Acta Sports, 2008
When Bill James came out with his Baseball Abstracts in the early 1980s, I thought I had discovered forbidden fruit. For this first time, here were cogent numbers accompanied by scintillating commentary, the best of both world’s for a fan. Each team’s major players got their due, as James offered his “scouting reports” on their strengths and weaknesses. Each year seemed to get a little bigger and better and soon there were others who sought jump on the statistical/textual analysis train, including the Elias Baseball Analyst series, and The Scouting Report, which had several incarnations. James’ work was often imitated but never duplicated in terms of quality.
James eventually turned to other book projects, applying his keen eye to the lore of the game in The Bill James Historical Abstract and Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame? among others. I didn’t care much for his weighty volumes composed solely of charts, tables, and numbers. I leave that to the hard-core statheads. In addition to the books by James, there are several about him and his contribution to the way the game is viewed and enjoyed by everyone: fans, front office personnel, and broadcasters alike.
That said, James is the angel or the devil for what he hath brought to baseball, depending on your point of view. On the one hand, he opened the door to a new way of thinking about things, using number to prove or disprove conventional thinking about a player’s reputation and the actual quality of his work, issues which are not always the same thing.
On the other hand, James opened the door to a new way of thinking about thing, which for traditionalists can confuse with facts. Of course, there are those who say, to, paraphrase the situation, that the devil can quote scripture to serve his purpose. Likewise there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.
James has gone on to fine tune his statistics and analysis to the point where he is much sought after, serving as a consultant for the Boston Red Sox. His new book, The Bill James Gold Mine is at once wonderful and frustrating. His observations are just as spot on as in the past, as he has learned to adjust to the times (is he following them or leading them, one wonders. After all, the Red Sox gig…). He intersperses his team capsules with essays on such diverse topics as “The Turk Farrell Award” (given to the pitcher “who best represents the idea that a really good pitcher doesn’t have to have a really good record”); “Cigar Points,” about players who come agonizingly closer to numbers that would push them into the elite category; and “Atypical Seasons” (just what it sounds like).
While Gold Mine does offer several nuggets, there’s also a lot of dust (Hey, I didn’t name the book, so don’t blame me for the analogies. For example, he only provides record for a handful of players on each team. For example, to take one player totally at random, James writes about the Sox’ Hideki Okajima, whose
favorite pitches were his fastball, his chanegup and his curveball, in that order. But when in a lefty-lefty matchup, he relied more on the curveball (25% of the time) than the changeup (19%). Against righties, the curveball was fairly rare (only 12% of his pitches).
The comments are accompanied by a Pitch Type Analysis chart shows that he threw a total of 1,062 pitches, out of which 516 (or 49%) were fastballs, 180 (17%) were curves, 349 (33%) were changeups. Plus five pitchouts and another twelve pitches that missed being charted (at least he’s being honest).
James does similar things batters as well, breaking their accomplishments down by the types of pitches they swung at (or didn’t) and where in the strike zone they were (or weren’t), and similar data.
One complaint is that he doesn’t do it for everyone. I can’t say I blame him; a book like that could easily be more than 1,000 pages and cost substantially more than the $21.95 list price. Another quibble is that there is no glossary, so anyone coming late to the Bill James table might be a bit confused by some of the terminology. That cold have been easily addressed in an appendix without any undue hardship.
Still, Gold Mine marks a welcome return to the “abstract” world for James. here’s hoping he isn’t such a stranger to his fans in the future.
The Amazon Report on Bill James:
How Bill James Changed Our View of the Game of Baseball
The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract
Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame
The Mind of Bill James: How a Complete Outsider Changed Baseball
The BILL JAMES GUIDE TO BASEBALL MANAGERS: From 1870 to Today
This Time Let’s Not Eat the Bones: Bill James Without the Numbers
is available on Amazon.com,
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