Was Watching: 9 Questions With Lee Sinins

Like clockwork…the Complete Baseball Encyclopedia rolls on.

Q5: Speaking of better systems, last year you added Fielding Runs Above Average (FRAA) and Total Runs Above Average (TRAA) to the Complete Baseball Encyclopedia. Can you tell us a little more about those stats and why you added them?

Sinins: I never found a system for fielding that I had liked until I read Wizardry, which was a book that came out about a year ago. The author made a very convincing case in favor of his system. I then took the formulas that he had published and did a little bit of tinkering to them to take into account different run environments over the years and park factors. That end result was FRAA, which is the fielding edition of RCAA. Then, TRAA is RCAA + FRAA.

Q7: In terms of your vision for the Complete Baseball Encyclopedia, and what you wanted to accomplish with it, have you met all your goals? If yes, what were those goals? If no, what’s been the one biggest hurdle preventing that from happening?

Sinins: The reason for me creating the Complete Baseball Encyclopedia was I loved the old Bill James Electronic Encyclopedia that was available for a few years during the mid 1990′s. Then, they stopped making it. Eventually, once I went to computer school, I decided I had to try to see if I could duplicate something like the old Bill James Electronic Encyclopedia for my own use. I more than succeeded at that. I never originally thought I would have a marketable product, but time proved me wrong there.