Power Ball, Rob Neyer
Power Ball, Rob Neyer
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Power Ball
Anatomy of a Modern Baseball Game

Author: Rob Neyer

Narrator: Rob Neyer

Unabridged: 9 hr 52 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Harper

Published: 10/09/2018

Synopsis

The former ESPN columnist and analytics pioneer dramatically recreates an action-packed 2017 game between the Oakland A’s and eventual World Series Champion Houston Astros to reveal the myriad ways in which Major League Baseball has changed over the last few decades.On September 8, 2017, the Oakland A’s faced off against the Houston Astros in a game that would signal the passing of the Moneyball mantle. Though this was only one regular season game, the match-up of these two teams demonstrated how Major League Baseball has changed since the early days of Athletics general manager Billy Beane and the publication of Michael Lewis’ classic book.Over the past twenty years, power and analytics have taken over the game, driving carefully calibrated teams like the Astros to victory. Seemingly every pitcher now throws mid-90s heat and studiously compares their mechanics against the ideal. Every batter in the lineup can crack homers and knows their launch angles. Teams are relying on unorthodox strategies, including using power-losing—purposely tanking a few seasons to get the best players in the draft.As he chronicles each inning and the unfolding drama as these two teams continually trade the lead—culminating in a 9-8 Oakland victory in the bottom of the ninth—Neyer considers the players and managers, the front office machinations, the role of sabermetrics, and the current thinking about what it takes to build a great team, to answer the most pressing questions fans have about the sport today.

About Rob Neyer

Rob Neyer worked for fifteen years as a columnist and blogger for ESPN, from 1996 to 2011, and later worked as a national writer and editor for SB Nation and FOX Sports. A Kansas City native, Rob has lived in the Pacific Northwest for more than twenty years. This is his seventh book.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Spiros on September 25, 2018

Very much in the tradition of Daniel Okrent's excellent Nine Innings, Rob Neyer uses the framework of a meaningless late September game between the eventual World Champion Houston Astros and the cellar dwelling Oakland A's, to examine the state of the National Pastime in 2017. He manages to give so......more

Goodreads review by Alex on October 20, 2018

An utterly joyful read. Neyer has been one of my favorite baseball writers for a long time, and in this book he explores the contemporary game through following a late season Astros-A’s matchup. Reading it is like listening to one of the great commentators, who animate the action and fill the quiet......more

Goodreads review by Paul on October 12, 2018

Power Ball reads like a trip to the ball park with a cool baseball sage. The one who has an appreciation for the history of the game, and at the same time, has the brains to easily crunch the numbers of the present. You can see him point to Altuve and say, “You see that guy? Well, there’s only been......more

Goodreads review by Jim on December 29, 2019

#4 Best Book I Read in 2019 Excellent baseball book. We’ve reached a new era in the game and Neyer explains what it is and how we got here, but the book is so much more than that. He uses a seemingly random Astros/A’s game as a jumping off point to lead into mini-essays on several aspects of the mode......more

Goodreads review by Chris on November 18, 2018

Rob Neyer had a nice idea for a book. It's not an original idea - as he admits at the outset - but it's still a nice idea. Take a game - just a seemingly random regular season game with no importance beyond what happened on the field that day - and use it as a jumping off point to discuss the state......more

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