from Amazon
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).
As I said, I barely read through it. It is filled with team essays, a la all the other “annuals” (BP, THT, Shandler, etc.), with interesting sidebars about some of the players on each team. Each essay gives you team and player stats, each one a little different. He picks out a few players on each team and gives you detailed hitting or pitching data, like where and how balls are hit or pitched.
Throughout the book, he gives us 3 or 4-page articles or studies, like those in BP or THT. Some are interesting. Honestly, most of the studies, from what I could tell at first glance (I read a few of them) are done with brute force rather than the finesse and rigor I would like to see in statistical studies. One I found interesting was the one on “closer fatigue.” He found that Rivera, over the course of his career was more effective when fresh. Unfortunately, he only looked at ERA (which is fine when using large samples and especially with one pitcher for one team), and really unfortunately, he only looked at ONE pitcher. It would have been REALLY nice if looked at more than one pitcher. Come on, Bill, get off your *** a little! One thing about the results. He looked at team wp versus Rivera fatigue and Rivera ERA in those same games. The team wp seemed to fluctuate about twice what you would expect given the difference in ERA (assuming that the LI when he pitched averaged 2 and change). Probably just noise.
Another article/study, I found disappointing. He looked at quality of bullpen versus how a team did in close games and the post-season. The major problem with the “study” is that he used too many things to determine quality that directly and obviously affects a team’s performance in close games (circular reasoning). For example, one of the things he uses to rate pitchers/bullpens is saves. Well, obviously if a pitcher has a lot of saves, that is going to impact his team in close games, since by definition, a pitcher can only earn a save in a close game (most of the time). If you want to look at how bullpen quality affects team wp in close games, you can’t use saves to determine quality!
Anyway, just thought I’d give a small preview of the book and my first impression (which may change when I read the darn thing). If anyone has read it, feel free to chime in - good or bad.