Baseball's All-Time Best Hitters (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "We're in the on deck circle, getting ready to bat..." (more)
Key Phrases: American League, National League, Ted Williams (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Baseball is a game of numbers, and if you look deeply enough into them, they begin to speak in truly mysterious ways. For Schell, a professor of biostatistics, the numbers sing in an enigmatic language that lets him rank and compare hitters from different eras with a self-concocted, time-tested mathematical certainty--albeit a certainty that is as subjective as the next in an arena filled with formulas and number crunching. Less a volume to read than one to muck around in and develop a dialogue--or argument--with, Baseball's All-Time Best Hitters is heavy on the stats, charts, and theories that explain why and how averages must be adjusted over different eras to accommodate different styles of play, rule changes, and ballparks. Using the various adjustments he's come up with, Schell works to make his baseball cabala understandable; then he sends out a lineup of rankings that are as surprising as they are, in fact, logical--if you buy the logic. So who is the best hitter of all time? Well, it's not Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Joe Jackson, or Ted Williams. He is alive at this writing, though, and the shock is that he's still playing in 1999, patrolling right field for the San Diego Padres and rapping line drives with astonishing consistency. --Jeff Silverman

From Library Journal

Schell (biostatistics, Univ. of North Carolina), a professional statistician, here turns his attention from his field of health science to a lighter but more contentious subject, baseball. The rating of players has been an unending argument among diehard fans and specialists, such as those dedicated aficionados of the Society for American Baseball Research, which has given statistical debate more credibility. Now this book from Princeton University Press is a signal that the academics have entered the fray, too. Schell's book, however, makes some strange claims. He ranks current player Tony Gwynn as the best all-time hitter, well ahead of the modern batting king, Ted Williams, and no doubt outraging the ghosts of Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth. Schell's statistics "level" the playing field because they downplay the importance of power, thus favoring Gwynn. Schell is on more solid ground when he proposes players who should be included in the Hall of Fame. All in all, this book is for the hardcore baseball fan, especially one comfortable with complex statistical analysis. For comprehensive baseball collections.APaul M. Kaplan, Lake Villa Dist. Lib., IL
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 328 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press; 1 edition (March 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691004552
• ISBN-13: 978-0691004556
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,747,922 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a stats book on baseball, February 6, 2008

By	Michael R. Chernick "statman31147" (Holland PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Most baseball fans like statistics, so it should not be a disappointment to them to find out that this is an elementary statistics book where the statistical methods are taught to explain how to adjust batting averages in order to compare players in terms of their batting averages. The average baseball fan would be interested in comparisons of Ty Cobb, Tony Gwynn, Ted Williams and others who are acknowledged as the best hitters for average in the game. Schell considers factors that make direct comparisons unfair and he provides methods to adjust for these factors based on the vast amount of statistical data available to him that has been gathered throughout the history of major league baseball.
Key effects include the home ball park, stage of career and interventions such as the lowering of the pitcher's mound after 1968. To adjust for players whose abilities decline substantially in the latter years of their career Schell uses only the first 8000 at bats to gauge the players hitting ability. This helps players like Mickey Mantle whose performance declined appreciably at the end of his career due in part to injuries.

Schell provides a lot of interesting statistics and comparisons. Ty Cobb had the highest lifetime batting average but after all the adjustments finishes second to Tony Gwynn, a result that will surely create controversy.

Nevertheless Schell's approach makes sense and his results are not too surprising. As he notes his adjustments move many of the modern players whose numerical averages are lower than the players from the late 1800s and early 1900s, ahead on the list.

Schell relates how he showed up to meet and congratulate Gwynn on the date of his 8000th at bat when he clinched first place based on the Schell adjustment system.

Mike Schell is a sports enthusiast and a professor of biostatistics at the University of North Carolina. In 2002 he was one of the invited speakers at the Sport Statistics Section Session of the Joint Statistical Meetings.

This book was published just one month after his other book on home run hitters. The methodology is quite similar. This book got a lot more fan fare due to the publicity regarding Tony Gwynn.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best baseball books ever written, August 7, 2008

By	Charles Ashbacher "([e-mail])" (Marion, Iowa United States([e-mail])) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Baseball's All-Time Best Hitters: How Statistics Can Level the Playing Field (Paperback)

Baseball fans love to engage in "who's the best" debates. When I was young, that was the primary topic of conversation between the boys in my neighborhood. Since we did not have a great deal of knowledge concerning the history of the game, our debates were primarily over the current teams and players. Occasionally, we did delve into the "of all time" areas, but our arguments were always weakened by issues such as the differences in the ballparks and how the game had changed over the years. We always considered these issues to be ones that we could not resolve, so little time was spent on them.
In this book, statistical techniques are used to adjust for the differences in the era, different ballparks and how the rules have changed over the years. The conclusions are somewhat surprising and while they can be controversial, it is difficult to argue with the methods used to arrive at the conclusion. Schell's conclusion is that Tony Gwynn is the best hitter of all time. Tables abound, demonstrating statistics adjusted for the appropriate changes. Some of the most astounding statistics are those regarding the effect that a ballpark can have on a career. On page 190, there is a synopsis concerning Fenway Park, the home of the Red Sox. It was a park that favored the pitchers until 1934, when there was a major renovation. Since 1934, one-third of the American League batting champions was a member of the Red Sox. Coors Field, the home of the Colorado Rockies, is the best park for hitters, a conclusion easily supported by the data. For all three years covered in this book, the Rockies won the team batting title and the individual title was a race between Tony Gwynn, Mike Piazza and someone from the Rockies.
As a lifelong baseball fan and a teacher of statistics, I loved this book. It is also not necessary to completely understand all of the statistical concepts to appreciate the conclusions. There is also a list of the best players based on each position other than pitcher, although all outfielders are grouped together. Schell lists "Actual and Recommended Hall of Fame ***" where *** is the given position, based on the statistical adjustments he has performed. Although there is some room for controversy regarding Schell's conclusions, he provides a fascinating look into how the game has changed over time and how it can change from ballpark to ballpark.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a stats book that looks like a baseball book, May 22, 2002

By	Michael R. Chernick "statman13" (Malvern, PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Most baseball fans like statistics, so it should not be a disappointment to them to find out that this is an elementary statistics book where the statistical methods are taught to explain how to adjust batting averages in order to compare players in terms of their batting averages. The average baseball fan would be interested in comparisons of Ty Cobb, Tony Gwynn, Ted Williams and others who are acknowledged as the best hitters for average in the game. Schell considers factors that make direct comparisons unfair and he provides methods to adjust for these factors based on the vast amount of statistical data available to him that has been gathered throughout the history of major league baseball.

Key effects include the home ball park, stage of career and interventions such as the lowering of the pitcher's mound after 1968. To adjust for players whose abilities decline substantially in the latter years of their career Schell uses only the first 8000 at bats to gauge the players hitting ability. This helps players like Mickey Mantle whose performance declined appreciably at the end of his career due in part to injuries.

Schell provides a lot of interesting statistics and comparisons. Ty Cobb had the highest lifetime batting average but after all the adjustments finishes second to Tony Gwynn, a result that will surely create controversy.

Nevertheless Schell's approach makes sense and his results are not too surprising. As he notes his adjustments move many of the modern players whose numerical averages are lower than the players from the late 1800s and early 1900s, ahead on the list.

Schell relates how he showed up to meet and congratulate Gwynn on the date of his 8000th at bat when he clinched first place based on the Schell adjustment system.

Mike Schell is a sports enthusiast and a professor of biostatistics at the University of North Carolina. In 2002 he was one of the invited speakers at the Sport Statistics Section Session of the Joint Statistical Meetings.