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The Baseball Economist:

The Real Game Exposed
Front Cover
22 Reviews
Penguin, Feb 26, 2008 - Business & Economics - 352 pages
Freakonomics meets Moneyball in this provocative exposé of baseball’s most fiercely debated controversies and some of its oldest, most dearly held myths

Providing far more than a mere collection of numbers, economics professor and popular blogger J.C. Bradbury, shines the light of his economic thinking on baseball, exposing the power of tradeoffs, competition, and incentives. Utilizing his own “sabernomic” approach, Bradbury dissects baseball topics such as:
* Did steroids have nothing to do with the recent homerun records? Incredibly, Bradbury’s research reveals steroids probably had little impact.
* 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—updated in paperback to include the 2007 season.
* Does it help to lobby for balls and strikes?

Statistics alone aren’t enough anymore. This is a refreshing, lucid, and powerful read for fans, fantasy buffs, and players—as well as coaches at all levels—who want to know what is really happening on the field.
  

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Review: The Baseball Economist: The Real Game Exposed

User Review  - Justin - Goodreads

The book's an uneven read and suffers from dry prose throughout and an entry-level use of baseball statistics/sabermetrics. Some chapters are interesting, but too many are simplistic takes on ... Read full review

Review: The Baseball Economist: The Real Game Exposed

User Review  - Rob Olson - Goodreads

I would describe this as the high school stats reading level version of Moneyball without the interesting narrative. It 'sa tough book to get through. I only recommend it to die-hard baseball fans. That said I found several of the topics to be interesting and thought provoking. Read full review

All 18 reviews »

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Contents

The Price of Hitting Batters
A Price Change
Retribution in the 1990s
Ceteris Paribus Another Aspect of Demand
A Solution
Incentives Everywhere
Measuring the OnDeck Influence
A Scientific Test
Baseballs Golden Age
Should We Care About Steroids?
Steroids and Strategic Behavior
Why Have Players Resisted Testing?
A Possible Remedy
Great Innovators
The StatHead Method
Efficient Efficiency

The Role of Handedness in Baseball
Poor Excuses for RightHanded Catcher Bias
What Is Third Base Worth?
The Cost of Southpaw Bias
The Simple Answer
Managerial Rent Seeking
Which Managers Are We Talking About?
Charting Mazzones Success
Isolating Individual Responsibility
Is There a Big Secret?
Mazzone for the Hall of Fame
Measuring BigMarket Advantage
Why Dont Big Markets Dominate Small Markets?
Winning Teams
Efficient Teams
Winning Efficiently
A General Theory of Quality
Using Talent Dispersion to Compare Baseball Eras
The Steroids Era?
The End of Traditional Scouting?
How to Judge a Hitter
The Big 3
Some Old Favorites That Dont Say Much
Using the Big 3 to Evaluate Offense
The Pitcher Puzzle
Using DIPS to Predict Pitcher Performance
Using DIPS to Predict ERA in the Future
Pitchers Control of Hits on Balls in Play
Converting Wins into Dollars
What Is a Win Worth?
What Do Players Contribute to Wins?
What Are Players Worth?
Who is the MRP MVP?
How Does the Labor Market Value Players?
The Real Problem with SinglePrice Monopolists
Different Prices for Different People
So Is Baseball a Contestable Market?
Copyright

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About the author (2008)

J. C. Bradbury is an associate professor of economics at Kennesaw State. His research has been featured in the "New York Times" and the "Los Angeles Times," His op-ed pieces have appeared in the "Wall Street Journal," and he writes about baseball, economics, and the Atlanta Braves on his blog at www.Sabernomics.com.

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