The Plot Holes of Moneyball

No one has ever been more upset to lose reliver Jason Isringhausen than the characters in Bennett Miller's 2011 classic Moneyball. It's not that the Oakland A's lost borderline Hall of Famers Jason Giambi and Johnny Damon to free agency after the 2001 season, but also Jason Isringhausen?! My stars, how will Billy Beane ever recover!?

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.

The Search for the Next Cubs GM

I started writing this article on the Cubs search for their next GM, but wasn’t able to finish it before it was announced that the Cubs have hired their new President of baseball Operations in Theo Epstein and General manager in Jed Hoyer. I decided to finish and post this article as planned and a future article will come on my opinion solely on the hire of the new Cubs front office with Epstein heading up baseball operations and the new direction for the organization. So please keep in mind that this article was written evaluating the Cubs front office and their options before they hired their new GM.

The Chicago Cubs will be looking for a new manager this off season. I am sure they have actually started their search since the day they announced they have let former General Manager Jim Hendry go. The Cubs have their handful finding the right guy to take over the reins for this job. The Cubs do not have anyone with baseball experience within their organization calling the shots now. Thus, the new General Manager will need to be very talented and insightful to clean up the mess he has inherited and build up the organization from the bottom up. The Cubs aren’t in the worse situation in the league, like some of the teams such as Houston, Seattle, to name a few. They have some prospects and some money off the books, but the new GM needs to build a plan for the organization, put an emphasize on the minor league system, stress the fundamentals from the minors league system to the Major league level, and find a Manager who knows how to coach. I figured we should look at some of the general manager candidates who may be mentioned and then those who probably won’t be considered, but should be who could possibly handle the job as General manager of the Chicago Cubs to end the drought and clean up the mess that keeps getting deeper from Ed Lynch to Andy MacPhail, to Jim Hendry.

The Cubs reached out to Hall of famer Pat Gillick recently and asked him to join the Cubs organization in some capacity such as a special assistant to the owner reporting to Tom Rickets. After Pat Gillick stepped down after the rigous duties of being an GM of the Phillies he became an advisor for them. The same type of role the Cubs have offered him. So why would he want to leave a team that when he took over as GM several years he built the team up to what it is today? They also have a great thing going in Philliadpha being a contender every year with the stellar rotation. If he left the good situation he is now to come to Chicago he would want a position of power to be able to steer this sinking ship in the right direction and get it pointed up instead of going further down. That is why he supposedly told the cubs he would only come as President. That way he would have control over the Cubs to set the direction for the organization from top to bottom. It is also rumored he doesn’t want to take orders from current Cubs president Crake Kennedy, even though he is a business guy. Because Kennedy is president he tries to get involved is all aspects of the club, even though his expertise is only business. Thus, having Kennedy as President has scared a Hall of famer like Gillick away. I would have liked them to bring Gillick in as President with him setting the tone for the organization and guiding the GM he picks. That way he can mentor someone who has some old school smarts like himself, but also may be a little more analytical and advanced stat savvy. Gillick coming to the Cubs is done so lets move on to possibly alternatives.

My first choice for GM would be Andrew Friedman whom I consider to be the best GM in baseball. He has one year left on his contract with the Rays, where he has a limited budget, and in a tough division with the Red Sox and Yankees. So I wouldn’t be surprised if he is interested in the Chicago Cubs job. He is very analytical, knows how to analyze numbers coming from wall street, and has experience running a baseball organization.

My second choice is Theo Epstein whom became the youngest GM at 28 for Boston. In 9 years he has won them 2 championships with a big payroll and rebuilt their farm system. He drafted superstars in Dustin Pedoria, Jacoby Ellsbury, Johnanton Pappelbon, and traded for many others to help them win their championship like Mike Lowell, Josh Beckett. He knows how to draft well and spend money wisely of a big market club, even though some may question that with the signings of John Lackey, Carl Crawford, and J.D. Drew. The only one of those that was really bad at the time and will be regretted is John Lackey. Oh, lets not forget about Dice-K.
Brian Chashman is rumored to be a candidate because his contract is up with the Yankees. I am not a big fan of Cashman though because I don’t know what he has done. He has an endless budget and has hired some good scouting directors to drafts some good talent to keep or use as trade bait. The Yankees may always be good and competeitve, but I don’t think Cashman could have the same success in Chicago and I think he would fail like MacPhail and Jim Hendry did.

Billy Beane has also been mentioned, but like I don’t think he is qualified for the difficulties of this job to turn things around. The Oakland Athletics’ haven’t been in the post season in years because other teams have adaptive to his style and he hasn’t adaptive to the game. He needs to balanced in his approach to the game to gain his advantage to put a winner on the field and he isn’t. That is why he isn’t our guy to run the Cubs.

The Cubs need someone who can turn around an entire organization from top to bottom and that is why Theo Epstein was a great choice. The Cubs have a few talented players thanks to Tim Wilken and isn’t in terrible shape like some teams, but needed someone like Epstein who is one on the few executives currently active in the game in the game that I like who is smart enough to turn around an organization in shambles!

Billy Beane doesn't just draft baseball players (he also drafts women)

As an avid follower of the Moneyball Movie genesis (there's other posts about it floating around this blog without the proper tags for some reason...), I was absolutely devastated when I found out that the movie was initially canceled. Although the film seemed surreal (Brad Pitt, Steven Soderbergh, Dmitri Martin, Scott Hatteberg...what?) and although Moneyball seemed like it would be the absolutely last book ever turned into a movie, stranger things have been accomplished. Unfilmable movies like Watchmen and A Clockwork Orange became great films.

Alas, I digress. The movie has been re-greenlighted without Soderbergh on board. What shocks me, however, and provides the basis for this post, is that, as an avid Moneyball movie tracker, I missed this amazing article which revealed the existence of a Moneyball sex scene in the film's original draft!

A PDF of the script (which has since been taken down) was floating around the internet at the time, which

"...even includes a scene in which the Oakland GM hits up an Outback Steakhouse in Cleveland with Paul DePodesta and orders a Bloomin' Onion.

Later, Zaillian portrays Beane doing the most logical thing after eating a plate of fried onions with tangy sauce ... having sex with the waitress who served it to him."

Classic, right? The best part of The Big League Stew's article is the rationalization of why this scene was probably cut from the rewrite:

Perhaps Soderbergh deleted this scene and Pascal thought the absence of chain restaurant-related romance would hurt the film's test scores among women?

We wouldn't want a movie about baseball statistics and 30 year old men who live in their mom's basements to alienate the female audience with a sex scene now, would we?