Baseball's All-Time Best Hitters

Schell combines the two qualifications essential for a book like this. He is a professional statistician--applying his skills to cancer research--and he has an encyclopedic knowledge of baseball. He has wondered how to rank hitters since he was a boy growing up as a passionate Cincinnati Reds fan. Over the years, he has analyzed the most important factors, including the relative difficulty of hitting in different ballparks, the length of hitters' careers, the talent pool that players are drawn from, and changes in the game that raised or lowered major-league batting averages (the introduction of the designated hitter and changes in the height and location of the pitcher's mound, for example). Schell's study finally levels the playing field, giving new credit to hitters who played in adverse conditions and downgrading others who faced fewer obstacles. His final ranking of players differs dramatically from the traditional list. Gwynn, for example, bumps Cobb to 2nd place, Rod Carew rises from 28th to 3rd, Babe Ruth drops from 9th to 16th, and Willie Mays comes from off the list to rank 13th. Schell's list also gives relatively more credit to modern players, containing 39 whose best days were after 1960.

Using a fun, conversational style, the book presents a feast of stories and statistics about players, ballparks, and teams--all arranged so that calculations can be skipped by general readers but consulted by statisticians eager to follow Schell's methods or introduce their students to such basic concepts as mean, histogram, standard deviation, p-value, and regression. Baseball's All-Time Best Hitters will shake up how baseball fans view the greatest heroes of America's national pastime.

Key effects include the home ball park, stage of career and interventions such as the lowering of the pitcher's mound after 1968. To adjust for players whose abilities decline substantially in the latter years of their career Schell uses only the first 8000 at bats to gauge the players hitting ability. This helps players like Mickey Mantle whose performance declined appreciably at the end of his career due in part to injuries.

Schell provides a lot of interesting statistics and comparisons. Ty Cobb had the highest lifetime batting average but after all the adjustments finishes second to Tony Gwynn, a result that will surely create controversy.

Nevertheless Schell's approach makes sense and his results are not too surprising. As he notes his adjustments move many of the modern players whose numerical averages are lower than the players from the late 1800s and early 1900s, ahead on the list.

Schell relates how he showed up to meet and congratulate Gwynn on the date of his 8000th at bat when he clinched first place based on the Schell adjustment system.

Mike Schell is a sports enthusiast and a professor of biostatistics at the University of North Carolina. In 2002 he was one of the invited speakers at the Sport Statistics Section Session of the Joint Statistical Meetings.


One of the best baseball books ever written   August 7, 2008
Charles Ashbacher (Marion, Iowa United States(cashbacher@yahoo.com))
8 out of 8 found this review helpful

Baseball fans love to engage in "who's the best" debates. When I was young, that was the primary topic of conversation between the boys in my neighborhood. Since we did not have a great deal of knowledge concerning the history of the game, our debates were primarily over the current teams and players. Occasionally, we did delve into the "of all time" areas, but our arguments were always weakened by issues such as the differences in the ballparks and how the game had changed over the years. We always considered these issues to be ones that we could not resolve, so little time was spent on them.
In this book, statistical techniques are used to adjust for the differences in the era, different ballparks and how the rules have changed over the years. The conclusions are somewhat surprising and while they can be controversial, it is difficult to argue with the methods used to arrive at the conclusion. Schell's conclusion is that Tony Gwynn is the best hitter of all time. Tables abound, demonstrating statistics adjusted for the appropriate changes. Some of the most astounding statistics are those regarding the effect that a ballpark can have on a career. On page 190, there is a synopsis concerning Fenway Park, the home of the Red Sox. It was a park that favored the pitchers until 1934, when there was a major renovation. Since 1934, one-third of the American League batting champions was a member of the Red Sox. Coors Field, the home of the Colorado Rockies, is the best park for hitters, a conclusion easily supported by the data. For all three years covered in this book, the Rockies won the team batting title and the individual title was a race between Tony Gwynn, Mike Piazza and someone from the Rockies.
As a lifelong baseball fan and a teacher of statistics, I loved this book. It is also not necessary to completely understand all of the statistical concepts to appreciate the conclusions. There is also a list of the best players based on each position other than pitcher, although all outfielders are grouped together. Schell lists "Actual and Recommended Hall of Fame ***" where *** is the given position, based on the statistical adjustments he has performed. Although there is some room for controversy regarding Schell's conclusions, he provides a fascinating look into how the game has changed over time and how it can change from ballpark to ballpark.



Superb game-rainout reading material   March 14, 1999
5 out of 5 found this review helpful

Admittedly, you'd better love either baseball or statistical analysis to get into this book. It represents an alternative to the George Will "baseball is America" romantic view of the game, and provides interesting fodder for barroom debate. The math is well beyond me, but, like the , the results are well worth review. Unlike the , this book is more than just a reference, it is also an interesting read.


...but you missed the point...   January 8, 2006
Matthew Coleman (fairfield, ct USA)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful

Of course on-base and slugging percentages are much better measures of a hitter's worth, but that's not the author's point. He wants to take a particular statistic and show how it should be interpreted/reinterpreted, given the vagaries of time, location, etc. He could easily have chosen on-base, slugging, OPS, whatever, but batting average traditionally is the first one everyone looks at, as ill-informed as that may be. Implied is that the same arguments can be used for any of the other statistics. (And he does so, briefly providing the results.)