Baseball Prospectus 2014 Paperback – February 11, 2014

As an avid baseball fan and rotissierie player (23 years now), this is my all time favorite book. It's the only thing I actually pre-order every year, religiously. I also prefer it in paperback, despite the fact all my other books are in Kindle form -- it's simply that kind of book.If you don't know, this is a statistician's bible: it contains several articles on the state of statistical analysis then presents each team and over 2,2100 individual players. Each team section contains a few pages analyzing the team's performance and potential for 2014, and the players are divided alphabetcally by hitter and pitchers -- the last of the team section summarizes the manager's performance and includes minor league names and commentary as well. Each of the player section analyzes performance and offers predictions based on statistical analysis. Here's the best part: the text accompanying each player's stats is witty, insightful and just plain fun -- it's not dry but instead a good source of witty humor and observation from a qualitative perspective.First, from the rotissiere baseball player perspective, it's a must have. But be clear: it's not a replacement for all your spreadsheets or online data. It augments it. Your spreadsheets will tell you so-and-so is in for a big season and this statiscal tome will tell you not to get too excited. I've often found this book's predictions to be noticeably lower than other sources, but it's all because of the nature of statistical analysis. The best value for roto owners is that you can use it to doublecheck your draft strategy and check to see if you really like the players you think you do! I bring it to the draft and throw out the funniest sarcastic lines from the book.Second, any baseball fan will enjoy the articles and player notes -- while it's definately heavy on the math and prediction, the articles, team descriptions and player analysis are completely worthwhile, even if you don't give a whit about stats.Finally -- I tried the Kindle Edition and it's not the same -- I LOVE the Kindle for everything else, but the charts in this book don't easily translate to the Kindle well, just not that kind of material. Stick to the paperback version!Play Ball!

Great articles, in depth write ups on the teams, and interesting blurbs on all the players. If you love baseball and stats, this is a great read.However I only gave it 3 stars (instead of 4) because of it's poor performance on the iPad 1 Kindle app. It's almost unreadable due to the long render times and it's tedious to read. It takes forever to load the book. then it's very slow to move between pages. Between sections, e.g. a team review and the team's player sections, it has to reload again taking a minute or more. Don't flip between landscape and normal more, it will again take a long time to render. It's just not an enjoyable reading experience.Is it the fault of the iPad 1 and it's old clunky interface? Maybe, but I also have other large books with graphics and charts and they have not suffered the same performance hit. Somehow, this is not just not formatted well as an eBook and it really suffers on the iPad 1. Probably deserves 2 stars because I really just can't read it any more, but I can't bring myself to rate it that low because the content is so good. Possibly it's just fine on other eBook readers or newer version of iPad.

I've purchased this book for at least a decade, but only the Kindle version the last two years. The good part of the Kindle version is that I can more easily cart the book around with me - easier to read, especially while traveling. But the Kindle version continues to have some major problems, as articulated very accurately by Bret Hern's review of the Kindle version. See his Amazon review for details. It's very discouraging that Baseball Prospectus has not addressed these concerns. I probably will revert to the paper version next year. (I subscribe to the website but I am not a fantasy baseball participant.)

This is a great product for any baseball fan who wants to understand the new metrics and to find more details to follow during the actual season. I bought this for the first time last year after loving baseball the last forty years. I devoured the content over the long offseason and broke out the book again dozens of times during the season to review players I was not familiar with... to learn more about players on teams opposing my favorite, whenever there were trade rumors or injuries, or to explain the strengths and weaknesses of minor league call ups to my daughter... It is just a great read for anyone wanting to go beyond the surface to learn more about the great game of baseball.

For years I've read the print version of BP each year to learn more about Baseball. Their authors understand the game and I've found their scouting of players to be pretty dead on.I think the book is even better in the Kindle version as it makes it easy to search for a player while watching a game on TV.I don't play fantasy baseball anymore, but if you do, you'll find this to be the "bible" as you decide on trades, etc...

This is sort of officially my beginning of the baseball season. It all starts with the baseball prospectus (now in very handy Kindle format). If you haven't been keeping your eye glued to all the new signings, coaching changes etc, and frankly who can?, then this will get you up to speed. It breaks down each team and then by player and has just about everything you could want to get primed for the coming baseball season. It's a long read for sure but you can dip in and out of teams as you feel like it. Can't recommend this enough for fellow baseball nuts (oh how I miss Johnny Gould on Channel 5). Anyway, buy it now!

I do not live in the states anymore and this is the only real way I can read about the teams,players and the stats.

Well received present.

Extremely detailed analysis on just about every player. Very useful for any fantasy baseball players out there. The team summary/reports are always a favourite of mine every year.

Don't forget your dictionary. Facetiousness aside, to the average non-academic or average baseball slappy it's full of great baseball insights.

Still an essential guide for any serious fan who likes hard copy in her/his hands. The downside: I ordered the book from Amazon.ca in March and received it in June.