Scouting Notebook : Your Advanced Scout for 2005 (Sporting News STATS Major League Scouting Notebook)

Rating:
Summary: An essential purchase for any baseball fan
Review: Along with Baseball Prospectus and the Bill James annual, this is a book that should be on every fan's coffee table throughout the baseball season. Full of detailed scouting analysis on hundreds of major leaguers, it complements the statistical annuals perfectly, helping to provide a complete picture of each player.

There are 22 players listed for each team, with 12 getting full pages and the others shown with 2 on a page. Each player's vitals are included on their page, along with situational stats. For batters, a diagram is included to show hitting tendencies, while pitchers are given a pitching profile showing a further breakdown of their performance versus the league average. The player evaluations are divided into 4 categories - a recap of their 2004 season, pitching or hitting depending on their position, defense, and a 2005 outlook. For the players who have to share a page, the hitting/pitching is cominbed with the defense. Managers and stadiums are also given individual pages, and the park factors and managerial tendencies are useful.

Since more than 22 players contribute to any team, each franchise is also given a couple of pages devoted to "Other" players, whose stats and evaluation are presented in a succinct, boxscore-type format. Each team also has a section where several of their top minor league prospects are evaluated. This number is limited, since the book's main focus is on players expected to contribute to the big team in the upcoming season.

The only complaints I have about this book are minor. One is that the stats in the back of the book list batting average first among stats for hitters. I think even non-stat junkies now accept the fact that OBP or OPS are better measuring sticks for hitters, so I think it would make more sense to list one of those ahead of average. However, that's truly a minor issue. The focus of this book is scouting, and that's something it presents beautifully.

This is one I look forward to every year, and the 2005 edition does not disappoint. This is one to keep by your side during the baseball season, as it should prove both informative and entertaining.

Rating:
Summary: If you only buy one...
Review: If you only buy one baseball annual in 2005, this should be the one! The Scouting notebook effectively humanizes the players to such a degree I felt like I could manage them to a pennant. The writing style is crisp,and clean, easy to understand without becoming boringly predictable. This book makes for a fun companion for the 2005 season.

Rating:
Summary: Baseball book with a scouting prospective
Review: To all you Baseball Prospectus diehards, your 2005 collection is not complete without this book. This book provides traditional scouting methods that you won't find in any other publication. If you want to know the assortment of pitchers a hurler throws, you can find it in this book. The best part of about this scouting guide is the detail description of players' tendencies and skills. The book also goes into detail about the 30 ballparks around the league and provides a one page report about the tendencies and stategies of all big league managers. While I love to read the performance based analysis of Baseball Prospectus, I think that book has failed to capture the total picture of ballplayers in its publication and I use the Scouting Notebook to get both sides of the story. Remember, a successful baseball team needs both a blend of brilliant sabermetric and scouting analysis to be successful.