Sorkin. Pitt. Hoffman. Baseball. I will be there.
Although, to baseball geek out for a minute, ‘Moneyball’ never made the eternal ‘never be the same again’ impact on baseball that the movie (as the book did) looks to imply. Baseball has already disproven Beane’s method of “OPS/no stud power pitchers” over everything, instead allowing the brilliant on base concepts and attention to runs that ‘Moneyball’ preaches to inform the tried and true scouting methods that make small market teams like the Twins perennially great far more consistently than the A’s.
Beane has been great for baseball, and he’s an amazing GM, but we won’t look back in 20 years and say there is the pre-Beane and post-Beane eras of baseball. Teams are starting to steal bases again, and bunt again, and play small ball with productive outs again, and those small market teams are far more successful (Rays, Rangers, Giants) than a pure ‘Moneyball’ team (A’s), although the A’s have departed from that a bit themselves because the obsession with Moneyball above all else left their farm system in rough shape (Baseball Prospectus ranks their farm system 28th out of the 30 major league clubs).
Also, to close the case for good, Felix Hernandez and Timmy Lincecum are players ‘Moneyball’ teaches a team to avoid like the plague, whereas Barry Zito was once heralded as proof the system works. Oops.
