The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball

Although a bit dated with most of its research covering the increased run scoring environment of the steroid era, this is an interesting study of baseball strategy that will appeal to most sabrmetrically inclined baseball fans. Many baseball managers claim to manage "by the book" when they make decisions according to what conventional wisdom dictates. Tango, Lichtman and Dolphin have done the research to show what decisions they should actually make and in what percentages.

Just a couple/three comments; not really a review:

Liked it better on first read, perhaps because it's clear that baseball's management has acted on this analysis and I don't much like the results. Downgraded my rating accordingly.

A very technical book on more than one level--it's heavy on both math/statistics (real statistical analysis), and there's a lot of discussion of strategic and tactical baseball (lineup construction, pitch selection, pitcher usage, situational analysis, and such-like).

It seems fair to point out that some of the analysis parallel's Earnshaw Cook's in Percentage Baseball. I suppose you could anticipate that, actually.

I *really* recommend reading a paper copy. The tables in the Kindle version are essentially show more unreadable. show less

This book includes great information for math, athletes and fans of baseball.