How to Beat a Broken Game: The Rise of the Dodgers in a League on the Brink

by Pedro Moura

The inside story of how the Dodgers won their first championship in more than thirty years—but helped cripple the sport of baseball in the processAfter years of frustrating playoff runs, the Los Angeles Dodgers finally reclaimed the World Series trophy after more than thirty years, led by star pitcher Clayton Kershaw, electric outfielder Mookie Betts, and a bevy of impressive young players assembled by team president Andrew Friedman. No team is better positioned to win now and in the future.Yet winning at modern baseball is nothing like it was even twenty years ago. In the years since the famous Moneyball revolution, baseball has grown to look less like a sport than a Wall Street firm that traded its boiler room for a field. Teams relentlessly chase every tiny advantage to win games and make money, even as it hurts fans, TV ratings, and players, courting bigger problems in the long run.This dramatic and insightful book takes you into the clubhouse with the championship players, as well as into the offices where teams constantly seek new ways to win—even when it hurts the game. How to Beat a Broken Game shows not only what it takes to win, but what it will take to save the sport.

Genres: Baseball, Sports, Nonfiction

273 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 29, 2022

Reviews

[Michael -- Justice for Renee & Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hesitated before picking up this book-- from the description I was afraid it was going to be a hatchet job on the Dodgers... and I have loved the Dodgers all my life. "The inside story of how the Dodgers won their first championship in more than 30 years--but helped cripple the sport of baseball in the process." Baseball, once America's pastime, is broken. That is the first assertion. Moneyball, statistical analysis, and translating statistics into paychecks have all turned baseball into a smooth, efficient bore. We are reminded that its inefficiencies made baseball entertaining.

I love baseball. I love the slow heartbeat of strategy. I loved getting early to the ballpark, getting my Dodger Dog and beer, writing down the lineup in the program. Had my transistor radio on so I could listen to Vin Scully or Jerry Doggett spread the ambiance a little thicker. The orange Union 76 ball at the top of the scoreboard was the only advertisement visible on Dodger Stadium's dazzling glow of green and blue with that brilliant clay infield. Walter O'Malley and then his son Peter resisted raising prices and tried to shy from free agency... but mega-corporate money demolished family ownership. First the monsters of Fox Corp bought the team and then the crooked Frank McCourt brought the franchise to its knees.

Today's Dodgers have the deepest deep pockets. Not only did the Guggenheim Baseball Group come in with endless cash reserves, but Time Warner Cable / Spectrum drenched their wallets with obscene amounts of cash, albeit at the expense of millions of fans who were robbed of viewing televised games for years. We are shown how President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman then executed nearly everything perfectly, exploiting every opportunity offered by the new business model. Of course, it never hurts to have the funds to smother any mistake or cover any unforeseen injury. Dodger fans will also be happy to find chapters devoted to the development of key players such as Kershaw, Betts, Muncy, and Justin Turner, as well as Manager Dave Roberts.

Author Pedro Moura does take the Dodgers to task in areas they may fall short in as far as integrity goes. We can start with the whole Trevor Bauer fiasco, the team taking a gamble on a known problem player in order to capitalize on a "distressed asset". This turned out to be a public relations nightmare, the Dodgers having to pay the league's highest player salary to an alleged sex offender who received full pay while under suspension. Other shady areas include the manipulation of service time, "gaming arbitration", and having players fake injuries to maximize roster flexibility.

Baseball has a lot to fix if it does not want to escalate its downward spiral. The current lockout / strike threatens to piggyback on these issues and cause irreparable harm. There are certain to be many changes when the players and owners hammer out the new collective bargaining agreement. The title being "How to Beat a Broken Game"-- the Dodgers certainly did not break the game,,, but this book seems to show that Andrew Friedman and the brain trust of the Los Angeles Dodgers are more than capable of adapting to whatever curveballs may be served up.

"How to Beat a Broken Game" brings us up to date on the real guts of today's game... and how it is won. It is the most realistic portrayal of how the game is won and lost. Thank you to PublicAffairs/Bold Type Books and NetGalley for providing the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Dodgers certainly have created an advantageous situation for success. They have seemingly unlimited funds, exceptionally intelligent individuals running operations, and a mix of old school and new school techniques. I enjoyed having some greater detail of the behind the scenes operations of the Dodgers. The book did take the team to task for the Bauer signing, and mentioned the limitless payroll the team enjoys, however, it felt like the incredible advantage the Dodgers enjoy in payroll was minimized. The Dodgers can absorb a mistake better than any team in MLB. I wish there would have been a bit more about how strongly the team flexes their financial muscles and how more teams in MLB should do the same. As the present labor dispute emphasizes, this is the biggest fracture in the game.

There is also a statement in the book about teamwork not being a requirement of the game. That statement floors me. Baseball is certainly driven by individual performance, but the complete dismissal of team cohesion is baffling.

I received an ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

[Trevor Seigler · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of how the Los Angeles Dodgers ended their thirty-plus-year championship drought in 2020, amid a season shortened by the COVID-19 crisis and a post-season played in a bubble, is presented here in Pedro Moura's new book as a triumph of analytics over old-school baseball "insider" knowledge, though Moura makes clear that such a triumph has unintended consequences. This is not a rah-rah "go Dodger Blue!" sort of history of the ways in which the Dodgers embraced the 21st century as it is a warning about the costs they took on when they did so. Moura does his best, but parts of the book are slow-moving and heavy on the explanation behind theories that now dominate the statistics in baseball, perhaps the most stats-driven of all sports anyway. But the book does feature some great insights into how many of the players and executives who helped power the Dodgers' resurgence over the last decade+ came to be in the positions that they are now, and Moura makes clear how, far from validating the "Moneyball" approach over tried-and-true baseball wisdom, the new Dodger Way is actually a successful blending of the two. It's good for the Dodgers, but is it good for baseball? In a time when players are at their physical peak, able to incorporate data that will help them achieve their best goals for the season and for their careers, it is nonetheless a sport where the distance between the haves and the have-nots is ever widening, with little sign of any measures to bridge that gap a little, much less close it entirely. "How to Beat a Broken Game" is, at long last, a look at how the sport is changing, in some ways for the better but in some ways for the worse, and why those changes are taking place.

[ash · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to love this, but it just didn't deliver stylistically or narratively, even if the information was still appealing to me because I'm that type of nerd. I kept waiting for a central thesis to emerge but it never did and the writing was lackluster and plodding. The player biographies were interesting and were trying very hard to do something, but mostly ended up being corny and hamfisted. I did greatly appreciate that Moura didn't pull any punches when it came to the organization's history of employing and acquiring men with violent histories and that there was some discussion of race and diversity on the roster, but that missing thesis kneecapped it at every turn. I've read a lot of good sportswriting in the last couple of years, but this wasn't it.

[Nikki · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

I had a great time reading this because I love the Dodgers, and at the sentence level it was well written, but there didn't seem to be any real cohesive thesis. It read like a collection of mini biographies with a couple expository essays about specific series thrown in for fun. Maybe I was just expecting something more because of the title?

In any case, I rounded up to 4 because I appreciated the author calling out (albeit somewhat timidly) the Dodgers for their lack of holding players accountable for shitty behavior (domestic situations, rape, racism, etc) and for signing Trevor Bauer in the first place despite his obvious history of being a terrible person.

[Cole Thorpe · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was somewhat interesting, but not exactly my cup of tea. I can definitely see people enjoying it but I couldn't make myself finish by the time the book was due. Fairly slow and a bit dry, but with some interesting biographies about players and front office people. I'll give it another try at some point and see if when I finish it my review changes.

[jeffrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this expose on the rise of the use of metrics in Major League Baseball, focusing primarily on the Dodgers runup to winning the World Series in 2020 and beyond. But there is actually relatively little explaining how it is that MLB is actually "on the brink". As I understand it, at least monetarily and in regards to attendance in most baseball markets, things are going fairly well. I do agree with the author that the current emphasis on homeruns at the expense of hits and in the park strategies is detrimental to the game. But, wouldn't simply moving the fences back greatly alleviate that problem? The game has always been a battle between pitcher and batter- each having to adjust to the tactics of the other. That's why I am against such ideas as designated hitters, allowing a baserunner to start at second base in extra innings, or prohibiting stacking infielders on one side of the field, because such new rules just dumb it down, eliminating the essence of what makes baseball the thinking person's game.

[Chris Jaffe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd call it a failure of organization.

It's a 250 page book that read like 185 pages or prologue, 30 pages of main event, and then 35 pages epilogue.

Books about a single team typically follow a time-honored structure where you want to tell about the team' season, but you also want to tell stories about the people involved. This book does it as well - but it tells all the stories, and so the championship season doesn't begin until you're 75% the way through the book. To be fair, the book avoids a bigger pitfall of discussing a championship team: It never gets lost in the miniatua of thist-game-then-this-game-then-this-game. Nope, no danger of that here. The book spends just one chapter on the season, and then one more on the postseason.

There's a reason books usually toggle back and forth between the season and stories. The stories flesh out the season and the season serves as backbone for the flesh. You get your 185 pounds of flesh before getting to the structure.

I felt like an airliner passenger in a plane caught in a holding pattern.

One other odd thing: in the very intro Moura brings up the problems of baseball. He returns back to that in the very last paragraph. In between? Virtually nothing about how it's a broken game. If he wants to make it a hook the bookend the tome with and include it in his subtitle, he really should talk about it more in the chapters.

[Sara G · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Dodgers' run of success is why I missed my GR annual goal last year (and probably this year, too). I've followed the team closely since 2005, so this book's recounting of recent franchise history was a familiar story -- mostly. Pedro Moura, whose journalism I've enjoyed for years, found new-to-me details and perspectives on stories that have been told many times, and hooking them onto the narrative thread of the game's evolution really made the whole thing click. He includes the good, the bad, and the (very) ugly. He didn't include everything, but what is here is an excellent summation of both the triumph and tragedy of when the data makes everyone too good at their jobs. It's an interesting, and a troubling, time to be a baseball fan. But there's nothing in the world like a day at the ballpark, so I have confidence in the sport's ability to endure, despite it all.

[kurzel · Rating 4 out of 5]

deep and rich look into all the moving gears and pieces that comprise the slick machine that is the dodgers organization. incredibly detailed and a masterclass look at the exact science and business strategy that makes the dodgers perennial contenders. andrew friedman is an evil genius

[Jen Cusiter · Rating 5 out of 5]

was living for the three (3) times chris taylor was mentioned in this book

[Edwin Howard · Rating 4 out of 5]

In HOW TO BEAT A BROKEN GAME, by Pedro Moura, the recent success of the Dodgers is analyzed. From roster building to the style of play, the book looks deep into the unique approach the Dodgers had in creating the team that eventually won the World Series for the first time in thirty years. After all of that analysis is done, the book considers that by the Dodgers using an unconventional approach to create success, the rest of baseball will take note and adjust accordingly and forever change the game in ways that aren't necessarily good.
Moura looks at the major players, coaches, and front office personnel to provide a well-rounded argument as to why the Dodgers reached the pinnacle of success. The reader really gets to know a lot of these interesting characters well by how intimately Moura explains who they are and how they ended up with the Dodgers. After he introduces all of the integral parties, Moura begins to tie everything together and takes the reader through the Dodgers playoff run that feels like a rollercoaster of emotions every step of the way. Moura does at times make an assumption of understanding of baseball terms that not every reader will have and at times it could leave someone confused. Fortunately, Moura doesn't stray for too long from his captivating storytelling and I think even an average fan will either understand the references or be able to gloss over them and move on with minimal loss of comprehension.
HOW TO BEAT A BROKEN GAME brings to light how alterative and fresh takes on ways to build franchises can created champions, but that often the price of that approach can forever alter the professional game because every team will want to utilize the novel techniques that produce winners. A well-researched and illuminating read.
Thank you to PublicAffairs, Pedro Moura, and Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

[Reid Mccormick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been a Dodger fan my whole life. I lived through Karros, Piazza, Mondesi, Nomo, and Hollandsworth. I suffered through the McCourt years. And now I am basking in the new Guggenheim years or Friedman era or whatever you want to call it.

I know there are a lot of baseball critics out there, but it is fun rooting for a team that has the financial resources supporting ultimate brain trust.
This book really focuses on the 2016 class of the Dodgers draft, which included Luz, Smith, May, and Gonsolin among others. It is an exceptional class.

I do not really understand why this book is titled How to Beat a Broken Game. I do not see baseball – specifically Major League Baseball – to be broken. If you break it down, baseball is just a game with arbitrary rules. For a century, everyone just played the game the same way. About twenty years ago, teams started to change. They started looking at what works and what doesn’t work, and they made changes.

For some reason, this has irritated many fans.

If a batter pulls the ball to the left side of the field most of the time, why not shift your defense?

If a pitcher statistically fails the third time through the line up, why not put in a reliever?

If stealing a based provides little to no benefit with incredible risk, why do it?

There is nothing wrong with the game. What is wrong is how coaches and players wrongly approached the game year after year.

Anyway, the book really does not address this for very long. I think the author just wanted a catchy title. I just wanted to read a book about the Dodgers.

Good book. Read it.

[Zach Koenig · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the first half or two-thirds of "How to Beat A Broken Game", author Pedro Moura crafts a very engaging and informative take on how/why baseball looks/feels the way it does in the 2020s. The only problem? The final sections kind of go off the rails, rendering this more of a 3.5/4.0 star read overall.

For the most part, Moura (a Dodgers writer of various forums) expertly explains why pitching, home runs, walks, and strikeouts (to the exclusion of seemingly all else, sometimes) dominate the modern game of baseball. He does this through a very Dodgers-centric lens, specifically looking at players like Mookie Betts, Clayton Kershaw, Justin Turner, Walker Buehler, and Cody Bellinger (amongst others). Despite the heavy LA focus--which might portend exclusion for those who don't bleed Blue--Moura uses those case studies to facilitate his MLB-in-general observations.

Unfortunately, Moura then devolves--rather inexplicably--into some sour grapes, politically-charged critiques, and what I would consider real "shade" against certain players. He rails against Trevor Bauer's legal battles off the field, Turner's COVID diagnosis as the Dodgers were winning the '20 World Series, and the LA front office for their machinations towards certain players. After being so nuanced in the early goings, there is no objectivity given to those topics.

So, despite a reading experience that was largely positive, the ending here really left a bad taste in my mouth. Enough to drive my star rating down to 4 (in what could have so easily been a 5/5 effort).

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting, especially as I'm a big Dodgers fan. I was very impressed by the depth of Moura's reporting, and loved to learn about the backstories of favorite players like Clayton Kershaw, Max Muncy, Mookie Betts, and others. And the story of how the techniques of analytics used by Andrew Friedman and the Dodgers are changing baseball is well told and compelling.
Maybe I'm biased as a Dodgers fan, or too optimistic, but I'm less convinced that analytics is what is breaking baseball (if anything fully is). Issues also raised by Moura -- unscrupulous and shamelessly greedy owners, a financial system that underpays young players (and allows service time manipulation), and tanking by teams, among others -- seem more crucial to me.
I don't have strong feelings about the defensive shift, but Moura does show that some of the other changes that have led to more strikeouts, walks, and home runs have been at least embraced and probably accelerated by the Dodgers. That may make for a more boring game (I also like doubles and balls in play), but I'm not sure the game still isn't plenty enjoyable, or whether there's a way to prevent games from evolving (basketball and football have changed a ton, too, though I guess people would probably counter that they've evolved in a more exciting direction), or whether there won't be some kind of correction if people decide that the modern game is not interesting enough.
Anyway, thought-provoking and interesting book for baseball fans.

[Devin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dodger fans will get a lot out of this book! I follow the team pretty closely and still learned a lot!

The reconstruction of this sustained run of success and high-profile playoff failures (save one!) is of course compelling. Mookie Betts is quite the protagonist. But Moura convincingly frames the story as incomplete without granular documentation of how the Friedman era’s analytically-driven reforms have helped changed baseball forever, and not necessarily for the better. Romantic about what the sport can be while also being clear-eyed about the uglier aspects of the game today. The Bauer chapter is uncomfortable to read but an important one and inseparable from chronicling the recent innovations in pitching development, as much as it would be convenient for some in the sport to forget that now.

[Dan Fox · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think Dodger fans will probably enjoy most of the content since the author, a former Dodgers beat writer, has some nice player biographical sketches and lots of anecdotes. And if you’re a Mookie Betts fan then all the more so.

However, the books lacks a central thesis despite a title that strongly hints of one which is too bad since the book certainly has breadth touching on a variety of subjects from the rise of analytics, cheating, CBA negotiations, changes in strategy, player development, and player usage among others. They’re just not woven into a coherent narrative.

[David Go · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you're primary interest is just learning more about the people in the Dodgers' organization, it's pretty informative. Otherwise, the book was middling.
The premise of the book is lacking - the book barely addresses the title. Each chapter focuses on a different individual/topic but there's little consistency throughout. It felt more like a collection of essays than one cohesive book.
That said, I'm not disappointed that I read it due to its information but it could have been much better.

[Ellison · Rating 4 out of 5]

This whines about how baseball has become Strat-o-matic with players inserted into positions based upon data points to accomplish a certain goal. then profiles of various Dodgers, occasional insights, swearing. No pix, no index.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-reported account of the Dodgers' dynasty. I enjoyed it, though there were a couple of chapters in the middle, 8-11, that were just fantastic, digging on the Dodgers' processes and their lesser-known staff. The book flew by for me from that point forward.

[Casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mookie Betts story and the Bauer overview were my favorite parts.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating reporting on the affect of analytics on baseball and how sometimes miracles like Mookie Betts happen anyways. Must read for Dodger/baseball lovers.

[robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

in depth, interesting, solid read

We’ll documented, deep dive into how todays Dodgers operate. Gives insights into how the analytics side has evolved. Good book.

[Craig Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a Dodger fan, I enjoyed this immensely. Completely delivered on its promise of insider info without being gossipy.

[Brian Lindawson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Relatively uninteresting biography of the recent Dodger teams. I enjoy reading about the Dodgers so I finished the book, but didn't provide anything particularly interesting or insightful.

[रोआ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Made me fall in love with sabermetrics and analytics even more! Definitely worth reading!

[Waiis Su · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely a must-read for any Dodgers fan! Just that I wished the ending was less sober and more... Celebratory? Felt kinda bummed when it ended lol

[Kathryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

in a word: meh