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A Fan’s Guide to Baseball Analytics:
Why WAR, WHIP, wOBA, and Other Advanced Sabermetrics Are Essential to
Understanding Modern Baseball

The author:
Anthony Castrovince

The publishing info:
Sports Publishing/Skyhorse
$16.99
240 pages
Released May 12

The links:
At the publisher’s website
At Amazon.com
At BarnesAndNoble.com
At Powells.com
At Indiebound.org

The review in 90 feet or less

The discussion over who most deserved the 2012 American League MVP Award – Angels rookie sensation Mike Trout or Tigers’ Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera – appeared to depend far less on how voters quantified a player’s value and more on how they valued certain statistics.

Eventually, an important WAR broke out over the weight of some very basic sabermetrics. Baseball’s older, old and not so old grabbed a handrail and payed attention to this shifting ground.

After the fact, ESPN did a whole issue about analytics and how it pertained to this decision, in its February, 2013 issue. But long before that, when editors of The Daily News thought it would be worthwhile to have me and writer J.P. Hoornstra publicly hash things out on the front page of the Sept. 24, 2012 edition – the season wasn’t even over yet – it was couched as a classic “new-vs.-old school mentality.” There was the weighted scales of how was also about whether this 21-year-old on a team that would be missing the playoffs deserved taking this honor from a veteran player, whose team was bound for the playoffs, and was accomplishing a feat that hadn’t been done in decades.

There was no regional bias in that we were all enamored with Trout. Not just his “traditional” average/power numbers, but also his nearly 50 stolen bases, and his phenomenal defense. He was “Magic Mike.”

Since I was taking the “old school” argument, it was mostly based on “this is how we’ve done it in the past.” What pushed me for Cabrera was accomplishing the league lead in average, homers and RBIs, plus the fact the team was going to the post-season. And he was finishing strong.

The pivot to this whole discussion was Wins Above Replacement. Trout led the league, above 10. Cabrera wasn’t so bad, either.

My final argument: “I’m most impressed with the fact Trout has saved 25 runs with his defense (again, a stat I’m not sure how it’s devised) and he’s only been caught stealing four times. Zack Greinke and Felix Hernandez already have turned the tide on how Sabermetrics can determine a Cy Young Award, and this may take it to the next step. It’s just a shame if Cabrera pulls this rarity and doesn’t win. It’s something that happened to four Triple Crown winners in the past, but that didn’t make it necessarily right (see: Williams, Ted; hated by reporters). Trout and Cabrera both have great stories.”

I asked for a tie (see: 1979 NL MVP). When the votes came in, Cabrera (.330, 44 HRs, 139 RBIs from the No. 3 spot, plus a .606 slugging percentage and 6.9 WAR for the AL champion Tigers) won far too easily over Trout (.326, 30 HRs, 83 RBIs from the leadoff spot, a league-best 129 runs and 49 steals and a MLB best 10.7 WAR). Easily. It shouldn’t have been that way, but it was. Old school won. Perhaps, for the last time.

So now, on pages 189-200 in Anthony Castrovince’s old school/new school updated guidebook on baseball analytics that focuses especially Wins Above Replacement, he can take that 2012 example and, with hindsight, better summarize:

You can protest WAR, and many have. Complex thinkers have derided it as too simple, and simple thinkers have derided it as too complex. … To be very clear: WAR has flaws. But if nothing else it’s a quick and dirty starting point.

In this book, it’s actually the end point – the final chapter in the fifth and last section of a book, and probably the best place to put it, because of how it ties together and captures the intricacies of all the stats discussed before it.

But getting to this point, you have to start with now-obvious flaws of the “old stats” – batting average, RBIs, errors, pitching victories and saves, covered in Section 1. Then after those 38 pages comes the parade of newer, sometimes esoteric, occasionally hair-splitting calculations that have grown from the Bill James movement.

That would be, in order presented here for purposeful reasons: OBP, SLG, OPS, RC, ISO, wOBA, wRC+, BsR, ERA+, WHIP, GSs, FIP, DRS, UZR, Diff, SRS, DER, WP, MN, BABIP, xBA, xSLG, xwOBA and WPA.

(Just then, we had a flash back there of our junior year in high school, having finished advanced algebra, geometry and trig, we were asked if we would be continuing on with the group into the calculus phase of this mathematical maze. Initially — both rhetorically and literally — we were scared at what we saw on the horizon. Suddenly, the 26 letters of the alphabet looked far easier to master into sentences and paragraphs over in the English department than trying to wrestle with these these calculations that only added up to doom for whatever jobs we might enjoy going forward. For what it was worth, we scored far higher on the math portion of the SAT than we did the English side of it, so math got us a better seat in the college admissions offices). Continue reading “Extra inning baseball book reviews for 2020: No need to start a nerdy WAR over MLB’s new metrics system … try some cool WHIP” →

“Big Sexy: Bartolo Colon In His Own Words”

The author:
Bartolo Colon
with Michael Stahl
Illustrations by Meagan Ross

The publishing info:
Abrams
$24.99
208 pages
Released May 12

The links:
At the publisher’s website
At Amazon.com
At BarnesAndNoble.com
At Powells.com
At Indiebound.org
At the author’s website

The review in 90 feet or less

Big Bart was in the news recently. On his 47^th birthday, as a matter of fact, right before Memorial Day.

“I’m not retired,” he proclaimed. “I know this is not a sport for the old, it’s for the young. Even though I’m not playing right now, I tried to keep fit.”

An Associated Press story pointed out that for Colon, it’s still a numbers game. The number 46 is more important that 47, because if he can just log 46 more innings with a big-league team he will have passed Juan Marichal with the most by a Dominican pitcher. Colon already passed Marichal in career wins with 247.

When the 2019 MLB season started, Colon also made some news by not playing: The fact he wasn’t on any roster, combined with the retirement of Adrian Beltre, meant that there no longer any active players left from the 20^th Century.

Kind of a jarring headline, but you figure it out.

If we’re talking more numbers about Colon here:

With the new book “Big Sexy,” it measures 7×9 inches, which may not seem to be all the relevant, but in the book world, it’s a bit odd shaped. Maybe on purpose, consider Colon’s, eh, physique?

(To which, we refer to a quote of Colon’s on page 188: “Sometimes in my career, I heard fans yelling at me things like ‘Fat boy’ or ‘Eat some more hamburgers’ or ‘Eat some salads so you can lose weight, you fucking fatty.’ They think I don’t understand, but I do. It never bothered me, though. … When it comes to my body, I feel good the way I am; that’s all that matters.”

(And as for whether he understood the English fans were yelling:  “I speak English better than most people know, but I’m much more comfortable with Spanish … I’m not sure if the opportunity will ever come about because of the language barrier with me, but if I were asked to be a pitching coach somewhere, I think I woudl like that. It would be an honor.”)

It only has 208 pages, but that’s not an issue either, because it’s very visually  driven. Words are important, but this isn’t close to any of the expanded bios one might find these days on any athlete.

In a word, this is somewhat ground-breaking. It’s a hybrid of a graphic novel and a magazine story, with bold/pastel colors that would seem to be geared more toward a teen than a seasoned baseball fan who recalls all he did for the Angels during his 2005 Cy Young season (21-8, 3.48 ERA, 4.0 WAR for AL West champions, with 84 percent share of the vote ahead of runner-up Mariano Riviera). Continue reading “Extra inning baseball book reviews for 2020: “Big Sexy” education, or the new scent of Bartolo Colon” →

“Doc: The Life of Roy Halladay”

The author:
Todd Zolecki

The publishing info:
Triumph Books
$28
352 pages
Released May 19

The links:
At the publisher’s website
At Amazon.com
At BarnesAndNoble.com
At Powells.com
At Indiebound.org

The review in 90 feet or less

We had this idea back at the MLB trade deadline of 2009, advocating for the Dodgers to shore up their patchwork pitching rotation to do whatever was necessary to grab veteran ace Roy Halladay for the stretch run during a Toronto Blue Jays fire sale.

Even if the cost was swapping out this new young gun named Clayton Kershaw.

“Thanks for all, Kershaw, but Dodgers now need a Halladay” started this way:

Clayton Kershaw, thanks for all the weeks you’ve put in as a member of the Dodgers. We admire your tiresome efforts to get past the sixth inning start after start after start. … But now you have a higher calling. You’ve become our sacrificial left-hander in our quest to make the city of Los Angeles temporarily misremember that the Lakers’ 2009-10 season will start in just three months.

The Toronto Blue Jays have made it known they would like to have you on their roster. We will oblige them – in turn, by taking Harry Leroy “Doc” Halladay III off their payroll. We consider this a win-win situation. We’ll win more games. You’ll win more opportunities to endorse snow tires in eastern Canada.

In Kershaw, you relent on the chance he’ll develop into an elite hurler.
In Halladay, you get it, guaranteed.

In Kershaw, you dispatch someone who may never adjust to life in the Great White North, unable to avoid another Tim Horton’s doughnut-stuffing break from his flat on the way to the stadium.
In Halladay, you get someone due $5 million for the rest of this season, $15 million more for next season (or a bit less than what the Dodgers are giving to Jason Schmidt for his painful efforts), and the inside track to signing him until he’s finished with some Hall of Fame-worthy numbers.

So, it didn’t happen. No Halladay trade even came about by July 31, even if the Phillies — champions in ’08 and eventual NLCS champs in ’09 — tried.

Good, bad or indifferent to all teams involved?

That 2009 season would be Halladay’s 13^th and final one in Toronto, a franchise dumping salary and going no where. In his age 32 season, he would be nearing 150 career wins and continue to annually lead the AL in complete games, innings pitched and expending energy on a team that couldn’t make the playoffs.

That same year, Kershaw, at age 21, would still be just a .500 pitcher trying to find his way – 13-13 after some 50 starts, a season where he’d also amass a career-high 91 walks in 171 innings, up against 185 strikeouts. His breakout wouldn’t come for two more seasons. The Dodgers’ 2009 season ended up in an NLCS loss to the Phillies, trying to make due with a staff that only got a team-best 12 wins from 24-year-old Chad Billingsley, plus Randy Wolf, Kershaw in the No. 3 hole, Hiroki Kuroda and Jeff Weaver, with help from Vicente Padilla and Eric Stultz.

See how Halladay could have been one to strap them all to his back?

Note: As we read now in this bio,  the Angels actually came closer than the Dodgers to making something happen in July 2009 — Toronto wanted Jered Weaver or Joe Saunders, plus shortstop Erick Aybar and outfield prospect Peter Bourjos. The Angels turned it down — with Aybar as the deal-breaker.

In the 2009 offseason, Halladay ended up getting traded to Philadelphia, for Travis d’Arnaud, Kyle Drabek and Michael Taylor. The Phillies had playoff momentum and wanted to keep it as some key players were leaving.

Halladay’s annual salary jumped to $20 million a year, and the Phillies appear to get their money’s worth — a 21-10 record, a 2.44 ERA, nine complete games, nearly 1,000 batters faced, and a second career Cy Young Award. He threw the spectacular no-hitter against Cincinnati in the NLDS and then did all he could when the Phillies ran into the San Francisco Giants in the NLCS, with Halladay twice going up against Tim Lincecum, losing Game 1, 4-3, but getting the win in a 4-2 Game 5 triumph.

Halladay followed that up with 19 wins in 2011 — a Cy Young runner-up to the now-emerging Kershaw, who took his first trophy.

But that was about all Halladay had left.

He would combine 2012 and ’13 with a 15-13 record and an ERA of about 5.00 in 38 starts. He wanted to pitch through all this pain in his shoulder — taking pain meds that made him lose weight and send up red flags. He wanted to finish the contract he signed up for.

His wife, Brandy, begged him to quit. She explains, starting on page 259: Continue reading “Extra inning baseball book reviews for 2020: Now it’s “Doc,” with all of Roy Halladay’s perfect moments and personal imperfections … then an ESPN doc” →

“A High Five for Glenn Burke”

The author:
Phil Bildner

The publishing info:
Farrah, Straus and Giroux/MacMillian
For ages 10-13/Grades 5-7
$16.99 hardcover
$7.99 paperback
288 pages
Released February, 2020

The links:
At the publisher’s website
At Amazon.com
At BarnesAndNoble.com
At Powells.com
At Indiebound.org
At the author’s very cool website

The review in 90 feet or less

My two kids are a couple decades removed from this early-teen age range, yet I never stop wondering how a middle-schooler purposefully navigates today’s world with everything thrown at them.

We remember some of our own experiences in the 1970s. We saw our own son and daughter work through the trial-and-error stages at their own pace, with school as a foundation and sports/dance/clubs/music as an extension of finding path to what interested them. This is on top of having divorced parents. They might not have realized how they were figuring out lessons about becoming more independent while realizing the benefits of teamwork, how individual achievement can be enjoyed when looking back at the ways hurdles were overcome in the process. There’s self esteem and empathy and all those esoteric things that later would have far more defined labels, but at this point, were just concepts to wrestle with.

In 2020, how might a kid process such adult-based media concept about the increasing acceptance amidst the stigmas that continue to push back about an LGBTQ “authentic” existence? What do kids in this age range stumble upon watching YouTube or social media that affects their thinking and image?

The way author Phil Bildner finds an entry point into this topic for this age group, having done noteworthy work with his baseball-based “Sluggers Book” series (2009-’10) for age 8-12, is through a multi-layered baseball story.

Dodgers followers who may know various elements of the Glenn Burke story — the athletic center fielder with star potential who was on the 1977 NL pennant-winning roster, but then oddly traded to his hometown of Oakland in the middle of the ’78 season to his teammates disappointment. He was out of the game after four MLB seasons. Burke’s sexuality was acknowledged and accepted by many of his Dodgers teammates, but not by management.

In 1995, Burke was able to work with writer Erik Sherman to author his autobiography, “Out At Home: The True Story of Glenn Burke, Baseball’s First Openly Gay Player.” Burke died that year, in May, at age 42. More about Burke’s life and times can be found in OutSports.com, a 2010 documentary, “OUT: The Glenn Burke Story” produced by Doug Harris, and a marvelous 2014 story in the New York Times by John Branch. An ESPN “30 For 30” film “The High Five” directed by Michael Jacobs is also in circulation.

In Bildner’s novel, sixth-grader Silas Wade is already navigating the rapid-paced life of a mom who just started a coffee house but practices “self care” and a dad with tight schedule as a CPA. His two younger sisters also demand attention – especially one with special needs. He find comfort in the friendship of a classmate, Zoey, a member of the school’s robotics team, as they juggle schedules, share rides to practices and events, and become intertwined in their successes and failures.

Introducing Burke into Silas’ world as the subject of a school presentation – who invented the high five? – also gives Silas a starting point to see how he feels about what Burke endured as a baseball player, and afterward. Silas wears No. 3 on his baseball team – like Burke (but also as a nod to Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez from the movie “The Sandlot,” who, in the sweet ending to the flick, also ends up playing for the Dodgers).

Bildner doesn’t sugar-coat any of the Burke facts – pointing out how Dodgers general manager Al Campanis tried to pay him to get married, and how managers  Tommy Lasorda and Billy Martin dealt with it in their own insecure ways. In pulling from stories and books done about Burke, Bildner builds the story.

By chapter 8, Silas is already struggling with how to tell Zoey about his feelings. Continue reading “Extra inning baseball book reviews for 2020: Glenn Burke, high-five alive, for kids who need to know his story” →

“The Final Game at Ebbets Field”

The author:
Noel Hynd

The publishing info:
Red Cat Tales Publishing LLC/Los Angeles
241 pages
$14.95
Released June, 2019

The links:
At Amazon.com
At Powells.com
At Indiebound.org

The review in 90 feet or less

From what we’ve come to find out about Noel Hynd — piecing together bios of him on the Internet Movie Database (imdb.com), something called the FantasticFiction.com site, more from Amazon.com’s author info, a touch more from Encyclopedia.com, and another tale spun on GoodReads.com — we’ve got something of a good read on this prolific writer, born somewhere between 1947 and 1952, far more known in the world of fiction novels, New York born and now based in Culver City.

From what we really don’t know about the last game played at Ebbets Field – a Baseball Hall of Fame story notes the end “came quietly, with just 6,702 fans watching … the cheers, however, resound to this day” — added up to a 2-0 Dodgers win on Tuesday, Sept. 24, 1957, with someone named Danny McDevitt going the distance. The two-hour, three-minute exercise seemed to be a bit of a footnote to the history of the place.

It wasn’t the last games played by the Brooklyn Dodgers. They went to Philadelphia, lost two of their last three, and polished off a 84-70 season, 11 games behind NL champion Milwaukee.

With those two points on the map, the intersection of Hynd and Dodger history in these self-published pages is an odd burst of non-conformist confusion, inspiration and, when we’re done, splendid bliss.

It’s also award worthy. Continue reading “Extra inning baseball book reviews for 2020: In hindsight, Hynd’s reward for remembering the end of Ebbets Field is a salad bowl of information” →