Baseball Prospectus

Baseball Prospectus (BP) is an organization that publishes a website, BaseballProspectus.com, devoted to the sabermetric analysis of baseball. BP has a staff of regular columnists and provides advanced statistics as well as player and team performance projections on the site. Since 1996 the BP staff has also published a Baseball Prospectus annual as well as several other books devoted to baseball analysis and history.

Baseball Prospectus has fathered several popular new statistical tools that have become hallmarks of baseball analysis. Baseball Prospectus is accredited by the Baseball Writers Association of America. Four of Baseball Prospectus's current regular writers are members of the Baseball Writers Association of America and thus eligible to vote for nominees for Major League Baseball's post-season awards and the Baseball Hall of Fame.^[1]

Prospectus Entertainment Ventures, LLC

Baseball Prospectus is formally an entity of Prospectus Entertainment Ventures, LLC, a private corporation that runs websites and publishes books focusing on the statistical analysis of the sports of baseball, basketball, and hockey. As of August 2014, the President & CEO is Joe Hamrahi, and Vice President is Dave Pease.^[2]

For several years, Prospectus Entertainment Ventures (PEV) partnered with Football Outsiders for the publication and promotion of Football Outsiders Almanac (ISBN 1448648459), before 2009 called Pro Football Prospectus (ISBN 0452288479).

On October 10, 2007, PEV launched Basketball Prospectus,^[3] a new website for the analysis of men's college and pro basketball, with Joe Sheehan taking the role of Managing Editor^[4] and announcing the lineup of principal writer-analysts for the site. Initially, this website did not require a subscription for access, but it introduced subscriptions in 2011 for access to most of the material on the site. BasketballProspectus.com‍ '​s first annual book, College Basketball Prospectus 2008–2009 (ISBN 0452289874), was published in October 2008. It released Pro Basketball Prospectus 2009–10 for purchase online in October 2009.^[5] Subsequently, it published both College Basketball Prospectus 2010–11 (ISBN 1453872825) and Pro Basketball Prospectus 2010–11 (ISBN 1453868992) in both print and online (PDF) modes.

On March 19, 2008, Imagine Sports announced a strategic partnership with PEV and Baseball Prospectus. Imagine sports owns the baseball simulation engine "Diamond Mind Baseball".^[6]

On October 14, 2008, PEV announced the acquisition of Baseball Digest Daily (BDD),^[7] an online blog devoted to baseball analysis and statistics. Joe Hamrahi, new Chief Financial Officer of PEV and founder of BDD, reported that "PEV's decision to acquire Baseball Digest Daily further enhances the content offerings of Baseball Prospectus by adding some of the game's best analysts as well as over 100 pages of baseball news and original content. In addition, BDD's player tracker provides a platform for serious fans and fantasy baseball enthusiasts to easily monitor the progress of their teams, allowing users to manipulate and track the progress of an unlimited set of players over a customized period of time".^[8]

At the same time, PEV revealed publicly that it "owns a significant interest in 538 (www.fivethirtyeight.com), a political analysis website that generates over 700,000 unique visitors daily".

On February 23, 2009, Prospectus Entertainment Ventures (PEV) launched the website Puck Prospectus^[9] with the intent of providing cutting-edge analysis of hockey. Will Carroll assumed the role of the Executive Editor, and Andrew Rothstein, the founder of Puck Prospectus, assumed the role of the Managing Editor.^[10] Puck Prospectus published its first annual book, Puck Prospectus 2010–2011 (ISBN 1453817840) in both online and print formats. Initially a free site, Puck Prospectus introduced subscriptions in 2011.

On March 24, 2009, Baseball Prospectus announced that Nate Silver was stepping down as its Managing Partner, and Kevin Goldstein was assuming this role. At that time, PEV relinquished its previously announced financial interest in Silver's FiveThirtyEight blog. At the same time, it was announced that BP has a partnership relationship with ESPN.com.^[11]

In January 2010, PEV's Managing Partner Kevin Goldstein reported that one of BP's founding members, Joe Sheehan, had departed the organization.^[12] He reported that John Perrotto had been elevated to full-time status on the BP staff and would become the new Editor-in-Chief of BaseballProspectus.com, taking over that responsibility from Christina Kahrl. And he reported that Jeff Euston was joining the BP staff and that Euston's Cot's Baseball Contracts website^[13] would be joining the Baseball Prospectus family. In February 2011, Perrotto was replaced as Editor-in-Chief by Steven Goldman.

In February 2010, BP's "Fantasy Manager" Marc Normandin announced that BP had established a partnership with Heater Magazine.^[14] Heater Magazine ceased publication after the 2010 season.

In November 2011, Kevin Goldstein announced that he was stepping down as PEV's Managing Partner in favor of Joe Hamrahi.^[15] On March 3, 2012, Hamrahi announced that Steven Goldman was stepping down as Editor-in-Chief of BaseballProspectus.com; Goldman had taken a position as a lead baseball writer for Bleacher Report.^[16] Ben Lindbergh was named Managing Editor of Baseball Prospectus on March 5, 2012^[17] and Editor-in-Chief of Baseball Prospectus on July 13, 2012.^[18]

On April 30, 2012, PEV's Managing Partner Joe Hamrahi announced that "Dan Brooks, Harry Pavlidis, and Brooks Baseball have agreed to team up and join forces with Baseball Prospectus. BrooksBaseball.net is the premier site for PITCHf/x analysis and pitch classification".^[19]

On March 15, 2013, after explaining a week earlier that its key staff of writers had been hired away by ESPN, Baseball Prospectus's Dave Pease declared in response to a question in the comments: "Basketball Prospectus will not be publishing any new content. We are going quiet. The archives will remain available. Thank you".^[20] On March 8, Pease had written: "You've probably noticed our Basketball Prospectus Premium coverage has been pretty quiet lately. You may have also noticed that our core pro writers, Kevin Pelton, Bradford Doolittle, and John Gasaway are now writing for ESPN Insider on a regular basis. Late last year, we learned that, following their completion of the Pro Basketball Prospectus 2012–13 and College Basketball Prospectus 2012–13 annuals, Kevin, Bradford, and John would be moving to ESPN on a full-time basis".

History of Baseball Prospectus

Baseball Prospectus (sometimes referred to as BP) was founded in 1996 by Gary Huckabay, who recruited the initial contributor group of Clay Davenport, Rany Jazayerli, Christina Kahrl, and Joe Sheehan, with the publication of the first annual set of forecasts. "That first year, BP charged $20 for a statistics guide produced on a photocopier. It printed around 300 copies and sold about 170 to fellow statheads, even though the book was missing the St. Louis Cardinals. 'It was terrible,' recalls Kahrl, 'but it nevertheless didn’t discourage us.' Within a few years Brassey’s Inc. published the guide, which grew to about 3,000 copies. By 2007 it reached The New York Times bestseller list, topping 70,000 copies at $21.95 a pop."^[21]

The kind of sabermetric approach favored by Baseball Prospectus has gained significant acceptance by the management of many Major League Baseball clubs, notably the Boston Red Sox and Cleveland Indians. BP has often been considered the modern successor to Bill James' Baseball Abstract series of books in the 1980s.^[22]

Reflecting its legacy as a group of sabermetricians who met over the Internet, BP has no "main office." Working for BP is a second or part-time job for many of the regular staff, who conduct their work for BP in their own home offices.

The website BaseballProspectus.com began in 1997 primarily as a way to present original sabermetric research; publish advanced baseball statistics such as EqA, the Davenport Translations (DT's), and VORP; and promote sales of the annual book.^[23] Beginning in 2003, the site placed most of its new articles, its PECOTA forecasts, and some of its statistical databases in a "premium" section that could be accessed only by subscription. However, in May 2011, BP "announced it has made its entire archive of premium and fantasy content over one year old completely and permanently free to the public".^[24]

Until 2007, when the site began to post general advertising, the premium subscriptions and book sales were Baseball Prospectus' main source of revenues. Baseball Prospectus does not publish a financial report or information about its subscriber base, but it appears to have used its income to expand its breadth of coverage,^[25] and it has not increased its subscription prices since initiating its premium service. It also offers a subscription to those interested in fantasy baseball, at a lower price than the premium subscriptions and giving access to fewer features and articles.

BaseballProspectus.com has a corps of staff writers who publish articles on a regular (typically weekly) basis under a featured heading. In addition, occasional articles are published by other BP staff or freelance authors. Some former regular writers no longer appear on the site but are employed on the staffs of major league baseball organizations, including as of 2014 Keith Woolner (Cleveland Indians),^[26] James Click (Tampa Bay Rays),^[27] Dan Fox (Pittsburgh Pirates),^[28] Mike Fast (Houston Astros),^[29] Kevin Goldstein (Houston Astros),^[30] and Colin Wyers (Houston Astros). In addition, Keith Law, now an ESPN columnist, in 2002 moved from Baseball Prospectus to work on player evaluation in the front office of the Toronto Blue Jays. In 2009, Nate Silver turned his full attention to his FiveThirtyEight political analysis website; he resigned his executive post at BP and handed over management of PECOTA to other BP staff.

Given the competing career opportunities for some of BP's best-known and most statistics-savvy analysts, maintaining a fresh supply of sabermetrically sophisticated writers remains a challenge.^[31] During the 2009 baseball season, BP ran a multi-week open talent search competition in the spirit of the popular television program American Idol, in which aspiring writers submitted articles for evaluation by BP's staff members, with one contestant a week from among the final ten selected by the staff then voted off by the subscribers. At least three new regular BP writers (winner Ken Funck, Tim Kniker, and Matt Swartz) were discovered through this Prospectus Idol contest.^[32] In addition, BP had added Eric Seidman to its staff early in 2009 and then acquired Russell Carleton ("Pizza Cutter") and Colin Wyers in December 2009 to bolster its coverage of technical sabermetric issues. As late as the Fall of 2008, Seidman, Swartz, Carleton, Wyers, Daniel Novick and BP Idol finalist Brian Cartwright made up the entire staff of "Statistically Speaking" aka StatSpeak at MVN.com.^[33] Carleton left the BP staff in May 2010, but returned in July 2012. Seidman and Swartz left in February 2011.

Wyers was hired away by the Houston Astros in October 2013. In the press release announcing his hire, Jeff Luhnow noted, "Colin Wyers is a brilliant man with lots of well thought-out, practical, ideas. He is insuring the financial security of this company for years to come. Oh yes, and his personal hygiene is above reproach". Wyers' final article for BP reviewed the history and process of the "brain drain" of sabermetricians as writers to baseball analytics specialists working for Major League Baseball itself: "Colleges can crank out people who know and understand the tools, but the sabermetrics community has given teams people who have demonstrated that they can use those tools to find useful insights into the game of baseball. So teams court them as part of their effort to win games".^[34]

Although the site maintains a strong sabermetric core and has expanded its statistical databases, it regularly attends to issues such as baseball prospects (the First Year Player Draft and minor league baseball), international baseball, the economics and business of baseball (valuation of players, team and stadium finances, the player marketplace),^[35] and fantasy baseball (PECOTA, the "Fantasy Focus" series of articles, forecast manager and other fantasy tools). BP HAS also published monographs on specialized topics, including the application of sabermetric analysis to historical topics – an emphasis clearly seen in Mind Game (2005 – a history of the Boston Red Sox), Baseball Between the Numbers (2006 – which addresses some historical comparisons), and It Ain’t Over 'til It’s Over (2007 – about historical pennant races).

By the beginning of the 2011 baseball season, none of BP's founders was an active contributor to the website or publications, though some of their earlier articles were included in two Best of Baseball Prospectus compendia that were published in 2011.

BP products

Baseball Prospectus creates several products:

Web site

• The web site Baseball Prospectus, which contains articles, statistical reports, and fantasy baseball tools. The site contains some free content, although it has become increasingly available only by paid subscription. A dozen authors write regular bylined columns on the site and numerous other writers contribute occasional articles. The site also covers baseball history as well as current issues and events, including games and series, injuries, forecasts, player profiles, baseball finance, and the player marketplace.^[36] In December 2006, the site introduced a feature called Baseball Prospectus: UNFILTERED.^[37]

Annual book

• A best-selling annual book (current edition Baseball Prospectus 2014) that contains statistics and analysis of the past season and forecasts of the upcoming season.

Other books

• Other baseball-related books, such as Mind Game: How the Boston Red Sox Got Smart, Won a World Series, and Created a New Blueprint for Winning (2005) (ISBN 0-7611-4018-2) and Baseball Between the Numbers (2006) (ISBN 0-465-00596-9). The latter was chosen by the editors of Amazon.com as the best book on baseball (and third best on sports in general) published in 2006.^[38]

Radio show

• On July 17, 2011, BP inaugurated an XM Sirius radio show, MLB Roundtrip with Baseball Prospectus, co-hosted by BP’s Joe Hamrahi, with Daron Sutton and Sirius XM veteran Mike Ferrin. Appearing every Sunday on SiriusXM’s MLB Network Radio channel at 11 PM eastern (XM 89, Sirius 209), the program features three hours of analysis and commentary.^[39]

Podcast

• Since July 2012, BP has published the "Effectively Wild" podcast, hosted by editor-in-chief Ben Lindbergh and writer/editor Sam Miller. Episodes are released Monday through Friday, including during the offseason, and average 20–40 minutes. Each episode typically centers around a particular topic, with Wednesdays usually being reserved for responses to listener e-mail questions.^[40]

Internet Baseball Awards

• The annual Internet Baseball Awards (IBA) are based on fan voting. They started in 1991 with the Most Valuable Player, Cy Young (pitcher), and Rookie of the Year awards, in each of the two major leagues. In 1998, an award for Manager of the Year was added in each league.

Basketball

• From 2008 to 2013, Basketball Prospectus ran a website, Basketball Prospectus,^[41] and published several annual books. In early March, 2013, while the website itself was archived and available for access, it ceased publishing new material, after its key remaining writers had left to write full-time for ESPN.^[42]

Ice hockey

• Hockey Prospectus runs the Hockey Prospectus website,^[43] which focuses mainly on the National Hockey League.

Theories

Baseball Prospectus writers promote several theories on proper baseball management and analysis, many of which are contrary to those of conventional baseball wisdom.

Clutch hitting

Baseball Prospectus researchers have concluded that there is no repeatable ability of clutch hitting. As writer Joe Sheehan said, "Over the course of a game, a month, a season or a career, there is virtually no evidence that any player or group of players possesses an ability to outperform his established level of ability in clutch situations, however defined."^[44] They cite studies which find that there is insignificant correlation between year-to-year performance in clutch situations.

In an article published in 2006, Nate Silver argued that clutch hitting ability does exist to a degree. He argued that although not as important as traditional baseball analysis would suggest, clutch hitting ability was more significant than other sabermetric studies had shown. The article also found there to be a connection between clutch hitting ability and situational hitting, or the ability to adjust a hitting approach to fit the given situation.^[45]

Views on traditional statistics

Baseball Prospectus writers often successfully argue that traditional baseball statistics such as RBIs, wins, and Batting Average are poor reflections of a player's true contributions. For example, they have argued that RBIs are too dependent on factors outside of the player's control, namely the production of other hitters in the lineup.^[46][47] They similarly argue that wins are too affected by factors such as the team's offense and bullpen.^[48]

Closer usage

Baseball Prospectus writers assert that teams are typically inefficient in their use of their best relievers. Teams typically assign their most effective reliever to the position of closer, using him in only save situations. According to many Baseball Prospectus writers, a team's best reliever should be used when the opposing team has its best chance at increasing its chances of winning.^[49]

Views on sacrifice bunts and stolen bases

Many writers argue that the sacrifice bunt and stolen base are overused in baseball. Teams will often attempt these plays when the score is close. Writers for Baseball Prospectus often argue that teams are, on average, actually lowering their expected number of runs scored. They argue that stolen base attempts are not completed frequently enough for them to be beneficial to the offense.^[50] For sacrifice bunts, they argue that the team is giving up more by sacrificing an out than they gain by advancing a runner one base. Their thinking is derived from the grid of expected runs in an inning based on the outs and runner situation, which shows that the sacrifice is detrimental to a team given average players in most of the situations in which it is typically used.^[51]

In a series of articles in 2004, James Click argued that sacrifice bunts are beneficial in some situations, dependent on the quality of the batter at the plate and the situation in the game.^[52]

Statistical tools

Baseball Prospectus writers use a wide variety of sabermetric tools. Among the major tools that they are credited with inventing are:

• Value over replacement player (VORP) – a measurement of the number of runs contributed by a player over the expected level of performance the average team can obtain if it needs to replace a starting player at minimal cost.^[53]
• Pitcher Abuse Points (PAP) – a measure of the impact of a particular start by a pitcher on his arm, based on pitch count.^[54]
• Equivalent average (EqA) – a combination of various hitting numbers designed to express a player's overall offensive contribution.^[55]
• Peripheral ERA (PERA) – a pitcher's expected ERA based on park-adjusted hits, walks, strikeouts, and home runs allowed.^[56]
• PECOTA – a system of player projection based on similarity to previous player seasons.^[57]
• Equivalent Baserunning Runs (EqBRR) – a statistic indicating a player's rate of run production resulting from his baserunning.^[58]

Voros McCracken's pathbreaking article on Defense Independent Pitching Statistics also first appeared on the BP website.^[59]

Regular writers

Current (2014)

• R. J. Anderson – began writing for BP in January 2011, specializing in transactions and roster management. He formerly wrote for Fangraphs. For BP he writes the feature column, "Painting the Black".

• Tommy Bennett – joined BP in November 2009 and was soon given a regular "Expanded Horizons" bylined column. Bennett is a former writer for the sabermetric website Beyond the Box Score and a contributor to other baseball blogs.^[60]

• Dan Brooks – joined BP in 2014 and contributed columns on numerous themes.

• Maury Brown – debuted with a new column in 2006 called "The Ledger Domain," in which he discussed the business of baseball. Since December 2011 he has been writing under the headline "Bizball". Brown is former co-chair of SABR’s Business of Baseball committee. He is the founder and creator of The Business of Sports Network,^[61] which includes BizofBaseball.com.^[62] Brown wrote an essay outlining the collusion rulings in the '80s in Rob Neyer's "Big Book of Baseball Blunders" and is a former columnist for The Hardball Times. He has also contributed to Yahoo! Sports, Baseball America and The New York Post.

• Russell Carleton – a clinical psychologist who formerly published the blog Baseball Psychologist^[63] and developed the blog Statistically Speaking,^[64] Carleton is a well-known sabermetrician under the nom de plume "Pizza Cutter" and has contributed to numerous on-line baseball blogs. He claims that sabermetrics saved his dissertation.^[65] In December 2009, he inaugurated a "Baseball Therapy" weekly column on BP. On May 3, 2010, he announced that he was departing BP.^[66] He returned to BP in July 2012.

• Jason Collette – joined the BP staff in 2010 as a fantasy baseball writer. He also writes for RotoWire^[67] and is the owner of the fantasy baseball discussion board RotoJunkie.^[68]

• Corey Dawkins – joined the BP staff in February 2011. He's the creator of the blog Baseball Injury Tool.^[69] He has trained in sports medicine and served as an athletic trainer at Division I and Division III schools.^[70] With Marc Normandin, he co-authors the "Collateral Damage" feature column.

• Jeff Euston – creator of the authoritative Cot's Baseball Contracts website^[71] win 2005 which tracks the salary of every MLB player.^[72] The website was moved under BP.^[73] Euston initiated a regular "Contractual Matters" feature column on BP in January 2010.

• Nick J. Faleris – after joining the BP staff in 2013, in September 2014 he became Co-Director of the Baseball Prospectus Prospect Group.^[74]

• Ken Funck – winner of the first Prospectus Idol competition,^[75] began his feature "Changing Speeds" column in July 2009. Puts his skills in database management to work on a range of sabermetric issues, including creating SOMA ("Shorter Outings, More Appearances"), a proposal for radical change in pitching rotations.^[76]

• Larry Granillo – creator and manager of the Wezen-Ball baseball blog,^[77] Granillo began bringing the content of that blog to BaseballProspectus.com in February 2011.

• Joe Hamrahi – began writing for BP in 2010. Hamrahi previously ran Baseball Daily Digest^[78] before it was acquired by BP, and he now serves as CFO of BP.

• Matthew Kory – a writer for "Over the Monster" and "Splice Today," Kory joined the BP staff in Spring 2012.

• Max Marchi – joined BP's writing staff in 2012, with an inaugural article in January, "Marking My Debut".^[79]

• Rob McQuown – joined the BP staff in 2012.

• Chris Mellen – after joining the BP staff in 2012, in September 2014 he became Co-Director of the Baseball Prospectus Prospect Group.^[74]

• Sam Miller – joined BP in July 2011. As of 2014, Miller is Editor-in-Chief of Baseball Prospectus. Miller was formerly a [Los Angeles of Anaheim] blogger for the Orange County Register. He co-hosts BP's daily podcast, "Effectively Wild", and is a contributor to ESPN The Magazine.

• Jason Parks – writes about prospects and the minor leagues, under the bylined heading "Prospects Will Break Your Heart". From 2011-2012, he co-hosted the BP podcast "Up and In". At the end of August 2014 he left BP to join the Chicago Cubs baseball organization as a scout.^[80]

• Daniel Rathman – joined BP in 2014, contributing a regular "What You Need to Know" column.

• Sahadev Sharma – joined BP as an Assistant Editor in 2014.

• Doug Thorburn – initiated a feature column on pitching, "Raising Aces," in April 2012.^[81]

• Jason Wojciechowski – a writer about the A's on the "Beaneball" blog as well as a contributor to "The Platoon Advantage," Wojciechowski joined the BP crew in 2012.

• Geoff Young – founder and editor of Ducksnorts,^[82] a blog devoted to the San Diego Padres, Young joined the BP staff in 2010.

Former

• Robert Arthur – joined BP in 2014 and contributed a regular feature column called "Moonshot". On March 25, 2015, Arthur wrote his last column for BP and joined the staff of FiveThirtyEight.^[83]

• Bill Baer – joined the BP staff in 2010 as a fantasy baseball writer and contributed to BP through 2011. He also blogs about the Philadelphia Phillies at Crashburn Alley.

• Jim Baker – joined BP in 2004 and wrote a "Prospectus Matchups" weekly column through 2008, in which he discussed upcoming series. Baker contributed to the first edition of Bill James' Historical Baseball Abstract and also wrote for ESPN.com, primarily on ESPN's "Insider" and "Page 2". After leaving BP he wrote for SB Nation.

• Jesse Behr - wrote for BP from June 2010 until May 2011 with regular blog column entitled "Analyze This." Founded The 'Burgh Blues blog on the Pittsburgh Pirates and the website Field of Ignorance.^[84] 'Burgh Blues was rated the number one MLBlog in 2009. Behr is currently an associate scout for the Toronto Blue Jays.

• Dave Cameron – In 2003 wrote a regular feature, "Prospecting," in which he focused on minor league prospects. Co-author of U.S.S. Mariner blog^[85] and editor-owner of the sabermetric website FanGraphs.

• Marc Carig – joined the BP staff in May 2011 as a beat writer with a weekly feature "Clubhouse Confidential" column. Carig also writes about the Mets for Newsday. He previously covered the Yankees for the New Jersey Star Ledger and the Baltimore Orioles for the Washington Post. He is a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America.

• Alex Carnevale – in 2006 took over the "Week in Quotes" column, a collection of quotes from baseball personalities from the previous week.

• Will Carroll – a Senior Writer for BP who from 2003 through 2010 wrote the "Under The Knife" daily column, a summary of injury news, and was a host of Baseball Prospectus Radio. In the preseason, he wrote "Team Health Reports" and "Positional Health Reports." He also has published Saving the Pitcher (ISBN 1-56663-578-0), and The Juice (ISBN 1-56663-668-X), which won the 2005 Sporting News-SABR Baseball Research Award. He is a contributor to MLB.com's Fantasy 411 and writes a weekly column on NFL injuries for RotoWire.com.^[86] Carroll is a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America. At the end of September, 2010, Carroll left the BP staff.^[87]

• James Click – Began contributing to BP in 2003 and wrote a featured "Crooked Numbers" column from 2005 to 2006 until he joined the Tampa Bay Rays as Coordinator of Baseball Operations.

• Jason Cole – Wrote for BP's prospect team until November 2013, when he was hired to be a pro scout for the Tampa Bay Rays.

• Clay Davenport – a co-founder of BP who was responsible for many of the website's behind-the-scenes operations, including its advanced statistics, statistical reports, and play-off odds simulations.^[88] Davenport invented Equivalent average, the Pythagenport Formula (a variation on the Pythagorean expectation)^[89] and "Davenport Translations" or "DT's", which translate minor league and international baseball statistics into American major league baseball equivalents and place all statistics on the same scale, regardless of era.^[90] He now writes his own blog ClayDavenport.com.^[91]

• Neil deMause – a writer for BP since 2003, de Mause contributed articles about stadium building and baseball finance. In 2011 he wrote a feature column under the title of "The Payoff Pitch". He is co-author of the 1999 book Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public Money into Private Profit (ISBN 1-56751-138-4). He also maintains his own website^[92] as well as writing for The Village Voice and other publications.

• Bradford Doolittle – who was a writer for the sister site BasketballProspectus.com beginning in 2009, joined the BaseballProspectus.com team in February 2011. He has also been a sportswriter for the Kansas City Star and contributed articles to many baseball blogs. In 2012 he debuted a featured column with BP, "Inside the Park". He left BP in March 2013, when all BasketballProspectus.com writers departed for ESPN. He is currently an NBA writer-analyst for ESPN Insider.

• Mike Fast – joined the BP staff in 2010. He maintains his own blog, Fast Balls,^[93] and formerly wrote for The Hardball Times. In 2011, he began a regular BP column, "Spinning Yarn". In January 2012, Fast announced that he was leaving Baseball Prospectus and had been hired as an analyst by the Houston Astros.

• Dan Fox – from April 2006 to April 2008, wrote a weekly "Schrödinger's Bat" column, usually employing hard-core quantitative sabermetric techniques. Fox is a former author for The Hardball Times. In addition to innovative analyses of pitch-by-pitch data and creating new metrics accounting for baserunning,^[94] he has developed and distributed software for charting the locations of balls in play.^[95] He also expounds on sports, technology, history and other curiosities in his blog, Dan Agonistes.^[96] On April 17, 2008, in the publication of his 100th "Schrödinger's Bat" column, Fox announced that he was leaving BP to take a position as Director of Baseball Systems Development in the front office of the Pittsburgh Pirates.^[97]

• Steven Goldman – effective January 2011 became the Editor-in-Chief of the BP website,^[98] a position that he retained until March 2012. Having joined the BP staff in 2003, since 2004 he wrote "You Could Look It Up" columns, discussing baseball's history using new statistical tools; since becoming Editor-in-Chief, he began a new feature column, "The BP Broadside". Goldman edited BP's book Mind Game as well as authored his own book Forging Genius: The Making of Casey Stengel (2005 — ISBN 1-57488-873-0) (2006 — ISBN 1-57488-874-9). Goldman also wrote the "Pinstriped Bible"^[99] and "Pinstripe Blog"^[100] for the YES Network, and wrote regular columns on the New York Yankees and New York Mets for the New York Sun. He was co-editor or editor of several volumes of the Baseball Prospectus annual. In December 2011, he was selected as a BP representative in the Baseball Writers Association of America. In March 2012, he left Baseball Prospectus to become a lead baseball writer for Bleacher Report. He is now the MLB Editor for SB Nation, where he also continues his "Pinstriped Bible" blog.^[99] His final "BP Broadside" was published on March 2, 2012.^[101]

• Kevin Goldstein – assumed the role of Managing Partner of Baseball Prospectus in March, 2009.^[11] From 2006 through 2012, he wrote multiple-times-per week "Future Shock" columns on high school, college, and minor league player prospects, with an emphasis on scouting rather than sabermetrics. He also covered Winter League baseball, Spring training, the Major League Baseball draft, scouting, personnel development, and the baseball player marketplace. Before joining BP, Goldstein was a writer for Baseball America. He left Baseball Prospectus in 2012 to become the Pro Scouting Coordinator for the Houston Astros.^[102]

• Jeremy Greenhouse – formerly a writer for Baseball Analysts, Greenhouse joined BP in 2011 and writes a column under the header "Spitballing".

• Shawn Hoffman – began a regular column, "The Biz Beat," in 2009, later renamed "Squawking Baseball." Shawn also maintains a blog, Squawking Baseball,^[103] which provides a "Wall Street Analysis of the Major League Baseball Player Market". He has also published on other baseball related blogs, including The Baseball Analysts.^[104] He last published on BaseballProspectus.com in September 2010.

• Gary Huckabay – founder and former Executive Vice-President of Baseball Prospectus, announced his return as a regular contributor to BaseballProspectus.com with an "Unfiltered" post on August 2, 2007.^[105] He resumed his "6–4–3" bylined columns on September 4, 2007. However, this was one of only two such columns contributed during the 2007 season.

• Derek Jacques – since 2006 wrote on a variety of topics including the "Prospectus Game of the Week" feature in 2006, the Caribbean Series, and the "Prospectus Toolbox" series in which he explained advanced sabermetric tools in layman's language.

• Jay Jaffe – beginning in 2005 wrote a weekly "Prospectus Hit List" column, which "power ranks" all major league teams and comments on the rankings. In July 2007, Jaffe debuted a second weekly column, "Prospectus Hit and Run," which took over some of the content that previously was included in the "Hit List," while allowing him to expound his interpretation of trends more fully. Jaffe created the JAWS score for evaluating Baseball Hall of Fame Prospects.^[106] He also maintains his own Futility Infielder blog^[107] and is a staff writer for the Pinstripe Bible.^[108] In 2010, Jaffe became a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America. In April 2013, Jaffe left BP and is a writer for Sports Illustrated (SI.com).

• Rany Jazayerli – a co-founder of BP who wrote an occasional "Doctoring the Numbers" columns for Baseball Prospectus.com. For many years he also compiled BP's annual Top 50 Prospects list. He is the inventor of the concept of Pitcher Abuse Points (PAP).^[54] He has his own blog, Rany on the Royals.^[109] Since 2011 he has been a writer for Grantland.

• Sky Kalkman – formerly a writer for the blog Beyond the Box Score,^[110] Kalkman began writing for BP in 2011.

• Christina Kahrl – one of the co-founders of BP and the co-editor of most editions of the group's annual books. In April 2011 she left BP to join the baseball writing and editorial staff of ESPN.com.^[111] For BP she wrote the bi-weekly "Transaction Analysis" columns, listing and then commenting on the roster activity of all 30 major league teams. In 2011 she began a new feature column, "Purpose Pitches". She has also written for SportsIllustrated.com, ESPN.com, the New York Sun, Salon.com, Slate, Playboy, and the Washington Blade, and was an associate editor of The ESPN Pro Football Encyclopedia. She is the former Acquisitions Editor of Brassey's Sports, a mid-list publisher that focused on sports history and analysis.^[112] Kahrl is a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America.

• Jonah Keri – wrote on miscellaneous topics, most involving interviews with baseball administrators and personalities. Edited BP's book Baseball Between the Numbers. He is the author of The Extra 2%: How Wall Street Strategies Took a Major League Baseball Team from Worst to First (2011) (ISBN 0345517652). He was a senior writer for Fangraphs and is now a writer for Grantland and FiveThirtyEight.

• David Laurila – from late 2006 to May 2011 took the main responsibility for the "Prospectus Q & A" column, in which he interviewed personages from the baseball community: players, managers, and analysts/writers. He is the author of the book Interviews from Red Sox Nation (2006) (ISBN 0977743616). As of December, 2010, Laurila is a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America. Laurila began writing for Fangraphs in May 2011.

• Keith Law – a writer for BP from 1997 until 2002 when he joined the Toronto Bluejays organization as a "Consultant to Baseball Operations." Now a writer for ESPN.com and a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America.

• Ben Lindbergh – appointed as an editor of Baseball Prospectus in January 2011, then promoted to Managing Editor in March 2012 and Editor-in-Chief in July 2012, a roll that he departed in 2014. He now writes for Grantland. First contributed to BP in 2008 and began writing a by-lined column "Overthinking It" in 2010. He was editor of the two-volume Best of Baseball Prospectus collection, published in 2011. In December 2011, he was selected as a BP representative in the Baseball Writers Association of America.

• Joey Matschulat – joined BP in 2011 and writes a column under the header "Divide and Conquer." Matschulat also writes for the Texas Rangers blog Baseball Time in Arlington.^[113]

• Zach 'Mort' Mortimer – Wrote BP's Minor League Update until he was hired by the St. Louis Cardinals to be an amateur scout.

• Marc Normandin – a writer for BP from 2006 until 2011, wrote the weekly "Player Profile" column in which he analyzed the record and performance of a particular player from a sabermetric perspective. Beginning in Fall 2007 he wrote a twice-weekly "BP Fantasy Beat" column, offering strategic advice to fantasy baseball players. In February 2010 he announced his appointment as BP's Fantasy Manager.^[14] As of 2014, we was a writer for SB Nation.^[114]

• Doug Pappas – was a regular contributor to Baseball Prospectus from 2001 to 2004 and a listed contributor to the 4th and 5th editions of Total Baseball. Pappas was also very active within the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), in 1994 founding and then chairing the SABR Business of Baseball committee and serving as the organization's parliamentarian.

• John Perrotto – beginning in 2007 enhanced BP's coverage with his "Every Given Sunday" column and a mid-week "On the Beat" column. In 2010 he also served in the role of BP.com's Editor in Chief (succeeded by Steven Goldman in that role). From 1982 through 2008 he was on the staff of The Beaver County Times and some of his other work can be found online at Timesonline.com.^[115] Perrotto also writes regular "Around the Rim" and "On the Beat" columns for Basketball Prospectus.^[116] Perrotto phased out his role at BP in mid-summer 2013 and now covers baseball for USA Today Sports. He is a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America.

• Dayn Perry – wrote his "Can of Corn" column on BP from 2003 to 2008, except for a two-year hiatus in 2006–2007. Author of the book Winners: How Good Baseball Teams Become Great Ones (2006) (ISBN 0471721743), Perry is a regular contributor to FoxSports.com and also writes for Fangraphs.

• Mike Petriello – joined the BP staff in 2010 as a fantasy baseball writer. He also blogs about the Los Angeles Dodgers at Mike Scioscia's Tragic Illness.^[117]

• David Pinto – joined BP in 2007 and wrote "The Big Picture", a weekly column which presented ideas about the big leagues in general.^[118] Pinto is also a writer for Baseball Musings, a general interest baseball blog. On September 26, 2007, Pinto wrote a farewell column at BP and announced that he will become a regular columnist for Sporting News.

• Chris St. John – formerly a writer for Beyond the Box Score^[110] and The Process Report,^[119] joined BP in June 2011.

• Eric Seidman – after joining BP in 2008, from 2009 til 2010 he published a feature column, "Checking the Numbers". In April 2010, he began a bi-weekly "Seidnotes" column as well.^[120] He last published on Baseball Prospectus in February 2011, and now writes for Fangraphs.

• Joe Sheehan – a co-founder and a BP Senior Writer who discussed an important topic from the previous day's action in the almost-daily "Prospectus Today" column. Sheehan co-edited the first Baseball Prospectus annual volume, which appeared in 1996, as well as several subsequent editions. In October 2007, he assumed an added role as Managing Editor of Basketball Prospectus.^[121] In his last BP column, published on December 31, 2009, Sheehan wrote: "This is my last column for Baseball Prospectus. My contract ends today, making me like any number of free agents looking for work. No hard feelings or recriminations, just two entities doing business".^[122] Since 2010 he has published an "Inside Baseball" column in Sports Illustrated.

• Nate Silver – from 2003 to 2009 wrote a "Lies, Damned Lies" column, which often debunked current common baseball opinion. He also served as BP's Managing Partner. Silver created BP's PECOTA forecasting system, the QuikERA (QERA) statistic,^[123] MORP (Market value Over Replacement Player),^[124] and the Elo rating adapted by Clay Davenport for use in BP's Postseason Odds report.^[125][126] In 2009 he created ESPN's Soccer Power Index (SPi) for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.^[127] He writes the political blog FiveThirtyEight, which operated as a licensed feature of The New York Times online from August 2010 to August 2013. In July 2013, ESPN announced that it had acquired the rights to the FiveThirtyEight brand and site, and Silver would become its editor-in-chief.^[128]

• Bryan Smith – joined the BP staff in 2007 after merging his Wait 'Til Next Year blog into The Baseball Analysts in 2005. Writes on college baseball, the minor leagues, and major league prospects under the "Wait 'Til Next Year" feature heading. Smith has also written for SI.com, Baseball America, and other media outlets. In May 2008, he left BP to take a position with MLB Advanced Media. In February 2009 Smith rejoined BP and resumed his Wait 'Til Next Year column. As of 2010 he was a writer for Fangraphs.

• Matt Swartz – began writing a regular feature column "Ahead in the Count" in July 2009 after being a finalist in BP's "Prospectus Idol" competition.^[129] He is one of the bloglords at The Good Phight,^[130] a Philadelphia Phillies blog, and has contributed sabermetrically oriented articles to other online media. As of 2011 he was a writer for Fangraphs.

• Dan Turkenkopf – formerly a writer for Beyond the Box Score^[110] and The Hardball Times, joined BP in 2011. Turkenkopf was hired to be a developer of baseball systems for the Tampa Bay Rays

• Keith Woolner – began writing for BP in 1999 and in 2001–2007 wrote "Aim For The Head" columns, discussing statistics and how they help to interpret the game. Worked behind the scenes on BP's databases and the "statistics" section of the website. Woolner invented Value over replacement player^[131] and a variation on Pitcher Abuse Points.^[132] Woolner left BP in May 2007 to join the front office of the Cleveland Indians.^[133]

• Colin Wyers – formerly a writer for The Hardball Times, Wyers joined the BP staff in December 2009. A Cubs fan and resident of Davenport, Iowa, Wyers was engaged in developing new defense metrics.^[134] In 2010 be began to write a regular feature column under the heading "Manufactured Runs", and became the chief architect of improvements in the PECOTA forecasting system. In November 2013, he announced his departure from BP to begin a position with the Houston Astros as a mathematical modeler.^[135]

• Derek Zumsteg – From 2002 to 2007 wrote a feature "Breaking Balls" column for BP. Beginning in 2000 he also wrote numerous other columns, including founding the "Week in Quotes" feature. Co-owner, with David Cameron, of the U.S.S. Mariner blog devoted to the Seattle Mariners.^[136]

Criticism

Criticism of methodology

Baseball Prospectus, as well as other sabermetric analysts, are criticized for taking the human aspect out of the game of baseball. For example, Murray Chass of The New York Times wrote in an article that he did not want to hear or read about new-age baseball statistics any more (referencing Value over replacement player specifically), saying:

"I suppose that if stats mongers want to sit at their computers and play with these things all day long, that’s their prerogative. But their attempt to introduce these new-age statistics into the game threatens to undermine most fans’ enjoyment of baseball and the human factor therein. People play baseball. Numbers don’t."^[137]

Nate Silver, BP's Managing Partner at the time, responded to this criticism in "An Open Letter to Murray Chass," including offering to meet Chass to watch a ballgame.^[138] He expounded on the case for a positive impact of sabermetrics on the game of baseball in an article "How Sabermetrics Helps Build a Better Ballgame," published on Baseball Analysts.com.^[139]

Another type of criticism comes from those who believe that by broadening its coverage and audience, Baseball Prospectus is becoming more like the mainstream media and losing what made it unique. In response to a question along this line in an on-line chat, Silver wrote:

From a brand standpoint, we're more concerned about differentiation based on quality than differentiation based on where we fall on sort of the "saberpolitical" spectrum.^[140]

Criticism of journalistic standards

Baseball Prospectus was widely criticized for publishing and aggressively promoting a 2003 story claiming that banished player/manager Pete Rose had reached an agreement to return to baseball.^[141] Will Carroll made the rounds on television and radio, claiming to have spoken to unnamed sources who had actually seen the agreement.^[142] Spokesmen for both Rose and Major League Baseball refuted the claim,^[143][144] but Carroll and his colleagues insisted their reporting was accurate. No other news source confirmed the story. In fact, Rose was not reinstated and remains banned from baseball.^[145]

Books published by Baseball Prospectus

• Extra Innings: More Baseball Between the Numbers from the Team at Baseball Prospectus. Steven Goldman, Ed. New York: Basic Books, 2012. ISBN 0-465-02403-3 (hardback).

Collections of BaseballProspectus.com articles

• Best of Baseball Prospectus: 1996–2011 (Volume 1). Ben Lindbergh, Ed. CreateSpace, 2011. ISBN 978-1-4664-7279-2.
• Best of Baseball Prospectus: 1996–2011 (Volume 2). Ben Lindbergh, Ed. CreateSpace, 2011. ISBN 978-1-4680-3835-4.

External links

• Articles by BP writers in ESPN archive, 2003
• Articles by BP writers in ESPN Insider archive
• Articles by BP writers in Sports Illustrated vault
• Baseball Prospectus website
• Baseball Daily Digest website
• Basketball Prospectus website
• Hockey Prospectus website
• FootballOutsiders.com

Notes