I consider myself a semi-avid fantasy sports participant, but fantasy baseball hasn’t appealed to me near as much as fantasy football has in the past. Every year, I buy a Lindy’s annual for football, but have never found something with the same or better quality on the baseball end…until now.

I try not to bombard you with meaningless promoting of products or books that I don’t really recommend. If I mention something on this site, which I have in the past with books and websites like The Hardball Times, Baseball Prospectus, and pretty much anything from Acta Sports. This time, I was sent a copy of the very thing I’ve been craving all along. In my mailbox last week was a copy of Ron Shandler’s Baseball Forecaster, along with it’s little brother, The Minor League Analyst. The forecaster does what a lot of other previews does in the sense that it projects, using their methodology, the 2008 season for each player. Obviously any time you try to predict the future, you set yourself up for failure. However, 90% of the product users have reported increased success in their fantasy leagues.

What’s in the Book???

  • Unlike projection annuals, the Forecaster also include research based articles which, if you know anything about me, is a big turn on. They talk a little about how to evaluate players, the importance of the ground ball pitcher, what GM’s are lying about, etc.
  • Projections for any player in the league along with statistics from the past and a brief 50-100 word comment about each. Keep in mind that when I say statistics are included I don’t just mean the basic ones. There are stats like contact %, expected ERA, etc. It appeals to the common fan while not alienating the sabermetric fan as well.
  • Perhaps the most exciting part of the book for me as a writer is the 5-YearInjury Log. The log lists the name, year, # of days missed, and type of injury in table format for every player as well as an offseason injury update on important players. Just for fun, the first thing I did was look up Mark Prior and Kerry Wood. Here is what I found:

Kerry Wood
2004 – missed 52 days due to tendinitis in the lower right triceps
2005 – missed 108 days due to a strained right shoulder and surgery
2006 – missed 162 days due to a R/C tear and post surgical recovery
2007 – missed 124 days due to shoulder stiffness

Mark Prior
2003 – missed 23 days due to a right shoulder contusion
2004 – missed 61 days due to an inflamed right Achilles
2005 – missed 38 days due to a fractured right elbow and inflammation
2006 – missed 122 days due to right shoulder tendinitis and two strains
2007 – missed 183 days due to shoulder surgery

Underwent surgery in April to repair a significant tear to the labrum in his pitching shoulder. Prior says he’ll be ready for Opening Day 2008. Recent DL history numbers state he could struggle next spring and into the 2008 season.

  • Major League equivalent stats for minor league prospects are an interesting concept that I hadn’t seen before this book. They allow you to compare what the player is doing at the current level they are at using various factors like age to see what type of ML player they are projecting to be. Does this mean that if a player is in Low-A and posts numbers that are ML equivalent to 40 HR’s that he would have hit that in the Majors? No, it’s simply a way of tracking development. Are guys getting better or worse.
  • Rankings and mock drafts are a part of any good publication and this one takes it to the next level with all kinds of mock things. There are too many to list and still do it justice.
  • Benchmarks and explainations of various sabermetric stats. I’ve wanted to learn more about rate stats and things like that, but the hard part for me is to know what is good and what is bad. They provide a handy detachable bookmark that has benchmarks for various stats (saber and common) to allow you to give the numbers some meaning.

On the whole it may seem like the book is just like any other book, but I can’t tell you enough how superior this book is to any other I’ve seen. I highly recommend it as a tool for a fantasy player or a writer in general. Go out and pick up a copy today. You’ll be glad you did.

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