NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Author Michael Lewis, the champion of the small-market sports team, has a soft spot for George Steinbrenner.

Lewis's best-selling book, "Moneyball, The Art of Winning an Unfair Game," last year brought new attention -- and some controversy -- to the methods of Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane, who has used statistical analysis to build a winning roster at bargain prices.

So it might be surprising to hear that Lewis sees a positive in Steinbrenner, owner of the New York Yankees and the king of big-market spending excess. According to the writer, Steinbrenner is an important key to baseball's competitive balance.

The Boss makes himself closely involved in personnel decisions, signing veteran players with big reputations rather than the unsung heroes Beane finds. That, argues Lewis, gives teams like the A's a better chance to win.

"He's a machine for competitive balance," said Lewis. "Yes, the money is in New York. Yes, the money is in his hands. But he squanders money. Thank God for it."

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The real risk for the game's competitive balance is not that Steinbrenner will keep throwing his money at the game's best-known players. The threat would be if suddenly he started using the same statistical analysis that skinflint teams like the A's are now using.

"It was almost the first thing they said to me in the A's front office when I walked in. They said, 'The Yankees aren't bad at what they do. Texas is bad at what they do,'" Lewis said. "'The Mets aren't so great at spending money. But if the Yankees were great, we'd go do something else for a living.'"

Lewis studied economics at Princeton and the London School of Economics before becoming a bond trader at Salomon Brothers, a tenure that prompted him to write his first book, "Liar's Poker."

Lewis was varsity baseball player in high school who still loves the game. But it was Beane's ability to exploit inefficiencies in baseball's marketplace, as much as his own affection for the A's, that led Lewis to write "Moneyball."

He does believe that Beane's success is prompting other teams to pursue the same strategy.

One of Beane's former assistants is now GM for Toronto, another was hired as GM of the Los Angeles Dodgers over the winter. A year ago Beane agreed to become GM of the Boston Red Sox -- the second-richest team -- but changed his mind a day later to stay with the A's.

"There are enough inefficiencies in the game that superior management can compete with fewer resources. In the long-term that's not going to last," Lewis said. "[As] the game becomes more efficiently managed, then money becomes a much bigger issue."

But the reaction to the book by many in the game was negative. To some degree, that surprised Lewis, and made him think the inefficiencies may continue longer than he expected.

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Many general managers and scouts saw the book's praise of statistical analysis above traditional forms of player assessment as an attack on them.

In an afterword to the paperback edition of the book, Lewis argues that baseball executives are not held to the same strict standards of performance as ballplayers or businesspeople. Baseball executives can reject the methods being used by the A's to succeed, not have any success themselves, and still find jobs within the game.

One measure that Lewis and others use to assess if a team is being well run is one I wrote about last week, an analysis of the amount of money spent on payroll (above the minimum) to produce wins beyond what a terrible team could expect to achieve just by showing up.

By that measure, the A's are a consistent leader. And last year many of the teams that made the post-season last year were also leaders in spending efficiency, including the champion Florida Marlins.

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Meanwhile, the Yankees were the only team near the bottom of the spending-efficiency list that still made the post-season. Lewis says that wasteful spending by the big-market teams is the best thing working for the smaller-market teams.

"Having money means you're not Billy Beane -- if you don't have to economize, you won't," he said.

"The more chaotic the market is, the less competitive balance is a problem because there's more opportunity for efficient management," said Lewis. "[Steinbrenner's] spending creates a chaotic market."  

While Lewis is an admitted A's fan and Yankees hater, Isidore is a Yankees fan.