THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

To be fair to Gammons, the Jeter comment was in the context of clutch, and players like Ortiz and Brett.  Which is to say, when he talks about anti-Jeter research, I don’t think he actually means to bring up defensive issues.

Of course, as Fox points out, the extent to which Gammons et al dig in their heels about Jeter—“You can present me with 4,765 pages of anti-Derek Jeter material; it won’t work, I watch him too much” is about as strong a stance as you can take—would seem to make him perfect for the “money where your mouth is” clutch project(s).  But that might get in the way of the increasingly ridiculous (not to mention unprovoked) shots he has been taking at the analytical community.

Re-reading the Gammons piece, and it’s likely that it might be part of the clutch discussion.  However, the anti-Jeter stuff that’s been written about him has not been about his clutch (nothing “anti” about it), but his fielding.

That is, even if you don’t believe in clutch, you won’t say anti-Ortiz or anti-Brett, but rather anti-clutch.

The 4756 pages written about Jeter that are “anti” are almost certainly about his fielding, and nothing else.

I think Dan divined what Peter intended better than the way Peter wrote it. 

In any case, even if Peter meant it regarding to clutch, he would certainly say the same thing about Jeter’s fielding.

Did the Primates not buy THT08?

http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/newsstand/discussion/dan_agonistes_gammons_and_cyberspace/

Again, reading the discussion there, I can’t believe anyone would argue that Jeter was a good fielder in the past several years.

I wouldn’t buy the book based off my article necessarily, but I would based on the Walsh and Rybarczyk articles.  My article would just be a relevant bonus for the above discussion.

That’s the bad part of having a hard copy: the Walsh and Rybarczyk articles should be getting much bigger play that they’ve been getting.  It’s fantastic work.

Don’t sell yourself short but I do agree that the two articles you mention are excellent. Rybarczyk’s article especially inspired last week’s column I wrote at http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=7038 on shifts etc.