May 11, 2013

Baseball Prospectus News

UPDATED: The Baseball Prospectus Futures Guide 2013.

by Dave Pease and Jason Parks

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UPDATE 05-11: We're happy to announce that the paperback edition of the BP Futures Guide 2013 is now available from amazon.com. My copy smells like toner and looks like this:

Your copy will smell like success and look like this:

The book is 278 pages at 8.5"x11". It will look great on your bookshelf next to Baseball Prospectus 2013. It features statistical workups including 2013 and 2014 PECOTAs for almost every Top 10 Prospect. It includes a new foreword by Kevin Kerrane, author of the soon-to-be-republished Dollar Sign on the Muscle. It is priced at $8.34.

To give you an idea of what you can expect in the book, following is a short excerpt of the beginning of the Boston Red Sox Top 10 Prospects. You can click here or click the excerpt below to get the entire Boston Red Sox Top 10 Prospects from the book in PDF format.

If you have already purchased or care to purchase the e-book package directly from us, you'll want to know that we've updated the PDF that is included to match the book. You can always download the latest DRM-free PDF of any product you buy from us on your Manage My Profile page.

UPDATE 04-26 5:00pm Pac: The e-book is now available! Click here to purchase. $5.00 gets you DRM-free PDF, MOBI, and EPUB downloads via your Manage My Profile page. A prettier PDF is coming along with the printed book next week. Please leave any questions, comments, or bug fixes in the comments or click here to email them to Dave, and enjoy!

Baseball Prospectus will be releasing our first-ever prospect book this year. The Baseball Prospectus Futures Guide 2013 is built around the best of Jason Parks and the BP prospect team's pre-season Premium prospect material, weighing in at nearly 300 pages of content and including:

• Top 10 Prospects for every major-league team: 300 prospect capsules, with exclusive updates to account for trades and other player movement since original publication date.
• Three Prospects on the Rise and three Factors on the Farm for each major-league system: coverage of an additional 60 prospects at all levels of organized baseball. Get to know some of 2014's top prospects a year before everyone else does.
• The Baseball Prospectus Top 101 prospects, with complete commentary from Baseball Prospectus 2013 and additional background and notes to cover developments since the list's January compilation.
• Baseball Prospectus' 2013 Organizational Rankings. Every major-league organization, dissected and ranked from top to bottom.
• The Baseball Prospectus fantasy team's Top 100 dynasty league prospects: the guys you need to know to set your dynasty league roster for the rest of the decade.

An Introduction to the Process
What started with the first touch of one anxiety-ridden hand ended with the confident grip of an entire staff, and the finished product stands Stanton strong as a result. From the end of October to the end of March, not a day went by without a communiqué with an industry source, as we went spelunking for information at every available opportunity. The raw scouting data collected was then fed back into the Baseball Prospectus prospect machine, where the sharp minds on the staff added their flavor and helped form a cogent opinion. My job was to sift through a deep catalog of opinion, add any personal observations to the mix, and come away with a shape that I thought was pleasing to the palate.

Jurickson Profar The best prospect in baseball, but where does he play?

Gerrit Cole High-powered stuff and status, but where is the domination?

Dylan Bundy Is Bundy even the best pitching prospect on the Orioles' farm?

Oscar Taveras The most dangerous bat in the minors, waiting in the wings

Zack Wheeler Is he ready to join Matt Harvey at the top of the Mets rotation?

The real heroes in the equation are the ones who took what would be a basic article and transformed it into something with more depth and aesthetic quality. People like Rob McQuown, Dave Pease, Ben Lindbergh, Sam Miller, and Steph Bee were vital to the process, as were outside-the-org colleagues Patrick Ebert and Bill Mitchell. Of course, none of this would have been possible in the first place without Baseball Prospectus President and CEO Joe Hamrahi, who believed in the direction and approach from the beginning, pumping confidence into us at every turn and standing in the shadows pulling the strings that helped produced the dance. I might have penned the prospect words, but it was a collaborative effort to bring them to life, and my name appears on the cover only because of my 37 pieces of flair and terrific smile. —Jason Parks

Measurables
Futures Guide 2013 will be available in EPUB, MOBI, DRM-free PDF, and printed book formats. The e-books are coming at the end of the week, and we're shooting for next week for the printed book to be available at Amazon.com. You can pre-order the e-book now for $5.00, and it will appear on your profile page the minute it is available. The paperback is going to be special — we'll be including an expanded statistical workup and full PECOTA projections for each Top 10 player. We're pricing the printed book somewhere south of 10 bucks, to help cover the nation in prospect goodness and make this an easily gift-able option for those who are interested in baseball but don't have a Baseball Prospectus Premium account. We will have more information on all fronts presently.

Purchase the e-book for $5.00 now!

Dave Pease is an author of Baseball Prospectus. Follow @davepease
Click here to see Dave's other articles. You can contact Dave by clicking here
Jason Parks is an author of Baseball Prospectus. Follow @ProfessorParks
Click here to see Jason's other articles. You can contact Jason by clicking here