The Extra 2%

How Wall Street Strategies Took a Major League Baseball Team from Worst to First

By: Jonah Keri

Narrated by: Lloyd James

What happens when three financial-industry whiz kids and certified baseball nuts take over an ailing Major League franchise and implement the same strategies that fueled their success on Wall Street? In the case of the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays, an American League championship happens - the culmination of one of the greatest turnarounds in baseball history.

In The Extra 2%, financial journalist and sportswriter Jonah Keri chronicles the remarkable story of one team's Cinderella journey from divisional doormat to World Series contender. By quantifying the game's intangibles, they were able to deliver to Tampa Bay an American League pennant. This is an informative and entertaining case study for any organization that wants to go from worst to first.

©2011 Jonah Keri (P)2011 Dreamscape Media, LLC

Critic reviews

"Jonah Keri has given us a fascinating look at how the Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays became winners. The Extra 2% is a captivating book if you love baseball, but it's an even more captivating book if you love success." (Joe Posnanski, senior writer, Sports Illustrated)

"The Tampa Bay Rays - with their ma-and-pa-sized budget - have gone head to head with baseball's two superpowers, the Yankees and the Red Sox. In the superb The Extra 2%, Jonah Keri explains how and why in a way that will remind readers of Michael Lewis's Moneyball." (Buster Olney, senior writer, ESPN The Magazine)

"All baseball fans ever ask for is hope: hope not only for a season out of their dreams, but also for leaders smart enough and imaginative enough to figure out how to make those dreams reality. In The Extra 2%, Jonah Keri not only presents this blueprint followed to perfection but does so with a brilliant page-turner of a book that will satisfy fans of both baseball and first-rate writing." (Mike Vaccaro, columnist, The New York Post)

Great nuggets here; but you gotta like the Rays

Obviously this book is compared to Moneyball, and rightfully so. But Moneyball was really about Billy Beane and the emergence of advanced statistical analysis in mainstream baseball circles. This book isn't about any one personality or any global baseball change. Its about the changes the Rays went through in the mid 2000s, from all angles: ownership, front office, players, manager, ballpark.

If you find the Rays interesting and you wonder "where the hell did these guys come from?" when you look at their crazy season as they sit a few games back in the AL East in early September 2012, then you'll think this is a valuable read. I find myself sharing "tidbits" with fellow baseball fans constantly.

The whole thing about the "extra 2%" and "Wall Street Strategies" is completely irrelevant and unexplored. I have no idea why that stuff is on the book jacket. It should be called: "Tampa Bay Rays - The Exorcism that Took them Worst to First".

Decent history of the Ray's.

Generally liked the book, it was more of a history than a strategy book. Most baseball fans will enjoy it. Hard to listen to the narrator mis-pronounce multiple player names.

A poor man's Moneyball

Keri is very knowledgeable about baseball, but has dumbed down the subject a bit too much. He also apparently did not have nearly the access that Billy Beane had given Michael Lewis, and so relies too much upon telling rather than showing or discussions from the relevant characters.

The title is a bit misleading, as it feels like the story he spins is 60% "Tampa Bay can never compete because of baseball's revenue gaps" or "Tampa Bay was a horribly run franchise for years", and only 40% (or less) on how the Rays manage to compete with the Evil Empire and the Sox anyway. He hints at issues between the Red Sox ownership and the Tampa ownership, but, with no access to any of the parties involved, he leaves it unexplored.

Unfortunately for Keri, I think any book of this sort will be compared to Moneyball, and the writer to Lewis. While Keri, undoubtedly, knows more about baseball than Lewis, myself, or 99.9% of all Americans, you wouldn't know it from this book. And Keri, while a better writer than I could ever hope to be (check him out on Grantland), may be better suited to essays and articles. He repeats points, arguments and jokes (3 times referring to different sums of money as "rounding errors" for the Yankees and Red Sox), and leaves the most interesting parts of the Tampa story relatively unexplored.

As for Lloyd James, pleasant voice, okay pacing, but either he knows next to nothing about the subject matter, or he mailed it in.

Rays Season Ticket Holder

As a Rays season ticket holder, I found this book entertaining and very enlightening. There was lots of info in here I'd never heard about, especially about past and present ownership. Who would have guessed that the new ownership used Disney to train their stadium workers? I've often questioned Maddon's decisions but the book has enlightened me on some of the decisions I thought were really strange in the past. Now I have a better understanding of why he makes the choices.

The one thing I really didn't like about the book was the fact the narrator/reader didn't do his homework on the pronunciations of players names ie. Jim Thome which ends with a long E sound he kept ending it with a long A sound. That's only one example of many.

If you like baseball, this is a good read. It's definitely a good follow up to the book Moneyball. But this book deals more with the AL East including the Yankees and Boston which the Rays are continually compared to. Enjoy!

Great if you love baseball, especially the Rays!

It's an interesting story, but it's more of a history of the Tampa Bay Rays than it is a book exposing strategies to help you find the extra 2%. Where Moneyball has great appeal to any baseball fan and even some who are not fans, The Extra 2% will really only appeal to fans of the Rays specifically.

Informative Story, but Narration Was Lacking

I enjoy Mr. Keri's writing, but frequently, the narrator mispronounced common baseball names, like Tom Glavine (he pronounced it Gla-VINE). Though the performance was good, these errors took away from my enjoyment as the narrator did not know the subject matter. Looking forward to Mr. Keri's upcoming book on the Montreal Expos, but please have a baseball fan narrate the audio book!

Interesting book, lousy narrator

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Great for baseball fans who enjoy behind-the-scenes and front-office narratives.

Would you be willing to try another one of Lloyd James’s performances?

No.

Any additional comments?

This book really needed a narrator who is at least a little familiar with baseball. Mispronounced names are jarring -- Tom GlaVINE, Cory Little (Lidle) a handful of others. Unforgivable is One to zero (game scores), Nine to six (a pitcher's 9-6 won-loss record) and three to two (a 3-2 pitch count). Not isolated instances, but constants throughout.

Inside Business of Baseball.

After reading Moneyball, I really wanted to read The Extra 2% to try to understand the business side of Major League Baseball and how things work besides trading players and stats. By no means, I'm not a fan of the game, but I have a vast interest on businesses and how they compete with others.

The Rays are no different than an ice cream truck owner, trying to compete with Baskin Robbins and trying to get some of their big brother's business. The truck owner will have to pay for marketing, more trucks, more drivers and more overhead, in hopes to gain more business. This is exactly what is happening with The Rays.

When the team was known as the Devil Rays, they had a miser, cheap, owner, that let the team ans stadium go to garbage. The previous owner had no customer service skills at all, by kicking out their fans just because they brought their own food in the park. Until the ownership changed hands, the Devil Rays was doomed.

The Rays are in a small market and due to the current economical funk, they have yet to get an new stadium and no matter how well the team plays, they can't get over the hump from the big hitters, such as the Yankees.

This is an excellent business book to understand team sports and how they are run, beyond the head coach.

Keri at his best

Jonah writes a gem here rich in detail and insight. great story can't wait for the film.

Good story, bad narration

How did the narrator detract from the book?

This is a book for baseball fans, primarily, but they chose a narrator who obviously isn't one, and butchers many names well known to fans. He pronounces Piniella "pin-ee-ella". Glavine becomes "glav-eye-n". This lack of attention to detail by the producers of this audiobook is really too bad for the author.