Ahead of the Curve: Inside the Baseball Revolution
by Brian Kenny, 2016

We (Maria and I) met Brian Kenny at the 2013 SABR Analytics conference. He was the keynote speaker, and advocated such things at knuckleball academies (to train knuckleball pitchers), bullpenning (using your bullpen more effectively and moving away from the dominance of the starting pitcher), and a information-saavy managerial staff to replace intuitive managers. He’s incredibly well-spoken and brings that to his work on ESPN and MLB Network, and now to his book.

Kill the win. Kill the save. Don’t sign big-money free agents. All are topics in this book, but I think the overwhelming theme is that we need to halt the tyranny of backward-thinking sports media that constantly attacks and belittles analytical thinking. Great book.

Pairs well with Moneyball, obviously (my reading of that one pre-dates when I was writing book reviews for my website). Also pairs well with Big Data Baseball, Mathletics, How to Measure Anything, and Thinking, Fast and Slow.

Scorecasting: The Hidden Influence Behind How Sports Are Played and Games Are Won
by Tobias J. Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim, 2011

I read this book a few years ago, but I recently re-“read” it on tape on a holiday drive. The content is interesting and the conclusions are cool and worth knowing, but I was struck with how much filler content is included in reading it a second time. You want to yell at the writers, “Just get to the point” sometimes. Also, don’t listen to this on CD, as the reader reads the entirety of the book’s tables, which is frustrating and silly. You’ll skim the tables in the actual book. Overall, a good book to read quickly, especially if you don’t know why there is a home-field advantage in sports.