The Bill James Baseball Abstract 1987

by Bill James

Genres: Baseball, Sports, Nonfiction

300 pages, Paperback

Published March 12, 1987

About the author

George William “Bill” James (born October 5, 1949, in Holton, Kansas) is a baseball writer, historian, and statistician whose work has been widely influential. Since 1977, James has written more than two dozen books devoted to baseball history and statistics. His approach, which he termed sabermetrics in reference to the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), scientifically analyzes and studies baseball, often through the use of statistical data, in an attempt to determine why teams win and lose. His Baseball Abstract books in the 1980s are the modern predecessor to websites using sabermetrics such as Baseball Prospectus and Baseball Primer (now Baseball Think Factory).

In 2006, Time named him in the Time 100 as one of the most influential people in the world. He is currently a Senior Advisor on Baseball Operations for the Boston Red Sox. In 2010, Bill James was inducted into the Irish American Baseball Hall of Fame.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_James

Reviews

[Tom Stamper · Rating 4 out of 5]

The 1987 Abstract begins with Bill categorizing baseball statistics according to a scale of how important he thinks they are. One of the main things discussed here is how great ERA is as a statistic and how batters have no real equivalent. As usual Bill makes his case with a well reasoned argument, but the measurements that have come after 1987 like Wins Above Replacement and OPS+ have probably made a good deal of this essay obsolete.

The team sections in 1987 are more specifically about the team results in 1986 and the prospects for 1987. This is a change from the previous year where the team sections were places to put essays only tangentially related to the team in many cases. It's interesting to see how many stars that came up right before the steroid era never really reached their promise. Bill likes the young team in Seattle, for instance, and thinks two of those players will likely make the Hall of Fame (none do). He has high hopes for guys like Pete Incaviglia and Ruben Sierra and Danny Tartabull and Eric Davis. They get a lot more ink than Barry Bonds or Mark McGwire.

There is an interesting essay about Roger Clemens beating Don Mattingly for MVP in 1986 and a question as to why Rob Guidry didn't beat Jim Rice in 1978. Bill James explains while a starting pitcher may only pitch every 5 days Clemens faced more hitters during the season than Mattingly faced pitchers. So although starters may not play everyday they are still directly involved with as much action as a first baseman over the course of the season. He goes through a formula trying to decide how many runs each of the batters created and each of the pitchers saved and the end result shows that the players were really close in those two years.

At the end of the book he rates players by position in each league. The ranking are actually done by a vote of his aficionados, but Bill James adds the commentary. This is the same format he would later use with great success in his Historical Atlas, the best baseball book ever written in my opinion.

Even with some of the dated content the book is still worth finding and reading if you love baseball.

[Miranda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Someday stats nerds will rule the game