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EVIL~! alkeiper

Bill James Handbook 2005

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I just received my copy in the mail. It is not your traditional Bill James book. It is your standard annual statistics register, with James' name attached. It carries career statistics for every active major leaguer, and a ton of fun little tidbits. Here are a few fun facts I picked up while browsing the book...

 

-Moises Alou hit 29 home runs in Wrigley Field, and ten on the road.

 

-Colorado manager Clint Hurdle led baseball in sacrifice attempts. Gotta love smallball in the majors' best hitting park.

 

-Ichiro led the AL in both batting average versus both lefties and righties. Ichiro also hit over .400 on the road.

 

-Carlos Beltran stole third base 17 times, most in the Majors.

 

-Manny Ramirez boasted a 1.294 OPS when hitting a curveball.

 

-The Cubs' Mark Grudzielanek boasted baseball's best batting average in Close and Late situations.

 

-Bobby Abreu saw the most pitches last season (3,081).

 

-Kyle Farnsworth threw 30 pitches over 100 mph. The next highest pitchers (Billy Wagner and Jesus Colome) had eight. Rich Harden threw the most pitches over 95 mph (746).

 

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...g=UTF8&v=glance

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Guest Failed Mascot

I already knew the Alou and Hurdle stuff.

 

If Farnsworth had some movement on that fastball then he'd be unhittable. As it is the ball seems to go straight down the pipe or high.

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Any info on how many times Jeter stole 3rd base? He has to be close to Beltran atleast.

 

EDIT: Well now that I thought about it, not close to Beltran, since Jeter only stole 23 bases, but I think most of them were from stealing third.

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Guest Catcher8C

If you want a good baseball book to keep you occupied all season, you need to buy the Sporting News/Fox/Stats book The Scouting Notebook. It has profiles on every big leaguer and tells you which minor leaguers could see time. It also has good projections that are usually pretty close. I reccommend it. Out Jan 20

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If you want a good baseball book to keep you occupied all season, you need to buy the Sporting News/Fox/Stats book The Scouting Notebook. It has profiles on every big leaguer and tells you which minor leaguers could see time. It also has good projections that are usually pretty close. I reccommend it. Out Jan 20

I picked that up one year. It was a nice read. The entire Stats Inc. line of books was great, before they merged with Fox. I miss the minor league Player Register.

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Got my copy.

 

-Frank Robinson called one pitchout all year. Ken Macha and Felipe Alou each called two pitchouts for the year. Dusty Baker led all managers calling 55 pitchouts.

 

-Damion Easley led the N.L. in OPS vs. sliders.

 

-Larry Bigbie led the A.L. in OPS vs. changeups.

 

-Brian Roberts led the A.L. in total number of pitches seen for the year and best BPS (batting average + slugging) on pitches outside the strike zone.

 

-Ron Villone led the A.L. in OBP vs. 1st Batter Faced.

 

-Ruben Sierra is the active career leader in sacrafice flies.

 

-Kenny Rogers led the Majors with 11 cheap wins. Ben Sheets led the Majors with 11 tough losses.

 

-Top 10 Players Most Likely to have a Back Injury next year: Mike Sweeney, Sammy Sosa, Ivan Rodriguez, Brent Mayne, Garret Anderson, Juan Gonzalez, Trot Nixon, Nick Johnson, Billy McMillon, and Vladimir Guerrero.

 

-Top 10 Pitchers Most Likely to have a Elbow Injury next year: Bob Wickman, Andy Pettite, Kurt Ainsworth, Joel Pineiro, Victor Zambrano, Randy Wolf, Lino Urdaneta, Kris Benson, Mike Mussina, and Jay Powell.

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The injury predictor isn't James' study but some guy named Sig Mejdal. James even says in the book there is no way to know how well it will work. Mejdal claims in the book that 7 out of 10 pitchers he had projected on his list for elbow injuries last year suffered one that kept them out for a month or more in 2004, one of them being Andy Pettitte. He wasn't quite as succesful predicting other injuries though.

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Yes, the injury database is extremely suspect. I almost think its something the publisher insisted on to sell books in an increasingly crowded marketplace, rather than anything James endorses. Having read much of James' writing, I find it difficult to believe that he would easily endorse such an unproven system, given that he ripped apart the Baseball Prospectus pitch count system in a recent book. I think the system is about as useful as "for Entertainment Only" psychic lines.

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Sure why not? Ken Griffey Jr. is listed as the player most likley to suffer any sort of injury but did you need a book to tell you that?

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