The Book on the Book PART I THE GAME ON THE FIELD PREFACE TO PART I When Albert Spalding wrote one of the first histories of baseball in 1911, he deliberately sidestepped any discussion of strategies. Said Spalding, "The opinions of up-to-date, scientific experts so widely and so honestly vary as to what really constitute important methods that there is no intelligent hope of bringing them together." If he were alive today, Al Spalding couldn''t get away with that dodge for two reasons. First, virtually every fan has an opinion on strategies, and fans are not at all shy about sharing their wisdom. But second and more relevant to Spalding''s point, today we often do have the tools to determine which strategies work and which don''t. We can tell through computer analyses precisely how frequently a stolen base must be successful in order to help the offense. We can develop statistical models to determine how much money is too much to pay Alex Rodriguez. We can determine exactly--if only in retrospect--how large a budget any team must have in order to be competitive in the pennant race.

In other words, we can gauge what works and what doesn''t. Spalding''s reticence notwithstanding, the merits (or demerits) of particular strategies have always fascinated fans, players, and owners alike. Spalding himself was not immune from this reality; witness a comment from the 1885 edition of his Official Baseball Guide regarding baserunning: Each season''s experience only shows more and more the fact that good baserunning is one of the most important essentialsof success in winning games . Any soft-brained heavyweight can occasionally hit a ball for a home run, but it requires a shrewd, intelligent player, with his wits about him, to make a successful baserunner. Indeed, baserunning is the most difficult work a player has to do in a game. The importance of baserunning was one of the principal tenets of the original "Book"--by which is generally meant the common understandings that have governed baseball strategies. "The Book" became fixed in the minds of the game''s cognoscenti over a period of decades, although in fact it has undergone a constant process of reform and revision. Over time, entire chapters governing on-field play--on topics as diverse as the wisdom of the sacrifice, playing for the long ball, the arrangement of a lineup, expectations for the starter, the use of relief pitching--have been written, erased, and rewritten.

Just as managers of the 1950s would have viewed strategies of earlier generations as dated, some of their assumptions seem unfathomable today. Those changes may be driven by alterations in rules or playing conditions, such as improvements in the manufacturing of the baseball around 1910 that made for a harder product capable of being driven farther. They may also occur due to external demand: When Babe Ruth proved that fans loved a slugger (and would pay to see one), the long ball became a marketing device as well as a strategic tool. And as often as not, the on-field "Book" is rewritten due to simple copycatism. If one manager tries a new strategy and enjoys success, it is a virtual certainty that within a short time the idea will be widely pilfered, whether the pilferage actually makes strategic sense or not. For evidence, just look into the nearest bullpen. It is one thing to say that strategies have changed through the years--driven by wisdom, popular tastes, rules, legal judgments, or other factors--and another to assert that the changes have represented constant improvement. "The Book" as it is commonly understood todayrepresents nothing more than the collective judgment of the game''s managers and general managers.

The very fact that it has undergone constant revision strongly argues that "The Book," in the sense of representing the statistically ideal way of logically playing the game, has never been "written." And if that is the case, why would one deduce that "The Book" is "written" today, that strategic knowledge has reached its apotheosis, or that improvement has even necessarily taken place in a straight line? What we do know is that, more than ever, we are equipped to assess "The Book," to judge its legitimacies and weaknesses, and determine the extent to which big league teams do (or ought to) govern themselves by it. Which is joyous news to long-suffering fans of numerous perennially hapless teams: Maybe those bums of ours can''t win, but at least we can figure out why not.   A side note: Because the data do not exist for it to do so, neither this book nor any other explores one potentially vital aspect of modern "strategy" (if strategy it be), and that is the impact of performance-enhancing drugs. To the extent it is a factor, that factor is miasmic. We know from 2003 testing results that between 5 and 7 percent of players were using some type of improper, if not always illegal, performance enhancement. We don''t know for how long, nor do we know the extent to which (if any) that use has affected the game. But simply because research into the impact of performance enhancements is not presently possible, we should not proceed as if those enhancements do not exist.

In retrospect, the evidence of the impact of their use seems clear. For years experts have mumbled that there is "something different" about the modern game--generally this occurs in the context of the growth of offense during the most recent decade--and they have done so seemingly against all logical evidence. The flailing toward a theory at times sounds almost comical. Expansion? But why should expansion dilute only the pitching, while actually improving batting? Greater racial diversity? Oh, so what you''resaying is that minorities can hit but not pitch? Fitness regimes? As if pitchers don''t work out. Each of those pseudo-theories tumbles one by one, and what remains is the one surreptitiously spoken theory that cannot be disproven because it cannot be factually addressed: juice. For the good of the game, let us hope that theory as well is eventually undermined by evidence. 1 THE COMPONENTS OF PLAYER VALUE Even before the result was announced, conventional wisdom conferred the 1998 National League Most Valuable Player Award on Sammy Sosa rather than Mark McGwire. The argument for Sosa and against McGwire could be heard that fall on the evening sports shows and read in the national newspapers.

USA Today ''s National League columnist justified his selection of Sosa on the basis that McGwire''s accomplishments--which, it should be noted, include setting the all-time record for home runs--came on behalf of a non-contender. In his mind this posed the question, "Valuable to what?" The previous night, an ESPN analyst backed Sosa''s candidacy for the same reason precisely one breath before naming Ken Griffey, Jr. the American League''s MVP. Griffey''s Mariners finished nine games below .500 and in third place in the four-team AL West that season. Another ESPN commentator said he would vote for McGwire as Player of the Year, but not MVP. This is the smarmy new parsing. In baseball there is no such thing as player of the year.

But what of it? ESPN pays its on-air personalities to be advocative and entertaining; commentators are not required to be reality-based. The cavalier dismissal of McGwire based on his team''s nonstanding--which, by the way, received nearly unanimous ratification when the official vote was announced--logically reduces as follows: he''s not the MVP because Ron Gant, Donovan Osborne, Jeff Brantley, and Kent Bottenfield stunk. Yet in that befuddling reasoning, the vote also frames a fascinating and broader question: What precisely is value? As the baseball experts saw it in 1998, Sosa had value because his team won; McGwire lacked value because his team didn''t. The way we define "value" is the linchpin of much of "The Book" about baseball strategy for the simple reason that strategies are inevitably focused toward maximizing "value." Yet in the modern game, value analysis is often subjective and thus prone to error. Sports commentators commit this error as do team executives. As we consider the relevance of the modern baseball "Book," one of our foundations has to be an understanding as to what constitutes "value." In forming that understanding, we have to be careful that our trendy definitions don''t confuse the ends with the means.

THE FORMULA FOR SUCCESS One of the singular beauties of baseball is that the components of success can be quantified. Relating the value of a basketball player to scoring average is too one-dimensional; football rotisserie leaguers don''t even try to assess the value of a pulling guard. It''s hard to reduce to a numerical formula the components that make a great professor, a great lawyer or, for that matter, a great book. The measure of a corporation''s success can be stated on a bottom line, but can one devise a formula accurately presenting the relative contributions of all the corporation''s accountants, salespeople, engineers, production line workers, and officers to that bottom line? This can be done in baseball because we have a very measurable result--namely a victory--which is created by means of a second entirely measurable occurrence, that being runs. Thanks to the intervention of computers, we know--and I do not use the word "know" loosely--that in the modern game the average base hit produces forty-six one-hundredths of a run; the average double produces eight-tenths of a run, etc. Conversely, we know that the average out reduces productio.