FanHouse Billy Beane

Although the big movie studios have all balked at putting the best-selling baseball book 'Moneyball' on the silver screen, one of the versions of a screenplay for the movie has surfaced on Hollywood Elsewhere. (EDIT: The link to the actual script seems to have been removed.)

I just finished reading through the whole thing and it actually does stick relatively close to the story of the book. Sure, there are some changes -- like making Billy Beane a bachelor and having him hook up with a waitress (p. 20) -- but for the most part it's a story of how he built the 2002 A's into a winner on a shoestring budget after losing three big-time free agents, Jason Giambi, Johnny Damon and Jason Isringhausen.

Billy Beane's public position has always been that the A's were happy to keep Matt Holliday until the end of the season, even if they weren't contending, because he could get the draft picks as compensation if Holliday signed elsewhere.

Don't believe that.

Beane has to make that his public position. He has to convince his fellow GMs that he is happy to keep Holliday, or else he has no trade leverage.

That was a dubious position from Day 1, but now it's looking even more questionable. As we near the season's halfway point, Holliday is still having an unspectacular year, and there is a growing possibility, as pointed out by Buster Olney, that the A's might not be able to get those draft picks anyway.

OAKLAND -- The future has arrived a little early for the A's pitching staff.

A team that looked awful as recently as a few weeks ago is suddenly on a roll, having won six games in a row, largely on the strength of the youngest rotation in the majors.

"It's extremely exciting, not just as a player, but as a fan of the game, to watch what these young guys are doing, " 25-year-old lefty Dallas Braden, the senior member of the group, told FanHouse.

And that was before 22-year-old Vin Mazzaro, the most recent addition to the rotation, pitched 7 1/3 scoreless innings on Sunday. Mazzaro, who pitched 6 1/3 innings to beat the White Sox on Tuesday, is the first pitcher in Oakland history to start his career with consecutive scoreless starts.

OAKLAND -- Billy Beane, whose team hit Memorial Day in last place, with the second worst record in the American League, is willing to overlook such pesky details.

"The most important thing we had to do this year was to start to develop the youngest rotation in the big leagues," Beane told FanHouse. "I think some of those young guys are starting to show some progress and that's ultimately where our future lies."

The A's general manager spent most of the winter trying to beef up the offense with acquisitions like Matt Holliday, Jason Giambi, Orlando Cabrera and Nomar Garciaparra. The point was not so much to get the A's to the playoffs in 2009 as it was to help provide an offensive cushion to support the pitchers who the A's hope will get them to the promised land in 2010 and beyond.

From the Windup is Matt Snyder's extended look at some aspect of America's pastime each Thursday.

With the recent news that Mark DeRosa is on the trade block and the White Sox have possibly landed Jake Peavy, junkies of major league baseball trade rumors got an early glimpse at what promises to be a very interesting July. It's far to0 early to know exactly who will be in the market for what -- or who can afford to take on temporary payroll in this economy -- but it's certainly fun to speculate. Let's do it.

Ken Macha is doing it again.

The manager who has never had a losing season -- not as a minor league manager, major league coach or major league manager -- has the Brewers playing some of the best baseball in the big leagues.

As they head into this weekend's series with the Cardinals, who are tied with the Brewers for first in the NL Central, the Brewers have won 18 of their last 24.

While Macha would be the first to tell you that the players are more responsible for winning than the manager, this team has Macha's fingerprints all over it.

You might know him as a genius. Or maybe as a revolutionary. Or maybe you simply know him as the general manager of the Oakland Athletics. One way or another, you know Billy Beane.

He is arguably the most famous executive in sports, a byproduct of Michael Lewis' best-selling 2003 book Moneyball (also an upcoming motion picture), which detailed how he was able to compete annually with baseball's financial powers on a strict budget and introduced many fans to sabermetrics.

Beane stopped by FanHouse to chat with fans Friday afternoon. Read the transcript after the jump.

SAN DIEGO -- If there were any doubts that Kevin Towers was a baseball lifer, they were answered on his wedding day.

Just before exchanging vows with his wife in December 1996, the Padres general manager exchanged players with Tigers GM Randy Smith, a member of his wedding party.

"Any time you get baseball people together, especially general managers, regardless of what the venue is or what the situation is, baseball will come up," Towers said. "We started talking about players while we were waiting for my wife to show up. She was running a little late, so we decided to consumate a deal, about 30 minutes before our wedding vows."

Although I have been hearing for a while that the best-selling book Moneyball" was going to be made into a movie, I never really believed it until seeing on Tuesday that they continue to add actors. I had always assumed that, somewhere along the line, some studio executive would look at that book and say "Uh, that doesn't sound like a very interesting movie to me."

"The whole concept to me is just surreal at this point," former A's assistant GM Paul DePodesta told FanHouse. "Maybe I'll feel different once I see it. It's hard for me to believe this is actually happening. I've been in denial for the past five years. I told Billy that when the movie comes out and people say 'It's not as good as the book,' they are going to be talking about our real lives."

It was a great book, one that all seam-heads like me thoroughly enjoyed. However, there doesn't seem to be much to attract the other 99 percent of the movie-going public.

So, here are my Top 10 Ways To Make Moneyball A More Interesting Movie...

Michael Lewis' book about Billy Beane's strategy in making a small-market team successful in Major League Baseball, "Moneyball," is going to be made into a feature-length movie. Shooting isn't set to begin until June, but many of the key players are being put in place. Brad Pitt is going to play Oakland A's general manager Beane (the two are pictured side-by-side here) and Steven Soderbergh will be the director.

Now, according to variety.com, Demetri Martin has been added to the fray, and he'll play Paul DePodesta, currently employed by the Padres, but formerly the Dodgers general manager and Beane's assistant GM in Oakland.