Not sure what he did wrong here. Basically he's saying that he's not going to staple on another 15 years of players in order to make a few bucks. Sounds noble to me.

It's probably not a good idea to experience a Repoz open primarily through the lens of its truth content.

Sorry to go for the low-hanging fruit here, but:

Is there any chance at all for a revision of the Historical Abstract? What about even a revised all time ranking by position?

Pass.

I like that second answer.

I can’t publish things NOW using the standards of accuracy that prevailed ten years ago.

You can't?

you can't with dignity. He's admitting that stuff that might have been great for its time is not the best to use after its expiration date. If you'd like to put a rover on Mars, Einstein's discoveries are more accurate than Newton's.

is it my imagination or are bill's mailbogs being posted twice? i could have sworn this was posted earlier this week. and same with the last mailbag.

or maybe i am getting loopy

Those two statements aren't mutually exclusive.

I love that answer by Bill on the HBA. I think it does show that regardless of the fact that he claims he doesn't really read much research being done, that he is more aware of the research being done that he likes to claim.

I would love a new book, but really if it's just a rehashing of the old book, with updated numbers, it's not really worth it.

is it my imagination or are bill's mailbogs being posted twice? i could have sworn this was posted earlier this week. and same with the last mailbag.

or maybe i am getting loopy

The content of the mailbag changes gradually; new letters are added to the top and they push older letters down and off the first page. So every time you click on it, if you scroll down far enough, you'll see stuff you saw the last time.

I love that answer by Bill on the HBA. I think it does show that regardless of the fact that he claims he doesn't really read much research being done, that he is more aware of the research being done that he likes to claim.

Not really. He stated that we now have more information available about games played way back when and we now also have more data about how games are played now. He isn't stating that thanks to DIPS or WAR or Fangraphs or MGL or Tango that we now know more about baseball and baseball stats.

I really like those answers. Shows a humble side of him we haven't seen in a while.

He isn't stating that thanks to DIPS or WAR or Fangraphs or MGL or Tango that we now know more about baseball and baseball stats.

Yep, you could even read his statement as saying it would take so long because he'd have to start over from scratch (and reinvent the wheel) rather than using the work of others to inform his ratings. OK, that sounds snottier than I mean. What I mean is that one could save a lot of time by taking WAR (or similar) and then tweaking those lists where you think they've got it wrong (and explaining why).

Which WAR ?

What I mean is that one could save a lot of time by taking WAR (or similar) and then tweaking those lists where you think they've got it wrong (and explaining why).

"One" probably could, but I don't think Bill James could and still have a Bill James book. One of the reasons he's still interesting and significant is that he's as interested in the theoretical frameworks that lead to answers as he is in the answers themselves. I mean, you're not going to slice and dice the numbers in any way that doesn't have Ruth, Bonds, and Williams as the greatest hitters of all time. "Who's better" is a boring game for anyone with an Internet connection. "What can we now quantify about winning baseball games that we couldn't ten years ago" is a fascinating question.

I'd love a new HBA as much as anyone, but I'm not holding my breath that there will be a new one from him.
If it was as detailed as the last one, I'd expect that finding all new things to talk about with the 100 players at each position would be quite difficult.

I'd love a new HBA as much as anyone, but I'm not holding my breath that there will be a new one from him.
If it was as detailed as the last one, I'd expect that finding all new things to talk about with the 100 players at each position would be quite difficult.

Partly because I have a bad memory, and partly because I have a lot of time on my hands, I've been working on a HBA style ranking of the players from my fan-life (1990 to present). Except not just top 100 at each position, but anyone with over 1000 PAs, 750 IP or 450 pitching appearances. The ranking is fun, though as #15 points out its nothing more than me taking WAR and arbitrarily weighting career and various peaks. The real value for me is in the little paragraphs I write about each guy. I mean, it would be a crime against humanity if twenty years from now I were to forget that Rob Mackowiak once hit a walk-off grand-slam, a ninth-inning game-tying home run, and had his son born all n the same day.