The Hardball Times Season Preview 2009
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 ($19.95) and the enjoyment that it provides from reading it, I recommend picking up a copy of “The Hardball Times Season Preview 2009.”
