Moneyball

Moneyball is a 2011 American sports drama film directed by Bennett Miller. The film is based on the 2003 nonfiction book by Michael Lewis, an account of the Oakland Athletics baseball team's 2002 season and their general manager Billy Beane's attempts to assemble a competitive team. Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland Athletics, is devastated by the team's loss to the New York Yankees in the 2001 American League Division Series. With the impending departure of star players Johnny Damon, Jason Giambi, and Jason Isringhausen to free agency, Beane needs to assemble a competitive team for 2002 with Oakland's limited budget.
During a scouting visit to the Cleveland Indians, Beane meets Peter Brand, a young Yale economics graduate with radical ideas about evaluating players. Beane tests Brand's theory by asking whether he would have drafted Beane out of high school; though scouts considered Beane promising, his career in the major leagues was disappointing. Brand admits that he would not have drafted him until the ninth round based on his method of assessing player value, further impressing Beane, who had already "bought [Brand] from the Cleveland Indians."
Using Brand's method, Beane signs undervalued players such as Chad Bradford, Jeremy Giambi (Jason Giambi's younger brother), and Scott Hatteberg and also trades for David Justice. The Athletics' scouts are hostile toward the strategy, and Beane fires head scout Grady Fuson after a heated confrontation during which he accuses Beane of destroying the team. Beane also faces opposition from Art Howe, the Athletics' manager. With tensions already high between them due to a contract dispute, Howe disregards Beane's and Brand's strategy and plays a more traditional lineup that he prefers.