Modern day baseball writers and analysts routinely cite Bill James as a revolutionary in their field. They credit his unique style of analyzing baseball as a turning point in how the game and its many bits of old school “conventional wisdom” were viewed. It’s not uncommon at all to see arguments for James’ induction into the Hall of Fame for his contributions to modernizing baseball statistics and analysis.
And that’s fine, and deserved. James really did shift the thinking of baseball fans and front offices, so credit where it’s due. I mean, he’s in Moneyball for crying out loud.
But…(You knew this ‘but’ was coming.)
…Bill James is wrong a lot. I mean, a LOT.
As a general rule of thumb, there’s nothing in the world wrong with that. Anyone, in pretty much any field, is going to make some educated guesses, particularly when they are challenging the way things have always been done. Sometimes, those guesses are going to be wrong. It happens. It’s actually healthy.
If you’re reading this, you probably have memories of being in math class in your younger days, being asked by the teacher to solve a problem, and coming to the realization that you didn’t really know the answer. And so you said something along the lines of “Four?” with a lot of wincing and shoulder shrugging. And then, after your classmates mocked you mercilessly, the teacher told you the right answer and showed you how to solve it in the future, and eventually it stuck. (Unless this was in Calculus class. No one remembers that stuff.)
That’s called learning, and it’s good. So the process of exploring an issue, submitting a potential solution or alternative to it, turning out to be wrong, and learning from it is actually a good one. It’s necessary for anyone who has any amount of curiosity about the world.
The problem, in Bill James’ case, is that he has a tendency to state these potential solutions and alternatives as declarative statements of fact. There’s a certitude, and, at times, a meanness or arrogance in much of James’ writing.
As part of the research for my book, I’m re-reading James’s book “Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?” It was originally published under the title “The Politics of Glory” in 1994, and then re-branded the following year. It’s a very good look at the players who tend to be elected to the Hall of Fame, those who don’t, and introduces new methods for evaluating and comparing their credentials. It’s actually a pretty valuable book, and I recommend it.
That said, James makes quite a few declarative, yet demonstratively wrong and/or illogical statements throughout it, and veers into nastiness on a few occasions, too. I don’t want to get bogged down in player analysis or details, because that’s not really my point, but I will provide a couple of examples to demonstrate what I’m talking about.
First, James claims that the Hall of Fame’s first “clear, unmistakable errors” were in electing catcher Roger Bresnahan and shortstop Hughie Jennings in 1945. Focusing just on Bresnahan, James went on to say that the Hall had, “for the first time, selected a player who clearly had no damn business being there.”
Not a lot of wiggle room in those statements at all.
But then, six years later, when James published “The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract”, in which he ranked the top-100 players at each position, James named Bresnahan the 16th-best catcher in baseball history, better than every other catcher who played in the first 50 years of Major League baseball. (For reference, there are 18 catchers in the Hall of Fame. That includes Negro Leagues players, who were also included in James’ rankings.) Surely, James doesn’t feel that a player who is the sport’s best player at his position for a 50-year span is unworthy of being in that sport’s Hall of Fame. Um, right?
Also, since catcher Buck Ewing was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1939, six years before Bresnahan, yet was ranked 17th among all catchers by James - one spot behind Bresnahan - then shouldn’t Ewing’s election have been “the first time [the Hall] selected a player who clearly had no damn business being there?” How could James feel Bresnahan’s election was wrong, while Ewing’s was right, all while thinking Bresnahan was a bit better than Ewing?
One of James’ nastier examples came when he cited a letter to the editor written by a fan to The Sporting News in 1989. The fan, a guy named Mike Miedlar, asked a question about how baseball statistics are viewed:
“Am I the only baseball fan who feels that statistics provide, at best, a meager measure of a player’s worth?…Mickey Lolich, a good workman on the mound, has no claim on the Hall just because he has similar statistics to those of Don Drysdale, a most dominating pitcher.”
That seems like a pretty fair assessment. Few people who have studied the sport’s history would conclude that Lolich and Drysdale were of similar quality as pitchers. But, on the surface, Lolich and Drysdale posted some similar numbers during their careers. Lolich won 217 games, pitched over 3,600 innings, struck out over 2,800 batters and threw over 40 shutouts, while Drysdale won 209 games, pitched 3,400 innings, struck out out nearly 2,500 batters and also threw over 40 shutouts. On the surface, they have some similar statistics, but Mr. Miedlar felt they didn’t tell the full story and that Drysdale was clearly a better pitcher. Here’s a full stat line for each if anyone’s interested.
Well, Mr. Miedlar was 100% correct. I could cite any number of statistics to show that, but I don’t need to. All I need to do it note that, six years later, Bill James ranked Drysdale the 33rd-best pitcher in baseball history, and ranked Lolich 72nd.
And yet, that’s not how James chose to address Mr. Miedlar’s perfectly valid question. Instead, he answered it this way:
“Well, no, Mr. Miedlar; actually, there are an amazing number of idiots in the world. Lolich doesn’t just have similar ‘statistics’ to Don Drysdale; Lolich has similar wins and losses. How in the world can anyone argue that wins and losses are not really related to winning and losing?”
To which I would respond, “Well, Mr. James, maybe it’s because that wasn’t what Mr. Miedlar was arguing. He said nothing about winning and losing, and was asking strictly about each player’s overall value and worthiness for the Hall of Fame. Why create a phony straw man argument instead of addressing the gentleman’s actual, perfectly reasonable point? And why call him names in the process?”
There are other examples I could cite, but I think this is sufficient. Obviously, we should note that James made his player rankings several years after his book about the Hall of Fame, and people are entitled to change their minds. That’s not the problem.
The problem, in my opinion, is twofold:
Bill James’ personal brand involves examining conventional wisdom and citing evidence to refute it. He made himself pretty famous doing that, and is now openly - and rightly - considered a baseball pioneer worthy of the sport’s highest honor. And yet he repeatedly makes declarative statements throughout the book, with no supporting facts, which runs counter to both his reputation and stated methodology.
He’s just so damn arrogant and nasty about it.
I’ve never met Bill James, and really don’t care to. We share an alma mater and an interest in baseball, but otherwise I’m pretty sure our common interests stop there. That said, I don’t bear him any ill will, and don’t make these points to embarrass or denigrate him. I’m making them to illustrate a real problem in our current “hot take” society.
Obviously, James’ statements pre-date social media, and most of the opinion-driven sports shows that are the current rage. But they look a lot like precursors to the present day, where everyone with a Twitter account or microphone is expected to be an expert and have a definite opinion. I confess, I’ve been guilty of that myself.
But it’s not a good way to really learn anything. Reading a headline or two instead of doing real research, or misreading a question before insulting the person who asked it, is a poor substitute for actual, careful analysis and dialog.
Bill James is supposed to know that, and openly claims that’s his intention. He goes on at quite some length in the same book about how people get too emotional about certain players, don’t support their arguments with evidence, and don’t apply logic and reason. He’s right on that score, but fails to note that he’s often guilty of exactly the same behaviors.
The “Godfather of statistical analysis” is supposed to know better.