I’ve been thinking about Moneyball again. Actually, it’s fair to say that I think about Moneyball a good bit. I’m an avid baseball fan, and I have a particular interest in sabermetrics, which is a term coined by Bill James that refers to the statistical, empirical analysis of baseball. Michael Lewis’s Moneyball brought sabermetrics into the public spotlight — and thus created a 3-way intersection of factions: (1) The sabermetricians (and those who find value in sabermetric analysis) like Bill James or Billy Beane (GM of Oakland, and subject of Moneyball), (2) the traditionalists like baseball writer Murray Chass, who felt that sabermetrics could not measure heart or desire or grit, and that emphasizing statistics interferes with fan enjoyment, and (3) the remaining undecided baseball fans, who were not sure what to make of all this.
As quickly as sabermetrics gained popularity, the backlash grew in lockstep. Most of the traditionalists weren’t so extreme as to abandon all statistics, but often claimed that the only statistics needed were the traditionally established categories like batting average, runs, wins, and so on. Every opportunity was taken to mock the sabermetric movement as a bunch of nerds with calculators. In one famous instance, Hall of Famer Joe Morgan claimed in a broadcast that Billy Beane wrote Moneyball and that he (Morgan) did not need to bother reading the book to know that it was wrong.
It’s not surprising, then, that the Oakland Athletics became the poster-child (poster-children?) for the sabermetric movement. Critics were happy to point out that, while the Athletics did win (or finish near the top) of the AL West division for several years, the Moneyball strategy didn’t “work” in the postseason. And when Oakland did finally slip out of contention over the last few years, it was hailed as the death-knell for Moneyball, final proof that the traditionalists were right.
The debate raged on, however, as the sabermetricians insisted that the “Moneyball plan” wasn’t tied to the particular strategies employed by Billy Beane (signing undervalued hitters who could get on base and hit for power, even if they didn’t have a gaudy batting average), but rather in trying to identify market inefficiencies in whatever form they currently take. In Oakland’s case, it involved finding those hitters who could get on base, but after a few years other teams began to realize the value of those hitters, and the advantage disappeared. As the rest of the league fought over the patient power hitters, a new market inefficiency emerged: defense. Fielding ability has always been one of the most difficult skills to capture in statistics, and so as sabermetricians began looking for the best way to evaluate defensive ability, they realized that too often the best defenders were undervalued by teams. The traditionalists were undeterred, however, as they took this new sabermetric shift in priorities as a tacit admission that the “pitching and defense/play the game the right way/bunt ’em over, hit ’em in” traditions were, after all, correct.
The war for the soul of baseball has continued and expanded — every aspect of game is subject to intense scrutiny by the sabermetric community for the stated purpose of greater understanding, while the traditionalists cry that their sport is being deconstructed and destroyed in the process, all the beauty and grace lost in the wash of numbers.
Why rehash all this recent history? Because it finally looks like the Moneyball movie may be on the way. If Moneyball on the big screen sounds odd to you, you’re not alone. Moneyball doesn’t seem to lend itself to film in the same way that, say, The Blind Side did. The story centers around a front office executive, and there’s no great triumph at the end, no World Series victory (or even appearance). Perhaps the difficulty of adaptation partially explains why the production went through three writers (Stan Chervin, Steven Zaillian, and finally Aaron Sorkin) and three directors (David Frankel, Steven Soderbergh, and now Bennett Miller). There is cause for optimism, though, with Sorkin, fresh off his Academy Award-winning screenplay for The Social Network, and Miller, who last directed the 2005 film Capote.
I will admit that I was worried about a film adaptation — not only because of the risk of turning a good book into a bad movie, but also because a film would introduce the general public to the sabermetric debate and possibly fan new and higher flames, as well as give the most reactionary traditionalists another opportunity to paint Moneyball, Billy Beane, the Oakland Athletics, and anyone interested in understanding the game through statistical analysis as number-obsessed, joyless nerds who are happier studying a spreadsheet than actually watching a real baseball game. This bothers me because I have yet to come across anyone who actually believes that sabermetrics is the only way to experience baseball. Careful statistical study may reveal (or, at least, suggest) who the most valuable hitter or pitcher might be, but it cannot dictate who your favorite player is, or who you most enjoy watching, any more than the MVP award did in years past. We’ve always measured accomplishments in baseball; sabermetrics is nothing more than an attempt at measuring accomplishments in a more rigorous, logical way, and it does not (or should not) diminish the fans’ enjoyment of the game itself.
My hope is that the Moneyball movie will spark more widespread interest in sabermetrics, and that the story will retain the nuance and balance that the book had. The soul of baseball need not be fought over. There’s room for everyone.
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