Brewers Baseball

The Brewers disappointed me again, just as they did in 1982, only this time I didn’t cry. And according to our esteemed sports economist colleague Mike Haupert, they were lucky to do what they did. Check out Mike’s article in the Washington Post.

As an economist, I am interested in efficiency. The best manager is the one who produces the most with the talent he is given. After all, how hard can it be to manage the deep-pocket Yankees, who can purchase the best players each year to satisfy their manager’s every desire? What a dream for a manager. Need a cleanup hitter? Enter Mark Teixeira. A mound ace? Enter C.C. Sabathia. Each earns upward of $20 million per year. Quality does not come cheap, but cost is no object when your average ticket sells for $98 and your television revenue rivals the GDP of some nations.

Managing the Yankees is easy. Just buy the best players and put them in the lineup. But what if you have to manage the Brewers? What if you don’t get to spend a fortune to pluck the best talent from the rest of the league, but you have to manage on a budget? After all, the owner of a team is looking for a return on his investment, so producing on a budget is not a crazy concept.

If efficiency—getting the best output from your available inputs—matters, which it should, then Ron Roenicke is your man. He was the best manager in baseball in 2011 because he was the most efficient. The manager can only work with the players he is provided, but it is his job to make the most of the situation. Let’s consider the job the Brewers’ skipper did this year.

First of all, the Brewers won 96 games, capturing the central division crown and securing home field advantage in the first round of the playoffs. It’s hard to ask for more than that. Consider that Roenicke, in his first year at the helm, accomplished this with a lineup that was largely unchanged from the same team that won only 77 games the previous year. That accomplishment alone merits serious consideration for Roenicke.