During the meeting scene where Billy mentions bringing in him, David Justice, and Scott Hatteberg. But looking at Giambi's career stats on google it says that he had already been with the A's for 2 seasons before that. I'm confused by that.
shareThey're talking about replacing Giambi. At 35:23: "Wait a minute, let me get this straight. So you're not gonna bring in one but three defective players to replace Giambi?"
shareI've always wondered about this, too. I think they used some creative license in this scene so they could set up how businesslike/unsentimental Billy is when he trades Jeremy later in the early part of the 2002 season. The suggestion being that even though Billy brought Jeremy in he has no qualms about trading him when he thinks he isn't helping the team.
shareI know the movie is different than what actually happened but just based on the movie.
Why did they trade Jeremy? Billy and Pete were all about bringing in Jeremy against all the scouts advice against it. Their point being he got on base at a high rate compared to his contract price regardless of his life style and declining physical attributes. Then Billy trades him mid season but it's never stated why. I guess we could assume that he wasn't playing well but this would provide more evidence that Billy and Pete's idea was flawed.
I think they got rid of Jason because he was poison in the clubhouse and Beane simply didn't like the man. Whether that's true in real life I don't have a clue, but that was the gist of it in the movie.
Because the movie is a bunch of B.S. Moneyball introduced some interesting and better stats and allowed the A's to be competitive but winning came down to pitching and steroids. Nothing else.
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Every team had steroids back then. When Jose Canseco said he believed 80% of ballplayers were users, he might have been too conservative on that number.
It's true the A's had great pitching, but we've seen great pitching staffs play .500 ball as well. If it was just pitching, teams today would put 70% of their budget into starting pitching.
pretty sure billy got onto him for playing music & cuttn up on one of their losing streaks, shortly after he was traded to the phillys. another connection he had with billy was at the same time he to had an offer to go to boston & did so. played poorly & didn't getta another chance to play. guess life went down hill from there it seems.
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