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Winners: How Good Baseball Teams Become Great Ones
""We're all winners, as Dayn Perry serves as our trusted guide on this idiosyncratic but profoundly informative walking tour of the great teams and players of the last few decades.""
--Rob Neyer, ESPN.com ""Dayn Perry's really got something here. Part history, part handbook, Winners is an essential read for anyone trying to understand how great teams get that way.""
--Joe Sheehan, BaseballProspetus.com ""We look at baseball from so many angles today that we too often forget the point is not to look at the game from an interesting view for its own sake, but to learn how it works, in the service of learning why teams win. Any fan who wants to know will find their answers in this book.""
--Tim Marchman, baseball columnist, ""The New York Sun"" ""Dayn Perry crafts a lively narrative that blends astute analysis with clever storytelling. He gets to the bottom of what makes a great team tick.""
--Kevin Towers, General Manager and Executive Vice President, San Diego Padres
--Rob Neyer, ESPN.com ""Dayn Perry's really got something here. Part history, part handbook, Winners is an essential read for anyone trying to understand how great teams get that way.""
--Joe Sheehan, BaseballProspetus.com ""We look at baseball from so many angles today that we too often forget the point is not to look at the game from an interesting view for its own sake, but to learn how it works, in the service of learning why teams win. Any fan who wants to know will find their answers in this book.""
--Tim Marchman, baseball columnist, ""The New York Sun"" ""Dayn Perry crafts a lively narrative that blends astute analysis with clever storytelling. He gets to the bottom of what makes a great team tick.""
--Kevin Towers, General Manager and Executive Vice President, San Diego Padres
248 pages, Hardcover
First published February 1, 2006
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About the author
Dayn Perry
9 books3 followersDayn Perry is an author and baseball journalist. He was also a special consultant for the San Diego Padres from 2001–2003.
Perry is a Mississippi native who now lives in Chicago. He got his bachelor's degree in English and master's degree in Creative Writing from Mississippi College.[28] He describes himself as "a husband, father, dog owner, sports writer, practicing Catholic, non-proselytizing vegetarian, Mississippi native, Chicago resident, and zealous and abiding fan of the St. Louis Cardinals."
Dayn is the uncle of Kimberly, Neil, and Reid Perry, siblings and members of The Band Perry.
Perry is a Mississippi native who now lives in Chicago. He got his bachelor's degree in English and master's degree in Creative Writing from Mississippi College.[28] He describes himself as "a husband, father, dog owner, sports writer, practicing Catholic, non-proselytizing vegetarian, Mississippi native, Chicago resident, and zealous and abiding fan of the St. Louis Cardinals."
Dayn is the uncle of Kimberly, Neil, and Reid Perry, siblings and members of The Band Perry.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 5, 2015
Perry offers a graduate-level course in Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by mining the statistics of the 124 MLB playoff teams from 1980-2003.
More descriptive than prescriptive, Perry works with averages, and (for those of us who aren't sabermetricians) some strange new acronyms such as SNLVAR, PRAR, and VORP, to isolate the tendencies of good teams. I use the term "tendencies" advisedly, because dealing with averages and comparisons reveals tendencies but not causation, so the subtitle of the book overstates its case.
It is still fascinating reading for a baseball fan, as Perry breaks down the reasons usually given for success on the field: great hitting, great pitching (starting, middle relief, or closer) , defense, base running, deadline deals, experience (or youth), payroll, and luck.
Perry generally does a good job making the numbers clear as he recalculates, adjusts, and ranks them for us, then pulls examples from the teams and players to explain the on-the-field side behind the numbers. Sometimes, these team and player profiles overwhelm the numbers, and sometimes Perry goes too far afield so that the reader loses his point, but it makes for interesting reading anyway.
And no, there is no magic bullet for success. Perry's numbers reveals some trends, but they aren't so dominant or consistent that there is only one clear way to build a winner. You need some sluggers (power over average), you need to play better than average defense (valuing speed over fielding percentage), you need pitchers who throw strikes to keep runners off base, you need a manager who utilizes his bullpen and baserunning strategies wisely, and you need to draft well and retain your best free agents. Within those general guidelines, there are countless different stories, and it is that myriad of ways the game plays out on the field that keeps us coming back to baseball.
More descriptive than prescriptive, Perry works with averages, and (for those of us who aren't sabermetricians) some strange new acronyms such as SNLVAR, PRAR, and VORP, to isolate the tendencies of good teams. I use the term "tendencies" advisedly, because dealing with averages and comparisons reveals tendencies but not causation, so the subtitle of the book overstates its case.
It is still fascinating reading for a baseball fan, as Perry breaks down the reasons usually given for success on the field: great hitting, great pitching (starting, middle relief, or closer) , defense, base running, deadline deals, experience (or youth), payroll, and luck.
Perry generally does a good job making the numbers clear as he recalculates, adjusts, and ranks them for us, then pulls examples from the teams and players to explain the on-the-field side behind the numbers. Sometimes, these team and player profiles overwhelm the numbers, and sometimes Perry goes too far afield so that the reader loses his point, but it makes for interesting reading anyway.
And no, there is no magic bullet for success. Perry's numbers reveals some trends, but they aren't so dominant or consistent that there is only one clear way to build a winner. You need some sluggers (power over average), you need to play better than average defense (valuing speed over fielding percentage), you need pitchers who throw strikes to keep runners off base, you need a manager who utilizes his bullpen and baserunning strategies wisely, and you need to draft well and retain your best free agents. Within those general guidelines, there are countless different stories, and it is that myriad of ways the game plays out on the field that keeps us coming back to baseball.
June 9, 2016
Briefly: Poorly titled
Never has a book over-promised and under-delivered to such a degree. Dayn Perry promises to explain why good baseball teams become great ones, but instead takes what could be a 30-40 page article at best and pads it with stories of Pedro Guerrero’s legal troubles, Rickey Henderson’s clubhouse reputation, Doc Gooden’s up-and-down career, and more of the same ilk. His analysis is buried in between these player biographies (“Here’s a table of top pitching duos by SNLVAR. Here’s four pages on Phil Niekro, who happens to appear second on that list.”), with no real attempt to draw any further conclusions from said biographies.
Beyond presentation, Perry’s methodology is deeply flawed: By viewing success at the team level and without any attempt to suss out true talent, Perry’s analysis becomes descriptive rather than prescriptive. For example, most analytics-inclined baseball fans know defense-independent pitching statistics (DIPS) are more useful in assessing pitcher talent than stats like ERA. However, because it’s better to be lucky than good, teams that make the playoffs are more likely to have good ERAs than good DIPS measures. This flawed approach permeates Perry’s entire book.
If you’d like a random collection of player biographies, this is the book for you. But if you’re looking for an analysis of how good baseball teams become great ones, don’t waste your time.
Never has a book over-promised and under-delivered to such a degree. Dayn Perry promises to explain why good baseball teams become great ones, but instead takes what could be a 30-40 page article at best and pads it with stories of Pedro Guerrero’s legal troubles, Rickey Henderson’s clubhouse reputation, Doc Gooden’s up-and-down career, and more of the same ilk. His analysis is buried in between these player biographies (“Here’s a table of top pitching duos by SNLVAR. Here’s four pages on Phil Niekro, who happens to appear second on that list.”), with no real attempt to draw any further conclusions from said biographies.
Beyond presentation, Perry’s methodology is deeply flawed: By viewing success at the team level and without any attempt to suss out true talent, Perry’s analysis becomes descriptive rather than prescriptive. For example, most analytics-inclined baseball fans know defense-independent pitching statistics (DIPS) are more useful in assessing pitcher talent than stats like ERA. However, because it’s better to be lucky than good, teams that make the playoffs are more likely to have good ERAs than good DIPS measures. This flawed approach permeates Perry’s entire book.
If you’d like a random collection of player biographies, this is the book for you. But if you’re looking for an analysis of how good baseball teams become great ones, don’t waste your time.
February 3, 2009
It's the middle of Winter, yet Spring Training is just weeks away. What better time to read a book about baseball?
The subtitle is "How Good Baseball Teams Become Great Ones (and It Not the Way You Think)". This book (written in 2005) gives a complete statistical analysis of MLB playoff teams from 1980 through 2003 to see how those teams were different from teams that did not make the playoffs. I know that sounds a little dry, and there is no doubt that numbers play a big part of the book. However, the best parts for me are the many anecdotes and histories to illustrate the points being made in each chapter. If you wanted to, you could pretty much skip all the statistical sections and still enjoy reading about the story of how free agency came about, how Ted Turner acquired the Braves and built it into the powerhouse it was for 20 years, how the Philadelphia & KC Athletics served as the Yankees ersatz farm system, how the current role of the reliever was developed in Oakland by Tony LaRussa and Dennis Eckersley, why the Twins' Bert Blyleven deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, and on and on and on.
If you know and follow the game of baseball, I think you will like this book. Also, I really like the cover. I can hear the crack of the bat in that photo.
The subtitle is "How Good Baseball Teams Become Great Ones (and It Not the Way You Think)". This book (written in 2005) gives a complete statistical analysis of MLB playoff teams from 1980 through 2003 to see how those teams were different from teams that did not make the playoffs. I know that sounds a little dry, and there is no doubt that numbers play a big part of the book. However, the best parts for me are the many anecdotes and histories to illustrate the points being made in each chapter. If you wanted to, you could pretty much skip all the statistical sections and still enjoy reading about the story of how free agency came about, how Ted Turner acquired the Braves and built it into the powerhouse it was for 20 years, how the Philadelphia & KC Athletics served as the Yankees ersatz farm system, how the current role of the reliever was developed in Oakland by Tony LaRussa and Dennis Eckersley, why the Twins' Bert Blyleven deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, and on and on and on.
If you know and follow the game of baseball, I think you will like this book. Also, I really like the cover. I can hear the crack of the bat in that photo.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews