“Moneyball,” one of the most anticipated films of the fall, is based on a real-life attempt to use sabermetrics to win baseball games. Sabermetrics is the science of studying baseball statistics to uncover patterns and probabilities in player performance.
Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland A’s, tried this strategy when fielding a team for the 2002 baseball season. With a limited salary budget, Beene recruited those players with the best chance of getting on base with surprising results.
Beane’s strategy is a lot like playing casino games. In craps, for instance, the number most likely to come up is a 7; rolls of 2 and 12 are the least likely to appear on two six-sided dice. Players that know the true odds can do very well in the short term on craps and other table games.
The odds, however, are calculated over thousands of rolls over a period of time. That means that a gambler could roll six 7’s in a row or watch his dice show dozens of other combinations before a 7 appears. Big short term winning streaks are possible, but a gambler that doesn’t know when to quit could walk away with nothing.
“Moneyball” shows that sabermetrics can work in the short term, but over a 182-game season, those winning and losing streaks can be a real killer to a baseball franchise.
As portrayed by Brad Pitt, Beane is a failed professional baseball player who is desperate for a win in his role as general manager. Beane even recruits Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), an analyst for another team, to crunch the numbers and come up with a roster that can deliver the wins on a limited budget.
Pitt is fairly intense here as Billy Beane, especially when he goes up against the other members of the Oakland A’s organization. Pitt’s acting is overshadowed, though, by the glacial pacing of the story. “Moneyball” is not a movie that could or should exceed two hours in length.
Pitt and co-star Jonah Hill also have a surprising lack of chemistry here, which is another point of failure. As Peter Brand, a character based on real-life assistant general manager Paul DePodesta, comes across as a victim, just like many of Hill’s other characters do. Brand has the brains, but Beane keeps using him like an errand boy.
Even Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman can’t deliver the goods as manager Art Howe. Hoffman portrays Howe as a kind of toothless dugout lion who rolls over instead of fighting for what he thinks is right.
Like Beane’s 2002 line-up, “Moneyball” is a noble attempt, but the slow pace and lack of cohesion turns this film into a major league strike-out.
“Moneyball,” rated PG-13 for some language, currently is playing in theaters.