Baseball Prospectus 2024

by Baseball Prospectus

The 2024 edition of The New York Times Bestselling Guide.PLAY BALL! The 29th edition of this industry-leading baseball annual contains all of the important statistics, player predictions and insider-level commentary that readers have come to expect, along with significant improvements to several statistics that were created by, and are exclusive to, Baseball Prospectus, and an expanded focus on international players and teams.Baseball Prospectus 2024 provides fantasy players and insiders alike with prescient PECOTA projections, which The New York Times called “the überforecast of every player’s performance.”With more than 50 Baseball Prospectus alumni currently working for major-league baseball teams, nearly every organization has sought the advice of current or former BP analysts, and readers of Baseball Prospectus 2024 will understand why!

Genres: Baseball, Sports, Nonfiction

600 pages, Paperback

Published January 22, 2024

About the author

Baseball Prospectus is an organization that publishes a website, BaseballProspectus.com, devoted to the sabermetric analysis of baseball. BP has a staff of regular columnists and provides advanced statistics as well as player and team performance projections on the site.

Since 1996 the BP staff has also published a Baseball Prospectus annual as well as several other books devoted to baseball analysis and history.

Reviews

[Rodger Payne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this annually, mostly in short segments at breakfast and lunch, through the baseball season. I don't usually take it when I travel, but manage to finish just about the time the season ends. I have all of the volumes going back to the first self-published edition that sold far fewer than 1000 copies. Each season I wonder if I'm going to abandon the book and pay the online fees, but I like to have a book even if it is the size of a major city phone directory. Yes, that's a dated reference.

The book is very good, as always, with team essays and short player comments. There are MANY more writers/analysts involved now than there were in the beginning. I'm not sure that means much, but I think it creates a more uniform voice rather than a more diverse array -- at least in the player comments. This is probably related to rigorous editing. Some of the team essays are a bit more personal and singular.

The pitching comments sometimes mention the pitcher's arsenal and how effective it is using outcomes data for that pitcher, but I expect that "stuff" modeling will be more thoroughly integrated into the analysis going forward. Statcast now provides bat speed data, but I'm not sure anyone has quite figured out what it all means so it may be awhile before that is integrated into the hitter comments.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I used to read these every year while otherwise staring out the window waiting for baseball season to start. Then I got fairly cynical about them as the editorial direction drifted a little too snarky for my taste and I couldn't stop chuckling at the shamelessly disconnected snake-oil marketing that betrayed their core tenets. Well it's been a few years and the share of my sports attention consumed purely by baseball draws ever closer to 100%. The beast must be fed.

I'm pleased to say the 2024 edition felt more like the authentic vision and I enjoyed the h*ck out of it. It's like the band's major record deal petered out and now they're back to their indie origins, doing what they wanted to do all along, only now they're seasoned pros. Filled with the absolute cream of the baseball literati: Sam Miller (Pebble Hunting has the distinction of being the only email newsletter I get that I *actually read*), David Roth, Patrick Dubuque, Russell Carleton, Grant Brisbee, Michael Baumann, Ben Clemens, Lauren Theisen, Jon Tayler, Matt Sussman, Ginny Searle, wowie-zowie, and those are just the names I recognize. The other hundred contributors I didn't know are probably also super geniuses. It's an amazing and wonderful open secret that this kind of writing exists, and it's about baseball.

[Kevin West · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I might have screwed up the timing. The last couple of years, I loved reading right through it and then finishing it before opening day. But I wasn’t able to do that this year. Reading it seeped out into the year. So if I had read it sooner, I think I may have been a bit better immersed. However, it was a weird offseason and a lot of players signed really late. So players like Blake Snell, Matt Chapman, Jordan Montgomery, Cody Bellinger all hadn’t signed yet. That’s not particularly Baseball Prospectus’ fault, but I think that if Baseball Prospectus had known that the Giants were going to get all of these cool late signings in Snell, Soler, Chapman, and stuff that the Giants’ chapter would have been much more interesting. I guess that gripe is a little bit specific to me as a Giants fan, but whatever. I also just felt less into it this year. I don’t know. Just not as interested. I think that part of it was because I didn’t finish it on time before the season started.

[Nick Pearson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I began reading the Annual in the early 2000s and every year I try to get through it before spring training ends. This year, they promised it and didn't deliver until two weeks after it was supposed to be out. Then they dragged their heels on releasing the Kindle edition. The essays are mostly boring, but the player comments are perfectly cromulent (to borrow the word that they overuse online and in print). This is not the hey-day of Silver/Kahrl/Sheehan or even the Annual as it was under Sam Miller, but it does the job. You still get excellent analysis in the comments (though there's more than a few maddening comments that contain no insight or analysis at all), but with less wit. Here's hoping for more humor with the analysis, more analysis over long digression, and a return to the deadlines of the past couple decades.

[Ian Woody · Rating 5 out of 5]

Analytical but witty. A book to come back to during the season. Alphabetical order of teams this year is an improvement. A great learning tool to get some further understanding of the beautiful game of Baseball. The short writes up of each player are witty and helpful. I don’t understand it all and will put a couple of questions to the editors (they welcome it) A great Institution.

[Jake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ready to go for 2024 season.

[Jack Mcloone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another year, another month+ trek through the Annual to get me ready for the season just in time. One of my favorite traditions.

[Dan Cichalski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Always a great way to get ready for the coming season (and a handy reference to come back to all the way through October).