Bill James never threw a curve ball or swung a bat in anger, but his impact on the modern game is arguably as great as any player’s. If the subtitle to Scott Gray’s book “Bill James: How a Complete Outsider Changed Baseball” (Doubleday, 229 pages, $23) sounds like hype, then you’re probably a print journalist who rejects every statistical analysis made since Branch Rickey’s death.

Mr. Gray does an admirable job of evaluating Mr. James’s achievement in dragging a whole generation, sometimes kicking and screaming, into understanding what baseball analysis really is. He also does a first-rate job of clearing up myths about Mr. James himself: The man is not math whiz, has never been a stats nerd, and his influence is due primarily to the clarity of his thought as expressed in his prose.

For the uninitiated, Mr. Gray includes an appendix that lists the simple ideas Mr. James has helped make common knowledge. To wit:

*On signing free agents: “When you talk yourself into thinking you need a player, that’s when you overpay for him.”

*On clutch hitting: “No one has proven that clutch ability exists, and no one will ever prove that it doesn’t exist. Why? Can you prove that dodo birds are extinct? We only believe dodo birds and dinosaurs are extinct; we can’t prove it.”

*On calling a player “the next Willie Mays”: “Comparisons to Willie Mays aren’t fair to anyone.”

Just about anyone who writes about baseball with serious intent these days is a child of Bill James, but Dayn Perry is more legitimate than most of us. In “Winners” (John Wiley, 248 pages, $24.95), Mr. Perry tackles the big questions and, just as important, throws out the questions that shouldn’t be asked at all:

“There’s been a recent percolating controversy over whether it’s better to run a baseball team with reliance on traditional scouting methods or with a statistics-driven approach. This debate is as big a waste of time as your average Yanni album. Developing a prevailing organizational strategy isn’t some ‘Boolean either-or’ dilemma; it’s using all the resources at your disposal, be they scouting reports or Excel files.”

Mr. Perry, a regular contributor to The New York Sun’s sports pages, has a genuine talent for analyzing such questions as why power rules today’s game, what makes a good starting rotation, and how teams misuse closers. Like a good country song, he gets to the truth in a hurry. (I don’t want to give anything away, but holding Mariano Rivera out to use him in the ninth inning with a four-run lead is a waste of a precious resource.)

Like a true Bill James disciple, Mr. Perry can write, and his style has a quality of making you think, “Well, I guess I knew that all along, but just didn’t know how to say it that well.” Unlike many current books on baseball analysis, “Winners” leaves you feeling smarter rather than dumber.