Nerdy and dense but worth the effort

books:


	• Baseball Between the Numbers Baseball Prospectus Team of Experts Perseus Books Group, 2006 - 454 pages average customer review:based on 20 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

loved it

I do not subscribe to the Prospectus, so I found this book to be incredibly fascinating. So much so I have passed it around to several friends who have also found it fascinating.
Although one can say a great many things with stats, this book presents some surprisingly sound arguments against many commonly held beliefs. ( and had a couple I don't necessarily agree with but that doesn't make the book wrong) I do admit that a couple of the chapters I didn't care about and therefore glossed over, but still I give the book a excellent review overall.
Thanks to this book, I, and several of my friends, now call Derek Jeter "Pastadiving". You'll just have to read that chapter.

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Nerdy and dense but worth the effort

Not the casual read that I expected for intermittent reading over the summer, but a balanced, thoughtful group of essays.

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A new way to look at old strategies

I've watched baseball since I was a kid 40 years ago. I'd heard of Bill James and kind of knew about saberemetrics, but had never taken the time to learn anything about the new numbers.

This book was a great introduction. The concepts are explained well, and all are tied to real world examples I could understand so it wasn't like reading a statistical treatise.

Some of the concepts confirmed things I already knew, like how silly it is to rely on batting averages. Then there were other topics, like why it's not always a good idea to bunt that I had heard other people espouse, but conflicted with my traditional baseball thinking. After reading the chapter on it, I'm convinced.

Finally, one of the things I most enjoyed about the book was the many ways they compared current stars to former stars and current teams to past teams. That's one of the richest areas of baseball debate, and it's always been totally subjective. And it gets a little stranger when people arguing for the 1930s Yankees are two generations removed from ever seeing them play. But the authors lay out very reasonable statistical measures of how to compare players and teams across time. It certainly won't end debate--this is baseball we're talking about. But it adds a splendid new dimension.

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Great book

great read. It shines some light into generally accepted baseball numbers. If you loved Moneyball, you'll love this book.

Five Stars for Content

Nice book and just what I needed so I now know why I can not make sense out of the baseball business that is so much about what we see on field now. And why baseball is no longer my grandparents or parents game of baseball. We will all lose interest even with a book explaining why and how about what and what is really what about baseball and what most influences the game besides playing a decent game of baseball for the fans and followers of a game that use to be a game enjoyed not a game that has to be enjoyed because of investments. The investment in the price of a ticket and a day at the ballpark is the fan's investment. No longer affordable because everyone deserves to be huge personalities making millions yearly. Just like we all should be multi-millionaires by now. Most people making money off of baseball have never stepped a foot on the field and probably only check in occasionally to check up on their money.

So we all will be just as saddened about what baseball is now and wait for it to end while giving our attention to the next sport that begins before the baseball season ends. What began as not a kid's game but a professional game for adults and what adults could enjoy and be entertained by is now like most of what influences our daily lives IT IS all about the BIG money supporting a game and process that use to give us all great games of baseball and an outing with friends or family.

The fun and enjoyment is almost all gone when the game became untrustworthy and dishonest and only credit card affordable.

A game of baseball is where we could escape to and find some enjoyment and not worry about being scammed. The enjoyment of baseball is almost gone, so very sad and unnecessary. I wanted this book so I could see the facts. Business is business and baseball business is the same.

Now our cherished pastime, national game is nothing more and mostly nothing more that BIG BUSINESS and becoming exclusive and what was once for all Americans, has become like so much else only for those who can afford to be Americans.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

In the numbers-obsessed sport of baseball, statistics don't merely record what players, managers, and owners have done. Properly understood, they can tell us how the teams we root for could employ better strategies, put more effective players on the field, and win more games. The revolution in baseball statistics that began in the 1970s is a controversial subject that professionals and fans alike argue over without end. Despite this fundamental change in the way we watch and understand the sport, no one has written the book that reveals, across every area of strategy and management, how the best practitioners of statistical analysis in baseball-people like Bill James, Billy Beane, and Theo Epstein-think about numbers and the game. Baseball Between the Numbers is that book. In separate chapters covering every aspect of the game, from hitting, pitching, and fielding to roster construction and the scouting and drafting of players, the experts at Baseball Prospectus examine the subtle, hidden aspects of the game, bring them out into the open, and show us how our favorite teams could win more games. This is a book that every fan, every follower of sports radio, every fantasy player, every coach, and every player, at every level, can learn from and enjoy.

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