Moving Beyond Bill James
Is it possible for anyone to assume his place among baseball researchers?
A comment made in last week’s post echoed something I’ve seen from some other bloggers in regards to the baseball man from Jayhawk land named in the title of this post, and got me thinking about his mark on how we look at baseball and even how it is played at its highest level. Granted, I’m not someone who owns every single Baseball Abstract (to be honest, I haven’t even read through the entirety of his revised Historical Baseball Abstract), but I think a thesaurus somewhere has “Bill James” synonymous with “sabermetrics,” provided it actually contains the latter. His footprint in the field is so vast that it’s difficult to describe unless you write posts twice as long as this man.
However, is it possible for someone to become the “next Bill James”? I mean, can someone create even a comparable impact on how baseball statistics are used and viewed as he did? Is there an heir apparent, even though Bill seems like he’ll be around until I’m 50? (For those too lazy to check my bio on this website, that’s another quarter century).
The simple answer, the one you probably thought of before you clicked and decided to read the entirety of this post, would be no. There are plenty of reasons one could argue that point:
- He came at a time when there weren’t 5 different baseball annuals being published.
- He created how many different little metrics? (I don’t have a count, sorry).
- Many credit him with raising the profile of looking at statistics to evaluate ballplayers.
- He has his own Wiki page and 255,000 hits for “bill james baseball” on Google. (By comparison, another prominent baseball researcher, John Thorn, using the same query only 65,800).
- Two words: Morley Safer. Will anyone else involved with sabermetrics end up on 60 Minutes?
So maybe these reasons stray a bit from the original question, but you hopefully get my point. Read some of the other blogs, and you’ll see many people trying to be like Bill James by creating newer metrics with more detailed data in a similar manner to how he created most of his in the ’80s (which makes Bill’s work one of the few good things to come from that decade). But again, they all ape what Bill has been doing for decades now, even if their ideas have given new ways to look at things. I would put DIPS and the current Pitchf/x work in with these too, as they are a continuation of Bill’s methods on newer data.
In my mind, Bill has created the information to help us look at aspects of the game. The “next Bill James” will have to be one to find optimal ways to utilize a group of metrics in order to make baseball decisions in a more objective manner than simply looking at each metric in the group separately and coming to a qualitative decision based on examination of those numbers. And if you ask me, it’ll likely require some advanced mathematical knowledge, probably statistical theory. Will it eliminate the need for some qualitative analysis on the quantitative reasoning? No, because any calculation is bunk if it doesn’t make sense to what you are trying to figure out. The whole “less guns = less murders” argument is what comes to mind first as an example.
I thought about nominating some of the more prominent names performing sabermetric analysis as “the next Bill James”, but I’ll leave that to you, the reader. If you’d like, post a comment with your thoughts, and I’ll likely make my remarks about the person’s sabermetric work after you do.
26 March 2008 06:48
Hopefully, the next Bill James won’t be quite as big of a sap for the next Pete Rose.
26 March 2008 08:13
The thing I like about Bill James and his writing is that while he uses statistical analysis to take an in-depth look at baseball statistics and color it up with fantastic anecdotes and stories.
26 March 2008 14:43
Bill James is to baseball analysis as Babe Ruth is to baseball.
There were other great players before the Babe and others after him. But NO ONE has had the impact on the game that the Babe did - and no one ever can.
There were other analysts before BJ and there will be many more good ones yet. But NO ONE will ever have the same impact on analysis - and no one ever can.
26 March 2008 18:58
Mike,
I have to say that was something I thought about when writing this post, and, to be honest, something I agree with. It hard to duplicate someone’s work they’re responsible for creating a new paradigm. Perhaps you should look at the question this way: Is it possible for another baseball analyst to become as much of a household name as Bill James? I think it is, and I think it’ll take another leap in sabermetrics by whoever it is to do it.
MM
26 March 2008 20:41
You bring up some interesting points. I think it’s become almost trendy for people to separate themselves from Bill James, and his inspiration. But nobody can deny his impact. Michael Lewis plays a big part in building James’ star as well.
30 March 2008 11:00
He’s right under your nose. His name is Tangotiger, and he has his own blog. He doesn’t write as well as James, but the fundamental way he looks at baseball is as different and insightful as James’ was in his day, even by today’s standards.
The problem is that James’ new ideas could be understood by the common baseball fan. Tango’s ideas are much harder to understand and won’t have the same impact as James’ did. But it’s a shame he doesn’t get more recognition for what he’s done.
Using your definition…
The “next Bill James” will have to be one to find optimal ways to utilize a group of metrics in order to make baseball decisions in a more objective manner than simply looking at each metric in the group separately and coming to a qualitative decision based on examination of those numbers. And if you ask me, it’ll likely require some advanced mathematical knowledge, probably statistical theory.
…describes Tango to a tee.
30 March 2008 11:48
Studes,
If I had named people, Tango would have definitely been one of them, maybe even the person at the top of the list. What he, MGL, and Dophin did in “The Book” was outstanding. And, as you surely know, that tome is just the tip of his research iceberg.