The Extra 2%: How Wall Street Strategies Took a Major League Baseball Team from Worst to First by Jonah Keri

Mar 12, 2011 Jake rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: sports-books

Its natural comparison is "Moneyball" and that's not really fair because the Athletics and Rays stories are so vastly different and there's very few people on the planet that can write like Michael Lewis. The focus here in Keri's book is the Rays, the Wall Street geniuses who bought them and how they turned a moribund franchise into a superpower in the toughest division in baseball (basically a miracle). The book's strength lies in the detail presented about how the Wall Street guys use their bu...more

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Nov 03, 2011 Garrett Rosen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: irp

The Extra 2%

This novel, The Extra 2% by Jonah Keri is about the Tampa Bay Rays, a team that made a historic turnaround from perennial loser to consistent contender. The Rays went from so bad to so good that B.J Upton best describes their team by saying, “I used to tell people that I played for the Devil Rays and they’d ask, ‘Who are the Devil Rays?’ Now, I think they know who we are.” (Keri 3). The dramatic change in the teams productivity comes from the change in ownership. When Stuart Sternbe...more The Extra 2%

This novel, The Extra 2% by Jonah Keri is about the Tampa Bay Rays, a team that made a historic turnaround from perennial loser to consistent contender. The Rays went from so bad to so good that B.J Upton best describes their team by saying, “I used to tell people that I played for the Devil Rays and they’d ask, ‘Who are the Devil Rays?’ Now, I think they know who we are.” (Keri 3). The dramatic change in the teams productivity comes from the change in ownership. When Stuart Sternberg took over ownership for the Rays, he brought his knowledge from his Wall Street career into baseball. He took into consideration every little detail and spent every dollar wisely. There was no lacking of evaluations of players, money, and more. Who would have thought that Wall Street strategies would work in the game of baseball, where people have been trying to figure out the best ways to win for over a century. And it only took 5 years for Stuart Sternberg to lead his team from worst to first and ahead of the huge market teams like the Red Sox and the Yankees.

I really enjoyed this book because it helped me understand the hard work that is put into every franchise, to keep it successful and running, not just in baseball, but in every business. It is a lesson that can be used for the rest of your life. Knowing that if you put in hard work and determination into something, then something good will come in return. In this case, the Rays spent several long hours scouting players and building up their team on a low payroll, and in return they won the AL pennant in 2008. Therefore, I recommend everybody to read this!!! Stuart Sternberg, in talking about what it takes financially to run a franchise is quoted as saying, “With the prices of franchises, you’ve got to have someone who understands the pocketbook, the brand, and what it takes to grow it. Given all the needs, I need someone with a broader set of skills.”
(Keri 85). This quote really speaks to me because it shows that there is more to a baseball team then what is just shown on the field. It is the behind the scenes work that can make or break a ball club.

I rate this novel The Extra 2% a 5 out of 5 because I will talk about this book for years to come. This true story about a major league franchise going from worst to first taught me a life lesson that you put something in you will get something in return. In this case, the Rays got a winning season and an AL pennant. Hence, in life if you study hard and do well in school, you will receive a good job and make a good living. But if you are lazy and don’t have any motivation, then you can never excel in life. This is better explained when John Wayne said, and I quote, “Life's hard. It's even harder when you're stupid.” The similarities between a baseball team or even a business and the struggles of life have come out in this book and that is why this is a five star caliber book.(less)

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Sep 07, 2011 Christian rated it 4 of 5 stars

Took me way too long to read this but the main things I learned:
-- The former Devil Rays owner was a cheap miser who had no business owning a professional team
-- The revenue streams of the Yankees and Red Sox are so ridiculous, it's incredible that any other team can win a World Series.
-- I dislike Pat Burrell even more now because of how his contract hamstrung the team from making other moves.
-- They probably won't be moving into a new stadium for the next 10+ years despite the fact that they h...more

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Jun 06, 2013 Audra Marvin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: baseball

This book was recommended to me by a brand-new friend who is now batting 1.000 (get it?) on reading recommendations. This includes a baseball article by Jason Parks he emailed me a few days ago too. He's 2 for 2. I can't wait to hear what he recommends next. He DOES say that Moneyball - which I'm starting today - is really good. But everyone says that, so he doesn't get credit for it.

ANYWAY, seriously. The Extra 2% is about the baseball management philosophy of the Tampa Bay Rays, why it works,...more

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Jan 28, 2013 Andrew rated it 2 of 5 stars

As a big baseball fan, an even bigger business of baseball fan, and an avid reader of Jonah Keri from his Grantland columns, I had some high expectations for this book. I picked it up as a sort of sequal to Moneyball: instead of how the A's were perennial contenders by focusing on stats over scouting (more specifically, focusing on stats others were ignoring) I figured Keri would write about how the Rays became perennial contenders by optimizing the different pieces of the organization (i.e., do...more

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Jan 25, 2013 Mark rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, baseball

As someone who dedicates, well, every night of the baseball season to watching baseball games, I don't think that I was the target audience for The Extra 2%. Jonah Keri has certainly watched more baseball than me and has talked to and interviewed way more baseball people than me, even before writing this book. But I don't think that it's aimed at a serious baseball fan. So I'm not going to hold it against the book for mostly glossing over the 2008 turnaround season, which I actually thought were...more As someone who dedicates, well, every night of the baseball season to watching baseball games, I don't think that I was the target audience for The Extra 2%. Jonah Keri has certainly watched more baseball than me and has talked to and interviewed way more baseball people than me, even before writing this book. But I don't think that it's aimed at a serious baseball fan. So I'm not going to hold it against the book for mostly glossing over the 2008 turnaround season, which I actually thought were the slowest and least interesting parts of the book.

Far more interesting to me was the winding saga of how baseball ultimately came to Tampa Bay - well, St. Petersberg. I did not know this before, or even that Tropicana Field has been built for several years before the baseball team even came into existence. No wonder the place doesn't seem so modern. As well, the problems with the previous owner and his failure on just about every level were interesting to me. The Devil Rays organization being so cheap that not every employee even had a company e-mail address until like 2003 was probably the biggest eye-opening fact here. I mean, wow.

There's a fair bit of inside baseball here. That's what else is interesting to me, of course. Names like Sternberg and Silverman are ones that I hear but don't really know a lot. Keri interviewed a wide variety of people to get perspective on all of these events, including the failed GM from the Naimoli days, and it was also refreshing to kind of get a candid post-mortem from a guy who was in a job that was over his head for several years and maybe he wasn't cut out for it after all. On the other hand, you have to wonder if he might have done better if he didn't have the problem with ownership wanting to win immediately, leading to the bad contracts, and so on. There's always food for thought with what-ifs in baseball, which is part of the fun, too.

I would have liked if there was a bit more meat to the day in and day out of that 2008 turnaround season. That's not the point of the book, though. It's more about the behind the scenes. Though it's not too old, the 2012 baseball season has kind of rendered some of the points moot; neo-Moneyball in Oakland and whatever-the-heck Dan Duquetteball in Baltimore were the dominant stories from 2012, and these are even more interesting (to me, especially, being an Orioles fan) because they're more complicated. The Extra 2% boils down to, the Rays were being run incompetently and now they are being run hyper-competently. So, duh, of course they are doing better now. How did the Athletics and Orioles manage to win in 2012? Well, that's another book for someone else to write. Maybe me, but probably not.(less)

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Oct 08, 2011 Brad rated it 3 of 5 stars

Worst-to-first. It’s an age-old cliché that is seldom achieved, but when it is, everyone wants to know the details. How did you do it?

Jonah Keri presents an adequate description of perhaps the most unlikely of such events, the sudden and unexpected rise of the Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays in the brutal American League East. The very concept is so far-fetched, catching and passing the filthy-rich New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, that this book, if written ten years ago, would have been near the top...more Worst-to-first. It’s an age-old cliché that is seldom achieved, but when it is, everyone wants to know the details. How did you do it?

Jonah Keri presents an adequate description of perhaps the most unlikely of such events, the sudden and unexpected rise of the Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays in the brutal American League East. The very concept is so far-fetched, catching and passing the filthy-rich New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, that this book, if written ten years ago, would have been near the top of comedy best sellers.

The recipe for this success story begins with a sad-sack franchise, poorly located and even more poorly managed, and ripe for fresh blood. Enter Stuart Sternberg and Matthew Silverman, late of Wall Street investing and banking services, and rabid baseball fans, and the saga begins.

So what is the “2% extra” that was so deftly applied to this losing franchise, turning them from perennial losers to World Series participants in just three years?

Keri takes us through the nightmare of “culture change” that was necessitated by the policies implemented by former owner Vincent J. Naimoli. There were changes in the name, the uniform, the promotions (which could be a separate book of its own), and, most important, the way fans and employees were treated. It’s clear that these changes took time, but while these were being implemented, General Manager Andrew Friedman was charging into the fray with a determination to build a team of like-thinking players, players who would fit their respective roles and give Manager Joe Maddon options in pivotal game situations. His concept is reminiscent of the system implemented by Jimmy Johnson in Dallas in which he assigned a number value to players and prospects, enabling the team to gain advantage in drafting and stockpiling draft picks. A quick look back at the success of the Cowboys shows the merit of such a system; one that proved strikingly successful until the “elephant in the room”, the massive ego of Jerry Jones, forced Johnson out.

Friedman openly admitted that he loved obtaining players for less than they were worth, using contracts that were loaded with team options, especially in dealing with young players who were willing to risk some future earnings in exchange for immediate financial security. Of course there was, and is, inherent risk because of potential injury and the chance that subjective evaluation could be wrong, but the concept, when applied across the board, proved to be the key contributing factor in the quest to overtake teams with many times the cash flow and resources available to them. When the team fought through the wars of 162 games plus playoffs in 2008, reaching the World Series, the “Extra 2%” that had been so fiercely applied was justified, much to the pleasure of thousands in Tampa Bay as well as baseball purists all over the country who had longed for a way for small-market teams to compete with the “big-money” teams.

This book is a blend of concepts and facts that will lean you toward being a fan of the Rays if you’re not careful. The specific examples of innovative managing, from the front office to the diamond, will capture your attention, making this a very entertaining and revealing study of this very unusual story.(less)

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$Tommy /|\$

Jul 30, 2011 Tommy /|\ rated it 4 of 5 stars

Being a major "stat-head" with my own personally created database of MLB, I'm always enamored with stories of how teams run through infrastructure - both from a statistics point of view, and from that of a business. Teaching classes on Business, I can appreciate the fine line that teams have to walk between their existence as a sports team and a profit-turning (potentially) business. Keri brings all of that to life with this story of Tampa Bay's Major League Baseball franchise. Detailing the dif...more

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Jun 06, 2011 Bob rated it 3 of 5 stars

Jonah Keri's book about the team that surprisingly won the AL East two of the last three seasons is a quick read. The basic theory of the book is that the Rays lifted themselves up from being the laughingstock of baseball in its toughest division to a contender through the shrewd use of Wall Street trading strategies by its management team, all of whom had their starts in trading.

There are also chapters about how the Rays got to be as bad as they are. The team's first owner, Vince Naimoli, is po...more

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May 06, 2011 Jason rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sports

The Extra 2% is a good, quick read about the rise of the Tampa Bay Rays. Going the first ten years of its existence without winning more than 70 games, the Rays won the pennant in 2008 and won the AL East again in 2010. Jonah Keri attributes much of the turnaround to a change in ownership and management. After the 2005 season, New York investor Stuart Sternberg became the principal owner and named fellow former Goldman Sachs employee Matt Silverman president and former private equity associate A...more

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Mar 12, 2011 Oliver L. rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a highly readable account of the Tampa Bay Rays' surprising run to respectability, but after Lewis' Moneyball and Baseball Prospectus' Mind Game, did we need another one of these books? Moreover, was the Rays' success--two playoff appearances, one thrashing in the World Series--sufficient to warrant such attention? And finally, was it the "Goldman Sachs business methodology of going long on assets" of owner Stuart Sternberg and his team of experts that turned the Rays into winners? Or wa...more

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Mar 12, 2012 Ryan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: personal-library

It's unfortunate, but this book has to be compared directly to Moneyball by Michael Lewis. Both books, in low level terms, highlight how the management of two teams (Tampa Bay in this case) were able to be successful by focusing on inefficiencies in the market to compete against big market baseball clubs.

Overall, even though the book feels a little short, you do come away with a good understanding of how the team became successful at long odds. However, the major problem that I have is that the...more

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Dec 06, 2011 Michael rated it 2 of 5 stars

“The Extra 2%: How Wall Street Strategies Took a Major League Baseball Team from Worst to First” is the tale of a few smart guys bringing their business acumen to Tropicana Field, home of baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays, and turning a perennial loser into a team capable of toppling the mighty Yankees and Red Sox.

Exploring a topic this mundane is no easy task, but Jonah Keri consistently swings and misses throughout the book. Most notably, the book fails to explain Wall Street strategies. The strategy...more

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Nov 23, 2011 Mike Gibbs rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: baseball

The Extra 2% was a great look at the inner workings of a baseball organization (the Tampa Bay Rays) as it works to compete against teams with far bigger budgets. This book is similar in concept to Moneyball in that it follows a small-market teams' quest to outwit bigger rivals since there is no way they can outspend them.

Keri does a great job of doing a lot of original research (he mentions that he did about 175 interviews for the book as well a visit to [Tampa Bay Rays Manager] Joe Maddon's hom...more

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Aug 25, 2011 Ben Campopiano rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, sports

“We’ve worked hard to get that extra 2%, that 52–48 edge,” explained Sternberg. “We don’t want to do anything to screw that up.” Location 241

Both Silverman on the business side and Friedman on the baseball side began delegating responsibilities, trusting others to perform their appointed tasks while the executives handled their own. They were following the example set by Sternberg, who spent most of his time in New York; he talked to Silverman often but otherwise let his people run the show. How...more

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Jan 13, 2012 Phillip Welshans rated it 3 of 5 stars

Overall: An interesting look at the personalities and some of the methods that went in to transforming the Tampa Bay Rays from a last place team to winning the AL pennant two out of three years. I wish it had been heavier on the links between finance and baseball, but the book is not mortally wounded as a result of the higher-level treatment.

Generally, I liked the book, and thought it was a good descendant of Michael Lewis's Moneyball. Keri does a fine job of discussing the more "Wall Street" l...more Overall: An interesting look at the personalities and some of the methods that went in to transforming the Tampa Bay Rays from a last place team to winning the AL pennant two out of three years. I wish it had been heavier on the links between finance and baseball, but the book is not mortally wounded as a result of the higher-level treatment.

Generally, I liked the book, and thought it was a good descendant of Michael Lewis's Moneyball. Keri does a fine job of discussing the more "Wall Street" like tactics employed by the Rays ownership and management to compete in the ultra-moneyed AL East. I also liked the chapters on Joe Maddon (Rays manager) and even the final chapter on Tropicana Field. While I knew The Trop was a dump of a stadium, I didn't know why the Rays are stranded there, and the controversies over moving/building a new stadium in Tampa vs St. Pete, etc.

I found the book to be almost too simplistic for me, but I think that is more a result of the audience that this book is meant for, rather than anything inherent in the content of the book itself. I think this book is meant to appeal to business readers first, baseball fans second. Where Moneyball was all about player evaluation and the marriage of quantitative valuation analysis with baseball analytics, The Extra 2% is about how Wall Street experiences influenced the business decisions, both on field and in the front office (i.e. marketing, minor league development, budgeting, stadium issues, etc). It was not as compelling for me as a baseball fan, but that's not a bad thing.

I also found that the book discussed financial concepts at a relatively high level as well, which I think detracts from their importance to how the Rays are run. Again, I think this was by design to make the book more interesting to a broader spectrum of readers. And I would also bet that the famously tight-lipped Rays front office was not about to reveal all their tricks to Keri anyway, which limited just how much he could discuss any quantitative or evaluation techniques employed.

Finally, I was bothered by the seemingly disjointed structure of the book. That is not to say I think the chapters were presented out of order or that the material didn't flow. But throughout the book, I got the feeling that the chapters had been written in one order, but assembled in the book in another order. There would be a reference in a later chapter of the book that would repeat, nearly verbatim, explanatory language used in an earlier chapter, for example. Or a person would be described two or three times throughout the book as if the author was introducing them to the reader for the first time. Maybe this was to ensure the reader didn't forget, but I found it distracting.

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Oct 24, 2011 Matthew rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book is a really fun read. It touches up really well on topics discussed in this thread from revenue sharing, revenue streams, and why the Rays are not at all boring. If you read your BP and/or Fangraphs regularly this probably won't teach you much. I did learn that Joe Maddon really does have his hand in the advanced metrics game instead just being 'the baseball guy' in the clubhouse trying to motivate his team. This runs counter to previous sabermetric idea that baseball is primarily a GM...more

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May 15, 2011 Robbie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Robbie Sheets pages 245

The reason why i choose this book: because it talk about my favorite team the Tampa Bay Rays an how they went from worst team in baseball to the number one team in baseball with help from three wall street ownership people name Stuart Sternberg,Matt Silverman,and Andrew Friedman.

Genre: non-fiction.

Setting: St peterburg,FL home of the Tampa bay Rays.

main charcter:Stuart Sternberg owner of team,Matt Silverman presdent of the team, Andrew Friedman General Manager of the team...more

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Aug 14, 2011 James Klagge rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: sports-baseball

This was an article posing as a book. There was a lot of repetition--how many different ways can you say that the Yankees and Red Sox, who play in the same divisions as the Rays, have way more resources? The author found dozens. If you are simply interested in how the Rays managed to succeed for 2 seasons after a decade of futility, this book will tell you. But the title of the book suggested that there was some especially interesting angle that accounted for the success. But that was a front. T...more

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Jul 05, 2011 Terry rated it 2 of 5 stars

The topic is interesting, but this book is just not that good. I found three problems with this book:

1. Uselessness. When you read Moneyball, you think a lot about ways to find inefficiencies in baseball and in life. Having read this book, I don't know what these "Wall Street strategies" are to improve the fate of a company. The lesson seems to be "do a better job than everyone else." Thanks!

2. Hero worship. I don't necessarily mind this in a nonfiction book (I really enjoyed Too Big to Fail) b...more

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Mar 01, 2011 Jim rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads, baseball

Let me begin by saying that I read an advanced uncorrected proof of this book. The version that eventually reaches the marketplace may be different.

This is the story of the turnaround of the Tampa Bay Rays, an expansion team with one of the worst records in baseball from their inception until 2007, finishing last in their division nine out of ten times. They were so bad that in 2003 while appearing on the David Letterman Show, Roger Clemens read the “ Top 10 Things Baseball Has Taught Me.” Numbe...more Let me begin by saying that I read an advanced uncorrected proof of this book. The version that eventually reaches the marketplace may be different.

This is the story of the turnaround of the Tampa Bay Rays, an expansion team with one of the worst records in baseball from their inception until 2007, finishing last in their division nine out of ten times. They were so bad that in 2003 while appearing on the David Letterman Show, Roger Clemens read the “ Top 10 Things Baseball Has Taught Me.” Number four was: “The best practical joke? Tell a teammate they’re traded to the Devil Rays.”

The task of improving the club was taken on by new owner Stuart Sternberg, new GM Andrew Friedman, new team president Matt Silverman and new manager Joe Maddon. The first three implemented a Wall Street style vision for the team, investing in the business infrastructure as well as the players to produce a better overall result. Their efforts are summarized in the prologue “The new Rays never missed a trick. No conversations would be wasted, no ideas ignored, no course of action embraced or dismissed without considering the costs and benefits, the reactions and consequences.” (pg. 11) This consistent, unwavering approach eventually yielded success because all involved learned to “trust the process” of change required to get there. The essence of the Rays player acquisition is a practice known as arbitrage in which a simultaneous purchase and sale is made and the purchase is less costly than the value received for the item sold. Joe Maddons’ managerial style proved complimentary to this approach, especially his ability to “trust the process” and when combined with occasional unorthodox moves (Once even calling for an intentional walk with the bases loaded….) increased his teams’ ability to win.

I thought the book was interesting and well researched; I especially enjoyed chapter 6 on Joe Maddon, but it needs additional editing. Too many points are repeated too often. If Goodreads allowed half stars I would have given this book two and one half stars, but faced with the whole star choice I rounded up to three.

Thanks Goodreads for another first reads win!(less)

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Apr 10, 2013 Matty rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

To put it bluntly, "The Extra 2%" is a must-read for any baseball fan. It just so happens that the Rays are one of the three teams I follow closely (the other two being the Mets and Giants), so I really enjoyed Keri's account of how the club went from "Worst to First". Stuff like this really interests me - taking knowledge gained in one field, reworking it and then applying it to future interests. Nevertheless, I actually would have liked to see even more specific examples of data application in...more

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Mar 14, 2011 Andrew Backs rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Disclaimer: My edition was an advanced reader. A few typos were fixed I'm sure. Never the less here we go....

With the success of Moneyball some years ago, it wouldn't surprise me if this book made a little buzz around the sport section of your local bookstore. While the themes are similar, please do not think this is simply another examination of Sabermetrics adapted to another baseball franchise. This book covers more of the business sense put into developing the Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays.

I found...more Disclaimer: My edition was an advanced reader. A few typos were fixed I'm sure. Never the less here we go....

With the success of Moneyball some years ago, it wouldn't surprise me if this book made a little buzz around the sport section of your local bookstore. While the themes are similar, please do not think this is simply another examination of Sabermetrics adapted to another baseball franchise. This book covers more of the business sense put into developing the Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays.

I found this book very readable and enjoyable for the most part. The tone surprised me a little because of interjections made by the author to illustrate some points. For instance, the author makes reference to his employment with Bloomberg Sports after stating that Bloomberg had entered the arena of creating statistical databases for major league ball clubs (p. 194). I guess he was worried about showing bias, but to reference Bloomberg as a "giant" like the author did isn't really a stretch.

Anyways, the writer does a good job of laying out his research in lay terms. The references and statistics were not overwhelming and did not bog down the reading. I did find the book to lack in this area however, hoping to find more examples and stronger evidence to support the subject. At the end of the book, I felt a little unsatisfied and wished the author had gone into a little more depth.

The first half of the book laid the background for the Tampa Bay organization. Here I think the author did a great job. He illustrated the mistakes made by the Ray's front office and explained why change was necessary. The second half discussed the changes made after Stuart Sternberg became majority owner of the ball club. Without giving too much away, the new business minds that took changed the face of the Rays by completely changing the mindset of the organization towards player development, marketing, and winning.

I did enjoy this book despite its brevity and think it's worth a read. Again, I found the description of the methods used by the Rays a little sparse, but a reader should be able to get enough to understand what is going on. Some prior knowledge of baseball and/or business management will make the references easier to understand. I would recommend this to both casual readers and fans of the sport.

Vincent Naimoli might want to pass on this one though.(less)

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Feb 28, 2011 David Peters rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is what you get when combining the math awesomeness that is statistical analysis with insider baseball – a great look into what it takes to put a winning baseball team on the field. Now if you got tons of cash you can just skip all of this nonsense and just buy the best talent at the top prices and have at it. At least that is what the Yankees do and even though that alone is pretty much a great reason to hate them, it is a winning formula.

Now if you don’t have the cash (i.e. just about th...more This is what you get when combining the math awesomeness that is statistical analysis with insider baseball – a great look into what it takes to put a winning baseball team on the field. Now if you got tons of cash you can just skip all of this nonsense and just buy the best talent at the top prices and have at it. At least that is what the Yankees do and even though that alone is pretty much a great reason to hate them, it is a winning formula.

Now if you don’t have the cash (i.e. just about the rest of MLB), but do have time; well there is plan B. Plan B is when you build a strong and loyal fan base and find local home grown product to put on the field. That is what my team, the Twinkies, does. Not as successful as the Yankees but they are competitive most years. Plus there is no shame in cheering for them.

If those first two aren’t available for you, then the old school method was to gamble using your gut. That means you put out the dollars based on instinct and hope for the best. Normally that would mean gambling on a plan, but our heroes, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, never did formulate a plan; at least one they would follow for more than a season or two. Consequently they were the bottom dwellers of MLB and a perennial punch line.

To make his point, the author details just how bad things were for the Rays, laying just about all of the blame at the founding owner’s feet. While this gossipy evisceration of Vince Naimoli is a very entertaining demonstration of clueless brand management, it struck me as the weakest part of the book. It was mainly he said/she said, and clearly shows a man completely out of touch with the need for managing his public image, but at the same time it bordered on nasty for nastiness sake. It seemed like the author didn’t believe you the reader would get the point of the rest of the book without tearing down owner number one.

I would say the author didn’t have faith in the original concept of the book and added all this shallow stuff to suck in the readers. Unfortunately the people who read the book for this material are going to quit reading by chapter three. That said it is fun to read in a back-biting way. It is always good to remember that a alienating your fan base is never helpful when all your profits are based on said fan base. A good example is getting the local high school band to perform, but then not allowing them into the stadium unless they bought tickets.

The real strength of this book is the math. Taking something that seems as arbitrary as MLB and applying solid business analysis to it can show up a lot of flaws in the current business model. The title suggests that gaining that 2% edge over your competition will lead to substantial profits down the road. Think if you could guarantee winning at roulette 52% of the time. Played right you would soon be a millionaire. Could the same be true for winning baseball games? Three finance guys who had done extremely well on Wall Street and had a love of baseball picked up the Rays relatively cheap. Using their finance knowledge they began managing the team with a long term strategy of gaining that 2% edge.

This meant looking at the numbers to find underappreciated talent at under market value. Just as Warren Buffet scans to country for undervalued companies to add to Berkshire Hathaway, these guys scanned the minor leagues and the free agents trying to fill the holes they had in their roster. How do you find that information out – the numbers? For example there is a guy who can breakdown a pitches style down to when he releases the ball and from that give you a very accurate prediction of how far away they are from injury. Really cool stuff.

Also on a strictly business level, the lengths the new owners go to repair their brand is great. As anyone can tell you brand is everything, especially in a consumer driven business model. Some of the counter-intuitive arguments reminded me of Chris Anderson’s book “Free.” For example, allowing fans to bring in their own food actually leads to increased sales at the concessions. Coupling the games with concerts is another strategy while not original to the Rays, it is used to great effect.

Of course you can’t lead strictly lead by the numbers, you just have to respect them. Two problems are evident in this system though the Rays have been very successful following them. First is mentioned in the book and that is the big miss on Albert Pujols. The Rays has him in their sights since high school (they were “first” to see him) and no matter how they added the numbers up it kept showing a loss. Time and again they (and to be fair, almost everyone else too) passed on him. The second thing, and this I didn’t see mentioned, it is possible to be profitable financially as a team without winning. I would guess that is what would get you through the bad years but the model doesn’t require winning as part of the equation. Rather winning is seems to be the icing on the cake, and while that is good; it won’t keep your fans around forever. “We may not play well, but at least were profitable” is not brand tagline for the long run.

While I like insider baseball and cool analysis used in new and creative ways, I realize I might be in the minority. Plus the early negativity was done a little too much with an excessive zeal. But I do recommend this book for anyone interested in baseball and business. If you like both then you are sitting on a homerun right here.
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Jul 17, 2011 Tom rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: sports, non-fiction, baseball

A worthy successor to Moneyball. Keri tells the entertaining story of how the Tampa Bay (nee Devil) Rays got a new ownership group of investment bankers and baseball fanatics, who led the team within a few years from the league's laughing-stock to a World Series contender. It lacks some of the detail of Moneyball, since the Rays leadership is significantly more secretive than Billy Beane was, but enough comes through to make it an interesting read. For baseball fans, I'd recommend it just for th...more

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Sep 09, 2011 Dan rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book contains any interesting story. It traces the history of baseball in the Tampa region back before the D-Rays, follows through on the early years, and comes right up to the present day. Its not a fast read and for baseball fans there are fun nuggets throughout. Unfortunately, the book fails in a number of areas. Many of the facts are repeated over and over (reminded me of being in high school and needing to hit a page limit). Keri has a mancrush on the current management regime to the p...more

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Oct 22, 2012 C.E. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Excellent read and a nice latter-day companion to "Moneyball." Keri takes a look at the Tampa Bay Rays and how their forward-thinking new management team used Wall Street principles to turn the franchise from one of the most hapless in the majors to one of the best--all on a shoestring budget.
As well as telling the story in an approachable, journalistic style, Keri provides readers with some new ways to look at the game. For those who don't know much about the newer statistical analysis, he is e...more

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Aug 02, 2011 James rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: sports-related

Although it is written in a style that seems to be more like a very long magazine article than a book, Jonah Keri provides some fantastic insight into the resurrection of the largest laughingstock in American sports over the last two decades - the Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays.

Without a doubt my favorite part of the book doesn't actually even discuss how Stuart Sternberg, Matt Silverman and Andrew Friedman used their Wall Street savvy to turn around the trainwreck. It's reading on how that trainwreck u...more Although it is written in a style that seems to be more like a very long magazine article than a book, Jonah Keri provides some fantastic insight into the resurrection of the largest laughingstock in American sports over the last two decades - the Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays.

Without a doubt my favorite part of the book doesn't actually even discuss how Stuart Sternberg, Matt Silverman and Andrew Friedman used their Wall Street savvy to turn around the trainwreck. It's reading on how that trainwreck unfolded in the first place. Somehow, Keri was able to get some of the funniest (or saddest, if you're a Tampa Bay resident) anecdotes about former owner / skinflint Vince Naimoli. In the annals of terrible owners, Naimoli ranks right up there for Tampa fans with the way Cleveland fans feel about Art Modell and Lebron James. Naimoli ground a promising franchise to rubble just to squeeze another few pennies, and in the process opened the door for the aforementioned Wall Street trio to swoop in at a discount price and overhaul the franchise.

Does Keri tend to deify the protagonists? Yes. In the last section of the book, on stadiums and revenue sharing in baseball, Keri tends to glance over the vast handouts that Sternberg has stumped for, as well as the veiled threats he (like Naimoli) have made about selling or moving the team if a new stadium is not built to replace the dump known as Tropicana Field. The Trop may be a baseball hellhole but St. Pete residents should not feel hijacked every few years by an owner who bought a team KNOWING the stadium stunk and paid a low price for the team accordingly.

My other disappointment was the lack of one-on-one discussions with Andrew Friedman, the GM whiz-kid running the show. All those around him go to great lengths to discuss his financial and business acumen, but most of all his negotiation skills, but we the reader get precious few moments to hear the man speak. Given that he is living out the dream of just about every investment / financial professional worldwide (the opportunity to be the GM of a pro sports team), you'd think getting some more choice blurbs from him would be critical.

Despite a flow that is a bit choppy - the chapters seem more like collections of profiles on the key players and the obstacles the Rays face against the Yankees and Red Sox, rather than a clear story - some colloquial writing and precious few interviews with the triumvirate running the Rays, The Extra 2% is a great read for all baseball fans, whether casual or hardcore. Keri ably dives deep into some nuanced parts of the business of baseball while still making it understandable for casual fans, a difficult balance. And you really do feel for the Rays and the challenges they've faced as you read about the failings of Chuck Lamar, Vince Naimoli, et al, during the first decade of existence. While I'm not going to be trading in my Sox hat for a Rays one anytime soon, I've got a new-found respect for these AL East foes and if it comes down to rooting for them or the Yankees should my Sox fall short, rest assured I'll be picking up a cowbell and cheering for the Rays!(less)

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Jun 15, 2012 Kevin Stocks rated it 2 of 5 stars

The title was misleading - this is mostly the story of what happened during the Rays ascent to the thop. This is not, as the title implies, a deeper look into how it was done. It was fairly well written and is a good story. I'm sure a Rays fan would enjoy it. But in terms of looking deeper into how they achieved success with "wall street strategies," I'm not seeing it. The same 2 concepts were repeated throughout the entire book.

1) The first owner was a terrible manager. The new ones had a bett...more

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Sep 20, 2011 Patrick rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

As a baseball fan and a New York Yankees fan, I watched firsthand as the Tampa Bay Rays went from perennial doormats to a league champion. However, The Extra 2% pulls back the curtain and gives an inside look at the minds and strategies that allowed such a turnaround to happen. Jonah Keri begins the book by covering the birth of the franchise and its struggles under its first owner, much of which was new information to me. I also enjoyed reading about the advanced analysis strategies that the ne...more

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