sweaver
05-09-2003, 12:34 PM
Sporting a cover blurb of effusive praise from Roger Angell, the second mass-produced version of the Baseball Abstract from Bill James hit the stands in the spring of 1983. James provides a list of readers of the original version of the Abstract in the Acknowledgements, and they are an interesting cross-section of the famous and the obscure. There is also a cut-out blank to send in for a proposed newsletter, which James would produce for a number of years.
The introduction, as usual, dives right into the good stuff, and leads into the Methods section, describing the tools like Runs Created, Range Factor, and the Pythagorean Formula. The New Business section of Methods includes Account-Form box scores, Ballpark Effects, the Log5 Method, and a more complicated formula for Runs Created, among others.
James then dives into the teams, with an essay and stats on each club. In the Cardinals section, he examines how Whitey Herzog adjusted the rotation to keep Andjuar pitching on 3 days rest, with Bob Forsch on 4 days, and the rest working around them, while most teams just went straight 5-man. He also examines the Phillies' leadoff problems, the Expos black hole at 2B, power pitchers in Shea, Joe Torre as manager of the Braves (a cool read in retrospect), 4-man vs. 5-man rotations, Dick Williams and lefty pitchers, the Reds' tremendous (and destructive) roster turnover, bullpen effects, Gene Mauch's strategies, the underachieving Tigers, Gabe Paul, and more. Each ballpark also get a box concerning its tendencies.
The player ranking section follows, with brief comments about each. Longer comments concern Ted Simmons, Steve Garvey, Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Mike Schmidt, Cal Ripken, MVP Robin Yount, Ozzie Smith, Bruce Bochte, and Gaylord Perry, among others. There is also a study using The Favorite Toy of career projections, Power-Speed Number, the Law of Competitive Balance, and an essay reprinted from the 1980 Abstract titled "What Does it Take?" on Hall of Fame standards.
As with all the Abstracts, there's a lot there.
The introduction, as usual, dives right into the good stuff, and leads into the Methods section, describing the tools like Runs Created, Range Factor, and the Pythagorean Formula. The New Business section of Methods includes Account-Form box scores, Ballpark Effects, the Log5 Method, and a more complicated formula for Runs Created, among others.
James then dives into the teams, with an essay and stats on each club. In the Cardinals section, he examines how Whitey Herzog adjusted the rotation to keep Andjuar pitching on 3 days rest, with Bob Forsch on 4 days, and the rest working around them, while most teams just went straight 5-man. He also examines the Phillies' leadoff problems, the Expos black hole at 2B, power pitchers in Shea, Joe Torre as manager of the Braves (a cool read in retrospect), 4-man vs. 5-man rotations, Dick Williams and lefty pitchers, the Reds' tremendous (and destructive) roster turnover, bullpen effects, Gene Mauch's strategies, the underachieving Tigers, Gabe Paul, and more. Each ballpark also get a box concerning its tendencies.
The player ranking section follows, with brief comments about each. Longer comments concern Ted Simmons, Steve Garvey, Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Mike Schmidt, Cal Ripken, MVP Robin Yount, Ozzie Smith, Bruce Bochte, and Gaylord Perry, among others. There is also a study using The Favorite Toy of career projections, Power-Speed Number, the Law of Competitive Balance, and an essay reprinted from the 1980 Abstract titled "What Does it Take?" on Hall of Fame standards.
As with all the Abstracts, there's a lot there.