Tag Archives: baseball business

While this work necessarily has some biographical content, it’s largely about how GM Jon Daniels runs the Ranger’s organization–the things he emphasizes, the people he hires, the objectives he sets, the ways he communicates, the methods he uses to collect information, and the reasons behind those practices. Newberg, who’s been writing about the Rangers organization since the late 1990s, clearly knows the material.

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The book is essentially descriptive, but has pretensions toward analysis. There’s a lot of good material here. The first three chapters are a history of player/management relations in baseball. The remaining six chapters are topical, and examine such matters as agent behavior, player interactions with field managers, race relations, and salary arbitration. Unfortunately, the presentation is largely anecdotal; even when the author tries for analysis the result is often inconclusive, superficial, or unconvincing. I was, frankly, hoping for more.

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Worth reading. The book has considerable value, but it’s less than I hoped it would be. Gennaro’s a good analyst, and he’s found some interesting numbers to work with, but the analysis is often hidden from sight. I, personally, would have liked more explicit calculations, more discussion of the analysis, and less explication of his conclusions. YMMV.

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