Friday, June 17, 2005

Review: Baseball's All-Time Best Hitters by Michael Schell

Review: Baseball's All-Time Best Hitters by Michael Schell

This is an interesting look at how to adjust for batting averages and compare players throughout baseball history. Schell uses a few methods to adjust the raw batting averages, such as adjusting for late career declines (he only uses the first 8,000 at bats), adjusting for eras, adjusting for league talent, and adjusting for home parks. Although these techniques are described in detail, I'm afraid most people won't appreciate it. The results of this book could have been written in a 5 page essay, but Schell decides to explain exactly how he went about the process. This is fine if you do care about the details, but not if you don't...so keep that in mind. I rated the book based on thinking the reader is interested in those details. (4 out of 5 stars at Amazon)

The other problem with the book is simply the topic. In this day and age, we understand that batting averages isn't the best measure of a hitter's contributions. Slugging percentage and on-base percentage are far more important. Schell does add a chapter on OBP near the end of the book. I suspect Schell understands this too as I see he has written a second book on Baseball's All-Time Sluggers. In Baseball's All-Time Best Hitters, he ranks Tony Gwynn as the best hitter of all-time. He defines hitter as one that gets hits. But the best hitter is not the best batter nor the best baseball player, so to me, this is almost a moot debate. Still, I appreciated the detail of how a statistician goes about looking at this issue. If you appreciate that kind of stuff, get this book. If not, avoid it.

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