Customer Reviews

The Baseball Economist: The Real Game Exposed

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Bradbury is an associate professor of Economics. He wrote this book with an economists' viewpoint on baseball. He may have gone too in-depths in economics for some people's taste, but being an economics major in college, I enjoyed it and re-learned a few concepts. He covers some topics that have were previously discussed by folks like Bill James, Voros McCracken, Michael Lewis and Jay Gould (and gives them due credit). Topics that were new to me that I found interesting included the effect of "protection" by the on-deck hitter, managers lobbying for balls and strikes, and the baseball monopoly.

I enjoyed this book and I recommend it to baseball fans that are not afraid of charts, numbers and economic concepts. I would be the first in line to buy his second book if Bradbury expands his economic analysis and writing into other sports.

Very accessible, very interesting look at baseball. Bradbury tackles both high-profile issues in baseball (steroids, spending disparity amongst teams) as well as ideas you might not have even considered. (What can we learn from trends in hit batsmen?) I recommend this book to baseball fans with an interest in learning more about the inner-workings of the game as well as economists with even a passing interest in the sport.

I work with economic theorists all the time, but I am not going to tell you this is a good book. Pieces of it are. Bradbury dwells on the steriods issue, prattling on and on about the lack of evidence. Yet, no where does he accept the challenge of studying the relative performances of the individuals to determine the effect of steriods. Rather, he just says it has never been proven. He even blurs the distinction of taking steriods for performance reasons vs. health reasons (and he never considers the differences in the steriods themselves!)

Some of his economic observations are interesting, those where he really studies the game and statistics. I, for one, can find other, more rewarding but boring books to give me a Saturday afternoon snooze. And Bradbury should stick to his statistical analysis of the game (where he excels), not the policy points (where he only debates under the ruse of economic theories).

This quote starts chapter 13, and applies to this book as well. The Baseball Economist holds its own and then some when compared to most sabermetric stats books out there. It contains an ecletic but interesting collection of subjects like Freakanomics, presented within a baseball/economic context like MoneyBall. This isn't a book specifically about the economics of baseball, it is more about how the author applies economic methods to answer certain baseball related questions.

That sounds kind of dry, but the author is a better writer than I am, so the book is quite interesting. The first section I found particularly convincing, as it applies principles of economics to identifying why the DH promotes more hit batsmen, why there are almost no lefty catchers, and the over-ratedness of the protection afforded by the on deck hitter. Latter chapters discuss how baseball differs from a true monopoly, and how this has worked to the benefit of the fans.

In the Epilogue, the author writes that he considered calling this book, "An Economist Ruins Baseball", which I'm glad he didn't. That would have done a disservice to this book. Very interesting book to the general baseball fan, and not just a number cruncher book. Probably the best baseball book I have read since MoneyBall.

Economics is not just the study of money. The field has developed all kinds of analytical tools for looking beyond the obvious statistics to find underlying traits, causes, or simply new unknown information.

In this book Dr. Bradbury a professor of economics and a baseball fan looks at baseball through the eyes and science of economics. The result is some surprising findings in all kinds of areas such as the use of steroids, scouting practices, establishing a real value (as opposed to salaries) for players, why are there no left handed catchers, does location in a big city or small city make any difference.

To the baseball fan, the results of his analysis are going to be very interesting. To the more statistical minded, the approach to solving different kinds of problems is somethat could be used in a wide variety of situations where economics theory could provide insight not otherwise visible.

All in all, an easy to read book that brings economics theories to light with clarity and understanding.

This book gives unique insight into popular baseball issues such as the big-city-versus-small-city economic disparity problem we face today, the argument against having left-handed catchers (which we discover isn't too convincing), and deciding how much a ball player is worth using economic theory. Geeky stuff, but a fascinating read.

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.)

After reading Michael Lewis' "Moneyball" and being fascinated (if not altogether convinced) by the concepts he discussed, I picked this book up to see how another mind would perhaps interpret the concept of sabermetrics differently. Through my experience reading it, there were some great moments, and some that I wished I would have skipped:

The Good:
-The first two sections of the book, dealing with such topics as the impact of the on-deck hitter, why no lefty catches exist, and why the Marlins and Indians are the best-run franchises in the major leagues. Author J.C. Bradbury uses a pretty hard-core mathematical model (regression analysis) to try and explain why certain phenomena in the game are true/false and what can be done to perhaps change misconceptions of those issues. Though I came up with a counterpoint to pretty much every mathematic analysis that Bradbury postulated, it was still very interesting to read his theories and immerse myself in a whole new way of thinking about the game of baseball.
-Also, I liked how Bradbury tried (at least as best he could) to provide an explanation of all the complication equations/experiments he was running. He knew that most fans wouldn't have a clue what he was talking about, so he gives a valiant effort in trying to make his concepts as simple as possible for the average fan to understand.

The Bad:
-Despite Bradbury's efforts to explain his theories in plain English, there just isn't anything plain about a regression equation that plots a multitude of data points. Though in an Appendix Bradbury thoroughly lays out his research methods, even the smartest of hard-core baseball fans will have a difficult time deciphering all he is doing without thorough research or a firm background (like a Bachelor's Degree) in mathematics.
-Finally, the last section of the book, dealing with the economics of baseball's market, is what really drags the text down. Though some of Bradbury's statistical/mathematic verbiage can be skimmed over and still kind of be understood by his summaries, the economic topics were very complicated and, to be honest, not all that interesting. I think that perhaps Bradbury would have been better suited to expanding (if possible) his section on parity, not writing for pages and pages about whether or not baseball is a true monopoly.

Thus, with all that said, I would recommend that baseball fans check this book out from your local library and read the first two parts, as you will be intrigued by Bradbury's studies. However, unless you are fascinated by and/or have a strong background in math and economics, the final two parts can be skipped altogether.

I found this book worth reading overall, with a few flaws. The author shines on the sections that are more pure statistical analysis to argue a particular point about the multifaceted game of baseball. The chapter on left handed catchers is a good one, as well as the section on how we judge hitters and pitchers' stats. In addition, though he is a college professor, he makes the statistical analysis reasonably accessible to the general public, and some sections could easily be used as interesting supplemental reading in microeconomics first year courses (especially if your audience are 19 year olds who would rather be hitting college balls then sitting in your course). The book weakens when he wanders into more policy territory (a la Freakonomics, the current trendy thing to do), as he tends to argue points by basically stating the data doesn't prove anything. The chapter on steroid use is a prime example. He also at times risks turning baseball into a pure commodity, rather than seeing the entertainment angle - what can one expect from a guy who has no problem with having advertisements on the baselines. Nonetheless, I found this book to be generally well-researched and thought-provoking.
As a final note, he quotes heavily from the book Moneyball, and I would recommend reading that book first before this one. (I did not)

I just finished reading The Baseball Economist: The Real Game Exposed the other night. If you're not a baseball fan then you can skip the rest of this post without offending me. Besides being a book about something that I love, this book was written by a Wofford alum! All the more reason to reason to read it! The author J.C. Bradbury runs an interesting blog, Sabernomics, where he writes all sorts of interesting baseball articles. Sometimes they are specifically Atlanta Braves related articles, but they run the gamut from free agent player values to, and most recently, the steroid situation.

This book was absolutely fantastic and one that I would highly recommend to anyone that is either a fan of the game or loves statistics. Because the subject of the book is baseball, the regression analysis and formulas presented seem to flow naturally. The chapters are perfectly sized analysis in themselves that each make for an evening sit-down.

With chapters like "The Legendary Power of the On-Deck Hitter", "The Evolution of Baseball Talent", and "Scouts vs. Stat-Head" you know that you have something interesting in your hands. J.C. does a masterful job of laying statistical data to support his conclusions without losing the reader.

My personal favorite chapter, "The Extinct Left-Handed Catcher," looks at why there is no such thing as a left-handed catcher in baseball. J.C. looks for performance reasons and ultimately concludes "the benefits of using right-handed catchers are small, maybe the costs will yield some answers." These costs ultimately show their solution in the very simple revelation: "The biggest reason there is no left-handed catchers is natural selection. Catchers need good throwing arms. If you have a kid on your baseball team who is left-handed and has a strong arm, what are you going to do with him?" Any baseball person can easily answer this, he's going to pitch!

The entire book was filled with revelations similar to this! Every chapter brought statistical analysis into the equation to definitively prove relationships in baseball. Is any of this going to make me a better baseball player, coach, or fan? Probably not, but for anyone that has a passion for the sport I'm sure they will feverously consume this book with the same passion. It's obvious that J.C. also shares that passion and it carries through this work.

You can read my other reviews on my blog: http://doteduguru.com