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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
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—sabermetrics—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traditionalists, including journalists, fans, and managers, stubbornly believe that the "old" way—a combination of outdated numbers and "gut" instinct—is still the best way.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, teh 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.
320 pages, Paperback
First published April 25, 2017
397 people are currently reading
1821 people want to read
About the author
Keith Law
7 books95 followersKeith Law is a senior baseball writer for ESPN.com and ESPN Scouts, Inc. 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.
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March 13, 2025
I confess I find soccer, what the rest of the world calls football, boring. This is not the same as believing that soccer/football actually is boring. I am certain that it is not. But as someone who knows pretty much nil about the game, I lack the vision, the knowledge, the insight to be able to identify the finer points, to be able to articulate why this formation or that player are well set up to create a scoring opportunity or defend against a powerful offense. Sometimes it is pretty blatant when a player takes a dive hoping to generate a colored card for an innocent opponent, but other times it is not so easy for my uneducated eyes to judge. I do not know how to evaluate whether the goalie is premier league material or should still be playing in AYSO. But with baseball it is an entirely other story.
Keith Law
Those who look down their noses at baseball, seeing a painfully slow contest are, as I am with soccer, simply not attuned to the detail, the minutiae of the game. (There are others, of course, who are so insanely driven by the need for constant dopamine drips from their electronic devices that they are probably unable to attend to much of anything for more than the attention span of a goldfish. But those are not the people at issue here.) They see a pitcher taking for bloody ever to throw the ball to the plate. I see a contest between the baserunner, pitcher, catcher, first baseman, second-baseman and shortstop as one attempts to gauge the possibilities of a successful steal, and the defense feints, jabs, and maybe thrusts to prevent it. Will the pitch be a fastball, to give the catcher the most possible time to make a throw toward second? Will the pitcher and catcher opt to focus on the batter at the possible cost of a steal? Maybe the catcher will call for a pitchout. Every pitch has a purpose. Every shifting defensive alignment has the strengths of a particular batter in mind. When you know the details, the game becomes incredibly more interesting, a collection of hundreds of smaller contests within the larger game. One of the small pleasures I have always enjoyed is trying to predict what the next pitch will be. I am fairly adept at it. Baseball is a game I have loved since I was a small child. That love was a gift from my father, one for which I continue to thank him, and one that will accompany me to whatever, if anything, comes next.
One can certainly enjoy the game for the skills on display, the balletic artistry of a fielder making a particularly challenging defensive leap, a powerful and accurate throw, maybe from his knees or worse. You might be impressed by the power of a pitcher throwing a fastball past an overmatched batter at over a hundred miles an hour; the gift of a knuckle-ball practitioner making that same five and a half ounce ball dance its way toward the plate as if the laws of gravity had been temporarily suspended, leaving a hapless hitter swinging at empty space, slamming his bat into the dirt and muttering expletives on his way back to the dugout. But it is nice to know that if we care to indulge, there are now new, finely honed tools available that can deepen our appreciation for and understanding of the game we love.
There have always been diverse views on how to measure the game of baseball. How can you tell if this player or that is the best hitter, pitcher, fielder or baserunner? We use numbers of course, thousands, millions, who knows, maybe billions of numbers to gauge the value of players, specifically professional players, of what remains America’s pastime. They have changed over the years since 1869 when the Cincinnati Red Stockings played the first professional baseball game. The sport had been around a while before that. For example, there are tales of Rebel and Union soldiers laying down their arms to engage in a friendly competition.
While I have no doubt that he appreciates the beauty of the game, it is the numbers that are the substance of Keith Law’s Smart Baseball. And he has the background to offer an informed opinion. He is a senior baseball writer for The Athletic, was a senior baseball writer for ESPN, wrote formerly for The Baseball Prospectus, and worked in the front office of the Toronto Blue Jays.
He has many unkind things to say about some of the measures we have used for decades and decades as the basis for assessing the value of a given player. He takes pains to explain why this or that statistic offers a false image of a player’s true worth. His explanations are persuasive. For example, he takes umbrage at Batting Average as a measure of offensive worth, arguing that On-Base Percentage is a much better indicator. This is pretty much old news among baseball fans, but Law adds further tweaks, generating something that probably looks foreign to the casual fan. “wOBA” is not a typo. It stands for Weighted On Base Average, a more precision tool for measuring a player’s offensive production.
He takes particular umbrage, as well he should, at the overvaluation of the Win for pitchers. Even the average fan knows that Wins are often assigned to pitchers who do not deserve them, and Losses given to pitchers who have performed admirably. One of the reasons for this, and a theme that permeates Law’s analysis, is that there is a mismatch in traditional baseball stats between team and individual analytics. A pitcher might deliver a no-hitter and still take a loss if his team musters no offense of its own. Not the pitcher’s fault. Likewise, a less than stellar pitching outing might be masked by a superior defense, or a particularly productive offense. Law also looks at the history of futility baseball has had attempting to come up with sane metrics for measuring fielding prowess.
One of the big changes in baseball, of very recent vintage, is the broad introduction of Statcast. In the last few years, every major league stadium has been outfitted with advanced tech that allows measurements unavailable before. Things like exit velocity, home run distance, launch angle, pitch rotations per minute, perceived pitch speed. Law points out that this might inform how baseball executives’ evaluate players, but also how the tech might prove useful for medical purposes. For example, a decrease in the spin rate of a pitcher’s fastball might indicate fatigue or even injury. The amount of data being handled is staggering. Teams now must hire tech experts just to keep up with this new store of intel.
Law can get a bit literal and harsh.
You will come away from reading Smart Baseball with a greater appreciation for some players, present and retired, than you had before, and will find your analytical toolkit significantly enhanced should you care to avail when considering why so-and-so is such a bum, or why whatshisname is so underappreciated, or why your team really, really should not trade Crash, particularly not for Nuke. I suppose there are many for whom these new measures will inform their decisions in Fantasy Baseball leagues of one sort or another.
I consider myself a baseball aficionado somewhere in the upper middle of the fandom bell curve. I played a little, and have watched a lot. I have managed little league teams, and struggled with designing batting orders and fielding assignments. I have some appreciation for the uses of numbers to inform decision-making. I was never a sabermetrics geek, although I did apply some of those lessons in my managing. I can appreciate that new ways of looking at the sport are not intended as hostile attacks on the traditions of the game, but are intended to improve our understanding. In the same way that using a CT scan instead of an X-ray can offer a better, more detailed view of what is actually going on. Law has brought together a collection of tools that will be very useful for people who care about baseball. He has made clear where some flaws lie in our current stat-keeping, and shown how some of these errors can be fixed. Smart Baseball offers a very accessible and readable intro to new ways of seeing baseball, making a bit of sabermetrics understandable, without burying readers in mountains of data and cryptic diagrams. While it cannot offer the visceral thrill of a perfectly implemented steal of home, it can help fuel the satisfaction of readers who apply the tools offered here to predict when it will happen, and to be able to explain why.
Review first posted – April 21, 2017
Published – April 25, 2017
=============================EXTRA STUFF
Links to the author’s personal, Twitter and FB pages
You should know that his personal site is for things unrelated to sports. He has a blog on ESPN, but one must sign in to get the full benefit
You can check out an excerpt from the book here
Interviews
-----Audio - The Poscast with Joe Posnanski – 53:52
-----Print – Fansided - Keith Law And The Business Of ‘Smart Baseball’ - by Chris Illuminati
6/24/17 - NY Times - a fascinating article on Statcast. It includes the surprising bit of intel that in 1926, in a post-season exhibition game, Babe Ruth is reported to have hit a home run 650 feet! The particular tickle for me is that this took place in Wilkes Barre, PA, my new digs. - That Was Hit a Country Mile, or 495 Feet if You’re Into Hard Data - by Filip Bondy
8/29/17 – NY Times - Why Are Some New Statistics Embraced and Not Others - by Jay Caspian King
4/13/18 - NY Times - How Do Athletes’ Brains Control Their Movements? - by Zach Schonbrun - Fascinating article. Maybe the next level in the expanding realm of baseball analysis
Keith Law
Those who look down their noses at baseball, seeing a painfully slow contest are, as I am with soccer, simply not attuned to the detail, the minutiae of the game. (There are others, of course, who are so insanely driven by the need for constant dopamine drips from their electronic devices that they are probably unable to attend to much of anything for more than the attention span of a goldfish. But those are not the people at issue here.) They see a pitcher taking for bloody ever to throw the ball to the plate. I see a contest between the baserunner, pitcher, catcher, first baseman, second-baseman and shortstop as one attempts to gauge the possibilities of a successful steal, and the defense feints, jabs, and maybe thrusts to prevent it. Will the pitch be a fastball, to give the catcher the most possible time to make a throw toward second? Will the pitcher and catcher opt to focus on the batter at the possible cost of a steal? Maybe the catcher will call for a pitchout. Every pitch has a purpose. Every shifting defensive alignment has the strengths of a particular batter in mind. When you know the details, the game becomes incredibly more interesting, a collection of hundreds of smaller contests within the larger game. One of the small pleasures I have always enjoyed is trying to predict what the next pitch will be. I am fairly adept at it. Baseball is a game I have loved since I was a small child. That love was a gift from my father, one for which I continue to thank him, and one that will accompany me to whatever, if anything, comes next.
One can certainly enjoy the game for the skills on display, the balletic artistry of a fielder making a particularly challenging defensive leap, a powerful and accurate throw, maybe from his knees or worse. You might be impressed by the power of a pitcher throwing a fastball past an overmatched batter at over a hundred miles an hour; the gift of a knuckle-ball practitioner making that same five and a half ounce ball dance its way toward the plate as if the laws of gravity had been temporarily suspended, leaving a hapless hitter swinging at empty space, slamming his bat into the dirt and muttering expletives on his way back to the dugout. But it is nice to know that if we care to indulge, there are now new, finely honed tools available that can deepen our appreciation for and understanding of the game we love.
There have always been diverse views on how to measure the game of baseball. How can you tell if this player or that is the best hitter, pitcher, fielder or baserunner? We use numbers of course, thousands, millions, who knows, maybe billions of numbers to gauge the value of players, specifically professional players, of what remains America’s pastime. They have changed over the years since 1869 when the Cincinnati Red Stockings played the first professional baseball game. The sport had been around a while before that. For example, there are tales of Rebel and Union soldiers laying down their arms to engage in a friendly competition.
While I have no doubt that he appreciates the beauty of the game, it is the numbers that are the substance of Keith Law’s Smart Baseball. And he has the background to offer an informed opinion. He is a senior baseball writer for The Athletic, was a senior baseball writer for ESPN, wrote formerly for The Baseball Prospectus, and worked in the front office of the Toronto Blue Jays.
He has many unkind things to say about some of the measures we have used for decades and decades as the basis for assessing the value of a given player. He takes pains to explain why this or that statistic offers a false image of a player’s true worth. His explanations are persuasive. For example, he takes umbrage at Batting Average as a measure of offensive worth, arguing that On-Base Percentage is a much better indicator. This is pretty much old news among baseball fans, but Law adds further tweaks, generating something that probably looks foreign to the casual fan. “wOBA” is not a typo. It stands for Weighted On Base Average, a more precision tool for measuring a player’s offensive production.
He takes particular umbrage, as well he should, at the overvaluation of the Win for pitchers. Even the average fan knows that Wins are often assigned to pitchers who do not deserve them, and Losses given to pitchers who have performed admirably. One of the reasons for this, and a theme that permeates Law’s analysis, is that there is a mismatch in traditional baseball stats between team and individual analytics. A pitcher might deliver a no-hitter and still take a loss if his team musters no offense of its own. Not the pitcher’s fault. Likewise, a less than stellar pitching outing might be masked by a superior defense, or a particularly productive offense. Law also looks at the history of futility baseball has had attempting to come up with sane metrics for measuring fielding prowess.
One of the big changes in baseball, of very recent vintage, is the broad introduction of Statcast. In the last few years, every major league stadium has been outfitted with advanced tech that allows measurements unavailable before. Things like exit velocity, home run distance, launch angle, pitch rotations per minute, perceived pitch speed. Law points out that this might inform how baseball executives’ evaluate players, but also how the tech might prove useful for medical purposes. For example, a decrease in the spin rate of a pitcher’s fastball might indicate fatigue or even injury. The amount of data being handled is staggering. Teams now must hire tech experts just to keep up with this new store of intel.
Law can get a bit literal and harsh.
You’ll hear announcers say a pitch must have looked like a beach ball to him, or that his confidence is through the roof. The problem with this myth, as with others, is that the evidence from reality shows that this effect either barely exists or doesn’t exist at all. It’s merely our brain’s attempts to find patterns in data that are pretty close to random.There is certainly room for a line between what qualifies as myth (Babe Ruth pointing for #60) and what is a fair application of metaphor. Griping about the latter goes too far. I found this tone present in the beginning parts of the book, but, thankfully, it tapered off as things got rolling.
You will come away from reading Smart Baseball with a greater appreciation for some players, present and retired, than you had before, and will find your analytical toolkit significantly enhanced should you care to avail when considering why so-and-so is such a bum, or why whatshisname is so underappreciated, or why your team really, really should not trade Crash, particularly not for Nuke. I suppose there are many for whom these new measures will inform their decisions in Fantasy Baseball leagues of one sort or another.
I consider myself a baseball aficionado somewhere in the upper middle of the fandom bell curve. I played a little, and have watched a lot. I have managed little league teams, and struggled with designing batting orders and fielding assignments. I have some appreciation for the uses of numbers to inform decision-making. I was never a sabermetrics geek, although I did apply some of those lessons in my managing. I can appreciate that new ways of looking at the sport are not intended as hostile attacks on the traditions of the game, but are intended to improve our understanding. In the same way that using a CT scan instead of an X-ray can offer a better, more detailed view of what is actually going on. Law has brought together a collection of tools that will be very useful for people who care about baseball. He has made clear where some flaws lie in our current stat-keeping, and shown how some of these errors can be fixed. Smart Baseball offers a very accessible and readable intro to new ways of seeing baseball, making a bit of sabermetrics understandable, without burying readers in mountains of data and cryptic diagrams. While it cannot offer the visceral thrill of a perfectly implemented steal of home, it can help fuel the satisfaction of readers who apply the tools offered here to predict when it will happen, and to be able to explain why.
Review first posted – April 21, 2017
Published – April 25, 2017
=============================EXTRA STUFF
Links to the author’s personal, Twitter and FB pages
You should know that his personal site is for things unrelated to sports. He has a blog on ESPN, but one must sign in to get the full benefit
You can check out an excerpt from the book here
Interviews
-----Audio - The Poscast with Joe Posnanski – 53:52
-----Print – Fansided - Keith Law And The Business Of ‘Smart Baseball’ - by Chris Illuminati
6/24/17 - NY Times - a fascinating article on Statcast. It includes the surprising bit of intel that in 1926, in a post-season exhibition game, Babe Ruth is reported to have hit a home run 650 feet! The particular tickle for me is that this took place in Wilkes Barre, PA, my new digs. - That Was Hit a Country Mile, or 495 Feet if You’re Into Hard Data - by Filip Bondy
8/29/17 – NY Times - Why Are Some New Statistics Embraced and Not Others - by Jay Caspian King
4/13/18 - NY Times - How Do Athletes’ Brains Control Their Movements? - by Zach Schonbrun - Fascinating article. Maybe the next level in the expanding realm of baseball analysis
It would seem to have almost nothing to do with their biceps muscles or fast-twitch fibers or even their vision, which, for most baseball players is largely the same. It would seem to have much more to do with the neural signals that impel our every movement. “It’s like saying people who can speak French very well have a very dexterous tongue,” John Krakauer, a neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins University, told me. “It would be the wrong place to assign the credit.”
November 24, 2017
This is a MINOR LEAGUE book in my baseball library. (maybe the class C minors)
Availability. IN PRINT
Type. SABER/MANAGEMENT
Use. NONE THAT I KNOW OF
_explanation_
This review is a combined review of two minor baseball books …. this one and Baseball Cards of the Sixties
I got this book as a gift. Anything about baseball will spark my interest, so I soon started reading it.
Not sure what my expectations were, if I had any … just thinking that I’d find it interesting, almost certainly.
Nope.
Big disappointment.
What was “new” I found irritating.
What wasn’t irritating wasn’t new.
Keith Law is not a good writer. He’s actually a pretty boring writer.
A typical chapter would make a statement that he would set out to demonstrate. The statement, and many variations, would appear several more times. There would be detailed “examples”, encapsulated in little tables, that were supposed to lend support to the statement. Of course there was a lot of cherry-picking of data.
Actually, in some cases the numbers just were not convincing of what he was trying to show. In other cases what he what trying to show (such as, that the Save stat in MLB is quite imperfect) really doesn’t even need to be demonstrated – it’s obvious. BUT – that doesn’t make it a USELESS stat, or one that (as he charges) is the WORST stat ever devised, and has RUINED BASEBALL (?!??!?!?).
The long long subtitle of the book says it all:
“The story behind [1] the old stats that are ruining the game, [2] the new stats that are running it, and [3] the right way to think about baseball.”
[1] basically implies that if fans/sportswriters want to stay interested in those old stats (wins, saves, batting average, rbi, fielding percentage) they are RUINING BASEBALL!! How ridiculous can you get? Is this the same “ruined” game that produced one of the most exciting World Series ever, a month ago?
[2] implies that the NEW stats are being used by MLB front offices to try to make smarter decisions. Well, that may be, of course that’s okay. But why should I, as a fan, give a shit? (This whole story about the whiz kids that now work in the new “analytics” departments in every MLB organization was mindful, to me, of the “quants” that began to run the trading desks for the too-big-to-fail banks 10-15 years ago. We know how that story ended.) AND BY THE WAY – these new stats are really not even explained very well in the book – because it turns out every team has their own way of defining and computing them.
[3] shows what Law thinks of anyone who doesn’t think the way he does about old and new stats. “Well, buddy, you’re wrong.”
A very irritating book. Bill James went over all this stuff fifteen years ago with his Win Shares rating system. That book is ten times more interesting than this one.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Previous review: The Wheel of Fire
Random review: The Classical Greeks
Next review: Paper Girls
Previous library review: 9 innings the anatomy of a baseball game
Next library review: Baseball Cards of the Sixties
Availability. IN PRINT
Type. SABER/MANAGEMENT
Use. NONE THAT I KNOW OF
_explanation_
This review is a combined review of two minor baseball books …. this one and Baseball Cards of the Sixties
I got this book as a gift. Anything about baseball will spark my interest, so I soon started reading it.
Not sure what my expectations were, if I had any … just thinking that I’d find it interesting, almost certainly.
Nope.
Big disappointment.
What was “new” I found irritating.
What wasn’t irritating wasn’t new.
Keith Law is not a good writer. He’s actually a pretty boring writer.
A typical chapter would make a statement that he would set out to demonstrate. The statement, and many variations, would appear several more times. There would be detailed “examples”, encapsulated in little tables, that were supposed to lend support to the statement. Of course there was a lot of cherry-picking of data.
Actually, in some cases the numbers just were not convincing of what he was trying to show. In other cases what he what trying to show (such as, that the Save stat in MLB is quite imperfect) really doesn’t even need to be demonstrated – it’s obvious. BUT – that doesn’t make it a USELESS stat, or one that (as he charges) is the WORST stat ever devised, and has RUINED BASEBALL (?!??!?!?).
The long long subtitle of the book says it all:
“The story behind [1] the old stats that are ruining the game, [2] the new stats that are running it, and [3] the right way to think about baseball.”
[1] basically implies that if fans/sportswriters want to stay interested in those old stats (wins, saves, batting average, rbi, fielding percentage) they are RUINING BASEBALL!! How ridiculous can you get? Is this the same “ruined” game that produced one of the most exciting World Series ever, a month ago?
[2] implies that the NEW stats are being used by MLB front offices to try to make smarter decisions. Well, that may be, of course that’s okay. But why should I, as a fan, give a shit? (This whole story about the whiz kids that now work in the new “analytics” departments in every MLB organization was mindful, to me, of the “quants” that began to run the trading desks for the too-big-to-fail banks 10-15 years ago. We know how that story ended.) AND BY THE WAY – these new stats are really not even explained very well in the book – because it turns out every team has their own way of defining and computing them.
[3] shows what Law thinks of anyone who doesn’t think the way he does about old and new stats. “Well, buddy, you’re wrong.”
A very irritating book. Bill James went over all this stuff fifteen years ago with his Win Shares rating system. That book is ten times more interesting than this one.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Previous review: The Wheel of Fire
Random review: The Classical Greeks
Next review: Paper Girls
Previous library review: 9 innings the anatomy of a baseball game
Next library review: Baseball Cards of the Sixties
July 2, 2022
I learned baseball statistics from baseball cards. At ten. The education my card collection gave me carried me for decades. Evaluate a hitter? Easy — what’s his batting average? how many home runs and RBIs? Easy-peasy.
Then came the sabermetrics revolution. Inspired by analysts like Bill James, touted in books like Moneyball, it was soon adopted by every front office as a cutting edge tool to evaluate player value. Suddenly, my baseball card education was worthless. Baseball stats describing players became unintelligible to me.
That’s why I read this book. Sure there are plenty of traditionalist who rage against the math kids ruining the game, but frankly, they are a past no one is returning to. Plus, I’m at an age where I must actively resist becoming that “Stay off my lawn!” guy. So I needed to educate myself.
Smart Baseball is at its best when explaining the problems and limitations of the old stats. Some, like batting average, were created in the dead ball era and tell us far less than we need to know in the modern game. Others, like RBIs were flawed and wrong headed from the beginning. And then there is fielding percentage which was just always shite. The books also did well in explaining changing strategies. Stealing bases has more value in low scoring eras, and becomes more of a risk when home runs dominate the game. The change in how starters are used is based in real ways the game has changed, and has nothing to do with pitchers of the past being real men and the current crop being wimps. (Imagine that!)
It’s not bad in explaining the new stats either. Law’s explains the triple slash metric (batting average/on base percentage/slugging percentage) clearly, making it easy to see why this is the new standard for describing hitters (even though none of those stats, taken separately, are new). He explains well how not all new stats serve the same purpose. OPS (on-base plus slugging) is bad for evaluating individual players but good for evaluating team performance. Others are a good metric for fans evaluating a game, but have less value for owners evaluating players. Some are best used by front offices to decide whom to pay.
My eyes did eventually glaze over. BABIP, WOBA, VORP, WPA, WAR — are these baseball statistics or New Deal programs? Seriously, though, the author explained all clearly, I just reached a saturation point.
While Law did a fine job of explaining what I wanted to know, his authorial voice was irritating. He’s a little bit snarky, and way too cutesy clever, like the awkward smart kid who thinks he’s being funny and laughs at his own jokes. But if you are willing to endure that, he can teach you something.
Then came the sabermetrics revolution. Inspired by analysts like Bill James, touted in books like Moneyball, it was soon adopted by every front office as a cutting edge tool to evaluate player value. Suddenly, my baseball card education was worthless. Baseball stats describing players became unintelligible to me.
That’s why I read this book. Sure there are plenty of traditionalist who rage against the math kids ruining the game, but frankly, they are a past no one is returning to. Plus, I’m at an age where I must actively resist becoming that “Stay off my lawn!” guy. So I needed to educate myself.
Smart Baseball is at its best when explaining the problems and limitations of the old stats. Some, like batting average, were created in the dead ball era and tell us far less than we need to know in the modern game. Others, like RBIs were flawed and wrong headed from the beginning. And then there is fielding percentage which was just always shite. The books also did well in explaining changing strategies. Stealing bases has more value in low scoring eras, and becomes more of a risk when home runs dominate the game. The change in how starters are used is based in real ways the game has changed, and has nothing to do with pitchers of the past being real men and the current crop being wimps. (Imagine that!)
It’s not bad in explaining the new stats either. Law’s explains the triple slash metric (batting average/on base percentage/slugging percentage) clearly, making it easy to see why this is the new standard for describing hitters (even though none of those stats, taken separately, are new). He explains well how not all new stats serve the same purpose. OPS (on-base plus slugging) is bad for evaluating individual players but good for evaluating team performance. Others are a good metric for fans evaluating a game, but have less value for owners evaluating players. Some are best used by front offices to decide whom to pay.
My eyes did eventually glaze over. BABIP, WOBA, VORP, WPA, WAR — are these baseball statistics or New Deal programs? Seriously, though, the author explained all clearly, I just reached a saturation point.
While Law did a fine job of explaining what I wanted to know, his authorial voice was irritating. He’s a little bit snarky, and way too cutesy clever, like the awkward smart kid who thinks he’s being funny and laughs at his own jokes. But if you are willing to endure that, he can teach you something.
September 17, 2019
This book is good for baseball fans in my particular situation. I'm a Braves fan that followed baseball closely in the 90s while the Braves were a strong team. Once they started losing in the 2000s, I stopped following baseball for a while. I got back into baseball about three years ago, and I was surprised to see quite a lot of new statistics being discussed that I didn't know anything about. This book explains what the new statistics are and why they are better than some of the older statistics. So, this is great for fans who aren't familiar with the new stats for any reason. If you've been keeping up, though, there probably isn't much new here for you.
January 7, 2018
2017 CASEY Award nominee
Briefly: Five years too late
It’s not clear who the intended audience for Smart Baseball is. For the sabermetrically-minded, the book is a retread of well-known objections to the use of batting average, pitcher wins, and saves to assign value to players, followed by an outlining of established sabermetrics focuses like OBP, DIPS, and WAR. For those still eschewing the analytics approach, it’s ubiquitous enough today that this is a conscious choice, so I don’t know what they’re doing picking up a book by Keith Law.
The last 45 pages of this book (chapter 16 on) are plenty worthwhile, and there’s nothing wrong with the first 230 pages—except that the balance is off in 2017. Smart Baseball would’ve benefited from spending less time refuting old line thinking and more time exploring the new frontiers and what’s next in new school baseball.
Briefly: Five years too late
It’s not clear who the intended audience for Smart Baseball is. For the sabermetrically-minded, the book is a retread of well-known objections to the use of batting average, pitcher wins, and saves to assign value to players, followed by an outlining of established sabermetrics focuses like OBP, DIPS, and WAR. For those still eschewing the analytics approach, it’s ubiquitous enough today that this is a conscious choice, so I don’t know what they’re doing picking up a book by Keith Law.
The last 45 pages of this book (chapter 16 on) are plenty worthwhile, and there’s nothing wrong with the first 230 pages—except that the balance is off in 2017. Smart Baseball would’ve benefited from spending less time refuting old line thinking and more time exploring the new frontiers and what’s next in new school baseball.
May 5, 2017
Keith Law was a one time co-host on one of the greatest baseball podcasts I've ever listened to, the short lived 'Baseball Today', which was inexplicably cancelled by ESPN. On that show, his blunt tone and snarky commentary on the old-guard were very influential in changing my perspective on baseball statistics and managerial blunders. Most of the work in Smart Baseball has been discussed by Law (and others) before, but it is a nice compilation of new-ish stats and how they increase our understanding of what has taken place on the field. The wOBA and Hall of Fame chapters were my favorites, with the defensive stuff still seems a bit nebulous to me.
Law's written work lacks his conversational pointedness and abrasive humor. It's hard to write snarky, I guess. But he's super knowledgeable and a very clear writer. He isn't as brash or arrogant as the subtitle to the book would hint. In fact, I was surprised to see humility in one of the final lines of the book stating that there is always going to be something new to learn in baseball, and that conclusions/opinions (his own book included) could in time become irrelevant and outdated. This, he says, is what Smart Baseball is all about.
Good read. I still miss that damn podcast.
Law's written work lacks his conversational pointedness and abrasive humor. It's hard to write snarky, I guess. But he's super knowledgeable and a very clear writer. He isn't as brash or arrogant as the subtitle to the book would hint. In fact, I was surprised to see humility in one of the final lines of the book stating that there is always going to be something new to learn in baseball, and that conclusions/opinions (his own book included) could in time become irrelevant and outdated. This, he says, is what Smart Baseball is all about.
Good read. I still miss that damn podcast.
July 12, 2017
The good news:
The last three chapters are fantastic.
The bad news:
The book is eighteen chapters long.
Look, I'm not really the target audience for this book. Law notes in the intro, "I try to build up from zero here, assuming you come into this book without knowledge of advanced statistics" (5). Yeah, he ain't kidding there, folks. The book is divided into three sections: 1) Smrt Baseball (which describes why old stats are bad), 2) Smart Baseball (which goes into the new stats and what they do right), and 3) Smarter Baseball (which looks at some applications and future of the sabermetric revolution).
The last part is great, as Law notes how all the era of Big Data affects scouting, how MLB Statcast has revolutionized things, and where we go in the future. (Short version: pretty much all front office people Law spoke to thinks that Statcast is a huge change, but also believe that future moves forward will be incremental, not exponential). ---- Quick sidenote: the first chapter in this section isn't that great. It's Hall of Fame arguments that are pretty standard from a sabermetric standard. But the next three chapters really, really are great.
But that last part is also the shortest part of the book. Are you aware of the problems of RBIs, saves, and wins? Well, the Smrt Baseball section is the longest part of the book - a bit over 100 pages.
The middle section is OK, but if you know sabermetrics, it's fairly standard. Law does a nice critique of OPS, but it's nothing special.
This is a book that gets rewritten every few years. The most famous example is Moneyball by Michael Lewis, and that's still the gold standard for this sort of book. Law isn't as good at it as Lewis - but then again few are. Christ, Lewis wrote a book about a banking crisis that became a bestseller and a hit movie. That's tough to compete with.
Then again, this book was most recently done last year - Brian Kenney's Ahead of the Curve. I preferred that one to this. While Kenney also has chapters attacking stats like saves and wins, he doesn't spend the first 100 pages doing only that.
The last three chapters are fantastic.
The bad news:
The book is eighteen chapters long.
Look, I'm not really the target audience for this book. Law notes in the intro, "I try to build up from zero here, assuming you come into this book without knowledge of advanced statistics" (5). Yeah, he ain't kidding there, folks. The book is divided into three sections: 1) Smrt Baseball (which describes why old stats are bad), 2) Smart Baseball (which goes into the new stats and what they do right), and 3) Smarter Baseball (which looks at some applications and future of the sabermetric revolution).
The last part is great, as Law notes how all the era of Big Data affects scouting, how MLB Statcast has revolutionized things, and where we go in the future. (Short version: pretty much all front office people Law spoke to thinks that Statcast is a huge change, but also believe that future moves forward will be incremental, not exponential). ---- Quick sidenote: the first chapter in this section isn't that great. It's Hall of Fame arguments that are pretty standard from a sabermetric standard. But the next three chapters really, really are great.
But that last part is also the shortest part of the book. Are you aware of the problems of RBIs, saves, and wins? Well, the Smrt Baseball section is the longest part of the book - a bit over 100 pages.
The middle section is OK, but if you know sabermetrics, it's fairly standard. Law does a nice critique of OPS, but it's nothing special.
This is a book that gets rewritten every few years. The most famous example is Moneyball by Michael Lewis, and that's still the gold standard for this sort of book. Law isn't as good at it as Lewis - but then again few are. Christ, Lewis wrote a book about a banking crisis that became a bestseller and a hit movie. That's tough to compete with.
Then again, this book was most recently done last year - Brian Kenney's Ahead of the Curve. I preferred that one to this. While Kenney also has chapters attacking stats like saves and wins, he doesn't spend the first 100 pages doing only that.
February 26, 2019
I seemed to have latched on to many of the raft of books about modern baseball statistics. In this, like many of the others out there, the author drills into the details of why old-school baseball stats are not good now, and in some cases were never good measurements or predictors. And, like most other books of its kind, it’s written in a snarky manner, which I forthwith dub “Snarklish”. This book goes in depth on the historic stats, like a pitcher’s won-loss record, defensive ratios, batting average, and the like. He dissects the backs of baseball cards and suggests better stats. As baseball statistical study is really hitting a golden age, with additional computing power, additional measurements being made and published, and new focus by the teams, this is a reasonable book to explain the state of affairs for those that aren’t well read on the sabermetric state of statistics. For those that religiously read Bill James, this will mostly seem very familiar, even the level of snark.
November 3, 2021
There is one flaw in this book - Law has a rather pissy (pun intended) review of a movie I like a lot - The Trouble with the Curve. I understand his argument but that movie is a fictional account of a baseball scout.
The rest of the book is not fiction. Law presents a ton of data about some basic concepts of baseball including things like ERA and Batting Average and a ton of other common stats which really do not tell you anything about what happened either in a game or in the play of individual players. He also presents a set of other data including WAR which more accurately reflect how to understand baseball.
Finally, he does a section on the Sabre Metrics revolution - arguing that all sorts of new data are helping all 30 MLB teams think differently about how to play the game.
When I grew up there were two kinds of baseball fans - one like me who enjoyed watching the game and the wonks who could tell you key stats or lineups back to the Pleistocene era. What Law does is give fans like me a good understanding of the complexity of the game (which I think I always understood) and how parts of it are inter-related. RBIs - as one example, depend on lot on where a batter is in the order.
The book is both informative and entertaining. Next season, as a Dodger fan there is always next season, I will look at the game differently. But I will also see Trouble with the Curve again and still enjoy it!
The rest of the book is not fiction. Law presents a ton of data about some basic concepts of baseball including things like ERA and Batting Average and a ton of other common stats which really do not tell you anything about what happened either in a game or in the play of individual players. He also presents a set of other data including WAR which more accurately reflect how to understand baseball.
Finally, he does a section on the Sabre Metrics revolution - arguing that all sorts of new data are helping all 30 MLB teams think differently about how to play the game.
When I grew up there were two kinds of baseball fans - one like me who enjoyed watching the game and the wonks who could tell you key stats or lineups back to the Pleistocene era. What Law does is give fans like me a good understanding of the complexity of the game (which I think I always understood) and how parts of it are inter-related. RBIs - as one example, depend on lot on where a batter is in the order.
The book is both informative and entertaining. Next season, as a Dodger fan there is always next season, I will look at the game differently. But I will also see Trouble with the Curve again and still enjoy it!
January 12, 2024
Keith’s book was a good fit for what I wanted. The statistics and analytics reviewed were at times done at a basic level for general fans but then added lots of interesting context for diehard fans of history like myself. I was familiar with all the stats before but the book provided great perspective on how value should be considered in baseball. Perhaps Keith’s main shortcoming was with evaluating HOF candidacy, though, as he basically disregarded legendary feats in the postseason, from Puckett & Mazeroski to even Mariano Rivera, in lieu of sabermetrics. Overall a good read for a reader who has interest in baseball stats at any level and their use throughout the sport’s history
June 10, 2020
Knew a decent amount of what KLaw talked about but actually learned a lot about where a lot of the "dumb" stats came from. Would really recommend as an excellent primer on baseball stats for someone who wants to get into baseball analytics.
July 12, 2017
A good introduction to sabermetrics and how advanced statistics are changing the way teams view player acquisition and development. He makes a strong case against traditional statistics like pitcher wins and batting average and explains and defends well the aid that stats like Batting Runs, dRS (defensive runs saved), and constructs like WAR (wins above replacement) provide.
November 3, 2017
Overall I found Keith Law to be an annoyingly smug author. The first third of the book was full of (in my opinion, mostly correct) disassembly and destruction of overused and misleading baseball stats, but done in a way that seems meant to shame and embarrass anyone who didn't already share Law's opinions.
"This line of thinking, of course, is dumber than a sack of hair" - Quote about the pitcher wins stat.
"How has more than a half century passed without this obviously flawed statistic losing its place in basic evaluations of player performance?" - Quote about the RBI stat, before talking about why it is flawed
Those two quotes (and more, I wish I had the digital copy so I could search for the word "idiot") are early in the book, making it an unwelcoming read for someone trying to get a read on the new stats that are "running the game". I guess the subtile of the book should have been a hint that Law was going to be extremely opinionated.
My actual favorite quote of the book however, was Law being a dick to the reader for his assumption that I was being a dick to a straw man he set up. Quote:
"If you thought, "Well, that's stupid," you're incredibly rude, but not far off the mark"
Law doesn't seem to realize that he spent the first half of the book being incredibly rude, and is now chastising his idea of who his reader is. Fuck this guy.
The Statcast chapter was cool though.
2/5 stars.
"This line of thinking, of course, is dumber than a sack of hair" - Quote about the pitcher wins stat.
"How has more than a half century passed without this obviously flawed statistic losing its place in basic evaluations of player performance?" - Quote about the RBI stat, before talking about why it is flawed
Those two quotes (and more, I wish I had the digital copy so I could search for the word "idiot") are early in the book, making it an unwelcoming read for someone trying to get a read on the new stats that are "running the game". I guess the subtile of the book should have been a hint that Law was going to be extremely opinionated.
My actual favorite quote of the book however, was Law being a dick to the reader for his assumption that I was being a dick to a straw man he set up. Quote:
"If you thought, "Well, that's stupid," you're incredibly rude, but not far off the mark"
Law doesn't seem to realize that he spent the first half of the book being incredibly rude, and is now chastising his idea of who his reader is. Fuck this guy.
The Statcast chapter was cool though.
2/5 stars.
October 19, 2017
First off, this book was not written for me; in fact, if you wanted to find the one baseball fan in the world for whom this book wasn't written, I might be that fan. Because I've been writing many of the same things in the book for ... well, I'm afraid it's been more than 20 years now. But if I were another sort of fan, one who hadn't been writing about this stuff for so long, I think I would be crazy for this book. I hope so, anyway. One might need an open mind, and one doesn't know how open one's mind is, until tested.
(Bonus points to Keith for ripping Productive Outs a new one.)
(Bonus points to Keith for ripping Productive Outs a new one.)
April 9, 2019
If you are interested in baseball, and specifically in statistics (the old ones and the new ones), then this is worth reading.
Keith Law is a bit of a jerk sometimes in the way he belittles people who appreciate the old statistics or who don't get the new ones. But it is worth reading past that.
Also, he may overstate his case sometimes and assume he is more convincing than he is. Nonetheless, the information he presents about the statistics is worth considering.
Keith Law is a bit of a jerk sometimes in the way he belittles people who appreciate the old statistics or who don't get the new ones. But it is worth reading past that.
Also, he may overstate his case sometimes and assume he is more convincing than he is. Nonetheless, the information he presents about the statistics is worth considering.
June 7, 2017
I slogged through this book. Lots of math, and stats and new ways to look at the game I love. Not really into trying to understand a lot of what the stat geeks are trying to do with baseball. But its the way people are looking at the game these days so I try to keep up with it.
March 21, 2018
A fun read!
May 26, 2020
His smug-ness comes through his writing....good thing I got this from thrift books....
July 14, 2025
Great book for learning just how backwards baseball thinking was for so long. Especially with awards voting, people in baseball just had no clue how to evaluate player values
August 6, 2018
I stumbled across Keith Law's Twitter account in a discussion about his icon photo, which was the cover of this book. It sounded like a book that I needed to read; my beloved Phillies are, somewhat belatedly, embracing statistical analysis, including all these odd new stats like OBP+ and WAR and I don't know what. I have struggled to understand the new statistics, and it turns out that I don't really have to understand the stats themselves (though they can be interesting to my liberal arts major though also extremely logic-oriented mind), but really just understand why they are better than the stats we are used to, and why all the baseball teams--or the smart ones, anyway--are leaning on them so heavily. Change is difficult to embrace at any time, and while I've been onboard with the new system, since the old one clearly wasn't working over the past few years for the Phillies, it's been difficult for me to really grok it.
But after reading Smart Baseball, now I know! I know why our best batter is batting second instead of fourth, or "cleanup," as an old-time baseball fan would expect. I know why the pitcher (in the National League, of course) sometimes bats eighth instead of ninth. I know why the manager sometimes puts his best relief pitcher out in the sixth inning instead of holding him to close out the ninth.* I understand why the players in the field take little cards out of their back pockets before each player comes up to bat and then move to a different place on the field. I feel much smarter and also really good about all the info that baseball team management is using to make these decisions that may seem odd at the time.
A lot of fans are complaining because change is difficult and they don't get it, but really it's just that the teams are getting a lot of data and learning how to use it to their advantage. After all, as Law points out, in the early days of baseball the idea was to hit the ball and put it in play, and walks were not as common as they are now; but players learned to work a walk, and that it was a good thing to do. That is accepted wisdom now, but it hasn't always been. We all must learn and change.
I don't think I'll ever be a hardcore Sabermetrics geek but I appreciated this book quite a bit and it has added to my enjoyment of a surprising baseball season.
P.S. Joey Bagadonuts forever
*oh lord I was at a game yesterday and this eejit behind me was complaining about the best relief pitcher going out in the seventh instead of holding him to the ninth and I almost turned around to him and screamed, "BECAUSE THEY NEED THREE OUTS RIGHT THE EFF NOW OR THERE MAY NOT BE A LEAD TO DEFEND IN THE NINTH INNING YOU FREAKING MORON" but I refrained so don't say all Philly sports fans are rude because we're not.
But after reading Smart Baseball, now I know! I know why our best batter is batting second instead of fourth, or "cleanup," as an old-time baseball fan would expect. I know why the pitcher (in the National League, of course) sometimes bats eighth instead of ninth. I know why the manager sometimes puts his best relief pitcher out in the sixth inning instead of holding him to close out the ninth.* I understand why the players in the field take little cards out of their back pockets before each player comes up to bat and then move to a different place on the field. I feel much smarter and also really good about all the info that baseball team management is using to make these decisions that may seem odd at the time.
A lot of fans are complaining because change is difficult and they don't get it, but really it's just that the teams are getting a lot of data and learning how to use it to their advantage. After all, as Law points out, in the early days of baseball the idea was to hit the ball and put it in play, and walks were not as common as they are now; but players learned to work a walk, and that it was a good thing to do. That is accepted wisdom now, but it hasn't always been. We all must learn and change.
I don't think I'll ever be a hardcore Sabermetrics geek but I appreciated this book quite a bit and it has added to my enjoyment of a surprising baseball season.
P.S. Joey Bagadonuts forever
*oh lord I was at a game yesterday and this eejit behind me was complaining about the best relief pitcher going out in the seventh instead of holding him to the ninth and I almost turned around to him and screamed, "BECAUSE THEY NEED THREE OUTS RIGHT THE EFF NOW OR THERE MAY NOT BE A LEAD TO DEFEND IN THE NINTH INNING YOU FREAKING MORON" but I refrained so don't say all Philly sports fans are rude because we're not.
August 10, 2018
I love baseball. I love how a game that looks so simple is really so complicated. I love how the game unites different generations of fans. It crosses national borders, it blurs skin colors The only thing that matters are the numbers.
The author proposes that the stats that we’ve been accustomed to for so long really don’t tell us the big picture are outdated or are just useless.
It was hard to digest some of the material and statements put forth by the author but in most cases he uses the data and numbers to prove his point. My only complaint is his disdain (which he does not hide) for some baseball writers, but those are his opinions and he is entitled to them no matter how I feel.
This was a good read and the kind of book you keep around to flip through and read a chapter at random when you see a stat about a player or are just a little bored.
The author proposes that the stats that we’ve been accustomed to for so long really don’t tell us the big picture are outdated or are just useless.
It was hard to digest some of the material and statements put forth by the author but in most cases he uses the data and numbers to prove his point. My only complaint is his disdain (which he does not hide) for some baseball writers, but those are his opinions and he is entitled to them no matter how I feel.
This was a good read and the kind of book you keep around to flip through and read a chapter at random when you see a stat about a player or are just a little bored.
February 9, 2018
Keith Law hits a solid 4 for 5 with a line drive out for the 5th AB in this book. He does a great job of explaining the statistical analysis used in baseball today and helps me see that the stats I grew up on (AVG, HR, RBI for hitters and W, ERA and SO for pitchers) are a small piece of a huge puzzle and mostly irrelevant now in comparison to those used today.
While the book will help me understand the columns of Law, Rob Neyer, and the guys at Baseball Prospectus better, it won’t help my hapless pursuit of a title in fantasy baseball. Good stuff to know that will help me understand and analyze trades and draft picks in the future in MLB.
While the book will help me understand the columns of Law, Rob Neyer, and the guys at Baseball Prospectus better, it won’t help my hapless pursuit of a title in fantasy baseball. Good stuff to know that will help me understand and analyze trades and draft picks in the future in MLB.
July 25, 2017
Smart Baseball, The Info you Need to Appreciate the Game
I have always devoured baseball stats, played table baseball games as a kid (APBA was my choice and later the computer version) so Smart Baseball was a perfect read for someone like me. I also believe it will enhance the enjoyment and understanding of anyone who simply enjoys watching the game. This book provides he information to help you discern the value and also question the stats that have defined the game for years.
I have always devoured baseball stats, played table baseball games as a kid (APBA was my choice and later the computer version) so Smart Baseball was a perfect read for someone like me. I also believe it will enhance the enjoyment and understanding of anyone who simply enjoys watching the game. This book provides he information to help you discern the value and also question the stats that have defined the game for years.
October 28, 2017
'Smart Baseball', by ESPN's Keith Law, is off the charts great if you're a baseball fan and interested in the 'new' stats that are changing, and helping us understand, the game. Law is an ex-scout/front-office guy who is articulate, knowledgeable, and opinionated, and you don't need much more than that. I consider myself highly educated in all things baseball, but I learned a ton from this book. Highly, highly recommended.
August 2, 2019
Law does a great job of storytelling with data, and the book is not only useful for baseball fans, but I point people to it in corporate workshops because an important subtext of the book is that so-called big data (having more data) isn't as important as it is to question the data you already see every day and ask better questions about it, and use that data to influence or make better decisions, or change the "game," at work.
June 23, 2017
Keith Law excellently explains WHY "new" stats and metrics are superior to "traditional" ones. He does so without getting too technical so that even a casual fan can understand his points. Explaining these sabermetrics requires a lot of context, which Law provides in detail. This is an easy and important read for the modern baseball fan.
June 2, 2024
3.5 stars—I found this very informative. But the writing can be somewhat dry and repetitive, and the author can be irritating in his defense of his opinions. For instance, he claims that if you dislike WAR as a statistic, you just “don’t understand it”. Learned a lot but could have done without the snark at times
April 18, 2025
Some really cool insight into how the game has changed in the last quarter century up until the year 2016. Just goes to show that while this information was so new back then, it would be considered old news just 10 years later. Some of the best information and advanced stats found in the tables were really cool and insightful into how we think and approach the game.
Law's writing is so fluid and reminds me of a well written sports blog that goes on and on. Personal biases likely kept this from being a 5-star rating as I thought at times the author used the writing to push his opinions on certain players or potential/snubbed hall of famers. More importantly, I disagree with Law's denial of "the clutch gene." I still like to believe that there is something to be said about a guy who gets it done consistently when it matters even though statistics may say otherwise.
P.S. Make starting pitcher wins great again!
Law's writing is so fluid and reminds me of a well written sports blog that goes on and on. Personal biases likely kept this from being a 5-star rating as I thought at times the author used the writing to push his opinions on certain players or potential/snubbed hall of famers. More importantly, I disagree with Law's denial of "the clutch gene." I still like to believe that there is something to be said about a guy who gets it done consistently when it matters even though statistics may say otherwise.
P.S. Make starting pitcher wins great again!
April 20, 2020
A few parts were a little dull for me, but I learned a lot and enjoyed reading this book.
October 30, 2017
pretty good, I learned a lot. everything you think about baseball stats is probably a fair amount different than reality.
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