Skip Sauer on the Economics of Moneyball

EconTalk

Library of Economics and Liberty

Ethics, Philosophy, Economics, Books, Science, Business, Courses, Social Sciences, Society & Culture, Interviews, Education, History

4.7 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 23 October 2006

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Skip Sauer of Clemson University and Russ Roberts discuss the economics of Michael Lewis's Moneyball. Lewis claims that the Oakland As found an undervalued asset--the ability of a baseball player to draw a walk--and used that insight to succeed while spending less money than their rivals. Is it true? Sauer and Roberts try to answer that and other questions. How competitive is the baseball industry? Why do some baseball skills get more attention than others? Plus, new feature: Mailbag!

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, brought to you by the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:04.4	I'm your host, Russ Roberts of George Mason University and Stanford University's Hoover
0:08.8	Institution.
0:10.4	At the end of today's conversation, I'll be reading and responding to listener email.
0:15.0	If you have comments or follow-up questions for any of our guests, please email me at
0:18.9	Roberts, my last name, Roberts, at gmu.edu, and put Econ Talk in the subject line.
0:26.8	My guest today is Skip Sauer, Professor of Economics and Chair of the Walker Department
0:31.9	of Economics at Clemson University.
0:34.3	He blogs at the Sports Economist and he's done extensive research on the economics of sports.
0:40.0	Today we're going to talk about the economics of baseball, and in particular the book Money
0:45.5	Ball, Michael Lewis' look at the strategies of the Oakland athletics.
0:49.2	It's been a good and bad week for the A's.
0:52.6	Yeah, it was good until Saturday.
0:55.1	Yeah, they had a little bad stretch.
0:57.5	They were swept by the Tigers, but they did win the preceding round, which was a big step
1:01.8	for them.
1:02.8	Well, they went further than they have been in recent years, and it was a bit of a surprise
1:07.3	that they even made it to the playoffs, and winning one round won against the twins was
1:14.8	a good job, but they ran into a buzz saw on the Tigers.
1:17.7	Well, yeah, we'll see how the Tigers do.
1:19.5	When this podcast comes out, we'll have a little more information.
1:23.2	We're taping this right in the middle of the Cardinals Metz series, right on the edge
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Library of Economics and Liberty, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Library of Economics and Liberty and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.