Tangotiger Blog

Friday, February 03, 2023

The Book at Google Books

I'm not sure how well known this is: The first twenty percent of The Book is available at Google Books.

As for how this happened: We sold our publishing rights (since re-acquired) to another publisher.  And it looks like they then allowed Google Books to publish the first 88 pages.

You can also do an extensive search on Amazon Look Inside.

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

The Only Rule Is: It Has To Work

?Long-long-long time buddy Patriot reviews Ben and Sam's book.

Friday, November 27, 2015

Hardball Times 2016 - Prima Facie

?My three favorites so far are the articles by Peter B, Jeff Z, and MGL.  I glanced quickly at a few others, so a couple of others may bubble up.

Jeff's article is something that will be read by every front office, and each section he wrote itself could have been its own article.

Peter took something I published a few months ago and exploded it into something impressive.  And he's just skimming the surface.

MGL sets the tone in how to deconstruct and reconstruct a saber study.  The process of the study is far more important than the conclusions, and it should be understood before undertaking any kind of study.

Looking forward to reading all the others.

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Hardball Times 2016

?Here it is including an article by MGL, Phil Birnbaum, Bryan Cole, Jeff Zimmerman, Peter B and several other Straight Arrow readers.

Friday, November 13, 2015

Hardball Times Week

?At the top of each page, if you click on the image of The Book, it'll bring you to Amazon.  By doing it that way, you can then make all your Amazon purchases (whether you buy The Book or not), and Amazon will give me a commission, which I think is 4% or 5%.  At no cost to you.

Now, this is what I'll do: all the profits I get from you doing that over the next two weeks, I will then donate to Straight Arrow readers that are still in high school or college, in the form of an e-book to Hardball Times Annual.

Sunday, May 03, 2015

Must have basketball books

?Here's a list of 23 that are being voted upon.  In addition to basketball books, it has some business and gambling books.

And it also includes The Book for some reason.  I guess it's a compliment in that it has some ideas that you can apply to basketball.  While it ranks 21, it's also ahead Berri's book, which ranks 23rd.

Saturday, March 07, 2015

Publish with @ACTASports

This is a PSA, without prior knowledge of anyone other than me.  Actually, not even me, because I have no idea what I'm about to write.

?When we were finally able to get out of our contract with our previous publisher, we turned to ACTA Sports for distribution of the remaining inventory.  We did so because we knew they were partners of friends of ours (Hardball Times, Bill James).  Whereas our deal with our previous publisher called for royalties to be paid annually (and you guys may remember how hard it was to get our royalties), ACTA paid out twice a year, and they do so like clock work.  I was reminded of this when we got our check in the mail this morning. 

While we've now gone the self-publishing Amazon/Apple route because it works best for us at this point, I know many authors out there prefer the traditional publishing house.  If so, I've had nothing but positive experience with the gang over at ACTA, starting with Greg, and everyone else there.

Monday, January 05, 2015

Tribute to Studes

In the current Hardball Times Annual 2015, in the Contributors section in the book, where each contributor gets his own bio, most of them added an additional message for Studes, who is moving on from the book after a dozen years.  They are very nice, and even if you don't buy the book, you should read that section at your bookstore just to read the various tributes.

I don't remember exactly when I crossed paths with Studes.  I seem to remember him doing a baserunning article over at Primer, and he also had the BaseballGraphs.com site with the fabulous batted ball library, and he posted at my original blog at Primer (and here's a compilation of ALL his comments at that blog), all that would have to have been around 2002-03.  For whatever reason, I always remember this comment of his, just him giving a simple congratulations, but I still remember it.

Whenever someone writes me about some research they did, I always send them to studes, trying to get them published at Hardball Times.  We're all on the same team, and I always think that sabermetrics is better off when the tides can lift all our boats.  And that's basically studes, a captain of sabermetics.?

And he's also a good guy period.  Which really is the best quality to have.  A few people come to mind who have that quality, like Sig over at Cards/Astros, that even if you wanted to argue with them, you can't.  And I've had my share of... I wouldn't even call them disagreements really... just different points of view with Studes, but we always get to a happy place rather quickly.  It's terrific dealing with a guy like Studes, because you know that at the end of the discussion, you'll have moved forward, and together, even if you don't see eye-to-eye.

Anyway, wherever studes goes, I'll be there following him, interested in whatever it is that he's doing.

Saturday, January 03, 2015

Hardball Times Annual 2015 - Fun stuff

?There were a couple of fun articles I enjoyed.  The first was Studes' take on WPA (yet again), this time with a focus on "Mistake WPA" (among other things).  Basically, take all the events and group them so that those "mistakes" are in one  bucket (things like reaching on error, WP, etc).  And then doing it at a team level (offense and defense).  It reminds me of the "turnover differentials" you see for football, or similar measures in tennis.  But since each "mistake" has its own value based on its timing, the net WPA will tell you a good story. Another thing that he talks about is the "drama".  As a small tidbit, I think he calculated it as change in WPA per inning, but I'd favor it as per PA, since that's how we experience the game.  Anyway, nice little tidbits about Jeter's last game, and other things.  That's what WPA really is, just alot of fun stuff, stories to tell.  You can experience a game from 30 years ago using just WPA.

***

The other one was a comparison of The Book to Moneyball.  Jason had specific questions that he asked several front office folks, to try to get a perspective of how the two are used and had an influence.  The one thing about Moneyball is that it made a front-office job a real career path for a host of new people.  The owner was no longer at the mercy of his "baseball men".  He could point to Moneyball, and use that as a way to hire guys from basically anywhere.  What Moneyball offered was a true paradigm shift, a shift that could only happen at the behest of the higher levels.

Interestingly, this hasn't happened in hockey.  Hockey is still proliferated by "hockey men".  It won't be a paradigm shift there, so much as a natural, but slow, evolution.

Hardball Times Annual 2015 - Recency Effect

?I finally cracked it open this morning.  The first article I jumped to was on page 360 by Wolfersberger/Yaspan called "Quantify Recency Effect".

I was interested because, as you know, for many years, I've been using a weight of around .999^DaysAgo.  So, performance exactly one year ago has a weight of 0.7 and two years ago is at 0.5.  And if you want, you can bring it back 5, 10, 20 years. We know those are around the correct numbers because that's what Marcel uses for weights (actually, .9994 works better), though Marcel only uses 3 years.  But in any case, in terms of year-to-year, it works nice, and I just extrapolated (intrapolated?) to get a daily function.

BUT, that was me guessing.  After all, I can see how maybe it should be .9996^DaysAgo, and then some multiplier, like 0.9 for between-seasons (muscle-memory, lack of daily practice, etc).  Or something like that. 

As you can see, it's going to be quite impossible to try to look at observed data to try to fit it into a daily function.  And the authors basically proved that point.  Which is good, because that means they should try something less granular.  Which they tried by using 10 PA.  Which also didn't help.  It also didn't help that they did 10 PA onto 1 PA.  Try as you might, when you've got something barely observable, you just won't get anything if you try to regress onto 1 PA.

We pointed to researchers last year that did something less granular (but who exagerrated their claims).  But, that was the better direction.  I'd suggest trying to do first half v second half.  Then, trying it in quarters of seasons.

Another thing: times thru the order effect.  That's a big deal.  A big big deal.  If you are looking at things at the PA level, you will get MASSIVE change in talent if you go PA by PA.  Especially if you look at the last PA of game G and then the first PA of game G+1.  So, better to look at things at the game-by-game level.

Anyway, your prior should be a function as I've previously described.  Your tests should go against that.  I like the effort of the researchers, but they dove into the deep end far too fast without understanding the data or the kinds of effects they should have expected to find.  It's easier to find your path through the maze if you are standing above it, than right in the middle of it.

***

Historical note: Pizza wasn't the first.  He was the first to expose it to the treatment level he did, but he wasn't the first to do what he did.  MGL and I have done it since at least 2004.  And I wouldn't be surprised if others have done it even before that.

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Hardball Times Annual 2015, now on Amazon

This is a PSA to check it out over at Amazon.?  And here's a complete description of what you'll be getting,.

Friday, May 30, 2014

Article about baseball books

?Just waiting for the book about baseball books.

Monday, April 07, 2014

The Hidden Game of Baseball to be reissued

John Thorn posted the news on Twitter, and Pete Palmer confirmed it for me with a bit of extra details.  When he tells me more, I'll pass it along.  Basically, it's a reissue, not an update.

For those who have read The Book, you will know that Pete Palmer wrote the foreword, as well as being a source of inspiration in several spots throughout the book.  Pete and Bill James blew the door wide open for me, making me think in ways I never thought to.  The Hidden Game should be available via interlibrary loan, but having it in your personal library is obviously recommended.

When people talk about standing on the shoulders of giants, these two is who I would mean in the saber-world.

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Je me souviens Les Expos

A review of Keri's account of the Expos.?

Monday, March 10, 2014

Sabermetric Book Reviews

?Studes reviews Gerard's GPA and Baumer/Zimbalist's Revolution.

Gerard I think wrote to me a couple of months ago about his book.  I don't remember what he asked me or what I said.  I think he sent me a chapter.  I'll have to check my email when I get home tonight.  I think I suggested that he should get himself a website and post excerpts exactly like we did for The Book.

***

And this suggestion applies to EVERYONE: do exactly what we did.  Amazon's Look Inside is a fantastic feature.  And you can do something similar by excerpting the first 2 or 3 pages of each chapter.  This is like browsing in a physical book store.  You give the reader a chance to see what you are all about.  On top of which, you get Google search hits as well.  We get staying power.  Book sales are as strong now as they were in our debut in 2006.

However, one would conclude that I must not know what I'm talking about, because virtually no one else has copied this format.

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

When you can’t get enough of Dirk Hayhurst, get more of Dirk Hayhurst

?PSA for our buddy Dirk.

Friday, January 24, 2014

Sabermetric Revolution by Baumer and Zimbalist

Our buddy Baumer wrote a book on sabermetrics.  You can get it from Amazon (20$ or 19$ for Kindle (*) ) or at the publisher's site.  Publisher sent me a code: PE18, which gives you a discount of 20% (discounted price of 21$).

(*) The Kindle price makes no sense, as Amazon offers 70% royalty if you price under 10$, otherwise it's 35% royalty.  As you can see, it makes more sense to price a Kindle at 9.99$ than it would at anything between 10.00$ and 19.99$.  And really, even at 20-30$, the Kindle price makes no sense, as whatever extra you get per unit can't make up for the loss of volume.  I'm glad we maintain our publishing rights. ?

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Max’s Book, reviewed

Martin gives it a positive review.

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Bill James Handbook review

?ACTA sent me a copy to review.  I'll get to it soon enough.  But, given what Studes has done, I can't imagine I can offer anything value-added.

Friday, November 29, 2013

Baseball Books for the Holiday Season

Here's a good list.  ?