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 [First edition] 9780062490223, 9780062490254, 0062490222

Predictably Irrational meets Moneyball in ESPN veteran writer and statistical analyst Keith Law’s iconoclastic look at t

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English Pages viii, 291 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm Year 2017

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Table of contents :
Introduction --
Smrt baseball. Below average : the fundamental flaws of batting average
Pitcher wins : one guy gets the credit for everyone else's work
RBI : baseball's unreliable narrator
Holtzman's folly : how the save rule has ruined baseball
Stolen bases : crime only pays if you never get caught
Fielding percentage : the absolute worst way to measure defense
Bulfinch's baseball mythology : clutch hitters, lineup protection, and other things that don't exist --
Smart baseball. OBP is life : why on-base percentage is the measure of a hitter
The power and the glory : slugging percentage and OPS
wOBA/WRC : the ultimate measure of the hitter (until the next one)
ERA and the riddle of pitching versus defense
WPA : measuring clutch, if you must
The black box : how baseball teams measure defense today
No puns intended : going to WAR to value the whole player --
Smarter baseball. Applied math : looking at Hall of Fame elections using newer stats
No trouble with the curve : how scouting works, and how the statistical revolution is changing it
The next big thing is here, the revolution's near : MLB statcast
The edge of tomorrow : where the future of stats might take us --
Epilogue.

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 [First edition]
 9780062490223, 9780062490254, 0062490222

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