Baseball Between the Numbers by Baseball Prospectus Team of Experts Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Baseball Between the Numbers
Book Review: RBI's mean almost nothing! It's true. Seriously.
Summary: 3 Stars
The guys (and gal) at Baseball Prospectus (they have a premium web site)have been producing brilliant, mind-expanding, funny and analytically-based books for 10 years.
If you watch baseball on TV (networks, national and/or local cable channels), you almost certainly pull your hair and shout at your TV when the announcers talk about any of the following: the importance of chemistry, why being aggressive at the plate is gggrrreeeaattt, how bunting leads to winning, and how pitch counts are ruining the pitchers and slowing down the game (actually, advertising is slowing down the game).
A lot of fans are very emotional about baseball and are often not open to new ideas or different ways of looking at things. The people at BP have done exhaustive research and have broken new ground in the area of statistical analysis. In this book, they show the following: why batting order really doesn't matter; how closers are often misused (in low leverage situations rather than when there are 2 men on in the 8th); that most managers do not make any difference; that new stadiums are just a horrific deal for the tax payer; and why steroids really haven't effected the game much at all (I know, very hard to swallow).
It's a very well written book. It is a little dry at times because of the reliance on statistics and graphs, but it is a most-own book for baseball fans.
Book Review: Fascinating!
Summary: 5 Stars
This book was excellent. For the casual fan and the person who thinks he is an expert!Book Review: real interesting book
Summary: 4 Stars
this book makes a real interesting read. now it has some shortcomings,but on a whole it's very entertaining&will make you think&Debate. no matter what Baseball Book I read Barry Bonds is the Greatest Player Period to me. the game has evolved,but the Guys who can truly Play always stand out no matter what era. no matter what era or time as far as Hitters go, Barry Bonds, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron,Roberto Clemente,Frank Robinson, etc.... would be solid. same with Great pitching. Book Review: Baseball fans will consider it a 'must' filled with fun and scientific fact alike
Summary: 5 Stars
The Baseball Prospectus Team of Experts' BASEBALL BETWEEN THE NUMBERS: WHY EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT THE GAME IS WRONG comes from sports writers who challenge conventions, offering new insights and alternative analysis of baseball questions. The group of fans met with a common goal: to better understand the game and its plays. Ten years and eleven annuals later comes BASEBALL BETWEEN THE NUMBERS, an investigative guide to everything from averages to rotation choices and team trivia. Baseball fans will consider it a 'must' filled with fun and scientific fact alike.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
Book Review: The Numbers of the Game
Summary: 5 Stars
Probably more than any other sport, baseball makes use of statistics. We see this with every baseball game on TV: not just the basic stats like batting average and home runs, but more detailed information like how well a particular batter does against a particular pitcher. The statistics on TV or in the newspaper, however, only scratch the surface. Baseball Between the Numbers provides a much more in depth look at the numbers behind the game and how to analyze them.
This process involves two parts. First, there is a look at the popular statistics to see how well they really track a player performance and contribution to the team. Batting average, for example, is not a really good indicator of performance; slugging percentage and on-base percentage provide a better reading. There is also a look at certain beliefs in baseball - such as the existence of clutch hitters - and whether they are based in reality or more of a myth.
The second part of this statistical analysis is coming up with new stats to provide more information. There are a lot of these, but the one that seems emphasized the most is VORP, Value over Replacement Player. In simple terms, VORP gives the value of a player compared to a replacement player of minimal major league skills (like a 0.200 batting average). If a player gets 200 hits in a year, he does not really contribute 200 hits to his team; instead, he contributes only the difference between his hit total and that of the replacement player; if this value is 110, then the player contributes 90 hits.
The purpose of all this analysis is two-fold. For one thing, it helps evaluate the potentials of players, so it is useful from a scouting perspective. It is also good for comparing players who played in different time periods. The introduction of the book gives a good example as it tries to show who the better player is, Babe Ruth or Barry Bonds. Superficially, some stats favor Ruth (such as batting average) while others favor Bonds (such as steals). But for any comparison to be legitimate, many other things need to be taken into account, particularly with the environment that the two played in; for example, Ruth played in a "whites-only" era that excluded many great players of other races. The more elaborate statistics take these differences into account; this particular analysis favors Ruth slightly, primarily because of his contributions as a pitcher.
To some extent, this book covers some of the same ground as a book I read a couple years back called Curve Ball, but it also offers a lot of new stuff too. The principal flaw with the book seems to be inadequate editing, leading to a lot of redundancies between chapters (which are written by different people); hence, we get the same explanation for what a statistic means over and over again. In addition, considering its importance to the game, pitching is underrepresented in the book; although covered, the primary emphasis is on batting. Other topics covered include fielding, base stealing and managing.
There is a danger with a book like this to get TOO into the statistics of the game and lose appreciation for the game itself. Statistics are great for looking at trends, but in any one given event, you can never be certain what's going to happen. That's why when it's the bottom of the ninth, two out and the tying run's at third, it doesn't really matter what the numbers say, and that's when baseball is at its most exciting. This book will make you look at the numbers of baseball more critically, but it won't diminish the pleasure of watching the game. Despite the flaws, I am giving this book five stars; for a baseball fan, this is a compelling read.