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Joe Savery

Industry Spotlight > Advisors

MLB Pitcher Turned RIA Knows About Retiring in a Rough Market

By John Manganaro

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What You Need to Know

  • When Joe Savery left professional baseball, he knew financial advising was where he would end up.
  • Savery uses his experiences from the Great Recession to help his clients navigate through rough markets.
  • He also says it’s just as important to understand a firm’s limitations as it is to understand its strengths.

As a former professional baseball player, Joe Savery, now a private wealth advisor at Americana Partners, has an ace up his sleeve when it comes to speaking with clients about retirement in a rocky period for the markets: He’s been down that road before.

“I like to say I ended up in this business because I got drafted into the MLB in 2007 and, like many, I wound up having a fairly short pro career,” Savery tells ThinkAdvisor. “I hired a financial advisor and put my baseball money to work in late 2007 and early 2008. Thanks to the Great Recession, my nest egg basically blew up at the same time that my professional career began to wind down. It was really troubling, but also eye-opening.”

Savery pitched for the Oakland Athletics from 2013 to 2014 and the Philadelphia Phillies from 2011 to 2013. He was a first-round draft pick in 2007.

Like other former professional athletes who have entered the advisory business, Savery says the experience of working with financial planning professionals while he was in the MLB opened his eyes to an exciting and rewarding new potential career after sports. He credits his own financial advisor for keeping him calm and collected (and invested) during the darkest parts of the Great Recession.

Eventually, when his baseball career ended, Savery knew the advisory profession was the right place to end up. He spent his first six years in the business as an associate at Avalon Advisors before moving to Americana Partners, where he now serves as a vice president and private wealth advisor.

Battle-Tested in Bear Markets

Savery says drawing on the experience of seeing his own nest egg take a major hit was very useful during 2022, when many clients saw their retirement savings fall dramatically. While it was the first time Savery had to navigate a serious bear market as an advisor, the experience felt familiar, and he was able to draw on that fact to help keep clients calm.

“I was able to tell people that I have been on their side of the table and that I know what it’s like to be down 40% or more,” Savery explains. “It helps me to demonstrate how we cannot let emotion dictate portfolio decisions, and the importance of sticking to a long-term plan.”

Savery says his personal backstory has often helped him put clients at ease during the last year, as has the fact that 2022’s challenging markets also came along with a silver lining. With interest rates rapidly rising over the past year, there is now a real chance to lock in significantly higher bond portfolio yields.

“Rates being as high as they are today is an amazing tool in the retirement tool belt,” Savery says, noting that rates have never been as high as they are today during his entire second career as a financial advisor. “I am concerned about the potential economic repercussions if rates go much higher, but right now we’re actually in a pretty good place.”

Tackling Retirement Misconceptions

In Savery’s experience, one of the big challenges to serving pre-retiree clients is helping them understand the effects of increased longevity. Simply put, people are living a lot longer than their own parents or grandparents did, but it’s hard for people to shift their expectations.

“Whereas our grandparents may have needed their assets to last them 10 or 15 years, today’s retirees may need them to last as much as 25 or 30 years,” Savery says. “To be safe, in the models we run for clients, we almost always plan on our clients living to 100.”

Another big challenge has less to do with financials and more to do with lifestyle, and this is another area where drawing on his own “retirement” experience from the MLB comes in handy.

“Based on my experience, I think many retirees have looked forward to just relaxing and enjoying retirement, and they expect to be able to do everything,” Savery explains. “But in many cases, some adjustments may have to be made to their lifestyle, and setting those expectations can be challenging.”

For example, if a client wants to travel a lot in retirement, will they consider downsizing their primary home to help create more investable assets and cash to help fund that goal? While the financial picture may be relatively easy to iron out, the lifestyle changes can be a bigger challenge.

“Some retirees have the mentality that they have spent a lifetime working and now they can do whatever they want,” he adds. “In some cases, that’s true, but in other cases, the loss of income will cause the need for a major change in lifestyle. That’s not how most people envision retirement.”

The Role of the Advisor

Reflecting on the lessons he has learned in his career as an RIA, Savery says it is important to stay laser-focused on the goal of excellent client service and to tune out any distractions — just like being a pitcher in a baseball game.

In addition, Savery adds, it is just as important to understand a firm’s limitations as it is to understand its strengths, especially when it comes to independent registered investment advisors serving high-net-worth clients.

“What I’ve seen in the high-net-worth space is that people are going to maintain their main banking relationship even as they engage with a new RIA, and that’s OK,” Savery explains. “Often, they may keep some assets with their banking advisor even as they begin to work with us and redeploy their wealth. So, as the RIA, we need to be really focused and decide what are the best services we can provide, because we can’t expect to compete with a major bank in every area.”

(Pictured: Joe Savery)

John Manganaro

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