WTF Really Happened to Moneyball? 

What a script and performance by Brad Pitt. Absolutely magnificent.

It's worth remembering that "Moneyball" was not a documentary chronicling that fateful season - it was a feature film. And given its extraordinarily effective cinematic achievements, it probably ranks as one of the most historically accurate portrayals ever made by any film of comparable quality.

'Moneyball' is easily one of the best motion pictures made in the last 25 years. A good story told well. A rare commodity of late...

My biggest problem with the book and movie is how it completely ignores the fact that Oakland had the three top starters in the AL (Mark Mulder, Barry Zito and Tim Hudson), as well as two MVP caliber hitters in their lineup (Miguel Tejada and Eric Chavez), most of which were not brought in by Billy Beane himself. They put way too much attention on the guys that were more so role players than true stars.

Art Howe's complaints are legit. That he managed to win 100 games with that team was amazing he managed extremely well the whole season. Also the Athletics scouting/recruiting team that had produced not just Giambi, Chavez, Tejada, Mulder, Hudson, Zito but going back to the 80s had produced McGwire, Canseco, and Ricky Henderson. Really nobody else was competing with the A's ability to build talent in their minor league system. It was wrong to turn traditional recruiters and a brilliant manager into the villains.

Having three top end starters in your rotation is a massive reason for their success and a glaring absence from the movie.

Along with A League of Their Own, Moneyball is one of my favorite baseball movies!!

As a fan who wasn’t behind the scenes but lived through the events, what I would say is that the biggest reason they were successful in that era was the existing roster and farm system left behind by former GM Sandy Alderson, who had moved on to another team. The A’s had the best pitching rotation in the AL with Hudson, Zito and Mulder. They had Billy Koch closing out games. Bradford was a middle relief pitcher, as was Rincon. Their impact was debatable. Chavez, Tejada, Dye, Hernandez, Long and several others who played occasionally like Justice and Hatteburg contributed. They certainly changed their approach to one of taking walks and getting on base but were unable to flip the switch to drive in runs when the time came. So many times, including the playoff games they lost, they loaded the bases only to leave them full as every batter struck out looking or having to chase bad pitches because they took better pitches trying to walk. Once the Alderson players were gone, the success evaporated. This proves more than anything that moneyball had a very small effect. Pena was struggling so badly in the shadow of Giambi that he was up and down in the minors when he was traded.

First good baseball movie in decades. Great rewatchable quality.

If you ignore the reality of who else was on that team, this is a great movie. I've always enjoyed the energy of it. Since I watched real time that season happening, of course it's stretches for dramatic effect, most movies do. Real life is never as tidy.

They never did mention what a great starting rotation they A's had that year..Moulder..Zito...and Hudson....and Billy Koch as a closer...

One of the better baseball movie's and the performances by Brad Pitt and Johan hill amazing

My problem with the movie is how they tried to use sabermetrics to push the idea that all teams need to be built this way and get rid of the past way of doing things when in reality the old way finds the superstars and this way helps fill in the gaps of a team for cheap

Really enjoyed the interesting fact checks in this video, but feel "How closely did Moneyball's story point line up with the actual facts?" is a far cry from "WTF Really Happened tp Moneyball?"- a slightly click-baity title suggesting Moneyball REALLY messed it up. BUT... ...considering then quality of the content, all is forgiven .

One day you’ll finally get around to doing a WTF really happened in Independence Day… (just a bunch of bbq footage and fireworks at Roland emmerich’s house)

So it’s a motion picture…not a documentary…thanks! 😉

I’m not a baseball guy and I really enjoyed this movie. However, all the people I know who are “seriously” into baseball didn’t care for it. Even my father who actually use to play Triple A ball didn’t care for it. I’m assuming it’s because the movie tries to simplify the game too much. I don’t know. Sounds good.

2011 was such a good year for movies, in my opinion and just a good year in general

endlessly rewatchable film...love it

For any Brits think of what the team is doing like Brighton or Brentford they are using advanced stats to find these players out of nowhere and sell them to Chelsea for 100 million

Anytime I wear my A’s jersey people either say “Moneyball” or call me Scott Hatteberg 😅

One of my rewatch films. Love this one.

Sabremetrics does work.....in a long regular 162-game season. But in a limited 3, 5, or 7-game series, it's a different story where in the small of games anything can go. A seasonal player hitting .300 with 30 homers/100 RBIs, can end up doing subpar in a limited series while someone .200 and 20 homers for the whoke season could hit .500 with more relative homers and RBls post-season. It happens all the time. With pitchers' performances, too. Sabrmetrics is good for measuring the outcome of players' performances in a long season. But playoffs is another matter. Also, sabremetrics is a commodity that other franchises have adopted. So, Oakland doesn't have a monopoly in it.

Thanks for the review and I learnt some new things about the true story behind this. Truly a great film, the final scene summed the film up perfectly

While Jeremy Giambi was a solid bat for a handful of years, he was never one of the best hitters in the league

Best line in the movie. Have you seen his girlfriend? She is ugly. What does that have to do with anything. It means he lacks confidence. LOL Its not word for word, but still. Love that line.

The Jeremy Giambi timeline is off

Yes, he gave us the WTF back. I was wondering WTF happened to this channels rebrand

Not a big baseball guy but love this movie. Probably my favorite baseball movie along with Sandlot. ;)

Is that Bobby Kotick in the movie? The hell is that about?

Chad Bradford was at no point a closer

ngl I still see Chris Pratt now whenever I see Hatty highlights 🤣

The only moneyball that works is spending money on the best players...that's money ball

People I guess forget the whole point of the movie was that it doesn’t work. And we know it doesn’t work because the A’s have been doing it for 20 years and haven’t really made any noise

The movie definitely downplays Billy’s anger issues. Brad Pitt made his character seem like a really chilll and mellow guy.

Statistics can be objective, but also misleading. For example, a batter can make solid contact but hit the ball right at someone and make an out, while another batter can hit a cue shot for a hit. Also, players on very good teams and very bad teams many times face pitchers on the bottom of the rotation who are just mopping up, and thus can pad their stats. Also, in clutch situations you will have batters unwilling to swing at a borderline pitch and either take a called strike three or walk to leave it to the next batter.

Great movie, one of my favs

Well done - thanks. Moneyball is one of favorite movies, and I'd heard that Art Howe was really a good guy within the baseball community so it's too bad he wasn't shown accurately...but that's Hollywood - famous for making sh*t up.

its not Miguel teJAYda. it's Miguel tayHAda. I hope you'll agree that the reality is much cooler in this instance as well.

It is abhorrently false that teams did not utilize moneyball/sabremetrics before Billy Beane. The A's 2002 season is remarkable because of how good the team was. It's like making a movie about any spectacular underdog team. I love this movie and Baseball, but it makes a lot of randoms who have seen the movie sound like idiots when they claim no one was using sabremetrics which had existed for for decades and was being used by big teams, it just didnt always look like that since the big teams could afford to buy out the players found by smaller teams.

Jo-Blo gone Geordie? Not what I expected.

I believe Billy Beane is the only name you pronounced correctly that entire video😢

All time classic sports movie.

Not sure why chavez, mulder, zito, hudson and tejeda were so upset. They were not the point of the movie. They were home grown talent, much like the other teams have done, but said teams could afford the price tag of the marquee players unlike the A's. So they went with bradford, scott and david cuz they were the ones who fit the point of the movie. They need to get over themselves.

How did you get David Beckham as a narrator?

Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill are some the best actors everN

It's strange hearing an English voice narrate a JoBlo video, even stranger that it's a video about baseball 😂

One of my favorite movies

This is how movies are they are written from an individuals perspective now when a producer and co writers get involved some facts will change because you need people to be entertained for 90 plus minutes if you just wrote a movie about facts people would leave 10 minutes into it remember even a true story is just that a story not all facts you ever tell someone a story from someone else's perspective or their feelings you can't you don't know someone else's feelings

Great movie that made dense book riveting.

Great movie...I knew they took some creative liberties but it was still entertaining

This narrator and/or writer does not watch baseball, 10:42 called it a point 😑😑😑

Unless you're in the theatre expecting a documentary, try to remember that IT'S AN FFFING MOVIE. That's my review.

*sigh* Moneyball is complete fiction & this video is too. Bradford, Justice, Giambi & Hatteberg were nothing more than average players. Bradford was never a closer (11 career saves). Billy Koch saved 44 games, won 11 & led the league in games pitched & finished that year. Giambi was so awful he got traded for Jon Mabry, who was far more important to that team. That was Justice’s last season because he couldn’t run. & Hatteberg was just a guy w/ far below average production at the position. Moneyball convinced a ton of parents their kids no longer needed to be able to hit because guys who walked a lot carried the A’s to another disappointing postseason appearance. The truth is they had the best SP trio in Hudson, Mulder & Zito, who combined for 57 wins & 675 IP. They also had true Star offensive players in Chavez, Dye, Tejada & Durham and the only mention of any of them is Beane yelling at Durham, who stole 26 bases that year, to stop running. The reality is the A’s had a ton of talent, but a poor bullpen and Beane’s unwillingness to fix that problem consistently prevented his teams from finding the success their star power deserved. FYI, Giambi is still responsible for one of the dumbest plays in baseball history, costing the A’s a series, because he didn’t slide. Overall, Moneyball is a stupid movie made for the participation trophy crowd.

Who made the British guy do the voiceover for this one?

Jonah Hill before he went crazy.

I've had friends who won't watch it because it's baseball, I don't watch baseball but you can allegoricaly have it fit any sport ,also I don't follow American football yet I loved Friday night lights.

Just finished watching it for the first time, thanks for this vid

Great movie, even better book!

I did some carpentry work at Bill James house a year or two ago. He is as fun to talk to as a board or a rock. Kind of a weird feller. Moneyball is a boring bore of a movie. Glad to hear they had to spice it up with inaccuracies, didn't work. BORING.

GREAT Movie!

I have no interest in baseball, but I loved this movie.

Interesting to see and hear this video narrated by a Scot (?).

Great movie…but this bummed me out

I was at the 20th game

The kind of feel-good sports movies that become classics.

I love that movie.

The ins and outs of Baseball!!!! ?? Lol 😎👌👍 Hey Man! The - My - 🍁Toronto Blue jays🍁 WON THE World series Two✊👊 years in a row 92 - 93 and Maby 1994 to if It weren't for the Baseball Strike Back Then! Lol 🤔😲😄 Not Just An American national past Time Anymore lol 😊😅🍁♈🍁 P.s. I Actually liked the A's.

Fantastic bullpen and starters. Career years from some great hitters. Nonetheless. Billy has still never won the WS.

I dont like baseball, but this movie is different.

Why use a guy that speaks with a heavy accent? I can’t tell anything he/she says.

Every story that is based on a true story is still fiction.

I love this movie

Hey tbh I would turn down 12 million as well to go work for the Boston Red Sox! LMMFAO! #YANKZALLDAYBAYBAY!

I love the Dallas Cowboys! They are my team! Go Brad Pitt and that fat guy from Super Bad!!! #YEHHEES!

Irishman commenting on an American sport?

First!!

Wtf happened to your accent? Haha

I can barely understand the narrator. Had to stop watching.

What a trash movie this was..like get real .the team sucks and has sucked..moneyball has never worked

Never liked the movie

Hey "limie" what do you know about American Baseball!!

baseball is not for sissies !!!!