Best Baseball Statistics

Moneyball is a quest for the secret of success in baseball. Billy Beane, general manager of MLB's Oakland A's and protagonist of Michael Lewis's Moneyball , had a problem: how to win in the Major Leagues with a budget that's smaller than that of nearly every other team. But Beane and his staff, buoyed by massive amounts of carefully interpreted statistical data, believed that wins could be had by more affordable methods such as hitters with high on-base percentage and pitchers who get lots of ground outs. Given this information and a tight budget, Beane defied tradition and his own scouting department to build winning teams of young affordable players and inexpensive castoff veterans. Lewis, one of the top nonfiction writers of his era ( Liar's Poker , The New New Thing ), offers highly accessible explanations of baseball stats and his roadmap of Beane's economic approach makes Moneyball an appealing reading experience for business people and sports fans alike. Lewis (Liar's Poker; The New New Thing) examines how in 2002 the Oakland Athletics achieved a spectacular winning record while having the smallest player payroll of any major league baseball team.

It’s the ultimate in fantasy baseball: You get to pick the roster, set the lineup, and decide on strategies -- with real players, in a real ballpark, in a real playoff race. That’s what baseball analysts Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller got to do when an independent minor-league team in California, the Sonoma Stompers, offered them the chance to run its baseball operations according to the most advanced statistics. ---Jonah Keri, author of Up, Up, and Away Ben Lindbergh is a staff writer for FiveThirtyEight and, with Sam Miller, cohost of Effectively Wild, the daily Baseball Prospectus podcast.

Predictably Irrational meets Moneyball in ESPN veteran writer and statistical analyst Keith Law’s iconoclastic look at the numbers game of baseball, proving why some of the most trusted stats are surprisingly wrong, explaining what numbers actually work, and exploring what the rise of Big Data means for the future of the sport. He also considers the game’s future, examining how teams are using Data—from PhDs to sophisticated statistical databases—to build future rosters; changes that will transform baseball and all of professional sports. ''Law provides necessary insight into how front offices have come to evaluate talent... Smart Baseball is an essential and accessible primer on how data and analytics shape America's Pastime, and where it's headed. ''. Smart Baseball gives us a preview of the future as Keith introduces the stats that really matter in a way that all fans will enjoy.''. ''[Law] shatters myths about how to accurately measure a baseball player's ability and then explains modern criteria that offer better results...provides a spirited exploration of statistics sure to start arguments among devoted baseball fans... a smooth combination of erudition and his obvious love of the sport.''. ''In mercifully plain English, Law explains how the new statistical tools can answer questions that previously baffled baseball experts. But he backs it up not just with numbers but his experience in the game...His charting of the ways baseball uses metrics...is clear-eyed and, even for traditionalists, hard to argue with.''. Yet, despite their popularity, confusion persists about these new stats, with much of the baseball world still following the “old” way—a combination of those outdated numbers and gut instinct—to evaluate players’ contributions and careers. Using entertaining anecdotes, logic, and occasionally just a little math, he exposes the flaws in much of the game’s orthodoxy, from the illusion of clutch performers, to the dishonesty of RBIs, to how the save rule—invented by a journalist—has ruined bullpens for decades. Law also offers a clear-eyed discussion of the new stats that are helping teams win, changing how players are valued, and altering how we talk about the game. Brought to life by Law’s unapologetic style, Smart Baseball is an iconoclastic look at the numbers game of baseball, proving why some of the most trusted stats are surprisingly wrong, detailing the numbers that actually work, and revealing what the rise of Big Data means for the future of the sport.

Moneyball is a quest for the secret of success in baseball. Billy Beane, general manager of MLB's Oakland A's and protagonist of Michael Lewis's Moneyball , had a problem: how to win in the Major Leagues with a budget that's smaller than that of nearly every other team. But Beane and his staff, buoyed by massive amounts of carefully interpreted statistical data, believed that wins could be had by more affordable methods such as hitters with high on-base percentage and pitchers who get lots of ground outs. Given this information and a tight budget, Beane defied tradition and his own scouting department to build winning teams of young affordable players and inexpensive castoff veterans. Lewis, one of the top nonfiction writers of his era ( Liar's Poker , The New New Thing ), offers highly accessible explanations of baseball stats and his roadmap of Beane's economic approach makes Moneyball an appealing reading experience for business people and sports fans alike. Lewis (Liar's Poker; The New New Thing) examines how in 2002 the Oakland Athletics achieved a spectacular winning record while having the smallest player payroll of any major league baseball team.

From one of the co-founders of Pixar Animation Studios—the Academy Award–winning studio behind Coco, Inside Out, and Toy Story —comes an incisive book about creativity in business and leadership for readers of Daniel Pink, Tom Peters, and Chip and Dan Heath. NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER | NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Huffington Post • Financial Times • Success • Inc. • Library Journal “[ Creativity, Inc. ]. just might be the most thoughtful management book ever.”— Fast Company Creativity, Inc. is a book for managers who want to lead their employees to new heights, a manual for anyone who strives for originality, and the first-ever, all-access trip into the nerve center of Pixar Animation—into the meetings, postmortems, and “Braintrust” sessions where some of the most successful films in history are made. It is, at heart, a book about how to build a creative culture—but it is also, as Pixar co-founder and president Ed Catmull writes, “an expression of the ideas that I believe make the best in us possible.”. Praise for Creativity, Inc. “Over more than thirty years, Ed Catmull has developed methods to root out and destroy the barriers to creativity, to marry creativity to the pursuit of excellence, and, most impressive, to sustain a culture of disciplined creativity during setbacks and success.” —Jim Collins, co-author of Built to Last and author of Good to Great “Too often, we seek to keep the status quo working. “Just might be the best business book ever written.” — Forbes “Achieving enormous success while holding fast to the highest artistic standards is a nice trick—and Pixar, with its creative leadership and persistent commitment to innovation, has pulled it off. Any reader of Creativity, Inc., Catmull’s new book on the art of running creative companies, will have to agree. Catmull, president of both Pixar and Walt Disney Animation, has written what just might be the most thoughtful management book ever.” — Fast Company “It’s one thing to be creative; it’s entirely another—and much more rare—to build a great and creative culture. Over more than thirty years, Ed Catmull has developed methods to root out and destroy the barriers to creativity, to marry creativity to the pursuit of excellence, and, most impressive, to sustain a culture of disciplined creativity during setbacks and success. Catmull’s book is quickly becoming the latest bible for the show business crowd.” —The New York Times “The most practical and deep book ever written by a practitioner on the topic of innovation.” —Prof. [Catmull] uses Pixar’s triumphs and near-disasters to outline a system for managing people in creative businesses—one in which candid criticism is delivered sensitively, while individuality and autonomy are not strangled by a robotic corporate culture.” — Financial Times “A wonderful new book . An immensely readable and rewarding book that will challenge and inspire readers to make their workplaces hotbeds of creativity.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Punctuated with surprising tales of how the company’s films were developed and the company’s financial struggles, Catmull shares insights about harnessing talent, creating teams, protecting the creative process, candid communications, organizational structures, alignment, and the importance of storytelling. [ Creativity, Inc. ] will delight and inspire creative individuals and their managers, as well as anyone who wants to work ‘in an environment that fosters creativity and problem solving.’” — Publishers Weekly (starred review) “For anyone managing anything, and particularly those trying to manage creative teams, Catmull is like a kind, smart godfather guiding us toward managing wisely, without losing our souls, and in a way that works toward greatness. What Ed Catmull shares instead is his astute experience that creativity isn’t strictly a well of ideas, but an alchemy of people. In Creativity, Inc. Ed reveals, with commonsense specificity and honesty, examples of how not to get in your own way and how to realize a creative coalescence of art, business, and innovation.” —George Lucas “This is the best book ever written on what it takes to build a creative organization. Ed Catmull is co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios and president of Pixar Animation and Disney Animation.

The Phenomenon is the story of how St. Louis Cardinals prodigy Rick Ankiel lost his once-in-a-generation ability to pitch--not due to an injury or a bolt of lightning, but a mysterious anxiety condition widely known as "the Yips." And then, after reconsidering his whole life at the age of twenty-five, Ankiel made an amazing turnaround: returning to the Major Leagues as a hitter and playing seven successful seasons. "Revealing, vulnerable, and triumphant, Rick Ankiel and Tim Brown provide a poignant reminder in this age of statistics- and computer-driven analysis that it is real people who play the game. --Jim Abbott , former MLB pitcher and bestselling author of Imperfect "Each year lots of baseball books roll off the presses. His book is a candid and powerful story of his pitching success, his cruel and dramatic career derailment, and his historic resurrection as a power-hitting outfielder. --Hall of Famer Joe Torre, four-time World Series Championship manager and MLB's chief baseball officer. "A great story of a young man's ability to persist in the face of complicated and difficult issues--I admire him for it and the success he eventually achieved." "A former Major League Baseball player offers an affecting account of his unique professional career and dramatic personal life. Born in 1979, Ankiel debuted with the Cardinals a month after his 20th birthday, and became the first major-league player since Babe Ruth to win at least 10 games as a pitcher and hit at least 50 home runs. With his wife, Lory, and sons Declan and Ryker, Ankiel lives in Jupiter, Fla. Tim Brown is an award-winning writer with 25 years' experience covering Major League Baseball at the Los Angeles Times, the Newark Star-Ledger, the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Los Angeles Daily News and Yahoo!