Right, so I gotta talk about this whole Bill James thing. Not like I’m some expert, you know? Just someone who bumped into his way of thinking and kinda fiddled with it.
It started way back, I was just watching a game, maybe having a beer. Announcers going on about RBIs, batting average, pitcher wins… the usual stuff. And I’m sitting there, thinking, “This doesn’t feel right.” You see a guy get a hit with bases empty, okay, good hit. Another guy hits the same single but drives in two runs. Suddenly he’s clutch? The first guy’s hit was just as good, wasn’t it? It just… nagged at me.
Getting Hands Dirty
Then I stumbled across some articles, maybe it was online, maybe a dusty magazine, talking about this James fellow. Talking about looking behind the numbers. Creating new stats. Stuff like Runs Created, Win Shares. At first, it sounded like nerdy nonsense. Who has time for that?
But that nagging feeling wouldn’t go away. So, one weekend, I decided to try something. Nothing fancy. I wasn’t gonna reinvent baseball analytics overnight. I just grabbed some box scores from a few weeks of games. Like, literally printed them out or scribbled notes.
My process was messy, real kitchen-table stuff:
- First, I ignored batting average for a bit. Focused purely on getting on base. Walks, hits, hit-by-pitch, whatever. Just, did the guy get on?
- Then, I looked at total bases. Not just singles. Doubles, triples, homers count for more, right? Stands to reason.
- Tried combining them. Just simple addition and multiplication, nothing elegant. On-base times total bases… divided by at-bats plus walks… I was just making formulas up, seeing what looked interesting.
It was clunky. I spent hours with a calculator and scrap paper. My made-up stats probably made no real sense half the time. I wasn’t trying to publish a paper, just satisfy my own curiosity. Does this guy really help the team score, or does he just look good doing it?
What Came Out Of It
Did I discover the next big thing? Nah. Of course not. But doing it myself, even badly, changed things. I started watching games differently. I paid more attention to walks. I noticed guys who hit for power but didn’t get on base much, and guys who seemed invisible but were always on first or second.
It wasn’t about agreeing with Bill James on every little detail. It was about the act of questioning the standard way. The act of digging into the numbers yourself, even if you’re just splashing around in the shallow end. You get a feel for it that reading an article just doesn’t give you.
Honestly, most of my little formulas were probably garbage. But the exercise? That was gold. Made me appreciate the guys who do figure this stuff out properly. And it definitely made arguing about baseball at the bar way more interesting. Gave me my own weird ammo, you know?
So yeah, that was my little adventure into that world. No grand discovery, just a guy poking around with numbers because the standard story didn’t quite add up. Worth doing, I reckon. Even if it’s just for yourself.
