Sept. 24: Moneyball

I suppose it isn't too hard to account for the hype of Bennett Miller's Moneyball with Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill as its stars, but a sports movie with a front office man as its main character doesn't sound like the type of film that should be filling the seats of the cineplex.

The GSD Staff took a break from long-term forecasting to sneak out of the office and catch the film. And it just about lived up to our expectations. The film is a cross between The Social Network and The Bad News Bears. Oakland A's General Manager Billy Beane has a groundbreaking idea--he wants to apply the new math of baseball to player evaluation--and old school baseball wisdom thinks Beane is a wacky outlier. Because the A's are first in the league in the fewest dollars spent per player, Beane seeks out those undervalued players that traditional statistics and observational scouting would not have identified as talented. At one point, Beane refers to the players he's seeking as baseball's version of "The Land of the Misfit Toys." Most of these misfits work out and are recognizable even today; others do not and at a critical point in the film are abruptly shipped off to other cities.

Once Beane's theory and team are in place, the film chronicles how the A's won 102 games in 2002. What the film (as well as Michael Lewis's book, on which the film is based) fails to mention even once is that A's pitching staff of that year was phenomenal. There's so much emphasis on run-production and scoring that it's almost inexcusable not to at least tip a cap to the A's pitching starters during that season. It would be like making The Social Network and failing to mention the Winklevoss twins.

We think the movie stands on its own even if you aren't a baseball fan. The film is about a progressive idea more than it is about a baseball idea, which is why comparisons to The Social Network are sure to fill the blogosphere. Jonah Hill is very good as Peter Brand, Beane's assistant stat yes-man, and you will also enjoy Kerris Dorsey, who plays Beane's guitar-playing 12-year-old daughter. The film's not as generation-defining as The Social Network, but it is definitely worth the $4.99 HD pay-per-view charge (when it becomes available).