Diamond Dollars: The Economics of Winning in Baseball [Hardcover]

Vince Gennaro (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 5, 2007

Diamond Dollars is a fresh, provocative, insightful, and analytical look at the business of baseball. Using the win-revenue relationship as a foundation, author Vince Gennaro delves deeply to explain how a team’s level of competitiveness impacts the “value” of its players, to explore how a well-developed farm system contributes to a team’s economic value, and to discuss some recent business trends, such as team-owned regional sports television networks.

In doing so, Gennaro answers a number of questions that speak to baseball’s bottom line. How does winning affect revenues for each team? What is a player’s economic value to his team? Why does a berth in the postseason have great economic value? What is the economic value of a productive farm system? Does competitive balance exist in baseball today? He also examines the differences in small-market and large-market teams, discussing how economic and revenue opportunities vary, and highlighting the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox and their methods.

The book Moneyball was a breakthrough for baseball because it unveiled inefficiences in the way talent was evaluated. In a similar fashion, Diamond Dollars addresses the inefficiency in the way players are compensated and delivers an unparalleled inside look at the economics of baseball today. For more information, including detailed reviews and interviews with Vince Gennaro, please log onto Maple Street Press's website

A publication of Maple Street Press, distributed by Potomac Books, Inc.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"Diamond Dollars provides an insightful look at the business of baseball--at the free agent market, teams' scouting and player development systems, and how clubs market their brands. The book mixes Vince's business acumen as a top executive at a Fortune 50 company with his passion for the national pastime." --Mark Attanasio, Chairman and Principal Owner, Milwaukee Brewers

"Vince Gennaro shows a profound understanding of the economics of a team's baseball decisions. His analyses of a team's win-revenue relationship, the player development system and player valuation, make for a remarkably innovative examination of the baseball front office model that's just as informative for a baseball executive as for a fan." --Chris Antonetti, Assistant General Manager, Cleveland Indians

"Diamond Dollars offers up exciting and stimulating new ideas about the business of baseball. It provides a set of metrics for decisions that have typically been a "gut feeling" for many organizations. I think teams should make this required reading for everyone in their organizations." --Jim Beattie, former Executive VP and General Manager, Baltimore Orioles and Montreal Expos

"Vince Gennaro has written the best book I've read on the business of baseball. It serves as both a "how-to manual" for baseball owners and a tour guide for fans who scratch their heads at the things their teams do. It should find plenty of readers in both camps." --Dave Studenmund, Editor, The Hardball Times Annual

About the Author

Following a highly successful twenty-year career at Pepsico, where he was president of a billion-dollar division, Vince Gennaro is currently a consultant to Major League Baseball teams. His innovative analytical work on the business and economics of baseball has been featured in the New York Times and he has written for The Hardball Times, Boston Baseball, the Maple Street Press 2006 Red Sox Annual, and the Baseball Research Journal. He recently authored his first book, Field of Dreamers: Tales From Baseball Fantasy Camp. A member for the Society for American Baseball Research, Gennaro holds a master’s degree from the University of Chicago. He resides in Purchase, New York.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 250 pages
• Publisher: Pub. by Maple Street Press, Dist. by Potomac Books; First Edition edition (March 5, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0977743632
• ISBN-13: 978-0977743636
• Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 0.9 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #744,485 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Hot like yellowcake April 21, 2007

By FRG

Format:Hardcover

I'm a big Mets' fan living in LA and found this to be a great read. The author gets into some pretty interesting ways for Major league teams to run their business. He talks about a way to put a dollar value on players that I hadn't seen before, since most methods use comparables for what similar players are paid in the free agent market, but this book talks about how much a player is worth to different teams at different level of competitiveness. He shows that the Carlos Beltran signing (which so many experts were criticizing) really paid off financially for the Mets in 2006. There's a lot more to the book than player value, but that was the highlight for me.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good, but not for everyone August 18, 2007

By Phil Kasiecki

Format:Hardcover

This is a very interesting book that I enjoyed, but there are certainly caveats to those who may be interested in reading this. This book isn't for everyone and there are a couple of recommended prerequisites from my vantage point.

For one, if you're just a casual baseball fan, this book is not for you. It goes into a lot of detail about the business side of baseball and on all levels, and many times I thought to myself that if I didn't know the game and players as I do, I'd probably be lost. It helped me greatly that I have played and coached in addition to having been a serious fan for many years.

Second, it doesn't hurt to understand a little about the business side of anything, as this book is very business-oriented. If you have no business intuition at all, the material in this book will just fly over your head. You don't have to be a Fortune 500 CEO, but at least know a little about how businesses are run and some of the terminology.

In short, while a very good book, it's not light reading and not for everyone. Officials of baseball teams are a primary audience, and this is a must-read for such people. If you're a baseball fan and know a little about business, you'll enjoy it, although even then there will be parts that aren't easy to digest. Early on, I had a little trouble keeping up with all the information being thrown at me, from pure numbers to other facts, and it's almost too much right away. But once I got past that, the rest of the book came much more easily for me.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Baseball Meets Financial Analysis April 5, 2009

By Joseph Mccully

Format:Hardcover

I am bringing up my background because as you will see it will become important in my view of this book. I graduated Magna Cum Laude with a B.S. in Business Administration with a double major in Accounting and Finance. Also, I have a M.S. in Taxation. As a result, I have a very good financial background.

If you want to have a good understanding of the material in this book, then I would recommend that you have a decent understanding of using basic fundamental analysis to value a business. Finally, I would highly recommend understanding models that are produced by regression. There is tons of data in this book, and the researcher used a lot of regression models. He went back 30 years, and if a team was not around for 30 years, then he used all the data they had since they started playing Baseball. The book is broken into 4 parts.

Part 1:
Discusses how wins effect the future attendance of a team. He uses the term "Win/Curve", and concluded that in general, attendance is maximized when a team wins around 92 or 93 games. The latter is most likely caused by a team in a Pennant Race. Also, the farther a team goes into the Playoffs, the more season tickets that will be sold the following season. Finally, there are different levels of revenue generated from the "Win/Curve" that are broken into different revenue categories, multiple revenue streams and multiple revenue layers. Revenue streams are the daily revenue such as cash from attendance, concessions, local broadcasts and sponsorships. On the other hand, multiple reason layers are broken into 4 categories (1) Win Dollars - represents the change in revenue from daily revenue sources when a team wins over a period of years.... (2) Postseason Dollars - Teams do not make money for just making the Postseason because the revenue from daily operations is enough to cover the bonus salaries for the players. Teams make their money by increasing season ticket holders over the next 3 to 5 years. (3)World Championship Dollars are created when a team wins the World Series. More fans by season tickets just to have access to Playoff tickets. When the WhiteSoxs wonthe 2005 WS their seson ticket revenue jumped 12.5%.

The 2nd Part of Diamond Dollars focuses on valuing players. One of the techniques used to value a player is broken down in the following manner. Lets use Vlad. His stats are used to figure out how many additional wins he helped produce. Then, the additional/marginal wins are plugged in to win the marginal revenue he produced. If the amount of marginal wins he helped produce has no effect on the playoffs, then its over, but if his marginal wins helped make the playoffs, then postseason and possibly world series revenue is added.

The 3rd Part discusses the importance of a good Farm System. An MLB team would be hard pressed to define a more important leverage point of its on field and business success than its scouting and player development system. As a result, noting a team does will have a greater impact on their cost structure than a success or failure of their farm systems ability to feed talent to the Major League Team. Therefore, the team with home grown talent (aka Twins, Marlins, Tampa Bay), and does not have to waste money on high priced free agents just a few free agents to fill in missing pieces can maximize their revenue. As a result, a team that can make the Playoffs or World Series under the latter situation will make a higher net profit than a team that chooses to build their team around high priced free agents.

Part 4 discusses the economic value of building a team brand. Some teams such as the Cubs, Yankees, and Cardinals, realize a revenue cushion in form of loyalty of their fans in years when the team is less than competitive. AS a result of the latter, teams with strong brands are ore likely to spend to win because their revues sag less in down years. Also, there is a theory of a 3 phase program to build a brand (1) BUILD CREDITABILITY though ownership showing a commitment to win, team never quits, Front Office acquires several big name free agents (2) COMPELLING ENTERTAINMENT VALUE - ownership demonstrates their commitment to win in part 1 by adding more big name players, the farm system begins to produce a few quality players to go with their free agents, and as a result fans begin to feel optimism. Also, entertainment value can be increased by a new ball park, or add attractions to the park for families (3) CREATING AN EMOTIONAL BOND WITH FANS Fans believe that the owners are want to win as much they do, team maintains continuity with key players, team has several "likable" players, Ballpark has feel of a baseball theme park, team owns their own broadcast network so they not only have control of how information is presented they have the ability to bring back legends to call the game

Finally, the book has some fun, and discusses some unique topics such as the YES Network, and the effect it has had on every MLB team to broadcast their games. There is a chapter devoted to Babe Ruth, and how he would be valued in today's game. The author even pokes holes in the "Moneyball" philosophy of Billy Beane. First, he believes Beane's on ego hurt him in that he let the cat out of the bag too soon by writing "Moneyball", and basically rubbing his success in everyone's face. Another flaw is that Beane does not give enough credit to the players on the team that are not homegrown, or in other words the homegrown kids alone would not have been able to win solely on their own. Finally, Beane lets go of his arbitration players too soon. Yeah, he gets more value back this way, but why give up a Hudson, Zito, and Blanton when they have still have a chance to go far in the playoffs. Is an extra draft pick really enough of a reason to give up a chance at winning the World Series.

Diamond Dollars is a phenomenal book, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to understand theories about the Front Office. Its nice to see well thought out theories backed up with real data. However, this not a book to read on the beach or for leisure. Each section is very similar to reading an article in an academic journal. Therefore, I would recommend to read about 20 to 30 minutes at a time so your brain can absorb what you just read. You can read it in one sitting, but it would be a waste. Read more ›

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars This is how you understand baseball November 6, 2008

By R. J. B.

Format:Hardcover

This is a great, insightful look into the structure of MLB teams from the major leagues to the team's player development and minor league system. It delves into areas rarely discussed before and opens up new arenas of discussion for baseball fans.

I've read "Moneyball" and "The Baseball Economist: The Real Game Exposed," and I think Diamond Dollars goes places where these two reads don't. First off, it is the first piece of baseball literature I have ever read to identify a player's marquee and asset value to his team. Second, this book talks about all aspects of organizing a team, from acquiring the right players, to how to use the players to generate revenue for the team, to how to build the brand of your organization.

I would take the concepts in this book a step further and say they can be incorporated into any aspect of business management.

A great read and a MUST-READ for any baseball fan or business person (would make a great holiday gift!).

5.0 out of 5 stars Diamond Dollars: The Economics of Winning in Baseball January 5, 2013

By Thomas L. Steffen

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I am a sports enthuiast and this will help me with my fantasy teams, and give ge reading enjoyment. Thank you.

5.0 out of 5 stars Understanding Baseball's Bottom Line December 1, 2011

By Larry Underwood

Format:Hardcover

In 1972, St Louis Cardinals owner August Busch insisted on trading future Hall of Fame pitcher Steve Carlton, because the hurler requested a $10,000 raise. Clearly, Busch didn't understand how "saving" that lousy ten grand would ultimately cost him millions in lost revenue, since the Cardinals would be also-rans for the next ten years. Meanwhile, Carlton's new employer - the Philadelphia Phillies - were now on their way to becoming one of the NL's premier franchises, reaching the post season several times in the '70s, finally winning it all by 1980. Carlton was one of the biggest bargains in baseball history.

Nowadays, the business of creating winning baseball is far more challenging, with the multi-million dollar contracts that are routinely paid out to run-of-the-mill players; every contract signing has tremendous impact on a franchise's bottom line, which author Vince Gennaro explains in this fascinating book. The successful teams make the right free agent acquisitions; the unsuccessful teams make poor choices or stay on the sidelines altogether. The business of baseball can be a very lucrative enterprise for those making the post season on a regular basis; winning the World Series is icing on the cake.

The key to success in maximizing a baseball team's bottom line, is spending wisely; finding value where others don't, and understanding when the high-priced free agents quite often don't pay the dividends at the end of the season. Winning pays, much more than most casual observers understand.