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THE_BOOK
All things related to THE BOOK.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
After an unexpected and unacceptable delay in The Book’s out-of-stock status, it is now back in stock.
I noticed that while The Book was out of stock, the resellers were selling it for upwards of $35. Apparently, these guys have some automated system that detects when the book is not in print, and jacks up the price. There were also just a few sellers. Now, there’s a bunch of them out there, all offering it at more reasonable prices. Amazon still gets you the best deal.
As always, please make all your purchases for Amazon via the link at the top of this page, whether you buy The Book or not. We get a small referral fee for each purchase, which is just enough to cover our annual expenses.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
The Book is out of stock at Amazon, B&N, and Buy.com. I have no idea when it will be back in stock. It may be in stock at the publisher, but I cannot confirm that. You can try placing your order there.
Someone at Ebay has five copies in stock, reasonably priced.
An Amazon merchant in Canada has one as well.
You can also give this ISBN to your local bookstore to see if they can locate it somewhere: 9781597971294
Friday, May 30, 2008
John Peterson at MetsGeek thinks that the Mets have the ideal setup to go with the 3-man / 3-man rotation. While we emphasized the benefit of not having the pitcher hit in that chapter, I didn’t emphasize enough (in that chapter) how turning a starter into effectively a two-inning reliever has a huge benefit as well. This was discussed in the starter/reliever chapters, but it deserved a stronger mention.
I’d love to see this in my lifetime.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
By , 09:45 PM
From this BP interview with Ned Yost:
I used to be a proponent of the bunt a lot more, but I’ve kind of gotten away from that a little bit. I’ve studied a bunch of different things. I’ve read The Book, and The Book on the Book. Some of the stuff makes sense to me, and some of it doesn’t. I still play the game by feel, too. It’s a game, and you have to play the game--not just do statistical probabilities every pitch.
Now, if he had really read (and understood and digested) The Book, he would have said something like, “I used to be a proponent of the bunt. I am still a proponent, but I realize that there are many good and bad times to bunt which don’t necessarily go along with conventional wisdom or what most of the other managers do, and I really realize that I must always mix up my bunts and non-bunts randomly (or at least they must appear to be somewhat random) in order to keep the defense guessing.”
But I guess he missed those parts.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
For those of you who have already gotten The Book (through purchase, loaner, or theft), please make your Amazon purchases by following the link at the top left. We get referral fees on any purchases you make, The Book-related or not. It’s not alot, but it is enough to just cover our annual expenses.
For those of you who have not gotten The Book and are regular readers here… what are you waiting for?
Monday, April 21, 2008
By , 02:31 AM
Tango interview:
http://www.metsgeek.com/articles/2008/04/21/interview-tom-tango/
Seriously, it’s a good read, at least as far as these interviews go (I’m not much a fan of them). My only beef is, unless Cameron and Bradley are whiter than they look, it should be “non-Gutsy non-White guys,” or something like that.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Back when we rolled out The Book, MGL and I did a few online interviews. Most of the regular readers are probably already aware of all these, but I figured this would be a good placeholder to point for any new readers:
Tango at BDD part 1, part 2
Tango at BYTO
Tango at NSBB
Tango at GRB (WPA-centric)
Tango at Brock for Broglio
MGL at GRB
MGL at RLYW
MGL at SOSH (Manny-centric)
MGL at BDD
MGL at The Game
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Andy has an extended chart in The Book that tells you when you should issue a walk. Here’s an interactive online tool from Josh Kalk that likely does something similar. If someone wants to do a few comparisons between what Andy did and what Josh did, that’d be great. Here, Josh takes a look at a few cases in the playoffs. (Note: I think he may underestimate the win potential of the 3-1 count.)
Monday, June 04, 2007
The self-published first edition is sold out. The reprint edition from Potomoc Books is now available.
If you will buy The Book from Amazon (or actually, if you make any Amazon purchase whatsoever), click on the link at the top of the page. We get referral fees from Amazon.
(If you already bought the first edition, you won’t find any new content in the reprint edition.)
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Thanks to all who supported our work by buying The Book. It is much appreciated. The First Edition is now sold-out. The Reprint Edition is available for pre-order from Amazon, at 4$ less than the price of the First Edition. As well, Amazon offers free shipping on orders over 25$. I’ve provided links to other books by various friends of this site for you to take advantage of Amazon’s offer (after the jump). Any author who wants me to provide a link, I’d be more than happy to do so.
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Tuesday, February 06, 2007
We’ve got just a handful of the original self-published edition still available on our site. But, for those who want a bigger price-break, the reprint edition (new cover, no new content) from our publisher is available for pre-order from
Amazon
Amazon Canada
and various worldwide Amazons.
If you order, click on the link, and Amazon will send us some referral fees.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
We’re down to our last 12 new books, which you can get by clicking the BUY NOW button at the top, or ordering from Amazon. We also have 16 coverless books at a 50% savings.
For Canadian orders, you may want to wait for the release of the reprint edition from the new publisher. This book will be available locally, and you won’t get hit for the extra shipping charges.
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Wednesday, October 25, 2006
A nice article in the WSJ quoting a bunch of sabes. The WSJ’s Carl Bialik, the writer of this piece, and Russell Adams, who did a piece on The Book a while ago, are definitely good sportswriters who aren’t full of the same old, same old. Great to see stuff like this in such a respected newspaper.
Saturday, October 21, 2006
By , 07:42 PM
Hopeully there can be some intelligent, sabermetric-oriented discussion about manager (and other) strategies during the WS. Without sounding too elitist, and of course everyone is welcome on this site, I hope the discussion does not turn into, “They should not have pitched to Pujols in the 3rd inning because you don’t want the other teams’ best player to beat you,” but we’ll see. Speaking of pitching to Pujols…
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Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Rob McQuown has a good understanding of how to use the win expectancy table. I wouldn’t go as low as “ to about .250-.260.” when you get to that part, maybe down to .270 as a guess. And in THE BOOK, I do show how the breakeven point can be anywhere from 60% to 90% depending on the inning and score, so the adherence to the “average” breakeven point obviously should not be listened to. The important takeaways from the articles are:
1 - Understand the context, don’t assume average
2 - You should be able to use some educated guesses to tweak the numbers to fit a particular context
I don’t know if I have a very mild or extremely strong annoyance to http://www.slate.com/id/2151273/
While the clutch-hitting question has spawned piles of research, clutch pitching is a phenomenon that’s gone essentially unexamined.
Nevertheless, Andy did examine the issue for THE BOOK, and there is a skill component to it. It might not necessarily be a “men on base” situation, but rather simply a change in pitching motion (full windup v step). And Glavine’s splits are rather incredible.
The peripheral ERA is a little problematic, because things like WP, PB, BK may or may not be included.
Friday, October 06, 2006
I loved the whole article. The premise to the analysis:
On the other hand, any gambler going to Vegas to play blackjack will, if he or she is serious about winning, come equipped with a memorized cheat-sheet of when to take a hit and when to stand pat. Should we expect anything less from the man in charge of a baseball team with a $70 million budget? The odds we’re dealing with are small, but so is the house advantage in Vegas. To beat the system, or the other team, is a matter of inches, or, precisely the issue at hand here: a few percentage points. After all, that’s supposed to be the point of conventional baseball strategy in the first place--playing the percentages.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
By , 07:57 PM
This was written by Joe Sheehan in today’s BP. Joe is a smart guy and a sabermetric writer. When these guys write fluff pieces, do they turn into blithering idiots, with all due respect to Joe, who is also a nice guy? O.K., I am being a little harsh, but these things really piss me off and I am getting too old to pull any punches.
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Tuesday, October 03, 2006
http://www.tnr.com/blog/count
Nothing worse than arguing about the strategy of the bunt by using words like “Moneyball” to represent the sabermetric-viewpoint. There’s a great set of charts by Dan Levitt along with the important series of disclaimers of not looking at averages but at the actual sequence of runners/batters, as well as a 50-page treatise by MGL in THE BOOK. You need to immerse yourself in these two pieces of research, before writing about when to use and not use the bunt.
Monday, October 02, 2006
Via studes’ blog, I ended up here, at Crawfish Boxes, who says:
Now, fairness compels me to state that the WPA contraption does not see a big difference between a man on second and a man on third with two outs there. And it says that the play cost us a little over 70 points of win probability.
But I say that’s bullshit.
I thought putting out a book that explains how it all works would stop me from explaining how it all works. Let me explain how it all works.
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