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Does General Manager Networking Affect Choice of Trade Partners in Major League Baseball?

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Journal of Sports Economics

Published online on

Abstract

It is not unusual for baseball general managers (GMs) to have network ties to their potential trading partners, either to the other teams’ GMs or to the teams themselves. This article investigates whether these connections affect the degree of trading activity between specific team pairs. Estimates indicate that connections between GMs and commonalities between GMs enhance trade, although in absolute terms the effects are small. However, a GM simply having a professional tie to another team does not have any statistically significant effect. On the whole, our results are consistent with those found in the socioeconomic networking literature.