Timing is everything.
The much-hyped movie “Moneyball,” starring Brad Pitt and Philip Seymour Hoffman, will be released next week. It’s the story of how Oakland Athletics’ General Manager Billy Beane, played by Pitt, built a winning team despite a modest budget. He did it by going against baseball tradition: overreliance on scouting reports. Instead, he shifted the paradigm to an emphasis on certain statistical data–also known as “sabermetric principles”–to gain a leg up on undervalued players and prospects. The Beane-Pitt character refers to the practice as the counterpart of blackjack “card counting.”
The movie is based on the 2003 book “Moneyball” by Michael Lewis.
As for timing: Beane’s still the Oakland GM–as well as a minority owner these days–but the A’s are next to last in the American League West. Other franchises, including the Tampa Bay Rays, have employed Beane-like analyses for cost-effective winning. And some, notably the Rays, have improved on the model. “Moneyball” would have been a more relevant movie five years ago.