Most reviewers also have admitted to not knowing baseball.

They're saying: Avoids conventional storytelling in its smart presentation of the game of baseball, though occasional narrative over-simplificaiton still remains.

Most acting praise for Brad Pitt as Billy Beane.

http://www.indiewire.com/article/2011/09/09/toronto_review_moneyball_finds_commerciality_in_unlikely_places
“Moneyball” translates statistics into the formula for a crowdpleaser by simply glossing over them. Although focused on a reinvention of major league rules, as commercial entertainment, it’s still
the old ballgame.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/sep/09/moneyball-review-aaron-sorkin
Overall though, Moneyball is more melodramatic than one might expect from the pen of Sorkin (who massaged an earlier draft by Steven Zaillian), gooier in the middle and coshing the audience with
emotional wallops.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/moneyball-toronto-review-233013
Director Bennett Miller, who coaxed a satisfying movie out of unlikely material with Capote, puts Moneyball through a workman-like pace. If the movie fails to achieve the knockout punch of Social
Network, this may be because another film altogether was originally imagined. Steven Soderbergh was set to direct Zaillian’s script when Columbia pulled the plug due to concerns with the budget and
changes in the original screenplay. One can only wonder what that version would look like as Soderbergh, like Beane, is not one to do things according to old formulas. Nevertheless, this Moneyball
stands on its own as a strong, rewarding effort to pull unusual personalities and a timeless story from a welter of Inside Baseball.

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117946003/
Moneyball" is content to draw back the curtain and find drama in the dealings. Miller's low-key style suits that strategy nicely, breaking up shop-talk scenes with artful, quiet moments in which
Beane steps away from the action, nicely captured by d.p. Wally Pfister.

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2011/09/moneyball_seren.php
Bennett Miller's Moneyball (Sony, 9.23) is my idea of a triumph. A triumph of surprise and deception, I should add. It's an emotionally low-key, thinking man's Field of Dreams -- a smart, true-to-
life, business-of-baseball movie with a touch of the mystical and the sublime, and propelled along by a highly pleasurable lead performance by Brad Pitt.

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/archives/tiff_11_review_moneyball_brad_pitt_jonah_hill_bennett-miller_sorkin/
It has been a long time since we’ve had a great baseball movie, but “Moneyball” is one for our age. Smart and witty, Miller’s film finds the excitement in the sport that has long been missing from
the actual game, and, thanks to Sorkin, comes at it from an angle that is frequently fresh, funny and invigorating. It turns out the best place to see baseball, is at your local multiplex.

http://social.entertainment.msn.com/movies/blogs/the-hitlist-blogpost.aspx?post=fc2598bd-ce19-4db0-ba88-b1029b08cd94
Miller, to his credit, does a great job with the direction (the sound mix alone is a thing of beauty, and he can make a baseball stadium seem like both a playground and a workplace), but at a
certain point, watching the film, I felt like a frustrated 8th grade math teacher -- I knew the film was showing the correct answers, but I wanted to see the work. Miller occasionally shows us a
graph or a plotted set of numbers, but mostly we're told Brand's theories should work and then shown that they do.

http://blog.moviefone.com/2011/09/08/moneyball-review-toronto-international-film-festival
. . . (There is a ) brief moment where Brand shows Beane a tape of a young prospect hitting a home run without even realizing it. "It's a metaphor," Brand says, and Beane speaks for the audience
when he snaps back, "I know it's a metaphor." Still, it applies to more than just Beane; audience members, too, may look back on this deceptively quiet, even plodding film and realize that, like a
pitcher's duel on a long summer day, it meant more than they realized -- and maybe more than anyone had a right to expect.

http://whatculture.com/film/toronto-2011-review-moneyball-brad-pitts-entertaining-baseball-romp.php
It is a little saddening to see that Mr Sorkin’s usual razor sharp wit and machine gun patter is upsettingly absent, but the script serves its purpose. It takes a very complicated subject that
wouldn’t be of interest to a lot of others and moulds it into something relatable. Much like Sorkin did last year with The Social Network, minus the brilliance.

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/reviewsnews.php?id=81871
"Moneyball" is a movie that lives or dies by its killer screenwriting and the equally satisfying performance by Brad Pitt, and there's little doubt it wouldn't have worked even in the slightest
without both those elements in place. It may not feel quite like the classic baseball movie others have achieved, but it's certainly pleasant enough to be enjoyable even by non-sports fans.