Baseball Sale Titles

<p>One of the foremost authorities in fantasy baseball over the past three decades, Ron Shandler is a self-described rotoholic.&nbsp;<br /><br />In the beginning, he hoarded newspaper box scores and pored over every number at his disposal. Then came the compulsion to create his own numbers. A monthly newsletter expanded into an annual Baseball Forecaster book, which spawned a media company, websites, tournaments, and more.<br /><br />Part memoir, part madcap history, Fantasy Expert is a fascinating and wide-ranging look at the modern&nbsp;growth and development of the game that went from cottage industry to national obsession.<br /><br />In chronicling his own escalating journey from rotisserie baseball hobbyist to professional authority, Shandler tells parallel tales of the rise of fantasy sports, the expanding baseball information industry, the increasingly sophisticated technology employed to gain an edge, and the fellow rotoholics who make it all possible.&nbsp;He also delves into the impact of fantasy baseball on the sport of baseball itself.<br /><br />Written with humor, honesty, and a deep passion for baseball, this is a must-read for anyone interested in the history, progression, and future of fantasy baseball.</p>

<strong>Watching a game of baseball today means witnessing phenomena that would have been novel, if not completely unheard of, not so long ago.</strong><br /><br />Starting pitchers sling 100 mile-per-hour heat for just four or five innings before departing; third basemen often station themselves much closer to second (to say nothing of the shortstop&#39;s whereabouts); home runs and strikeouts dominate at-bats; all while the length of contest tips toward the four-hour mark.<br /><br />There&#39;s no getting around it: the game looks different now. And as Major League Baseball scrambles with rule changes, equipment modifications, labor negotiations, and more, fans are left grasping for the true essence of this beloved pastime among the moving pieces.<br /><br />In <em>The New Ballgame</em>, Russell Carleton (<em>The Shift</em>) deftly identifies and examines the many levers and inflection points that have shaped the game into what we see on the field today. Through a singular blend of statistical analysis, history, and cognitive science, readers will trace the rapid evolution of the modern game while contemplating the sport in an entirely new way. <br /><br /><strong>Blending incisive research with affable storytelling, Russell Carleton delivers a kaleidoscopic view on modern baseball in this welcome, revelatory work.</strong>

A love letter to the game of baseball from one of America's foremost scribes Bob Ryan has scored every baseball game he's attended, at every level, since the start of the 1977 season. It's a deeply personal tradition still going strong at more than 1,400 games and counting. The tattered scorebooks he's filled are worn from age, travel, and countless summer days, but their grids and scrawled symbols tell the stories of milestones, rivalries, rare historic achievements, and more.In Scoring Position captures the incomparable spirit of baseball, with its infinite possibilities and madcap anomalies. Ryan, alongside baseball historian and statistician Bill Chuck, has scoured his scorecard archives for the most singular events—a switch-hitter being hit by a pitch from both sides of the plate in the same game; a player batting for the cycle off four different pitchers; even back-to-back pinch-hit home runs with two outs in the 9th. Featuring some of the game's biggest names and wildest scenarios, this is a fascinating romp through baseball history, exuding a pure zeal for this sport that fans of all teams will recognize in themselves.Part of the collection at the library of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, this volume also features reproductions of dozens of scorecards from Ryan's collection.

An unprecedented look inside the world of baseball scouting and evaluation from Fangraphs' lead prospect analysts For the modern major league team, player evaluation is a complex, multi-pronged, high-tech pursuit. But far from becoming obsolete in this environment⁠—as Michael Lewis' Moneyball once forecast⁠—the role of the scout in today's game has evolved and even expanded. Rather than being the antithesis of a data-driven approach, scouting now represents an essential analytical component in a team's arsenal. Future Value is a thorough dive into the world of the contemporary scout—a world with its own language, methods, metrics, and madness. From rural high schools to elite amateur showcases, from the back fields of spring training to major league draft rooms, FanGraphs' Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel break down the key systems and techniques used to assess talent. It's a process that has moved beyond the quintessential stopwatches and radar guns to include statistical models, countless measurable indicators, and a broader international reach. Practical and probing, discussing wide-ranging topics from tool grades to front office politics, this is an illuminating exploration of how to watch baseball and see the future.

Don't bunt in a blowout. Don't pimp your home runs. Act like you've been here before. In Unwritten: Bat Flips, the Fun Police, and Baseball's New Future, national baseball writer Danny Knobler dives deep beyond the brushbacks and brawls to examine shifting attitudes towards Major League Baseball's once-sacred player codes. What emerges in the process is a much larger story, one of a more youthful, more exuberant, more diverse game in the midst of a fascinating culture clash. Featuring countless interviews with some of baseball's biggest names, including current and former major-league players, coaches, scouts, and journalists, Unwritten is a revealing, thoroughly of-the-moment portrait of a sport grappling with the loaded question of what it means to play the game the right way. Fans will not want to miss these varied, inside perspectives on America's pastime marching into the future.

<div>With its three-hour-long contests, 162-game seasons, and countless measurable variables, baseball is a sport which lends itself to self-reflection and obsessive analysis. It&#39;s a thinking game. It&#39;s also a shifting game. Nowhere is this more evident than in the statistical revolution which has swept through the pastime in recent years, bringing metrics like WAR, OPS, and BABIP into front offices and living rooms alike. So what&#39;s on the horizon for a game that is constantly evolving? Positioned at the crossroads of sabermetrics and cognitive science, <em>The Shift</em> alters the trajectory of both traditional and analytics-based baseball thought. With a background in clinical psychology as well as experience in major league front offices, <em>Baseball Prospectus</em>&#39; Russell Carleton illuminates advanced statistics and challenges cultural assumptions, demonstrating along the way that data and logic need not be at odds with the human elements of baseball—in fact, they&#39;re inextricably intertwined. Covering topics ranging from infield shifts to paradigm shifts, Carleton writes with verve, honesty, and an engaging style, inviting all those who love the game to examine it deeply and maybe a little differently. Data becomes digestible; intangibles are rendered not only accessible, but quantifiable. Casual fans and statheads alike will not want to miss this compelling meditation on what makes baseball tick.</div>