Talk:Bill James

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I changed "possibly the most influential sportswriter in baseball history," since Alexander Joy Cartwright implemented most of the changes in what became modern baseball. -Sam

• That could probably be changed, since James I don't believe would profess to being a "sports writer". A more accurate statement might be "possiblt the most influential person in modern baseball statistial analysis". 64.186.39.4 18:42, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Can I sound out The Community about the possibility of condensing the material devoted to navel-gazing about the 2004 Red Sox bullpen? To the best of my knowledge, nobody really knows what role James played in its various troubles and tergiversations, and yet about 20% of this article is devoted to carefully NPOV-tested, spit-polished speculation about the subject (which seems doubly pointless in view of the way the season ended). -cosh 19:13, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

• Maybe, but I think it's more a case of the article needing to be generally expanded. James is really a more important figure than he's being given credit for here. WilyD 13:45, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Minor Point

I think that SABR does much more than "scientifically evaluates statistical data in attempting to determine why teams win and lose." From their website: "Our mission is to foster the study of baseball past and present, and to provide an outlet for educational, historical and research information about the game."Chocaholic 06:27, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Non-notable book

A reference to Covering the Bases: Making Sense of Bill James' Statistical Nonsense‎ was deleted from this article after the book's article was deleted. I agree that the book itself is not notable enough for its own Wikipedia article, but I would argue that it's notable enough to be included in this article. It's the only book-length retort to his work that I know of, and I think it's important to note. What are some other views? Rmj12345 18:14, 5 March 2007 (UTC)