{"id":9413,"date":"2020-06-15T13:24:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-15T17:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=9413"},"modified":"2020-06-23T14:32:11","modified_gmt":"2020-06-23T18:32:11","slug":"the-runs-created-formula-does-it-really-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-runs-created-formula-does-it-really-work\/","title":{"rendered":"The Runs Created Formula: Does It Really Work?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What is the runs created formula? How does the runs created formula work? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The runs created formula is a mathematical equation developed to analyze the ability of a team to produce runs and wins. The formula&#8217;s creator, Bill James, argues that the most important measurement of predicting wins is not traditional statistics like batting average and RBI, but a new metric called the runs created formula, with a runs created calculator that helped them determine player value. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Runs Created Formula<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>James wants to see exactly which plays most contribute to a team\u2019s offensive production. He sets out to construct a model to predict how many runs a team might expect to score, based on their accumulated walks, singles, doubles, stolen bases, and other offense-generating plays. He pores over statistics from previous baseball seasons to see which components of offense are most correlated with runs. This allows him to assign a statistical \u201cweight\u201d to each, in effect determining how many runs (or portions of a run) a walk, hit, or stolen base is worth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He distills it down to a Runs Created formula:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Runs Created = (Hits + Walks) x Total Bases\/(At Bats + Walks)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After statistical analysis, James finds that this formula is remarkably effective in predicting a team\u2019s run production. <strong>It shows that walks are a valuable (yet overlooked) part of offense, while batting average matters hardly at all.<\/strong> You can create your own runs created calculator based on this formula. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Removing Luck from Baseball Analysis<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>James begins publishing annual treatises, in which he highlights the uselessness of commonly-cited baseball statistics like errors, runs batted in (RBIs). Another of James\u2019s key insights is that <strong>much of the data that managers, scouts, and GMs use to evaluate players\u2019 skill is based on luck and subjective opinion.<\/strong> In publishing his annual baseball abstracts, James attempts to strip as much luck out of baseball analysis as possible, and develops the runs created formula. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>James also points out the absurdity of that statistic revered by baseball\u2019s old guard: the RBI. A batter earns an RBI when they score a hit that results in another player scoring a run. By definition, it is a product of luck: a batter has to have the good fortune to be at bat when other players are <em>already <\/em>on base. The batter will, of course, have had nothing to do with their teammates getting on base before them. <strong>It is a matter of luck to even have the <em>opportunity <\/em>to score an RBI.<\/strong> A batter who hits a single with a runner in scoring position and a batter who hits a single with no one on base have performed the same athletic feat\u2014but one will be credited with an RBI, while the other won\u2019t.&nbsp;James believes his runs created calculator can provide a better measurement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Rejection by Baseball Insiders<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Although James starts out with a small audience in 1977, his annual treatises on baseball, <em>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/bill-james-moneyball\/\">Bill James Baseball<\/a> Abstracts<\/em>, reach a growing and influential audience throughout the 1980s. People are compelled by his sharp and pointed critiques of the ludicrous measures by which baseball teams measure success, and begin urging major league clubs to take James\u2019s ideas more seriously. People with backgrounds in economics, mathematics, and statistical analysis are especially drawn to his rationalistic approach to analyzing something that everyone <em>thinks <\/em>they already understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite this, <strong>there is a marked hostility on the part of baseball insiders toward those they perceive as baseball outsiders<\/strong>, particularly this new army of data-focused, statistics-obsessed observers who dare to tell the big clubs that they are doing their jobs all wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The small cadre of people who actually <em>run <\/em>professional baseball teams is determined to exclude outside voices and opinions, even if that means losing games. They prefer to do things <em>their <\/em>way than take advice from a bunch of pencil-pushers droning on about on-base percentage and runs created formulas. <strong>They are profoundly uninterested in using baseball statistics in an analytical way<\/strong>. In fact, in the early 1980s, the earliest participants in what later becomes the phenomenon of fantasy sports are more interested in getting their hands on good <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/data-analytics-in-baseball\/\">baseball data<\/a> than the teams themselves\u2014even though these fans stand to gain far less from such knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On the rare occasion when major league teams of this era <em>do <\/em>try to implement sabermetric principles in the front office, these attempts are met with hostility by baseball\u2019s old guard, including sports journalists and ordinary fans. When the Boston Red Sox hire a James-inspired number-cruncher to advise the general manager on personnel decisions, the sports media in Boston treats the hiring as a scandal. They point to this person\u2019s unathletic appearance, his non-baseball background, and his residence in New York City (home of the hated Yankees) as disqualifying factors. They excoriate the Boston GM for being under the sway of a computer geek who (to them) doesn\u2019t know the first thing about baseball and claims to avoid even watching the games. After public outcry in Boston, the team is forced to fire this sabermetrician.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Exasperated James acolytes find their ideas rejected across the league<\/strong>. The ideological conservatism of baseball\u2019s ruling elite seems to have a stranglehold on the game. Despite his growing popularity with the general public, James finds that he has made no headway with the most influential part of what he <em>thinks <\/em>would be his natural audience\u2014the people who actually run professional baseball teams.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>But he does have one devoted reader, who will eventually put his ideas into practice at baseball\u2019s highest level\u2014Billy Beane.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The runs created formula helped advocates of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/baseball-sabermetrics\/\">Sabermetrics<\/a> weed out valuable players who offered win opportunities for a lower price than well-known all-stars. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is the runs created formula? How does the runs created formula work? The runs created formula is a mathematical equation developed to analyze the ability of a team to produce runs and wins. The formula&#8217;s creator, Bill James, argues that the most important measurement of predicting wins is not traditional statistics like batting average and RBI, but a new metric called the runs created formula, with a runs created calculator that helped them determine player value.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":9441,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,25],"tags":[88],"class_list":["post-9413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-statistics","tag-moneyball","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Runs Created Formula: Does It Really Work? - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What is the runs created formula? Bill James&#039;s runs created formula is a part of Sabermetrics that measures a player&#039;s true value.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-runs-created-formula-does-it-really-work\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Runs Created Formula: Does It Really Work?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What is the runs created formula? Bill James&#039;s runs created formula is a part of Sabermetrics that measures a player&#039;s true value.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-runs-created-formula-does-it-really-work\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-06-15T17:24:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-06-23T18:32:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/home-plate-moneyball-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1707\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Carrie Cabral\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Carrie Cabral\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-runs-created-formula-does-it-really-work\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-runs-created-formula-does-it-really-work\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Carrie Cabral\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/2ababb7c63a94ff5d2190f71dc417d56\"},\"headline\":\"The Runs Created Formula: Does It Really Work?\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-06-15T17:24:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-06-23T18:32:11+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-runs-created-formula-does-it-really-work\/\"},\"wordCount\":969,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-runs-created-formula-does-it-really-work\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/home-plate-moneyball-scaled.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Moneyball\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Sports\",\"Statistics\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-runs-created-formula-does-it-really-work\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-runs-created-formula-does-it-really-work\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-runs-created-formula-does-it-really-work\/\",\"name\":\"The Runs Created Formula: Does It Really Work? - Shortform Books\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-runs-created-formula-does-it-really-work\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-runs-created-formula-does-it-really-work\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/home-plate-moneyball-scaled.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-06-15T17:24:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-06-23T18:32:11+00:00\",\"description\":\"What is the runs created formula? Bill James's runs created formula is a part of Sabermetrics that measures a player's true value.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-runs-created-formula-does-it-really-work\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-runs-created-formula-does-it-really-work\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-runs-created-formula-does-it-really-work\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/home-plate-moneyball-scaled.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/home-plate-moneyball-scaled.jpg\",\"width\":2560,\"height\":1707},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-runs-created-formula-does-it-really-work\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Runs Created Formula: Does It Really Work?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Shortform Books\",\"description\":\"The World&#039;s Best Book Summaries\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Shortform Books\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/logo-equilateral-with-text-no-bg.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/logo-equilateral-with-text-no-bg.png\",\"width\":500,\"height\":74,\"caption\":\"Shortform Books\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"}},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/2ababb7c63a94ff5d2190f71dc417d56\",\"name\":\"Carrie Cabral\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e9aea3c95254368e6bf388b046b35bacb82e4167f4c62c0813620e3a4ec51126?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e9aea3c95254368e6bf388b046b35bacb82e4167f4c62c0813620e3a4ec51126?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Carrie Cabral\"},\"description\":\"Carrie has been reading and writing for as long as she can remember, and has always been open to reading anything put in front of her. She wrote her first short story at the age of six, about a lost dog who meets animal friends on his journey home. Surprisingly, it was never picked up by any major publishers, but did spark her passion for books. Carrie worked in book publishing for several years before getting an MFA in Creative Writing. She especially loves literary fiction, historical fiction, and social, cultural, and historical nonfiction that gets into the weeds of daily life.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/author\/carrie\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Runs Created Formula: Does It Really Work? - Shortform Books","description":"What is the runs created formula? Bill James's runs created formula is a part of Sabermetrics that measures a player's true value.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-runs-created-formula-does-it-really-work\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Runs Created Formula: Does It Really Work?","og_description":"What is the runs created formula? Bill James's runs created formula is a part of Sabermetrics that measures a player's true value.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-runs-created-formula-does-it-really-work\/","og_site_name":"Shortform Books","article_published_time":"2020-06-15T17:24:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2020-06-23T18:32:11+00:00","og_image":[{"width":2560,"height":1707,"url":"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/home-plate-moneyball-scaled.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Carrie Cabral","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Carrie Cabral","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-runs-created-formula-does-it-really-work\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-runs-created-formula-does-it-really-work\/"},"author":{"name":"Carrie Cabral","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/2ababb7c63a94ff5d2190f71dc417d56"},"headline":"The Runs Created Formula: Does It Really Work?","datePublished":"2020-06-15T17:24:00+00:00","dateModified":"2020-06-23T18:32:11+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-runs-created-formula-does-it-really-work\/"},"wordCount":969,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-runs-created-formula-does-it-really-work\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/home-plate-moneyball-scaled.jpg","keywords":["Moneyball"],"articleSection":["Sports","Statistics"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-runs-created-formula-does-it-really-work\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-runs-created-formula-does-it-really-work\/","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-runs-created-formula-does-it-really-work\/","name":"The Runs Created Formula: Does It Really Work? - Shortform Books","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-runs-created-formula-does-it-really-work\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-runs-created-formula-does-it-really-work\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/home-plate-moneyball-scaled.jpg","datePublished":"2020-06-15T17:24:00+00:00","dateModified":"2020-06-23T18:32:11+00:00","description":"What is the runs created formula? Bill James's runs created formula is a part of Sabermetrics that measures a player's true value.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-runs-created-formula-does-it-really-work\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-runs-created-formula-does-it-really-work\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-runs-created-formula-does-it-really-work\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/home-plate-moneyball-scaled.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/home-plate-moneyball-scaled.jpg","width":2560,"height":1707},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-runs-created-formula-does-it-really-work\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Runs Created Formula: Does It Really Work?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/","name":"Shortform Books","description":"The World&#039;s Best Book Summaries","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization","name":"Shortform Books","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/logo-equilateral-with-text-no-bg.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/logo-equilateral-with-text-no-bg.png","width":500,"height":74,"caption":"Shortform Books"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/2ababb7c63a94ff5d2190f71dc417d56","name":"Carrie Cabral","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e9aea3c95254368e6bf388b046b35bacb82e4167f4c62c0813620e3a4ec51126?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e9aea3c95254368e6bf388b046b35bacb82e4167f4c62c0813620e3a4ec51126?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Carrie Cabral"},"description":"Carrie has been reading and writing for as long as she can remember, and has always been open to reading anything put in front of her. She wrote her first short story at the age of six, about a lost dog who meets animal friends on his journey home. Surprisingly, it was never picked up by any major publishers, but did spark her passion for books. Carrie worked in book publishing for several years before getting an MFA in Creative Writing. She especially loves literary fiction, historical fiction, and social, cultural, and historical nonfiction that gets into the weeds of daily life.","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/author\/carrie\/"}]}},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/home-plate-moneyball-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9413"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9731,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9413\/revisions\/9731"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}