151 - Moneyball

The lads throw on their Oakland A’s jerseys and get a little romantic about baseball as they cover Bennett Miller’s 2011 anti-sports film: Moneyball. Topics include the chaotic pre-production, the highs and lows of the Zaillian/Sorkin screenplay, and what it means to build a film around a philosophy that would ultimately change baseball for the worse.
Media Referenced in this Episode:
• Moneyball. Dir. Bennett Miller. 2011.

• “Brad Pitt Reveals What He, Sony Did to Save ‘Moneyball’” by Alex Ben Block. The Hollywood Reporter. December 16th, 2011. (www.hollywoodr...)

• “Soderbergh's Moneyball mothballed” by Xan Brooks. The Guardian. July 3rd, 2009. (www.theguardia...)

• “THR’s Writer Roundtable: 6 Top Scribes Talk Standing Up to Clint Eastwood, Dealing with Rewrites and Being Fired by Your Wife” by Matthew Belloni and Stephen Galloway. The Hollywood Reporter. November 21st, 2011. (www.hollywoodr...)

• VIDEO: A-Rod regrets kissing mirror in 2009 photo shoot (www.thescore.c...)

TWOAPW theme by Brendan Dalton: Patreon ( / brendandalton ) // brendan-dalton.com (brendan-dalton....) // brendandalton.bandcamp.com (brendandalton.b...)
Interstitial: “Betrayal” feat. Ben Schrager (www.benschrager...) as “Mr.” and Anne Huston as “Mrs.”

[@alexisborden3191]

I love this movie, partly because I am the autistic baseball nerd who is a wRC+ truther and loves going into all these advanced stats to explain why Russell Martin and Brian McCann are hall of famers, and how Francisco Lindor is actually one of the best players in baseball and has been for years now.
But I think it also gets to the other side of all of this being that it makes the baseball less fun and there's only so much you can do about it the rule changes from last year helped. Like Stolen bases are very fun to watch but teams realized that they're not that valuable, so you really shouldn't risk getting thrown out to move up from 1st to 2nd in 90% of instances. So we're not getting any Rickey Henderson tier, triple digit steals seasons because catchers have learned how to throw runners out and that doing so is pretty good. Similarly with batting averages, just slapping the ball around for a good batting average isn't that effective, you want doubles and home runs, and when you get shifted on because you only pull the ball, its much better to just try and hit the ball hard into the shift and get a home run or a double, than it is to doink in the other way for a single or maybe a double if you're lucky.
The other thing, more to what the movie is about, is that it really is Schrodinger's meta, in that it both works very well, and doesn't work at all. Because the underlying premise, that you can outsmart these juggernauts of spending is flawed, you cannot do that. Baseball has generally been correct in finding very good players and desiring them. People figured out Willie Mays, and Babe Ruth, and Hank Aaron, and Tom Seaver, and name a HOF player, all of these guys were good and will help you win baseball games. The gains you get by finding better relievers, and mid to back-end starters and bench bats and corner outfielders, pale in comparison to taking 200 million dollars and giving it to the guy who was really good at hitting or pitching or whatever last year. Now you ask, what if you had a lot of money, but you were also very smart about the types of players you drafted and traded for and the things you coached them to do. Well congratulations you've just identified what makes the Dodgers and the Astros and the Braves so successful these past few years, and to a lesser extent the Blue Jays, Brewers, Phillies, Mets, Padres, all kind of operating on a scale of smart to spend, but they all know that doing both is good. Its now become more critical to spend money than it ever was in 2002, so its not like the concept of moneyball leveled the playing field, in fact it upended it further, it widened that gap.
Anyways great show, love ya'll, keep up the great work.

[@TheWorstOfAllPossibleWorlds]

lindor is the best every day player in major league baseball and i will die on this hill

[@alexisborden3191]

@@TheWorstOfAllPossibleWorlds I will dig the trenches to defend that hill

[@charleslecki3609]

Say what you want, Gerbert gets on base.

[@harrycullen6515]

Well this is a fine way to spend a Wednesday morning

[@theryanbard]

Would hate for my final words to be "ouchies"

[@cowprophet]

The script being self-contradictory I believe reveals just the struggle of the screenwriter(s) to be a decent person. On the one hand, Billie is the main character which we are supposed to empathise with. On the other hand, he barely qualifies as a good person and only seems to consider his daughter as a real person, and that's maybe the only aspect of his that can be sympathetic to the viewers. The movie is supposed to be a fun watch, but all it tries to do is tell us trying to cut costs is a worthwhile undertaking that has emotional and personal value, which is a complete fabrication and only tenuously connected the way Sorkin produces emotional moments in his films: momentary imagery and impeccable music choices. It could never be a good movie, and its tagline 'What are you really worth?' should probably be 'How can you not be romantic about capitalism?'.

[@alexv6068]

I don't have anything funny to say, I'm just happy to be here