Essay Regarding Negotiation Styles in the Movie Moneyball

Movie Analysis - Moneyball

Introduction

Moneyball is a film rich with negotiation styles and techniques. While the screen-writer focused on the use of new statistical categories when evaluating baseball players, one should not overlook the many negotiations involved in the story. These negotiations throughout the movie take the viewer on a journey through different paths of negotiation, allowing the viewer to judge whether the correct styles and techniques were utilized. It also gives the viewer the opportunity to contemplate what other styles and techniques he could have used to produce better outcomes during the negotiations. This analysis will look at a few negotiating scenes, examine the styles and techniques utilized in those scenes and provide recommendations that might have increased the success in the negotiations.

Summary

Moneyball is a movie centered on the general manager of the Oakland A’s, Billy Beane, and his assistant general manager, Peter Brand. The central backdrop of the movie is the difficulty the A’s have in competing with other teams due to an extremely small budget. Beane, on a visit to the Cleveland Indians general manager, discovers Brand and his unorthodox way of approaching the evaluation of baseball talent. Beane hires Brand and the two of them overhaul the roster of the Oakland A’s, finding players the A’s can afford who Beane and Brand think can also lead them to wins. Beane and Brand’s use of new statistical methods to evaluate players went against traditional baseball thinking and led to distrust, conflicts and embarrassment. Ultimately, Beane and Brand were able to construct the 2002 roster for a meager $44 million dollars. The 2002 team would go on to win 20 straight games and win a divisional title. The new methods of Beane and Brand would ultimately lead other teams to change their evaluation strategies and would go on to change the face of baseball after the 2002 season.

Trade for Rincon

One of the...