29
Sep
Posted by John S in Sports, Film. Tagged: 2002 Oakland A's, Aaron Sorkin, Barry Zito, Bennett Miller, Bill James, Billy Beane, Brad Pitt, Carlos Pena, David Justice, Jason Giambi, Jeremy Giambi, Jonah Hill, Mark Mulder, Michael Lewis, moneyball, Moneyball the movie, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, Oakland A's, paul depodesta, Peter Brand, Reviews, sabermetrics, Tim Hudson. 1 Comment
Brad Pitt as Billy Beane
Three names go conspicuously unmentioned in the new film adaptation of Moneyball: Tim Hudson, Barry Zito, and Mark Mulder. There are two ways to react to this omission.
The first is to think that their exclusion is unacceptable for a film that purports to tell the story of the 2002 Oakland A’s. After all, the trio combined to win 57 games and pitch 675 innings to a combined 3.05 ERA that year. Zito in particular led the league in wins, en route to a Cy Young Award. Without those three, a team that won 103 games would have almost certainly missed the playoffs.
The other way to react to their absence, though, is to realize that it is entirely appropriate. Moneyball is not really a movie about the 2002 Oakland A’s—it’s a movie about Billy Beane (played by Brad Pitt) and his radical reinvention of the game. And it doesn’t take much reinvention to stick with a trio that was coming off a 2001 season in which they won 56 games and pitched 678 innings to a 3.43 ERA.
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4
Apr
Posted by John S in MLB Preview Bonanza, Sports. Tagged: 2011 MLB Preview, A.J. Burnett, adam dunn, Adrian Gonzalez, Andy Pettitte, Bartolo Colon, Buck Showalter, Carl Crawford, Carlos Quentin, CC Sabathia, Clay Buchholz, cliff lee, Felix Hernandez, Freddy Garcia, Gio Gonzalez, Ivan Nova, Jon Lester, Josh Hamilton, Justin Morneau, Manny Ramirez, mariano rivera, Mark Teixeira, messin' with Texas, Miguel Cabrera, MLB Preview Bonanza, Oakland A's, Omar Vizquel, phil hughes, Texas Rangers, the 1972 Uruguayan rugby team, the genius of Buck, Trevor Cahill, Victor Martinez. 2 Comments
We’re a full weekend into the baseball season, and NPI still hasn’t previewed the most important league! Don’t fret, though, John S is here to break it all down for you, and to make sure you don’t get fooled by Baltimore’s 3-0 start.
AL West
1. Oakland Athletics
2. Texas Rangers
3. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
4. Seattle Mariners
So you’re on the A’s bandwagon? Yeah, and I’m not even going to pretend like I got on it particularly early. I was really just looking for someone to pick over the Rangers.
Why do you feel the need to mess with Texas? Well, I was early on the Rangers bandwagon, picking them to win the West at the beginning of 2010, so it’s not like I’m anti-Texas. This year, though, the defending AL champs are both overrated and underrated. They are underrated because people have inevitably focused on the loss of Cliff Lee this off-season; but while losing Lee is obviously big, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that the Rangers were in first before trading for Lee last season, and that they likely would have won the division even without his acquisition (Lee was actually pretty mediocre for Texas in the regular season). Continue reading »
