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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
This book does not offer any insight for most baseball fans., June 10, 2001
By A Customer
This is one of the most frustrating books on baseball ratings I have ever read. The only reason I gave it two stars instead of one is that the author raises some good points about effectiveness versus potential.I have several problems with the methods used in this book and I will site just a few. First of all, the rating explained in the book claims to be the "first objective total-season statistic." This claim is countered by the author in the initial explanation of his system when he states "it is important to realize that some of these decisions were somewhat arbitrary on my part." I hate to nitpick, but when the author goes on ad infinitum about what a brilliant system he has devised, this bothers me. Many reviewers have stated that the author clearly defines his rationale for his rating. This is simply not true. For instance, why does he multiply walks by .5? Why are RBI weighted as much as stolen bases? He never states these reasons, and those are just a couple of examples. When the author poses a question about how he came up with his system, he doesn't provide a very scientific answer. For instance, when he raises the question of whether adding in runs and RBI is in essence adding home runs two more times, he defends this by saying "I finally determined that the home run is the ultimate offensive weapon and ought to be very special." I agree with that statement, but it says nothing about his reasons that substantiate this claim. This seems very sloppy to me. His work with defensive statistics, while admirable, is far from perfect. His attitude is exemplified in a statement he makes in his chapter on Hall of Fame Numbers. Regarding his system he says, "No one sat down ahead of time and said, 'Now how much weight should we give to hitting and how much to fielding?'" Doesn't this seem like an important question to ask when adding these two elements together to create an all-encompassing statistic? As stated by a couple of other reviewers he does not add in any park or yearly effects to his system. He justifies this by stating that park factors are "essentially a subjective notion." Subjective notion? We have many statistics that prove that certain parks have effects on statistics. Road vs. Home hitting. The fact that the outfield fences are different distances in most parks should be some clue that this might effect statistics. Is there a perfect way to figure this out? Probably not, but you can't just ignore it. I have many other problems with the system he has created, but I want to touch on a few of the other issues that bother me. One sentence he writes sums up one these issues. The author states, "The HEQ study lays no claim to being the definitive comparison of players. It is essentially a simpler and more complete approach... than any existing system." In one sentence he says it isn't the definitive system, but it is the best system ever developed. Although not exactly the exact same things, it seems to me he wants to set the system up so that it won't be challenged either way. The final problem that I have is a little frivolous, but another reviewer mentioned it so I feel it is legitimate. The fact that author mentions that he his a mathematician so many times and the fact that he names the system after himself, just seems way too self-aggrandizing to me. In closing I just want to mention that according to the author's system, the greatest season by a baseball player ever was Chuck Klein's in 1930.
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