In the movie “Moneyball,” Peter Brand, a baseball analyst played by Jonah Hill, has a mantra for the type of player his team covets. “He gets on base,” Brand says when his boss points at him.
The movie, like the Michael Lewis book upon which it is based, is about the rise of sabermetrics in Major League Baseball. It is the story of a group of outsiders who take on the baseball establishment by following a core belief rooted in an expression you can hear at any Little League game: A walk is as good as a hit.