History Film / Moneyball

* EscalatingPunchline: Beane when breaking it to Art Howe that Hatteberg is going to start at first. Howe again steadfastly refuses and says Carlos Pena will start. Billy informs him Pena has been traded to the Tigers, then adds several of the A's reserve infielders (implicitly the ones who can also man first base) are being demoted to Triple-A, then calls Jeremy Giambi into Howe's office to inform him he too has been traded. Howe is in StunnedSilence as he realizes Hatterberg is literally the only player he has currently who can play first.

* TakingItWell: Peter, being relatively new at dealing with players face to face, is long nervous at the prospect of telling a player he's been traded; Beane eventually assigns him to break the traded news to Carlos Pena and assures him to be straightforward and it'll be OK. Peter tells Pena that he's been traded, audibly and visibly nervous about the possible response. Carlos simply says "OK" at a level of calm far outpacing Peter's.

* EscalatingPunchline: Beane breaking it to Art Howe that Hatteberg is going to start at first. Howe again steadfastly refuses and says Carlos Pena will start. Billy informs him Pena has been traded to the Tigers, then adds several of the A's reserve infielders (implicitly the ones who can also man first base) are being demoted to Triple-A, then calls Jeremy Giambi into Howe's office to inform him he too has been traded. Howe is in StunnedSilence as he realizes Hatterberg is literally the only player he has currently who can play first.

* TheFilmOfTheBook

* ForegoneConclusion: Any passing knowledge of baseball knows how the A's season winds up in 2002, [[spoiler: as it did in 2000 and 2001 (and ''again'' in 2003), losing a do-or-die game in the opening round of the playoffs.]]

* EpicFail: Subverted. They watch a video of a minor league game, in which A's minor league Jeremy Brown trips rounding first base and crawls in a panic to get his hand back on the base, only for the bemused first baseman of the other team to tell the player he smashed the ball over the fence for a home run.

* AwesomenessByAnalysis: The whole point of sabremetrics is to calculate the best possible line-up for a team by using statistics beyond the traditional "slashline" of [=batting average/homers/RBIs=], opting for overlooked metrics like on-base percentage to find undervalued players at bargain prices and avoid splurging on expensive "name value" players.

* AwesomenessByAnalysis: The whole point of sabremetrics is to calculate the best possible line-up for a team by using statistics beyond the traditional "slashline" of [=batting average/homers/RBIs=], opting for overlooked metrics like on-base percentage to find undervalued players at bargain prices and not trying to splurge on expensive "name value" players.

* DudeWheresMyCredit: When the A's put together a win streak, Peter overhears a sportscaster on TV praising Art Howe as "the reason the A's are winning" and is incredulous. Billy doesn't care.

** The film makes no mention of the A's biggest strength that allowed them to compete with the slugging American League teams: their tremendous starting pitching, featuring three young frontline starters drafted by Beane, with the film focusing instead on the patchwork offense. They also had both the 2002 AL Cy Young award winner (Barry Zito), a budding superstar in third baseman Eric Chavez (who hit 34 [=HRs=] and won a Gold Glove award) ''and'' AL MVP (Miguel Tejada). See DemotedToExtra below.

** The film makes no mention of the A's biggest strength that allowed them to compete with the slugging American League teams: their tremendous starting pitching, featuring three young frontline starters drafted by Beane, with the film focusing instead on the patchwork offense. They also had both the 2002 AL Cy Young award winner (Barry Zito), a budding superstar in third baseman Eric Chavez (who hit 34 HRs and won a Gold Glove award) ''and'' AL MVP (Miguel Tejada). See DemotedToExtra below.

** The film makes no mention of the A's biggest strength that allowed them to compete with the slugging American League teams: their tremendous starting pitching, featuring three young frontline starters drafted by Beane, with the film focusing instead on the patchwork offense. They also had both the 2002 AL Cy Young award winner (Barry Zito) ''and'' AL MVP (Miguel Tejada). See DemotedToExtra below.

* AwesomenessByAnalysis: The whole point of "moneyball" is to calculate the best possible line-up for a team by factoring their averages in each individual field (pitching, catching, etc.). It works pretty well for the A's for a while, until it doesn't -- because now the other teams, the ones the A's were struggling against because they had all of the money and could afford all of the best players? They still have all of the money ''and'' [[BeatThemAtTheirOwnGame they start to use moneyball]].

* TheCameo: Bobby Kotick of Activision/Blizzard as team owner Stephen Schott.

* EpicFail: Subverted. They watch a video of a minor league game, in which an insecure player [[note]][[AllThereInTheManual in the book]], this is future A's catcher Jeremy Brown[[/note]] trips rounding first base and crawls in a panic to get his hand back on the base, only for the bemused first baseman of the other team to tell the player he smashed the ball over the fence for a home run.

* TheExtremistWasRight: Beane redefined the way how baseball -- and by extension all team-based sports -- is played, simply by spitting on everything that was done before. This includes selling his best players just to get [[BoringButPractical the rest of the team]] room to play.

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: One of the frequent anti-Beane callers during the sports radio montages vocally resembles Hall of Fame player and broadcaster Joe Morgan, who in real life is a notoriously vocal opponent to the sabermetric movement in baseball.

* AdaptationalAttractiveness: The real Billy Beane is not an unattractive man, but he's no Brad Pitt.

** While all the old-school scouts are mostly playing guessing game when it comes to picking potential new players, at least part of their critique against Beane's picks are to the point. Like Hatteberg's irrepairable elbow damage (making him a disabled player by default) or Jeremy Giambi's tendency to party hard, which affects his trainings and performance during games. Giambi eventually starts to cause problems due to his excessive lifestyle, just like predicted. And not even his statistical value can counter it and Beane has to trade him away.

* BittersweetEnding: The A's go on an unprecedented 20-game win streak (setting an American League record) but lose in the playoffs. Billy is offered a 12.5-million dollar contract — the highest offered for a baseball GM at that time — to GM for the Red Sox and seriously considers it but ultimately decides to stay with the A's, content to know that he's changed the game for the better. Years down the road, other teams realize the value of these metrics and actively recruit players based on them, meaning that Billy's advantage disappears and he is left back where he started: with not enough money to compete with the wealthier teams.

* BittersweetEnding: The A's go on an unprecedented 20-game win streak (setting an American League record) but lose in the playoffs. Billy is offered a 12.5-million dollar contract — the highest offered for a baseball GM at that time — to GM for the Red Sox and seriously considers it but ultimately decides to stay with the A's, content to know that he's changed the game for the better. Year down the road, other teams realize the value of these metrics and actively recruited players based on them, meaning that Billy's advantage disappears and he is left back where he started: with not enough money to compete with the wealthier teams.

* DemotedToExtra: The biggest strength of the winning early-2000s Oakland A's teams, including the 2002 squad depicted in the film, was the elite starting rotation headed by three young, homegrown studs: Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder, and Barry Zito (who won the 2002 Cy Young award). Only Hudson is depicted in the film, and it's when he starts letting the 11–0 game get away, although during a clubhouse scene you can see the back of an extra playing Barry Zito (recognizable due to his rare "75" uniform number). In addition, the offense sported 2002 MVP Miguel Tejada and a budding star in Eric Chavez (34 [=HRs=] each), who are shown but not really featured nor depicted as dangerous sluggers for the otherwise station-to-station offense.

* BittersweetEnding: The A's go on an unprecedented 20-game win streak (setting an American League record) but lose in the playoffs. Billy is offered a 12.5-million dollar contract — the highest offered for a baseball GM at that time — to GM for the Red Sox and seriously considers it but ultimately decides to stay with the A's, content to know that he's changed the game for the better.

* DownerEnding: Beane's strategy relied on using previously disregarded metrics such as OPS (On-Base plus Slugging Percentage) to find undervalued players. As other teams realized the value of these metrics and actively recruited players based on them, Beane's advantage disappeared and he was left back where he started: with not enough money to compete with the wealthier teams.

''Moneyball'' is a 2011 American film based on the best-selling book of the same name, following the RealLife story of how Oakland A's GM Billy Beane built a winning team on a shoestring budget despite baseball's the-rich-get-richer environment, using overlooked advanced statistics and players to make up the competitive advantage.

* BigEater: Donwplayed, but Billy is regularly seen eating. Especially noticeable when he's trading for Ricardo Rincon and stuffs his mouth full of popcorn only to spit it all out when a call comes in before he can finish chewing.

* TimeshiftedActor: Billy as a young man.
** Not really, though. Brad Pitt is only a year younger than Billy Beane in real life; as the events of the movie largely take place in 2002 whereas the movie itself was released in 2011, this means Billy is -- in a technical sense -- being portrayed as being nearly a ''decade'' older than he was at the time. On top of that, despite how Brad Pitt seems to never age, photographs of the real Billy Beane during the 2002 season also show a very young-looking 40 year-old man.

** A more traditional example is shown with David Justice. As he realises that Beane's assessment of the rest of his career is spot on (see [[InsultBackfire]] below), he goes to talk to Hatteburg in the break room to act as a mentor to him to help him out. He asks Hatteburg what his biggest fear as a player is and the exchange goes as follows:

** A more traditional example is shown with David Justice. As he realises that Beane's assessment of the rest of his career is spot on (see [[InsultBackfire]] below), he goes to talk to Hatteburg in the break room to act as a mentor to him to help him out. He asks Hatteburg waht his biggest fear as a player is and the exchange goes as follows:

* RightAllAlong: Billy Beane and Peter Brand, obviously.

-->'''Hatteburg:''' The baseball being hit in my general direction?
-->[''the two share a laugh'']
-->'''Justice:''' That's funny. Seriously, what is it?
-->'''Hatteburg:''' No, seriously. That is.
Justice is stunned by this, and Hatteburg starts to walk off. The best Justice can manage is to shout after him "Well hey, good luck with that...", which is pretty pathetic all told.

-->[the two share a laugh]