Moneyball (2011) and the 2002 Oakland A’s Baseball Team

Out of the films on my list, this film is unique as it was based on the book Moneyball written by Michael Lewis, which was based on the true events of the Oakland A’s through the early 2000s. Originally planned to partially be a documentary, the film is among the most historically accurate films of our time and is one of the most historically accurate sports films I’ve encountered. This story signifies the turning point in Major League Baseball in how a roster is decided and how to build the best team with the lowest budget using computer analytics rather than the historic “feel good” of scouts.

The film opens with scenes from the end of the 2001 ALCS series, where the Oakland A’s fall to the New York Yankees. At the beginning of the montage, it is revealed that the New York Yankees had a budget of $114,457,768, while the A’s were only working with $39,722,689. This disparity, while shocking initially, was not uncommon between larger franchises and smaller teams. What was shocking, however, was how good the A’s were for what they were working with. After the loss, it is revealed that the A’s three top stars were leaving the team for a better salary. Stuck with needing to replace their top talent, and without additional funding, Billy Beane is forced to find a new way to field a team. Taking after Bill James’s controversial analytics-based scouting, Beane brings in recent Yale grad Peter Brand to run the numbers for him to find hidden gems in baseball.

• Peter Brand was not a real person, but rather based on a man named Paul DePodesta. Peter Brand was a Yale grad, while DePodesta’s alma mater was Harvard. Aside from where they went to school, Jonah Hill’s character sticks to a pretty accurate portrayal of DePodesta and his role in the new era of baseball scouting and player analysis.
• Almost everyone in the Oakland A’s organization supported Billy Beane’s new approach to the team, including Art Howe, who was depicted in the film as being openly against the plan from the beginning. Through the movie, he makes several moves that directly conflict with what Billy has directed, seemingly wanting the plan to fail. In reality, Art Howe, while he might have disagreed with Beane on some things, was not openly against him and supported his actions. This portrayal by Philip Seymour Green actually received a lot of backlash from Art Howe, who was outraged that he was made out to be an antagonist in the film.