[.ca] The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers: An Historical ... (ISBN 0743261585)

way outside:
A huge disappointment. I expected more of a comparison of pitchers maybe by era or some more depth to the text maybe focusing on interesting hi- and low-lites of their careers combined with the usual stat analysis that sabermetricians are known for. Basically, all this book is is a list of pitchers in alphabetical order and reads like a textbook, or an old scouting report, rather than what should have been a fascinating journey of the pitchers who made it to the bigs.

considering the authors, disappointing:
Considering the magnitude of Bill James and Rob Neyer, this should have been a great book. A veritable baseball feast, like Neyer's books on lineups and dynasties, and James' monumental historical abstract. Where he lost you with stats, he won you with great writing. But this book, despite some excellent essays, is an appetizer. Something to fill out a book contract. There is still a great book to be written on pitchers. Neyer and James should have written it, but they didn't.

Entertaining -- And that's the point.:
I disagree with a great deal of the material in this book. Not surprisingly, I found the 'refutation' of Pitcher Abuse Points weak and flawed. But that doesn't really matter. This is a fun book to read. It's a great way to spend some time. Maybe some minor changes that could have been made in terms of format, editorial decisions, and whatever, but that's true for every book. I think it's fascinating and entertaining to learn what's behind some of the numbers for guys I never got the chance to see. I can disclaim and state that Rob is a friend and colleague, but it doesn't change the fact that this is a very entertaining book, and has a bunch of angles that will appeal to a bunch of different people. It's clear that Rob was passionate about this book, and I'm grateful for that. This is a winner, it's not expensive, and when you read it, your mind fills with images of baseball. That's high praise, and it's well earned here.

A nice game of catch:
If you take this book at its premise as spelled out in the intro - Bill and Rob talking about Harvey Haddix and asking "What did he throw?"- then I think the authors toed the rubber, threw strikes and delivered a highly enjoyable book. And I think the other reviewers who panned this book may have been taking it a bit too seriously. I think anybody who's tossed the ball around and wondered at how the combination of horsehide, raised seams and air currents can do strange things to the white sphere can appreciate this book. At their best, Bill James and Rob Neyer have always made me appreciate and love the game of baseball, past, present and future. Reading this book helps me watch a game and appreciate the seemingly simple on the surface yet fascinating to the core - and utterly boring to the uninitiated - battle between pitcher and batter.

A major disappointment -- as other readers have noted:
After reading Rob Neyer's *Big Book of Baseball Lineups*, I was expecting another gem. But this book has little to recommend it except for the essays on near-Hall of Fame caliber pitchers Mel Harder, Billy Pierce, Tommy Bridges, Bucky Walters and several others. The lists of best fastball and breaking ball pitchers appear idiosyncratic, while the analysis is simple-minded and redolent of bar-stool advocacy (at least when one considers that the evaluators are renowned sabermetricians). Save your money for Alan Schwarz's new book, *The Numbers Game: Baseball's Lifelong fascination with Statistics*. He's a better writer than either Neyer or James and has a fascinating story to tell.