Moneyball

Football seems to have less variance regardless of when the game is played - perhaps because of the short schedule, the best possible team (given injuries, etc.) being on the field, whereas in baseball you're only facing a team's best starter every fifth day and sometimes players will have a day off.

I think number of "possessions" is a big factor too, in which case basketball is way ahead. A single game has a pretty big sample.

I agree with the post above that said this movie was a little inert, but something about how low key it was really appealed to me, maybe just because I had a headache. I'll think more on why I liked the mood of it so much. I have a feeling it will wear well.

hoping to enjoy this on TNT in eight years

PTT: almost certainly, esp it followed an ESPN clip of Real Joe.

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

I'm mixed too. You're wrong about Pitt-Hill as a comedy duo, Morbs -- they don't socialize, exchange confidences, or have a drunken outing, thank god.

I know little about the facts (thank god too), but what's there gets a rather flat approach. Miller should have taken his cue from Pitt's quiet, self-mocking performance (I've waited a quarter of my life for the performances Pitt's given in the last three years).

agreed about pitt. though the fact that he was eating in every other scene made me think he was reprising his role from the oceans movies

thank God I know little about the Oceans movies.

They're a Sorkin-style comedy duo. I really hated that last "It's a metaphor" scene.

also Alfred, yer on the I Love Baseball board, so stfu

What, you taking your cue from Philip Seymour Hoffman?

My impression is that basketball has the most 'definitive' playoffs, it's very very hard for a bad team to beat an elite one in a 7-game series. IMO the baseball playoff structure is the worst in determining who the real best team is since the game has so much variance. Football is somewhere in between, good teams can beat bad ones but I don't think any team that wasn't a legit top 5 team can win 3 playoff games (whereas some of this decade's WS champions have been far from elite)

mental game - what would you consider the 'ideal playoff' for each sport and the 'ideal # of regular season games'?

iirc w/ the champions league the team who won the most games at the end of the season 'wins' absent a tie. that seems unexciting but prob more accurate. w/ baseball it would be even more so.

so morbs types, no playoff? 2 team? 4 team?

I don't know what you're asking, exactly, and discussing ideals w/ a sport run by TV networks seems like just a mind game. I like non-first-place teams who enter the postseason to have as tough a road as possible. I like 162 games (would prefer scheduled doubleheaders), but scaling back to less than 10 playoff teams in MLB is just a fantasy now.

I'm asking if someone gave you complete control of how many games they played in the regular season + how many teams / games in the playoffs, how would you structure it? keeping the divisions and everything else the same.

but yes this is just a mind game (as is like 90% of sabremetrics, so baseball seems ideal for this kinda mind game)

I don't know how much I'd change considering how exciting playoff games are. For example I would certainly never want fewer NFL playoff games. I wish the NBA would scale back on the # of playoff teams - with the exception of Grizz/Spurs the 1/8 and 2/7 first round matchups are never interesting.

MLB should do 7/9/9 for the DS/CS/WS, but that's pretty unpractical unless they scale back the number of games played during the season. And I do think you need a ton of games to determine who's the best.

should go to 150 regular season games, eliminate the DS, best two teams in each league compete for the pennant in a 9-game series & winners play in an 11-game WS

yeah that's more or less where things went in my head

that would definitely determine who's the best but it would be a killer for the fans

I mean, lets face it, Yankees and Red Sox would almost always be the two from the AL, and people would get sick of that mighty quick. They need to give the Detroits of the world a chance!

right - on some level the playoffs are not about finding 'the best team' and they're about giving 'one of the better but prob not the best team' the opportunity to win

that would definitely determine who's the best

Oh, baloney. That's not what tournaments do.

yeah I mean the 2007 Giants and 2011 Packers were awesome stories (and the 2009 Cardinals almost were one) that IMO trumped any discussion of "were they really the best team"

(2011 Packers definitely were though, obv)

The point is how much these things matter really seem to change from sport to sport, for example I think every casual NBA fan knows that Jordan has 6 rings, Kobe is one short of him, Bill Russell has the most, Dirk just got his first, and Lebron still has zero. Whereas I don't think casual MLB fans will remember that the Cards won with a terrible team in 2006, or even who won it last year. I would imagine most of them don't even remember that the Yankees LOST in 2001!

Whatever allows the Simpsons to air their Halloween episode earlier than the middle of November, even if that means never seeing an AL Central team ever make the postseason ever again.

Which is why I always find the NBA playoffs so more meaningful and fun to watch. Hell in baseball we tend to deliberately ignore postseason stats as though they don't matter.

i certainly remember that the yanks lost in 2001

I don't know if I'm in the minority or not, but I'm reasonably happy with 162 + 5/7/7. I agree with Morbs re "That's not what tournaments do."

i think the formats in all the big leagues are fine, my only beef is the way the games are spread out due to tv scheduling

I remember quite vividly that the Yankees lost in 2001 because I was thinking "Jesus Christ if the Yankees win the series right after September 11 we will never hear the fucking end of it"

this is just a mind game (as is like 90% of sabremetrics

ay yi yi yi yi yi

Like Casey Stengel before the Senate, I'm not here to speak of any other sports.

Whereas I don't think casual MLB fans will remember that the Cards won with a terrible team in 2006, or even who won it last year.

I don't know if I'm casual or not, but I remember exactly what the Cardinals' regular-season record was in 2006, because it was so astonishingly low for a WS winner.

heres a great parody (maybe a little too realistic even)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpkVJTXJ5xw

liked Kevin Goldstein's comments: "Perfectly entertaining... None of it happened that way! Zero!"

well, half right

I actually liked this, tho obv not as good as the book. Still fun! And it even made me feel a little less sad about Phillies losing their last game of the season

there were two shots in particular during the flick that were such quintessential sorkin shots that they made me wonder if he had more to do with the film than just rewriting some of the dialogue (there wasn't so much patented sorkin dialogue imo). the shot where billy is walking through the the facility, past the medical part, thru the clubhouse, etc, was very sorkinesque

hmmmm, I don't think Philip Seymour Hoffman's Friend would let him direct a sequence for him.

As ESPN's Buster Olney said on Bill Simmons' podcast, this is Epstein's "Billy Beane moment" and all of baseball is watching to see what he'll do.

Pretty much lmao at the phrasing on this... Beane backed out of the Red Sox and Blue Jays jobs after verbally accepting... and let's not forget Theo's little tantrum where he quit baseball alltogether until JHenry begged to get him back.

I am arguing with Tracy Ringolsby on Twitter about the 2004 Dodgers. Someone take my keyboard away please.

BILLY BEANE and PETER BRAND emerge from Billy’s office and walk done the hallway…. PETER’s eyes widen and he ducks into the video room… BILLY keeps walking…. ARTIE H. approaches…

ARTIE H.: Hey, Billy.

BILLY: Artie, hey, what’s up, man?

ARTIE H.: Freaking lost again, y’know, right?

BILLY: Four in row.

ARTIE H.: Right. Hey, did you see my new lineup for tonight’s game?

BILLY: You have a new lineup?

ARTIE H.: Yeah, you wanna see?

BILLY: Sure.

CAMERA FOLLOWS them down the hall to ARTIE H.’s office, they pass the video room where FEINY and JOHN MABRY are sitting together.

FEINY: You know, John, maybe you want to try taking a few pitches.

CAMERA continues with BILLY and ARTIE H. in to ARTIE’s office.

ARTIE H.: All right, are your eyes closed?

BILLY: Yeah, they’re closed. Can I open them?

ARTIE H: Not yet. [Gets out lineup card, holds it up in front of him] Now look.

[CAMERA shows BILLY's face as he looks at the linesup card, then pans to the lineup card with Scott Hatteberg written in at first base.]

BILLY: Cool, when did you do this?

ARTIE H.: Just a few minutes ago. Do you like it?

BILLY: Yeah, I like I–

[ARTIE H. Suddenly grabs BILLY by the shoulders and kisses him on the lips. BILLY is surprised and pulls away.]

BILLY: Artie, wha– what are you, wha–

ARTIE H.: I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Billy. Please. I’m sorry…

BILLY: Why’d you do that, Artie? Why?

ARTIE H.: I’m sorry, I just wanna know if you like me.

BILLY: Of course I do, Artie.

ARTIE H.: Can I kiss you again?

BILLY: Artie, I… I’m not…

ARTIE H.: Please, can I kiss your mouth? Please let me.

BILLY: No.

ARTIE H.: Can I have a contract extension?

BILLY: No. No man, let’s go back to the clubhouse with the guys.

ARTIE H.: I’m really sorry, man. Forget it. I’m sorry, I’m just really, really drunk. I’m wasted. I’ve had so many beers.

BILLY: That’s cool. Wait, you paid for those beers, right?

ARTIE H.: Yeah.

BILLY: It’s okay man, forget about it.

ARTIE H.: But you like the lineup card, right?

BILLY: Yeah man, it’s cool. I’m gonna take a charismatic stroll through the clubhouse, you comin’?

ARTIE H.: Yeah, I’ll be there in a minute, you go ahead.

BILLY: You sure you’re okay? [ARTIE H. nods] Alright, man, I’ll see you later.

[BILLY LEAVES]

ARTIE H.: [Sinking into his office chair] I’m such an idiot. I’m such a freaking idiot. I’m such a freaking idiot.

(from Notgraphs)

wait for it...
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-october-26-2011/parks-and-demonstration---oakland-riot

If you follow a shitload of baseball writers on Twitter, your timeline is currently filled with TLR's thoughts about Moneyball.

Overall, I thought this was okay; very strong for the first half-hour, confusing after that. (I'm not sure, but the introduction of Pitt's daughter Moldy Peaches may have been where it lost focus.) A lot of good performances--thought PSH and all the scouts were especially good. It's been a few years since I read the book, so I don't remember much. Does Scott Hatteberg figure that prominently in the book? The film zeroes in on him as the poster boy for everything Moneyball, without (as I'm sure others have probably pointed out upthread) even mentioning that year's Cy Young or MVP winners. Hatteberg had a good year; not as good as the many thousands of players who had better years but didn't figure prominently in any films, but pretty good. When I get a chance, I'm curious as to what he did during the 20-game win streak--which was an odd thing in which to invest so much protracted drama in, seeing as the A's fell back into a tie for the divisional lead a few days after it ended.

jeez dude, PSH and all the scouts were caricatures that fell short of two dimensions.

Gotta disagree. Thought the scouts in their first round-table meeting with Beane were one of the best things in the film, and even though PSH didn't remind me of Howe visually or temperamentally--I remember Howe as an upbeat presence, and PSH is dour through-and-through--I liked him fine.

Another head-scratcher: in a film about turning the sport inside-out, there's time out for Pitt's very old-fashioned tantrum/speech about losing.

Even though it's not stated outright, the decision to trade Jeremy Giambi is based mostly on his deficiency in one of the ancient intangibles (and partly to make room for Hatteberg, yes): he doesn't care enough about winning. Is this an oversight of the film's, or an argument for its complexity?

Winning and losing is the only way to dramatize sports in mass-audience movies.

(or so the people who make them believe)

I thought the film redeemed itself a bit at the end, in the sportscaster's little sermon after Oakland loses to Minnesota (games are won on the field, not inside a formula, etc.). I'm not endorsing what he says, but I thought it dramatized a basic argument--one that's been going on since James first arrived--well.

Wow, this movie is fucking terrible.

It's just a steady nothing.

Did they shoot it in like one day? It felt like a bottle episode.

all my favorite Italian is in