Billy Reveals Peter's Player Selection Tactics | Moneyball (Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill) 

LOOK AT HIS EYES

He won a national math competition

He doesn't even speak english!

​@@rickysalgado1623 He won the national math competition at Yale! He speaks english!

His name is YANG

This exactly. He might not understand the methods, but he knows that Billy has a plan, at the very least.

He's been around the longest and has been NOT listened to plenty!

A lot of subtext here. Billy and Pete (two relatively young men) are surrounded by a table full of elderly men who represent the old way of thinking. In the last scene that they all sat together they told Billy that their years, wisdom and experience were all that mattered here and that Billy essentially needs to shut up and let them do their job. They’re meeting here again to discuss the same subject, but this time Pete is present and he is the Talisman that is going to allow Billy to turn the table on them. They are IMMEDIATELY suspicious and fearful of Pete. The real tension is brought to bear through the realization that what Billy is really telling them is that they are obsolete. If Pete can singlehandedly create a winning team out of inexpensive castaways with some math formulas then all of their “experience”, “wisdom” and “knowledge” is meaningless. They’re being phased out. The eldest of the group with the hearing aid who “knows his place” has just accepted this fact and is ready to pack it in. The others aren’t going to go down without a fight. Fantastic scene.

Yeah they work for him not the other way around

The best counter to Billy's thinking was none knowing how to play first base. It was a legitimate concern and worthy of discussion.

Underrated? He was nominated in the oscars, won a lot of awards and it has been named like one of the baseball.movies ofbtbe last decade

It is not underrated at all, it is very highly rated.

Saying shit is underrated is dated, it's played... It's perfectly rated.

Underrated? So how is it ranked? 6th best @ MLB 4th all time @ Rotten Tomatoes 3rd all time on IMDB 2nd @ Esquire. Variety lists it on their top 16 of all time (specific ranks not given), the list includes documentaries.

It's a reference to Todd Pratt who played for Philadelphia between 2001 and 2005. The C is for "catcher". Still a cool coincidence though.

How rude 😏

The best threat uttered in any movie ever.

That always cracks me up, he legit stops to help the guy do the math.

Scouts are worthless. Only comparable to meteorologists for how much they get paid to fail.

People say whatever to defend their position.

This is why one of the best ways to convince someone of an idea is to make them think it is their idea. Obstacles become opportunities sometimes depending on who is pushing for the thing.

Playing 1st base isn't hard anyone who ever played catcher would have no problem playing 1st base. It's just movie fiction.

@@Paul-vf2wlAnother thing that came to mind. I've never seen this movie and have just been watching scenes. When I first heard of David Justice, I was thinking of an older guy like the teacher in the movie, "The Rookie," was. When I later saw how he looked, I was shocked at how these old scouts were talking about him.

Yep the book and the movie left out that they had too level and good salary pitching like all winning clubs do. Also, only caring about getting on base and not defense cost them in the playoffs every year

You're backwards projecting things that nobody could have known at the point represented in the movie. Zito was a very young pitcher and there was no way of knowing he would win the Cy Young and have a career year. 2002 was the high water mark of his career, too. Same with Tejada; no way to know he would win MVP and without all those dudes getting on base ahead of him, no way he gets 131 RBIs.

@@plaidchuck That point was made in the book: Beane is on record saying that playoffs are just luck and the only thing that MIGHT actually be predictive of playoff wins is good pitching. Also, 4 of the 5 starters the As had were young dudes on tiny salaries of less than $1million per year. Pure moneyball pitching staff. Also addressed in the book is that you cannot really disentangle defense from pitching.

@@ourvaluesarewhoweareinadem4093 Zito was 17-8 in 2001 and he had 205 strikeouts. Tejada had 30 hrs both the previous 2 seasons just go away with your lack of knowledge.

It doesn't matter. They won MORE games without Jason Giambi and without Damon than they did, with them. They lost their best two players (probably) and still got it done. They were in 2002 what Seattle was in 2001 after the Mariners lost everyone. Now, maybe that is because the AL West is far "weaker" than the East in 2001 and 2002 (I'll buy that) but they still got it done. And even if there was no defense on the field and that cost them in the playoffs, at least they MADE the playoffs. That is the whole point. What difference does it make if you have the #1 defensive team in all of baseball if you do not make the playoffs because you don't score enough runs or your pitching is just... meh? The last time Oakland won the World Series, they had the highest payroll in baseball. This owner does not pay. He likes to profit from the team. So they have to scratch out wins by being creative and inventive.

You need to go outside and find a women ASAP!

That only works if it works. It worked. But please take a slice of humble pie.

They’re still looking for Fabio.

And mlb is still lustful over avg

I’d love it if they did it for our government. But then, there would be a revolution when everybody saw what was really going on.

A friend of mine was a top college baseball player and played in the minors. He told me that most of the guys there were just as good as the guys that got promoted but that most of the guys that made it to the bigs had people in the organization pushing for them.

Yeah sadly everybody then was compared to roid heads and corked batters like mcguire bonds and sosa

No, these guys absolutely were and do - traveling around the country, observing, talking to people. It just so happens they weren’t buying into analytics (yet).

They travel around the country and gather their own stats based on players. They could be in LA watching a person practice in the morning then have to be in Texas at night to watch a person of interest play in the game. Lots of sleepless nights and jet lag, away from families for weeks at a time. They absolutely work hard. Just cause someone doesn’t use a shovel everyday doesn’t mean they aren’t working hard.

You know this is a movie right? Adapted from a true story, but not completely factual.

@travisvanalst4698 I guess I see a difference between working and being inconvenienced. Sitting and watching players play is not working. Traveling a lot is tiring, and it's a hassle. I'm not saying it's easy for them. I just don't see it as work.

@cancarriz Holy crap! I didn't believe it at first, but after I double checked, I found out you were right! It actually IS a movie! Right on! 🙃

Exactly, it was a fundamental flaw of Moneyball. You can get a guy who gets on base a lot and gets you runs when he's at a bat, but if he's a defensive liability on the field, he is going to give up just as many runs to the opposition.

Undoubtedly Peter Brandt factored in fielding percentage when calculating run production/OBP.....Giambi was hardly a Gold Glove fielder at first and Damon, although a great center fielder, never really hit all that well for them.

Yeah I don’t think Mulder Hudson and Zito are even mentioned in the whole movie.

No way. Always put a catcher a first base if you have to. They’re used to scooping up wild pitches and keeping balls in front of them. At first base, even though they’re in a different stance, they have more time to react to a bad throw or one-hopper. Obviously you would worry about line drives and hard grounders up the first base line, but that’s not nearly as important as receiving throws from the rest of the infield.

The Nationals moved Ryan Zimmerman to first when his rotator cuff went south. He only helped them to win a World Series.

Other way around is how I would do it: Hatteberg at 1st and Justice as a DH. Hatteberg actually ended up being a pretty good first baseman.

Dipping tobacco

The scouts are talking about prospects in the minors. Nobody gets stuck with huge contracts at that point.

Everything in life is about percentages when you think about it. Baseball and other sports just have a lot of the data collected and catalogued so it's easier to analyze than real life.

You really don't want to fire people for (respectfully) bringing their percieved issues to your attention.

Yes, but now it's like $700 k.

That's kind of his point. Instead of one star hitter plus two not so great batters he wants three players that average to the same OBP

@@Andreas-ni2lt Yup, they're so focused on these guys replacing Giambi that they overlooked that they also had better OBPs than the other two.

Damon and Almeda (?) had crappy OBPs. Plus, Giambi's OBP was accumulated in far more plate appearances. And of course, his OPS was huge too.

What I don’t get is that, the A’s weren’t exactly a superstar team to begin with, right? So how were they able to win so many games with this method?

@@Bingbangboompowwhamthink of it like a bell curve. Your worst players on one end and the best at the other. Obviously they couldnt afford to get more of the best players. So they found a bunch of middle quality players that were valued low for various reasons. Then they could afford to make the overall team better with those players.

That was the problem with Freddy, he never understood what Billy was doing. Even though Billy had spelled it out for him multiple times. Freddy was stuck on "replacing Giambi"

@MrCveedub he's even MORE awful at his job if that's the case haha

Because they prioritized OBP and didnt bother with defense

You don't swallow tobacco

@@roodledoot So they chew tobacco

That’s honestly just silly.

Plus they had great starting pitching which is a must to win, no secret mathematical formula needed

It got both the Red Sox and the Cubs their championships that ended their curses.

A’s had no cash. What they discovered was people were paying for the wrong thing. They could afford the right thing. Then, the big teams started paying for the right things. And Oakland ended up in Vegas.

Simp