"It took baseball backwards" - Ex-Phillies GM blames Brad Pitt's "Moneyball" for MLB's overreliance on analytics

Brad Pitt's Academy Award-nominated movie, "Moneyball," a biopic about baseball manager Billy Beane, was a critical and commercial success. However, former Philadelphia Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. does not seem to like the acclaimed film.

On Monday's episode of the "Phillies Show," Todd Zalecki, Jim Salisbury and Amaro Jr. delved into the topic of best baseball films during a Q&A session with fans. Amaro Jr. shared his reservations about the movie.

"Here's my take on that movie, I think it was an entertaining movie. I think a lot of the thinks that, the reasons why the A's were so good were not because of [Scott Hatteberg]," Amaro Jr. said [38:43 -39:05].

"It was because they had three Cy Young Award candidates [Tim Hudson, Barry Zito, Mark Mulder] and two NL MVP candidates in [Miguel] Tejada and [Eric] Chavez. They also had a great closer [Billy Koch] that year."

However, the movie focused on Jonah Hill's character Peter Brand's sabermetrics method playing a pivotal part. Hill's character was partially based on Paul DePodesta. Therefore, the movie's popularity affected baseball negatively, according to Amaro Jr.

"That's the thing that disappoints me the most. In many ways, I think it took baseball backwards because the analytics piece of the game took over to such an extent that now they're making rules to try to get the game back to where it used to be. That's my take on it in 15 seconds," Amaro Jr. said. [39:09 - 39:25]

What the former Phillies GM said makes sense particularly as three Athletics players won major awards in the American League in 2002. Miguel Tejada won the MVP award with 21 first-place votes.

Tejada's teammates Barry Zito, Eric Chavez and Billy Koch were placed 13th, 14th, and 18th in the voting. Moreover, Zito won the Cy Young, beating Pedro Martinez, while Koch won the Rolaids Relief Man Award.

Billy Beane, the manager Brad Pitt portrays, is a minority shareholder in the Athletics. He also serves as senior advisor to owner John Fisher.

Phillies insider praises Brad Pitt's co-star in Moneyball

Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill at the 84th Academy Awards - Source: Getty

Ex-Phillies GM might not like Moneyball, but insider Jim Salisbury does not share the same feeling. Funnily enough, Salisbury is not a fan of Kevin Costner's "Bull Durham".

Nonetheless, Salisbury enjoys "Moneyball", especially Jonah Hill's performance in the film. He said as much on the Phillies Show.

"I actually like the story, you know. I don't agree with everything in Moneyball. They really don't talk about they had three great pitchers. I like the story in Moneyball. Is it Jonah Hill? I think his performance is really good. But I like the story of Moneyball," Salisbury said. [37:53 - 38:16]

Jonah Hill and Brad Pitt received nominations for Best Supporting Actor and Best Actor at the 84th Academy Awards for their performance in the movie. However, they lost to Christopher Plummer and Jean Dujardin.