Customer Reviews

Baseball Forecaster 2004

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Predicting how a collection of baseball players will fare in advance is something that Shandler understands. If you buy the book with the expectation that Player X will get N home runs and M RBI and P stolen bases, etc., that's the wrong idea. If you buy the book with an understanding that there are indicators that correlate well with performance, then you can put together a strong fantasy baseball team with this book in most years. (You could choose too many players out of the wrong 20% of the population.)

I have used Ron Shandler's book for years, and it has always been excellent. Even in a down year for me, the book has been on the mark, in general. One of the nice things is that Shandler is up front with his explanation of the statistics he uses and how he uses them.

There are lots of preseason fantasy baseball publications. Better to get one excellent book than a bunch of crappy ones.

If you play fantasy baseball or you love the story behind the story of wins and losses then you must have this book. Ron Shandler has assembled a group of analysts that know the game of baseball as well as any . They have created a set of indicators that truely provide insights into the art of performance projection.

But as good as the book is the website is even better. For all around baseball information , player valuation , fantasy sports strategies this place can't be beat.

I think the last reviewer missed the beauty of this book. Yes, there are lots of numbers and formulas, but they are there to show that there is a method to the projections. Every other similar book or magazine just puts out projections with no support -- like they pick numbers out of the air. The Forecaster shows that projections are constructed with a mathematical foundation shaped by intuitive logic. You can completely ignore the formulas and still get great value from the book. This is hands down the BEST book for fantasy leaguers. It changed the way I play the game, and changed the way I look at baseball.

Let me first start off by saying that the book is pretty good.
Its different than your typical fantasy baseball publication as there is more to this book.
The projections, MLB player index, and minor league player indexes are all nice, but the book relies too much on technical Mathmatical Formulas. There are several chapter dedicated to how their projections are developed. These are fine, but the reading can become too cumbersome and formula driven. There is a lot of (X + B) * (M - 4/12) /162 = _____.
For extreme baseball statistical forecasting nuts then this book will help you out, but for everyone else, including hardcore fantasy baseball players, this book may be too much.