Just days before shooting was set to begin on the movie adaption of Moneyball, Columbia Pictures have shelved the project.  Rumor has it that Columbia pulled the plug after director Steven Soderbergh turned in a rewritten script substantially different than an earlier draft. 

There’s definitely something fitting about the project ending this way.  Back in 2003 when Moneyball the book first came out, it was a simpler time in baseball— players could take female fertility drugs to their heart’s desire.  But now?  Now the story looks different, flawed.  Again it seems fitting that it goes out this way: Moneyball is being re-written and we don’t like what it ended up as. 

The sales pitch of Moneyball was “to find skills that other teams undervalued”, which in 2003 meant looking for walks and home runs.  And at the time, it was revolutionary.  Wait, walks are as good as singles?  I did not know that. 

But in hindsight, Moneyball was based on lies and bad strategy.  It wasn’t just predicated on being a good way to get a cheap team, it was predicated on steroids.  “Power can be acquired,” Billy Beane said “Good hitters develop power.”  Well in the Bay Area in the late 90s, they did.  You’ve got a guy that only walks, strikeouts, or hits it to the warning track?  Send him to Oakland and he’ll hit 40 homers.  But here’s the thing: even in Balco’s heyday, the A’s never did anything in the postseason.  Two MVPs, three Rookies of the Year, and yet they only got one Postseason series victory.  You know why?  Because hoping for two walks and a three-run home run is not good Postseason baseball.  It may work in August against the Orioles, but in October against the Yankees it won’t.  Beane’s A’s weren’t the first, or last, team to overvalue the home run because we as fans have overvalued it for nearly a century. 

That first fix, the freebie that got us hooked, was Ruth.  And Mantle and Mays took it to the next level.  By the time Sammy and Big Mac came around we were ready to break into our mom’s house and pawn our principles just to get that high again.  Ever since we saw how far one man could hit a baseball, we have been dying to see someone hit it further.  Even at the expense of the true point of the game.  But I want to be clear that this isn’t another indictment on steroids.  They are clearly much more of a symptom than the disease.  Steroids, like corked bats and short right field porches, were just another way to ensure more home runs. 

Home runs are like slam dunks— when they come in the natural course of the game they are spectacular.  And even when we gather for All-Star breaks and set up contests for them, that is fantastic too.  But when the game becomes about them, when we forsake fundamentals for the highlight, then not only do home runs become overrated, they become dangerous to the game.  

It’s been 6 years since Moneyball came out.  That was before we all became embarrassed by our home run records but it was immediately after the (small-ball) Angels won the World Series.  It was the year the (small-ball) Florida Marlins won it all.  It was right in the middle of the Yankees changing from a perennial contender (5 World Series appearances in 6 years) to an also-ran (1 World Series appearance in the next 7 years,) not surprisingly they were also changing from small-ball team to a basher lineup.  When the Yankees won it all in 1996 they hit 162 regular season home runs, from 2002-2004 they averaged 232 homers.  Meanwhile the Angels hit 152 the year they won it and the Marlins hit 157 the year they did.  Sensing a trend?  

Chone Figgins, the definition of a little-ball player and quintessential Angel, recently called going first to third on a single was “the most important thing a player can do”.  Because when a guy is on third, the pitcher has to worry about passed balls.  Suddenly most guys’ best pitch, their “out” pitch, is off-limits because he doesn’t want to wild-pitch a run in.  This kind of mentality- getting into the pitcher’s head and taking away his best stuff is what guys like Figgins do best.  They can do it on third and they can do it on first when the pitcher’s more worried about them stealing then the guy at the plate.  Sacrificing, stealing, going 1st to 3rd, these are the things that Championship teams do.  They manufacture runs in the postseason because Home Runs and Walks are harder to come by when the competition gets better.

Ok I’m going to try and rein in my stat-nerdness, but here’s something to think about

- In the last 10 years, no team that has won the World Series also led the league in home runs

- None of those Champions even lead postseason teams in regular season homers 

- Only 3 of the last 7 Champs were even Top-10 HR teams

- In fact, during those last 7 years, every season has had at least one team in the bottom ten in home runs make the postseason- including ’05, ’06, and ’07 when multiple bottom-10 teams made the postseason.  Think about that- could one of the ten worst teams in ERA make the postseason?  Could multiple ones?  How insignificant are home runs that (multiple) teams that don’t hit them still make the playoffs.

- In 2006 as many postseason teams finished in the bottom-10 (3) in home runs as finished in the top-10. 

This all should just serve as a reminder that the long ball does not equal success.  Moneyball did usher in an era of stat-driven GMs, which ultimately has been a boost for the game.  So ultimately the Oakland A’s methods serve as the legacy, while the actual stats they were concerned with have largely been ignored.  Oakland’s success during these years, or lack there of, has changed the A’s legacy and Moneyball’s with it.  But more A-Rod, and Bonds, and McGwire, and Giambi, these guys changed the legacy of the whole era. 

One leak from Columbia had Soderbergh, of Ocean’s Eleven fame, making Moneyball into what some called a Ballpark Eleven- basically a comedic adventure about smart guys pulling a fast one on all of baseball, hence the casting of Brad Pitt and Demetri Martin.  Maybe a few years ago this becomes a fun sport movie, but now this concept seems less and less believable.  Which might explain why Soderbergh suddenly began trying to add an element of truth to the movie by suggesting a mixture of Pitt/Martin high-jinks with real-life baseball interviews/documentary.   And suddenly Columbia Pictures saw their fun time rained on by real-life; now they know what it’s like to be a baseball fan.