Barstool commentator rips into classic baseball film: "Moneyball ruined baseball"

Moneyball, a 2011 film starring Brad Pitt, cast a different light on the inner workings of baseball management. It is also one of the most controversial baseball movies ever made.

In the movie, based on a true story, Billy Beane is the bealeagured General Manager of the Oakland Athletics. Faced with key departures in the form of Jason Isringhousen and Jason Giambi after the 2001 campaign, Beane must get creative to make his payroll, the lowest in MLB, work for him.

Beane then employs Peter Brand, a Yale stats geek. Together, the pair employ a little-known method known as Sabermetrics to select the best value players. Sabermetrics is a term that uses advanced statistical analysis to deliver more mathematically cohesive understandings of the game.

"“The problem we're trying to solve is that there are rich teams and there are poor teams then there's fifty feet of crap, and then there's us.” (MONEYBALL 2011)" - Michael Warburton

After using the Sabermetrics method to snatch some of the most undervalued players in baseball, the Oakland Athletics go on a twenty-game win streak, setting an AL record. Despite the popularity of Moneyball, many baseball traditionalists were unconviced of Beane's practices.

In a recent appearance on Barstool Sports, commentator Mark Titus was discussing the Toronto Blue Jays, who handed the Twins their first playoff series win since 2002 on Tuesday. According to Titus, the team's over-reliance on advanced stats was, at least partially, to blame for their demise.

"Did “moneyball” ruin baseball?" - Viva La Stool

According to Titus. Beane was a "dork out in Oakland" and that the movie Moneyball "ruined baseball." Since the release of the movie in 2011, more and more teams have developed advanced scouting units that use sonme of the ideas shared in the movie.

Moneyball is still a film with strong cultural relevance for baseball fans everywhere

With the teams like the New York Mets, who spent more money than any other team this year, Sabermetrics analysis could seem to be a viable option. Despite spending loads of cash, the Mets finished the season with the eighth-worst record in baseball.

In the movie, as in real life, Beane used cutting-edge ideas to try and establish a degree of flexibility as his finances constrained him. Sabermetrics may not be for everyone, but their application certainly seemed to have helped Beane and his players on the 2002 Oakland A's/