Moneyball: The Inconvenient Fact

In Moneyball, Billy Beane is extremely frustrated when the New York Yankees defeat his Oakland Athletics in the first round of the playoffs. The Yankees knocked the A's out of the first round the year before as well. In both seasons the A's were a better team. They had more stars, more players in the their prime and more wins. Oakland hitters were to walk and swing for the fences. But the Yankees won because they're hitters  worked the count, walked, made productive outs and just had an uncanny ability to get clutch hits. When Yankee manager Joe Torre went to the bullpen, it was a death sentence.

Going into 2002 the Athletics lost three of their stars, including premier lefthanded hitter Jason Giambi, who left for the Yankees. Moneyball portrays this as an existential crisis for the Athletics but the film doesn't tell us that the A's still had two formidable sluggers, Chavez and Tejeda. More importantly the A's retained their three ace starting pitchers, Hudson, Mulder and Zito.

Moneyball casts the 2002 A's as a plucky underdog, but they still had the trio of starters and in fact won a 103 games that year. The small market Minnesota Twins bounced them in the first round of the playoffs. 

So much for moneyball.