What no one noticed about Moneyball

I have watched Moneyball and read the book by Michael Lewis a number of times and it is a grand underdog story with some great performances.

What no one seems to have noticed is the way they also subverted another cliche in the underdog tale.

In most movies, the big guy is the one who uses data, analysis, and cold logic to figure out what to do. The hero, the underdog typically relies on his gut, on flashes of inspiration to beat the odds and then proceeds to lay the virtues of the intangible that cannot be measured.

Moneyball is the exact opposite. The Oakland As, use every conceivable statistical tool available to them, they are cold, practical and totally uninspired. They rely on cold logic. The big teams use their instincts, their gut reactions, the five tools etc etc and if they do any analysis they analyze the wrong thing. This to me is the most amazing aspect of Moneyball, that the little guy is actually more analytical, logical than the big guns of the league.

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