acapulco wrote:In the old days Bill James used to put out an annual that I think he published himself. It wasn't useful for fantasy baseball--don't know if it existed yet--but it was entertaining, informative, thought provocative, and sometimes funny as all get out. Then he lost interest and moved on to other things.
There are more cheat sheats out there all the time but as for thinking about baseball players or teams...to lay some of the groundwork so I can do my own cheat sheet...what is there?
His initial abstracts did predate fantasy ball. But, he's back to publishing an annual, now:
nikku88 wrote:BP is much more entertaining. They probably have better stats as well.
I like Shandler's articles a lot. Very informative reading. If you want a better understanding of how good players are and what kind prospects they turn into, then go with BP. BP is not a fantasy mag, but is very fun to read. I can't count the number of times I have referenced 2004 and 2005 BP in the last couple of years.
I relied heavily on Shandler last year, after reading him for a couple of years. I had my worst season in the last five years of fantasy baseball. Granted, 1 season and the limited number of players I had are not a very good sample size, but I will not rely on his projections again.
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BP is less than $13 if you pre-order in time. I'd say it is the most entertaining. My all-time favorite was listing Pat Boarders position in the last edition as "Deathless". There was an excellent Pauly Shore analogy made in their 2005 forecast for Christan Guzman as well.
If you're looking for fantasy worth out of BP, buy a full or fantasy-only membership to their website and you'll be able to download a spreadsheet with their projected counting totals as well as rate stats. But for $13 plus shipping, and if you go spend $25 total on Amazon.com they throw in the shipping for free, their published annual is well worth the read just for the chuckles alone.
The Bill James Handbook now has both batter and pitcher projections for the first time (pitching new in the 2006 version). They have some interesting statistics as well, like Jacque Jones swung and missed at over 1/5th of the pitches he saw last season.
Super Manny wrote:If I only plan on picking up one, does anyone have any recommendations, reviews, or critiques on:
Baseball Prospectus vs. Bill James Handbook vs. Ron Shandler's Forecaster?
Thanks!
If your main reason for getting one is fantasy projections, go with Shandler.
If you want projections that are less focused on fantasy, but more accurate as far as real baseball goes, solid team and player analysis, and some humorous commentary on players, go with BP.
James, imo, is mostly a book of numbers. If you like that, it's good. But, it's not as comprehensive as BP or Shandler in its coverage of players.
"I don't want to play golf. When I hit a ball, I want someone else to chase it."
I like both of 'em. Shandler's got some great theories and his statistical breakdowns are extremely helpful when sorting through the minutiae when comparing Player A to Player B when you're having a hard time deciding who to rank higher between two guys.
BP has good insight. Their projections are a bit conservative, but the actual analysis is very valuable... and as someone else said, they can be pretty humorous at times. BP weighs about 40 lbs., so Shandler is a better portable read.
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by GotowarMissAgnes » Mon Dec 19, 2005 10:00 pm 
