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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
For Baseball Statheads Only, December 3, 1999
While I agree with many of the critical comments, I like the book a lot. Considering the number of pages and the tiny font sizes, the book is enormous, so even if you don't like some of the material, there's plenty here to enjoy.It's definitely pitched to a pretty narrow audience though. You've got to have patience to wade through pages of explanations of their unique statistics. If all you want to do is read comments on players because you're in a Rotisserie league, this isn't the book for you.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
Too Much Self-indulgent Tripe, September 11, 1999
By A Customer
There's some really good material in this book, but you have to plow through an awful--and I mean awful--load of self-indulgent tripe to find the occasional gem. When the chief authors aren't patting each other on the back and trashing the competition, they're staging made-up interviews with each other or writing about their dreams or other nonsense. The Montreal team essay is a rarity in that it looks in depth at something that actually happened on the field,an incident where a player loafed and cost the Expos a game and then was probably wisely traded. But there is just way too little of that. What there is instead is way too many stats that are difficult to understand or to read and too much from some writers who aren't all that impressive. Tom Austin is truly lame and his comments on what he thinks are the game's worst pitching seasons are sometimes almost laughable.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Ultimately Disappointing, May 8, 1999
By A Customer
A book that I was very much looking forward to, that ended up being a big letdown. Besides the near impossibility of the book to read(miniscule fonts, numerous typos, unmarked charts that are sometimes near the text they are supposed to illuminate), a great deal of the information was just plain not useful and/or not entertaining. "Crossing the Rubicon" and "The Old GM and the Sea" add absolutely nothing to the book. And come on... A whole section on a moderately funny r.s.b. poster? "Jeff Drummond's Greatest Hits" would have been snipped by any thinking editor. I did enjoy some of the historical studies in the first part of the book, especially "Empire Building...". The team essays weren't overly enlightening, though I always enjoy Sean Forman's work. The player comments were brief and didn't add much. I expect these comments to be mostly based on statistics, but the lack of any description of what was physically happening on the field to accumulate those statistics is a big weakness of the player comments. It is fine to know that pitcher X's "S" score improved tremendously in 1998, but could you give me some insight as to why? Lastly, the tone of this book was a bit curious. It seems the authors are very interested in tearing down others(James, BP, Neyer). This is also to the book's detriment, as it makes the authors look petty, and given the obvious weaknesses of their effort, not very credible.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Barely adequate, June 28, 1999
By A Customer
I've given this annual two tries now, and I'm not sure it's getting another.I greatly enjoyed many of the team comments, but the player comments were greatly irritating. There's more to a player than predicting what he's going to do next, and the self-conscious adherence to some truly banal predictive measures makes even that aspect unsatisfactory reading. Brock Hanke's contributions are particularly irritating. His arrogance displays his obvious need to be considered a player in his field.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Deserves a quiet burial, August 31, 1999
By A Customer
It's big all right and it comes out every year, so there's no argument there. Since even its own authors are willing to concede it's bad, the only point of contention is whether it should be allowed to use the name of our national pastime in its title. I think not. Precious few of this book's regular cast of writers seem even to have much caring for the game. What a couple of them do appear to like are bad film noir scripts. The Kansas City team essay is a prime example. You have to feel sorry for Royals fans who read it--especially any foolish enough to have bought the book before doing so.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
too difficult to read, May 4, 1999
By A Customer
If you like yours stats raw, undiluted, and irrelevant, this is your book. A horrible book, very hard to read without a magnifying glass. Egotistical reviewers. Bill James/STATS books are far superior.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Unspectacular at best., March 26, 1999
By A Customer
I ordered this book with high hopes, and the reviews here were good. But I just got the book, which means it just came out, and the other reviews were from as much as two months ago. The book's not bad, though. But you can get a lot of the same information for free all over usenet and the World Wide Web. Jay Walker should get to write more. Not great, but OK, and I feel misled by the obviously fake reviews from two months before the book was even released.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Going downhill fast, September 1, 1999
By A Customer
I agree with the last reviewer. This annual was promising a few years ago, but now it's barely adequate. The statheads appear to have taken over the store. Suggestion--look for writers who only have one piece in the book, Ruane, Art Martone, etc. But avoid like the plague the ones whose names are on the masthead. The one exception to this is Jay Walker. He's way too good for this crowd.
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Just as weak as they say, September 15, 1999
By A Customer
A big surprise to me to read these new "reviews". When I got this book last spring all of it's "press" was so good I was too embarassed to say how I felt. I don't think this book is very good at all. In fact it's very poor and boring, especially if it's your one baseball book like this you will buy. Next year I will choose something I have heard something about from people I can trust to know what they think. These new reviews are right. This book is a ripoff.
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Baseball Analysis: Past, Present and Future, February 25, 1999
By A Customer
What I've always liked about the BBBA, is that while it very ably handles baseball's future, with interesting player comments and prospect reports, it doesn't give short shrift to baseball's present and past. For example, it has run an article on George Brett's 1980 and an in depth comparison of Greg Maddux's and Sandy Koufax's respective dominance. Too often, baseball books focus solely on what to expect from players and teams in the future. While BBBA is an excellent source for that info, it also will help you to see and remember things from the 1998 season and seasons prior that you might have missed. I heartily recommend it.
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