from Amazon
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
BPro 2009 comments
Quite frankly, this is the worst edition of Baseball Prospectus I’ve read, and I’ve read each edition since 1998. Don’t take this too far--I’m still glad I purchased the book, as it remains the best source for a quick, intelligent outlook on just about every relevant player in organized baseball.
...
I think it continues to be a mistake on the part of BP to not reveal who the authors are for each portion of the book… Speaking with one voice may be good for marketing… and apparent continuity (BP has a fairly high level of author turnover which would be all the more apparent if each article were bylined), but I don’t believe that it does the reader any favors. As a reader, I like to know who I am reading, and I can then use my past impressions of their work to inform my view of the new material.
...
The BP annual refers to Pythagenport, while the glossary on their website claims that they use Pythagenpat (which, in full disclosure, I am sometimes credited for co-inventing with David Smyth). It’s not so much that I’m bothered that they may be using Pythagenpat without attribution, but that it makes it incredibly confusing to understand how their estimates are calculated.
...
Outside of Davenport, it is an open question as to how many BP writers could explain the intricacies and nuances of all of the statistics they publish in one form or the other.
...
The only essay that is even remotely sabermetric in the 2009 book is Davenport’s explanation of the changes to BP’s fielding and WARP methodology.
And then he gets into a good discussion of the new WARP.
Recent comments
Older comments
Page 1 of 344 pages 1 2 3 > Last »Complete Archive – By Category
Complete Archive – By Date