Reddit reviews Big Data Baseball: Math, Miracles, and the End of a 20-Year Losing Streak

Worth a look if you haven't read it already: https://www.amazon.com/Big-Data-Baseball-Miracles-20-Year/dp/1250063507

It's a book, it's for the Pirates what The Extra 2% is for the Rays or Moneyball for the A's.

Here's one of the relevant quotes:

> Teams typically employ their fastest, rangiest outfielder in center field, which most commonly has the greatest amount of ground to cover. But left field at PNC Park was actually larger than center. Hurdle knew that he essentially needed another center fielder to play left field. You could mask an infielder's limitations by aligning him more smartly via shifts, but even with data-based outfield alignment you couldn't hide lack of speed in the outfield or a player who ran poor routes to intercept fly balls and line drives. The Pirates needed an elite athlete to cover left field, and Hurdle needed someone to find him that player. That someone was Rene Gayo, who more than anyone else helped the Pirates meet their geographical challenges and take advantage of some of the game's other undervalued skills: speed and athleticism.

It then goes into detail on Gayo, scouting in the Dominican, and eventually, finding Marte and making him that guy.

So this is not the answer you are looking for just a heads up.

If I was just breaking into the sport and wanting to dive deep I would buy this book: http://www.amazon.com/Big-Data-Baseball-Miracles-20-Year/dp/1250063507

It's not a teaching type of book but it talks about the ins and outs of how Pittsburgh took the use of saber metrics to a entirely new level. It dives into the statistics and not only what they saw In them but how they applied them and the results of it. It's all written in narrative form so it's more of a story than a tutorial.

I personally think it is the best recipe for learning saber metrics from a global point of view and it can be entertaining enough to get the foundation you'd need to jump in yourself.

It also shows you just how much further these franchises are compared to the every day fans with their databases which I was surprised with.