The Baseball Economist: The Real Game Exposed

The Baseball Economist: The Real Game Exposed
by J.C. Bradbury

The Baseball Economist: The Real Game Exposed
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Book Summary Information

Author: J.C. Bradbury
Edition: Hardcover
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2007-03-15
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Dutton Adult

Book Reviews of The Baseball Economist: The Real Game Exposed

Book Review: Economics only partly explains human behavior
Summary: 3 Stars

This book is good at raising interesting questions and providing an analytical viewpoint. It suffers from the two main limitations of classical economics.

First, any analysis of a complex system with many interdependent variables requires making many assumptions. There is simply not enough data to control for everything. The author gets credit for effort, but almost every conclusion he draws could be seriously argued the other way.

Second, humans are not purely economic creatures. Sure, we respond to incentives, but we also behave irrationally. We get emotionally attached to teams and players, we live by superstitions, we are convinced that Brand X is better simply because we saw more ads for it. This book's old-style economic vantage point is ripe for challenge. Every conclusion here deserves a huge chunk of salt.

I am especially troubled about the author's treating of baseball like a physical commodity. Baseball is not a widget, it is entertainment. A more modern treatment would compare baseball to the music business or the movies, where network effects, brand, costless replication, venue, and fashion are the main drivers, not old-fashioned supply and demand for a limited product. There's another, better, book waiting to be written here by some other author whose specialty is the economics of modern media.

The book could be written better. In several places the logical introduction of ideas is misarranged, and in others the dryness parches the throat. Still, if you like baseball and your team has got lame announcers like most do, this book is worth a read. (If you live in San Francisco with the best play-by-play and color announcers in the business, then might as well save this book for the off-season.)


Summary of The Baseball Economist: The Real Game Exposed

Freakonomics meets Moneyball in this provocative expos? of baseball?s most fiercely debated controversies and some of its oldest, most dearly held myths?explained through the language of numbers and cool cash.

Two hot topics team up in The Baseball Economist, and the result is a refreshing, clear- eyed survey of a playing field that has changed radically in recent years. Utilizing the latest economic methods and statistical analysis, writer, economics professor, and popular blogger J. C. Bradbury dissects burning baseball topics with his original Sabernomic perspective, such as:
? Did steroids have nothing to do with the recent home run records? Incredibly, Bradbury?s research, reviewed by Stanford economists, reveals steroids had little statistical significance.
? Is the big-city versus small-city competition really lopsided? Bradbury shows why the Marlins and Indians are likely to dominate big-city franchises in the coming years.
? Which players are ridiculously overvalued? Bradbury lists all players by team with their revenue value to the team listed in dollars?including a dishonor role of those players with negative values.
? Is major league baseball a monopoly that can?t govern itself? Bradbury sets out what rules the owners really need to play by, and what the players? union should be doing.
? Does it help to lobby for balls and strikes? How would Babe Ruth perform in today?s game? And who killed all the left-handed catchers, anyway? The Baseball Economist knows.

Providing far more than a mere collection of numbers, Bradbury shines the light of his economic thinking on baseball, exposing the power of tradeoffs, competition, and incentives. Statistics alone aren?t enough anymore. Fans, fantasy buffs, and players, as well as coaches at all levels who want to grasp what is really happening on the field today and in the coming years, will use and enjoy Bradbury?s brilliant new understanding of the national pastime.

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