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Rating: 
Summary: They listened to the critics
Review: Don't be deceived. This is not the Benson's A TO Z GUIDE of years past, which featured thousands of players (including virtually all minor leaguers with a shot at the majors), along with detailed scouting reports and statistics. Instead, this previously indispensable Roto-resource has been restructured and merged with Glen Waggoner's Roto rulebook. To make room, hundreds of players have been cut and the information pared back. Now, it features only major leaguers and high profile prospects with much briefer scouting reports.If you'd like to see this book published in the old format next year, make sure you complain to John Benson and Diamond Library Publishers as I have .... In the meantime, you can try Ron Shandler's BASEBALL FORECASTER 2002 ANNUAL REVIEW, or John Sickle's STATS MINOR LEAGUE SCOUTING NOTEBOOK 2002 if you want something that focuses on prospects only. Shandler's analytical tools have probably surpassed those used by Benson's people anyway. Benson seems to be treading water while Shandler's projections and strategy recommendations have been growing more sophisticated.
Rating:
Summary: Book is a good start to the 2003 season
Review: If you grab this book expecting to get the latest news on player movement, position battles, and up-to-date player values, you will be disappointed. If you are a person who thinks you know it all about rotisserie baseball strategy, you, too, will be disappointed as this book spends a great deal of time talking strategy for off-season, draft day, and in-season. I personally enjoyed the read on strategy and am constantly reminded of areas I must stay focussed upon. The player profiles are thin and the player dollar values can be debated, but this book is written in the 4th quarter of 2002. We are a long way from Spring Training, so I use this as a starting point in the 2003 season and will use my favorite web-sites and projections for draft preparations. I do recommend this book for the average rotisserie baseball player, as its strategy discussions are valuable, and its player discussions are a good start. For the fanatic, don't buy this book and get disappointed. Instead, look to Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster 2003 Annual or Baseball Prospectus for all the analytical player information you can shake a bat at.
Rating:
Summary: Book is a good start to the 2003 season
Review: If you grab this book expecting to get the latest news on player movement, position battles, and up-to-date player values, you will be disappointed. If you are a person who thinks you know it all about rotisserie baseball strategy, you, too, will be disappointed as this book spends a great deal of time talking strategy for off-season, draft day, and in-season. I personally enjoyed the read on strategy and am constantly reminded of areas I must stay focussed upon. The player profiles are thin and the player dollar values can be debated, but this book is written in the 4th quarter of 2002. We are a long way from Spring Training, so I use this as a starting point in the 2003 season and will use my favorite web-sites and projections for draft preparations. I do recommend this book for the average rotisserie baseball player, as its strategy discussions are valuable, and its player discussions are a good start. For the fanatic, don't buy this book and get disappointed. Instead, look to Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster 2003 Annual or Baseball Prospectus for all the analytical player information you can shake a bat at.
Rating: 
Summary: Ho-hum bios make one-great book run-of-the-mill
Review: There is a voluminous amount of sources for information on fantasy league baseball available to fans, especially with the advent of the Internet. What used to set Rotisserie League Baseball apart from the rest was the irreverent, witty bios on the players. It was the closest thing to laugh-out-loud literature one could find on the National Pastime. Alas, someone must have approached the authors and told them that the book needed to be more serious in light of previously said sources. The result is a bland concoction of stale statistics and rookie projections. Given the fact that a book needs more time to publish than does a magazine, it is rendered irrelevant. Said to say, I believe I've purchased my last edition of Rotisserie League Baseball.
Rating:
Summary: Ho-hum bios make one-great book run-of-the-mill
Review: There is a voluminous amount of sources for information on fantasy league baseball available to fans, especially with the advent of the Internet. What used to set Rotisserie League Baseball apart from the rest was the irreverent, witty bios on the players. It was the closest thing to laugh-out-loud literature one could find on the National Pastime. Alas, someone must have approached the authors and told them that the book needed to be more serious in light of previously said sources. The result is a bland concoction of stale statistics and rookie projections. Given the fact that a book needs more time to publish than does a magazine, it is rendered irrelevant. Said to say, I believe I've purchased my last edition of Rotisserie League Baseball.
Rating:
Summary: They listened to the critics
Review: They listened to the critics. The 2003 version of this Baseball annual dedicates more then half the book to detailed analysis on every players, and more in depth review on prospects then they had in the past 2 years. Much less space is wasted on jokes and theory, and much more space is used to provide in depth reviews of every player. If you are looking for a good place to get started for your 2003 roto season, buy the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Benson hits rock bottom
Review: This year's edition still has scouting reports on major league position players and pitchers. But gone are encapsulations of previous years' comments and the reports seem to be lacking the depth they had in past years. Also missing are scouting reports on most of the up-and-coming minor league stars. Some are included, but in past editions even border-line prospects had scouting reports. As a result, players who were in last year's edition are nowhere to be found, even though they may have had decent seasons. This has turned into a Roto book only. The only players you will find are the ones likely to get "dollar values" in the 2002 season. As a baseball fan who is not as interested in Roto as I am in following up and coming players, this book has lost some of it's value. Who needs Rotisserie rules?
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