When I heard we were going all Billy Beane a while back I thought I'd watch the film again. To stress I am a big fan of Beane and (cautiously) optimistic about the takeover. Some questions however... So the film starts with the Oakland A's losing to New York Yankees in the post-season. Fair play. Yankees are the Man Utd of baseball and the A's budget is a third of theirs. But they'd also clearly had a good season to get to the post-season games. Anyhoo (spoiler alert), after a bit of shenanigans with the old scouts (who to be fair must have identified the previous stars who are being picked off by the big clubs?) Billy wins out with the sabremetrics/spreadsheet approach as the only way to go that next level with the same budget as before. They're crap at first, the old school coach not trusting the way of the Excel, but eventually go on a great run and gloriously make the post-season. As they had the previous season. And then they lose to the Minnesota Twins. Who have a bigger budget. But a smaller one than the Yankees. The film then ends with Billy turning down the Red Sox who have a huge budget. They implement his ideas and win the world series two years later. With a huge budget. Now, I enjoyed the film but couldn't help thinking it slightly glorified the story of a team finishing in the same position two seasons in a row, with the league still being won by the teams with the biggest budgets.... Although it did get me thinking what a great film No Moneyball would be, a glorious ride through Keith Hill's first season in charge of BFC. Justin Moorhouse as Keef. Obviously.
Somewhat boringly , all this sabremetrics stuff fascinates me! I enjoyed the Moneyball film but I guess it oversimplified what actually went on - just ordered the book. I need to reread the Soccernomics book, plus have just ordered 'the numbers game and 'money and football. You'd never guess I work with spreadsheet most of the day!
