(1) How did Peter Brand (Jonah Hill ), a recent college grad, find himself in the position to directly influence the HR decision-making of the Oakland A's?

(2) One version of the screenplay has this exchange between Billy and Peter about Peter's approach, which is based on Bill James's theories:

BILLY If this approach has been around for so long, why isn't anybody in baseball doing them?

PETER That's a much more difficult question than how to win baseball games. Once you begin to pull at that string, your understanding of the world might begin to unravel.

1. Why did the baseball establishment and the established staff of the Oakland A's oppose Bill James and Peter Brand's theory of making personnel decisions based on statistics rather than intuition?
2. Can the Bill James/Moneyball theory be applied to fields other than baseball? That is, can selection of employees based on statistical data improve informal interview approaches used in most firms? In contrast, is the scout Grady Fuson right when he says to Billy, "There are intangibles that only a scout can see in a player that you're not going to pick up with just numbers"? Or is Billy right when he says, "Just because we've been doing it one way for a hundred and fifty years doesn't mean we've been doing it right? Do you have any idea how long people thought the sun revolved around the Earth? To your eyes, it looks like that's what's happening"?

(3) (a) Did Billy make mistakes with the team's manager, Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman), by not including him in the decision-making process, by only offering him a one-year contract, and by not educating him as to the methodology that he and Peter had been developing? In real life that was Howe's last season with the A's. (b) Do lower-ranking employees have the power to sabotage higher-level strategies? (c) What are ways that senior managers need to manage the risk of such sabotage?

(4) As of 2023, the 2002 A's winning streak of 20 games is the fifth-longest team winning streak in more than 150 years of baseball history, and the team finished first in the American League West that year, but early in the season, the team lost most of its games. Why does the shift occur? Possible explanations are the trading of Jeremy Giambi and Carlos Pena, which stops manager Howe from playing Pena instead of Hatteberg at first base, which may allow the statistical theory to work, and which may improve morale; the pep talks that Billy gives to the team and to the individual players; Peter and Billy's statistical advice to individual players; or random chance that the statistical probabilities come to fruition in the middle of the season. Peter predicts that the team will have close to a winning record when he and Billy meet with owner Steve Schott to discuss the early losing streak, and the reason he gives is statistical randomness. Was the shift mostly random, did subtle management changes improve things or a little of both?

Answer rating: 100% (QA)

1 Peter Brand found himself in a position to influence HR decisionmaking for the Oakland As due to his unique perspective on player valuation based on statistical analysis Despite being a recent colle... View the full answer