The Bill James Gold Mine [Paperback]

Bill James (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 15, 2008

Starting in the 1970s, a night watchman wfrom Kansas forever changed the way that many people view baseball analysis and ultimately the game itself. Now Bill James is doing it again with The Bill James Gold Mine--a groundbreaking collection of original essays, statistical profiles, and hidden "nuggets" of information worth their weight in gold.

Always known for his piercing wit and cutting analysis, Bill James wrote 17 new essays for The Bill James Gold Mine, including:

• Clutching Hitter of the Year
• Measuring Consistency
• Closer Fatigue
• Strength Up the Middle
• Bullpens and Crunches
• Hall of Famers Among Us

Of course, it wouldn't be from Bill James if it didn't come with innovative and intriguing profiles and nuggets of statistical information on players from all 30 teams, including:

• Impacting by Position in Inning
• Pitching Type Analysis
• Pitcher's Record of Opposing Batters
• Games Played by Opening Day Starters
• Pitching/Batting Records Against Quality of Opposition
• Team Record by Home Runs

Editorial Reviews

Review

Bill James is quite certainly the most influential baseball writer of the twentieth century; it's not even close. -- Alan Schwarz, The New York Times

Bill James is the reason many of us think and write about baseball. -- Dave Studenmund, Thehardballtimes.com

If circumstances only allow you to read one baseball book, you cannot make a better choice than The Gold Mine. -- Steve Lombardi, Waswatching.com

Not quite the old Baseball Abstract, but it's as close as we're gonna get. -- Edward Thoma, Makato Free Press

Owing Bill James a debt of gratitude understates the case by a massive margin. -- Voros McCracken, Vorosmccracken.com

From the Publisher

Bill James has always been on the cutting edge of baseball analysis. In this all-new book of profiles of some of the most interesting players in Major League Baseball, he breaks new ground again. The Bill James Gold Mine is not just statistics; there are essays, comments and "nuggets" in the Jamesian tradition throughout the book. "We have a book," the author says, "that has some original writing, surrounded by charts showing you things you didn't know. I hope you'll give it a try."

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: ACTA Sports (February 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879463201
• ISBN-13: 978-0879463205
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,096,157 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The light is not hidden under a bushel March 10, 2010

By JagBag

Format:Paperback

I admit I have a strong bias in favor of the Gold Mine and the people involved in it. Many of them are friends of mine, but my 5-star reviews of past editions were based on merit, not friendship. I believe the Gold Mine serves a couple of important purposes in the sabermetric marketplace. It's entertaining, accessible, and it keeps Bill's work on the bookshelves -- too much of the sabermetric work being done right now is inaccessible to the vast majority of fans and almost unreadable to anyone with literary standards. That's where the Gold Mine comes in. This year's edition is on par with previous editions, so, in my estimation, the 5-star review is warranted. My challenge is to find something new and honest to say about it.

This year's Gold Mine is, by its own admission, a collaboration among Bill James, John Dewan, editor Greg Pierce, and Baseball Info Solutions (among others). Dave Studeman of The Hardball Times is involved as well. The upshot is that the book is less of a compendium of Bill's essays -- subscribers to his site already get a high volume of essays -- and more of a revival and update of the STATS Scoreboard, using contemporary metrics, supplemented with some of Bill's best essays from 2009. The package is a generous 341-page sample of what's available to subscribers of Bill's website for $3 per month.

Sum: Just like previous editions, the 2010 Gold Mine is a collection of fascinating observations of small but telling details (nuggets), and concise insights drawn from those details, presented in a reader-friendly manner, in addition to Bill's more substantive essays. Unlike much of the academic sabermetric work being done, the Gold Mine's sabermetric work is highly readable, with the reader's entertainment kept in the foreground.... Simply put, it's a book you'll actually read, not just shelve as a reference resource.

Who is the book for? In all candor, it's for most serious baseball fans but it's not for everyone. At the risk of oversimplifying the issue, there's a distinction between statheads who put writing first and those who put science first. The Gold Mine strikes a good balance between the two. Bill's no slouch as a sabermetrician, and it would be hard to argue that he's not still the most creative and interesting sabermetrician in the game, but it's fair to say he's a writer more than a scientist. What's more important to you, the writing or the science? The questions or the answers? If you favor good writing and interesting questions, then the Gold Mine is a good buy.

Recently there has been some discussion in the sabermetric community about burnout, ennui, and so on -- a perception that too much energy is being spent on minutiae, or that effective presentation of data has been given too little attention by the more scientifically inclined analysts. The burnout has largely been expressed by the writer-first group, who might also be concerned (consciously or not) that the sabermetric field has passed them by. The cutting edge of sabermetrics might in fact be inaccessible to the liberal arts crowd and the Gold Mine won't appeal as much to professional or academic sabermetricians, but the vast majority of baseball fans, including liberal arts-minded sabermetricians, will find the Gold Mine to be perfectly accessible, insightful, and -- because of Bill's essays -- worth reading again years later, and, because the Gold Mine puts communication first, the book might give them some consolation that field has not passed them by. Bill is still at the top of his game. He just doesn't hide his light under a bushel. Read more ›

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A nice Bill James work March 12, 2008

By Steven A. Peterson TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is kind of an odd work. It is a book filled with snippets about each of the major league teams. And some of these are delightful! There are also essays interspersed among the team discussions, and intriguing little "sidebars" scattered throughout the volume.

But there are lots more goodies on the web site BillJamesOnline (for $3 per month). I would rather a few more data from that site be in this volume, but--nonetheless--this is still a fun work!

A few illustrations. Do you know the worst middle reliever in terms of highest ERA while recording a "hold"? Doug Brocail of San Diego, with 7.87 (ouch!). Then there is a comparison with the hitter most like a team when it wins--and loses. Take Arizona. When it won in 2007, its hitting statistics were much like Dave Winfield's; when it lost, stats were like Dave Stegman's.

In terms of teams, coverage is a bit thin, as already noted. For my White Sox, I see the 2007 pitching and hitting statistics for the everyday players and top pitchers--but scarcely anything on reserves and lesser used pitchers. There's a nice sidebar on where Jim Thome's home runs go (lots to the opposite field, as a matter of fact).

A nifty little piece is "cigar points," players who came close to milestones and just missed (e.g., one victory short of 20 wins or .299 instead of .300). Top player in "cigar points"? Greg Maddux. Clutch hitter of the year? Brad Hawpe who drove in 45 clutch runs.

One of my favorite bon bons here--consistency. James works on a formula to rank baseball players for consistency, and then assigns them a grade from A+ to F. Can you guess Number 1 all time? Henry Aaron (makes sense, doesn't it?). Least consistent? Bill Sweeney.... Other noteworthies--Nellie Fox (one of my favorite players)-A-; Carl Yastrzemski (for my Red Sox Nation fans)-A; Mickey Mantle-A-; Jesse Barfield-B+; and so on. It's just fun to see who rates where in terms of consistency.

Anyhow, a lot of fun for the Hot Stove League debates going on. While it could use more meat than it manifests, this book is still most enjoyable to leaf through. Well recommended for baseball fans who like a healthy dose of statistics. Read more ›

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars For fans of Bill James, but know what you are getting March 14, 2010

By Hal Jordan VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I've been reading Bill James since stumbling on his Baseball Abstracts back in the early 1980s. The Gold Mine is not intended to be the kind of systematic review of players and teams that the Abstract was. For that, you should buy the Baseball Prospectus. The Gold Mine does have a section on each team, but there is no attempt to sum up the 2009 season or look ahead to the 2010 season. Instead, the team entries consist of a one-page statistical overview, which gives the basic stats for "Key Players" and "Key Pitchers." The only non-standard stat given is Win Shares. The rest of the team entries are taken up by "nuggets," which consist of brief entries describing telling -- or oddball -- facts about the team, such as the 2009 Red Sox having given up the worst stolen base percentage allowed in the history of the American League. As I understand it, James researched and wrote only some (a few?) of these, although he apparently looked at them all and, perhaps, did some editing. The nuggets are of varying quality and, frankly, if the book was composed entirely of them, I don't think it would be worth buying.

For my money, the best part of the book is the 16 essays by Bill James. They vary in length, but together take up about half the pages of the book. The essays cover all kinds of subjects, from an in-depth analysis of the two 2009 Cy Young races -- surprisingly, he agrees with the choice of Lincecum in the NL, but thinks Hernandez may have been a better choice in the AL -- to reflections on watching a replay of game one of the 1974 World Series. The essays are tremendously entertaining and have the unmistakeable Jamesian voice. If they dropped the "nuggets" and had twice as many essays by James, this book would be an easy five stars for me....

As I understand it, some -- or maybe all -- of this material originally appeared on James's subscription web site. There are a couple of places where it's clear that some of the essays were written during, rather than after, the 2009 season. For instance, the essay on "Percentage of Full Career" cites Albert Pujols and Carlos Beltran as having "near-perfect careers." Given that Beltran ended up missing half the 2009 season, he's no longer a good example. But that's a quibble and, overall, the level of editorial work on this year's edition is clearly better than last year, when the book was marred by a number of typos.

So, if you like James, but don't subscribe to his web site and haven't seen these essays before, I think you will enjoy them. Read more ›