Customer Reviews

Mind Game: How the Boston Red Sox Got Smart, Won a World Series, and Created a New Blueprint for Winning

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

 

 

I eagerly anticipated this book, and was only slightly let down when it finally shipped.

On the positive side, it condenses into one volume all of the decisions that went into the making of a championship team. It's especially insightful because Baseball Prospectus has a similar understanding of the game as Sox' GM Theo Epstein. I also appreciated the fact that it's not a pure "stathead" book, and delves into things such as why it's sometimes sensible to overpay a player such as Jason Varitek, why (at the time) it made sense to sign Matt Clement in place of Pedro, and why team chemistry matters (it doesn't always help, but it rarely hurts.)

On the down side, it could have used a lot more proofreading and copy editing; there was at least one paragraph that I had to re-read three times before I could figure out who "him" was (Frank Crosetti). Maybe we need a new stat, "Typos Above Replcement Writer," or "Grammatic Efficiency Ratio."

Perhaps most annoyingly, it's full of glib political references that will alienate about 50% of readers. At the very least, they're distracting, sending the reader off into thoughts of, "Is that a dig at somebody? Is he right?" when you want to be thinking about baseball. These sorts of things are fine in a daily column, but they're inevitably comtemporaneous, and may be hopelessly obscure before the Sox win again. The book would have been much better had the author restrained himself. I don't understand why sportswriters do this, especially since Baseball Prospectus holds itself to much higher standards of accuracy than most political analysts.

But, if you want to read the real story behind the 2004 Red Sox, if you want to understand the thinking behind the most talented and progressive management in the game today, then this is the book.

I like to think of Theo Epstein's philosophy as "Moneyball with money." He applies many of the same principles espoused by the sabremetric crowd, but he does so within the context of a fairly rich ballclub so he can afford to make a mistake or two.

What "Mind Game" does very well is analyze what made the 2004 Red Sox different from all the failed clubs that came before it. Theo Epstein had a plan, he stuck to that plan, and he had a manager in Terry Francona who believed in the system and understood how to execute it. He didn't build a collection of superstars in the Yankee mold, but rather a team of players with specific strengths placed in roles that exploited those strengths.

There are some very provocative ideas in the book, several of which have been mentioned in previous reviews. Is Pedro really the greatest pitcher of all time? Is Derek Jeter really overrated? Is Keith Foulke really a better pitcher than Mariano Rivera? The authors make their case, and while you might still disagree after reading it, there is plenty of food for thought.

Like "Moneyball" before it, "Mind Game" challenges some generally accepted baseball principles. Unlike "Moneyball," however, "Mind Game" is an ex post facto analysis. It's much easier to watch the Red Sox win the World Series and then proclaim Theo Epstein a genius than it is to actually sit in the Draft room with Billy Beane and explain why he knows better than the scouts.

Another issue I have with "Mind Game" is that it is a collection of essays as opposed to a cohesive story about a team. Ironically, the book is like the Yankees. The sum of its parts is better than the whole. Each essay focuses on a particular player or moment and does an in-depth analysis of its subject and how it contributed to the overall picture, but the overall picture is sometimes lost in the statistical analysis. Some chapters require multiple readings to gain a clear undertsnding of the statistics involved.

Overall, "Mind Game" is a good book. Red Sox fans will love it because it gives you a million more reasons why that 2004 team was so special. Thoughtful baseball fans will enjoy it for its statistical analysis and challenging ideas. I think even open-minded Yankees fans will gain something from "Mind Game," even if they disagree with some of the points raised. The only people to whom I would NOT recommend this book are the lockstepping Yankees fans who meet even the slightest criticism of the Bronx Bomers with screams of "26 World Championships" and "Jeter is God."

Once again, the folks at Baseball Prospectus have tried to (re)examine the basic precepts of winning baseball. Once again, they have succeeded.

The naysaying reviewers criticizing everything from political jibes (I think I saw *2* in the whole book) to a supposedly *obvious* point (Rivera being solved by the Sox due to their familiarity with him) are being hypercritical. There are plenty of announcers out there (the likes of Joe Morgan and such) who would NEVER draw the conclusion on Rivera that BP has.

I *liked* the essay format, as a distinct change of pace from the "on April 15, they did this ... on April 21 they did that" tomes. The book DID have a flow to it, logically and chronologically. Analyses were sensibly connected to what the Sox were dealing with at the time ... injuries, brawls, offense vs. defense. The "stathead" stats were presented with a minimum of "even if you don't understand it ... just go along with it". There was a *logic* to the presentation.

The one thing I do have an issue with (and it has been said before) is some sloppy editing, particularly in latter chapters. Typos, disjointed sentences and factual errors made for some difficult reading at times. I know the final piece of the book was written in early August for an October release, but it still irks me a bit.

This is a daring attempt to present a recap of one team's season in a new format. I think we should be offering them congrats.

If you like to read statheads explain the success of last year's red sox, then you will like this book. If you want more than that, you will probably be disappointed. The book really adds very little in terms of new insight into the baseball world. These are mostly the same points made more elegantly and in better prose in moneyball.

While the title purports to explain "how the Boston Red Sox got smart ... and created a new blueprint for winning," the book itself does a poor job of detailing that blueprint. As a collection of essays, the book comes off disjointed and wildly inconsistent. Obviously, some chapters are better than others, but overall most of them were disappointing.

The James Click chapter, "Cracking the Rivera Code," is typical of the book. It tries to explain the red sox success against the yankee closer: basically, it comes down to his limited repertoire and being overworked. So you see all this "sabre"-rattling comes in support of pretty commonplace and pedestrian conclusions that one could easily have guessed at without any kind of statistical data.

You also get retreads of familiar sabremetric topics as on-base percentage, the importance of pitch counts, etc. In other words, this is a lesser version of moneyball with boston standing in for oakland.

By the way, winning ONE championship hardly constitutes a blueprint for winning! Obviously, this book was written before the red sox were swept out of the playoffs in the 1st round by the white sox, but still it is rather proposterous to make that claim on the basis of a single championship season. Right now, you would have a better case for anaheim's brand of "smartball."

I love reading about baseball, and I'm a huge fan of sabermetric analysis. Plus, I hate the Yankees. So I was prepared to love "Mind Game." But it's a distinct disappointment. It's sloppily written and terribly redundant, as would be expected from a book with so many contributors. But worse than that, the venom with which the Yankees are treated has colored some contributors' opinions so badly that their comments and analysis are wrong. In summation, the book provides the deep statistical analysis and interesting historical perspective I've come to expect from Baseball Prospectus, but it's not nearly as good as I expected.

In retrospect, any team that wins a league championship has done nothing but make the right moves. How could it be otherwise? It could because while the reading is fine, and the data excellent, BP only writes about the right moves the Sox made, and totally ignores their dumb moves, like signing oft-injured Scott Williamson to be a key cog in their bullpen, or having no minor leaguers ready to help the rotation and leaving Derek 'How' Lowe Can You Go in the rotation all year.

Well, they say winners get to write the history books. I guess the same could be said about baseball champs as well. It would be interesting to see how the writers at BP talk about the 2006 Red Sox, who have the same 'Smart' front-office people, but whose team flat out gave up in August.

The best thing about reading anything by the team that writes for the Baseball Prospectus is the wit and humor with which they analyze the game on the field. They do this well in "Mind Game" and offer a valuable perspective on how the Theo Epstein led Boston Red Sox was able to capture the World Series in 2004. As might be expected, statheads that they are, this team of writers adores another stathead and celebrates the rise of sabermetrics in baseball management. Epstein is a follower of the legendary Billy Beane in Oakland, the hero of Michael Lewis's "Moneyball" (2003), himself a loyal acolyte of the guru of all statheads, Bill James. By building a team using the statistical measurements advocated by James, according to editor Steven Goldman and his team of writers, Theo Epstein made it possible for the Red Sox finally after 86 years to win the World Series following a series of near misses.

What we learn from this book is that the Red Sox had suffered years of mismanagement through cronyism, racism, and a host of other "isms." When the longstanding Yawkey influence was finally purged from the team's ownership in the early twenty-first century a new clear vision of how to win took root. Epstein pursued it relentlessly, restructuring the team to reflect a philosophy built around big innings, on base percentage, power hitting, and strong defense especially up the middle. Indeed, as the back cover of this book notes, there are several myths exploded in this book:
* A lineup the strikes out a lot can't be a winner.
* There's no such thing as too much offense.
* Until 2004, the Red Sox were habitual underperformers in the post-season.
* Teams play better after an emotionally uplifting brawl.
* Mariano Rivera was the best closer in baseball from 1999 to 2003.
There is a large amount of additional conventional wisdom busted in "Mind Game" as well.

In the end what emerges is an enjoyable, enlightening discussion of how the Red Sox were able to win it all in 2004. It's a satisfying analysis that even the non-stathead will find useful.

At a recent New Jersey SABR meeting, Tom Oliphant, political writer and author of "Praying for Gil Hodges", noted that part of baseball's appeal is the ability to argue, disputes that span the breadth of history, and that can be argued for hours, months, and generations. Should Fred Merkle have been called out in 1908? Did Ed Armbrister interfere with Carlton Fisk in 1975? Willie, Mickey, or the Duke? Does pitching or hitting win championships? Which is more important, statistics or scouting?

Just like life, the above questions are more complicated than they may appear. Merkle and Fisk were both involved in controversial plays which will never be undone, and Mays, Mantle and Snider will always have adherents for their superiority which will never be reconciled. Of course, World Series have been won with either strong pitching or overwhelming hitting, and no smart team can entirely disregard either statistics or scouting. But the last question really involves a revolutionary change in the nature of contemporary fandom-the observer and fan claiming a seat at the table with the professional class.

The work of Bill James, the Society for American Baseball Research and later, Baseball Prospectus, is, if such a diverse group can be generalized, the attempt by nonparticipants in professional baseball to understand, analyze, and predict baseball. Baseball wisdom has historically been passed down through the hierarchy-veteran players retire and take coaching jobs, passing on their lessons to the next generation. While Alan Schwarz' The Numbers Game outlined clearly the entire history of gathering, collecting, and learning from baseball statistics, the current wave of fan driven research and explosion of new statistics and publications is, arguably, unprecedented. For the first time, number crunchers are not just complaining from newspaper columns, but contributing from the executive suites and seeing their theories put to the test.

The man said to be the guru of baseball statistical research is Bill James, the former night watchman who turned a typewritten journal mailed to a few isolated souls into a shelf full of books and articles. James was hired by the Red Sox in November 2002, and Mind Game is the story of the Red Sox' 2004 World Series Championship and the role that James and the new thinking in baseball played in the season. After a brief accounting of the Red Sox' history, Mind Game takes the reader through the 2004 season in bite size nuggets, describing a game or series of games in each chapter, combined with "Extra Innings" segments that illuminate other points not directly relevant to the season narrative. The combined effect is a fun, rollicking ride through the year with BP's cheeky humor combined with sober, revealing analysis.

The new wave of baseball thought has its naysayers, as some establishment figures have made it abundantly clear to any and all that they are "anti-Moneyball" people, referring to Michael Lewis' popular book about Billy Beane's Oakland Athletics teams that practice new principles of baseball performance analysis. These figures have often either not read the book or misunderstood it entirely, and Mind Game may not change their mind. But for any fair minded fan who may still be skeptical of the new wave of baseball knowledge, Mind Game is a convincing, well written, passionate description of a season for the ages.


Michael Webb

I'm a subscriber to the Baseball Prospectus website and read their sabermetrically-oriented articles every day, so I was looking forward to "Mind Game" to see what new insights they could bring into the construction of the 2004 Red Sox. Alas, having read so much BP material over the last few years, "Mind Game" didn't feel like it had much new to offer me that I hadn't seen before. In a nutshell: compared to the Yankees, the Red Sox spent their money more wisely, including their ability to get value from freely available talent (especially David Ortiz).

There are a lot of juicy stories from the season, especially with the Alex Rodriguez non-trade and the shocking Garciaparra trade, but as some of the other reviewers point out, the narrative doesn't flow nearly as well as in "Moneyball". I still enjoyed having a nice baseball book to tote around and read on the train, but I would mostly recommend "Mind Game" to those baseball fans who aren't already plugged into the sabermetric network, and are interested in the sometimes-surprising results that current baseball research is discovering.

THIS BOOK IS FOR RED SOXS FANS AS ITS TRATS THE YANKESS AS BUMBLERS.