The Bill James Handbook 2016 Paperback – November 1, 2015

The fun continues! Each year, I eagerly await the publication of the latest Bill James Handbook. A part of this is to see what their predictions are for the coming year and how well their predictions were from the previous season.Last year's predictions. . . Winning predictions: Matt Cain. The Handbook projected him as 14-11 with a 3.36 ERA. Actual figures? 13-11 with a 3.14 ERA. Pretty good! On the other hand. Kevin Millwood was projected at 9-10 with a 4.37 ERA. He ended up at 4-16 and a 5.10 ERA. Oops! Or batters. Ross Gload was predicted to hit .281 with 5 home runs. Reality? .281 average with 6 home runs. Nice. Worst projection? Ryan Garko was projected to hit .282 with 16 home runs. He actually hit .091 with 0 homers.What about career milestones? Derek Jeter is given a 99% chance of getting to 3,000 hits. Others with high probabilities of reaching that standard: A-Rod (93%), Johnny Damon (57%), Albert Pujols (51%). No one else rates at a 50% chance. 300 wins for pitchers? Pretty sad. The best shot is by Roy Halliday with a 42% chance, followed by C. C. Sabathia (38%). No one else even reaches the 20% chance plateau. Anyone with a chance to break Barry Bonds' mark for home runs? Alex Rodriguez earns a 33% chance, followed by Pujols with a 23% chance. After that? Forget about it.Of course, there are the myriad other statistics throughout this volume. If you are a figure Filbert, this is hog heaven! Still worth a look if you are a baseball fan.

One more great year of this treasure! Each year, I look forward to this volume. I am, number 1, a Chicago White Sox fan, and, number two, a Chicago Cubs; fan.Each year, I enjoy looking at projections of major league players and of players from my favorite teams. I like Chris Sales' pitching (although his motion makes me think that he will burnout early). Thus volume projects him at 14-9 with a 2.99 ERA. Cool! Jeff Samardzija? 11-12 and a 3.58 ERA. What about the chances of someone from the class of people born in 1991 to make the Hall of Fame? Bryce Harper is # 1.What about projections of hitters for 2016? Jose Abreu of the White Sox is predicted to hit 34 home runs with a .310 batting average and 109 RBIs.Odds of 3,000 hits? Ichiro Suzuki=90%; Adrian Beltre=80%; Albert Pujols=69%. Odds of setting the home run record? Mike Trout and Albert Pujols at a measly 6%. What about the odds of a 300 win pitcher? Not so great given the different approaches today. Clayton Kershaw at 31%. After that? Not so much,. . . .Anyhow, this volume is a lot of fun and well worth looking at. . . .

I Love the Bill James Baseball Handbook. I buy my copy every year, and every year it gets better and better. However more and more Baseball fans are just sticking with the internet. I just hope that this great book can always be published. For the serious Baseball fan Only, as the casual fan might get lost in all the stats, and facts. This is NOT a book with a story, it is a Statistical book and is used as such. Every player to play at least one game in 2010, plus a few players that were injured, As well as some Japanese imports. The stats are out of this world. You have a player profile, it has year by year stats for a players whole career. Offensive for batters. and Pitching obviously for Pitchers. When a player played for more than one team in a season - It lists the total for the season in the bio, then it has team by team breakdowns for every player. Every stat you can think of is in here. It has defensive stats in there own section. It has a section for pinch hitting, Another section for Relief Pitching. Managers. Pitchers vs. Lefty and Righty batters. And of couse Batters vs. Lefty and Righty Pitching. There are probably less stats that this book doesn't have than it does. I still wish they published a yearly Minor league book. However this Major league Handbook is all a fan could ask for. I just have to ask fans to buy the book, so It will always be published, and not become a relic, that will (God Forbid) Only be available On-Line. So Please Purchase this book.

What can I say? This book I can say right now isn't for everyone you have to love statistics and you have to love math to really enjoy this book. Not a lot of verbage it's mostly numbers and some say numbers are really the only story to tell that's true and accurate. I enyoed the sections my favorite being the fielding section because it's there you can really see the greatness of any fielder and how much a player actually helps or hurts his team with his glove. Another section I love is the pitchers repoitoire where it gives % of pitches and AVG velocity along with fastest and slowest and how often...just imagine statistical variations and it'll be in this book somewhere. Offense is covered here as well and it's important to know what kind of outs a hitter is making. EG. if a hitter bats .198 but he hits a lot of line drives there's hope for his future but if a hitter is hitting a lot of infield pop ups that's a bad sign because it means he lunges at too many pitches and gets fooled too often...it's up to you the reader how to decipher stats...I've been reading Bill James stats for over 30 years so I know exactly what i'm reading....but like I said if your thinking of getting this book I hope you love numbers.

As much as I like the way that he does stats, I preferred the old style of his books. They were called by the same name, but the style was quite different. There was more narrative in those books, but they were supported by stats.

Wouldn't buy it again.

An absolute must for the baseball fanatic. Excellent.