THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Bill James Goldmine 2009

And feel free to discuss Bill’s latest in this thread.

Monday, February 02, 2009

My dirty dozen favorite baseball websites

http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/ (for the reader comments)
http://www.hardballtimes.com/
http://www.fangraphs.com/
http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?name=neyer_rob
http://sabermetricresearch.blogspot.com/
http://lanaheimangelfan.blogspot.com/
http://walksaber.blogspot.com/
http://statspeak.net/
http://ussmariner.com/
http://sbnation.com/
http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/newsstand/
http://www.baseball-reference.com/

Yours? 

(Note: your comments will likely hit the spam detector because of the hyperlinks.  I’ll monitor.)

Friday, January 30, 2009

Michael Schell

Ok, I finally got the book, and started reading it last night.  My kind of book so far.  He also sounds like he’d fit right at home among the readers here.

I’m going to have problems with the underlying assumptions (that Schell explicitly discusses).  The first is that he’s treating the mean as equal for each time period.  Only among MLB fans is the average player in 1908 equal to the average player in 2008.  In every other sport, the greatest players of all time are virtually all within the last fifty years.  But, not in baseball.  Anyway, this is not a slight on Schell, as he simply does what most people do, and treat the average as being the same year-to-year.

The second one, though, is a problem.  A big problem.  He forces the distribution of players around that mean to be the same, year to year.  (Or he will anyway.  I’m only on page 11 so far.) This would kind of make sense if the types of players you have in baseball is the same every year.  But, this is not true.  There were gazelles in MLB in the 1970s and 80s, while the 1990s and 2000s saw a rise in power hitters.  I can’t believe that the 1900s and the 1930s had the same kind of players.  Not to mention that you had 16 teams at one point, and then 30 now.  You have expansion that may or may not have kept up with population growth.  It certainly has not in the last 40 years, as the number of US-born players is the same over the last 40 years, with the increase number being handled by foreign-born players.  Then of course you have the influx of Black players over the last 60 years.

But, worse than that, worse than forcing the distribution to be the same, is that he does it at a component level.  Doubles+triples and walks and home runs are treated independently, as if you can fix the distribution to be the same era-to-era without accounting for the fact that there is a relationship between each component.  Indeed, the component-level transformations seems to be the heart of the entire process.  He would have been better off doing it in a “binary” fashion, the way we’ve discussed the issue in the past, as far back as when Voros introduced DIPS.

But, Schell does explicitly make his assumptions clear, which allows a reader like me to point out the flaws so readily.  Weird as it sounds, I’m going to enjoy reading the book, and I have a feeling I’m going to recommend it as well.  Feel free to post your own thoughts or reviews, and if my initial impressions are invalid.

Monday, January 26, 2009

2009 Baseball Preview Books

It’s that time of the year.  All of these are available for pre-order:
Baseball Prospectus
Baseball Forecaster
Hardball Times Preview

If there are others that you have recommended in the past, let me know, and I’ll post a link.  Also use this thread to post any reviews once the books come out.

By the way, if you balk at the idea of paying the publisher the full price plus shipping, take part of the money you save on the deal that Amazon gives you, and donate it directly to Hardball Times.  The donation button is at the bottom right of the home page (though it would make it easier if Studes also had a donation page… hint hint… to link to directly).

Saturday, January 03, 2009

Bill James in Baseball Digest, 1970s

"Winning Margins: A New Way to Rate Baseball Excellence” , Baseball Digest, November 1975

“Big League Fielding Statistics Do Make Sense!” , Baseball Digest, March 1976

“Double Trouble: - Pitchers Who Win 20 games and Hit .300” , Baseball Digest, May 1976

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Recommended reading list

Courtesy of JC.

Good list.  That’s the Bill James book I’d go for as well.  I haven’t read the Schell book, but I will finally get it, seeing that David Smyth considers it a must-read as well, from several years ago.  The others are all appropriate at those reading levels, as he’s suggesting.

The Studes interview

Studes:

Every year, when I send the final PDF out to ACTA for publication, I swear I’ll never do it again. Creating the THT Annual is a huge process. It begins during the season and pretty much consumes me from mid-September to mid-November.

That’s scary.

I think if ever you are going to want to turn someone into a full-time sports guy, Studes is that guy.  The problem is getting the business model to support that.  Would THT work as a paid service like BPro?

Monday, November 17, 2008

The Return of the Baseball Abstract?  No, the next best thing…

I always believed that the reason that the Abstract had such impact, beyond the obvious brilliance of James as a writer, is the timelessness of the subject matter.  I can (and have) picked up the Abstracts today of twenty years past, and it is still riveting.

I have not yet seen the latest Hardball Times annual, but studes promises it is even better than any previous editions, and I loved the previous editions.  I also thank studes for including my article in the same book as our nation’s best sports blogger, Joe Posnanski.  (I’d call him our best sportswriter, but the pool of available talent is greater in the blogging world.)

If you buy it via Amazon, as opposed as through the publisher, take half the money you saved on the deal ($13.77 savings if you manage to get the Amazon Supersaver Shipping), and make a donation directly to Hardball Times (donation button at bottom right of the page).

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Buy The Book, BPro’s BBTN, JC’s Economist for $29, free shipping

Click on the Amazon link at the top of this site.  You will then see you can bundle all three books for $29.  Or, if you are missing just one or two of the books, you can order them separately (though you lose on free shipping until you get to $25).  So, I’d recommend adding in the 2009 Hardball Times annual.  (MGL and I each have an article in there.) The other two books are being offered at under $10, and, at that price, they are certainly good buys.

Remember, make all your Amazon purchases through the link at the top of this page, whether you buy The Book or not.  Amazon gives us small referral fees for all purchases, straight out of their pocket, and nothing at all from yours.  But, you gotta use the link above.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Hardball Times Annual 2009, starring…

A cool collection of writers and bloggers (including MGL and me) in the latest annual.  Joe Posnanski, Craig Wright, Rob Neyer, and Don Malcolm are the big guest names so far, but I’m looking forward to reading everyone there.  My article is about Catchers and I just handed it in.  Readers here should like it.

I’ll repeat what I said last year: I think it behooves all to support THT, as Studes et al provide excellent analysis every week.  Studes must kill himself this time of year every year.  I know I couldn’t stand doing the editing when we were finishing up our book.  Show Studes (our version of Jerry Lewis) that you care, and buy this book.  We need Studes to keep going like this every year.  We get a few thousand people visiting our blog every day: if ever you felt like you wanted to, then support THT instead.  THT is sabermetrics’ best friend.

If you can avoid Amazon, do so and order directly from the publisher.  It’s win-win for THT and the publisher.

Or, if you insist on Amazon, then go through this Amazon link (we get a small referral from Amazon), and also make a direct donation to Hardball Times (bottom right corner).  It’s win-win for The Book, THT and you.  You can even get “super saver shipping” from Amazon if you buy a second book.  The Bill James Handbook 2009 is out there as well.  Or The Book, if you’ve somehow managed to avoid getting it.

There’s also lots of great minds out there I’ve come across this year.  You guys should seriously think about contributing a piece to THT (be it annual or online).

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

With or Without You

Is Google Books a good thing or a bad thing?  The 2008 Hardball Times Annual has limited preview for anyone with a google account.  As luck would have it, both of my With or Without You articles are available for preview, in their entirety (p.140-152).  So, sit down and enjoy.  If after reading that, you don’t agree that Jeter is a below-average fielder, then please explain.  But, you must read the article first.

The two best articles in that book don’t have the same benefit.  Walsh’s article only has the first page (p.165), while Greg Rybarczyk’s has parts of his article in it, including some great work on Torii Hunter and Andruw Jones (p.176-180, minus 177).

Bridging the Statistical Gap

Our buddy Eric Seidman has a book out called Bridging the Statistical Gap, which you can get from Lulu or Amazon.

I did not even realize this book was out.  Even his own site has no links to his own book.  I always get the feeling that Eric’s got a hundred and one things going on.

Anyway, I’ll be getting this book shortly, and if anyone’s read it already, please post your thoughts as to who this book is best targetted for.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Baseball Guides

Friends of The Book Pete Palmer and Sean Forman have produced a baseball guide book, in hardcopy (available at lulu.com) and color PDF download.  Looks very nice from the sample pages. 

Sunday, April 06, 2008

Sort of a Review of Canseco’s book, Vindicated

I ordered, received and read most of it.  It is the kind of book that you probably do not want to read cover to cover unless you have absolutely nothing better to do with your life. 

Read More

Monday, March 24, 2008

Padres preview book

I love the initiative of the blogger fandom to take creative control and put out a book.  Friend of The Book ducksnorts did such that, and the preview (pdf) looks fine so far.  I’ll buy the download today, and I’ll let you know next week what I think of it.

Just as I prefer the local paper’s view of the local teams over the “national experts”, the same goes here.  The Fans have an indelible experience with their team, and that’s what we need more of.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Rob Neyer’s Tracker

Rob Neyer latest book.  He actually uses my pitch count estimator in one piece (page 60).  (I say “my”, but it was really inspired by the data I saw in the STATS Scoreboard.)

Anyway, one of the things I loved about the Bill James books was those sidebar “trackers”, where a player would “remember” something so vividly, and then Neyer or one of James’s assistants would do the research to show that the player was right or full of it.  This book looks like this is what it’s about. The above Amazon link gives you a good set of previews.  There is no “search inside” at Amazon right now for this book.  However… shockingly to me, Google has an enormous amount of the material in preview mode.  How does Google get away with publishing copyrighted material this way?  Reading everything on Google’s version, they seem to give you enough to make it seem you are flipping through the book at the bookstore, and not so much that you can read it all online.  They seem to have found the right balance to make you want to buy the book.

Friday, March 07, 2008

Preview Books

My Amazon order is in transit with Gold Mine, THT08 Preview and BP08.  Feel free to use this thread to comment on either of the two preview books, or any other preview books around.  Or any Fantasy Forecast books or magazines.

Thursday, March 06, 2008

Bill James’ New Book, “The Bill James Gold Mine 2008” (edited)

I just got the book, skimmed through it, and read a couple of the articles.  So far, “eh.” The title is a little grandiose (of course), although it is catchy (with a gold colored cover to go along with the title). 

Read More

Friday, February 08, 2008

Hardball Times Preview Book

Here are the details.  If you haven’t made any THT purchases, I would suggest making one. 

I see THT very much PBS-style: they are fairly non-profit, any money they get goes into the writers, R&D, or getting data.  This book has basically a who’s who of team bloggers, so it’s a great thing to support.

Studes could decide to turn THT into his own personal moneymaker, and for some reason, chooses not to.  I wouldn’t begrudge him if he did, but as long as he doesn’t, it’s extra reason to support THT.

Friday, November 16, 2007

Hardball Times Annual 2008, starring…

A cool collection of writers and bloggers (including MGL and me) in the latest annual.  Bill James is the big name, but I’m looking forward to reading everyone there. Is that cool, or what, that I’ve got an article right after my biggest inspiration?

I think it behooves all to support THT, as studes et al provide excellent analysis every week.  studes must kill himself this time of year every year.  I know I couldn’t stand doing the editing when we were finishing up our book.  Show studes (our version of Jerry Lewis) that you care, and buy this book.  We need studes to keep going like this every year.  We get a few thousand people visiting our blog every day: if ever you felt like you wanted to, then support THT instead.  THT is sabermetrics’ best friend.

If you can avoid Amazon, do so and order directly from the publisher.  It’s win-win for THT and the publisher.

Or, if you insist on Amazon, then go through this Amazon link (we get a small referral from Amazon), and also make a direct donation to Hardball Times (bottom right corner).  It’s win-win for The Book, THT and you.  You can even get “super saver shipping” from Amazon if you buy a second book.  The Bill James Handbook 2008 is out there as well.  Or The Book, if you’ve somehow managed to avoid getting it.

There’s also lots of great minds out there I’ve come across this year.  You guys should seriously think about contributing a piece to THT (be it annual or online).  Mike, Joe, Joe, Justin, Matt, and others: support the cause.