The Bill James Gold Mine 2008

by Bill James

"New essays, statistical profiles, and hidden "nuggets" from the man who revolutionized baseball analysis"--Cover.

Genres: Baseball, Sports, Nonfiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published February 15, 2007

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

[Steven Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoy reading the array of Bill James books that come out. "Gold Mine" is one of those annual works that brings a smile to my face. I do wish that there were more statistics per team, but the quirky little essays that are scattered throughout the book provide value added material for the reader.

The first quirky essay is "The 96 families of hitters," in which James creates families of hitters, based on similar statistics (the ratio of doubles to triples to homers). He analyzes all major league hitters with an OPS (a function of on base percentage and slugging percentage) of .800 or more. Let's take a look at Family 415A: Members include Hank Aaron, Barry Bonds, Willie Mays, Frank Robinson, Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, and Alex Rodriguez. Or Family 415C: Ernie Banks, Yogi Berra, Dale Murphy, Luke Easter,, Joe Adcock, and Bobby Bonds. And on it goes. It's most enjoyable to run through the families.

There are brief (too brief, in my view) snippets of statistics for each major league team. Let's take the Chicago Cubs. Some basic statistics. The highest OPS for 2008 was captured by center fielder Jim Edmonds (I never would have guessed that!) with .937. One more statistic to give a sense of what's included in this book: Alfonso Soriano's pitch analysis--pitches seen, pitches taken, and pitches swung at. If swung at, was the swing a miss (27% of the time), 36% were fouled off, and 36% were put into play. What about the Southsiders, the White Sox? Highest OPS was Carlos Quentin at .965. And there is a fascinating breakdown of balls hit on the fly or on the ground or line drives to left, center, and right fields. Cool factoid: of 46 fly balls to left field, half went over the fence for a home run.

Other interesting sidebars--what pitchers threw the most gems over the past few years (defined as a sterling start); what the value of a stolen base is to each major league team; top Triple Crown seasons of all time.

In short, another solid hit from the Bill James Empire. Baseball enthusiasts who love statistics and are confirmed supporters of sabermetrics will have fun with this volume.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

While there are other Sabremetricians writing other good baseball books (most notably Rob Neyer, John Thorn and Pete Palmer), I still find Bill James's writing the most compelling. Perhaps it's because he's done it the longest. But I think it's because he chooses the best subjects to write about. As he explains in one of his essays, the job of the sabremetrician is to use tools to break down a subjective question (say, is Juan Pierre better than Ichiro Suzuki) into smaller objective pieces (say, hitting for power, hitting for average, fielding, etc.) that can in turn be put together in ways to learn something new.

He does that in the Gold Mine by looking at the statistics of every team's performance during the last season. He picks out nuggets, like the fact that for the entire 2007 season, the Washington Nationals did not out-homer their opponents in any game that they won, and then riffs on these data points to see if he can come up with bigger baseball truths. Sometimes he uses just sidebars and shaded boxes. Sometimes, inspiration strikes and he comes up with entire multi-page essays.

This is like jazz riffing using baseball statistics. It is very hard to do and only a master like Bill James can do it well.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reread this when I ran out of library books during 3-day (or was it 30? maybe that was subjective time) power outage. Not as great as the old annual baseball abstracts he did, but a nice sampler of James' funny writing and distinctive voice as he reports baseball research. A little heavy-handed on the ads for his subscription-based website, but if you can ignore that, a fun read for those who like baseball, data, and clear thinking about the interrelation of the two.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love everything that James has ever written. I would devour a dissertation about Stanley Jefferson's 1989 season with glee if only James would take the time to tackle the topic.

-m

[Ray Charbonneau · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK. Lots of fun facts, and a few good essays, but not anywhere near as much fun as the old Abstracts.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Basically a big advertisement for this website.

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not just for stat-heads; as with all of James' best work, the essays, frequently hilarious, always insightful, are the best part.