Baseball Prospectus 2007: The Essential Guide to the 2007 Baseball Season

by Baseball Prospectus, Steve Goldman, Christina Kahrl (Editor)

The 2007 edition of the most authoritative guide to professional baseball

America’s favorite pastime has never been more popular and, for over a decade, Baseball Prospectus has been the ultimate guide to the game for fantasy players, professionals, and casual fans alike. Baseball Prospectus 2007 continues that tradition, bringing together the top young baseball writers and analysts in the business to provide a definitive look at the season to come. Featuring humorous and incisive essays on all thirty teams and an in-depth look at every major league player and all the top prospects, Baseball Prospectus 2007 offers the cutting-edge analysis that has inspired nearly every major league team to seek the advice of current or former Prospectus writers. Also included are projections of player stats for next year, as determined by the groundbreaking PECOTA system, which Sports Illustrated has called “perhaps the game’s most accurate projection model.” The most authoritative and entertaining book of its kind, Baseball Prospectus 2007 is as essential to the baseball- watching experience as hot dogs and cold beer.

Genres: Baseball, Sports, Nonfiction, Reference

608 pages, Paperback

First published February 28, 2007

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

[Steven Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is like a Bill James moment. This volume looks at each major league team and key players for the coming campaign. It provides neat statistics like a SPEED score (a takeoff on what Bill James has created), Marginal Lineup Value estimate (MLVr--the estimated value of a player), and so on.

My favorite team is the Chicago White Sox. Let's take a look at this team, to get a sense of what this volume contributes. One neat feature of the volume is its prediction of what might happen for each player in the coming year--a breakout year, improvement, collapse, and attrition. For instance, the book suggests that, for Joe Crede, the odds of a breakout year are 33%, for improvement 59%, for a collapse 15%, and for attrition (severe decline in plate appearances or innings pitched) 9%. For Chisox fans, sounds good. What about Jim Thome? Breakout=14%; improvement=37%; collapse=37%; attrition=28%. Oops. makes me nervous if there is over 1/3 likelihood that his performance collapses. Pitchers? Mark Buehrle is projected as having the following odds: Breakout=14%; Improve=50%; Collapse=16%; Attrition=0%.

There are also data on managers' decision making. Despite his reputation as a hot head, Ozzie Guillen looks pretty good in his handling of starting pitchers, relievers, and the basics of sacrifice bunts.

Nice appendices at the end, too. One of these is a listing of the top 100 minor league prospects. For those who are interested, the top prospect is Alex Gordon (in the Royals' farm system), a 23 year old 3rd baseman. Next is Yankee prospect Philip Hughes, a 21 year old pitcher. And so on.

This is manna from heaven for baseball addicts. It complements the Bill James' works nicely.

[Conrad · Rating 3 out of 5]

What this book is missing is lists. The data is only sorted one way - by the team the player was on at the end of last season - and that makes for a pretty awkward read. I ended up abusing the index. Personally, I'd like to know BP's predictions on who's going to steal the most bases, who's going to earn the most HRs, whose ERA will be lowest after 100 innings pitched, etc.... but all you get is a player list. That makes this a little disappointing, because the reader ends up doing all the legwork - if not for BP's astounding accuracy, you might as well stick to the predicted stats available all over the place online.

For statistical acumen, though, nothing that I'm aware of beats it. BP has a funny tendency to rag on its own PECOTA program and complain that its predictions have over- or underestimated a player's skills.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book needs to be on the night stand of anyone that considers themselves a baseball fan. I've pre-ordered it on Amazon for the past few years and am currently counting down the days till the 2008 version is released (25 days!). I even ordered past years books just to see how accurate their prognostication was. Hint, they're good.

Seriously, if you like baseball, buy it. If you love baseball and you haven't read them, what's wrong with you. Prepare to understand and appreciate baseball on a much higher level. You can read them at baseballprospectus.com as well.

[Brendan · Rating 5 out of 5]

they're all essential reading