MLB: Don't Spend Your Money on Moneyball

Since I have two degrees in statistics, I was looking forward to seeing the movie "Moneyball" this weekend. I was disappointed.

"Moneyball" is a movie about Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland Athletics, a small-market team trying to compete against teams with total payrolls more than twice his budget.

Beane hired a recent economics graduate from Yale, Peter Brand, to help him use analytical methods to select the players the team might acquire. Much to the dismay of the Athletics' scouting staff, Beane chose to listen more to Brand than to the experienced scouts.

There were several funny scenes:

• The chubby minor league catcher stumbled over first base while rounding the bag, crawled back to touch up, but then was told that he had hit a home run.
• The frustrated head scout told Beane that if he didn't listen to the scouts, he would have to explain to his daughter why he was working at Dick's sporting goods.
• David Justice asked Scott Hatteberg what scared him about playing first base, and Hatteberg responded that he was afraid of a ball being hit in his direction.
• Beane wanted manager Art Howe to start Hatteberg at first base, but Howe insisted on starting Carlos Pena. Beane didn't like Pena's low On Base Percentage, so he traded Pena to get his way. (As a fantasy league owner of Pena's low batting average this year, I certainly could resonate with Beane's point of view.)
• The players had to pay a dollar for a can of soda in the Athletics' locker room.

There was the touching scene when Beane's daughter was afraid that he would be fired and have to move away from California, and she wouldn't be able to see him.

I was hoping to see at least a modest discussion about sabermetrics, but unless I missed something, the only statistic that was discussed was On Base Percentage. What about:

• Slugging Percentage,
• Batting Average with Runners in Scoring Position,
• or Runs Batted in during Late Innings of Close Games ?

Why were they so high on Chad Bradford? Surely it was something more than his unconventional pitching delivery?

This movie was too much about Brad Pitt and too little about "Moneyball."

In the spirit of "Moneyball," don't spend your money to go see the movie now in the theater. Wait until the winter, when you are desperate for some baseball, and then get it from Red Box for $1.

Do that and you will make Billy Beane proud.