Winner of the 2018 casey award for Best Baseball Book of the Year. The former espn columnist and analytics pioneer dramatically recreates an action-packed 2017 game between the Oakland A’s and eventual World Series Champion Houston Astros to reveal the myriad ways in which Major League Baseball has changed over the last few decades.

On september 8, 2017, the oakland a’s faced off against the Houston Astros in a game that would signal the passing of the Moneyball mantle. Seemingly every pitcher now throws mid-90s heat and studiously compares their mechanics against the ideal. Though this was only one regular season game, the match-up of these two teams demonstrated how Major League Baseball has changed since the early days of Athletics general manager Billy Beane and the publication of Michael Lewis’ classic book.

Over the past twenty years, power and analytics have taken over the game, driving carefully calibrated teams like the Astros to victory. Every batter in the lineup can crack homers and knows their launch angles. Teams are relying on unorthodox strategies, including using power-losing—purposely tanking a few seasons to get the best players in the draft.

As he chronicles each inning and the unfolding drama as these two teams continually trade the lead—culminating in a 9-8 Oakland victory in the bottom of the ninth—Neyer considers the players and managers, the front office machinations, the role of sabermetrics, and the current thinking about what it takes to build a great team, to answer the most pressing questions fans have about the sport today.

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Astroball: The New Way to Win It All

Instead, luhnow and sig wanted to correct for the biases inherent in human observation, and then roll their scouts’ critical thoughts into their process. No longer would scouts, with all their subjective, hard-to-quantify opinions, be forced into opposition with the stats guys. The astros were the worst baseball team in half a century, but they were more than just bad.

They were an embarrassment, a club that didn’t even appear to be trying to win. How had reiter predicted it so accurately? and, more important, how had the Astros pulled off the impossible?Astroball is the inside story of how a gang of outsiders went beyond the stats to find a new way to win—and not just in baseball.

New york times bestsellerwhen sports illustrated declared on the cover of a june 2014 issue that the Houston Astros would win the World Series in 2017, people thought Ben Reiter, the article’s author, was crazy. The numbers had value—but so did the gut. The strategy paid off brilliantly, and surprisingly quickly.

When new astros general manager jeff luhnow and his top analyst, the former rocket scientist Sig Mejdal, arrived in Houston in 2011, they had already spent more than half a decade trying to understand how human instinct and expertise could be blended with hard numbers such as on-base percentage and strikeout rate to guide their decision-making.

The cover story, combined with the specificity of Reiter’s claim, met instant and nearly universal derision. It pointed the astros toward key draft picks like carlos correa and alex Bregman; offered a path for developing George Springer, José Altuve, and Dallas Keuchel; and showed them how veterans like Carlos Beltrán and Justin Verlander represented the last piece in the puzzle of fielding a championship team.

Sitting at the nexus of sports, and innovation—and written with years of access to the team’s stars and executives—Astroball is the story of the next wave of thinking in baseball and beyond, business, at once a remarkable underdog story and a fascinating look at the cutting edge of evaluating and optimizing human potential.

The Shift: The Next Evolution in Baseball Thinking

With a background in clinical psychology as well as experience in major league front offices, demonstrating along the way that data and logic need not be at odds with the human elements of baseball—in fact, Baseball Prospectus' Russell Carleton illuminates advanced statistics and challenges cultural assumptions, they're inextricably intertwined.

Covering topics ranging from infield shifts to paradigm shifts, Carleton writes with verve, and an engaging style, honesty, inviting all those who love the game to examine it deeply and maybe a little differently. It's a thinking game. It's also a shifting game. So what's on the horizon for a game that is constantly evolving? Positioned at the crossroads of sabermetrics and cognitive science, The Shift alters the trajectory of both traditional and analytics-based baseball thought.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the statistical revolution which has swept through the pastime in recent years, OPS, bringing metrics like WAR, and BABIP into front offices and living rooms alike. Casual fans and statheads alike will not want to miss this compelling meditation on what makes baseball tick.

With its three-hour-long contests, and countless measurable variables, 162-game seasons, baseball is a sport which lends itself to self-reflection and obsessive analysis. Data becomes digestible; intangibles are rendered not only accessible, but quantifiable.

The MVP Machine: How Baseball's New Nonconformists Are Using Data to Build Better Players

As bestselling authors ben lindbergh and Travis Sawchik reveal in The MVP Machine, the Moneyball era is over. Fifteen years after michael lewis brought the oakland Athletics' groundbreaking team-building strategies to light, every front office takes a data-driven approach to evaluating players, and the league's smarter teams no longer have a huge advantage in valuing past performance.

Lindbergh and sawchik's behind-the-scenes reporting reveals:how the 2017 astros and 2018 red sox used cutting-edge technology to win the world serieshow undersized afterthoughts José Altuve and Mookie Betts became big sluggers and MVPsHow polarizing pitcher Trevor Bauer made himself a Cy Young contenderHow new analytical tools have overturned traditional pitching and hitting techniquesHow a wave of young talent is making MLB both better than ever and arguably worse to watchInstead of out-drafting, and out-trading their rivals, out-signing, baseball's best minds have turned to out-developing opponents, gaining greater edges than ever by perfecting prospects and eking extra runs out of older athletes who were once written off.

Lindbergh and sawchik take us inside the transformation of former fringe hitters into home-run kings, show how washed-up pitchers have emerged as aces, and document how coaching and scouting are being turned upside down. Move over, moneyball -- a cutting-edge look at major league baseball's next revolution: the high-tech quest to build better players.

The mvp machine charts the future of a sport and offers a lesson that goes beyond baseball: Success stems not from focusing on finished products, but from making the most of untapped potential.

Astroball: The New Way to Win It All

They were an embarrassment, a club that didn’t even appear to be trying to win. The cover story, combined with the specificity of Reiter’s claim, met instant and nearly universal derision. No longer would scouts, hard-to-quantify opinions, with all their subjective, be forced into opposition with the stats guys.

Instead, luhnow and sig wanted to correct for the biases inherent in human observation, and then roll their scouts’ critical thoughts into their process. But three years later, the critics were proved improbably, astonishingly wrong. It pointed the astros toward key draft picks like carlos correa and alex Bregman; offered a path for developing George Springer, José Altuve, and Dallas Keuchel; and showed them how veterans like Carlos Beltrán and Justin Verlander represented the last piece in the puzzle of fielding a championship team.

Sitting at the nexus of sports, and innovation—and written with years of access to the team’s stars and executives—Astroball is the story of the next wave of thinking in baseball and beyond, business, at once a remarkable underdog story and a fascinating look at the cutting edge of evaluating and optimizing human potential.

The numbers had value—but so did the gut. The strategy paid off brilliantly, and surprisingly quickly. The astros were the worst baseball team in half a century, but they were more than just bad. In houston, they had free rein to remake the club. New york times bestsellerwhen sports illustrated declared on the cover of a june 2014 issue that the Houston Astros would win the World Series in 2017, people thought Ben Reiter, the article’s author, was crazy.

The Book: Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Written by three esteemed baseball statisticians, the Book continues where the legendary Bill James’s Baseball Abstracts and Palmer and Thorn’s The Hidden Game of Baseball left off more than twenty years ago. If you want to know what the folks in baseball should be doing, find out in The Book. Continuing in the grand tradition of sabermetrics, the authors provide a revolutionary way to think about baseball with principles that can be applied at every level, from high school to the major leagues.

Tom tango, mitchel lichtman, the benefits and risks of intentional walks and sacrifices, and Andrew Dolphin cover topics such as batting and pitching matchups, fielding, the legitimacy of alleged “clutch” hitters, and many of baseball’s other theories on hitting, pitching, platooning, and even baserunning.

They analyze when a strategy is a good idea and when it’s a bad idea, and how to more closely watch the “inside” game of baseball. Whenever you hear an announcer talk about the “unwritten rule” or say that so-and-so is going “by the book” in bringing in a situational substitute, The Book reviews the facts and determines what the real case is.

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Smart Baseball: The Story Behind the Old Stats That Are Ruining the Game, the New Ones That Are Running It, and the Right Way to Think About Baseball

Baseball, they argue, should be run by people, not by numbers. In this informative and provocative book, teh renowned ESPN analyst and senior baseball writer demolishes a century’s worth of accepted wisdom, making the definitive case against the long-established view. But in the past fifteen years, a revolutionary new standard of measurement—sabermetrics—has been embraced by front offices in Major League Baseball and among fantasy baseball enthusiasts.

Predictably irrational meets moneyball in espn veteran writer and statistical analyst Keith Law’s iconoclastic look at the numbers game of baseball, explaining what numbers actually work, proving why some of the most trusted stats are surprisingly wrong, and exploring what the rise of Big Data means for the future of the sport.

For decades, statistics such as batting average, saves recorded, and pitching won-lost records have been used to measure individual players’ and teams’ potential and success. Armed with concrete examples from different eras of baseball history, and lively commentary, he shows how the allegiance to these numbers—dating back to the beginning of the professional game—is firmly rooted not in accuracy or success, a little math, logic, but in baseball’s irrational adherence to tradition.

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. While law gores sacred cows, from clutch performers to RBIs to the infamous save rule, he also demystifies sabermetrics, explaining what these "new" numbers really are and why they’re vital.

But while sabermetrics is recognized as being smarter and more accurate, fans, including journalists, traditionalists, and managers, stubbornly believe that the "old" way—a combination of outdated numbers and "gut" instinct—is still the best way.

Baseball Prospectus 2019

The 2019 edition of The New York Times Bestselling Guide. Play ball! the 24th edition of this industry-leading baseball annual contains all of the important statistics, player predictions and insider-level commentary that readers have come to expect, and are exclusive to, along with significant improvements to several statistics that were created by, Baseball Prospectus, and an expanded focus on international players and teams.

Baseball prospectus 2019 provides fantasy players and insiders alike with prescient PECOTA projections, which The New York Times called “the überforecast of every player’s performance. With more than 50 baseball prospectus alumni currently working for major-league baseball teams, nearly every organization has sought the advice of current or former BP analysts, and readers of Baseball Prospectus 2019 will understand why!

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Big Data Baseball: Math, Miracles, and the End of a 20-Year Losing Streak

Big data baseball is the story of how the 2013 pirates, mired in the longest losing streak in North American pro sports history, make the playoffs, adopted drastic big-data strategies to end the drought, and turn around the franchise’s fortunes. New york times bestsellerafter twenty consecutive losing seasons for the Pittsburgh Pirates, the club’s payroll ranked near the bottom of the sport, game attendance was down, team morale was low, and the city was becoming increasingly disenchanted with its team.

Big data baseball is Moneyball for a new generation. Award-winning journalist travis sawchik takes you behind the scenes to expertly weave together the stories of the key figures who changed the way the Pirates played the game, revealing how a culture of collaboration and creativity flourished as whiz-kid analysts worked alongside graybeard coaches to revolutionize the sport and uncover groundbreaking insights for how to win more games without spending a dime.

From pitch framing to on-field shifts, this entertaining and enlightening underdog story closely examines baseball’s burgeoning big data movement and demonstrates how the millions of data points which aren’t immediately visible to players and spectators, are the bit of magic that led the Pirates to finish the 2013 season in second place and brought an end to a twenty-year losing streak.

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Nine Innings

Flatiron Books. You'll never watch baseball the same way again. Condition: New. A timeless baseball classic and a must read for any fan worthy of the name, Nine Innings dissects a single baseball game played in June 1982 -- inning by inning, play by play. With the purity of heart and unwavering attention to detail that characterize our national pastime, Okrent goes straight to the core of the world's greatest game.

Daniel okrent, chose as his subject a milwaukee brewers<endash>Baltimore Orioles matchup, no matter where or when it's played, because, as Okrent reveals, a seasoned writer and lifelong fan, though it could have been any game, the essence of baseball, has been and will always be the same. You'll never watch baseball the same way again.

Tracking provided on most orders. Isbn13: 9780618056699. Buy with confidence! Millions of books sold! Notes: brand new from publisher! 100% satisfaction guarantee. In this particular moment of baseball history you will discover myriad aspects of the sport that are crucial to its nature but so often invisible to the fans -- the hidden language of catchers' signals, the balance sheet of a club owner, the physiology of pitching, the gait of a player stepping up to the plate.

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The Only Rule Is It Has to Work: Our Wild Experiment Building a New Kind of Baseball Team Includes a New Afterword

Even josé Canseco makes a cameo appearance. Will their knowledge of numbers help lindbergh and miller bring the stompers a championship, or will they fall on their faces? Will the team have a competitive advantage or is the sport’s folk wisdom true after all? Will the players attract the attention of big-league scouts, by turns provocative and absurd, or are they on a fast track to oblivion?It’s a wild ride, as Lindbergh and Miller tell a story that will speak to numbers geeks and traditionalists alike.

Condition: New. What would happen if two statistics-minded outsiders were allowed to run a professional baseball team?It’s the ultimate in fantasy baseball: You get to pick the roster, in a real ballpark, set the lineup, and decide on strategies -- with real players, in a real playoff race. Notes: brand new from publisher! 100% satisfaction guarantee.

Their story in the only rule is it Has to Work is unlike any other baseball tale you've ever read. We tag along as lindbergh and miller apply their number-crunching insights to all aspects of assembling and running a team, following one cardinal rule for judging each innovation they try: it has to work.

Griffin. We meet colorful figures like general manager Theo Fightmaster and boundary-breakers like the first openly gay player in professional baseball. And they prove that you don’t need a bat or a glove to make a genuine contribution to the game. Isbn13: 9780618056699.