Baseball America 2014 Prospect Handbook: The 2014 Expert guide to Baseball Prospects and MLB Organization Rankings

This is an excellent annual publication. I have ordered a copy for the past 8 years and despite many of the same players being listed as prospects, the Prospect Handbook continually offers new information every year. A year of evaluation is an eternity in minor league baseball, and the Baseball Handbook keeps up with the latest tendencies of the prospects. For example, Steven Matz of the New York Mets moved up from # 12 in the 2014 book to the # 2 prospect in the 2015 book, as his outstanding 2014 season was attributed to an improved curveball. In the 2015 writeup for Matz, the handbook partly accounted for his rise through the rankings with his stay in Binghamton: "It (the curveball) improved in terms of power and shape under the tutelage of Binghatmon pitching Glenn Abbott in the second half (of the season)."The book can be read in short or long bursts, as the writeups for each team's top 30 prospects are typically 200-300 words. The tables at the end of the book, listing the high draft picks from the last three years, as well as the top twenty prospects in each minor league, are also great for reference. For each organization, its top draft picks of the past decade are also listed, providing an excellent source of reference material to evaluate how a team drafts on a year-by-year level.This book is a good one to have in your library, even though it is now over a year old.The information is still current and the reduced price you can receive make it a worthwhile buy, unless you have already brought the 2015 handbook! But buying each handbook as it comes out will keep you well informed about the minor leagues.If you are a Mets fan, the recently published book, "Six More Wins: A Team, A Town, A Rebound, and a Championship," is a good complement to the Prospect Handbook. "Six More Wins" documents the story of the 2014 Eastern League Champions, the Binghamton Mets. Comparing the prospects who played for that championship team with their respective writeups in the 2014 Prospect Handbook is a fun exercise. The respective prospects who played for Binghamton and were ranked in the top 30 in the 2014 handbook included Jayce Boyd, Juan Centeno, Dilson Herrera, Dustin Lawley, Jack Leathersich, Steven Matz, Brandon Nimmo, Kevin Plawecki, Gabriel Ynoa, No wonder the B-Mets won the championship!

This is an excellent book that gives you information including complete records for Baseball America's top 30 prospects for each team. The thing I'd like to see them do in the future, for each teams top prospect you get the complete 20-80 rating scale for each skill, but for the 29 others it's only a overall rating.

A+

I get this book before the season each year. It is fabulous! I love researching ball players and at the Major League level this is a great book. These are the words and numbers to begin your research.

I love this book when preparing for my fantasy draft.It's always interesting to go back and look at the older versions to see how prospects advance through the organizations systems.

Best prospect book out there, write-ups are great, and it is packed with great info. Been buying this book every year now for probably 7 or 8 years running.

He waits and waits by the mailbox and is instantly ecstatic once it arrives. He goes through it cover to cover to prepare for his fantasy baseball drafts.

As usual, the handbook is filled with great information. But something happened with the editing this year, and proofing errors appeared throughout.

Ich hole mir das "Prospect-Handbook" schon seit 2009 jährlich und inzwischen gehört es zu meiner festen Bücherreihe. Dabei wird es wohl eher den Hardcore-MLB-Fan ansprechen, der sich über die Nachwuchsspieler der diversen MLB-Teams schlau lesen möchte. Als solches sollte diese Lektüre auch gesehen werden. Ich bin ein extremer New York Mets Fan und versuche alle Spiele zu schauen. Dabei nutze ich die Gelegenheit mich über die nächsten Gegner zu informieren: wie war ihre vergangene Saison, was hat sich an ihrem Nachwuchskadern geändert usw. Es ist ein SEHR nützliches Nachschlagewerk und das Preis- / Leistungsverhältnis ist hier definitiv als sehr gut zu bezeichnen. Jedem MLB-Team werden rund 16 Seiten gewidmet. Auf der ersten Seite findet sich eine kurze Zusammenfassung der vergangenen Saison des Teams. Seite zwei gibt einen Überblick über die Statistiken aller Teams (inkl. Minors) der Franchise, deren aktuellen Top Prospects und was aus denen der letzten Jahre passiert ist. Seite drei zeigt ein Depth-Chart mit allen Nachwuchsspielern, welche dem Team Franchisewert zur Verfügung stehen. Auf Seite vier kann man sich über die Stärken der besten Nachwuchstalente informieren. Auf den restlichen Seiten werden diese dann detailliert beschrieben. Die Top-30 Prospects (Nachwuchsspieler) werden zumeist mit Bild, einem beschreibendem Text und seinen letzten Statistikwerten versehen. Im vorderen Teil kann man die Top-100 ligaweiten Prospects einsehen. Alles in allem will ich dieses Buch nicht mehr missen und Baseball America ist sowieso jedesmal ein Treffer. Also von mir gibt es für interessierte MLB-Fanatics eine uneingeschränkte Kaufempfehlung. PLAY BALL!