Customer Reviews

Baseball Prospectus 2011

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I couldn't wait for 2011 Baseball Prospectus to arrive, but this year's book fails to live up to the quality I have come to expect from Baseball Prospectus.

* PECOTA projections, updated on the Baseball Prospectus site, differ so materially from the book on many important players so as to make the numbers in the book an unreliable indicator. Really, BP knows the deadline for the book and the data is set with the end of the prior season, so this simply reflects a failure to get the job done on schedule. Revisions should reflect tweaks to the system or subsequent events, such as player movement, not major adjustments affecting large numbers of player forecasts.

* The narrative is simply poorly edited. The number of run-on sentences or sentences missing clauses or incorrectly formated tables creates the impression the book was rushed to press without even a proof-reading.

* In the past, I loved BP's insightful player write-ups. This year, the writing just isn't as good. It's almost as if the style of past years is being imitated but without the rich knowledge of unrelated fields that added color amd brought unique insights to player description.

* Ballparks (major and minor) are listed in an appendix, but park factors have been eliminated. Unfortunately, this makes the table fairly useless.

Having said that, the book made some advances: simplified the range of statistics, removing what was becoming a proliferation of redundant measures. The BP work on meusuring fielding performance is truly cutting edge. And the Top 100 Prospects section is perhaps better than ever.

The single biggest thing BP could do better is simply get better organized to put out a complete, higher quality product on time.

As I've been reading my Baseball Prospectus 2011 I've noticed some shocking errors, especially when you consider how smug and condescending some of the BP types can be. The first is right in the preface when the editor, Steven Goldman, writes in the very first line, "The art deco lobby of the Empire State Building in New York City contains a display of the seven so-called wonders of the ancient world - the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon..." What? I had to read that three times to make sure I was seeing that right. What a mistake to start off with and from the editor.

Then I started spotting errors with the stats. For example, in the Diamondbacks section it says Mike Hampton threw 41 innings for them last year and allowed only three hits, one walk, and no earned runs. WHAT?

Then in the Braves section on pitchers I began to notice that the games and games started numbers are messed up. Tommy Hanson pitched in 34 games, but started 40? Tim Hudson pitched in 34 games and started 36? What is going on? Very strange for a publication that prides itself on accuracy. Am I missing something?

Do you want an example of the smug condescension that runs throughout these pages? How about this on page 37, "Unless a stint as a talking head on ESPN's Baseball Tonight taught Showalter the secret of baseball alchemy, enabling him to turn Baltimore's diluted and watery roster into wine - which would seem unlikely, considering the intellectual and analytical powers of his cohosts- we should proabably...." That is about as smug as it gets and it turns me off from wanting to read more. On another page a political shot at Pres. George W. Bush seems out of place, too. I don't want my baseball and politics mixed together. I won't be buying anything from BP again.

I agree with a number of the other reviewers that this is just not the Prospectus that I used to know and love. I have basically been alternating the past few years between BP, Shandler and not purchasing any full stat books at all, so decided to try BP again after being somewhat disappointed the last time I bought it (2008 or 2009). I was very disappointed, for the following reasons:

1) In many instances, the comments in the text of a player evaluation are directly contrary to the PECOTA projection for the player. For example, the text says that the player is declining and in danger of losing usefullness, while the PECOTA shows a significant bounceback from a down year.
2) In most instances, the PECOTA does not even attempt to project an accurate playing time for a player, often showing clear utility players with 400-500 plate appearances. Sure, I can extrapolate or divide, but why should I have to?
3) The PECOTAs are ridiculously conservative, even for someone with a full understanding of regression to the mean. And, in the case of pitchers, there are many cases where the projected ERA for a pitcher (not one who is 38 years old, either) is higher than any of his past three years. And--see # 1 above--in at least one instance, that's despite a textual evaluation that the player is basically an elite level performer who should be expected to stay that way (Ubaldo Jimenez).
4) The occasional witticisms seem forced, inapposite and, rather than adding to the enjoyment of the reading, clearly detract from what ought to be the mission of the book.
5) The team essays are of variable quality; many were just not that interesting in terms of the facet of the team performance that the writers chose to focus upon.
6) Although the stat capsules are cleaner, there is a definite absence of advanced-level metrics. If BP is actually looking at things like line-drive rate, etc., they are not providing that information for us to see as Shandler did last year. If the stat projections appeared to be better, I would probably be willing to just trust in the evaluative tools, but they haven't earned that benefit of the doubt this time.
7) I can't tell if the fielding measures are better or not. Unless I've mistaken, what they say they are doing is throwing out all zone ratings becuase there are potential flaws in the reporting and semi-subjective aspects of that methodology and just reducing it all to a measurement of the subject player against some average figure of plays that should be made. It's hard for me to see this as a step forward; it looks like they have just thrown in the towel here (which may not be a bad idea come to think about it).

There are probably more negatives, but that's all I can think of off of the top of my head. Frankly, the only thing I liked about the book was the solid writing/evaluation in the Top 101 prospects section. But I can find material of a similar quality on that subject in a lot of places.

The bottom line is I feel like I wasted my money and will probably now go get the Shandler book instead.

I buy the Baseball Prospectus each year and I find that it provides what is easily the most comprehensive discussion of players and teams. But every year, I lament the fact that the book publishes with unnecessary errors. A book containing this much data and that needs to be published on a tight deadline is bound to contain some errors, but every year the book contains some serious gaffs that should not be there. This year, as other reviewers have pointed out, the biggest problem is the gap between the PECOTA player projections as published in the book and the ones on the BP web site. Given that they heavily promote PECOTA, they simply have to get the final versions cranked early enough to be included in the book. It's not as if players are adding to their stats in November and December.

One interesting change is that they dropped the Davenport Translations (DTs) that had been a staple of the book for years. In fact, they used to be criticized because years ago players' triple crown stats were only given as DTs. Then they moved to publishing translated and non-translated stats. They don't directly explain why they dropped the DTs other than making a brief statement that they wanted to make the presentation of the player stats seem less cluttered. Losing the DTs for major league seasons isn't a great loss because apart from players in a couple of extreme environments -- Colorado, San Diego -- they didn't make much difference. But losing them for minor league seasons is a significant loss. Knowing the rough major league equivalent of a season in the California League is useful. Many years ago, Bill James made the argument that there was a relatively stable correlation between a given level of performance in the minor leagues and performance in the major leagues, taking into account a player's age. It's too bad that BP decided to eliminate that information.

As a number of other reviewers have noted, this year the writing, which is always a little uneven, seems worse than normal. In general, writing in the BP suffers from two problems: 1) The book clearly does not receive a thorough edit; many of the player comments are unclear or awkwardly written. and 2) The comments are too snarky. Bill James set the tone for smart alecky baseball commentary nearly 30 years ago. But it takes real talent to pull off that type of writing without seeming to be obnoxious. Unfortunately, as a group, the BP writers lack this talent. Rather than provide a straightforward analysis of the player, too many of the comments strain to be clever and often end up with something that is neither funny nor relevant.

Finally, Steven Goldman, BP's editor in chief, really needs to come off it. Last year, he wrote a preface celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of BP in which he claimed that BP invented this kind of baseball commentary, which it clearly did not -- Bill James did more than a decade before the first BP was published. This year, he compares BP to the seven wonders of the ancient world and claims that writing it is so difficult that "once we pass from the scene, such a book will not be attempted by anyone ...." Really? BP has 13 contributors. Bill James, working largely alone in the early days, turned out the Baseball Abstract each year. Sure, the people at BP work hard, but they are clearly not a uniquely talented group, as the flaws in their product make very clear. Should BP cease publishing, its place will quickly be taken by another group producing a similar book.

Not to end on a sour note: Although the book has its flaws, if you are interested in an overview of nearly every player (they do miss a few, like Ryan Vogelsong), this is the place to go.

I posted this as a comment, but I wanted to give an actual rating...

This was the first year that I bought BP, but I doubt that I will buy it again. I noticed the same errors as others have pointed out...Gardens of Babylon, Games Pitched/Started, Inaccurate Stats...

Also in the Statistical Introduction where they explain PECOTA they leave off the MLB % explanation that is listed for every player. I was able to look up the 2010 edition on Google Books where you can see that after attrition there is another bullet point: "MLB is the percentage of playing time spent in the major's by the player's comparable list." Maybe they just figured their audience would know this, but I suspect it was an error.

Also throughout the book they have superscripts of a 1 or a 2 next to the innings pitched. I could have missed it, but I did not see where these are ever explained.

I like the format and it is a good premise for the buildup to baseball season, but the editing needs to be better.

I loved my BP annuals a few years ago. But the quality of the writing has gotten worse and worse. For the last few years, I've vowed not to purchase the next year's annual but I always break down in March when I get super excited about baseball. This year's annual was so uninformative that I think I've finally been pushed over the edge. It's a shame, it was such a good read in 2005.

Great as always. I like some of the stat line changes.

I am not sure how other use the book, but here is how I use it.

1) read intro
2) read back page essays
3) read KG 101 prospects
4) read each team essay starting with the Red Sox
5) Flip through some player I am thinking about.
6) During the season keep the book near the couch so I can look up player.

An avid reader of the Baseball Prospectus series, I was extremely disappointed in this year's book. It's unrealistic to expect a book of nearly 600 pages to be perfect, but the amount of errors this year is incredible. Here are just a few I have noticed. Keep in mind I've only read about 2/3 of the entire book.

- Certain players have a whole years worth of statistics completely omitted (See Alex Avila and his lack of 2010 stats)
- Throughout the book, starting pitchers are credited with having more games started than actual games appeared in.
- Occasionally players have statistics that are not just wrong, but humanly impossible

Another problem I have is the omitting of several statistics that were staples to the Prospectus in the past. One of the best ideas the book had was giving minor league players equivalent statistics for major league levels. This has been completely removed. It still says "EqSO9" but it doesn't really give the "equivalent strikeouts per 9 innings" compared to the major league level. I understand one of the focuses of this year's book was to eliminate redundant statistics, but these were actual useful, and to my knowledge, in no way redundant.

Overall, the same format for what made Baseball Prospectus great is still there, but in their effort to trim down they've forgotten the basic formula that made them successful...developing equivalent statistics for comparing players on different teams who play in different ballparks. I hope next year they return to the what got them where they are.

I have purchased the BP every year and always look forward to it. In this year's edition there is still a ton of material and every once in a while a witty enough comment (normally an insult) that makes me laugh out loud. Those are the things I have come to expect. However my real disappointment is around the "deadly accurate" projections. It seems that they had no one actually read the comments and reviewed the projections together. I started putting together a spreadsheet of people to draft. You get a book like this not for the big stars but for the rookies and players who may get more significant playing time this year. Here is the problem. The review will spend the entire paragraph describing the problems with the guy's game and how he will be the 5th outfielder if he is lucky but then the projections will show him getting 400ABs. Time and again it would show a pitcher or player that in writing would be described has having no chance to play getting projected with 300-400ABs or 70-80 innings of relief. After a series of these I just gave up on the "deadly accurate" projections.

The minor league players write ups are still interesting though I was amazed that Bryce Harper is already described as a "once in a life time talent" based on how he looked in batting practice and in 20 old PAs in the Arizona Fall League. It's still fun to read but I hope they put some time into sanity checking the reviews against the projections next year. If they did so little checking with their projections I have to wonder how many other problems went without being caught.

This is the best book to have close by for fantasy players as well as anyone wanting to learn more about any given player or prospect.
I use it almost daily! A plus!