Meh: "Moneyball" Movie Is Flawed, Inconsistent, Overrated

which is why the movie was a good movie, and the book was a great book. Great point about the random outrage that didn’t make sense from Brad Pitt though.

I doubt there’s ever been a movie even close to that, outside documentaries.

There’s definitely some caricaturing, but by and large it’s still quite interesting.

Personal choice.

Anywho…

I don’t like going after Alonso. He’s a 1B only and if the A’s think they can hide him in the OF then they’re wrong.

That said, assuming Jim Bowden hears true…

Alonso moves to the head of the 1B pile. Allen plays the best OF of the Allen/Carter/Kilo/Barton quartet so he’s pencilled in to LF. Carter/Kila fighting for DH. Barton is the odd man out, but the A’s probably need to showcase him in Spring Training to trade him for value. His 2012 salary is going to be ~$1.6 million; if the A’s take him to arbitration then only a small portion of that is guaranteed if they need to cut him prior to Opening Day. But if Barton shows he’s healthy (or there’s sufficient belief in his health now) then Cleveland, Toronto and Tampa are among the teams looking for a 1B upgrade and would appreciate the OBP and defense at a low cost. Toronto and Tampa have the richer farm systems, since Cleveland used up some prospects chasing the AL Central last year.

Riffing off that… if Barton holds value NOW, then Barton+Gio to Toronto would bring back a substantial haul.

successful front office would be all that interesting, so Lewis took some liberties with the truth. It’s not all that fascinating to say that two first round draft picks were successful and a sixth round pick also turned out well. Similar things happen all the time with successful teams. This “Beane is a genius” narrative really annoys me.

this is just heartbreaking for European baseball community.

You might be onto something, but the open SS positions are rapidly filling up…

Even if he isn’t a star, just to be a competent SS at the major league level is something, and Pennington is relatively young and inexpensive.

I think Cincinnati is among the teams that could use him, if they are unable to sign a decent FA they can afford. They tried a variety of prospects and veterans there, but none really stuck and it’s a weak spot for them if they intend to contend in 2012 and 2013.

As always, the question is how much is offered in return.

Broxton being chased by 10 teams proves this. Bailey is your best bargain.

apparently

CC Sabathia, James Shields, and guess the third please.

insightful.

I agree, in particular, with your point that by embracing the movie’s contradictions, we land in that gray-area that actually represents baseball and life. The movie isn’t saying that saber-metrics were the one factor in the A’s winning 20 straight games, precisely because it shows Billy making moves like signing Justice and ditching JeGiambi for reasons of clubhouse chemistry.

I also agree with Nico that this was not the greatest movie ever made. It’s not even the greatest movie of the year (see Martha Marcy May Marlene.) But really, what baseball or sports movie is? “Field of Dreams” is great, but Kevin Costner is maybe the worst actor of all time. “Major League” will probably forever be my favorite sports movie, but that was by no means ever considered worthy of an Oscar. (Then again, the Oscars are hardly ever meaningful.)

However, “Moneyball” does a lot of things right. In particular, as Menechino mentions, it’s an interesting portrait of a contradictory character in Billy Beane and also, his sidekick “Peter Brand.” It also focuses, to a smaller extent, on the impact trades and signings have on the personal life of baseball players, which I suppose I had never appreciated before. Particularly heartbreaking was the scene where Billy had to tell Mike Magnante he’d been demoted. Hard to watch, especially because you can see Mike go through his daily routine of putting his leg straps on in preparation to maybe get a call from the pen to maybe get a chance to turn his season around, and then his life is turned upside down by the news of his demotion. It’s these specifics that resonate with everybody, not just us big A’s fans.

In general, I’m glad the movie came out to such good reviews because the A’s can certainly use the publicity. And who knows? Maybe Bud Selig saw it, and that’s what is suddenly lighting a fire under his old, crusty bum to get the A’s a new stadium. I’d prefer if it were in Oakland, but let’s just get it done.

Once you get past that the book and movie are different, it frees you to more enjoy it.

I also was impressed with the job done by Kerris Dorsey in portraying Casey Beane.

Shakespeare, Christmas carols, and Appalachian hillbillies.

If we do trade for Alonso, I look forward to posting: “A thrill of hope! The weary world rejoices, for Yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!”

“There” and “yon” actually didn’t mean the same thing originally: just as there are three grammatical persons in English (1st = “I” 2nd = “you” 3rd = “he/she/it”), there are three demonstratives (“this” = close to me, “that” = close to you, “yon” = close to neither of us).

“That Alonso over there” is technically a different Alonso from “Yon Alonso yonder.” “That Alonso” is close to the addressee — “Yon Alonso” is close to neither the addressee nor the speaker. But the that/yon distinction has been lost in English, so now it’s just an archaic-sounding synonym for “that”.

I always expect at least one person will try to be “controversial” in a vote and prove how ridiculous it is.

Bloody iPhone.

It seemed like a good number.

For them – and for the entertainment value of the movie – it doesn’t matter. The inconsistencies and contradictions will only be seen by fans who lived through the streak or who follow/followed the A’s closely. If you recall – the script went through more than one revision – it was gonna be made/wasn’t gonna be made and almost wasn’t made. I suspect that some of the things you note or the actuality of what was going on that season got cut in favor of a “better” story – a story that the general public could connect with baseball fan or not. A documentary could not get away with the inaccuracies – but a “story based on” can and I think that’’s what we have here. The movie highlighted enough of the philosophy, I think, to get people wondering about it. BUT I can not actually say because my fandom severely biases me. It did not impact me as deeply as some I know who have seen it. I knew the events too well and it did not seem new or fresh. BUT I enjoyed it immensely. I liked it for some of the reasons others here have stated. I don’t think one walks away with a finer understanding of the metrics which are the root of the story. For good or for bad – it’s not THAT movie. It is a feel good movie and I felt good when it premiered and when I watched it. I love my team and it was a nice way to end a crappy season – recalling some of the glory of that streak – which I suspect will be a long time before being broken. Nothing wrong with that team being in the record book for a while and those fabulous days of that summer in our minds because of “Moneyball” the movie.

I watched it like “This is a movie about Billy Beane.” Besides, your inconsistencies were more about the events themselves, and those facts are unarguable.

I don’t think good storytelling and something that is about life necessarily has to have a dogmatic adherence to a particular theme or thought. The high OBP players don’t always have to be kept and succeed for me to find it excellent.

I guess I don’t really see the point of this post other than a three-month-late “MONEYBALL THE MOVIE IS BAD AND YOU ALL ARE BAD FOR THINKING IT’S PRETTY”. I don’t really understand the point of refuting the argument because I don’t get why it’s being made like this?

Menechino_Incarnate just explained exactly why Moneyball worked as a movie. Why don’t you post an answer in that sub-thread rather this snarky I’m-right-and-the-rest-of-you-can-eat-worms comment?
 
Also, I agree with Kyli regarding the timing of this post.

As an A’s fan, of course I enjoyed seeing the back of Billy Beane’s head while he’s standing in the distance. But honestly, and this is just a subjective opinion, I don’t really understand the fuss about the back of your head. I mean sure, it’s extremely attractive, but it seems like it’s pretty much the same character in every movie it’s ever been in.