentric but talented former star (Beane was an acclaimed baseball prospect who ultimately didn’t shake out) who forges an unlikely friendship in order to succeed.

The partnership here provides some predictable comedy, but not much else. Beane scraps his old advisors and buys into Brand’s complex computer models because he supposedly believes the power of hard data will manifest itself on the field given a large enough sample size. Yet, Beane is throwing baseball bats, slamming down phones and giving impassioned speeches to his players before the season is even half over. When the team surges from last to first, it seems more on account of Beane’s old hat baseball theatrics than any of Brand’s statistical premises. The team’s 20-game win streak, culminating in a walk-off victory that doubles as the film’s climax, is told in a drawn out, clichéd montage that seems wholly unrelated to the Pythagorean equations Brand presents in the opening minutes. Then, a subplot focusing on the relationship between Beane and his daughter attempts to add a personal flavor to the oft-told sports redemption story, and Red Sox owner John Henry endeavors to bring Beane and his baseball science to Boston, as the film slowly deteriorates into the Brad Pitt show.

All of this would be well and good were it not for the frequent references to statistical analysis. Moneyball purports to be about stat heads when it really just uses numbers as a convenient excuse to glorify one man’s personal struggle against the baseball establishment.