Dugout Central: Ehrke: Craig Messmer is Not the Next Bill James

This will leave Nathaniel Stoltz flipping Pancake Flops!

If a fool and his money are destined to soon part company then I suppose I’m a fool. I recently purchased – for $17.95 + tax – Stat One by Craig Messmer. Billed on the front cover as “A New System for Rating Baseball’s All-Time Greatest Players” the book appeared dangerously irresistible and in a moment of impulse buying I and my $17.95 (plus tax!) parted forever.

...Perhaps Messmer realized he was in trouble when he looked at the greatest P/E Average seasons of all time. He listed the top 23 P/E Averages ever; the only times they didn’t occur during the 1920s or 1930s were by Nap Lajoie in 1901, Ty Cobb in 1911, Ted Williams in 1941 and Jeff Bagwell in 1994. 1901 was the first year of the American League (formerly the Western League), the A.L. used a lively ball in 1911 and 1994 was the dawn of the heavy hitting 1990s.

To compensate, Messmer includes a host of subjective factors to lessen the influence of P/E Averages on his final rankings. He adds Gold Glove Awards, MVP Awards, All-Star appearances, fielding stats, post-season performance and “intangibles” to decide the final rankings of baseball’s 100 greatest players. It’s sad to think that a book that promises a new system for rating players reached back into the junk pile of “intangibles” to bail it out.