Another Postseason Crash and Burn Should Mean the Death of John Henry's Idiotic 'Moneyball' Approach

This movie came out 15 years ago. Times 365, that makes give or take 5,500 days since it's release. Which makes that number the over/under of how many times John Henry has watched the scene where an actor playing him as a sharp, savvy, driven negotiator tries to convince Brad Pitt's Billy Beane to come work for him. And since Henry is a fa-laming narcissist, I'm hammering the over. 

And you almost forgive him. Who among us wouldn't want to see ourselves portrayed in a positive light in a major Hollywood release. What cannot be forgiven is that Henry not only thinks the Moneyball approach works, he runs his franchise like they're the Oakland A's of the early 2000s, with 25,000 people in the stands on a good night and no TV audience to speak of. 

In the end, the 2026 Red Sox season exposed him, once and for all. We all got distracted by the sudden, unexpected sugar rush of July. When one of the worst Red Sox teams in living memory went on a winning streak unprecedented in franchise history. Given how gawdawful April-June was, and since the Bruins and Celtics dipped out of the postseason in record time, everyone deserves a pass for just surfing the wave of optimism and forgetting all about how cheap ownership had been. And how they'd put together essentially a AAA 1/2 roster that was not built for the unlikely postseason they somehow found themselves in. The Yankees series proved that beyond a reasonable doubt.

But that's the way Henry and his preposterously hot wife Linda Pizzuti:

Peter Byrne - PA Images. Getty Images.

… have adopted. The plan is to not spend money on payroll. Avoid paying a nickel in Competitive Balance Tax. Field a roster that is short on Major League talent. And still compete for the postseason through the magical powers of Analytics, just like in the movie. 

I know what I'm getting into. There is no faster, surer way to hear "OK, Boomer" and get the Abe Simpson yelling at clouds meme in the comments than to ever dare question the contemporary approach to managing a game. But this series shined a 10 billion candela spotlight on the limits of the way analysts have supposedly reinvented the game. Just ask Sonny Gray about getting taken out even earlier than Payton Tolle was:

Or how enthusiastic he is about a future playing for a team that ignores how well he's pitching, pays no attention to the gravity of the situation, doesn't check to see how good he's feeling. They just produce data that somehow proves the middle relief is a better option. The night after the middle relief was supposed to be a better option than Tolle. The result:

Tolle: 4.2 innings, 1 run, 83 pitches

Gray: 4.2 innings, 2 runs (one allowed in by his relief), 70 pitches

Bullpen: 15 runs

But never mind the results. Those are only facts. Just because you get outscored 18-2 in the series doesn't mean you're not doing things right, right? 

I don't know. We've heard from the Sox best pitcher. Let's see what their best hitter has to say:

…  would like to say, but I'll state it like that." 

Translation for both Gray and Contreras: "We're sick of this shit. We just want to play baseball like it's been played for 150 years and quit pretending it's quantum physics." Or maybe I'm just speaking for myself because I'm an Old. 

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Back to the Moneyball Effect. When the movie came out, it was fair to assume every aspiring baseball executive would want to be Brad Pitt. It turns out their real role model was Jonah Hill. The socially awkward introvert who stared into the screen of his iMac and was able to unlock the eternal secrets of the game. Like Neo finally being able to see the digital code of The Matrix, the veil was lifted from his eyes. And as a result of his insights, and thanks to his wisdom of seeing the key to winning was Scott Hatteberg's OBP, the 2002 A's went onto triumph and glory. 

But the true lesson of that A's season didn't make the movie. Or leave any sort of imprint on John Henry Pizzuti. They won because they were loaded with talent. Miguel Tejada won the MVP. Barry Zito won the Cy Young. The reason Art Howe didn't win MOTY was because no one thought he pulled off a miracle; he just fielded a great team. Next to Tejada was Eric Chavez. Each had 34 HRs and they drove in 240 between them. Following Zito in the rotation was Tim Hudson (2.98 ERA) and Mark Mulder (19 wins). Those three, along with Cory Lidle (RIP) all made 30-plus starts and pitched 190-plus innings. And in the back of the bullpen was Billy Koch who had 44 saves. 

So the influence that movie and Michael Lewis's book before it has been a masterclass in learing the wrong lesson. Missing the point entirely, raised to an art form. 

In no way am I arguing that there's no room for advanced statistics in baseball or any other sport. But when the numbers being crunched tell you to pull Tolle and Gray when you did, you need to crunch them into a ball and wipe your crack with them. And when your owner thinks the data analyzers have the power to overcome his dogshit roster and make it compete for a championship, he needs to sell the team to someone who'll actually build a team like the 2002 A's. We deserved to have the money back in our Moneyball.