Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
December 05, 2002
STATS Major League Handbook:

There is an editorial at Baseball Truth about the demise of the STATS Major League Handbook. I'm as disappointed as anyone that this and other books will no longer be published. However, I think there are some inaccuraccies in the editorial, and since the title of the site seems to be devoted to truth, I thought I should set the record straight.


The reason: money, pure and simple. FOX Sports, yes, THAT FOX, which bought out STATS Inc. a year ago, has decided it makes more financial sense to join with The Sporting News to put out one annual, well, two -- the Register and the Guide.

The sale of STATS was in January of 2000, nearly three years ago. The original sale was to a subsidiary of Fox. That subsidiary went under, and STATS was the only entity of that group that survived, and was placed under the control of Fox Sports.

The first indication of trouble came last year when the Bill James name was removed from the Handbook after 12 years. Many others, such as founders John and Sue Dewan and Don Zminda, also jumped (or were pushed) off the sinking ship. Last year, FOX put out the first few books -- the Handbook, the Profiles book of player breakdowns and the two Scouting Notebooks -- but did not publish the Scoreboard, a decade-old collection of analytical studies.

Don Zminda is still on the ship. When the deal was finalized in 2000, Fox decided that STATS should be it's research department. Don Zminda became the head of that department, not because they were killing the publishing arm, but because Don was the best man for the job. Secondly, STATS did put out one new book, Win Shares, by Bill James, so there was still a relationship there.

Withholding information was Elias' hallmark during the Eighties and the thing James and others like him fought. STATS Inc. was founded on the notion of making it available.

But when you look at the STATS Inc. Web site, it's depressing. There is no online database. Some stats it published, such as catcher ERA, will jump to the Sporting News books, but a vast amount is being taken private. STATS Inc., as far as the public is concerned, and as far as their Web site lets on, has become just a glorified fantasy-league operator.


Nothing has changed here. STATS has always sold it's data, not given it away. The difference between STATS and Elias is that STATS was willing to sell data to anyone at a relatively low price. The STATS web site does have a lot of statistical data, but you have to sign up and pay for it. STATS also supplies information to ESPN, BaseballDirect (see links on the right side) and others.

Also, there is a premium service called STATSPass. It allows you to build queries of the STATS database. However, I don't know if justanyone can sign up for it; it may just be for media clients.

The MLB Handbook was the Strat-o-Matic book of choice. It will be missed. But if you are going to call your page BaseballTruth, check your facts better.

In case you missed it, Rob Neyer has an interview with Bill James and John Dewan about the demise of the Handbook.


Posted by David Pinto at 09:39 AM | Baseball