(Part 2) Top products from r/baseball

Okay, I'll try to make this something constructive.



First: "Replacement player is a made up term."

Sure, but that's not exactly a slight against WAR. An average player is "made up" in the sense that no such player perfectly exists, and the same goes for replacement level players. That marker is an arbitrary point, but examples of players who very much fit the idea of "replacement level" exist.

A replacement level player is usually defined as "A AAAA player available for extremely cheap who would be used to replace another player in the event of injury or some other factor - not good enough to be a regular starter at the MLB level except out of extreme circumstance". Take James Loney, who was acquired by the Mets midseason after they lost 1B Lucas Duda to injury for most of the season. Loney was had for cash from AAA El Paso, and performed at around replacement level: -0.1 rWAR and -0.2 fWAR in 100 games. He's an excellent example of a replacement player, and while he's not an exact copy - there doesn't exist one. He fits in the archetype, that's all.



Second: "bWar and fWar can fluctuate by 3+ wins (30+ runs) for the same players' seasons which is a monumental difference."

This is incredibly ignorant of how these stats actually work. fWAR and rWAR are founded upon the same principles, but use different numbers to accomplish their purposes. This isn't to say that one method is more valid than the other or that, as a result of their disagreement, neither are valid (which appears to be your implication, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong).

Here's how fWAR is calculated: WAR = (wRAA + UZR + UBR + Positional Adjustment + 20/600PA)/10

wRAA represents how many batting runs above average a player is. I highly reccomend picking up a copy of Tom Tango, Mitchel Lichtman, and Andrew Dolphin's book, The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball to understand where it comes from, but if you don't have a copy at hand, I luckily have one on my desk, and here's a good passage that explains wOBA, the foundational stat behind wRAA:

"... we know the run values of each [batting] event [(this refers to a single, double, walk, etc.)]. For example, we know that the run value of the HR is 1.4 runs above average, and 1.7 runs above the run value of the out. In rate measures, like OBP, the value of the out in the numerator is zero. If we recast the run values of the most common events relative to the out (rather than relative to the result of an average plate appearance), we get the following:

HR 1.70, 3B 1.37, 2B 1.08, 1B 0.77, NIBB 0.62" - Tango, Licthman, Dolphin

Those values are eventually used to create weights for each plate outcome and used as a rate statistic, but if we don't divide those stats by PA (as we do in wOBA) and adjust for league and park offense, we get wRAA.

UZR is a more advanced statistic which Mitchel Lichtman povides for FanGraphs - the guts of it are far too complex to get into in response to a reddit post with a 33% upvote ratio at 2 in the morning, but the idea behind it is that a batted ball to a particular location will be an out x% of the time on average. If you make a play on a ball with a low out%, you receive positive credit, and if you can't make a play on a ball with a high out%, you receive negative credit. That differential is then converted into runs and factored in fWAR. UZR has some issues with it: Josh Stein addresses some of these here, but ultimately it does a fairly good job of measuring defensive value despite the general unreliability of defensive metrics.

UBR is provided by (who else) Mitchel Lichtman and it measures how frequently a player increases the run expectancy of a play while on the basepaths. If you're unfamiliar with run expectancy, here's a brief primer from an incredibly talented and handsome writer. By stealing a base, a teams' odds of scoring runs in the inning increase by a tangible amount, and a player recieves credit for that, again converted to runs.

Positional adjustments takes into account the fact that not all positions are weighted equally. A player who is slightly below average at centerfield is still more valuable than a player who plays RF at an average level, principally because of the differences incurred by playing at that position. You can view typical positional adjustments here. This allows us to compare players who play at different positions.

Finally, that 20/600PA is our representation of replacement level. Over 600 PA, we might expect a replacement level player to be worth 20 runs below average. Hence, we add 20/600PA to obtain our value of value above replacement (if we didn't include this figure, we'd be looking at runs above average).

After determining our runs above replacement value, we then divide by 10 to obtain wins above replacement. Where does 10 runs=a win come from? Pythagorean records, surprisingly! The pythagorean expectation of win% for a team is as follows:

xW% = (Run Scored)^2 / ( (Runs Scored)^2 + (Runs Allowed)^2 )

If we have a team that allows 750 runs and scores 750 runs (about the league average for 2017), their xW% would be .500, and they'd win 81 games and lose 81 games. But let's say we want to improve the team. How many more runs would we need to add to get our team to 82-80? Turns out, to add an additional win to the team in terms of xW%, we need 10 more runs.

760^2 / (760^2 + 750^2) = .506 xW%

.506 xW% 162 = 82.073 Wins

How does this work for pitchers? FanGraphs uses a variant of FIP, called fielding independent pitching. While the notion behind FIP is generally flawed - the stat assumes that pitchers do not exert any control over contact, which is only about 50% true - but weighs the pitching outcomes of Ks, BBs, HBPs and HRs based on how they positively or negatively affect the game. In calculating WAR, FanGraphs also includings infield-pop-ups induced by pitchers as well. FanGraphs then adjusts the FIP figure based on league and park factors, converts that figure to dynamic runs per game using a bunch of math stuffs that it's way too late for but I will link to anyways.

So why the difference between rWAR and fWAR? rWAR is calculated different than fWAR!

rWAR for position players has six components: Batting Runs, Baserunning Runs, Runs added or lost due to Grounding into Double Plays in DP situations, Fielding Runs, Positional Adjustment Runs, and Replacement level Runs (based on playing time). You can read an in-depth description on the calculation of rWAR here, but in a nutshell, rWAR uses about the same method as FanGraphs in determining batting runs, but uses different evaluation systems for the rest of their metrics, including using Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) as opposed to UZR.

Notice that UBR and UZR are not present! Baseball Reference does not use these values in determining rWAR, and hence, their values are different than FanGraph's.

What about pitching rWAR? rWAR deals more with runs allowed (earned and unearned) as opposed to fielding-indepent outcomes, but otherwise operates on similar principles in that it adjusts for leverage, park factors, and league factors. Again - same idea, different measurement methods.

So why can players run such large differences between rWAR and fWAR? Simply put, part of fWAR likes them where part of rWAR doesn't like them, and vice versa. Let's say that a pitcher put up excellent strikeout and walk numbers, but played in front of a terrible defense. fWAR would reward the pitcher, but rWAR would punish the pitcher by virtue of them having given up more runs. But let's say that we have a pitch-to-contact pitcher like Kyle Hendricks, who induces plenty of groundballs and relies upon his defense for outs as opposed to strikeouts. rWAR would now reward that pitcher while fWAR punishes them.

The philosophies behind these two metrics have their own distinct differences, and like any sabermetric measure, must be measured in context. Understanding the context and nuances of the metrics allows you to use them as an effective tool, and understand why the differences are not in themselves an indictment of the metrics.



Third: "I cringe when Brian Kenny regurgitates players WARs on MLB now like he knows what he's talking about."

Brian Kenny is a professional broadcaster who has years of experience covering baseball and the way that it's evaluated. He's actually written an excellent book, which I'll suggest here as well



Fourth: "It undermines actual sabermetrics. Real sabermetrics and analytics are "pitchers whiff rate on his slider", "K-BB% vs LHB"."

What is "real sabermetrics" then? Let's ask Bill James, generally considered the grandfather of this school of thought.

"…what I do does not have a name and cannot be explained in a sentence or two. Well, now I have given it a name: Sabermetrics … [and] Sabermetrics is the mathematical and statistical analysis of baseball records." - James, The 1980 Baseball Abstract

James has refined and restated his definition multiple times across the years, but its most recent definition can be found in a recent Q&A from 2014:

"Sabermetrics is NOT about who is better than who or where players should be rated; not at all. It is about Why Teams Win, and How the Game Changes, and Why the Game Changes, and Why the Game Works." - James, Hey Bill

cont.

(1) Read, bruh. I can't vouch for it personally, but I've heard the book Watching Baseball Smarter recommended with high regard. And it's almost literally the exact thing you asked for. Here are some other good book recommendations:

• Moneyball by Michael Lewis. Hard to believe that the book is sort of old hat at this point, but it still serves as a very readable introduction to advanced statistics.
  
  
• The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract by Bill James (mostly). This book is good toilet reading, if you have a massive toilet on which to perch it, and your bowel movements are glacially paced. James ranks the best players at each position, and goes on a witty, decade-by-decade jog through the history of the game.
  
  
• The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball by Tom Tango. Are you a "math person"? Read this book, you'll like it. It's an introduction to sabermetrics that explains the important first principles of statistical analysis, builds an important statistic (wOBA) from the ground up, and then applies all of that knowledge to answer specific questions about baseball strategies and to debunk, verify, or qualify some of baseball's hoary "conventional wisdom."
  
  
• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. This book is not about baseball, but it's still great and you should read it.
  
  (2) You'll want to start watching the game more, if you can. Find a method (like MLB.tv or, you know, your television) to do so. Massive exposure does help you learn, and it's a fun, if inefficient, method. Osmosis. That's just science.
  
  (2b) Depending on the broadcast crew, it's sometimes addition-by-subtraction to mute the television.
  
  (2c) If you have MLB.tv Premium and intend to follow your favorite team, I recommend watching the other team's broadcast. You know enough about [TEAM X] already. Learn something new about [TEAM Y], instead. Unless, of course, (2b) applies, in which case maybe your best bet is MLB.tv's option to overlay the radio broadcast on the TV video. Barring that, the liberal application of the DOWN VOLUME button is always an option, and then, like, listen to Chopin's Preludes. Don't be That Guy and lean too heavily on No. 15, though. There are 23 others. Expand your horizons.
  
  (3) When you go to games, keep score. Sure, there's a guy a few seats over in a striped button-down and pre-faded jeans (Chad or something) who will mock you mercilessly for it. Sad for you, you've lost Chad's respect. But, oh, the things you'll gain. A free souvenir. A better grasp on the flow of the game. The priceless power to answer the "what did I miss" and "what the fuck just happened" questions that litter the air at ballgames, tragically disregarded and forgotten like the syllabi from Chad's last semester at Bromaha State. You can learn how to score ballgames here. Fuck Chad.
  
  (3b) Go to games alone now and then. Did I mention that, in some company, it's rightly considered rude to score a ballgame like a trainspotting anorak? Not in all company, mind you. But I like going to some games alone to avoid the messy politics of divided attention altogether.
  
  (4) Bookmark a few websites. Quick stat references include FanGraphs, Baseball-Reference, and Brooks Baseball. Grantland, Baseball Prospectus, Baseball America, and the Hardball Times are all good. FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference both have subscription options that allow you to access enhanced content for a small fee, which is worth it if only to support the yeoman's work that they do compiling and sorting our beloved numbers.
  
  (5) German chess great Emanuel Lasker is believed (incorrectly) to have said that "if you see a good move, look for a better one." Good advice. Too much of the history of baseball analysis is the history of people getting stuck in comfortable places and refusing to interrogate their own ideas about the game. Sabermetricians have made careers out of just pointing this out, and even some of them do it from time to time. Also, on the level of pure self-interest, baseball ignorance and bad teeth have this much in common: Keeping your mouth shut hides them both. If you have a good opinion about a baseball topic, look for a better one.
  
  (6) Watch a some decent movies about baseball. Sugar is excellent and disturbing. Baseball: A Film by Ken Burns is available on Netflix and worth watching. You drink his nostalgic Flavor-Aid at your own peril: At times, Baseball is about as edifying as having a good, 19-hour stare at a Norman Rockwell painting. It's still in a class all its own as a baseball documentary. You should also watch Ed, starring Matt LeBlanc, because it'll teach you not to take strangers on the internet seriously when they give you advice.
  
  (7) When you go to games, wear whatever the hell you want. This has nothing to do with understanding baseball, but it annoys me when people make a big deal out of policing the clothing that others wear to sporting events. Sitting front-row at a Yankees-Tigers game in your best Steelers jersey and a pink Houston Astros BP cap? Whatever. You be you. You be you. I once watched as a perfectly innocent college student was denied a free t-shirt from a Nats Park employee because he (the student) was wearing a Red Sox shirt with his Washington cap. That was pretty fucked.
  
  (8) Take the EdX Sabermetrics course. Others have recommended this, with good reason. It's a wonderful introduction to advanced analytics, and you get a taste of programming in R and MySQL as well. You don't need a CompSci background. I sure didn't.
  
  Hope this helped.
  
  Footnote: Chad-hating is actually too easy. Truth is, I've never really been mocked for scoring games. Once, I even bonded with a Chad-esque guy sitting next to me at a Braves-Nats game here in Washington. He was pretty drunk, but we talked Braves baseball while he drank and I drank and I scored the game and he drank more. He seemed utterly engaged by the scoring process in that guileless, doe-eyed way that only the drunk have mastered. That's the Chad I loved.

• The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract This book will give you a great overview of the game from 1870 to 1999. Breaks the game down by decades and what the game was like and how it changed. Also ranks the top 100 players at each position. Really anything by James is an entertaining read, but this is the must have for baseball conversation.
  
• Baseball Prospectus - Baseball Between the Numbers A good introductory course into the newer sabrmetrics. It will answer many questions in depth about what was going on as far as player evaluation in Moneyball.
  
• Tom Tango - The Book Much more advanced sabrmetrics but very current and groundbreaking. The author started on the internet, and last offseason secured a job working for the Seattle Mariners.
  
  The next three are to give you a better view of the game from the players/owners perspective.
  
  
• Veeck as in Wreck Bill Veeck was one hell of a guy. His father was president of the Cubs in the 30's, and Bill would go on to own his fair share of teams. Always an individual, he stood against the baseball ownership cabal on many occasions. Spent the last years of his life watching the Cubs from the center field bleachers. His autobiography is humorous and insightful. A must read for any baseball fan.
  
• Buck O'Neil - I was Right on Time Called the soul of negro league baseball, Buck O'Neil recounts his playing days in the negro leagues, and covers many of the legends in a very matter of fact way.
  
• Jim Bouton - Ball Four Last but not least is former Yankee star, now washed up knuckleballer Jim Bouton recalling the inaugural season of the short lived Seattle Pilots. Baseball players in all their vulgar glory. Also will teach you the fine art of "shooting beaver".

That's a broad topic. Let's see:

• Recent, still relevant baseball: The Arm by Jeff Passan. One of the best sportswriters today goes way in-depth to what's going on with pitching injuries. Fascinating read.
  
  
• Historical / Classic Reads: Roger Kahn's The Boys of Summer, about the Brooklyn Dodgers in Jackie's day. Kahn's a wonderful storyteller.
  
  
• Weird, but wonderful: Philip Roth's The Great American Novel, about the fictional Patriot League. One of these days, I want to run an OOTP sim of the league and see what happens. Completely out there, but I loved it.
  
  
• Edit: Almost forgot! The Kid Who Only Hit Homers, by Matt Christopher. First baseball book I ever read.

Three Nights in August by Buzz Bissinger -- A through-the-eyes-of-Tony-La-Russa recounting of a pivotal three game series between the Cardinals and Cubs in August 2003.

The Last Boy by Jane Leavy -- Not only an exceptional (!) biography of Mickey Mantle, but also a wonderful look into what life was like at the time as both a fan and as a professional baseball player. Notable stories about the Yankees and its many players of that era, Willie Mays, Duke Snyder.

The Bullpen Gospels by Dirk Hayhurst -- A hilariously honest and at-times brutal telling of what life is like as a minor league, "non-prospect" pitcher.


Up, Up, and Away by Jonah Keri -- Because the Expos are amazing, and I love and miss them.

I don't read much fiction (baseball or otherwise) but I like biographies and autobiographies. RA Dickey's book Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity and the Perfect Knuckleball was great. He's a talented writer with a compelling story to tell.

Here's some recommended reading:

• The Book - That's literally the name of the book. It's full of one-off chapters covering a variety of topics.
  
• Baseball Between the Numbers - This one is also a bunch of one-off type stuff
  
• Moneyball - Talks about how the 2002 Oakland A's capitalized on some offensive statistics that were being recorded but not heavily utilized to determine player values, and thus built a playoff team from undervalued hitters
  
• Big Data Baseball - Talks about the 2013 Pittsburgh Pirates and their use of big data strategies to find defensive value where other teams didn't (primarily in pitch framing, ground-ball pitching, defensive range, and shifting)
  
  The first two of those are heavily focused on the numbers and will probably teach you more about the whys and hows, while the second two are more about the narrative but still give you some insight into hard numbers.
  
  Also, I'd recommend just joining SABR. It's $60/year for most people, but if you're under 30 it drops down to $45/year. There are a lot of local chapters out there that have regular meetings. For example, the Twin Cities have the Halsey Hall chapter. There's a book club meeting on Saturday (to talk about Big Data Baseball), a hot stove breakfast in a few weeks (informal meeting to just hang out and talk baseball), a regular chapter meeting in April for people to actually present research, and the chapter occasionally has organized outings to minor league games.
  
  SABR also has a national conference and a specific national analytics conference, as well. Membership also includes a subscription to Baseball Research Journal, which comes out twice per year and contains a lot of really good stuff that members have been written both from a statistics and a history standpoint.

You say you don't want to be a bandwagon fan. Who cares what people think? If the Cubs excite you because of their young stars, then go for it. You're only a bandwagoner if you stop caring about the team when they do poorly.

As far as home runs, the Washington Nationals have Bryce Harper and Ryan Zimmerman, who are absolutely on fire right now. The Yankees have Aaron Judge, hopefully Gary Sanchez when he comes back, and Greg Bird if he starts hitting well. Obviously I'm biased though. I don't know how much time you have on your hands, but if you want to learn about baseball history, Ken Burns' "Baseball" documentary is absolutely INCREDIBLE.

As far as rules, just ask around if you see something, people here are pretty good about helping newcomers.

If you want to learn more about Buck, I highly recommend reading his autobiography and then following it up with Joe Posnanski's The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O’Neil’s America. The autobiography is a quick, easy read and you'll learn Buck's story as well as the story of the Negro Leagues in general. But I recommend following it with Posnanski's book to really get to know Buck as a person. Posnanski traveled around the country with Buck for a year towards the end of Buck's life and wrote this book about the experience. While some of the stories from the autobiography are retold, Posnanski's book functions more as a portrait of the man than simply a history. I really can't say enough about this book. It will make you laugh and cry, etc., etc. Just read it. And then spend the rest of your life wishing you could have given Buck O'Neil a hug.

Wow I'm pumped to read this. For the lazy here's the Amazon link. Great share thanks OP!

/u/MTLNewStadium summarized it really well, but, if you are interested in learning more, Jonah Keri explained the situation in further detail in his great book.

I remember reading about this topic in Baseball Between the Numbers (by the Baseball Prospectus crew) around 5 years ago.

The game of baseball is so obsessed with stats, that the closer (often the best reliever) is ALWAYS kept until the end of the game so they can get the save.

Think about how many middle-of-the-road relievers have blown a game in the 5th or 6th inning (as an O's fan, I've seen a lot of this). Those tight situations are what a closer is made for, not to record whatever 3 outs happen to come up in the 9th.

Book: Game of Shadows

From the synopsis on Amazon:



>The book traces the career of Victor Conte, founder of the BALCO laboratory, an egomaniacal former rock musician and self-proclaimed nutritionist, who set out to corrupt sports by providing athletes with “designer” steroids that would be undetectable on “state-of-the-art” doping tests. Conte gave the undetectable drugs to 28 of the world’s greatest athletes—Olympians, NFL players and baseball stars, Bonds chief among them.
>
>A separate narrative thread details the steroids use of Bonds, an immensely talented, moody player who turned to performance-enhancing drugs after Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals set a new home run record in 1998. Through his personal trainer, Bonds gained access to BALCO drugs. All of the great athletes who visited BALCO benefited tremendously—Bonds broke McGwire’s record—but many had their careers disrupted after federal investigators raided BALCO and indicted Conte. The authors trace the course of the probe, and the baffling decision of federal prosecutors to protect the elite athletes who were involved.
>
>Highlights of Game of Shadows include:

>
>Barry Bonds

>
>A look at how Bonds was driven to use performance-enhancing drugs in part by jealousy over Mark McGwire’s record-breaking 1998 season. It was shortly thereafter that Bonds—who had never used anything more performance enhancing than a protein shake from the health food store—first began using steroids.
>
>How Bonds’s weight trainer, steroid dealer Greg Anderson, arranged to meet Victor Conte before the 2001 baseball season with...

Big Data Baseball is a pretty interesting read about the Pirates making the playoffs in 2013 ending their 20 year drought. If you are into advanced stats and the data side of baseball its a fun read.

https://www.amazon.com/Big-Data-Baseball-Miracles-20-Year/dp/1250094259

A Great and Glorious Game

A book full of incredible prose by an old commissioner and president of Yale, talking about how lovely baseball is. Makes me cry every time.

I was looking for a post like this. While I love basketball and football, I never really followed baseball. It just didn't seem to provide the same excitement. But after reading Phillip Roth's The Great American Novel I'm a convert. Looking forward to this season.

The one I recommend to everyone is The Baseball Fan's Companion, it is unfortunately out of print but easy to find used. I'd also recommend:

The Glory of their Times by Lawrence Ritter

Veeck as in Wreck by Bill Veeck

Stolen Season by David Lamb

Can't Anybody Here Play this Game by Jimmy Breslin

The Wrong Stuff and Have Glove Will Travel by Bill Lee

You Gotta Have Wa by Robert Whiting

I always recommend this book when it comes to good baseball books - I was right on time by Buck O'Neil - He covers a long time and tells some really cool stories about the Negro Leagues as well. - https://www.amazon.com/Was-Right-Time-Buck-Oneil/dp/068483247X

Ideal for fans of the Cleveland Indians: The Curse of Rocky Colavito by Terry Pluto.

Because I'm a huge Strat-O-Matic baseball fan, I enjoyed The Universal Baseball Association, Inc. by Robert Coover, where protagonist Henry Waugh creates his own dice baseball league -- not without its dark passages, though.

Even though hector is a Yankees fan he knows what he is talking about. ;-)

It's all about pitcher vs. batter. Ask, what pitches can the pitcher throw effectively and how does this particular batter handle each one. You need to pay attention to the Pitch Count (i.e. 2 and 1) and how it pressures the both players into changing their approach.

This book is very good but can drag a bit (just like real baseball). http://www.amazon.com/Pure-Baseball-Keith-Hernandez/dp/0060925914

This is also interesting although a little wonky
http://www.amazon.com/The-Physics-Baseball-3rd-Edition/dp/0060084367

that Sony ICF-S10MK2 is pretty much the best radio i've ever owned.

Watch Ken Burns' Baseball documentary collection. This is the best way to learn about the origins of the game, its most famous players, most important moments, records, championships and traditions. It covers pretty much everything from the American Civil War thru present day. Can't recommend it enough.

I've got this radio last season listening to games while I'm working. http://www.amazon.com/Sony-ICF-S10MK2-Pocket-Radio-Silver/dp/B00020S7XK

It's slightly bigger that most pockets but a great radio.

If you want more like this, The Physics of Baseball is a fantastic book.

I'm not saying it happens often, but even poor hitters can have years that appear to be "breakout years" that are in fact just statistical flukes. Baseball Between the Numbers has a chapter that talks about the plain statistical variation that is likely to happen in any season.

Like I said, it's likely in a given year that a single player will post 50+ points on his average higher than his actual talent level, and if he's already a good player, it's enough to propel him to MVP status.

I can't find any original work, best I can do is a 15 year old article about the subject.

link

still an interesting read


plus this book

"Up, Up, and Away" by Jonah Keri is a history of/love letter to the Montreal Expos.

""Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and Charlie Finley’s Swingin’ A’s" by Jason Turnbow covers the Charlie Finley A's.

"Big Data Baseball" by Travis Sawchik is a Moneyball-style look at the early 2010's Pirates, data analysis in baseball, and the origins of today's shifting techniques and importance of pitch framing.

RA Dickey's autobiography is phenomenal.

Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity and the Perfect Knuckleball

There is a really nice piece about him in the book "Ahead of the Curve: Inside the Baseball Revolution" by Brian Kenny.

Highly recommend it

Super recommend Big Hair, Plastic Grass. Super cool look into baseball during the 70s.

Also, it's not on this list but check out Dock Ellis in the Country of Baseball by Donald Hall. I read it several times when I wrote my thesis in college. A lot of really cool stories about Dock Ellis (apart from the obvious LSD NO NO).

If you want to learn more about this, or umpiring in general from another viewpoint I suggest this book; it is the best book I have read about Umps: As They See 'Em

This is one thing I wish more baseball fans knew. They discuss it on this episode of the Freakonomics podcast. One of his biographers, Al Stump, seemed to be pretty loose with the details, but nevertheless created the image of Cobb that comes to mind when most people think of him. This isn't to say the guy was a saint, but his life could do with some closer examination.

A new bio by the guy on that podcast is actually coming out quite soon.

This was actually a really popular winter sport in the late 1800s, one of the reasons we overrun first base is because they allowed over skating any base in ice-baseball and it carried over to the summer game. The early rulemakers got rid of overrunning the other bases, but first remained.

Yes, I'm completely serious, source: A Game of Inches by Peter Morris

The Physics of Baseball

If you're into science even a tiny bit, and if you're into baseball, this is an excellent book.

There is a fascinating account of this incident in the book As They See 'Em: A Fan's Travels in the Land of Umpires by Bruce Weber.

Here are five:

Fifty-nine in '84: Old Hoss Radbourn, Barehanded Baseball, and the Greatest Season a Pitcher Ever Had

The Summer of Beer and Whiskey: How Brewers, Barkeeps, Rowdies, Immigrants, and a Wild Pennant Fight Made Baseball America's Game

Dock Ellis in the Country of Baseball

Baseball and Other Matters in 1941

Up, Up, and Away: The Kid, the Hawk, Rock, Vladi, Pedro, le Grand Orange, Youppi!, the Crazy Business of Baseball, and the Ill-fated but Unforgettable Montreal Expos

Dickey's book goes into a lot of detail about the brotherhood of Knuckleball pitchers. I read it cover to cover in one sitting.

Amazon Link for anyone who's interested.

Yes we do.

https://www.amazon.com/Game-Shadows-Steroids-Scandal-Professional/dp/1592402682

Plus Ken Burns talks about it in the 10th

I haven't brought it to the ballpark but I have one of these. Simple and works well.

And Bill is the reason the Tribe has Chief Wahoo. His autobiography, Veeck as in Wreck is a fantastic read. I suggest it to everyone! Murray has a screenplay where he would play Bill, but it never got made. (#7 on list). Last I heard it was because baseball movies are a tough sell in foreign markets.

Here, I'll provide sources, instead of downvoting like you.

Nate Silver, "Is David Ortiz a Clutch Hitter?" in Jonah Keri, Ed., Baseball Between the Numbers (New York: Basic Books, 2006): 14–34.

http://www.amazon.com/Baseball-Between-Numbers-Everything-About/dp/0465005969

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/374519-the-clutch-myth-and-why-we-buy-into-it

I've been going through this book. Would recommend.

>No, they improved the last time this happened

Do you have a source for this? Bruce Webber's book mentions a bunch of problems, but that's not exactly an unbiased source.

There's a 2nd edition of "Analyzing Baseball Data with R" coming out in December with added chapters on tidyverse and using statcast data

A few other recommendations:

Victory Season

Veeck as in Wreck

Between the Numbers

Cardboard Gods

Then read Analyzing Baseball Data With R

And?

http://www.amazon.com/Game-Shadows-Steroids-Scandal-Professional/dp/1592402682

Robert Coover, The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop.

A Game of Inches by Peter Morris is basically the complete encyclopedic history of how and when every facet of the game, on- and off-field, evolved. It uses newspaper articles and player interviews to construct how the game looked throughout history, how changes came about and how people felt about them.

http://www.amazon.com/Great-Glorious-Game-Baseball-Writings/dp/1565121929

Is Stephen King working on a sequel?

http://www.amazon.com/The-Girl-Who-Loved-Gordon/dp/0671042858

Probably Ahead of the Curve.

Not interested, but related to your mention of R, there's a book about analyzing baseball data using R. Haven't checked it out yet but I plan to.

I'm reading this book about Dock Ellis right now. The writing is weirdly repetitive, but it's full of Dock Ellis stories, so whatever. I'll still read all of it.

For baseball history buffs A Game of Inches tells the story of how all the rules of the game got started and evolved in its early history. Ever wonder why it's precisely 3 strikes and 4 balls, or 9 innings etc.? This book has it.

Ty Cobb: A Terribly Beauty By Charles Leerhsen.

Basically goes through the entirety of Cobb's career, and addresses most of the biggest incidences that people point to as proof of Cobb's racism.