Listen, I get it. In the film, the 2002 Oakland A's appear to be one of the worst teams in the league held together by rubber bands and Scotch tape. The film needs to creatively, yet realistically show the internal struggle that was at the heart of Michael Lewis's New York Times Best Seller of the same name: a team fighting back against the traditionalism of Baseball using advanced statistics. As such, a closer like Jason Isringhausen needs to be lumped in with Giambi and Damon and his loss needs to be also treated with the utmost reverence.
In reality, the 2002 A's, even without Jason Giambi and Johnny Damon, and yes, even without Jason Isringhausen, were a damn good team. Oakland still had stud third baseman Eric Chavez, future World Series MVP Jermaine Dye, 2002 MVP Miguel Tejada and one of the best rotations since the mid-90's Atlanta Braves including a young Aaron Harang and Cory Liddle and the fearsome trio of Mark Mulder, Tim Hudson, and 2002 AL Cy Young winner Barry Zito.
The lack of players not discussed in the film and the rotation that's rarely discussed in the book as well seems to be the main sticking point with a lot of fans. Sure Scott Hatteberg and David Justice were fine players, but you're not going to mention that both the AL MVP and the AL Cy Young came from this team as well? How dare you sir!
Again, I get it. It's hard to adapt a book that's all over the place that Moneyball actually is while also still including its themes all while making it palatable for a mainstream audience. As such, the film overwhelming is a creative success, even though it comes at the expense of the majority of excellent players.
But that's not what this blog post is about. I'm not here to discuss the differences between the film and what actually occurred in real life. I'm here to discuss the plot holes that exist solely within the text of the film. If you want more information about many major differences between the film and historical record, I'll put a list together at the end. But for now, here's the glaring errors I notice when watching the film for the 50th time. These are the plot holes of Moneyball.
