Customer Reviews

The Hardball Times Season Preview 2009

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

 

 

I've been thumbing through "The Hardball Times Season Preview 2009." Good stuff.

For each big league team, the book covers what happened last year, players lost from last year's team, players acquired, the team's management, minor league system, what's due to change for the team, reasons to be optimistic and pessimistic about the team, what's left for the team to do, as well offering a most likely outcome for the team in 2009. In addition, "The Hardball Times Season Preview 2009" provides commentary and statistical projections for the batters and pitchers on each major league team.

Also, this book includes a projected standings for 2009 - based on 100 computer simulations of the 2009 season. (Good news for Yankees fans: "The Hardball Times Season Preview 2009" standings projection says that the Yanks will be the only team in baseball to win 100 games this season - just edging the Red Sox by 2 games to win the A.L. East.)

This book is billed as being "a sneak peek at every major league player and team for the upcoming season" and it clearly meets that goal.

Along with what I've mentioned here so far, "The Hardball Times Season Preview 2009" also contains projected fantasy (baseball) dollar values for players, an essay targeting which players are injury risks for 2009, and rookies to watch this season.

When you look at this total package, "The Hardball Times Season Preview 2009" serves as an excellent one-book-meets-all-needs source for fantasy baseball owners. However, it's appeal is not limited to just the fantasy baseball crowd. Analytical baseballs fans, whether they play fantasy baseball or not, will enjoy reading "The Hardball Times Season Preview 2009" due to the nature of the projections that it provides on players and teams. (Along with each projection, this book provides a "Reliability" score which tells you how reliable the player's projection is based on how much data the authors had to work with for that player. Cool beans.)

Based on it's content, price and the enjoyment that it provides from reading it, I recommend picking up a copy of "The Hardball Times Season Preview 2009."

The negative (3-star) review admittedly judges the book for what it isn't rather than what it is. The book is expressly advertised as a tool for fantasy baseball. As a fantasy guide, it is essential reading -- maybe not the only book to read this winter, and not as comprehensive as Baseball Prospectus, but at 1/3 the thickness of Baseball Prospectus and only twice the cost of a fantasy baseball magazine, the Preview combines portability with affordability in a combination no other resource can match.

The Preview does assume that its readers will be comfortable with current trends in sabermetrics. It uses cutting-edge analytical tools that are designed to help fantasy GMs get an edge over their friends who are using outdated, simplistic approaches. The Preview's tools are cutting-edge but widely known among THT readers and well within the grasp of anyone with a passing familiarity with modern sabermetrics. Simply put, the book gives its target audience exactly what it's asking for.

As a bonus, some of baseball's most observant and witty bloggers provide succinct but smart team summaries, along with additional blog resources. The Preview is written for fantasy players but the team summaries are the real treasure of the book. Some of the best team-level analysis is happening in the blogosphere and THT has tapped into it, team by team. Anyone who finds the Baseball Prospectus team essays to be a bit unwieldy may end up preferring the THT team essays, and the Preview to BPro, even though they bought the book for their fantasy draft.

Expert editing, clean layout, easy on the eyes, and smart analysis that gets to the point quickly -- at about 47 cents per team essay, or just over a penny per player comment, the book is a must.

The Hardball Times Season Preview is the forward-looking companion to their Baseball Annual, a retrospective of the prior season. After a brief intro and projected standings for 2009 (Mets in first -- Yay!) the book rolls right into the thick: a chapter apiece on each big league team, penned by a prominent internet writer covering that team. The chapters follow a common format:

* 2009 team-specific projection (record, runs scored, etc.)
* What happened last year?
* Players lost from last year's team
* Players acquired
* Management is...
* The minor league system is...
* Due for a change
* Reasons to be optimistic
* Reasons to be pessimistic
* Still left to do
* Most likely team outcome
* Individual player projections w/comments

Here's a blurb from the Mets chapter:

"On the field, manager Jerry Manual is fairly run-of-the-mill and unimaginative by most standards. He manages by the book almost exclusively and is an entertaining post-game interview, the latter of which is a welcome departure from the incessant "battling" of Art Howe and the unapologetic sugar-coating by Willie Randolph. Given a set lineup and well-defined bullpen, Manual will put the pieces where they belong and generally keep from embarrassing himself. Given some question marks, a possible platoon situation or a patchwork bullpen, Manuel can manage his team right out of ballgames. He doesn't seem especially statistically-inclined, and often ignores his relievers' glaring platoon splits. He's not afraid to give young guys a shot (Daniel Murphy, Nick Evans) or demote a struggling veteran (Luis Castillo), but he also has a tendency to stick with things far beyond the point of rationality (Marlon Anderson)."

There are plenty of places to get player projections, but the Hardball Times Season Preview goes beyond the numbers to bring you the best team-specific baseball writing anywhere. You could go and read all of the contributors' sites to find out what happened last year and what to expect in the year to come, or you can just grab this one book and be done with it.

I'd kind of thought I'd taken a look at all the 2009 season preview titles when I came across The Hardball Times Season Preview 2009.

Let me first say that I really enjoy the work that The Hardball TImes puts out. I subscribe to their RSS feed, I like their blog layout, etc. If I knew them personally I'd probably socialize with them at least once a month.

So I was naturally excited to get this in the mail. And then I read it.

Let me say that whenever I get anything from the Hardball Times, or ACTA Sports for that matter, my expectations are extremely high. I really expect to be challenged, engaged in thought, and most times confused at some level by a new metric by which to judge a player.

Instead, what I got was pretty much what the cover says: "A Sneak Peek at Every Major League Player and Team for the Upcoming Season."

Except I really didn't feel like I was sneaking a peek at anything.

Written by a team of over 30 contributors, each team gets the same treatment: projected 2009 results, including runs scored and allowed, a recap of what happened in 2008, players who have come and gone, a brief synopsis of the management and minor league systems, reasons to be optimistic and pessimistic, a "still left to do" section, and a "most likely outcome" summary. This is followed by projections for members of that team for the upcoming season along with a brief summary of where they stand in the eyes of the author(s).

Now once again let it be said that I am not a fantasy baseball player, which is whom this book is geared towards. However, as I have said before, I think that the methods used to value players in the fantasy baseball system can be very valuable to every fan, as they provide tools to understand what makes a player valuable. I think I've learned a good amount from books of this nature, including how to value one book from another.

There are two things that really rubbed me the wrong way when it comes to The Hardball Times Season Preview 2009: the first is that while the articles generally are accurate when it comes to which players have come and gone, the individual player previews haven't been updated. So if you're a Phillies fan, don't expect to find Raul Ibanez in your chapter - rather you have to go to the section on the Mariners. Likewise for Randy Johnson, Mark Teixeira, and others. Now I've been around books long enough to know that things can and do change after you go to print - but to have something accurate just a page or two before it's inaccurate, or at least out of place just a few pages later is unacceptable to me. Good thing there is a player index in the back for you to reference where to find a player.

Second - there is no methodology explained in the book. While readers of THT may have a better understanding of how their writers assign value in their projections, I still found it odd that it would be left out of the book. This is where I give credit to John Burnson and Ron Shandler and their books - they make an attempt to give the reader an understanding as to what makes their system tick.

Now I would be remiss if I failed to mention a few articles at the back of the book - as I mentioned in my review of The Hardball Times Annual 2009, there were lots (and lots!) or articles. I sort of expected the same thing in this book, but there just weren't. However - I did enjoy Victor Wang's article An Intro to Risk Management. Regardless of your involvement in fantasy baseball, this is an interesting piece to consider as you look at the health of players.

So given all these things, if you're not a fantasy baseball player, I'd say you'd be OK if you didn't read this one. I don't think there's enough meat on the bones to make the leap onto the radar - or bookshelf - of the average fan. If you are a fantasy player, you certainly should be able to use this going into your drafts - but it seems more like a cheat sheet than an attempt to make you a smarter player. Advice is one thing - knowledge about who to draft and for what reason is another. I'd say to check it out if you see it, or just order it online - but make sure the store you get it from has a good return policy.

THT is one of my favorite websites, with good insight and commentary.

This book takes a combined approach, with detailed analysis of each of the MLB teams and forecasts of each important player. It doe not attempt to make a forecast for every single player, so a few guys who had limited playing time last year (such as Max Scherzer) are left out.

I have only one complaint but it is something I understand, having studied statistics in grad school. The forecasts are somewhat conservative - for example, no pitcher is predicted to win more than 14 games. Certainly there will be some 20 game surprises this year. However, most statistical modeling is based upon such ideas as confidence intervals, and statisticians tend to be somewhat conservative so I understand. Most roto players would rather choose a 10 win player and have win say 14 games than pick a 20 game winner and see him win 8. Only six pitchers in MLB won 18 games or more last year, so forecasting wins is best done conservatively. Still it might be nice to see a few breakout forecasts for guys who might do this.

This book does a good job at showing how a player fits in with the rest of the team, something the Bill James book does not and Shandler does only to a limited extent. This is my biggest compliment of the book. Each forecasted player includes a writeup of several paragraphs, something the other books do not have.

Teams are presented alphabetically, and each team review is written by a writers who contribute to blogs dedicated to that team only.

I tend to use books like this for fine-tuning. I create my own spreadsheet with stats and forecasts and then use a book like this to check my math and see how other writers evaluate the players. To this end, it might be nice to see a straight alphabetical listing of each player with his forecasted stats at the end. However, I am sure the writers of this book are trying to discourage readers from using it as a dictionary so I understand. There is an alphabetical listing of each player and where to find his write up at the end.

In short, this book is well worth buying although using it properly takes a little more time than some of the others. It's worth it though.