March 19, 2015

Baseball Prospectus Book News

Futures Guide 2015 Is Here!

by Geoff Young

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The crack of the bat, the smell of the grass. Whatever your favorite baseball cliché, spring is in the air, which means it's time for our great game to awake from its winter slumber. And as baseball returns, so returns the Futures Guide.

The Baseball Prospectus Futures Guide 2015 is built around the best of Nick Faleris, Chris Mellen, and the BP prospect team's preseason Premium prospect material. If you've enjoyed previous versions, you'll know what to expect. If this is your first time, here's what you'll get:

Scouting Reports

• The Baseball Prospectus Top 101 prospects, with complete commentary from Baseball Prospectus 2015 and additional background and notes to cover developments since the list's original compilation.
• From the Field exclusive eyewitness reports on one player from each team: Learn why Dylan Bundy’s 60-grade cutter could get even better and swoon over descriptions of Raimel Tapia's "very easy, well timed, and balanced" swing.
• Top 10 Prospects for every major-league team: 300 prospect capsules (tool grades, strengths, weaknesses, risk factors, etc.), with exclusive updates to account for trades and other player movement since original publication date. Statistical workups include PECOTA projections for 2015 and 2016, as well as UPSIDE scores.
• Three Prospects on the Rise and three Factors on the Farm for each major-league system: Coverage of 180 more prospects at all levels of organized baseball. Get to know some of 2016's top prospects a year before everyone else does.
• Baseball Prospectus' 2015 Organizational Rankings: Every major-league organization, dissected and ranked from top to bottom.
• 2015 Draft Top 100: A list of Perfect Game's top high school and college players eligible for the June draft.
• Before They Were Pros: Perfect Game's notes on many of today's top prospects from when they toured the amateur showcase circuit. This is where you learn why the high school version of Kris Bryant was compared to Dave Kingman, and Jonathan Gray to Josh Johnson.

Fantasy Coverage

• Friends Don't Let Friends Draft Mid-Rotation Prospects: An original essay by Ben Carsley, who reminds us that for every Jordan Zimmermann, there are many Simon Castros.
• Defensive Decision Making and Prospect Valuation: Another exclusive, by Jeff Quinton, that uses the ideas of great thinkers far removed from the realm of baseball to show us how we can improve our decision-making processes and evade common pitfalls before they come back to haunt our dreams of fantasy league glory.
• The Baseball Prospectus fantasy team's Top 101 Dynasty League Prospects: The guys you need to know to set your dynasty league roster for the rest of the decade.
• The Ones Who Could Jump: Insights into 20 players who could take a big step forward in 2015 from a fantasy standpoint. Last year's version included such risers as Nomar Mazara, Ryan McMahon, and Marco Gonzales.
• Top 50 2014 Signees for Dynasty Drafts: Yasmany Tomas, Carlos Rodon, Touki Toissaint, and 47 others. Plus 10 extra guys just for fun.
• Top 50 for 2015 Fantasy Value Only: If you're not ready for a full rebuild, these are the prospects most likely to pay immediate dividends in 2015.
• Top 40 Fantasy Prospects Outside of Major League Baseball: This is the list for folks who really like to plan ahead. Deep? Sure, you know about Brady Aiken and Hector Olivera. Those are big names, but not as much fun to say as Kyle Funkhouser and Luis Yander La O, both of whom also happen to be worth tracking.

How to Get It

The Futures Guide 2015 paperback is available at Amazon.com. You can get the PDF format directly from Baseball Prospectus. We're working on the e-book versions now, and they'll be aviailable soon. If you buy the PDF, you get instant access to the e-book when it becomes available.