The Base in Baseball (sabermterics from 1935)

This is a very early kind of sabermterics. It was from Esquire in 1935. It is kind of like run expectancy. Baseball Think Factory has had it up on their site for many years. I am posting this in case anyone has missed it and is interested. Click here to read all of it.

Excerpt:

"We worked out a system with the base as a unit.  We gave the batter credit for the number of bases he achieved for his team, compared to the number of bases it had been possible for him to achieve.  If he came to bat with no one on base his “possible” was four bases. If he singled, then, he got credit for 1 base—.250; if he hit a home run he earned 4—1.000.  If there were men on base he got credit for the bases he advanced them—a homer with the bases full would give him 10 bases (count it for yourself) out of a possible ten.  We were actually measuring a player’s performance in realistic terms, as accurately, we thought, as figures could do it."