The Pitt-Balls of Hollywood

Alrighty Fans, as the mitts get oiled up and the arms loosened up, let’s take a look at last fall’s big-screen hit, Moneyball.  The story is based on the book Moneyball: The Art of Winning An Unfair Game by author Michael Lewis that was published in 2003.  The main character is Oakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane, played by Brad Pitt, and Lewis recounts his committment to using applied sabermetrics, a new way of looking at players’ stats so that a financially challenged team can compete with the deep pocketed clubs.

Sabermetrics is a term that actually stands for Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), which is credited to the great baseball writer Bill James. James is the numbers wizard who applied existing statistics to fomulas that could mathematically attmept to explain why some players made more outs, prevented outs, and specifically why teams won and lost games, etc.  Beane was introduced to the new format by Paul DePodesta in real life, who is currently V.P. of Baseball Operations for the Mets.  DePodesta is fictionally portrayed in the movie by Jonah Hill’s character Petrer Brand, a young Yale economics graduate (DePodesta is a Harvard economics grad), who aided Beane in constructing a new and competitive team that had a low budget following the free agency losses of stars Jason Giambi, Johnny Damon, and Jason Isringhausen in 2001.  The revamped ’02 A’s won a record 20 games in a row late in the season as they qualified for the playoffs.

Recently, I saw the movie and loved it.  I’ve known about and followed the sabermetric theories that emphasize on-base percentage over batting average on “O” and range factor on “D” for years, but it was great to see the details of the unfolded events that have changed the game dramatically and, in my opinion, for the better.  Not only does this approach make the smaller market teams who can’t afford to grab the Albert Pujolses and Cliff Lees of the game more competitive by giving them the chance to sign the younger, cheaper, and sometimes just as effective players, it also seems to have thinned out the supply of what I call the “goon” baseball player.  Goons are one dimensional players, whether it be a homer or strikeout pinch-hitter or an all-mitt, no-hit or run fielder.  In essence, the sport is well, sportier, or more skilled you could say.  It’s cleaner too in terms of drugs, but that’s another argument for a different day.

Even more recently, an avid baseball reader threw to my attention that the Chicago White Sox announcers, Hawk Harrelson and Steve Stone, spouted off in an interview conducted following the movie’s blockbuster first weekend at the box office last September.  The two former players and baseball men had a lot of negative things to say about Beane and sabremetrics while ridiculing the fact that Moneyball was a big Hollywood movie that needed Brad Pitt to draw any interest whatsoever.  Here is a link to their comments: bit.ly/rb4TRk.  Both of them came across as old-time purists, but more in a rivaled bitter sense than that of a positive fashion for the preservation of baseball tradition.  I don’t expect everyone to be completely in favor of the sabremetric approach.  The sometimes over-computerization and automation that ultimately bring vast changes to the staples of our society often scare many people, and perhaps a larger percentage of the older generations.  Don’t get me wrong, I like my tradition. However, computers have been involved for decades and this change is simply in the application of scouting results.  In addition to the numbers, teams still need people to watch players and get a feel for talent levels.

If you’re a long time announcer for a big-market club like Harrelson, why would you embrace the new stats approach, especially since the ChiSox broke their curse by winning the ’05 Series, right?  However, those reasons seem obvious.  Perhaps Harrelson doesn’t like it because the A’s organization has gotten all of this attention for nearly a decade.  Why would he grow tired of that?  Well, in the old A.L. West division, the ChiSox and A’s competed for division titles when Harrelson was the G.M. of Chicago.  He came up as a player with the old K.C. A’s and was the guy who fired Tony LaRussa as manager of Chicago.  And we all know LaRussa went to manage the A’s and won the World Series with a guy named Billy Beane of all people on his bench.  For this guy, THAT explains some bitterness.

Stone also was critical of Beane and the overrated system while hiding behind the same argument that implies the Sox won a title not too long ago (although they haven’t BEEN in the playoffs since ’05) while the A’s have not made it to a Series under Beane.  Lame I say.  It reminds me of some Yanks and Steelers fans as they justify everything with “how many titles?”.  The two also sounded off on who would be the Cubs’ new G.M. in 2012 and advised against getting a guy who was sabremetric oriented.  The joke is on them now because the guy they hired is Theo Epstein, a Beane disciple of sorts that applied some sabremetrics evaluation (see David Ortiz, Twins) along with his club’s big market budget.  Epstein got the G.M. job in Boston that Beane turned down and cashed his opportunity into two titles.  Ironic, don’t ya think?  Well Hawk and Steve, last year’s title is the only one that matters, and yes, Beane’s team didn’t win their last game, nor did the White Sox.

SIDE VIEW:  Rochester, NY’s Philip Hoffman Seymour played A’s manager Art Howe for the movie.  It seems ironic, but maybe it was done on purpose, that the subtitle of the book begins with “The Art”.

Later Fans.