History Unfolding (Free subscription) | 05/10/2008
I often refer to Strauss and Howe, Bill James, and Camille Paglia as the contemporaries who have really opened my eyes in ways that no one else could. I should also mention one other . That says it all. See longer post, below.
Tiger Tales: A Detroit Tigers Blog (Free subscription) | 05/10/2008
One of the fundamental concepts of sabermetrics is the Pythagorean Theorem. Invented by Bill James in the late 1970s, the Pythagorean Theorem is a formula that shows the relationship between a team's runs scored (RS), runs allowed (RA) and winning percentage (PCT). It is as follows: PCT=(RS squared)/(RS squared + RA squared) The formula works reasonably well in most years for most teams. This
Lawyers, Guns and Money (Free subscription) | 01/10/2008
(1) A statistic that will appeal to any baseball fan's inner geek: Alex Rodriguez has scored one fewer run than he's batted in in his career, and he's consequently 691 RBI short of Hank Aaron's career record, and 690 runs scored short of Rickey Henderson's career mark. Bill James's favorite toy formula gives him a 39% chance of breaking the RBI record and a 36% shot at the runs scored crown. It also...
Mark Bernstein (Free subscription) | 29/09/2008
I lost the wild-card race in the Eddie Plank League (an international Bill James league that's been going strong for something like eighteen years) by 3.5 points yesterday. Over the course of the season, the difference amounts to one inning of relief pitching, or a single and a walk. If Dustin Pedroia had played the last game of the double header, or if he'd stretch one double into a triple, or if...
MLB Trade Rumors (Free subscription) | 26/09/2008
I am a big fan of John Dewan's plus/minus system for evaluating defense. Read how it works - the system is logical and easy to understand, though the numbers require intense labor to compile. Plus/minus stats for the current year are available at Bill James Online (sign up for $3 a month), and I've been tossing them around occasionally here at MLBTR. I'm sure they'll continue to come up with regard...
MetsBlog (Free subscription) | 22/09/2008
Jayson Stark at ESPN.com relays a statistic from famed sabermetrician Bill James regarding the Mets’ bullpen woes. Stark writes: “If all games ended after six innings, those NL East standings would look a whole lot different. If games were six innings, the Mets would be leading this division by 11½ games.” “Thanks to the best closer in [...]
ArmchairGM (Free subscription) | 21/09/2008
I haven't done these in a while. In the past couple months, I have since been paying much more attention to stats and the like, and have also read Bill James' book Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame? I have since discussed a technically active player, and a retired player who's still barely on
Dan Agonistes (Free subscription) | 20/09/2008
Today we'll run another tidbit from the errata of It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over: The Baseball Prospectus Pennant Race Book ... During which decade did baseball fans enjoy the best pennant races? Bill James, in The New Bill James Historical Abstract says unequivocally that the 1940s was "The Best Decade Ever for Pennant Races". Our compilation of Race Score by decade agrees. Decade Aggregate Races Avg...
Ducksnorts (Free subscription) | 18/09/2008
My latest article at Hardball Times focuses on a technique Bill James employed in his 1988 Baseball Abstract to evaluate the degree to which a pitcher might be aided (or not) by his offense. James used it to compare Danny Jackson and Walt Terrell from 1985 to 1987; I use it to compare Jarrod Washburn [...]
Beyond the Boxscore (Free subscription) | 16/09/2008
Yesterday I decided to begin reading a few more of the essays in The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers (I would highly recommend any book by either to anyone who even mildly likes baseball) so after I got through the Bob Friend and injury pieces I ran across one entitle "E=M CY Squared." (Page 467) Amazingly the piece is quite timely since one of the hot topics right now is the Cy Young races, and in...
The Guardian (Free subscription) | 13/09/2008
Review: In the Absence of Iles by Bill JamesFor a newcomer to the Harpur and Iles series, opening the 25th novel feels unnervingly like finding oneself at the wrong school reunion
The Battle of Alberta (Free subscription) | 12/09/2008
"New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common." -- John Locke "The final test of any statistic is whether or not it correlates with winning." -- Bill James "Any statistic the meaning of which can be expressed in understandable terms in a common English sentence is always to be preferred, other things being equal, to one which...
Steven Rubio's Online Life (Free subscription) | 03/09/2008
On the Bill James Online site, Roel Torres offers a hypothetical look inside the mind of agent Scott Boras. (Note: hypothetical. Torres did not talk to Boras, he's guessing.) Every dollar is a battle. Every dollar is a war. Every...
kansascity.com (Free subscription) | 26/08/2008
T he other day, I was thumbing through Bill James’ Win Shares, which came out in 2002, and lost about an hour perusing through the appendices, looking at the various teams’ leader boards.
Baseball Musings (Free subscription) | 25/08/2008
View from the Bleachers reprints some research from Bill James Online looking at the results of long and short at bats in terms of pitches seen. Players hit for a higher average and more power in short at bats, but...
