I just got the 2011 Annual from The Hardball Times (THT to their friends) and I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised. I'm a longtime reader of the baseball blog, [...], and the Annual has become a yearly ritual, to better understand the season that was. So my expectations were high going in, but this year had special Annual-only articles and illustrations from ALL my favorites from the web.
My favorite parts: Why the Red Sox comeback over the Rockies was the most exciting game of the year, "Tuck Sez" baseball cartoons, "The Year in Tater Trots" a tongue-in-cheek but totally accurate review of how long players took to round the bases when hitting a home run, and, of course, the stats for every team and every player. They even used FIELDf/x to design a computer illustration of true defensive range for fielders, which hopefully finds its way into the next MLB game for Xbox.
If you're a casual fan like me, you really want someone to break down the analysis and spoon-feed it to you. If you're a pursuing a graduate degree in mathematics at, to pick a school at random, the University of Chicago, you might want something a bit more challenging. THT's always had a nice balance between truly advanced analysis for the stat geek (I say that with love, baseball stat geeks), and spoon-fed breakdowns for thick-headed fans like me. For example, all those detailed stat breakdowns on every team and every player? Well, they also come with "stat facts," THT's version of talking points. I can't memorize everyone's ERA or OBP, but thanks to THT, I can sound like I do: "well, Varitek had 13 singles and 13 extra base hits last season. Seems like thirteen's his lucky number."
And if you're even less of a stat geek than me, ERA is for pitchers and OBP is for batters. And this year's annual even comes with a glossary.
Full disclosure: Dave "Studeman" Studenmund, a contributor to the 2011 Annual (to all of them, actually), is my uncle and an all-around awesome guy. But that impacted my review of his work less than the fact that he described Dusty Pedroia as a "hero." It's on page 43, and it's proven by statistics. Numbers don't lie.
