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Trading Bases: How a Wall Street Trader Made a Fortune Betting on Baseball
An ex–Wall Street trader improved on Moneyball ’s famed sabermetrics and beat the Vegas odds with his own betting methods. Here is the story of how Joe Peta turned fantasy baseball into a dream come true.
Joe Peta turned his back on his Wall Street trading career to pursue an ingenious—and incredibly risky—dream. He would apply his risk-analysis skills to Major League Baseball, and treat the sport like the S&P 500.
In Trading Bases , Peta takes us on his journey from the ballpark in San Francisco to the trading floors and baseball bars of New York and the sportsbooks of Las Vegas, telling the story of how he created a baseball “hedge fund” with an astounding 41 percent return in his first year. And he explains the unique methods he developed.
Along the way, Peta provides insight into the Wall Street crisis he managed to the fragility of the midnineties investment model; the disgraced former CEO of Lehman Brothers, who recruited Peta; and the high-adrenaline atmosphere where million-dollar sports-betting pools were common.
Joe Peta turned his back on his Wall Street trading career to pursue an ingenious—and incredibly risky—dream. He would apply his risk-analysis skills to Major League Baseball, and treat the sport like the S&P 500.
In Trading Bases , Peta takes us on his journey from the ballpark in San Francisco to the trading floors and baseball bars of New York and the sportsbooks of Las Vegas, telling the story of how he created a baseball “hedge fund” with an astounding 41 percent return in his first year. And he explains the unique methods he developed.
Along the way, Peta provides insight into the Wall Street crisis he managed to the fragility of the midnineties investment model; the disgraced former CEO of Lehman Brothers, who recruited Peta; and the high-adrenaline atmosphere where million-dollar sports-betting pools were common.
384 pages, Paperback
Published March 4, 2014
About the author
Joe Peta
6 books21 followersRaised in West Chester, PA by a first generation Italian-American father who adopted baseball as a symbol of his love of America, Joe Peta quickly learned the joy of following the sport --- and the pain of being a 1970s-era Phillies fan. Undaunted, by the time he was a teenager, Joe felt certain that his heroes Mike Schmidt, Larry Bowa, Steve Carlton, et al would one day be his co-workers.
While his father instilled a love of baseball in him, sadly, Joe inherited his mother's throwing arm, so by the time he was in college at Virginia Tech he turned his career ambitions toward the glamorous and fast-paced life of a Certified Public Accountant. His new heroes were men like Bill James and Warren Buffett and Joe parlayed his love of numbers into an MBA from Stanford University. Even in business school, sports were never far from his mind. At Stanford, Joe penned columns in The Stanford Daily and The Reporter that earned him a following in spite of constant references to Melrose Place, and his turning down the opportunity to interview campus golfer Tiger Woods.
His debut effort, Trading Bases, A Story About Wall Street, Gambling, and Baseball (Penguin Group) dropped in 2013 and topped best seller lists in both Baseball and Business categories. A Preview of the 2019 Masters published in 2019, contained a shockingly accurate preview of the event and was the #2 selling golf book of the year. Joe's latest effort, Moneyball for the Money Set was released in August, 2023.
Joe lives in San Francisco with his wife and two daughters, who would very much like his next book to either be about ballet or Taylor Swift.
While his father instilled a love of baseball in him, sadly, Joe inherited his mother's throwing arm, so by the time he was in college at Virginia Tech he turned his career ambitions toward the glamorous and fast-paced life of a Certified Public Accountant. His new heroes were men like Bill James and Warren Buffett and Joe parlayed his love of numbers into an MBA from Stanford University. Even in business school, sports were never far from his mind. At Stanford, Joe penned columns in The Stanford Daily and The Reporter that earned him a following in spite of constant references to Melrose Place, and his turning down the opportunity to interview campus golfer Tiger Woods.
His debut effort, Trading Bases, A Story About Wall Street, Gambling, and Baseball (Penguin Group) dropped in 2013 and topped best seller lists in both Baseball and Business categories. A Preview of the 2019 Masters published in 2019, contained a shockingly accurate preview of the event and was the #2 selling golf book of the year. Joe's latest effort, Moneyball for the Money Set was released in August, 2023.
Joe lives in San Francisco with his wife and two daughters, who would very much like his next book to either be about ballet or Taylor Swift.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 20, 2026
This was a tremendous read. I confess this wasn’t the first attempt at reading this, but it was the first time I’ve had this as my sole reading focus, and I’m very glad I saw it through to the end.
I have long admired Peta’s work, more so in the realm of professional golf tournament modelling, and I always revert to his 2019 Masters guide before the tournament every April, but this lived up to and exceeded expectations.
I recognise this is a very niche area of interest for many. Even for me, it is the intersection of sports/baseball data modelling and analysis (which I have a massive interest in) and stories/primers on stock trading (which I have only a slight interest in) but Peta seamlessly links the two and makes it an engaging read.
This booked focused on the 2011 and 2012 MLB seasons. In spring 2022 whilst awaiting the birth of my first born, I spent the time building a skeleton model of sorts based on the framework Peta provided in this book, and ran it for the first 2/3 months of the season before little one’s arrival. Even over ten years on and with an extremely paired down version of his model, the returns and projections were accurate, proving that the principles of this model are evergreen and versatile.
Anyone with an interest in sports modelling in any sport can learn a lot from this book. I believe I will make this a late winter/early spring read annually in anticipation of the new baseball season.
I have long admired Peta’s work, more so in the realm of professional golf tournament modelling, and I always revert to his 2019 Masters guide before the tournament every April, but this lived up to and exceeded expectations.
I recognise this is a very niche area of interest for many. Even for me, it is the intersection of sports/baseball data modelling and analysis (which I have a massive interest in) and stories/primers on stock trading (which I have only a slight interest in) but Peta seamlessly links the two and makes it an engaging read.
This booked focused on the 2011 and 2012 MLB seasons. In spring 2022 whilst awaiting the birth of my first born, I spent the time building a skeleton model of sorts based on the framework Peta provided in this book, and ran it for the first 2/3 months of the season before little one’s arrival. Even over ten years on and with an extremely paired down version of his model, the returns and projections were accurate, proving that the principles of this model are evergreen and versatile.
Anyone with an interest in sports modelling in any sport can learn a lot from this book. I believe I will make this a late winter/early spring read annually in anticipation of the new baseball season.
Displaying 1 of 1 review