Smart Baseball; The Story Behind the Old Stats that are Ruining the Game, the New Ones that are Running it, and the Right Way to think about Baseball

Format is approximately 5.25 inches by 8 inches. Signed by the author sticker on front cover. Signed on the half-title page. xii, [2]m 301, [5] pages. Tabular Data. Index. Keith Law is an American baseball writer for The Athletic. He previously wrote for ESPN and ESPN Scouts, Inc. from 2006 2019. He was formerly a writer for Baseball Prospectus and worked in the front office for the Toronto Blue Jays. He is a member of the Baseball Writers' Association of America. He began writing for Baseball Prospectus in 1997. Unlike many other Baseball Prospectus authors, Law's primary influence was not Bill James, but Eddie Epstein, the writer of the first STATS, Inc. Minor League Scouting Notebook. In 2002, Law was hired by the Toronto Blue Jays as a "Consultant to Baseball Operations" after impressing Blue Jays' general manager J. P. Ricciardi during the offseason winter meetings. Paul DePodesta had recommended Law to him, and Ricciardi asked Law's opinions regarding the approaching Rule 5 draft of that year, and, impressed with Law's answers and explanations, offered him a position with the team. During his time with the Blue Jays, he acted as a major league and minor league scout, contract negotiator, and provided assistance to the team's marketing and sales staffs. Law reached the position of "Special Assistant to the GM" before resigning in 2006 to work at ESPN. At ESPN, Law works as baseball scouting writer. He writes baseball columns, and provides analysis on radio and television. Predictably Irrational meets Moneyball in ESPN veteran writer and statistical analyst Keith Law's iconoclastic look at the numbers game of baseball, proving why some of the most trusted stats are surprisingly wrong, explaining what numbers actually work, and exploring what the rise of Big Data means for the future of the sport. For decades, statistics such as batting average, saves recorded, and pitching won-lost records have been used to measure individual players, and teams, potential and success. But in the past fifteen years, a revolutionary new standard of measurement, sabermetric, has been embraced by front offices in Major League Baseball and among fantasy baseball enthusiasts. But while sabermetrics is recognized as being smarter and more accurate, traditionalists, including journalists, fans, and managers, stubbornly believe that the "old" way, a combination of outdated numbers and "gut" instinct, is still the best way. Baseball, they argue, should be run by people, not by numbers.? In this informative and provocative book, the renowned ESPN analyst and senior baseball writer demolishes a century's worth of accepted wisdom, making the definitive case against the long-established view. Armed with concrete examples from different eras of baseball history, logic, a little math, and lively commentary, he shows how the allegiance to these numbers, dating back to the beginning of the professional game, is firmly rooted not in accuracy or success, but in baseball's irrational adherence to tradition. While Law gores sacred cows, from clutch performers to RBIs to the infamous save rule, he also demystifies sabermetrics, explaining what these "new" numbers really are and why they're vital. He also considers the game's future, examining how teams are using Data, from PhDs to sophisticated statistical databases, to build future rosters; changes that will transform baseball and all of professional sports.…