The Beauty of Short Hops - How Chance Confounds the Statistical Study of Baseball (Paperback)

Sabermetrics, which evaluates baseball through largely objective methods involving statistics, has taken over the sport in recent years. This critical text exposes the fatal flaws of sabermetrics, demonstrating how it fails on its own terms, as it cannot evaluate baseball in terms of social science and offers only limited guidance for assembling a team and managing games. Drawing on examples from baseball past and present, and taking particular note of odd plays and personalities, baseball is presented and examined as a compelling and vibrant sport--a vision that has been blocked by the obsession with numbers ushered in by sabermetrics.