I'm going to bypass the movie and watch a DVD of highlights from all the World Series championships the A's have won with Billy Beane as their general manager.

I think the book was a good baseball book.  I think there was alot in it that is true to how te game is played today.  Billy Bean isnt some wonder GM.  The A's are not a model of baseball success.  However just because a world series wasnt won doesnt mean the method isnt worth putting on paper.

APRTW wrote:

I think the book was a good baseball book.  I think there was alot in it that is true to how te game is played today.  Billy Bean isnt some wonder GM.  The A's are not a model of baseball success.  However just because a world series wasnt won doesnt mean the method isnt worth putting on paper.

I was trying to be funny and failed (again). In all sincerity, Moneyball requires me to accept some things I'm not willing to accept. The A's are not in a small market. In fact, they're in the fifth largest market in the country, if you throw in San Jose. That people aren't willing to go to that pig of a stadium built nearly 50 years ago doesn't make them a small market team.
I'm dismissive of Beane's dismissive "the playoffs are a crapshoot" mantra, the 2006 Cardinals notwithstanding. Sure, if Jeremy Giambi slides, they make the ALCS and maybe no one hears about a Yankee Dynasty. But every day, Beane passes through a lobby at work where there are 3 World Series trophies. The A's won those in 1972, 1973 and 1974 because they were the best team in baseball. There was no crapshoot.
OBP is a nice stat. We all like guys who get on base. But the A's go nowhere unless they draft Zito, Mulder and Hudson. Sure, Beane gets credit for being at the top of a system that developed them, but they didn't have that run of playoff appearances in the early 2000s because Scott Hatteberrg was drawing walks and extending pitch counts.
Some of the people on here and maybe even you may remember a guy named Don Coryell who was the head coach of the old football Cardinals and then the Chargers. Coryell was a genius. On offense. He made household names out of Jim Hart and Mel Gray and Terry Metcalf and Dan Fouts and John Jefferson and Kellen Winslow. But he never won or even made it to a Super Bowl, mostly because his team would lose in the playoffs by scores like 42-35.
Though they're horrible cliches, "defense wins championsips" in football is as true as "pitching is 90 percent of baseball." And the Moneyball mantra does nothing to address pitching.

artie_fufkin wrote:

Beane passes through a lobby at work where there are 3 World Series trophies. The A's won those in 1972, 1973 and 1974 because they were the best team in baseball.

I believe you are forgetting my favorite team of all time, the 1989 World Champion A's.

It's okay, had I not been a freshman in high school cutting out every day's clippings, I'd have probably forgotten too.

I think there are too many misconceptions about Moneyball still and I'm afraid this movie won't clear that up.

First, I watched the movie and enjoyed it. Brad Pitt was spectacular.

But the book and the movie really do the scouts dirty, which is still my biggest beef. Beane got his start as a scout and he never had the disdain for them the way Michael Lewis portrayed it.

So much of the A's success was because of scouting. Tim Hudson was a sixth round pick and Barry Zito was (I think) a 10th round pick. The players that built the backbone of those 100-win teams came through the farm. Lewis really glossed over how important scouting is.

As for Beane's approach, it was really not novel; it just made for a great story because the 2002 A's were decimated. He did what GM's did before him and found players that were being under-valued. What he did wasn't any different than what Walt Jocketty did with guys like Jim Edmonds, Darryl Kile, Jeff Suppan and others.

"Moneyball" seems to be the only thing people have read about Beane and the wrong idea has formed around him, which leads to resentment. That's probably to be expected when someone writes a book extolling your genius. La Russa has gained that reputation as well and I'd say it's quite unfair. Him and La Russa have a lot in common, mostly with the unreal expectations placed upon them and how their critics are delighted when they fail.

Finally, I still don't see how anyone could look at the playoffs and not agree that it's a crap shoot. If the best team always prevailed, we'd be talking about the Cardinals trying to reach the playoffs to take on the 2010 World Series Champion Philadelphia Phillies and we'd be referring to Atlanta as "Title Town."

Do I lose my Man Card if I think Brad Pitt is a good actor?

artie_fufkin wrote:

Do I lose my Man Card if I think Brad Pitt is a good actor?

I like Pitt.  He has done plent of manly movies.  Fight Club was awesome.

i liked 'a river runs through it', but that's probably 15-20 years old now.

Max wrote:

i liked 'a river runs through it', but that's probably 15-20 years old now.

Very good movie. Legends of the Fall was good, too.

artie_fufkin wrote:

Max wrote:

i liked 'a river runs through it', but that's probably 15-20 years old now.

Very good movie. Legends of the Fall was good, too.

Haven't seen it.  I remember his first (?) try at Oscar-worthy material was "Seven Years in Tibet".  A movie that should have been recut and sold as "A Few Months in Tibet".

Just watched Moneyball.  It really was a good movie.  For those who dont buy into the book or the idea in general, for those who think Bean is nothing more then an over inflated ego, I think if you put that aside you will really enjoy the movie.  It is a good baseball movie even if the reality of it is blurred to some degree.