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The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball by [Tom Tango, Mitchel Lichtman, Andrew Dolphin, Pete Palmer]

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Tom M. Tango

The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball Kindle Edition

by Tom Tango (Author), Mitchel Lichtman (Author), Andrew Dolphin (Author), Format: Kindle Edition

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Written by three esteemed baseball statisticians, The Book continues where the legendary Bill James’s Baseball Abstracts and Palmer and Thorn’s The Hidden Game of Baseball left off more than twenty years ago. Continuing in the grand tradition of sabermetrics, the authors provide a revolutionary way to think about baseball with principles that can be applied at every level, from high school to the major leagues.

Tom Tango, Mitchel Lichtman, and Andrew Dolphin cover topics such as batting and pitching matchups, platooning, the benefits and risks of intentional walks and sacrifices, the legitimacy of alleged “clutch” hitters, and many of baseball’s other theories on hitting, fielding, pitching, and even baserunning. They analyze when a strategy is a good idea and when it’s a bad idea, and how to more closely watch the “inside” game of baseball.

Whenever you hear an announcer talk about the “unwritten rule” or say that so-and-so is going “by the book” in bringing in a situational substitute, The Book reviews the facts and determines what the real case is. If you want to know what the folks in baseball should be doing, find out in The Book.

Print length

547 pages
Language

English
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Publication date

November 23, 2013
File size

6340 KB
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"I can heartily recommend . . . The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball, by a trio of talented sabermatricians." -- Rob Neyer --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From the Publisher

"I can heartily recommend . . . The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball, by a trio of talented sabermatricians." -- Rob Neyer, co-author of The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers

"It's the book I've always wanted to do."--John Dewan, author of The Fielding Bible

--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00GW6A89Y
Publisher ‏ : ‎ TMA PRESS (November 23, 2013)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 23, 2013
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 6340 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 547 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #173,950 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #5 in Baseball Statistics
- #276 in Baseball (Books)

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233 ratings

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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5

233 global ratings

5 star		64%
4 star		18%
3 star		11%
2 star		3%
1 star		4%

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Ryan Hoffman

Just OK. In depth but falls flat.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 14, 2023

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First off the author is very smart and the book is very in depth. I wouldn’t call it a head to toe book on Sabermetrics. The author focuses on just a few statistical categories, mainly wOBA. There are a slew of saber stats not even mentioned in this book but appreciate the fact that he crowns just a few to focus on. The reason it falls flat is due to the fact that most readers, including myself, are not math wizards. This book and others like it confuse the reader with in depth math equations and analysis only to summarize at the end that; it doesnt matter in baseball. Chapter after chapter expands on every aspect of baseball and every situation only to conclude over and over again that it doesnt have much of an affect on the outcome of the game. The novice fan and handicapper wants a concise summary of what matters most and what determines a win. In baseball and Saber, it still simply comes down to Runs and Wins.

Helpful

King Yao

The best book of its kind - by far!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 24, 2007

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Other sabermetric books have been written in the last few years, The Book is the best one by far. It is chock full of information, results from research and answers a lot of interesting baseball questions. The three authors, Tom Tango, Mitchel Lichtman and Andrew Dolphin have academic backgrounds and work for major league teams as employees or consultants. They use statistical methods to extract and comprehend information from a massive database of baseball games.

For the layman, there may be too much math throughout the book. However, they do a fantastic job of summarizing each idea in plain English at the end of each section. For example, in chapter 2 on hot and cold streaks, after presenting data, explaining their process and interpreting results, they summarize the section with "Knowing that a hitter has been in or is in the midset of a hot or cold streak has little predictive value. Always assume that a player will hit at his projected norm (adjusted for the park, weather, and pitcher he is facing), regardless of how he has performed in the very recent past. A player's recent history may be used as a tiebreaker."

Managers, players, fans and the media often put too much emphasis on results from small samples sizes. The authors warn against making this mistake. "One of the pervasive themes of this book is the danger of inferring too much from too little by underestimating the influence of randomness". For example, they summarize a section on pitcher-batter matchups with: "Knowing a player will face a particular opponent, and given the choice between that player's 1,500 PA (plate appearances) over the past three years against the rest of the league or twenty-five PA against that particular opponent, look at the 1,500 PA. "

They aren't afraid to point out when general baseball wisdom is correct. On starting pitchers, they write, "pitchers perform best with five days of rest, and worst with three days of rest. To manage our entire starting rotation effectively, four days of rest seems to be the optimal point. The current MLB pattern of scheduling the starting rotation works."

This book is at the top of my recommendation list for thinking baseball fans. I'm a bit surprised that I'm the first reviewer of this book on Amazon, since it has been out for three months. The sales ranking (currently #47,000 as I write this review) is disappointing for such an incredible book. The Book deserves to be at the top of the baseball best seller's list.

83 people found this helpful

Helpful

The book on the book in baseball

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 22, 2011

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One of the common phrases that we hear in baseball is that a manager was playing by "the book." That is, the manager was doing what the unwritten rules of baseball suggest. One example at the outset illustrates: walking a batter intentionally with first base open. This book, in essence, rewrites the book.

The authors use a detailed data base (including each at bat over a period of years) and then do a statistical analysis of results. And, they argue, the unwritten book is often wrong. The first chapter lays out the logic of this book's orientation. Many readers might find the chapter dense and too quantitative for their taste. My advice? Close the book and put it away, because the book features much statistical analysis.

To illustrate the work's approach. . . . Here are some issues addressed: How real are batting streaks (Answer: You can't predict how a player will do during a hot streak; there is no inherent "momentum")? Chapter three looks at pitcher-batter confrontations. Do certain pitchers "own" batters? Do certain hitters "own" pitchers? Data analysis suggests that we overrate these ideas. We all talk about clutch hitters and clutch pitchers. Chapter 4 takes this notion on (read the book to find out what actually happens).

Chapter 5 examines how to construct a batting order; Chapter 6 examines lefty-versus righty confrontations between hitters and pitchers; Chapter 9 looks at the value and efficacy of the sacrifice bunt; and so on.

If the reader is a figure filbert and likes sabermetrics, this book will be a delight. If you are old school, not so much! But, for me, a lot of fun. . . .

21 people found this helpful

Helpful

Jayson Stancil

Best Source Available for Sabermetric Beginners

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 15, 2022

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This book does an excellent job walking through many of the basic sabermetric concepts in baseball. However, the only complaint is that as of 2022, many of the names are starting to become dated and less recognizable to younger fans.

Still a fantastic book!

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Michael Keller

Advanced sabermetrics, but on a very small sample

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 4, 2021

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The book has some interesting statistical conclusions: your best hitter should never bat third, NL pitchers should bat 8th, and intentional walks are usually wrong, among others. But I was very disappointed to see that the analysis was based on only a few years worth of data, mostly from 1999-2002. Probably most of their conclusions are still correct, but given that several sources now have complete data going back to 1974 and quite a bit before that, it would seem more useful to use as much data as possible. It's not hard to think that some aspects of baseball in 2021 are different from 20 years ago.

There are some bizarre typographic errors (numbers jammed tight together) in the text in the first chapter which should have never gotten past the editors.

2 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

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JM

Essential reading

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on December 4, 2018

Verified Purchase

I keep coming back to reference parts of this book. It is still relevant after more than a decade.

One person found this helpful

Bosephus

Okay

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on February 16, 2017

Verified Purchase

A bit dated now, but an interesting read

One person found this helpful

Vasos Lagoudis

Good

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on September 6, 2018

Verified Purchase

Good

Evan MacKenzie

Four Stars

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on August 29, 2014

Verified Purchase

Awesome book for the statistical enthusiast!

Reno

Complet avec des exemples

Reviewed in France 🇫🇷 on September 27, 2012

Verified Purchase

Clairement LE LIVRE pour commencer dans le monde du "Sabermetrics". Des exemples concrets, avec des tableaux, des formules, bref la meilleure entrée en matière pour celui qui souhaite apprendre et surtout comprendre les statistiques dans le baseball.

De plus, sur le site internet de l'auteur, il y a régulièrement des annotations ou des mises à jour de certaines parties du livre. Bref, l'auteur est très réactif pour toutes questions ou même suggestions.

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