The 2010 Baseball Prospectus annual

sez Goldman:

"Pals ‘n’ gals, a quick note to inform you that the wait is over: Amazon officially has Baseball Prospectus 2010 in stock and that we have scattered bookstore sightings out here in the physical world. Remember, folks, not only is the book just in time for pitchers and catchers, it’s almost Valentine’s Day, and nothing says “I love you” like a big, thick baseball book… And it also has fewer calories than chocolate.

As always, we very much hope you enjoy this year’s book, #15 in an ongoing series, and we eagerly anticipate your feedback. Finally, don’t forget that we’ll be hitting the road to talk baseball soon, starting with the Yogi Berra Museum on February 28, New York City on March 1, Washington on March 9, Boston on March 15 and 16, and Chicago on March 18. All of these events are described in more detail on the BP events page. We look forward to seeing you again."

pals 'n' gals????

it's the polite bros n hoes

lol i guess so! i never thought "pals" was gendered.

Ordered mine today.

Found it at the B&N on West 8th St. Shasta will (?) like the quote at the head of the A's chapter.

Wright HR proj: 26

at least they printed an index in this, but no more fungoes? :/

Does it use revised PECOTA or the screwed up projections?

my understanding was that the individual projections were fine especially for hitters, and that it was the depth charts on the site where everything got messed up

Book went to press first or second week of January, so I don't know.

I received this in the mail the other day. I've never read it before, so maybe I'm misunderstanding, but it seems like BP projects that almost all players will be worse in 2010 than in their recent past? The introduction states that the "Improve Rate is the percent chance that a hitter's equivalent runs produced per PA will improve at all over his baseline performance. A player who is expected to perform just the same as he has in the recent past will have an Improve Rate of 50 percent."

OK, got that. But then thumb through any team (I'm looking at the Cards right now) and it seems like almost everyone has a Improve Rate of less than 50 percent. Of the 24 hitters profiled for the Cards, one ONE (Daniel Descalso??) has an improve rate above 50%, and his is at 51%. So BP is projecting that every Cardinals hitter is has a better chance of performing worse this year?

If I'm understanding this incorrectly, someone please school me!

did you read the definitions of Improve/Collapse etc upfront?

Yep, and in fact I quoted the Improve definition just above!

If the Improve rate is 50%, they're expected to perform at the same level as the recent past. If it's above, they're expected to improve, if it's below, they're expected to be worse?

players, on the whole, do what they've done before.

Right...I'm not trying to be dense, I promise, but my point is that almost all of the players have improve rate projections below 50%, and often way below 50%. So BP is projecting that almost all players will be worse this year. And I didn't hear of a MLB tuberculosis outbreak this year, so I'm wondering why almost everyone is supposed to be worse in 2010!

in fairness I would say pretty much everyone on the cards has a better chance of doing worse this year than last (even poohole who, if he did much more, would have a bondsian/ruthian season the likes of which neither man nor beast have ever seen before)

anyone age 28+ who isn't coming off of a terrible year is probably gonna have a sub-50 improve score by default

So far haven't read any bold clams for anyone. Good players will be good, bad ones mockworthy.

book tour stops in NYC Monday eve:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/events/index.php?date=d3-1-2010