Moneyball

Peter Brand: What...what time is it? Billy Beane: I don't know. Pete, would you have taken me in the first round? Peter Brand: What? Billy Beane: After we talked, you looked me up. Would you have taken me in the first round? Peter Brand: Yeah, I looked you up. You...you were pretty good. Billy Beane: Cut the crap, Pete. Would you have taken me in the first round? Peter Brand: ...I would've taken you in the ninth round. No signing bonus. I think that would've convinced you to take that scholarship. Billy Beane: [brief pause] Pack your bags, Pete. I just bought you from the Cleveland Indians.

Moneyball (film), CC BY-SA 4.0

Peter Brand: I wanted you to see these player evaluations that you asked me to do. Billy Beane: I asked you to do three. Peter Brand: Yeah. Billy Beane: To evaluate three players Peter Brand: Yeah. Billy Beane: How many did you do? Peter Brand: 47. Billy Beane: Okay... Peter Brand: Actually, 51. I don't know why I lied just then.

Moneyball (film), CC BY-SA 4.0

Peter Brand: [Pointing to numbers on a white board] Using this equation in the upper left... I'm projecting that we need to win at least 99 games... in order to make it to the postseason. We need to score at least 814 runs in order to win those games... and allow no more than 645 runs. [Pulls out code from a computer] Billy Beane: What's this? Peter Brand: This is a code that I've written for our year-to-year projections. This is building in the intelligence that we have to project players. Billy Beane: Okay. Peter Brand: It's about getting things down to one number. Using the stats the way we read them... we'll find value in players that nobody else can see. People are overlooked... for a variety of biased reasons and perceived flaws. Age, appearance, personality. Bill James and mathematics cut straight through that. Billy, of the 20,000 notable players for us to consider, I believe that there is a championship team... of 25 people that we can afford, because everyone else in baseball

Moneyball (film), CC BY-SA 4.0

Billy Beane: Guys, you're still trying to replace Giambi. I told you we can't do it, and we can't do it. Now, what we might be able to do is re-create him. Re-create him in the aggregate. Grady Fuson: The what? Billy Beane: Giambi's on-base percentage was .477. Damon's on-base, .324. And Olmedo's was .291. Add that up, and you get... [snapping his fingers and pointing at Pete] Peter Brand: Do you want me to speak? Billy Beane: When I point at you, yeah. Peter Brand: 1.092. Billy Beane: [snapping] Divided by three. Peter Brand: .364. Billy Beane: That's what we're looking for. Three ballplayers... three ballplayers whose average OBP is... [snapping] Peter Brand: .364.

Moneyball (film), CC BY-SA 4.0

Grady Fuson: Billy, can we talk? Billy Beane: Yeah. Billy Beane: You're unhappy, Grady. Why? Grady Fuson: [chuckles in disbelief] Wow. May I speak candidly? Billy Beane: Sure, go ahead. Grady Fuson: Major League Baseball and its fans, they're gonna be more than happy to throw you and Google boy under the bus if you keep doing what you're doing here. You don't put a team together with a computer, Billy. Billy Beane: No? Grady Fuson: No. Baseball isn't just numbers. It's not science. If it was, anybody could do what we do, but they can't cause they don't know what we know. They don't have our experience and they don't have our intuition. Billy Beane: [dismissively] Ok. Grady Fuson: Billy, you got a kid in there that's got a degree in Economics from Yale. You got a scout here with 29 years of baseball experience. You're listening to the wrong one. Now there are intangibles that only baseball people understand. You're discounting what scouts have done for 150 years, even yourself? Billy Be

Moneyball (film), CC BY-SA 4.0

Radio DJ #1: Alright we got Grady Fuson on the line, former head of scouting with the Oakland Athletics. And, Grady, can you interpret for us what's going on? Grady Fuson: They call it Moneyball. Radio DJ #1: Moneyball? Grady Fuson: Yes, and it was a nice theory, and now it's just not working out. Radio DJ #2: Billy Beane has built this team on the ideas of a guy, Bill James who wrote an interesting book on baseball statistics. The problem is that Bill James never played, never managed. He was in fact a security guard at a pork-and-beans company. Radio DJ #1: Do you see this as a decimation of the organization? Grady Fuson: I think that he bought a ticket on the Titanic. Radio DJ #1: Oh, boy. Radio DJ #2: He's tried to come up with a new approach. My hat's off to him. It won't work.

Moneyball (film), CC BY-SA 4.0