I know jacksquat about baseball, but I really liked Moneyball. I haven't liked anything Brad Pitt has done this much in years. A quietly thrilling movie. And the ending kind of choked me up.
Vonnie is me (except I like Brad Pitt in everything). I don't care about baseball at all, but I do like math, but even math isn't the point. What I loved about the movie was that it wasn't about baseball, it wasn't about math, it was about trying to change the game. It was about trying to introduce a revolutionary idea to a community that refuses to accept revolutionary ideas. It reminded me of all the books I've read about scientific progress and how basically every amazing breakthrough is immediately met with extreme skepticism and denial because no one wants to admit they could be wrong, no one wants to reevaluate Everything They Know to Be True.
It was a really thoughtful movie about an unusual topic. Props.
Wow. This is possibly the least flattering picture of Michael Fassbender I've ever seen: [link]
Also, that article cracked me the hell up, because I am twelve.
Imagine if you could also see his penis in that picture, though.
Thanks P-C and Vonnie. That is the view I was hoping other people were getting of Moneyball. I just know I'm so deep in my A's love. I was at every home game of that streak, so I have a very visceral response to that part of the story.
I kind of wish it had delved a bit deeper into the classism issue at the heart of it all. I also wondered about the true impact it had, besides the bit about the Red Sox winning using sabermetrics (it's kind of sad that apparently it never worked out for Beane himself...once again, the team with more money prevails). Another thought I had is that if this way of thinking caught on, wouldn't the undervalued players suddenly be worth more financially and ruin the whole plan?
new Hunger Games trailer! [link]
Another thought I had is that if this way of thinking caught on, wouldn't the undervalued players suddenly be worth more financially and ruin the whole plan?
What he tried to do was stay ahead of the curve and develop proprietary stats on things like defense, and rebuild the A's around that undervalued commodity. We actually made it out of the first round of the playoffs with that approach in 2006.
But basically (a) the Red Sox hired Bill James and both they and the Yankees had teams with massive On-Base Percentage offenses; and (b) Beane went all-in with a big contract to the homegrown Eric Chavez (a rarity being a non-steroidal, 30 HR, Gold Glove defensive third-baseman) and Chavez's shoulders blew out.
We also had cornered two stud pitchers in Dan Haren and Rich Harden that were as good as anybody in the league, and we were looking to build on that but Harden kept getting injured and Haren was traded off to rebuild the farm system. So we kind of got unlucky with injuries to Chavez and Harden who could've been perennial all-stars. Also our Rookie of the Year shortstop, Bobby Crosby, didn't improve but actually regressed.
Bottom Line: you can still find undervalued talent but if you have big money you can overcome your mistakes.
(Actually the next big Moneyball team was the Tampa Bay Rays who were a long-time loser team in the toughest division - the AL East with the Red Sox and the Yankees (who have massively huge budgets). Their front office guys were all out of Wall Street arbitrage and they found the great undervalued asset was actually young baseball players. This was due to the fact that baseball teams control players for the first six years of their career, and during this cost-controlled period most players are at their most productive. The Yankees went on a binge of high priced (older) free agents who were past their prime but the Rays developed from within and despite a crappy stadium, and poor attendance beat out the Yanks and Red Sox twice in the last couple years.)
new Hunger Games trailer! [link]
Interesting that they changed the story of
the mockingjay pin.
Not that it's not a good change.
Yeah, I'd already heard they
cut out the Mayor's daughter.
But what they show there sounds like it will work well too.
