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Covering the Bases: Making Sense of Bill James' Statistical Nonsense | 
 enlarge | Authors: Travis Walsh, Thomas Mcfall
Publisher: iUniverse, Inc.
Category: Book
List Price: $18.95
Buy New: $11.93
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New (19) Used (7) from $11.88
Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 1042972
Media: Paperback
Edition: 0
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 241
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 5.8 x 0.8
ISBN: 0595389481
Dewey Decimal Number: 796
EAN: 9780595389483
ASIN: 0595389481
Publication Date: May 5, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Condition: Brand New! Perfect Condition!
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Product Description
Albert Einstein once said Imagination is more important than knowledge. Albert Einstein never met Bill James. For years baseball fans have been praising the so-called Guru of Statistics. Now, you can join the Woodward and Bernstein of the baseball world as they uncover the TRUTH about sabermetrics and the baseball pariah that is Bill James. The mainstream sports media, as well as men inside the game, have ignored the obvious for years; Bill James methods, formulae, and approach to the game DO NOT WORK. In Covering the Bases: Making Sense of Bill James Statistical Nonsense, Walsh and McFall will take you deeper into the modern statistical mindset than anyone has gone before. After months of researching and examining James writings, they have systematically revealed the fallacies perpetuated by Bill James and his fellow sabermetricians. Join them in discovering the truth about Runs Created and Win Shares. Find out the REAL reason the Boston Red Sox won the 2004 World Series. And discover new and accurate non-sabermetric calculations such as scoring position percentage.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 How to Waste a Bookbuyer's Money April 10, 2007
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
Save your money and pass this book by. Some books you know are good, but just don't like. Some books you think could be improved, but still have something of value. This book in contrast is probably the worst book I've read in the last 4-5 years, and I read over 100 a year. It desperately needed an editor to make the writers' "technical arguments" understandable, but it might not have really helped because when you do go through it, it's of very poor quality and perhaps could not have been helped. Worse, a reader feels like every other sentence is full of vitriol against James as if the writers think that vitriol is an argument. It's time for a good critique of James - one based on sound technical and/or baseball argument. He has gotten a bit pompous in his recent books (though I find them all easy to follow and with some wonderful nuggets and often mineloads of solid and insightful analysis.) But James writes with clarity and wit - something one can not begin to claim characterizes this book of critique. He also was frequently self-deprecating in the first 10-15 years, even if a little less so now. Humility is never found in this current book of critique.
James' most wonderful trait has been, however, that he puts analysis first
- wanting to test ideas in what is truly a scientific orientation, and frequently has rescinded earlier of his claims as he comes up with a better research method to test the claim. In this book, the critiquers do not understand James' arguments or claims. (Their bibliography indicates that they only have read the James' books of the last few years.) They do not really provide any systematic testing of the claims, but usually merely cite a counter-example of an individual or a team that seems contrary to the general statement. They believe approximations and estimates are worthless, and that if you haven't got a precisely accurate prediction at the end, your analysis has been worthless. The critiquers have no understanding of statistics nor probability, nor analysis. They do present three new statistics of their own construction. Only one to me seemed interesting; a measure of baserunning or speed that focuses on a runner's ability to generate extra bases. The other two don't hold up at all. But the book's own presentation in the appendix of the statistics for a whole season across teams indicates that their statistic has little consistent relationship with a team winning, in spite of the claims they make for the statistic. In short, save your money. This is a book designed to sell by a marketing association with Bill James, even though it pretends to be a critique. It never should have been given a go-ahead by the editors or publishers.
A Waste of Paper March 9, 2007
7 out of 10 found this review helpful
There was a great idea for a book buried here - a critical examination of Bill James's ideas would make an excellent read. Unfortunately, this book is simply an ignorant tirade that casts light on nothing. The authors clearly do not understand statistics or probability and distort or deliberately misinterpret James's writings.
I would love to have the opportunity to play poker with these guys: their mathematical shortcomings would be highly lucrative for me.
Do yourseleves a favour and avoid this book.
The worst book I have ever read November 24, 2006
25 out of 35 found this review helpful
This is quite easily the worst book I have ever read. The authors are clearly vindictive towards Bill James, and it comes through on every page of the book. Worse than that, they do a terrible job of attempting to deface the name and work of James.
Not only do the authors fail awesomely to disprove any of James' theories, they show beyond a shadow of a doubt that they do not understand anything that James writes about in his books. Every single page of this book has at least one misinterpreted quote or fact.
Here is an example:
On page 24, the authors cite James' "Estimated W-L" based on marginal runs scored and allowed. This formula, as James preaches, provides a better representation of the team's quality than wins and losses. For example, if the Blue Jays are 41-40 through 81 games, but have scored 600 runs and allowed 400 runs. Clearly, they are clearly better than a .500 team and if you saw the over/under for their final win total at 81, you would place a lot of money on the over. THAT is the point of the formula - identifying teams that are better than their records.
The authors point to the 1944 National League. As it turns out, none of the eight NL teams that year had an estimated W-L that matched its record. James would be fine with this - some teams were better than their record, some were worse. All James cares about is that the wins and losses add up. Which they do.
Quote from the book: "The fact that not a single one of his estimated won-lost records contain even a hint of accuracy gives his marginal runs method a 100% failure rate which should render it completely unusable by any good statistician."
Obviously, the "failure rate" in this case has nothing to do with what James was aiming at. He wasn't guessing team records; he was trying to show team quality. This is perhaps one of the most basic principles James has introduced to date, and the authors, who clearly have taken an interest in James' work, seem unable to grasp the concept.
The book is literally filled with examples just like this. Not a page goes by without these authors doing two things: 1. taking cheap shots at Bill James and 2. demonstrate clearly that they do not understand the concept they are talking about.
If this was simply a book attempting to disprove Jamesian theory, the authors would come across as childish. However, the utter lack of understanding and intelligence displayed again and again makes the authors come across as stupid. The combination makes this the worst book I have ever read. Worse than that, the mean-spirited nature of the book wants me to lose my lunch. This book offends me and, needless to say, I will never purchase another book from these authors again.
If you have any interest in reading this book, for the sake of historical documentation, I recommend taking it out of the library or borrowing it.
Ignorant Arguments Poorly Researched and Written November 7, 2006
23 out of 32 found this review helpful
This is one of the most juvenile and idiotic books I've ever read. It's like sitting at a bar next to a drunk guy who insists that Sammy Sosa is the greatest player ever and every other player "stinks" and the only proof he offers is that he watches a lot of baseball. Instead of an intelligent look at James' work and writings (which would be great), they take items out of context, look at them superficially and then make pronouncements. They waste time attacking James' personality and style, rather than his writings. Their arguments are oftentimes idiotic and always juvenile. There's no basis for most of them, other than their dislike of James. Yes, the baseball media and many baseball fans are overwhelmed with useless and sometimes ridiculous statistics. This book does nothing to change that and provides idiotic rants instead of solid proof. All you need to know about the pathetically ignorant arguments the authors expound upon is that they believe that NO ballpark has any impact on statistics; they are all neutral. Even Don Zimmer knows that's not true.
Populist Garbage October 11, 2006
35 out of 47 found this review helpful
This book is of the variety "tell the people what they want to hear" and they will buy it. There are a sizable number of people who simply do not want to be involved in any objective analysis of the game or the players. They are only interested in reinforcement in what they "know" and what they "saw". To them Bill James is the Devil Incarnate. This book panders to that crowd.
James has been a fairly prolific writer over the years and it is not hard to find a contradiction in them. A person's information and attitude do change over time. There are actual cases where he writes things as a trial balloon.
If you want a better view of the whole sabermetric revolution and James' role in it you would be much better off with Alan Schwarz's The Numbers Game: Baseball's Lifelong Fascination With Statistics.
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