A fantastic book for anyone who is at least a casual baseball fan. While the book contains tons of numbers and statistics, you do not need to be a statistician to read this. Much of the complex analysis is not part of this book.

BP has made an incredible contribution to baseball and stats such as OBP, VORP and WXRL are becoming more commonplace.

From my perspective, the greatest contribution by Sabermatricians is that the game is coming around to rewarding the players that really do make the greatest contribution to winning (which aren't necessarily the power hitters with poor plate discipline that secure huge free agent contracts at the very moment their precipitous decline begins).

I cannot recommend this book more highly.

After Michael Lewis's Moneyball and Tom Tango's The Book, this is probably the third book on the required reading list for all aspiring sabermetricians. Baseball Between the Number is a collection of essays that all revolve around statistical analysis and the sport of baseball.

Unlike those other books mentioned, this one goes far beyond the stats created on the field and takes a close look at the business of baseball. Want to know why the Montreal Expos failed? Chances are it had more to do with their inability to make the postseason as it did their run-down stadium or a disinterested fanbase. Should a municipality pay for a new ballpark? Are superstar contracts worth the money? The answers are all in this book.

How can you not give a book at least four stars that was written by a "team of experts"?

Baseball Between the Numbers has much better writing than books like this usually do (I read it over a 4 day period). The chapters are structured around specific questions like "Did Derek Jeter Deserve the Gold Glove?" that are used to discuss larger issues like evaluating defense, the value of a stolen base or the most effective method of using closers, etc...I found the chapters about evaluating pitching to be the most revealing (I think that a majority of readers will feel the same).

Every chapter makes fairly extensive use of statistical concepts, so if you have absolutely no tolerance for numbers this book isn't for you. However, the statistical arguments are not exceedingly technical and most motivated readers won't have a problem getting through them.

This is a book for people who really like baseball AND are partial to math/statistics. It did a good job of explaining a lot of the concepts that have made there way into everyday sports writing. It made me feel smarter every time I understood something. It did not make me feel better about the Royals.

I own the Kindle copy of this book so if any friend wants to borrow, let me know.

Really interesting read, and I have only a few complaints. Kind of felt like the abstract for the book could be "When we apply rigid statistical analysis to baseball, what factors turn out to predict batter, pitching, and team performance? Well, nothing does. The game is almost entirely luck." The authors of the chapters frequently deconstructed common views of baseball without constructing their own afterwards.

Great book for the baseball numbers geek in all of us. What, you mean you're NOT a baseball numbers geek like I am???

dumber, wonkier, and more pretentious versions of michael lewis get all wind-baggy on blog-post-sized content.

This is the first book I have read on sabermetrics or advanced stats. It was a lot more meaty than I expected. I thought it would just be full of math. Instead each chapter asked real life questions and then set about how to answer them. It was both humbling and fascinating to see how they went about answering the questions. These are really smart people.

A total stats geek's wet dream about baseball. This anthology of articles about statistical analysis of baseball players and strategy debunks a century's worth of misconceptions. Each article in the book asks an innocent sounding question (e.g., is David Ortiz a clutch hitter), and uses it as the impetus to explore the value of existing statistical measures (e.g., batting average) for evaluating concepts that are actually relevant to baseball (e.g., runs scored by a team).

This book should have been right up my alley. It is about baseball, numbers, and trying to disprove/find the truth in well accepted beliefs.

Given that, it is the only book I think i have ever started and not finished, except for maybe anything by Willaim Burroughs (maybe one day I'll try Naked Lunch again but but I am 0 for 2 in getting past page 10).

Anyway, the authors put forth interesting analysis but their writing is uneven to be charitable and they manipulate numbers so much that the numbers actually lose their meaning.

I am pretty sure I could manipulate the numbers in various ways to draw opposite conclusions of the authors. Sometimes simplicity counts, and I am a 100% stathead and beleive in progressively using numbers, but this just seemed a bit convoluted to me.

baseball between the numbers, and sabermetric analysis of the game in general, has many proponents, but is not without its fair share of detractors. through advanced statistical examination (regression analysis, correlation studies, algorithms, etc.), there are many that believe baseball can be more clearly understood (with the implications being that individual player talent can be more accurately defined, and, thus, managers can use this information to increase the overall success of their respective clubs). in baseball between the numbers, the writers (or experts, as the title page so modestly deems them) at baseball prospectus consider some of the game's most contentious and long-held presumptions and attempt to discern the statistical truths from a bewilderingly broad swath of data.

the authors, amongst other topics, consider the undue attention paid to the rbi and a pitcher's win total, arguing that neither of these statistics are accurate gauges of a player's prowess. other issues analyzed include steroids, stadium financing, salary caps, the 5-man pitching rotation, utilization of relief pitchers, and the notion of a clutch hitter. much of the data resulting from the organization's statistical inquiries seems to defy decades-old conventional wisdom surrounding particular aspects of the game. the effects that sabermetrics have had on the game of baseball are at this point immeasurable, as clubs have increasingly incorporated advanced statistics in their decision making processes.

nearly every chapter of baseball between the numbers (of which there are twenty-seven proper: nine innings x 3 outs) offers something interesting, although a few veer into the realm of the unnecessarily captious. despite the subject's intrigue, the writing more often than not leaves quite a bit to be desired, and at times borders on the excruciating. what the book lacks in literary fecundity, however, it does make up for in encyclopedic knowledge, statistical proficiency, and measured application.

much to their credit, the folks at baseball prospectus were careful to frame their work in its proper context:

n  but to arrive at an answer that expands our knowledge of the game, we need to ask the right smaller questions within the framework of the bigger question... we use numbers as a framework to delve into these answers. but it's the process of learning to think critically about the game that defines this book, and in a broader sense defines our experiences as avid fans of the game... we put this book together because we love baseball, and we want to see it grow and succeed. that we approach the game with an analytical eye and a critical keyboard doesn't diminish the joy we've derived from baseball- it enhances it.n

most of the criticisms i have read about the book (and, again, sabermetrics in general) seem to suggest that these advanced statistics somehow devalue the game. while i am sympathetic to any dehumanizing trend, it is perhaps foolish to consider sabermetrics as anything other than an expository tool. baseball between the numbers, by the authors' own admission, is an attempt to enrich one's love for and understanding of the game, not supplant it with useless, irrelevant, or superfluous data. considered with this in mind, the book will indeed lead even the most ardent of baseball fans to rethink some of their fundamental beliefs about players, strategies, and even the game itself.

A truly excellent collection of a variety of deeply statistical investigations to answer such questions as "What's the matter with RBI?", "Why are pitchers so unpredictable?", and "How much does Coors field really matter?" Each "chapter" features three related individual questions that are addressed. What's fantastic about this book is the way in which it is written - this isn't really about statistics as numbers, it's about analyzing the game of baseball in the most accurate methods as possible in order to debunk myths and reveal what truly wins games. Mainstream sportswriters love to make the claim that Sabermetrics, as the "new" baseball stats have come to be known, are created by number crunchers living in their mother's basements. Baseball Between the Numbers debunks this allegation, showing Sabermatricians as true lovers of the game - reading about topics such as these makes you appreciate the game more, because you are able to analyze it more deeply yourself, rather than just think you are getting the whole picture from a player's batting average.

The highlights of the book, for me, are the aformetioned "What's the matter with RBI", along with "Are teams letting their closers go to waste?", and "What if Ricky Henderson had Pete Incaviglia's Legs?", a truly excellent demonstration of how little value stolen bases are. The only section that I didn't find fascinating were the financial analysis sections, where things like ticket prices, new stadiums, and salary caps were examined. They weren't poorly written, I just didn't find the subject matter that interesting. On the whole, it was truly excellent and a must for any baseball fan.