Friday, September 11, 2009
About the Annual
Posted by Dave StudemanWe are hard at work on this year's Hardball Times Baseball Annual. It looks like we'll have about 35 articles this year, a little less than last year. We pulled back because some reviewers seemed overwhelmed by how much content there was in last year's book. 35 articles is still pretty lengthy. Before last year, we published about 30 articles per book.
Most THT writers will be contributing to the Annual, as will several guest writers. Bill James, Craig Wright, Rob Neyer and Tom Tango, some of the biggest names in baseball, have all said they'll contribute. We'll also have a Pitchf/x section led by Harry Pavlidis, Mike Fast and Dave Allen. Sky Andrecheck will contribute his Postseason Probability Added for 2009 to the Annual (an exclusive).
Baseball America's Ben Badler will discuss the situation in Latin America and Corey Dawkins will provide exclusive analysis and commentary of baseball injuries. David Gassko will use his analytic skills to develop a prediction model for MVP and Cy Young voting. Greg Rybarczyk will present his exclusive Hit Tracker findings and Sean Smith will contribute insights from his cutting-edge Wins Above Replacement stat.
And that's just some of the 35 articles. We'll also have our usual component of 2010 reviews, stats, graphs and downloads. Plus, we are going to push hard to distribute the Annual in early November, which means it will hopefully be in bookstores before Thanksgiving.
If you pre-order it now from ACTA Publications, you will get sooner than anyone else, early November. Amazon and the bookstores will receive it a week or two later and then they'll have to send it to you. Plus, ACTA provides excellent customer service and a broad selection of terrific baseball books.
Even more importantly (at least to us), THT will benefit the most when you order from ACTA. You know that we're not a subscription site, and we depend on Internet advertising and books sales to cover our costs. Pretty much the entire price difference between Amazon and ACTA goes to THT, so you'd be contributing to a good cause if you do purchase from ACTA. If you decide to order through Amazon anyway, please consider making a small donation to THT in addition to your purchase.
Thanks very much for your consideration. I know money is short everywhere, and we'll work hard to ensure the Annual is the best baseball value you'll find.
Dave was called a "national treasure" by Rob Neyer. Seriously. Comments about this article can be sent to him through the miracle of e-mail.