Graphical Player 2008 [Paperback]

John Burnson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2008

John Burnson's Graphical Player is a new way to view baseball players. Instead of gray columns of numbers, this book shows player stats in the most natural way - visually! The NEW 5th Edition includes complete profiles of over 750 players. You get full career plots of fantasy value, daily game logs for 2007, in-season trends in key fanalytic indicators, and much more! You trust your eyes at the ballpark - now you can trust them at your fantasy draft!

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

<div>John Burnson's research has been featured regularly on BaseballHQ.com since 2000. He has opened avenues of research with his formulas for Expected Batting Average and Expected Strand Rate, and he has devised alternative means of calculating Expected ERA and fantasy value. John also publishes a weekly electronic baseball magazine called "Heater." He resides near Chicago.</div>

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Shandler Enterprises Llc; 5th edition (January 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1891566539
• ISBN-13: 978-1891566530
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,071,625 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Graphs worth a thousand words, December 20, 2007

By 

R. Sitler - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Graphical Player 2008 (Paperback)

This is the second year I have bought this annual. If you want to get an idea the value of a player just by looking at graphs, then this book is for you. Each player has a little blurb. But, the graphs are the meat.
Once you get accustomed to what the graphs are saying, you get a new grasp of player values.
I highly recommend this book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Even Better than Last Year, but for Serious Stats Geeks, January 24, 2008

By 

S. Regis (Glendora, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Graphical Player 2008 (Paperback)

I love this book!

While there's still no dollar values for the players in this book, for the first time it does have some performance projections. If you want a data analysis that gives you valuable insight into player performance, Burnson is one of the best.

The graphs are a little crowded, but they are the key to the value of this book. Spend a few minutes actually reading the preface and a whole new world of statistical analysis will be opened up.

That being said, be aware that this book is intended for the advanced fan. There are no team names associated with the players, the reader is expected to know the difference between Shawn Hill and Rich Hill. Further, the reader should already be familiar with sabermetric concepts such as Hit%, xERA, GB%, etc. Otherwise, since the author uses those sabermetric measures to further develop his own key indicators, the graphs in this book will be cumbersome to decipher.

This is the second year that this book has ventured beyond pitchers and into position players. The players section, which was weak last year, has been greatly improved and now rivals the Pitchers chapter for valuable insidght. The commentary for each player is revealing and appropriately pithy. There are a number of other new features such as the WOW factor (a measure of a players value to rotisserie teams) and an interesting ballpark HR chart.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Different, but not that helpful, January 24, 2008

By 

M. Mason (St. Louis, MO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Graphical Player 2008 (Paperback)

Tried it in '07, tried it in '08, wanted very much to like it, but it the end cannot recommend it. For me, the graphs tend to obscure rather than illuminate. For 95% of the players, there's no meaningful trend for the graphs to reveal in any case. Further, there are some proprietary stats like "GOG" which are not fully explained. If you'rre a fantasy baseball player, the SimERA and WOW information will be the most helpful. Unfortunately other far less useful data is given equal or geater prominence.