Free: Moneyball

This is a summary of an article that I used as a current event this past week in my Sports and Entertainment Marketing class. The article was from "The Culture" section of the most recent issue of Time Magazine. The makers of Moneyball have pulled off making an entertaining movie on baseball that is based on the A's in the early 2000s, at a time when they have never won a playoff. This movie, based on Michael Lewis's book and opened on September 23, stars Brad Pitt. Pitt plays the A's general manager, Billy Beane, who was known to recruit undervalued players.

This leads us to question which team plays the best moneyball, which is high on base percentage plus slugging percentage, low spending per win, and high number of wins. Based on the chart that was in the article, the team that has been found to play the best moneyball are the Texas Rangers, Milwaukee Brewers, and the Arizona Diamondbacks. They play moneyball the best, but the teams that have the most wins since they had the biggest baseballs on the chart, which I think is more important, are the New York Yankees, and the Boston Red Sox. The team with the lowest wins and smallest baseball on the chart is the Baltimore Orioles. I was surprised that I did not see any baseball representing the S.F. giants. There will be a spinoff of the movie; Taylor Lautner will star in Moneyball 2: Snakebitten and will play the Diamondbacker's general manager.