Bill James published 40 issues of The Baseball Analyst in the 1980s. All are available on SABR’s website.
The second, August 1982, issue of the Baseball Analyst features a fine Dallas Adams contribution, interpreting careers as expressed in major league games played by age (completely without examining any other statistics). While there’s really only some perfunctory analysis, there’s a ton of information about the aging patterns of ballplayers, displayed in three tables and a half-dozen graphs. Adams concludes that Hall of Fame players are about two years “better” than the average everyday player. He also breaks out catcher careers, and concludes that they reach the majors about a year older but are otherwise pretty much indistinguishable from everyone else. Interesting stuff.
Craig Wright offers a critique of Paul Schwarzenbart’s fielding analysis in the first edition of the Analyst, pointing out some weaknesses and commenting on some findings. This works all right as a comment, but there’s no analysis and Wright’s alternative numbers are only superficially explained. Of course, this journal’s audience knew Wright’s credentials, so this isn’t really problematical.
Dick O’Brien’s two brief contributions–about batting order and clutch hitting–are too brief and too dense to be readily accessible. What does show is that he’s done a lot of research and analysis.
Jim Morrow tries to improve Slugging Average. He offers some statistical analysis attempting to break scoring into its components, using regression analysis. The effort’s a failure in the sense that his “linear weights”-like calculations are less predictive of actual performance than SLG. Why the technique failed merits further investigation; that does not occur in this issue of the journal.
The last article is another Dallas Adams study, this one apparently showing that heavily-used rookie pitchers tend to have short careers. The general notion is now accepted wisdom, but I’m frankly skeptical about his underlying data; it looks skewed in ways that really needed discussion. I’m aware of commentary on this study in subsequent issues of the Analyst; we’ll see how that develops.
Once again, these offerings demonstrate an enormous amount of data collection and number crunching, long before Retrosheet and Baseball Reference. (Bill James comments on that in the introduction.) All in all, a useful outing, but flawed.
Joel —
I wasn’t sure how to reach you, so I thought I’d give this a try.
I was lucky enough to stumble across your Midwest League project, which apparently is no longer being maintained.
I noticed that you had no roster for the 1960 Quincy Giants. Having been a season ticket holder there with my dad, I thought I would provide the small amount of information I can remember, just in case you were to decide to renew the site.
James Tobin was the team president, just as you have him listed for 1961.
Lazaro Gomez was the starting pitcher on opening day. I believe he made it to AA but not beyond.
My favorite player was second baseman Julio Linares, who went on to a long minor league career for the Giants and ultimately become the bench coach for the Houston Astros in the early 90’s.
Jim Ray Hart joined the team in midseason. He, of course, went on to a career with the Giants.
Jim Springborn was the team’s center fielder. I remember a toothless old fan saying “Come on, Jimmy boy!” when Jim came to bat one time.
Ron Shatto was the starting right fielder on opening day, batted 8th, and was gone in the first month.
Wish I could remember more. That’s not much — but then it’s been a LONG time.
Thanks for the note. Actually, I do have the 1960 Quincy roster, but it’s labelled wrong; it’s listed as Michigan City. Thanks for pointing out the problem.
Unfortunately, I no longer have access to the website. I’ll see if the current hosts can post a correction.