So, You Want to Be a Sabermetrician
You ought to take a couse in econometrics. You’ll get theory and empirical tools, which are necessary. But, that’s not practical for most, so why not teach yourself by reading one or more of the following.
Studenmund: Understanding Econometrics – A mostly verbal introduction to econometrics by a baseball fan. Well-written and not intimidating.
Kennedy: A Guide to Econometrics — A quick and practical guide that is affordable.
Wooldridge: Introductory Econometrics – My favorite intro book.
Stock and Watson: Introduction to Econometrics — I like this book a good bit.
J.C. Bradbury is an economist and associate professor at Kennesaw State University in metropolitan Atlanta. He is the author of The Baseball Economist and has operated Sabernomics.com since March 2004.
October 6th, 2006 at 10:47 am
I would also recommend Andy Dolphin’s Appendix in THE BOOK (disclosure: I am co-author of the book, but had nothing to do with the Appendix). I’ll leave it to J.C. and others here as to whether that gets a stamp of approval.
October 6th, 2006 at 11:27 am
I changed the title of the post. I’m not sure why I put “good” in there. I mean, who wants to be a bad anything?
I am just trying to provide a guide on how to bone up on some useful statisitcal skills quickly.
Tom,
I haven’t seen the appendix, but I suspect it’s very useful. I didn’t mean to imply these are the only sources, just some that I find helpful for introducing people to econometrics.
October 6th, 2006 at 11:37 am
Andy has recommended Numerical Recipes to us:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521308119/104-9096783-8495916
October 6th, 2006 at 3:14 pm
That Studenmund book is pure gold, I tell ya. Seriously, it is the best-selling econometrics textbook.
October 9th, 2006 at 2:34 pm
I’ve taken a couple basic statistic courses and a couple basic economics courses. I’ve also read Bill James and many of the sabermetric webistes regularly.
Will any of these books give me much more than what I’ve learned from the sources I just mentioned?
October 9th, 2006 at 4:09 pm
That first book will run you 112$… it better give you the insights of all of the Baseball Abstracts combined, plus two free tickets to a ball game.
October 9th, 2006 at 7:49 pm
Studes (#4),
Are you any relation?
October 11th, 2006 at 9:04 pm
I also suggest Verbeek’s “A Guide to Modern Econometrics” (as a basic intro) and Cameron and Trivedi’s Microeconometrics. I’m a big fan of the Wooldridge text, but I think Cameron and Trivedi are just as clear while covering much more material.