Gifts for the Baseball Analyst
I’ve got family coming in and out of town over the next two weeks, so I’m not planning to post much (if at all) during this time. I thought I’d leave you with a list of gifts for the baseball analyst. These are the books that I recommend.
Introduction
Moneyball by Michael Lewis — A good introduction to the big picture.
The Numbers Game by Alan Schwarz — The entire history of baseball analysis. I reference it frequently.
Intermediate
Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame by Bill James — A good introduction to the objective analysis of Bill James.
Baseball Between the Numbers by Baseball Prospectus — A good introduction to sabermetrics. I don’t agree with everything in the book, but it offers good coverage modern sabermetrics.
The Baseball Economist by J.C. Bradbury — If you want to know what I think. 
Advanced
Curve Ball by Jim Albert and Jay Bennett — An easy-to-read introduction to the application of statistics to baseball by two statisticians. A must for the serious baseball analyst.
Baseball’s All-Time Best Sluggers by Michael Schell — The best treatise on hitting ever written, by a UNC biostatistics professor who grew up in my neighborhood and played in my Little League (we didn’t know each other, though). This is not light reading.
Baseball Hacks by Joseph Adler — A guide to acquiring and organizing baseball data from the web.
I wish you a happy an safe holiday season.
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.
December 22nd, 2008 at 10:18 am
Thanks. Now I know what to get with any bookstore gift cards that show up in my stocking.
December 22nd, 2008 at 12:01 pm
When does your new book come out?
December 22nd, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Another quality product of the Dilworth Little League!
December 22nd, 2008 at 8:32 pm
New book will be released in spring 2010 by Wharton/Financial Times.
December 22nd, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Sorry. It needs to be released sooner than that.
December 23rd, 2008 at 7:52 pm
I also recommend “The Hidden Game of Baseball”, That Neyer/James pitchers book, Bill James’ latest handbook, and Baseball Prospectus’s handbook. On “Baseball Between the Numbers”, I started reading it and loved it, but about 1/3 of the way through it my interest dipped and I quit reading it 1/2 way through it. The questions they attempted to answer got increasingly silly and irrelevant. The first 1/3 of the book is brilliant, but it gets rather repetitive. As with any baseball analysis book, it’s important to remember that the journey which the author takes to reach his answer is much more important than the actual answer at which he arrives. The same applies to this book.