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What happens when three financial industry whiz kids and certified baseball nuts take over an ailing major league franchise and implement the same strategies that fueled their success on Wall Street? In the case of the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays, an American League championship happens—the culmination of one of the greatest turnarounds in baseball history.
In The Extra 2%, financial journalist and sportswriter Jonah Keri chronicles the remarkable story of one team’s Cinderella journey from divisional doormat to World Series contender. When former Goldman Sachs colleagues Stuart Sternberg and Matthew Silverman assumed control of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 2005, it looked as if they were buying the baseball equivalent of a penny stock. But the incoming regime came armed with a master plan: to leverage their skill at trading, valuation, and management to build a model twenty-first-century franchise that could compete with their bigger, stronger, richer rivals—and prevail.
Together with “boy genius” general manager Andrew Friedman, the new Rays owners jettisoned the old ways of doing things, substituting their own innovative ideas about employee development, marketing and public relations, and personnel management. They exorcized the “devil” from the team’s nickname, developed metrics that let them take advantage of undervalued aspects of the game, like defense, and hired a forward-thinking field manager as dedicated to unconventional strategy as they were. By quantifying the game’s intangibles—that extra 2% that separates a winning organization from a losing one—they were able to deliver to Tampa Bay something that Billy Beane’s “Moneyball” had never brought to Oakland: an American League pennant.
A book about what happens when you apply your business skills to your life’s passion, The Extra 2% is an informative and entertaining case study for any organization that wants to go from worst to first.
In The Extra 2%, financial journalist and sportswriter Jonah Keri chronicles the remarkable story of one team’s Cinderella journey from divisional doormat to World Series contender. When former Goldman Sachs colleagues Stuart Sternberg and Matthew Silverman assumed control of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 2005, it looked as if they were buying the baseball equivalent of a penny stock. But the incoming regime came armed with a master plan: to leverage their skill at trading, valuation, and management to build a model twenty-first-century franchise that could compete with their bigger, stronger, richer rivals—and prevail.
Together with “boy genius” general manager Andrew Friedman, the new Rays owners jettisoned the old ways of doing things, substituting their own innovative ideas about employee development, marketing and public relations, and personnel management. They exorcized the “devil” from the team’s nickname, developed metrics that let them take advantage of undervalued aspects of the game, like defense, and hired a forward-thinking field manager as dedicated to unconventional strategy as they were. By quantifying the game’s intangibles—that extra 2% that separates a winning organization from a losing one—they were able to deliver to Tampa Bay something that Billy Beane’s “Moneyball” had never brought to Oakland: an American League pennant.
A book about what happens when you apply your business skills to your life’s passion, The Extra 2% is an informative and entertaining case study for any organization that wants to go from worst to first.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Hardcover
From 'Moneyball' onwards there have been seemingly endless line baseball that look at the business end of the game rather then the usual fan style idolatry that is common to most writers of personality driven sports biography. The Two Extra 2%' is perhaps one of the better examples of the sports as business ,genre.This time the focus is on the Tampa Bay Rays, a team according to Jonah Keri suffered from poor team management and the overbearing and penny pinching ways of former owner Vince Niamoli.As a result the Ray's spent their time losing games, over paying for dud players and alienating faithful fans.The Ray's became legendary as for all the wrong reasons.Here was a team ripe for a makeover.
In 2005 along come a trio of Goldman Sachs financiers headed by Stuart Sternberg, who with their Wall street nose for data analysis and fine tuning of business organizations set to work to set things right.The result after several years of rebuilding was to suddenly in 2008 start to rival much bigger teams such as the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees.The extra 2% to which the book refers to the small margin between success and failure.The essence of the book lies in the way a business can be turned around. First, get the product.Avoid quick fixes. Build the team from home grown talent where possible and judicious buys where not.In practical terms this means not over paying for playing talent.Second, get the fans on side. The customer is the ,most important part of the club.Get their loyalty, provide decent ground facilities and 'add value' to the game experience,where possible. This builds revenue base for the club, allowing for better quality recruits for the team in the future. Thirdly-as in 'Moneyball',data analysis is key -reduce risk through a sophisticated review process, player potential against costs.This is all much standard stuff.
Much more interesting is the material on the Ray's wanting to move stadiums. Their present home it seems is just too small, too old and in the wrong place.The fascinating insight that this book provides is the extent to which major teams attempt (and often win)to black mailing local city authorities to provide subsidies to the tune of hundreds of million dollars to build new stadiums for them to occupy.Attracting a major league team is seen by anxious many state governments as a way of helping urban regeneration and boosting the visibility and prestige of a run-down area.Such massive subsidies are very controversial,if only because city authorities are forced to make cuts in social provision or get further into debt in order to create stadiums that seldom ever deliver the gains their supporters suggest will derive from their construction.Unfortunately the Ray's are tied to a long term arrangement in the use of their Tropicana Field site.This means that the great success they have achieved over the last few years has not been reflected by additional growth in seat sales.Ultimately, the author says the Ray's will go back to being a mid -ranking at best ,a failing team at worst, if they can't monetize success.Whether this is true or not, we shall see....
'The Extra 2%' is a good read in terms of the politics and economics of Baseball.Anecdotes are few and it would appear that the author had little access to the decision makers in the Tampa Ray organization.Keri is rather too keen to bash the management of the former boss,Niamoli- his style may have been sometimes counter-productive and some of the decisions rather quixotic, but does it deserve the relentless and rather personal slating that Keri delivers page after page in this book? In all the book is a good light read. It is over long and rather repetitive,but there is some substance to enjoy. The sections on rebranding the team and the discussion on moving to a new stadium are very worthwhile.I would say read 'Moneyball' first and then if you get the bug,read 'The Extra 2%'.
In 2005 along come a trio of Goldman Sachs financiers headed by Stuart Sternberg, who with their Wall street nose for data analysis and fine tuning of business organizations set to work to set things right.The result after several years of rebuilding was to suddenly in 2008 start to rival much bigger teams such as the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees.The extra 2% to which the book refers to the small margin between success and failure.The essence of the book lies in the way a business can be turned around. First, get the product.Avoid quick fixes. Build the team from home grown talent where possible and judicious buys where not.In practical terms this means not over paying for playing talent.Second, get the fans on side. The customer is the ,most important part of the club.Get their loyalty, provide decent ground facilities and 'add value' to the game experience,where possible. This builds revenue base for the club, allowing for better quality recruits for the team in the future. Thirdly-as in 'Moneyball',data analysis is key -reduce risk through a sophisticated review process, player potential against costs.This is all much standard stuff.
Much more interesting is the material on the Ray's wanting to move stadiums. Their present home it seems is just too small, too old and in the wrong place.The fascinating insight that this book provides is the extent to which major teams attempt (and often win)to black mailing local city authorities to provide subsidies to the tune of hundreds of million dollars to build new stadiums for them to occupy.Attracting a major league team is seen by anxious many state governments as a way of helping urban regeneration and boosting the visibility and prestige of a run-down area.Such massive subsidies are very controversial,if only because city authorities are forced to make cuts in social provision or get further into debt in order to create stadiums that seldom ever deliver the gains their supporters suggest will derive from their construction.Unfortunately the Ray's are tied to a long term arrangement in the use of their Tropicana Field site.This means that the great success they have achieved over the last few years has not been reflected by additional growth in seat sales.Ultimately, the author says the Ray's will go back to being a mid -ranking at best ,a failing team at worst, if they can't monetize success.Whether this is true or not, we shall see....
'The Extra 2%' is a good read in terms of the politics and economics of Baseball.Anecdotes are few and it would appear that the author had little access to the decision makers in the Tampa Ray organization.Keri is rather too keen to bash the management of the former boss,Niamoli- his style may have been sometimes counter-productive and some of the decisions rather quixotic, but does it deserve the relentless and rather personal slating that Keri delivers page after page in this book? In all the book is a good light read. It is over long and rather repetitive,but there is some substance to enjoy. The sections on rebranding the team and the discussion on moving to a new stadium are very worthwhile.I would say read 'Moneyball' first and then if you get the bug,read 'The Extra 2%'.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
A superficial account of the rise of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays to the Tampa Bay Rays. Moneyball this is not.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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76 reviews
43 of 47 people found the following review helpful
A lot of fluff, yet you have to read it
11 April 2011
Format:Hardcover
A hard one! There certainly are not a lot books out on the Rays, and any intelligent baseball book is well worth a read. However, as well-intentioned as this work is, and the fact that if you are a baseball fan you are bound to read it, I cannot give it a great review. Here are a few points:
First, there really is NOT much there. It seems like it would have been a better magazine article. There is heavy repetition that is not really needed.
There are no interesting secrets, no revelations, not even a real idea of how the team works.
Tropicana Field is heavily featured; the general discussion of stadium building is interesting but how many times can the author complain about the Trop? Really, I think a reader would "get it" early in the book.
The history of the team is interesting - perhaps a history of the Rays would be a better work.
Inevitably, this will be compared to Moneyball. Face it, the author's premise/thesis is designed to appeal to fans of that work. However, this work is nowhere nearly as involved, or as interesting as Moneyball.
You do not get a lot of player info; more of this would bring the story to life. Yes, there are some anecdotes, particularly re: Garza and Longoria but not enough to really get an idea of the management mindset.
Overall, I do not regret buying this, and do not want to dissuade you, but it could have really been something great. I feel that a great book could be written about this team, but this is not it. In the meantime, this will have to do.
First, there really is NOT much there. It seems like it would have been a better magazine article. There is heavy repetition that is not really needed.
There are no interesting secrets, no revelations, not even a real idea of how the team works.
Tropicana Field is heavily featured; the general discussion of stadium building is interesting but how many times can the author complain about the Trop? Really, I think a reader would "get it" early in the book.
The history of the team is interesting - perhaps a history of the Rays would be a better work.
Inevitably, this will be compared to Moneyball. Face it, the author's premise/thesis is designed to appeal to fans of that work. However, this work is nowhere nearly as involved, or as interesting as Moneyball.
You do not get a lot of player info; more of this would bring the story to life. Yes, there are some anecdotes, particularly re: Garza and Longoria but not enough to really get an idea of the management mindset.
Overall, I do not regret buying this, and do not want to dissuade you, but it could have really been something great. I feel that a great book could be written about this team, but this is not it. In the meantime, this will have to do.
19 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Meh.
3 April 2011
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Solid sort of book, but not something I would go out of the way to recommend to a friend who has interest in baseball. I felt like I've read this before and Billy Beane was way more entertaining a character. Plus, I'm interested in the Rays, and I felt like I came away with very little understanding of the new regime. I guess just playing close to the vest is part of the Wall St strategy, but it didn't leave me too satisfied as a reader. Got to know plenty about the Naimoli-Lamar fiasco, but that was a pretty public mess, and the rehash here mainly left me with pity for Chuck Lamar. The writing is okay. Some humorous jabs and quips seep in through parenthetical asides. It's very similar to Baseball Between the Numbers (the BP compilation put out a couple years back that Keri edited, and is a little more interesting than this book) in that the author asks some interesting, offbeat questions but the intellectual energy behind the question doesn't flow through the writing. All that said though, as a baseball fan, I'm glad we're seeing more books like this one these days with good, solid analysis, especially of teams that have been overlooked for too long, just like the Rays.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Insight into an organization against massive odds
22 Sep 2011
Format:Hardcover
No doubt, this book will be compared with Moneyball, as it is the study of how an organization against massive odds applied a unique management style and ultimately became successful (much more successful than Beane's A's, by the way). While I certainly can't speak for Keri, I read this less as a look at a revolutionary concept like Moneyball and more as the history of how a bunch of dudes from Wall Street with no real baseball background to speak of took an organization that was among the worst run in sports and turned it into a perennial winner. It is a fascinating look into just how terribly the Rays were run before the new regime took over and some of the things that they changed once they did. It also explains some of the reasons why the Rays have such problems drawing crowds (spoiler alert: it's not because no one likes the team). Maybe Keri intended this to be like Moneyball, but I read it almost as a history of their organization. And in that respect, I think, it is a very interesting read.
If there is one real nitpick I can come up with about the book, it is that you don't hear much from Stu Sternberg, Andrew Friedman, or Jonathan Silverman. However, seeing as how Billy Beane has finished in the AL West cellar the last few years, maybe the Rays brain trust simply didn't want to reveal too much. After sabermetrics was introduced to the wider baseball community, Billy Beane lost his competitive advantage; it is understandable that the Rays were wary of revealing too much. Also, I would have LOVED if Keri had gotten access to Vince Naimoli; he seems like a fascinating (read: insane) man.
Overall, this is not a perfect book; it can get a bit repetitive at times and there is not quite as much access to the protagonists of the book as I probably would have liked. However, I thoroughly enjoyed learning more about just how the Rays have been run throughout their history and why they are now successful in the brutal AL East. There are a couple of great anecdotes as well, including one about Albert Pujols and one about a vodka-shooting penis; these alone are worth the price of admission.
If there is one real nitpick I can come up with about the book, it is that you don't hear much from Stu Sternberg, Andrew Friedman, or Jonathan Silverman. However, seeing as how Billy Beane has finished in the AL West cellar the last few years, maybe the Rays brain trust simply didn't want to reveal too much. After sabermetrics was introduced to the wider baseball community, Billy Beane lost his competitive advantage; it is understandable that the Rays were wary of revealing too much. Also, I would have LOVED if Keri had gotten access to Vince Naimoli; he seems like a fascinating (read: insane) man.
Overall, this is not a perfect book; it can get a bit repetitive at times and there is not quite as much access to the protagonists of the book as I probably would have liked. However, I thoroughly enjoyed learning more about just how the Rays have been run throughout their history and why they are now successful in the brutal AL East. There are a couple of great anecdotes as well, including one about Albert Pujols and one about a vodka-shooting penis; these alone are worth the price of admission.
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