Moneyball

I don't know, tell me.

[hit CTRL-A to view]

Only 1 of the top 50 MLB leaders in OBP was on Oakland, Mr. Erubiel Durazo (sp?). If you narrow that sort to just AL, only 4 of the top 50 OBP leaders are As.

Oakland finished the 2003 season 21st out of 30 in team OBP. Take some pitches guys!

http://www.csfb.com/thoughtleaderforum/2003/depodesta_sidecolumn.shtml

http://www.csfb.com/thoughtleaderforum/2003/images/depodesta_b1.gif

Kevin Youkilis is the A's kind of player. So much so that he's mentioned in that tome of A's-ness, "Moneyball,'' which detailed how much Oakland general manager Billy Beane had coveted him in 2001.

"It's great to be in the book and to get that recognition, but it was a crazy year with all the questions about 'Moneyball,' '' the Red Sox rookie said. "It's nice to know that somebody sees me as an asset. Ever since college, (the A's) wanted to draft me, but something happened and the scouting department screwed up. It's all in the book.''

Not that Youkilis, who spent four years at the University of Cincinnati, read it all. "I'm not a big book guy,'' he said, grinning. "I read most of the parts with me in it.''

Here's one surprise for those familiar with the best-seller. The A's front office dubbed Youkilis "the Greek God of Walks'' for his on-base prowess -- but he's not Greek. The name is Greek, but it's one his Romanian grandfather adopted.

"I'm the non-Greek Romanian God of Walks,'' Youkilis said with a laugh.

Youkilis, 25, showed why he fits the A's way the past two days, reaching base six times. He's been on base in each of his eight big-league games.

Could he ever wind up in Oakland? (He nearly did once -- had Beane taken the Red Sox's GM job two winters ago, Youkilis would have been the compensation for him.) Youkilis loves playing in Boston, but he does have a Bay Area connection: Beane will be happy to learn that Youkilis' brother, Scott, lives in San Francisco and works at Sociale restaurant in Presidio Heights.

"I don't think Theo (Epstein, the Red Sox's GM) will let me leave here,'' Youkilis said. "But you never know, they've been fighting over me for a couple of years.''

That goes right into the recruitment mailings!

BTW, KY has been godlike (or, at least, very good) since coming up. That .440ish OBP is very sexy.

Billy Beane gave some pretty good needles while defending his former lieutenant DePo:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=3321

"I talked to Paul this morning and asked if he could acquire some chemistry from another GM whose team is out of the race. But I'm concerned chemistry might not clear waivers."

"The fact is, they appear, at least in early returns, to be a better team. They appear to have more flexibility to make themselves a better team next year. Maybe I've got this wrong, but getting better and creating flexibility would be my approach whatever market I'm in."

The secondary drumbeat has been the "defensively sound" post-Nomar Sox and their two new mediocre bats. I listened to Assface Brantley and STEVE FRIGGIN' PHILLIPS join in on ESPN during the Bosox-Tampa Bay game last night. "Theo Epstein is moving away from Moneyball strategy, relying more on steals and defense," said The Man Who Signed Fat Mo. "Where does leadership fit in the Moneyball world?" drawled Brantley. I really wanna see the Dodgers flourish and the Indians beat out the good-glove Crimson Cranks for the w.c. to let the Jurassic crowd stew all autmn and winter...

I wonder if Penny's injury will significantly affect LA down the stretch. I'd take either your scenario above or the A's actually winning a postseason series.

take a look at what mr. moneyball and the a's have done over the past couple years.

do keep up.

Valuing Cabrera/Minky defense over Nomar offense is anti-Moneyball.

>take a look at what mr. moneyball and the a's have done over the past couple years

Hmmm, not sure whatcha mean -- Mark Kotsay? Good CF glove, but a stud at the plate this year too...

how do you know? and might this be oversimplifying things somewhat fantastically?

kotsay, cameron (who beane made a hard charge at), ellis, chavez are all positively exceptional defensively (at least as judged by advanced defensive metrics such as UZR or the A's own metric, which seem to produce similar findings). there's also the acquisitions of pokey reese, orlando cabrera, and doug mienkiewicz from a team which i could've sworn was thought to be very much sabermetrically-inclined until they started going against the grain; now they're on the side of the infidels and not a fair benchmark by which to judge sabermetric achievement - on the contrary, their failure will prove the folly in "caving" to old-world baseball principles. don't be afraid to stick to your guns, theo: you're supposed to go after after fat, slow guys who can mash, remember? leave the athletic defense-and-speed types for the uninitiated.

as usual, the disparity in thought here can be pegged on a trifle: bp uses an outdated metric to evaluate defense and is too stubborn to admit it. but elsewhere in the stat-world, defense is the new obp.

either that was my point, or i don't understand what you're saying.

Wellll... that's crazytalk! Offense for most individual players is X times as important as defense. Paul Blair isn't in the HOF, Reggie Jackson is.

Remember the Moneyball chapter where the A's studied how many outs letting Johnny Damon leave would cost them in CF? They got a number, and concluded they could more than make it up with offense. Nothing wrong with valuing defense highly -- it helps win games -- but there is with OVERvaluing it, which the littleball / oldskool guys do by rote.

i think it's become pretty clear lately that this isn't always the case.

over at redbird nation they quote a for-pay sheehan article on pitchers:

"Whether it's the physical toll, the mental strain or just the way the world spins, the vast majority of pitchers are completely unpredictable. They get good, and they get bad, and they get to all points in between, and they do so randomly. This is why, when it comes to building a team, I don't see any need to spend money on the middle of the pitching bell curve. If you can invest in the top tier, then you should do so. Get Johnson or Greg Maddux or Roger Clemens. Money spent on the Sidney Ponson class is money thrown away, because the chances of getting three straight good years from a guy like that is tiny. So you build a staff around the very best, then fill in around it with low-risk gambles and guys you develop."

this is sooo right. unless you're the yankees, spending 12M on a guy like millwood, colon, ponson or pettitte is generally a pretty dumb thing to do.

Is this the closest thing to a SABR-coach?

LIVE PERFORMANCES BY:
The Vice
&
The Peels
plus DJ Cliff Huxtable

Should I bring my 1st edition of Moneyball?

Headshot
Logo

A's general manager Billy Beane, a master at building winning teams on shoestring budgets, spoke with Insider Ken Rosenthal in an interview that will air for the first time Sunday on FOX Sports Net Across America.

TSN: Compare this year's A's team to the past four that made it to the postseason.
BB: This is probably the most resilient team we've had since I've been here. It's probably been the most consistent one. We've had more injuries this year than we've had in previous years. But yet these guys have been very consistent. They haven't had the great runs, nor have they had the times where they've struggled for two or three weeks.

TSN: Strong second halves have been the hallmark of your A's teams. How have they come about?
BB: It always starts with having good starting pitching, and we've had good, young starting pitching. We've always made adjustments in the middle of the season, and I think youth helps a lot. I remember in 2000 we made the playoffs, and people were saying the team wouldn't make the playoffs because the starting pitching was too young. We took the reverse approach, thinking, wouldn't you rather have young starting pitching so you'd maintain their health and they'd get better as the season went along?

We made the playoffs in 2000 on the last pitch of the last game of the season. When you're out by eight games in August and you overtake a team, you understand what a 162-game season means. There's really no panic in these guys. It's a pretty battle-tough group.

TSN: Some thought the fallout from last year's book Moneyball would make it difficult for you to make trades. Has that been true?
BB: No. We've probably made as many trades as anybody. This is a business where people are trying to improve themselves. There's only 29 people we can deal with, and that's the same as every other G.M. If you start eliminating possibilities for improving your team, you're probably doing your franchise and the city you represent a disservice.

TSN: For many, the way you run the A's boils down to statistical analysis vs. traditional scouting. Is it that cut-and-dried?
BB: I don't spend a lot of time trying to decide. J.P. Ricciardi (now the Blue Jays' G.M.) was my righthand guy, he was my scout. One of the best scouts in the industry. The idea that we don't rely on that in Oakland is foolish. To not take advantage of every piece of information is foolish, and for us, it's all about risk management and probabilistic decision-making.

TSN: For all the talk of stressing on-base percentage, the A's wouldn't be the A's if you hadn't drafted Hudson, Mulder and Zito. How much luck is involved when three such draft picks become your foundation?
BB: Any time you're dealing with the amateur draft, you're going to need some luck. Understand, too, they're college pitchers from high-profile programs, which is what we do draft. Is there luck? No question, but understand that's our approach.

TSN: Ever dream about a $183 million payroll?
BB: That might be too much. I might tell them to keep a little bit. The perfect amount of money to work with, it's not the top and it's not the bottom. If you took the major league average, that would be the ideal payroll to deal with. It keeps you disciplined, and you do get to make great decisions. Look at a club like St. Louis. To me, that's the perfect situation to deal with.

La Russa's response to 'Moneyball'

By Bill Kolb

CONTRA COSTA TIMES

It's about a three-game series between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs in the heat of an August pennant race. It's about the distillation of one man's 40-plus year career in baseball into a series, a season, and 270 potent pages.

It's not a response to Michael Lewis' "Moneyball". It offers glaring counterpoints to "Moneyball", directly and indirectly, at almost every turn.

Buzz Bissinger's latest offering, "Three Nights in August: Strategy, Heartbreak, and Joy Inside the Mind of a Manager," can accurately be described in two words: delightfully contradictory.

Or contradictorily delightful. You pick.

"Three Nights," a Houghton Mifflin publication scheduled to hit stores April 4, is the product of a collaboration between longtime major league manager Tony La Russa and Bissinger, author of the critically acclaimed "Friday Night Lights" and a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist.

Let's start with the title: "Three Nights in August." Yes, the three-game Cardinals-Cubs series comprises the underlying framework of the book. No, it is not really about that series.

Bissinger uses the trials and tribulations experienced by La Russa and the Cardinals in the course of that series to extrapolate larger, more general observations about the game and life from a man who has managed almost continuously in the major leagues for over 25 seasons with the White Sox, A's and Cardinals, and has won one World Series and five Manager of the Year awards.

Despite his exhortation in the book's prologue that, "This book is not conceived as a response to 'Moneyball,'" Bissinger, ostensibly with La Russa's approval, goes on to mitigate some of the supposed absolutes extolled by Billy Beane in Lewis' work.

"La Russa appreciated the information generated by computers," Bissinger writes. "He studied the rows and columns. But he also knew they could take you only so far in baseball, maybe even confuse you in a fog of overanalysis."

La Russa embraces the humanity of the players for whom he is responsible, asserts that they are more than just statistical sets to be plugged into the grand equation of the game.

Chances are you will walk away from the book with a handful of new insights into the mind of a successful major league manager, and a fresh look at some of the opportunity costs of living the life of a "baseball man" -- things like family and a personal life.

You'll re-examine the hit-and-run through La Russa's eyes, maybe start to think about pitchers, pitching and the starting rotation in a new light.

You'll also have a new grasp on some of the non-baseball issues modern managers have to deal with, and how they handle baseball's archetypal problem children like the pouting bench player and the nonchalant superstar.

Your distaste for Jose Canseco -- whom La Russa calls "the most talented player he has ever managed" -- if it hasn't already hit rock bottom, likely will deepen. Your appreciation for the work ethic and drive of "The Great" Albert Pujols -- "the best player (La Russa) has ever managed" -- will soar, even if La Russa's likening of Pujols' battles against Mark Prior to DiMaggio-Feller, Mays-Gibson and Aaron-Drysdale might be a bit premature.

You might even find yourself rooting for a player, Cal Eldred, to whom you had never given a second thought.

And if the section of the book on the passing of Cardinals pitcher Darryl Kile, entitled simply "D.K.," doesn't choke you up a little bit, there's a good chance you're not human.

dude they still hold 'em upside down before they give 'em to ya.

it was all about the suicide soda, bros.

Fuck, them's fighting words.

that's even worse. "my handpuppet."

Really, it is great (like duuuuuuuuuuuuh), and I am getting a little bit of the "oh wow" recognition thing, seeing the names of players mentioned here getting love on the major league level (cf. Francis, Grienke, Greene, Adams, Teahen, and, of course, Jeremy "Chair-Toss Inspiring" Bonderman). MORE MONEYBALL DAMMIT!

News
When the Athletics traded Tim Hudson to the Braves this past offseason, general manager Billy Beane insisted that left handed pitching prospect Dan Meyer be included in the deal. After a 1-3 record, 6.62 ERA, and noticeable loss in velocity at Triple-A Sacramento, Meyer was shut down indefinitely late last week, according to Baseball America.

Views
When pitcher Rich Harden went out with a strained oblique injury, chances are some people in prospect circles were calling for Meyer as a possible replacement. While it was unlikely the Athletics would go that route even if health wasn't an issue, it's that much less likely now. The team is setting no timetable for his return and will take their time to discover the reason for Meyer's lack of success this season.

moneyball is indeed amazing. it should be 5000000000 pages long.

i'm reading ball four for the trillionth time right now. good god it's amazing.

Be sure to dive right into that vomit-caked Mets' wives opening chapter, Stenc.

It's been so long since I read MB I don't recall Greinke in it.

HENCE MY NEW TEAM NICKNAME

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/chat/chat.php?chatId=129

"I'm having a hard time keeping up with the literature that attempts to refute Moneyball. (Much of the time I can't figure out why they bother to refute a thing that was never said--say, for example, that the Atlanta Braves are not very successful, or that there are not other ways to win baseball games than the way Oakland wins baseball games.)...

"Billy Beane had no clue what the book was about until he saw the galleys--and got upset with me. In fairness to Joe Morgan--though why start now?--a lot of sports books are as-told-to affairs. He probably has never been fully exposed to the old fashioned idea of the author."

Book Description
Stats vs. Scouts. Math vs. Makeup. Computers vs. Commuters. College vs. High-School. The debate is a new one in baseball, and it has recently taken on a life of its own. Ever since Michael Lewis’ best-seller Moneyball arrived on the scene, and spurred by the recent World Series victory by the sabermetric advocate Boston Red Sox, the dispute about the best way to build a professional baseball team has raged out of control - until now. In this fascinating and insightful look into what criteria major and minor league baseball scouts use to determine talent, Scout’s Honor shines a bright light on the job done by ‘old-school’ scouts and their killer instincts. The author uses the success of the Atlanta Braves as the focal point for a mesmerizing investigation into the debate of stats versus scouts, and why, if it’s a successful franchise you’re after, there is no debate about the bravest way to build a winning team.
"What makes Scout’s Honor so great is that it brings us into the world of those who determine successful big leaguers by looking into the future, not by looking back at spreadsheets and stats. Now that takes talent. ‘Old-school’ wins, literally. This book is a worthy foil to the Moneyballers." - Lyle Spencer

WTF, that doesn't make the least bit of sense. I guess they're arguing that "stats" = "numbers compiled in the past" and therefore they have limited predictive value ... which still makes no sense. Never mind, trying to interpret these garbage arguments isn't worth our time.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/mariners/2002334979_sabermetrics14.html

http://baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=4216

And the Baseball Prospectus crew's forthcoming analysis of the Red Sox' use of smartball (Goldman said last night it should beout in early September):

http://www.workman.com/catalog/pagemaker.cgi?0761140182

It'll be very interesting to see the awareness level and reception this book gets in the sports media and baseball industry.

??????

are they honestly gonna fucking argue that foulke's better than rivera, or are they talking abt usage?

i'd like to get this for insider info, but i don't think i could stand any sox-worshipping. i know goldman's a yankees fan and he'll probably do a pretty good job at being objective and whatnot, but i think i should've written this book.

silver's major beef w/ scout's honor (its anti-moneyball polemicism) is the one and only reason i'm not interested in the book.

Don't forget the Red Sox to some degree took more performance-analysis-related shit than the A's: the bullpen-by-committee [sic] feeding frenzy in early 2003, the hiring of Bill James, the defense issues around the Nomar trade, etc.

i don't think i could stomach it.

also
"Jim Baker on why star players shouldn’t hurl themselves into the stands"

fuck that shit. i mean seroiusly, what the fuck. ppl seem to have forgotten just how important that out was.

Shanks then ends the book with a direct assault on Moneyball:

There are two differences that set the A's and the other 'Moneyballers' apart from the rest of baseball. First, their use of statistics is extreme, believing that on-base percentage is the primary indication of big-league success, and that stats override makeup in determining who will make it to the show. Also, speed and defense are trivial. It's all about OBP.

Secondly, due to their financial restrictions, the A's claim that if they're going to spend money on draft picks, they must not miss. They feel the best way to get a value pick is to emphasize college players and to almost ignore talent from the high school level.

(i don't know what's said after this in the piece so i might be redundant here)

shanks is essentially arguing with michael lewis here. this may've been the model put forth in Moneyball (but i'm not certain and it's almost certainly even further oversimplified here), and it might well've been the a's model at the time, but it's got almost nothing to do w/ how the a's have won games over the past 3 years (or drafted this year). obv central thesis = finding undervalued quantities. those quantities of the moment, in beane's view, seem to be defense, and high school arms. beane's ability to adapt and the fluidity of his sytem are things everyone should be able to respect, and shanks not even bothering to take a deeper, or at least current, look at what's going on in oakland is telling.

Yes! in the book (and in your friendly neighborhood MBA-program), this is referred to as "exploiting inefficiencies in the market".

I seem to recall NYY & BOS both made the playoffs comfortably, ie not so important. And Jeetz was lionized for a week.

i mean is anyone calling torii hunter a jackass for banging into those garbagebag-lined twindome walls all the time?

[Reyes'] OBP is currently ranked 152nd among major-league qualifiers and yet he has been the lead-off man for the Mets in 85 games to date. I think there comes a point when a manager gets so sick of hearing a criticism that he digs in his heels and refuses to budge in spite of overwhelming evidence that he's been making a mistake. At this point, Willie Randolph probably thinks it would be a sign of weakness to give in to his critics and drop Reyes to the eighth spot in the order where he belongs. The only other explanation would be that he thinks batting Reyes leadoff helps the team. That can't possibly be the case, though, can it?

basically blows, but i'm a sucker for profiles.

by Gary Richards
Mercury News

Magical moments in life can pop up most unexpectedly.

Like on an airplane trip from Oakland to Chicago last December for my 13-year-old son, Matt, and my wife, Jan.

The seat next to Matt was empty, the last one on the flight. The plane was about to take off when a young man wearing a baseball hat, his wrist clearly healing from some injury, dashed down the aisle, asking if he could take the vacant seat.

As they settled in for the four-hour trip, Jan asked what happened to his hand. He said he got hit by a pitch. It didn't look like a rec league injury, so she asked more about it. ``It happened in spring training,'' he said.

``Oh, really? Who do you play for?'' she replied.

``The A's,'' said the young guy with the engaging smile.

His name: ``Nick Swisher. My dad, Steve, played for the Cubs for a few years.''

Matt sat silently. Later, he would say: ``Mom, when he said his name, my spine froze.''

Matt had devoured ``Moneyball,'' the book on the A's the year after they drafted Swisher. For nearly four hours, they talked baseball, about Nick's upbringing as the son of a big leaguer, more baseball, and his love for his grandmother who would pass away this summer.

They were like two kids, talking about their passion for the game. Only one had just graduated from Little League, and the other had just joined the big leagues.

Matt asked what time players got to the park for a night game. Nick said around midafternoon. They would hit, field and stretch, then head back to the clubhouse.

``Then guess what,'' Nick said. ``You ought to see the neat video games we play.''

For Matt, that plane ride was Christmas.

But the story gets better.

We went early to a game in June and headed toward the A's dugout. Matt wanted to say hi to Swisher. I feared Nick might not remember him. Just before the first pitch, Swisher started out of the dugout. ``Nick!'' Matt yelled.

Swisher began an obligatory wave, then spotted Matt. A big grin came over the face of the rookie right fielder, who cheerfully trotted over and chatted with the boy he remembered.

A few nights later, our daughter, Anne, called from the restaurant in Berkeley where she worked and said Swisher would be there for a radio show. Did Matt want to come?

For nearly half an hour, the two chatted like the pals they had become, Swisher excitedly telling his girlfriend, ``This is the kid from the airplane, the one I told you about!''

I came later to pick Matt up, and over the din of the crowd I whispered to Swisher, ``You have made a young boy very happy.''

And a Mom and Dad, too.

what teams players are on average underpaid? i got twins, indians, marlins (but not d-rays or royals)(trim them payrolls boys! trim that fat!), who else?

Albert Pujols
1B, St. Louis Cardinals
Contract Salary: $14,000,000
Moneyball Salary: $24,563,308

Brad Thompson
P, St. Louis Cardinals
Contract Salary: $334,000
Moneyball Salary: $8,550,189

Adam Wainwright
P, St. Louis Cardinals
Contract Salary: $327,000
Moneyball Salary: $8,526,061

A) wonder why Brad Thompson is worth as much as Adam Wainwright?
B) wonder who on earth would pay closer salaries for middle relief?

where are they now

Hey this reminds me, can someone repost the link to that page with a fancy chart that links a team's performance to its salary?

-- INSANE CLOWN FOSSE (Adrian Langston), Monday, June 12, 2006 8:46 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Link

i found that fancy fuccn chart btw

http://benfry.com/salaryper/index.html

whoa that is awesome

how the fuck is CHI above STL

by virtue of a better record? by having a higher team salary?

i don't understand the question.

The Bosox have "the Greek God of Walks," don't they? I wanna see him play!!

-- Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 21 January 2004 01:58 (4 years ago) Link
Not at Bill Mueller's expense I hope!

-- Leee Majors (Leee), Wednesday, 21 January 2004 22:01 (4 years ago)

hahahahahahaha

funny. on an o's bb i post on, someone has a sig "nick markakis: the REAL greek god of walks."

(youkilis is romanian)

i found that fancy fuccn chart btw

http://benfry.com/salaryper/index.html

<3 the Rays!!!

The chart's nifty but active player salary is a poor indicator of true franchise roi, as it omits dead weight salaries, deferred compensation, bonus, etc.

http://www.azsnakepit.com/2008/6/16/553164/interesting-statistics#comments

The Diamondbacks are paying Russ Ortiz $8M!?!?! Jesus that's awful.

Can you imagine how depressing that would be? The Dbacks people call him the Huge Manatee.

That's why salary charts are kind of misleading.

Well that's why this particular chart is misleading. You could make one at the end of the year that calculated bonuses and debited salary you took on or sloughed off, I guess.

You could have signed eight Mark Priors having season-ending surgery for the price of one Manatee.

Well "misleading" is a bit strong. It is a good indicator of how the paid employees who are actually working are performing. But it probably does not indicate which franchises are spending wisely or anything like that.

supposedly beane is prepared to spend $4M plus on 16 year old superfreak pitcher michael inoa - previous bonus baby record for a pitcher was a little over 1 mil i believe

amazing how much baseball hasa changed in 5 years

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2008/06/gm-trade-histor.html

Beane doesn't like to spend money on high school players, only jr. high school players.

This Inoa kid is a freak apparently.

"amazing how much baseball hasa changed in 5 years"

I assume you are talking about how well off it is financially, not some change in Beane's modus operandi (which hasn't really changed.)

Ricciardi should really not pick up the phone when Beane calls.

hmm well its certainly evidence that his stubbornness hasnt changed (in that hes obv sticking to his guns hell/high water) - but i do think the A's being a frontrunner for the most expensive bonus baby ever is pretty interesting, esp considering he's a fireballing scouts dream who'd be a soph. in HS right now

the reds of all teams have been the biggest players on the intl front this year - i think youre right that it is mostly about the money, but still interesting stuff

Smart teams are def. realizing that spending money on Latin American talent can basically = getting a top draft pick without having to be Kansas City or Washington. Worth a couple of million dollars I think (less than Rick Porcello got hah!)

You could make one at the end of the year that calculated bonuses and debited salary you took on or sloughed off, I guess.

-- Alex in SF, Friday, June 27, 2008 11:59 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Link

Maybe you could, actually. It would probably be pretty cumbersome to gather the empirical data but it's probably out there.

Anyway, all the benfry chart is trying to do is translate current salary dollars into wins (as opposed to profit). Moneyball focused on the art of winning, not the art of making money.

I suppose for that you'd read Vince Genarro.

right, latin america def was (before this year) the latest obvious area of market inefficiency ripe for exploitation - theres no doubt a lot of those kids were way way undervalued

totally predictable tho, makes you realize how relevant the book still is - the people running this game are idiots!

Chart that calculated bonuses and debited salary took on or sloughed off:

http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2008/01/payroll_efficie.php

Word on the street is Inoa is the A's:

http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/international-affairs/2008/266411.html

fancy fuccn chart is pretty but would be more useful w/ slopes!

"Slopes"? I thought this was ILBB? Instead it's just a bunch of nerds.

i think he was using a slur against ur ppl leee :(

anyway, so I can't back up the veracity of this, but I read this thing where Inoa was set to sign with the Yankees for $2.7 million - and then he hired his jew agent Andy Katz, who raised the price to a $3.5 million minimum. NY went "F THAT."

moral of the story: always hire a http://209.85.62.26/12257/100/emo/jewmoney.gif agent

That doesn't make any sense as a moral to the story.

moral of the story: get it in writing (and avoid controversial GIFs)

Several scouts have told BA that Inoa is a once-in-a-generation talent, thanks to his 6-foot-7, 210-pound frame, athletic bloodlines and present stuff.

^^^^^ THIS SHOULD BE UP NEAR THE TOP OF THE INVERTED PYRAMID THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT.

lol "bloodlines" sounds like they're talking about a horse

cankles has a point!

fukudome = too many asians on the internets

-- bnw

Future Shock
Michel Inoa 101

by Kevin Goldstein

What Is His Name? Michel Inoa. The first name has a French pronunciation: mee-SHELL.

Who Is He? A 16-year-old right-handed pitcher from the Dominican Republic. He's six-foot-seven and somewhere just over 200 pounds.

What's So Good About Him That Someone Would Pay $4.25 million? Based on numerous discussions with scouts, the answer is... pretty much everything. "I only got a two-inning look, but those two innings will not be erased from my memory any time soon," said one scouting official. "Right now he's in the low 90s, with the potential for a plus breaking ball, the ability to throw strikes, and a clean arm action." At some showcase events, Inoa also threw a split-fingered fastball described as "downright dirty." Another pro scout also noted his outstanding mechanics: "He's six-foot-seven and so young, you'd think he'd have a lot of moving parts, but that's just not the case. It sounds weird, but if you can say a kid that big has a compact delivery, I would. He has a medium leg kick and a quick arm. It suddenly comes out of his hand and it's friggin' 94." Another veteran scouting director called Inoa "the model of what you are looking for if you are evaluating young arms. It's a very nice combination of project and ‘now' stuff, which you just don't find down there."

So There Has To Be At Least Some Negatives Here, Right? Not really. Most of the questions come with the risk involved because of his age. Obviously, there is a long distance between Michel Inoa the Dominican wunderkind and Michel Inoa the big league pitcher. Specific criticisms of him from the experts border on nitpicking. "He needs to work on the little things, like holding runners on base," noted one scout. "But that's because nobody has reached base against him." Another international scout had some concerns about his body and arm speed. "He has a thin-boned frame, and he's not going to put on a bunch of weight," said the evaluator. "So I guess there is some question about the body type holding up. His arm is so quick, and for that body type you do wonder a bit about it being too fast for his body and putting strain on the joints." A third scout had no real concerns, which is amazing for a 16-year-old, adding, "Look, if he doesn't make it, it's because he got hurt or something else out of Oakland's control—it's certainly not going to be because he sucks."

An additional question involves his lack of experience, since Inoa has so far only pitched at highly controlled events that were arranged for scouts. "When you think of even these 18-year-old kids we draft," said one front office official, "We've seen them for years in real games, and we've seen them in showcases against the top talent in the country. With Inoa, we just haven't seen him in a true competitive environment."

How Historic Is His Talent? In numerous discussions with scouts and front office officials, Inoa is almost universally seen as the best pitching prospect to come out of the Dominican. If you spread the argument out to include all of Latin America, some say that Felix Hernandez was better at the same age. One official with decades of experience said, "I've been doing this a very long time—(Josh) Beckett was better at 16 because he threw harder and had that monster curve; (Rick) Porcello was better at 16 for the same reasons; as was Felix. Every other 16-year-old I've seen—this guy (Inoa) is better than them." Another echoed similar sentiments. "I've been going to high school showcases like the Area Code games for years," he said. "And I've never seen anything like this."

But $4.25 Million? That's Kind Of Crazy, Right? Yes and no. Welcome to the new economy when it comes to international talent. "I mean, it's crazy for down there, but we knew the money would be crazy this year," said one scout. "Clubs are throwing around lots of money down there now—and paying three-to-five hundred thousand for frankly some pretty mediocre talent." With the big inflation taking place, record-breaking money for Inoa seemed almost inevitable. "I knew the second I saw him that he'd get a shit-ton of money," continued the scout.

In the bigger scheme of things, is $4.25 million really that much, even with market inflation and the money nearly doubling the previous record bonus for a non-Cuban Latin American signee? One scout put it into better perspective. "That's what? A top-three pick in the draft? I'd have no problem giving him that kind of money. After seeing him, he's worth what Oakland is paying in my mind." A second scouting official agreed. "It might be insane to give anyone that kind of money, but I certainly understand it, and in some ways it makes sense," he said. "Because if you hit on him, he's going to be worth tens of millions for the six years you have him under control. It's a lot of money, and it might whiff, because we all know how pitching prospects are, but $4.25 million is not going to put any organization under, and $4.25 million for this guy shouldn't cost anyone their job."

That said, not all see the signing as a sound decision. "It's just too crazy for me," said another front office official. "I think there is a difference between a kid at 16 who we've barely seen, and a kid at 18 who we've seen a lot of. There's so much that can go wrong—he certainly has the talent—but the rest is a huge crapshoot."

Another factor leading to more money being spent in Latin America of late is that there is no slotting system in place, nor does Major League Baseball seem to have any real interest in the bonuses being doled out. "Don't underrate that at all," said one team official. "You can call this all a market correction or adjustment or whatever you want, but at the same time, you don't have to deal with all the BS from MLB with these kids. You don't get a call saying you can't sign him, you don't have them calling your owner and telling him that what you are doing is breaking the system—you just write the check and sign the kid."

So How Fast Can He Get To The Big Leagues? With the unavoidable comparisons to Felix Hernandez, the "king" of Latin American pitching prospects, the question comes up often. Could he be the kind of player who reaches the big leagues as a teenager? Here, the opinions vary wildly. "I'm not sure, but he's certainly not going to waste a lot of time in the Dominican Leagues," said one scout. "He could get Low-A hitters out right now. One thing that really stood out for me is that he has a plan to attack hitters. Down there all he needs is 92-94, but he has a plan, and that factors into it and shows surprising maturity." Another scout was even more optimistic. "In the big leagues by 19? I'd say yes, it could happen, but that adjustment period is hard to predict," said a scouting official. "Inoa's a different animal, but look at a guy like Jeremy Bonderman. One year he's at Pasco High School in southeast Washington, the next year he's doing well in the California League and then he's in the majors." Not everyone agree that he'd move that quickly, nor should he necessarily. "Someone said he could get Low-A hitters out?" asked a team official. "I agree with that—he's going to chew up the Midwest League. He's going to throw strike one and he'll demolish kids with just that fastball. But at Hi-A and Double-A there will need to be some adjustment. The secondary stuff, the feel, the pitchability, those all have to come and it might take a bit."

Where Does He Rank As A Prospect In The Oakland System? This could be an article in itself, where one talks about ranking philosophy, but for me, he's their No. 1. The two strongest competitors for the title would be Double-A pitchers Trevor Cahill and Brett Anderson, and while both are very good prospects, neither comes close to Inoa's ceiling. It's too early to think about Top 100 rankings, but it's easy to see him in the upper third come January.

Coming Soon: More on Inoa, including the A's take on what to do with him now that he's in the fold.

Kevin Goldstein is an author of Baseball Prospectus. You can contact Kevin by clicking here or click here to see Kevin's other articles.

brad pitt to star in moneyball film

:o

Zaillian writing is amusing. "I could've saved one more LOOGY!"

Michael Keaton as Chris Pittaro
Max Perlich as Lenny Dykstra
Chiklis as Art Howe
Bobby Hill as Jeremy Bonderman
Barry Zito as Barry Zito

Michael Imperioli as Ricciardi
Donald Sutherland as Gammons
William Peterson as Bob James

BILL James

Too much CTI/Kudu lately.

have you seen Bill James? one of the guys who plays the bearish gays opp Sarah Silverman wd be good.

Do they really think this kind of baseball movie can succeed? Wait -- thy're going to add a big-game climax, right? The A's will win a championship!

hope there's lots of scenes like this

http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r197/mariathepirate/welldone30f.gif?t=1184804648

of an increasingly delusional beane applauding a jack cust walk.

You think Beane is delusional? For signing Cust (the only decent offensive player on their team this year)?

that was a "joke" ^_^

I hope Joe Morgan has a huge role in this.

need a Greek chorus of skeptical Jurassic scouts too.

2008 Sortable Team Stats: OBP

.......

23) Washington Nationals .323
24) Cincinnati Reds .321
25) San Francisco Giants .321
26) Pittsburgh Pirates .320
27) Kansas City Royals .320
28) Seattle Mariners .318
29) Oakland Athletics .318
30) San Diego Padres .317

"In a world, where a gifted athlete failed at his sport and spiraled downward into a delusional general manager of a professional baseball team... A man with a compulsion for misshapen baseball players and bases on balls..." [Reverbed/distant/maniacal Brad Pitt voice: 'My shit doesn't work in the playoffs... My shit doesn't work in the playoffs... My shit doesn't work in the playoffs...'] [Cue shot of Pitt on treadmill, watching A's, cursing: 'FUCKING ASSHORN BELLHORN FUCKING FUCK!!!']

cut to: metal folding chair slammed against dingy concrete wall

WE ARE NOT SELLING JEANS HERE

I don't care what they're telling you Paul, pull the (bleeping) trigger on the fat catcher!!!

(Tom Sizemore)

Tobey Maguire as Paul DePodesta
Hanley Ramirez as Darryl Strawberry
Jonah Hill as Jeremy Brown

Michael Cera as Chad Bradford

(srsly, IF this gets made, how many of the book's ideas will get in? 7% maybe)

Less probably.

I'm sure the James/McCracken/Thorn/Palmer backstories will be skipped over entirely. I can't see a ten-minute flashback sequence devoted to Bill James' life popping up in the middle of a Brad Pitt movie.

That would be awesome actually. It should totally be in like crazy sepia tone.

Of course, I wouldn't disagree with the decision to not include them, because that stuff wouldn't work well in a movie, along with ... yeah, 95% of the rest of the book.

xpost!

Well, I guess it might be cool if they went OTT with it, e.g. portray Young Bill James as a "Rain Man" type, and plz to include uproarious historical scene with Branch Rickey and a bunch of old boys getting mashed on fine brandy and finer hookers while debating the merits of team OBP. With James Gandolfini as Branch Rickey, naturally.

I wonder if his health-care shit works in the playoffs?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/opinion/24beane.html

Weird.

That's not a contributor line I would expect to see.

I figured it was a parody at first!

The article is kind of weird to, as I don't think it really gets at what the problem with American healthcare is by all accounts.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117999601.html?categoryid=13&cs=1

soderbergh poss. on board

Ocean's Nine

VORPopolis

Youkilaris

sax, flies, and tale of the tape

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/sweetspot/0-1-90/Coming-soon-to-a-theater-near-you--Moneyball-.html

Pitt as Beane seems like perversely weird casting.

This dude reminds me of Beane (physically, at least):

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001004/

Yeah or even Peter Gallagher (a former Soderburgh fav) would be closer.

Angelina Jolie as Barry Zito?

Tobey Maguire as Paul DePodesta
Hanley Ramirez as Darryl Strawberry
Jonah Hill as Jeremy Brown

― NoTimeBeforeTime, Friday, October 17, 2008 2:27 PM (6 months ago) Bookmark

Not too far off, really.

OK, I'm 1/3 through Moneyball, and so far it appears to me the real genius isn't Billy Beane; it's Paul DePodesta the Harvard grad, Billy's right-hand man. He's the one that came up with all the crazy evaluations of players. It seems to me that Billy is just a figurehead.

So far, this book is amazing.

I think it's more that Lewis has a bigger hard-on for DePodesta because of that background. And part of being a good GM, especially one who rose from the player ranks like Beane, is hiring smart people and letting them do their job.

OK, I'm 1/3 through Moneyball, and so far it appears to me the real genius isn't Billy Beane; it's Bill James, the Kansas graveyard shift security guard. He's the one that came up with all the crazy evaluations of players. It seems to me that Billy is just a figurehead.

OK, I'm 1/3 through Moneyball, and so far it appears to me the real genius isn't Billy Beane; it's Michael Lewis, the writer of this book. He's the one that came up with the idea of writing about these guys. It seems to me that Billy is just a figurehead.

Actually seven years on, no one in the book seems like a unimpeachable genius. Their 2002 draft turned out to be outside of Swisher, Teahen and Blanton pretty mediocre and a lot of people Beane claimed he would have taken Swisher ahead of turned out to be pretty great (including three high school pitchers: Hamels, Greinke, and Kazmir.) Bonderman had his moments so maybe throwing a chair wasn't a great idea. Brant Colamarino was not the best hitter in the draft contrary to Paul DePodesta's assertion. Nor was it a good idea as far as anyone could tell to draft only by laptop. That said they still come off better than the cavemen in the afterword.

That said Beane has proven to be a great GM (probably one of the best three in the game) whose consistently kept the A's in contention so facts schmacts.

they wanted Youk the most though, don't forget that.

Yeah he turned out to be pretty good.

That said.

LOL

Soderbergh on movie:

http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1610467/story.jhtml

" "My clearly stated goal is to set a new standard for realism in that world."

To that end, he'll be recreating the bowels of Oakland Coliseum — where the A's play — on a soundstage and filming at actual American League stadiums around the country. And since he has the cooperation of the MLB, "Moneyball" will also be able to use actual game footage from the 2002 season.

Soderbergh is also shooting for realism in his cast, which will be made up of both actors and the real-life participants. "Anybody who is not actively playing who was on the 2002 team has been approached," he said. "We've got about 60 percent of them. We have Art Howe, we've got Rick Peterson, the pitching coach. We've got three-quarters of the scouts who were there. ... The guys on the team we can't get — we're casting real people who can play and perform. We'll have the real footage and then we'll go to the close-up with our guy in it, and it should be seamless," the director explained.

Pittaro on deck for stardom

http://www.nj.com/sports/times/index.ssf?/base/sports-6/1240981510157800.xml&coll=5

Lenny Dykstra apparently on board to deliver his "Dude, reading hurts your eyes" line

Which real-life athletes will they pick for re-creating the sprinting scene at the start of the book, that's what I wanna know. Oh, and no Darryl Strawberry, no credibility.

Strawberry is on the movie's iMdB page.

fat catcher brown gets second life

not quite apropos as Brown walked away from baseball of his own volition.

Jeremy Brown's career MLB stats:
300/364/500

http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2009/05/06/exclusive-steven-soderbergh-to-use-animated-bill-james-character-in-moneyball/

Whether this movie is amazing or awful, I am pretty sure I will be laughing all the way through it.

I've been in James' vicinity a number of times; he has an animated aura. Perhaps a cartoon bear (not as vivacious as Yogi).

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/11/SPTI17IHTB.DTL

Ex-A's third-base coach Ron Washington is also too busy managing the Rangers, so Hatteberg has a suggestion: longtime Soderbergh collaborator Don Cheadle.

Sony scraps Soderbergh's 'Moneyball'

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118005208.html?categoryid=13&cs=1&nid=2854

kinda figures. more:

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2009/06/benched.php

I'm still trying to figure out the $50M price tag.

Kinda thinkin' that if the A's hadn't been one of the worst teams in the AL for the past 3 seasons that there'd be more momentum behind this picture. This current season is pretty much the nail in the coffin for the Moneyball fallacy imo. I guess they could switch teams to the Red Sox and call it Fever Pitch 2: The Jamesian Prophecies.

of course, the A's current record has absolutlely fucking nothing to do with the validity of Beane's approach in the period the book covers, an approach that's generally embraced to some degree by nearly every MLB team.

Obv a Hollywood studio wants a feelgood Big Game sports movie for the droolers. Maybe one about Ryan Ludwick's current MVP season, right Steve?

I'm still trying to figure out the $50M price tag.

― Alex in SF, Monday, June 22, 2009 10:27 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

it's all a publicity stunt, now soderbergh will make it sex, lies, and videotape style for only $5 million

How to make $45M disappear from budget: scrap animated Bill James, replace with James Murphy in fat suit/beard.

What else?

Don't use MLB, but instead completely make up team names/jerseys/et all. Like the Philadelphia A's or the Boston Braves.

dont use MLB, but instead make it about a made-up sport

shoot it on-location in steven soderbergh's living room

Change it to badminton, call it Moneybirdie, and have Brad Pitt stop everything every few minutes to wink broadly at the camera.

i would love to see the dykstra footage tbh

just have Dykstra shoot the whole thing a la Jack Black in Be Kind Rewind.

pretty sure I couldn't bear to watch that tbh

so it wouldnt be that different from soderbergs last couple movies

http://www.icecoldservice.com/images/ics-jpeg.jpg

Heh

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/The-Moneyball-script-complete-with-Billy-Beane-;_ylt=AicSLxT7AbWq4uwuWmKz9UARvLYF?urn=mlb,172463

heh2

I hate anachronistic screenwriters...

You didn't have to take off your shoes at the Oakland airport until after the shoe bomber Richard Reid (sp?)... I want to say xmas 2001. Does anyone fact check scripts anymore?

fuck bitches

eat bloomin onions

from the comments:
Billy Beane once got busy in a Burger King bathroom.

I've been reading this screenplay on and off all day, and I can say with some certainty that the movie would've been boring as hell.

Well this was the non-doctored version. I'm sure Che-ized version would've rocked!

i think probly less boring than INKLORIUS BESTERDS

I'd rather skip both of them, honestly.

"i think probly less boring than INKLORIUS BESTERDS"

I think that looks fun enough, but I don't expect you to agree.

only if Cloris Leachman's role is a reprise of Frau Blucher.

It very well might be.

Oooh look three Spielberg films are in production/been announced. Better go anticipate the hell out of those pieces of shit.

take it to ILE ladies

aint sayin shit here.

anyway:

http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2009/06/what-happened-tomoneyball.html

"The biggest faux-pas is the handling of the all-important 'on-base percentage' stat. This is what the Oakland A's figured out that no one else did -- the hidden statistic which is the key to their success. It's what allows them to compete with half the salary of all the other teams. This is the movie. Yet here it's treated like an afterthought.

"In fact, I couldn't even tell you what the A's secret to success was in Soderbergh's draft. It's implied that there's a spreadsheet involved but the explanation stops there. A spreadsheet of never-explained numbers? That's how the team wins? That's your hook for the movie?"

Both of these sound awful.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/dodgerthoughts/2009/07/moneyball-movie-is-back-on.html

so now the movie will be LAME

che was so fucken wack. with sorkin on board all they need to do now is ditch soderBOREgh and pitt and that's the movie right there.

Making Moneyball into a movie has got to be one of the worst ideas of all time.

Team 2009 payroll
New York Yankees $201,449,189
New York Mets $149,373,987
Chicago Cubs $134,809,000
Boston Red Sox $121,745,999
Detroit Tigers $115,085,145
Los Angeles Angels $113,709,00
Philadelphia Phillies $113,004,046
Houston Astros $102,996,414
Los Angeles Dodgers $100,414,592
Seattle Mariners $98,904,166
Atlanta Braves $96,726,166
Chicago White Sox $96,068,500
San Francisco Giants $82,616,450
Cleveland Indians $81,579,166
Toronto Blue Jays $80,538,300
Milwaukee Brewers $80,182,502
St. Louis Cardinals $77,605,109
Colorado Rockies $75,201,000
Cincinnati Reds $73,558,500
Arizona Diamondbacks $73,516,666
Kansas City Royals $70,519,333
Texas Rangers $68,178,798
Baltimore Orioles $67,101,666
Minnesota Twins $65,299,266
Tampa Bay Rays $63,313,034
Oakland Athletics $62,310,000
Washington Nationals $60,328,000
Pittsburgh Pirates $48,693,000
San Diego Padres $43,734,200
Florida Marlins $36,834,000

Moneyball II should be about the Marlins.

Astros holy shit. Drayton McLane needs a refund on his money.

imagine how much Dan will hate the A's next year, when they're good again.

shit got heated

I don't want to speak for Dan but you really think the A's are gonna have a good year next year?

Here is how Moneyball fits into the A's decade
Oakland A's win/loss/%/notes
2000 91W-70L .565 ALW Pennant - ALDS loss
2001 102W-60L .630 ALWC - ALDS loss
2002 103W-59L .636 ALW Pennant - ALDS loss
2003 96W-66L .593 ALW Pennant - ALDS loss
*** MONEY BALL PUBLISHED ***
2004 91W-71L .562 2nd in ALW
2005 88W- 74L .543 2nd in ALW
2006 93W-69L .574 ALW Pennant - ALCS loss
2007 76W- 86L .469 3rd in ALW
2008 75W- 86L .466 3rd in ALW
2009 75W-83L .475 4th in ALW

I think they'll have a good year next year, sure.

by good, do you mean better/improved (ie, 80-85 wins?)

or do you mean like, good/contending (90-95 wins?)

just curious... I mean Rajai Davis is their best player right?

they're about 2 or 3 good hitters away from that i'd say

chris carter could be one of them

"or do you mean like, good/contending (90-95 wins?)"

It's entirely possible. They've got a lot of good offensive young talent. Pretty sure the teams immediately prior 1999 weren't much worse than A's were this year and they managed to turn it around pretty quickly.

It's not like their R/RA was that bad this year actually. Their Pythag W/L was about .500.

"Shasta" expects the Marlins to win 102

Drunk posting again Morbs?

tbf, I see a hell of a lot more young talent on the Marlins than I do on the A's.

The A's have had six years of promising young, offensive talent that has been frankly, pretty fucking offensive. What was the last trade that went "right" for the A's? Jack Cust?

Uh the Haren trade still looks pretty good right now. As does the Swisher deal.

"The A's have had six years of promising young, offensive talent that has been frankly, pretty fucking offensive."

It's not been a good run, I'll admit.

When your best homegrown position has been Nick Swisher or Kurt Suzuki you def need a lot of help and the A's haven't gotten it.

"position prospect"

I dunno, Carlos Gonzalez and Andre Ethier are pretty good.

Well technically Carlos Gonzalez was a Diamondbacks homegrown position player (also being good in Colorado or for that matter Los Angeles isn't the same as being good in the AL).

(god i hope the NL wins the WS again)

Me too. Fuck the Yankees/Red Sox/Angels.

http://www.sandiego6.com/entertainment/story/Pitts-Moneyball-back-on/BO51bMaalEWJWFG-rZXSyw.cspx

Will they make Jeremy Brown a black guy who gets raised by an adorable southern white lady who leads him to the major leagues?

Iiiiiii LIKE IT!

I'm reading this right now but it's disappointing knowing how many of these picks turned out to be busts

also, can Michael Lewis ever write a book/article without making a bond trader analogy? ever?

What are you talking about? Barry Bonds was never traded, he was a free agent who... oh.

Sometimes I think Liar's Poker is his best book though dyao...

oh no doubt SS - but after reading that you realize how he sees pretty much everything in terms of his time on Wall Street, all these 'inefficiencies' and his analyses of what stats really mean/refer to/measure... it's hard for me to think of Lewis as anything other than "bond trader analyzes sports"

I should go back and reread Liar's Poker, the first time I just read it for aggro hairy chested men lols (and I need to separate it in my mind from the Rise and Fall of LTCM which I read at roughly the same time)

I'm reading this right now but it's disappointing knowing how many of these picks turned out to be busts.

why you got to do Ricciardi like that?

ha hahaha

So that fat fuck Jonah Hill is playing DePodesta.

this is happening?

hill would have to lose about... oh 250 pounds to accurately play that role?

Because adaptations about market inefficiencies in sports are so popular now. Just look at the Blind Side. Same shit.

who is gonna play jeremy brown's mom?

pretty much the only way I would watch this is if sandra bullock was playing billy beane

actual rofls

http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2010/03/14/jonah-hill-talks-moneyball/

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/blogs/popcornbiz/Seamhead-Rob-Neyer-Says-Jonah-Hill-to-Star-in-Moneyball-86907987.html

"Every guy who is in their twenties and making movies was after that part"

REALLY?

Aziz Ansari as Ron Washington

Jonah Hill as Jeremy Brown

― NoTimeBeforeTime, Friday, October 17, 2008 2:27 PM (6 months ago) Bookmark

Zach Galifianakis as Kevin Youkilis

all the ex-players (Strawberry, Justice, Dykstra) are out of the cast btw

http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/11/2010/07/340x_custom_1279833676647_jonahhill.jpg

IS

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_T12bXUlFaoU/SFvjk76mwEI/AAAAAAAAAWM/icL6rxXcDo8/s400/Depodesta+Suit.jpg

MONEYBALL: THE MOVIE

The idea that Philip Seymour Hoffman will be playing Art Howe is just as weird.

Also, I gave a woman in my department the day off so she could be an extra in the crowd scenes they shot yesterday.

hahahaha FP was begging to get in on the filming.

Maybe he could help with the steroid scenes.

Former Giant Royce Clayton is playing Miguel Tejada, and onetime Oakland pitcher Jason Windsor is playing John Mabry, Iserson said. He said the former minor-leaguers playing Barry Zito and Tim Hudson look especially like the real thing.

"It's funny to see the Coliseum without all the tarps again, and with the old ads on the walls," Iserson said. "It's movie time in Oakland."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/29/SP7F1EL74K.DTL#ixzz0vBS0o6Vn

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/29/SP7F1EL74K.DTL

DePo rebukes character portrayal (aka fattye), asks for character to be pulled from film:
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AmbGitzWdEuSP.p23sCtt5kRvLYF?slug=ti-depodestamoneyball080510

see Neyer link today about Scott Hatteberg portrayal

actually, Hill is now playing a 'fictional' character (Peter Brand).

Philip Seymour Hoffman is playing Art Howe! I guess the movie'sd clubhouse spread is bigger than the Athletics'.

http://www.firstshowing.net/2010/08/04/first-look-philip-seymour-hoffman-as-art-howe-in-moneyball/

Is that "Miguel Tejada" (Royce Clayton) to PSH's extreme left?

Barry Newman would have made a good Ken Macha.

http://i.imgur.com/s7R4o.jpg

philip seymour hoffman as earl weaver?

I'm thinking Art Howe.

so sanskrit reads my posts 4 months later. TYPICAL

so, some 6 months-before-release chatter:

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2011/03/what_happened_w_4.php

There are THREE significant female roles? Sounds like a loose adaptation.

So looking forward to the acting debut of Royce Clayton

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l3IXTQDsDg&feature=player_embedded

if i'm not morbidly obese & yet jonah hill is playing me in a movie, i'm feeling slightly insulted

ugh that looks terrible

cut to: metal folding chair slammed against dingy concrete wall

― ▒▒▓▓████▓▓▒▒▓▓████▓▓▒▒▓▓████▓▓▒▒▓▓████▓▓▒▒▓▓████▓▓▒▒ (Steve Shasta), Friday, October 17, 2008 1:43 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

2:09 (doesn't fold, but)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inEVDYptNT8

I just realized that I am helpless against this movie because it is about baseball and takes place in Oakland.

1:59: "Text me the play by play"

i'll watch anything with jonah hill in it, tbh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMDDdswpcRk

Tobey Maguire as Paul DePodesta
Hanley Ramirez as Darryl Strawberry
Jonah Hill as Jeremy Brown

― NoTimeBeforeTime, Friday, October 17, 2008 11:27 AM (2 years ago)

*almost*...

lol that wouldve been amazing casting

Stephen Bishop ... David Justice

Adrian Bellani ... Carlos Peña

Sergio Garcia ... Jorge Posada

Royce Clayton ... Miguel Tejada

David Hutchison ... John Mabry

Andrew Plummer ... Randy Velarde

Casey Bond ... Chad Bradford

Ari Zagaris ... Jim Mecir

Nick Porrazzo ... Jeremy Giambi

Melvin Perdue ... Ray Durham

*****

No Barry Zito?

i was thinking about this earlier - i remember reading a script review of soderbergh's draft that said it was atrocious/unfilmable/completely without narrative, and apparently the studio thought so too cuz they cancelled the movie days after it they read it. and at the time i thought maybe that was for the best, but now that it's been made into a more conventional movie im not convinced that ol sodesy wasnt the right guy for the job in the first place. maybe im just feeling more generous towards him after seeing & loving the informant!, but with this approach... where's the human drama in this story? beane having mild disagreements with his scouting department? i know sorkin rewrote it but i doubt he could find the ~human core~ in the story like he did w/social network. soderbergh probably would've at least done something weird and original with the material

philip seymour hoffman as art howe is A+ hilarious casting though and i will definitely watch the shit out of this anyway

i know sorkin rewrote it but i doubt he could find the ~human core~ in the story like he did w/social network

fail

lol i suspected you'd have something to say about that

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810166670/video/25625800

full trailer

this looks like a good tv movie

haha

The 'Moneyball' Movie: Less Stats, More Hugging

BY RAY GUSTINI04:37 PM ET

In his 2003 book Moneyball, journalist Michael Lewis examined how Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane used complex statistics to identify undervalued talent and turn the small-budget franchise into one of baseball's perennial contenders. Based on the just-released trailer for the long-delayed Moneyball movie, it looks as if star Brad Pitt, director Bennett Miller and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin adaptation are concentrating less on VORP and more on heart.

Around the Web, the trailer is reminding people of the trailer for pretty every other sports movie ever made. Not that that's a bad thing. "Maybe it's just the Friday Night Lights–ish score toward the end of the promo that's generating a root-for-the-underdog/family-man sensation," enthuses Vulture's Margaret Lyons. "but either way: root root root!"

MSNBC baseball blogger Aaron Gleeman conceded the heartstring plucking moments seem "awfully silly if you’ve read the book or are simply a knowledgeable baseball fan." But if fans of the book can "suspend reality a bit and think of the whole thing as a Major League-style story about an underdog team of misfits and toss in Brad Pitt doing all sorts of Brad Pitt-like things playing general manager Billy Beane it might be decent."

And besides, a thorough cinematic examination of Beane's "contrarian new philosophy on scoring talent" wouldn't have much crossover appeal with "folks who don’t yet know what WHIP stands for," wnoted Entertainment Weekly's Jeff Labrecque. "So Aaron Sorkin’s script delves deeper into Beane’s homelife and his relationship with his awkward baseball-geek assistant, the blandly-named Peter Brand (Jonah Hill)."

Slash Film's Russ Fischer particularly enjoyed Pitt's "Don't go on the Internet" line, calling it a "trademark Sorkin moment." "Also," continued Fischer, "does Brad Pitt look like he’s styled after Sorkin more than after the real Billy Beane?" (Our take: kind of. But we've also thought of Sorkin and Beane as being pretty similar.)

No wonder DePo wanted his name likeness removed from the film.

Also, dude prolly didn't like being portrayed by some stoner slack chubby schlub:
http://www.google.com/search?q=paul+depodesta&tbm=isch

or someone that is 100 pounds heavier than him

Paul Depodesta: 6' 1 1/2" 160 lbs.
Jonah Hill Feldstein: 5' 6" 224 lbs.

jesus christ it is almost impossible to believe that Entertainment Tonight clip is real and not satire

haha trace

hope they explain who fabio is in the international version

Slash Film's Russ Fischer particularly enjoyed Pitt's "Don't go on the Internet" line, calling it a "trademark Sorkin moment."

Yeah, there is no way Billy Beane said something so knee-slapping like that to his young daughter.

love sorkin but 'don't go on the internet, watch tv' is pretty bad

i think this looks like a pretty good hbo movie, like caek said? are underdog sports flicks uncool now or something?

I think that The Blindside certainly lowered the bar, but for baseball nerds there is the persuasive argument that Moneyball (the book) has cursed the A's to some degree (ie, they've sucked ever since with I think one possible exception).

i think this looks like a pretty good hbo movie, like caek said? are underdog sports flicks uncool now or something?

― ☂ (max), Thursday, June 16, 2011 7:26 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

they're very uncool! i mean, im a sucker for a good one, but look at all the sneering that stuff like The Fighter got for being a pretty trad sports flick

PTT, did you like The Blindside y/n?

istr 'the fighter' was oscar-nominated? and got a fair bit of critical love? not everywhere. but it was't hated.

trailer for this is shitty modern 'give them the whole plot' garbage but it'll probably be aight

The Blind Side was also Oscar nominated. lol

blind side was goofy but sandy was fun in it and there's some really corny phil fulmer/lou holtz/nick saban cameos - there are worse ways to spend a couple hours

nobody said anything about 'hated' enrique the word was UNCOOL pay attention pal!!!!!

(ie, they've sucked ever since with I think one possible exception).

Moneyball was published in 2003. That season they went to the playoffs. The following three seasons they won 91, 88, and 93 games.

yeah but narrative-wise for a movie like this it would've been nice for them to at least get to the world series

okay, kindly allow me to revise my comment to "mostly awful"

it'd be ballsy if they just rewrote it so that the A's won five WS in a row

xp (also my opinion of The Blindside.)

it'd be ballsy if they just rewrote it so that the A's won five WS in a row

― little dieter wants to FUCK (Princess TamTam), Thursday, June 16, 2011 4:41 PM (27 seconds ago)

that would be the Disney version iirc.

supposedly the CEO of Activision is in this trailer as the greedy penny pinching exec..

Peter Brand went on to win several titles as GM of the Dodgers.

yeah actually the more i think about it, the harder it is to defend the blind side. i just really dig sandra bullock but without her its just a hallmark movie

and with her too but

Peter Brand wins WS, Cee Heop Shoi wins MVP.

jeremy giambi inducted to hall of fame

what if this movie ended with "my shit doesn't work in the playoffs" and it was like dark and brooding

billy beane alone in a dark bar

I really don't see any other way to end a movie where in the end they did 'okay'

It ends with a livechat in a BP chatroom with dozens of adoring SABR-fans.

That In-Contention-For-The-Wild-Card Season

Shasta, do you spend one day a month in reality now or what?

I really don't see any other way to end a movie where in the end they did 'okay'

― iatee, Thursday, June 16, 2011 7:50 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

credits roll over a stylized 1 frame per 5 seconds of the Jeter Backhand Flip.

Shasta, do you spend one day a month in reality now or what?

― already president FYI (Dr Morbius), Thursday, June 16, 2011 6:04 PM (1 hour ago)

2011 30-40
2010 81-81
2009 75-87
2008 75-86
2007 76-86
2006 93-69
2005 88-74
2004 91-71

Post-Moneyball
609-594 = .506

Now I know those numbers look impressive to a Mets fan, but for everyone else that is just a heaping load of meh that is not necessarily film-worthy.

"Oh look, we're barely .500 and have a shrinking fanbase*, we really revolutionized the game!!!"

*http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/OAK/attend.shtml

love sorkin but 'don't go on the internet, watch tv' is pretty bad

― underrated mountain goats bootlegs I have owned (history mayne), Thursday, June 16, 2011 7:21 PM (4 hours ago)

^internet dudes is just butthurt

Now I know those numbers look impressive to a Mets fan

http://img131.imageshack.us/img131/1598/ohsnap2yv8.gif

Beane struggled after he had to trade away his core players, lost his support staff to other front offices, had to cut payroll, had to adapt after other front offices wised up, etc. etc. could give the story a really interesting second act. If the movie stays entirely in the world of the book, then it's a missed opportunity, because that cultural moment in baseball was fascinating.

"The world of the book" IS the fucking story.

don't worry Shasta, I'm sure Kevin Costner will make another baseball film just for you soon.

I think Beane is very much a victim of his own success. When Moneyball came out maybe one or two teams where leverage advanced statistics to make personnel decisions. Now it's at least double that number. He doesn't have his original edge and there just aren't that many under-valued players around to build into a team.

I will say one more thing, Beane/the A's seem to have lost no ability to recognize good pitching talent (either via trade or the draft). The inability to build a decent lineup has become their downfall.

A source with knowledge of the situation said the A's are trying to trade for Seattle infielder Chone Figgins, and that current A's third baseman Kevin Kouzmanoff and perhaps a pitcher could be shipped to the Mariners in return.

as i'm to understand, Figgins would block a trade to Oakland.

not a good sign when someone would rather play for the Mariners than your team!

― got electrolytes (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Monday, January 31, 2011 5:56 PM (4 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ha that should be the ending of the Moneyball movie.

that and Billy Beane eating a chinese food box of egg noodle and ketchup, can't even get a marinara around here.

― sanskrit, Monday, January 31, 2011 10:03 PM (4 months ago) Bookmark

so Arliss Howard (Pvt Cowboy from Full Metal Jacket) has a small role in the film as John Henry. I guess he will swoop in for the third act to say "Now your methods are MINE, Beane! muahahaha." (Does Henry get much mention in the book? I don't recall.)

royce clayton playing miguel tejada is really tripping me up.

90% of this film's audience are only vaguely aware of who Miguel Tejada is, or are entirely ignorant. (ditto Art Howe etc)

seeing this for review next Tuesday. (They like to give the online writers a good 24-36 hours to crank something out.)

http://meadowparty.com/blog/?p=1861

That part about the Carlos Pena trade is pathetic. Definitely not seeing this p.o.s.

oof.

Maybe I'll catch it on cable.

Not reading that (yet), but you guys do know that the key word in "based on a true story" is "based"?

No!

Ouch. I'll wait for Morbs' review before deciding how long to put off seeing this.

Not reading that (yet), but you guys do know that the key word in "based on a true story" is "based"?

― incredibly middlebrow (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, September 14, 2011 2:37 PM (1 hour ago)

lil b is in this?

I thought it was "on"

I hope no one's told you that at the end Billy Beane kills Hitler in a movie theater.

Morbsies, did you like The Blind Side?

(if so, gfy)

oh hell, I don't see movies that have amything to do with football (or, hardly ever, Sandra Bullock). They sent me a disc and I've still never watched it.

It was pretty bad.

so I assumed from the Oscar and the fortune it made

look at all the sneering that stuff like The Fighter got for being a pretty trad sports flick

see above! (2 Oscars)

It was regular bad, not Oscar bad.

Brandon McCarthy
My tweets during the Moneyball premiere tonight will be brought to you by my crippling social awkwardness, and a need to be on my phone.

well, I have to write this up, but there are vocal performances by Bob Costas and Tim McCarver!

And Pitt never says "My shit doesn't work in the playoffs."

like or no like?

wait for it

http://0.media.sportspickle.cvcdn.com/22/95/d95516f8957255fe96cead3c5384ad78.jpg

moneyball 2: the jack cust years

If this movie is a big hit, look for Ryan Gosling as Bill James in The Pork-and-Beans Genius.

If a medium hit, Zach Galafinakis.

(btw the scouts and Art Howe get off lighter in the book than here, quite predictably)

http://0.media.sportspickle.cvcdn.com/67/65/80b52b542773108c21528098493f2d43.jpg

too bad you guys weren't cast as scouts, eh? whose trolly site is generating these?

yeah i liked that one better too

sportspickle?

http://9.media.sportspickle.cvcdn.com/72/15/95e674e72648226fc43e6826bc2dcec5.jpg

"Joe Morgan Strikes Back", would be best imho.

There's a brief audio clip of Morgan in the film too, and a very Morganesque speech castigating moneyball that's v/o'd by a Joe soundalike.

I always find it disorienting when Morgan is tagged as the anti-Sabermetrician (I mean, I understand why)--as a player, he was probably the first guy that James swooned over as the perfect sabermetric player.

to use a metaphor I just read, the chef doesn't nec know how to run the restaurant

skipped the best one:

http://4.media.sportspickle.cvcdn.com/61/50/dd0d448499e6ef71e40a07c843c9545d.jpg

so many Yankee fans

That part about the Carlos Pena trade is pathetic.

What, that they reduced it from a 3-team trade to make the scene simpler? Movies do that shit all the time (no one cares), and that's the least of this one's problems.

seeing this for review next Tuesday. (They like to give the online writers a good 24-36 hours to crank something out.)

― incredibly middlebrow (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, September 13, 2011 10:16 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark

The Fog of WAR by Dr Morbius

Keep in mind that this was written for civilian readers. But I did work in E.M. Forster.

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/moneyball/5768

^^Nice review. I saw this last night, with a director talk afterward. I thought it was entertaining, at times meandering, and at times needlessly cheesy. I don't know enough about the book or baseball to be particularly offended by any of it. The best part was probabaly the Sorkin dialogue stuff, along with Brad Pitt's mugging for the camera. A few dudes in the audience were in full A's regalia.

great review morbs

I rather hate Sorkin. The John Henry-Beane scene in Fenway is an example of what he can do quite well. The quasi-screwball banter (Hatteberg and Justice on H's graeatest fear, the Hill/Pitt comedy act) I have little use for.

As a Mets fan, of course, I'm fine with Art Howe being portrayed as a mulish boob.

nice, thanks for posting

Good review. Also: 133 minutes?!

Civilian readers? Are there any other kind?

a total absence of romance, plentiful industry-specific jargon, and worst of all, math.

Reminds me of what I hated about A Beautiful Mind (having read the book)--they took out all the excellent math and replaced it with silly CIA agents and other figments of Nash's imagination.

Costas-Beane-Pitt roundtable on MLB Network this weekend, I think.

Here the nuances are replaced with the little Beane tween asking Dad if he's gonna get fired. And flashbacks to young Billy striking out.

Robin Wright Penn (sic) is also wasted as Beane’s ex-wife who is apparently married to a closeted gay man.

Well, KLaw, it is California.

WmC, that Redford-Levinson travesty of The Natural was 134 minutes. And where ya been, all films that aspire to OSCAR must be over 2 hours long, it's in the Academy bylaws.

Posnanski blog post on the Chuck Yeager of Moneyball: http://joeposnanski.blogspot.com/2011/09/ballad-of-bill-james.html

I didn't realize Moneyball had any Oscar aspirations! Adapting that book to film never seemed like a good idea to me, so I've let most of the hype go past unnoticed.

the screenplay is credited to the guys who wrote Schindler's List & The Social Network *HINT*

btw I considered opening my piece w/ "There are two good baseball movies, and this isn't one of them."

Bull Durham and Pride of the Yankees?

Sugar and Eight Men Out?

Major League and Major League II?

Two good baseball movies is probably two more than any other sport I can think of (assuming you aren't counting docs in this.)

Sugar and The Bad News Bears ('76)!

(Bull Durham's good, but it's about sex. And Babe Ruth and Teresa Wright are about all I like in TPotY. "Is it three strikes, Doc?")

ML1

if the movie does well, i'm sure a musical won't be far behind; as is the trend these days.

actually, even if the movie bombs it's a distinct possibility.

You don't like 8MO, Morbs? It's not as good as the book, I guess.

I think it's one of Sayles' more lugubrious films.

Sayles has non-lugubrious films?

:p Lone Star, Passion Fish

Baseball movies, damn it, BASEBALL MOVIES!

damn yankees!

Hometown paper gives a weak rave, replete with typos (Paul Podesta!):

http://www.mercurynews.com/movies-dvd/ci_18947085?nclick_check=1

Great review, Morbs. And the movie version of 8MO pales in comparison to the book. Maybe it depends on which you saw/read first (I read the book first).

Good review, Morbs. I debated whether to spend two hours-plus watching this.

Small correction: Forster himself didn't use "Only connect..." in the text of Howards End; it's an epigraph.

!

http://www.online-literature.com/forster/howards_end/22/

He uses "Only connect," but it's not dialogue. Oh well, print the legend.

I had to get my distance-running, non-baseball fan ed to change the homepage headline from "Math Ruins Moneyball's Scorecard."

morbs, your charlie wilson's war review is really good! (it wz in the Related Articles links)

Well, thanks...

The critics really love Moneyball, so my I-hate-everything rep is again burnished.

whoa 87 on metacritic? wtf

would be in the 90s w/o you included

That not being a SABR member correlates with liking this film is obvious.

also any movie with a tech angle instantly = internet crit score inflation

burt Rex Reed loves it. I'm sure he has an assistant turn on his computer for him.

i thought this was pretty good? i dug the melancholy vibe (or at least that's the vibe i got). the sorta sad idea that the moments of "romanticism" are manufactured or meaningless. actually seems more relevant to "how we live now" than something like The Social Network.

I dont follow baseball too much, but I am a Rockets fan so I'm a little familiar with the "statistical revolution." Rockets GM Daryl Morey wrote an article for Grantland on all this: http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7001767/moneyball-houston-rockets

Yeah, apparently moneyball concepts are more transferable to basketball than football.

i didnt know the A's story too well, so i was surprised how it basically paralleled the Rockets for the last 5 years or so--winning a lot more regular season games than seemed possible, an improbable record breaking winning streak, and little to no postseason success.

just thinking out loud, i wonder if football is the most difficult because there's the most "moving parts" out there on the field. 11 versus 5 create an exponentially higher level of complexity. plus i think a single play in football has several different possible positive outcomes other than "score" or "deny scoring." baseball often seems to boil down to a 1-1 matchup.

1-1 matchup which may or may not lead within a fraction of a second to a different 1-1 matchup which may or may not lead within another second to a third 1-1 matchup, etc

I'm looking fwd to this week's BProspectus podcast based on this line in the contents rundown:

Pop Culture Moment: Is Moneyball fucking shit up again?

At a reported $47 million, it cost Sony more to make "Moneyball" than it cost the A's to field their entire 2002 roster.

That thought crossed my mind while watching... $47 M is actually low-budget for a studio film with a big star.

If it stiffs at the Oscars, the comparison will be perfect.

my shit doesn't work at the oscars

lol

haha

Aaron Sorkin's shit has worked at the Oscars.

I'll be more interested to see how this does at the b.o. on the second weekend.

caught a matinee. i didnt think this was a BAD movie, but i found it deeply unsatisfying. the director's style is pretty understated - there were times i appreciated the subdued approach, and times where it felt like it was just flat, like he didn't have a real point of view. i think klaw actually nailed that:

The lack of multi-dimensional characters is exacerbated by the languid, aimless plot and stop-and-start pacing. The film mopes through Opening Day and the beginning of the A’s season, races through their midyear turnaround, then jumps through most of the winning streak until the twentieth victory, at which point we’re handed slow motion views of the A’s blowing an 11-0 lead … and of Art Howe thinking, with no sound at all. Even the paces of conversations are strange and often forced; one of the “action” scenes, if I could call it that, involves watching Billy juggle three GMs (Shapiro, Phillips, and Sabean) to try to acquire Ricardo Rincon. All three GMs come off as stooges, but more importantly, it’s boring as hell to watch anyone, even Brad Pitt, talk on the phone.

the pacing felt to me like that of a movie that wasn't sure what it wanted to be. i think it was worst of both worlds disease - shunting aside the specifics of what made the original story interesting in favor of some human drama that nobody could possibly find compelling. the complaint about the phone scene, which i thought seemed dumb on the page (why can't a phone conversation be cinematic?)(and it also seems like a dumb complaint when you're bitching about beane being shown flying out to conduct a trade - which is it pal, c'mon) suddenly comes to life when u see the movie - it's just FLAT. i dont need quick cuts, slamming phones and screaming, but something was off about that sequence.

pitt's good though. it's nicely shot. i wasn't sure if hoffman would be convincing as art howe of all people, but he owned pretty hard. i should probably quit doubting that guy. and pena isn't depicted as sullen at all (one of klaw's characteristically weird complaints that makes sense only to himself)

The reason the first "Rincon" scene w/ Shapiro is not done on the phone is that the second one has to be. I mean, KLaw even admits to understanding this.

he does? where?

he wrote something like "it's boring to watch ppl on the phone, even Brad Pitt"

so Eric H and I are about 25% of the film critics writing in English who dislike this.

Mixed, officially.

+ 25% of the reason I hate it is manhandling the Twins

Mine is mixed too... 2 out of 4 is mixed anywhere but in a Rotten Tomatoes world.

You did a fine job writing about this for a non-seamhead, except you don't understand the Twins thing. The A's didn't lose to the Twins because of payroll.The A's didn't even lose to the Yankees in '01 because of payroll. They lost in a short series because of what Beane calls "fucking luck," or more specifically because Jeremy Giambi didn't slide into home plate. (OF course, this movie doesn't even have Jeremy Giambi on the team in 2001, but never mind.) Short series are much less subject to probability than a regular season, by definition (ie, small sample size). Thus Billy Beane's "shit doesn't work in the playoffs."

You can learn more at the SABR convention in Minneapolis in late June.

always found it a bit absurd that a billion game season comes down to a 7 game series. it's true in every sport, but in baseball especially.

much worse w/ one and done playoffs, like pro football

yeah, but football plays once a week.
"We do this every day." - Earl Weaver

I wonder if there's someone who's done the math comparing comparing how 'accurate' american sports playoffs are (w/r/t the statistical best team winning the title.) I would imagine baseball > basketball >>> football >>>>> college football >>>>>>>>>> college basketball

wait what why do you have baseball first?

fewer teams in the playoff than the nba + longest regular season. but I guess the seeding is often less fair? I don't follow basketball very closely tho. also there's not one single measure for 'statistical best', which means someone would still have to be drawing a lot of lines in the sand. but it'd be interesting to read.

i'm sure nate silver either has done that or would do so in a heartbeat

i'd also guess that you're overestimating baseball - i wouldn't be surprised if both nba & nfl were better at this (i'd guess nba would have the best)

couple of things tho, one is with baseball especially you should just throw the world series out and focus on if the best team in each league wins the pennant. also baseball might benefit from the fact that there are only two rounds - fewer chances to get upset

well it's more like the series are so short that they're quite often dominated by luck. i see yr point re: fewer teams making it more likely that the "best" one wins but the baseball playoffs seem almost meaningless at this point.

from a non-stat perspective i've always felt that the nba playoffs are great at determining which team is "really" the best.

xpost

I think maybe a big difference is that in the NBA there's a ton of activity going on throughout a game so although one player could have a bad game you expect it to weigh out a little over the course of the forty-eight minutes depending on how much that player plays. he may get to take numerous shots over the course of just one game giving him a much better pool of probability. if a baseball player is having a bad game he only goes up to bat ~4 times and you can just have 4 bad at-bats that indicate nothing about the overall quality of the player. extrapolate to a full series. --> haven't thought carefully about this but it occurs to me this is a meaningful difference

Basketball is generally the most accurate, I believe.

there's no way the nfl is better at it w/ the way a playoff is set up, but I think a 'bad' football team is less likely to beat a 'good' football team on any given day than in basketball or baseball. but that margin is also hard to measure.

xp