Who else loves Bill James? I've read his updated version of the "Historical Abstract" cover to cover. Several times.

The man is brilliant. Everything he writes is endlessly interesting. I need to get his "Guide To Pitchers", which he wrote with Rob Neyer, the best baseball columnist around.

The way he breaks down baseball, with all those piles of stats to back up everything he says, is just amazing. And I love his boldest claim: that in 1997, hugely popular slugger Ken Griffey Jr. was not the MVP of the National League, but little-appreciated Craig Biggio was. And I'll be damned if he doesn't go ahead and prove it throughout that article.

I love his stuff but omg sometimes it's like reading microeconomics or something. The degree to which he analyzes and the minutae he comes up with is unreal. He's the Godfather, just a genius.

Dear Eric,

Yes.

Love,
Auggie

Um, but yeah, the sheer volume of stats and numbers he throws around is mindboggling. By far the greatest use I've found for mathematics is playing around with baseball stats. I learned how to use Excel for the sole purpose of determining Win Shares.

I admit it, I've wished I could have come up with some of his ideas.

Mindboggling though. Seriously. You could base a stats, reasoning, or analysis class around his work alone.

Absolutely. I don't know of any schools that have tapped into this yet, but it's a great idea.

I've been trodding through the Abstract for a couple months now...

The Guide to Pitchers is excellent though. It's worth it for the Lucky Bastards article alone.

i'd just like to highly recommend "the numbers game" by Alan Shwarz for all the bill james fans

Oh, and the Red Sox just won the World Series, so Mr. James will be sporting a World Series ring next year.

I had almost forgotten that he took an advisor position with the Sox last year until I just heard Rob Neyer mention it at 3 in the morning on ESPN Radio on my way to the supermarket for some generic glazed doughnuts.

I'm going to have to attribute this historic World Series victory in no small part to Bill James.

i think that his ideas are what helped the sox win in '04, but i'm pretty sure his ideas have caused the last 2 seasons of mistakes as well.

I'm not sure how I missed this the first time around, but Griffey wasn't a National Leaguer in 1997.

it was buried pretty far down there, i thought it might need a bump