Customer Reviews

The Diamond Appraised

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Students of baseball analysis should know and own this book. To give The Diamond Appraised anything less than a full five star rating fails to take this decades old classic work into proper context. Craig Wright's 1987 contribution to baseball analysis is as important to the way we've come to understand baseball as anything written on the subject. This book was not intended to have a long shelf life and not intended to age well. The maps and charts of Lewis and Clark, Magellan and Columbus don't age well either, but they gave the world clarity of purpose, direction and possibility.

Like most books written by Sabermetricians, they do not age very well. Same goes for this book.

The Book starts out talking about Catcher Earned Run Average (CERA), which has been studies extensively since then and been proven to be not nearly the best way to evaluate catchers. It goes on from there with more dated info.

I was, and am, really only interested in the pitching aspect of the book, which, is very informative. For that alone, this purchase was worth the $.75 I paid for the used book.