Sabermetrics
From BR Bullpen
"Baseball fans love numbers. They love to swirl them around their mouths like Bordeaux wine." - Pat Conroy
"Baseball fans pay more attention to numbers than CPAs." - Jim Murray
Sabermetrics is the study of baseball using statistics. The term is attributed to Bill James (author), the field's most celebrated author, and is derived from the acronym SABR, for the Society for American Baseball Research.
James, who has recently parlayed his fame into a special advisory role with the Boston Red Sox, is only the most notable (and perhaps prolific) in a long list of people who have published sabermetric works of significance. James began publishing his annual Baseball Abstract books in the mid-1970's.
"I don't understand. All of a sudden, it's not just BA and Runs Scored, it's OBA. And what is it with O P S ?" - Harold Reynolds in 2004
Statistics had been part of the game since Henry Chadwick had invented basic statistical concepts in the middle of the 19th century, but until the advent of modern sabermetrics there had been relatively little serious study. As the decades went by, the game had changed enough that the original statistical concepts gradually grew less and less suitable to adequately describe the game.
In 2004, Alan Schwarz published The Numbers Game, which recounts in some detail not only the historical interaction between baseball and its statistics, but the stories of many of the people who were integral to the collection, analysis, and dissemination of those statistics.
Other prominent authors in the field of sabermetrics include George Lindsey, Earnshaw Cook, Dick Cramer, Pete Palmer, and Jim Albert.
The 2003 publication of Michael Lewis's bestseller, Moneyball, which chronicled the Oakland A's and their iconoclastic and sabermetrically-inclined general manager, Billy Beane, brought the influence of sabermetrics in major league front offices to the masses. Reaction to the book has been both intensely positive and negative, but there can be little doubt that as a result, more major league front offices are incorporating statistics (or the advice of statistical analysts) into their decision-making process.
Notable sabermetric topics include the Pythagorean Theorem (of winning percentage), Linear Weights, and Expected Run Tables.
Two of Beane's former assistants with the A's, Paul DePodesta and J.P. Ricciardi, are now general managers in their own right (of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays, respectively). Theo Epstein of the Boston Red Sox, who was hired after Beane turned down the job, is also known to espouse sabermetric principles. Statistically-inclined individuals are also known to be employed by the New York Mets, St. Louis Cardinals, New York Yankees, San Diego Padres, Seattle Mariners, and Arizona Diamondbacks.
"Baseball statistics are like a girl in a bikini. They show a lot, but not everything." - Toby Harrah
"Baseball fans are junkies, and their heroin is the statistic." - Robert Wieder
[edit] Further Reading
- Gabriel B. Costa, Michael R. Huber and John T. Saccoman: Understanding Sabermetrics: An Introduction to the Science of Baseball Statistics, McFarland, Jefferson, NC, 2008.
