Russell A. Carleton

Non-fiction about sabermetrics, which the author defines as “a term that loosely refers to the study of baseball through the scientific method.” Carleton provides an analysis of the recent shifts in baseball strategy and tactics due to the application of in-depth analytics in recent times. In his words, “My goal in writing this book isn’t to tell you how to think about the game. It’s to think alongside you about baseball, maybe in a different way than you’re used to thinking about it. Maybe somewhere in my thoughts is a kernel of knowledge that you can use when you settle down to watch the game tonight.”

The author poses stimulating questions and walks the reader through the mathematical analysis to arrive at a conclusion grounded in facts. I have paraphrased some of these questions to give the reader an idea of content:
- What is the best way to win a baseball game?
- Why are we pretending that walks never happened?
- Should the batter try to bunt a runner to second with no outs?
- Should a batter try to beat the defensive shift? If so, how often?
- How important are stolen bases?
- How often should the coach send the runner from third?
- What is the definition of Wins Above Replacement? How important is it?
- In 2012, who should have won the MVP award – Miguel Cabrera or Mike Trout?
- Should a manager bring the closer into a tie game in the ninth inning?
- What is the best way to use a pitching staff?
- How much difference does the manager make?
- How important is momentum?
- Are pitch counts a good idea?
- How effective is the Draft system?

The author assumes the reader is reasonably knowledgeable about the game and its history. I’m not sure how much the casual fan would enjoy it, unless particularly drawn to baseball statistics. The math itself does not take up a lot of space and, I thought, was well-explained by the author. Carleton has a knack for taking a complicated topic and breaking it down into easily digested pieces. He also uses meaningful analogies to enhance the reader’s understanding. The narrative is sprinkled with humor and memories from his life, which was a nice break from the sections involving mental gymnastics.

Carleton is focused on numbers, but does not ignore human factors, accounts for them as much as possible in the calculations and notes where they are not able to be quantified. The author earned a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, and he includes many observations about human nature, particularly noting that humans often do not behave logically or rationally due to a variety of biases.
I enjoyed this book immensely and recommend it to avid baseball fans, especially those that follow the game closely and want to understand more about the latest metrics. I also think it would serve as a great tool for mathematics teachers that desire to demonstrate real world applications of probability and statistics to their students.

Memorable quotes – there were so many! These are just a few that resonated with me:
“Baseball journalism might be fun to read, but it should never be mistaken for sound research methodology.”
“Baseball fans are used to tolerating irrational behavior.”
“People can be wrong, and “tradition” sometimes just means that they’ve been wrong for a very long time.”
“When you have to make a choice between two strategies before you know the outcome, pick the one with the highest (or the least negative) expected value.”
“There’s a pleasant myth that people tend to believe about themselves that they “look at all the facts and decide from there.” We are fond of thinking of ourselves as logical. This is, without question, not true.”… (mehr)

I have watched or listened to around 150 baseball games (major league, college, high school) per season most years since 1962 when Houston first fielded a team in the National League. I was finally rewarded with a World Series victory in 2017, and that was amazing. But perhaps even more amazing to me, is just how much the game itself has changed during the almost-sixty years I've been a fan.

Baseball is a numbers game and number-crunchers especially love that aspect of the sport. That means that no "inside baseball" book claiming to explain what is really happening on the field can possibly avoid a whole lot of math, including equations and tables, that are likely to scare away a bunch of potential readers. Russell Carleton's "The Shift" does not try to avoid the number-crunching (which would have been a bad mistake), and Carleton makes all that math as painless possible by cloaking it in personal anecdotes and theory testing/proving that will keep even the most math-adverse reader turning pages.

If you want to learn, or better understand, some of baseball's newer metrics like WAR, BABIP, or OPS, "The Shift" is where you can do it- and have a lot of fun in the process. Baseball season starts in just a couple of weeks. Consider this one your personal Spring Training.… (mehr)