Moneyball Movie Analysis

Moneyball, the story of a dynamic change agent who rallied a small group of undervalued professional baseball players and executives to overturn convention and rethink how Major League Baseball (“MLB”) was managed and played. Its really a book about hustlers. Moneyball consecrated the notion that its noble to win inexpensively, but believe its good to stay a cheap baseball club, because of their fat annual revenue-sharing check they get at the end of the year. Michael Lewis wrote an un-organizational confusion, his misunderstanding of baseball, to his constant interruption of financial and statistical talk, that turned interest in the book away from many.

The book Moneyball by Michael Lewis is about a former major league baseball player who became the manager of the Oakland A’s. It tells the story of how he led the team to success despite their low budget by using computer based analytics to draft players. With the help of Bill James, the Oakland A’s came up with a new plan based on statistics to draft players. He went after players nobody wanted due to their low budget and his new plan. Billy led the Oakland Athletics to a successive win seasons by changing the way he measured players. He abandoned the traditional 5 “tool” the other scouts used and adopted empirical analytics. The abandonment of the traditional assessment of

Anyone who has been involved in an organized sport, whether it is backyard football or a high school sports team, knows that these sports all have organizations that are responsible for setting rules, determining conditions of play, and penalizing individuals who infringe the rules. Some of the organizations like the National Football league and the MLB are familiar to most people, the rules they follow are not generally understood by anyone who is not closely associated with the sport. Most fans and sport critics assume that what is happening inside these organizations are of little concern to them. However, this is not the case. In the MLB, the New York Yankees spend an excessive amount of money every year to obtain big name players. A

Teams with large payrolls routinely win at a higher rate than teams who cannot afford to spend the massive amounts of money other teams do. For example, in the last fifteen years the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers, two teams which regularly are among the highest spending teams in baseball, won on average 94.7 and 86.8 games respectively. By comparison, the San Diego Padres and the Kansas City Royals, two teams who are not able to compete financially with teams with deeper pockets, won an average of 77.1 and 71.6 games respectively in that same time span (Major League Baseball). This disparity in season wins is a direct cause of Major League Baseball’s lack of a salary cap. Over the course of a 162 game season, teams with higher payrolls, and therefore better talent on their roster, will prevail more often than

He was not going by the proper way to scout players. Other scouts were getting mad he was not doing this. Billy believed in the statistics. As the 2002 Oakland Athletic team started off strong with three straight wins in the beginning. As the season started going, the A’s started a 20 game winning streak. Billy was praised for finding these players that were all pulling in the same direction. Not one player had an ego that would set back the team. Just like Billy, the players were focused on one thing winning, winning the World Series. Billy lived by this quote, “The problem,”‘ wrote James, “is that baseball statistics are not pure accomplishments of men against other men, which is what we are in the habit of seeing them as. They are accomplishments of men in combination with their circumstances” (Lewis 71). Billy just did not focus on the stats rather he also focused on what the player actually accomplished throughout their years of playing baseball. This is what made him one of the best general managers in the league at the time. After the A’s did not make it past the first round of the playoffs all of the criticism waiting for the Billy to fail for the first time started to pour in. Billy simply responded “We’ll be back.” Billy was not viewed as a real general manager in the beginning, but after he succeeded he gained

Jayson Stark, ESPN columnist, presents an interesting argument of the downfall of baseball after free agency. He uses sarcasm and slight humor to introduce the reader to the topic of free agency and uses the argument style of comparison and contrast to predict what today might have held had there been no free agency. But within his column, player agent Tom Reich states, “The people who criticize free agency to easily today don’t realize how bad baseball was twenty-five years ago” (Stark). It is Stark who realizes that the talent of the game has improved, but the overall passion in each player may have decreased.

College athletics is a very diverse organization involving a lot of students, mainly as the players, and non-students such as officials, coaches and others. The leading governing body for college athletics is the National Collegiate Athletic Association, NCAA. College sports is itself a big industry involving sponsorships, TV networks, endorsements, retail products and marketing. But in spite of it being a big business, the players are not compensated for the work they deliver. This opens up two opinions: should players be paid, or should they not? Kristi Dosh’s article, “The Problems With Paying College Athletes”, (UNCLEAR)discusses where the coaches’ money come from to pay student athletes. On the other hand, Mark Cassell’s article, “College Athletes Should Be Able To Negotiate Compensation”, debates how athletes should be able to negotiate their compensation. This paper will evaluate the evidence of both Dosh and Cassell in order to determine which argument is more effective.

The Calvary Christian dugout erupted as Johnny Field hit a walk-off homerun to win the Florida High School Baseball Championship, which was the biggest game of the year. Scotty Stanton, the Columbus Explorers center fielder, walked off the field in misery. “I can’t believe I went 0-4 in front of all these pro scouts,” Stanton muttered. After the two teams lined up to shake hands after a hard fought game, Field approached Stanton, “So much for being the number one player in the state Scotty, maybe those scouts were looking for a bat boy, because that’s all you will ever be.” Stanton watched the scouts walk up to Field and introduce themselves. The scouts did not say one word to Stanton, who was projected to be drafted in this upcoming MLB Draft.

In 1919, the Chicago white coach Charles Comiskey was the main cause of The Black Sox Scandal. If coach Comiskey didn’t treat and under paid his players they would have never agreed to throw the World Series. (Society) With money problems the team was willing to do things to get more money because of the way they were being underpaid. The Chicago White Sox were together the best team in baseball perhaps one of the best teams that had ever played the game, yet they like all ball players of the time were paid a fraction of what they were worth. (Linder, The Black Sox Trial: An Account) Two of the biggest stars in baseball played for the Chicago White Sox. The owner of the White Sox only paid his two biggest stars outfield “shoeless” Joe Jackson and third basemen Buck Weaver six thousand a year. Charles Risberg and Claude Williams made less than $3,000 a year. (Linder, The Black Sox Trial: An Account) While most teams gave their players $4 a day for meals, Comiskey would pay only $3. (Linder, CHARLES "THE OLD ROMAN" COMISKEY). The players did not like the way they are treated. The

Coach Barnes and his assistant tony who had one 4 titles and led the team in central to 5 straight finals appearances. The team didn't know what to expect after the news that was just revealed to them , they didn't know wether to be happy or sad because they were going to loose there loving coach or to be happy that they were going to have a division 1 coach . The offseason had just begun and the team was happy with how coach Barnes had refurbished their locker room got them New Jerseys and hooked them up with some special juice that helped them “gain” muscles in a short period of time . The team didn't know what was in those shakes so they tought every thing was going to be fine but little did they know what was in those shakes . Little did they know how much steroids was put into those shakes . Suddenly Michaels best friend Caleb was beginning to learn about steroids in health class and he started wondering if maybe there was a possibility that there might be steroids in those shakes but he never said anything. The biggest reason why coach Barnes was hooking these poor athletes up with drugs was to be noticed then go to the big leagues such as the NFL and the only way to be noticed was to make these kids stronger and to make these kids play division

Under the new Major League Baseball policy, many key implementation decisions… are to be made by a four-person committee that includes Robert D. Manfred, Jr., Major League Baseball's Executive Vice President, Labor and Human Resources, and Gene Orza, the Chief Operating Officer and Associate General Counsel of the Major League Players Association. According to the policy, some of these decisions must be made unanimously, giving both Major League Baseball management and the players union a veto (Davis, np).

1. Based on the “Billy Beane: Changing the Game” case, explain how and why the Oakland A’s economic situation after 1995 shaped its:

The A's recent success is attributed to the innovative approach taken by Billy Beane in assembling a baseball team with a very limited amount of financial resources. Billy Beane has built a successful ball club because he has found an efficient and cost effective way of measuring baseball talent thus essentially creating a loophole in this unfair game because winning percentage is a result of talent not

George et al.,(2007) provide the importance of an authentic leadership. A key focus of the article is that the leader should not only understand his values, but practice them as well. One of the most interesting values described by Billy Beane is his value of education. Major League Baseball would recognize him as one of the top high school talents in the country during his youth. He valued education so much, that he informed all Major League Baseball teams that he would not sign any professional contract so that he could attend Stanford. Even upon being convinced to sign with the New York Mets, he made his intentions of taking classes in the off season quite clear. This may have been his undoing as a player, as he did not value where his natural talents could take him in baseball. This would lead him to develop values regarding life decisions. He swore after that sequence of events he would never make a decision based on money ever again. This is a value he has stayed true to, as he turned down the opportunity to be the highest paid

Fight Club is a unique film that has many different interpretations consisting of consumerist culture, social norms, and gender roles. However, this film goes deeper and expresses a Marxist ideology throughout; challenging the ruling upper-class and a materialist society. The unnamed narrator, played by Ed Norton, represents the materialist society; whereas Tyler Durden, played by Brad Pitt, represents the person challenging the controlling upper-class. Karl Marx believed that the capitalist system took advantage of workers, arguing that the interests of the upper-class class conflicted with that of the common worker. Marx and Durden share the same views about the upper-class oppressing the materialist, common worker. By interpreting Fight Club through a Marist lens, the viewer is able to realize the negative effects a capitalist society has on the common worker by seeing the unnamed narrator’s unfulfilled and material driven life in contrast to the fulfilling life of Durden who challenges the upper-class. The unnamed narrator initially fuels the upper-class dominated society through his materialistic and consumeristic tendencies; however, through the formation of his alter ego—Durden—the unnamed narrator realizes the detriment he is causing to himself and society. He then follows the guide of Durden’s and Marx’s views and rectifies his lifestyle by no longer being reliant on materials. Also by forming fight club, which provides an outlet, for himself and the common worker,