Win Shares

by Bill James and Jim Henzler

Book Overview

Win Shares, a revolutionary system that allows for player evaluation across positions, teams and eras, measures the total sum of player contributions in one groundbreaking number. James' latest... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1931584036
• ISBN13: 9781931584036
• Release Date: January 2002
• Publisher: STATS Publishing
• Length: 800 Pages
• Weight: 2.22 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 7.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A refreshing step back

A reader said earlier, if someone other than James wrote this book, no one would care. This is probably true. However, that James had the determination to write it is in itself amazing. He is basically saying we need to take a step back from baseball statistics (and much of what he himself has worked on before) and get a better feel for what these statistics really mean. In this book James provides an outline of how statistics should properly be analyzed. Much of his analysis (especially fielding formulas) is subjective. He explains that many values are estimates. However, James always is sure to explain the logic for his analysis. Furthermore he states that he hopes and expects better estimates and methods of analysis to be found to evaluate players. Win Shares is not the grand masterpiece many readers were hoping for. Instead it is a retraction of much of the previous statistical work of the last decades, to much of which James contributed, and an explanation of a better approach. This book shows James' determination to find truth within statistics, no matter what limitations there are on the system. Win Shares MUST use a lot of subjectivity and estimates to get at the truth of the statistics. It is sacrifice that is well worth the price.

Bill James the Genius

This book is the sort of thing us stats geeks dream of. With Win Shares Bill James may have come closer than anyone else to developing a statistical system that objectively evaluates an individual player's performance. We already knew that Coors Field numbers don't mean as much relative to the rest of the league; but now we can figure out exactly what those inflated numbers mean. We can ask the question, "How good is Todd Helton?" and get a logical answer. Actually, he's pretty good, but he's no Lou Gehrig. More than that, we can ask "How good was Lou Gehrig compared with modern ball players?" Actually, he was pretty darned good, so good that James made him the top first baseman in his New Historical Baseball Abstract. This is not news, you may say. That's certainly right; but putting modern baseball players in a historical context, or vice versa, has been a deep well for fan argument for a hundred years or more. How do 1970's ball players stack up with 1930's ball players, or 1990's ball players? Win Shares gives an answer based on the logic that an individual's contributions to their team's win total is the most accurate way of measuring a player's performance. It's not a perfect system, which James takes great pains to illustrate; but he also illustrates at fascinating length how useful it is; as well as what it is (the complete statistical system is detailed in section II). If you are a baseball stats geek get this book.

Some critics not seeing the forest for the trees

Another great Bill James effort. His "New Historical Abstract" had introduced us to the "Win Shares" approach, and here, he fleshes it out. A real treat is that we even get ratings for middle-of-the-pack players; there aren't too many places where you can find meaningful ratings for guys like Omar Moreno, or Horace Clarke (who actually rates surprisingly well). Also the "letter grade" evaluations of players' defense are a fascinating treasure trove, and apparently the most correct defensive ratings yet, albeit with aberrations -- e.g., is Derek Jeter really a D+? One negative: the author is harder on his colleagues than he needs to be. It's not that he isn't RIGHT about the flaws in their methods, but his forcefulness is off-putting, especially since (presumably) he's talking about his friends. (Hey, Bill, you don't want to turn into Howard Cosell!) There are indeed flaws in the Win Shares method, but the author acknowledges them, and he emphasizes that his method, like all others so far, is a work in progress; in fact he seems unique among his colleagues in how prominently he acknowledges this. The Win Shares method seems a HUGE advance over everything else. Perhaps the largest and most important breakthrough is very simple, and I don't think the author highlights this enough: The method inherently places a premium on WINNING; if your team wins a lot of games, you tend to rate higher by this method than by others. This book's ratings seem like the best of any so far anywhere, and the methodology is by far the most satisfying.

Win Shares: A New, Exciting (and incomplete!) Frontier

:People often look to new statistics to simply reaffirm what they already believe. Of course Babe Ruth's 1927 season was the greatest of all time. Of course, Bob Gibson's 1968 season was the pinnacle of pitching excellence in the 'live ball' era. Without a doubt, any number of Ozzie Smith's seasons would rank him in the very top of shortstops in terms of defense. And book after book comes out and tells us the same stuff we already have heard. I, for one, have listened to enough people repeating these supposed "truisms" of baseball history to be exciting to another bandwagon statistician. The beauty of Bill James' Win Shares is that it presents a different way of looking at things, thus contributing in a new and exciting way to the discourse of baseball statistical exploration. And by the way, according to James's research, Babe Ruth's '27 season didn't crack James' Top 25. Two pitchers in the year 1972 alone rank better than Gibby's '68 campaign. And, no matter how hard you look, no Ozzie Smith season made the 10 ten for defense among shortstops. James' system operates on the idea that individual statistics (such as batting average or home runs) should not be looked at in a vacuum. Obviously, a home run in Coors Field is less significant than a home run in Dodger Stadium. With more runs being scored, a home run in Colorado does less to contribute to a win than a home run in a traditional pitcher's park like Chavez Ravine. And batting .350 in 1932 when the National League average was over .300 means far less than it does in 2001 when the league average is in the .250 range. After fighting for years the problems that eras and parks present, James has extended the scope of statistical examination beyond solely considering production stats like slugging percentages and runs created, instead asking the simple and ultimate question: Who contributes more to producing a win? The idea of Wins created spans eras, positions, hitters parks, pitchers parks, good teams and bad teams. It includes pitching, hitting and defense and arrives at a single integer which can compare the seasons of any two players. The idea of win shares presents an entire new methodology of statistical examination. The book, however, is not the final word on this new area of analysis. Bill James himself is careful to point out that there are some flaws, assumptions and imperfections in his work that will be smoothed out by he and others over the coming years. But it is exciting nonetheless to see the dawn of a new era in the field of baseball statistics. Early criticisms of James' method have mainly been poorly reasoned, reflecting the some frustration at having subjective assumptions thrown out of whack. One reviewer on this very site has rejected out of hand James' entire work because he believes Troy Glaus is a better player than Jeff Conine and thus refuses to accept the fact that in 2001, Conine might have been more valuable. This is an easy trap to fall into.

Win Shares another method to evaluate players

I have read a number of Bill James books, so before I started I knew what I would be getting into. Baseball as a sport is fairly unique in the ways it lends itself to statistical analysis, and people like Bill James are always trying to find better ways to use those statistics to measure the games of baseball. It takes Bill about 100 pages to fully define his system, which seems like overkill, but since he is setting up a system that covers baseball over more than 100 years, with all the differences in playing style and statistics that were kept there are a number of special rules. Bill explains them all in detail, but of course if you are uninterested in how catchers defensive ratings for players in the 1880's were calculated you can always skip that portion of the book. The next section is devoted to defending his system, and various short pieces discussing different ways that his new statistical method can make things clearer. The nice thing about this book is that people can actually demonstrate if the "win shares" concept is valid or not. There are a number of computer games that realistically can "replay" seasons. These simulations take the actual statistics, adjust for the ballpark effect and allow you to do a number of things. You can trade players, create your own pitching rotations etc. There are many people who are in leagues, in which you take over the job of the field manager/ general manager, make your own trades and try to win your own world series. After a few years, the players on the teams in the fictional leagues have no relation whatsoever to the players on the teams in the real major leagues. I am associated with such a league that has been in operation for over 20 years. It is as if you took the players in the real major leagues and drew them out of a hat to redistribute them. If the "win share" concept was not valid, "win shares" would not predict the number of wins for the teams in our league. However, "win shares" has a very high correlation in our league, the teams get very close to the wins that their "win shares" indicate they should win. It seems to me that this validates the "win share" concept. This book will destroy some of the baseball myths that people believe. After reading this book, statements like "pitching is 75% of baseball" (which I am sure someone just made up without even looking at any evidence) can be totally disregarded. If you want a deeper understanding of baseball, you should read this book.