Dutch club AZ Alkmaar on Wednesday hired Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane — subject of the bestselling book Moneyball, which was spun off into an AcademyAward-winning movie — as an adviser, tasking him with closing the gap on big-spending clubs in the Dutch Eredivisie. Alkmaar said that Beane would provide advice “in the areas of highperformance and innovation.”
According to AZ general director Robert Eenhoorn, who played for the New York Yankees and Anaheim Angels in the 1990s, “AZ was already veryinterested in the Moneyball principle before I got here. I have known Billy for a while, because of my history in baseball. When we approached him for this role with AZ, he was immediatelyenthusiastic.”