Scouting and scoring How we know what we know about baseball

Christopher J. Phillips, 1982-

Book - 2019

"Scouting and scoring are considered fundamentally different ways of ascertaining value in baseball. Scouting seems to rely on experience and intuition, scoring on performance metrics and statistics. In Scouting and Scoring, Christopher Phillips rejects these simplistic divisions. He shows how both scouts and scorers rely on numbers, bureaucracy, trust, and human labor in order to make sound judgments about the value of baseball players." --

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Subjects
Published
Princeton : Princeton University Press [2019]
Language
English
Main Author
Christopher J. Phillips, 1982- (author)
Physical Description
vii, 301 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 259-296) and index.
ISBN
9780691180212
  • Introduction
  • 1. The Bases of Data
  • 2. Henry Chadwick and Scoring Technology
  • 3. Official Scoring
  • 4. From Project Scoresheet to Big Data
  • 5. The Practice of Pricing the Body
  • 6. Measuring Head and Heart
  • 7. A Machine for Objectivity
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Abbreviations Used in Notes
  • Notes
  • Index
Review by Booklist Review

A sharp critic of the movie Moneyball, Phillips discerns a profound distortion in the film's depiction of a gap separating the tradition-bound baseball scouts (who rely on subjective judgments formed through direct observation) and the savvy statistical analysts (who trust only numerical data mined from scoresheets). As he retraces the histories of scouting and of scorecard-based analysis, he uncovers surprising convergence: ever since the nineteenth century, scouts have used statistical tools to clarify their intuitions; for just as long, scorekeepers have disguised subjective judgments as objective numbers. The interplay between baseball's scouts and its statistical analysts teaches readers a great deal specifically about the game in view, more broadly about the social process that generates any body of knowledge. As the dynamics of that process emerge in particular episodes such as the selection of Craig Biggio in baseball's 1987 draft and, three decades later, his induction into the Hall of Fame readers appreciate more fully the way statistical sophistication melds with human sensibility in a uniquely fascinating sport. A baseball book for cerebral fans.--Bryce Christensen Copyright 2019 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.