Product Review

Diamond Dollars is a fresh, provocative, insightful, and analytical look at the business of baseball by author Vince Gennaro, a consultant to MLB teams. Gennaro addresses some key questions that affect how teams make decisions, how they assemble their roster, and ultimately, their bottom line:

* How does winning affect revenues for each team?
* How much value does a berth in the postseason generate for the Red Sox and Yankees?
* What is the Yankees’ marginal revenue vs. marginal cost of winning?
* What is the economic value of a highly productive Twins’ farm system?
* Why is a player’s value “situational”, depending on the competitiveness of his team and the market in which he plays?
* How much was Carlos Beltran worth to the Mets in 2006?
* How can we quantify Derek Jeter’s “marquee value”…his ability to draw fans?
* What is the relative cost of developing talent vs. buying it in the free agent market?
* How can we quantify Nomar Garciaparra’s injury risk and its impact on his dollar value?
* What is the dollar value of Cubs’ fans loyalty to their beloved team?
* How have the Red Sox, Yankees and Cubs built their team as a brand?
* How much Babe Ruth was worth to his Yankee teams of the 1920s and 1930s.?

Baseball teams may have thought conceptually about some of these issues, but Diamond Dollars gives them the math to measure the effectiveness of their thinking and practices.

This edition includes a 2013 preface by author Vince Gennaro and a foreword by Jim Beattie, former Executive VP and General Manager of the Baltimore Orioles and Montreal Expos. The graphs and figures have also been reformatted from earlier editions for ease of reading on Kindle devices.

“Diamond Dollars provides an insightful look at the business of baseball—at the free agent market, teams’ scouting and player development systems, and how clubs market their brands. The book mixes Vince’s business acumen as a top executive at a Fortune 50 company with his passion for the national pastime.”
-Mark Attanasio, Chairman and Principal Owner, Milwaukee Brewers

“Vince Gennaro shows a profound understanding of the economics of a team’s baseball decisions. His analyses of a team’s win-revenue relationship, the player development system and player valuation, make for a remarkably innovative examination of the baseball front office model that’s just as informative for a baseball executive as for a fan.”
-Chris Antonetti, General Manager, Cleveland Indians

“Diamond Dollars offers up exciting and stimulating new ideas about the business of baseball. It provides a set of metrics for decisions that have typically been a “gut feeling” for many organizations. I think teams should make this required reading for everyone in their organizations.”
-Jim Beattie, former Executive VP and General Manager, Baltimore Orioles and Montreal Expos

“Vince Gennaro has written the best book I’ve read on the business of baseball. It serves as both a “how-to manual” for baseball owners and a tour guide for fans who scratch their heads at the things their teams do. It should find plenty of readers in both camps.”
-Dave Studenmund, Editor, The Hardball Times Annual