A Review of Three Prospect Books

[vance_the_cubs_fan]

I know some of you purchase some prospect handbooks. I purchase Sickels book and usually will pick up BA's handbook.

 

This link has a review of three prospect handbooks, John Sickels' the Baseball Prospect Book, BA's Prospect Handbook, and Minor League Baseball Analyst by Deric McKamey.

 

I thought some of you who are considering buying one or more of the books might appreciate reading the review.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Interesting read. The 2006 Minor League Baseball Analysts sounds interesting, but with FirstInning.com up and running, a good bit of its content can be found for free on the web. It also seemed like the writer contradicted himself talking about BA's lesser "value", then bringing up the reason it costs more is because he likes buying through the author.

[craig]

I like the BA book. It provides qualitative, subjective scouting information, and for many of the pitchers gives mph info and repertoire info that isn't provided by a stats book.

 

I'm not that interested in paying for a stats book. I can check the stats myself, and for any Cub prospect I'll already know their stats info. But the scouting report stuff is often news. Does Dylan Johnston project as a defense-first SS, or a guy who'll need to hit enough to justify life at 3B? Does Phelps throw 88, 92, or 96, and with curve or slider? Billek was solid but not dominating in terms of stuff; does he project to throw harder down the line?

 

The other books don't sound like they'd tell me much that I can't already find and don't already know.

[UK1679666180]

I buy both the BP handbook as the well as BA's. I haven't found anything that matches the depth that Baseball America uses in covering its prospects.

 

I use BA for the minors and BP for the pros, despite BP putting its toes into the water as far as mentioning the higher rated prospects from each team.

[JGalt73]

BP is currently forecasting prospects on-line. For CF's, they have Pie at #4 behind Chris Young(ARI), Brian Anderson(CHA), and Franklin Gutierrez(CLE).

 

"PECOTA takes Felix Pie reasonably seriously as a prospect, as least as much as it can for a guy whose number one comparable is Corey Patterson. We do not make this stuff up, folks. I’d be reluctant to read too much into Pie’s power breakout at Double-A, as it came in only 59 games worth of playing time. Although Pie is built differently than Patterson, he’s presently a little bit undersized for a power hitter. Lastings Milledge belongs in the same broad category as Pie, and shares some of his comparables. PECOTA sees growth potential for both of these guys, but reminds us that it might not come immediately; either could very easily have a Franklin Gutierrez type of season next year (at which point they’ll go from being overrated to underrated)."

[CaliforniaRaisin]

I got my BA prospect book yesterday and it's glorious.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

I just got BA's prospect handbook and McKamey's Minor League Baseball Analyst. I haven't even opened BA's yet but McKamey's is really impressive. Does a great job of quantifying the scouting aspect by rating a players tools on a 1-5 "+" scale, a paragraph on every player, plus a lot of useful statistics(AVG/OBP/SLG/OPS, BB%, Contact%, XBH rate, RC/G, and others). For pitchers, he grades each of their pitches on the 1-5 scale, with radar ranges when he can get them. Stats include ERA, WHIP, Batters Faced/Game, OBA, H%, S%, xERA, and several others. He also projects each players role, and estimates their MLB debut.