Moneyball revisited: Some counter-evidence

Koji Yashiki () and Yoshiyuki Nakazono
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Koji Yashiki: Tohoku University

Economics Bulletin, 2024, vol. 44, issue 2, 620 - 634

Abstract: This study revisited the Moneyball hypothesis to address the potential bias that should have been addressed in previous studies. Basic economic theory suggests an exact correspondence between pay and productivity when markets are competitive and information rich, while it is difficult for researchers to provide empirical evidence on the correspondence between pay and productivity in the real labour market. By measuring the productivity of professional baseball players more closely, we found that after the publication of Moneyball, slugging average, which is widely accepted as one of the most common measures of batting skill, had the dominant effect on winning relative to the factors that Moneyball considered important. After Moneyball was published, slugging average was undervalued in determining payrolls. The evidence against Moneyball suggests that payrolls may have become less efficient than they were before Moneyball have been addressed in previous studies. Basic economic theory suggests an exact correspondence between pay and productivity when markets are competitive and information rich, while it is difficult for researchers to provide empirical evidence on the correspondence between pay and productivity in the real labour market. By measuring the productivity of professional baseball players more closely, we found that after the publication of Moneyball, slugging average, which is widely accepted as one of the most common measures of batting skill, had the dominant effect on winning relative to the factors that Moneyball considered important. After Moneyball was published, slugging average was undervalued in determining payrolls. The evidence against Moneyball suggests that payrolls may have become less efficient than they were before Moneyball.

Keywords: baseball statistics; labor market; Moneyball; productivity; wage efficiency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J3 Z0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-06-30
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