Top Reads, Listens, Follows & Takeaways of the week
Does spending equal winning in baseball? & The presumption of innocence
Takeaways:
As a fan of Moneyball and an embattled Mets fan who has cursed the Yankees spending and success over the years, I wanted to look into the relationship between spending and winning in baseball. I’ve always been impressed by low payroll clubs that consistently produce home-grown talent and win (Rays being the prime example) and been equally confused by the clubs that shell out top dollar for individual players and go on to be losers. It’s easy to be enamored by the small-budget success stories, but the data supports a statistically significant relationship between spending and winning in baseball’s regular season. Interestingly, this relationship wasn’t found in the postseason, likely a result of the shorter playoff series and luck.
Quartile I below represents the biggest spenders, while Quartile IV represents the lowest spenders. The below data is from 1995 - 2015
On another note:
Bill Ackman posted an interesting Twitter thread about the presumption of innocence as it relates to SBF’s alleged crimes. It’s thought provoking. Everyone wants the presumption of innocence for themselves, it’s the fundamental underpinning of our justice system, but how many people practice giving others the presumption of innocence? It’s a tough thing to do, especially in the current media age.
Reads:
The Kekulé Problem by Cormac McCarthy (here)
M.L.B. Works to Build a New Generation of Black American Players (here)
How Apple tied its fortunes to China (here)
How FC Barcelona blew a fortune — and got worse (here)
Ghost Banks Limp Along in Argentina, Staying Open as Costly ATMs (here)
The Real Trees Delivering Fake Corporate Climate Progress (here)
Don’t Be Fooled By Baseball’s Small-Budget Success Stories (here & here)
Listens:
Anthony Scaramucci on Capital Allocators– Another Winter, Another Rebirth (here)
Meb Faber and Porter Stansberry on recession, Bitcoin, distressed debt & energy (here)
The Ins and Outs of LLC’s (here)
Follow, Watch & Other great content:
Documentary recommendation - The Somalia Project (here)
Documentary recommendation - Super League, The war for football (here)
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