Been meaning to do this since the beginning of the season. The best laid plans, and all that.
Anyway, the missus has been complaining that she keeps tripping over these (mostly) thick volumes, so here goes.
The volumes share a theme: analyzing the previous year. For some, however, this is only done as a predictor for the coming season, Several cater specifically to fantasy enthusiasts.
In order of the pile:
The Bill James Handbook
Maximal numbers, minimal commentary. The player entries are alphabetical and offer the standard information, including year, team/level, handedness, size, DOB and age as of opening day, and positions played.
Batters data includes — in order — games, at bats, hits; doubles, triples, homers; (Hm/Rd), total bases; runs, runs bated in and runs created; total walks, intentional walks, and strikeouts; HBP, sacrifice hits, and sac. flies; stolen bases, caught stealing, SB percentage, and ground into double plays; and BA, OBP, and slugging averages.
Pitches are treated slightly differently than in other publications, lumped into areas of “How much he pitched (games, starts, complete games, and games finished as a reliever); what he gave up (hits, runs, earned runs, HR, sac hits, sac flies, hit batsmen, total walks, intentional walks, strikeouts, wild pitches, and balks); and the results (wins, loses, winning percentage, shut outs, saves/save opportunities, holds and component ERA and regular ERA. Some of these stats get pretty esoteric for the casual fans.
Other chapters focus on specific areas of the game, such as fielding and baserunning, and how pitchers do in such areas as batting, fielding, and holding runners. One of the better chapters is “The 21st Century Bullpen,” an examination of how modern managers use (and abuse) their relief corps. There are also lots of situational splits as well as a lengthy “leaders” list.
Overall, the Handbook is fine if all your interested in is numbers with little explanation.
The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2009
The cover description might be a bit hyperbolic: “Timeless commentary. Innovative States,” but the “Great baseball writing” is honest. Followers of the HBT website will recognize the names of the staffers, but some of the guest contributors include the likes of Rob Neyer, Joe Posnanski, Tom Tango, Phil Birnbaum, Will Leitch, and Eric Seidman, among others.
After a very brief recap of the 2008, the BT Annual gets down to business, with thoughtful articles on such things as an analysis of midseason trades and their impacts on the rest of the season; the overlooked importance of defense; an assessment of the Mitchell Report; and, one of my favorites, “The Ethics of Baseball.”
There’s even a nod to old-school, with a look back at Honus Wagner, Pete Rose, history’s greatest fielders, and “The Kids are All Right: Youth Culture and Baseball in 1968,” among others.
The analysis section is similarly thought-provoking, as it examines how teams put values on their prospects, how players age, and “The Sweet Taste of Revenge,” a look at how hitters do when the opposition intentionally walks the batter in front of them.
Finally, a section on team-by-team stats (meh).
Overall, The HBT Annual gives the veteran Baseball Prospectus a run for their money.
Graphical Player 2009
Bring your magnifying glass. Although this is an interesting spin on interpreting performance, this one, featuring writers from Heater magazine (“uncommon stats for uncommon players”) looks more like a page from the financial section of The Wall Street Journal. The “dashboards” contain a daily game log (at about eight-inches wide, you can imagine how small the graphs are) something called “weekly points consistency,” although I might not be reading this correctly, a yearly OPS trend chart, and a two-line commentary.
I can just picture the author, John Burnson, plugging in the numbers into his spreadsheet program and hitting the “create chart” button.Very time consuming, but for an old-fashioned guy like me, it doesn’t do much. Veteran sports columnist Murray Chass took a lot of heat for complaining about the new generation of statistics. People called him a dinosaur. but not everything new is good. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
The Fielding Bible, Volume II
Almost 400 pages on fielding? Absolutely.
Defense and how to define it has long been overlooked. It used to be either a fielder got to a ball or he didn’t. When I used to chart games for STATS Inc., I not only had to consider the usual scorebook data, but precisely where on the field the ball landed.
The layout of the book follows the Bill James Handbook format (both are published by ACTA Sports). Fielders are judged on the particular requirements of their position; first basemen need different skills than middle infielders, etc. One of the more interesting essays is “Misplay/Good Play Leaders and Touches,” and considers what the fielder does when he gets to the ball. does he throw to the proper bases to keep the runners from advancing? Is his release slow or quick? What else does he do to put himself into the best position to make the play?
The particulars are explained well, making it easy for dullards like me to understand the benefit of such information. Again, this is a very niche publication, but one that makes the reader realize how important it really is to put solid fielders on the diamond.
The Bill James Gold Mine 2009
More readable than the Handbook, the Goldmine is a fascinating time killer — and I mean that in the best possible way.
Chapters on team analysis list key players and pitchers and examine such concepts as runs and RBI by batting order position and capsules on individual player performances. For pitchers this might mean the percentage of pitches (fastball curve, etc.) while batters are matched against pitchers of varying degrees of quality, as judged by ERA.
Scattered through the team profiles are the essays that make this book worthwhile. “Gems” looks at top pitching performances; “The 2008 Clutch Hitter of the Year,” and “Catcher Pride Points,” just to name a few of the excellent commentaries. Vacation reading at its best, IMHO.
Baseball Prospectus 2009
The contemporary gold standard of annual publications, the BP is a constant an best-seller lists. Weighing in at over 600 pages, its cover price of $21.95 (and you can get it cheaper, of course) is a bargain.
The book begins with a statistical introduction, again for the benefits of newbies; rather than holding their noses in the air and expect their readers to come to them with all the concepts well in-hand, they actively welcome newcomers to the party.
The bulk of the book consists of in-depth looks at the teams, which feature sometimes biting commentary on most of the players with comparisons to similar athletes currently in the majors. In this, BP reminds me of the old Bill James Abstracts, as well as the Elias annuals. The numbers portions are contained to just the last three years. A handful of relatively brief essays follows, including a look at the top 100 prospects of 2009.
Whew, finished at last. I thank you, and my wife thanks you.
is available on Amazon.com,
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