{"id":516,"date":"2008-07-22T06:30:45","date_gmt":"2008-07-22T05:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=516"},"modified":"2009-09-26T11:58:35","modified_gmt":"2009-09-26T10:58:35","slug":"baseball-prospectus-free-this-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=516","title":{"rendered":"Baseball Prospectus: Free this week"},"content":{"rendered":"

Baseball Prospectus.com<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0has throwed its doors open\u00c2\u00a0this week allowing curious baseball fans the chance to sample what they have to offer.\u00c2\u00a0 Whether you are a stat fan who hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t yet taken the plunge into the Premium content, or if your natural inclination is to avoid the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcnumbers geeks\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 at all costs, it’s an opportunity worth taking up if you haven’t read much from the BP Team before.<\/p>\n

For several years, my \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcbaseball-related\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 expenditure has included a BP Premium subscription alongside their excellent annual.\u00c2\u00a0 Now, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m probably not their core target audience.\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not overly obsessed with stats and anything beyond a bit of simple number crunching on my part takes me out of my comfort zone.\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m also far from the world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s biggest fantasy freak, so the Fantasy-based content isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t of great interest to me.\u00c2\u00a0 Yet in spite of this, I always enjoy reading a number of their writers and, combined with my amateur forays into their extensive stats sections, that more than makes the subscription fee excellent value for money.<\/p>\n

BP has a reputation in some quarters for being a group of smarmy know-it-all blighters.\u00c2\u00a0 The image doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t match the reality though.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, they are often opinionated and pull no punches when they think someone deserves criticism.\u00c2\u00a0 They are also happy to go against conventional wisdom and to tell you why you are wrong, which understandably can rub people up the wrong way at times, but they are not mere tub thumpers.\u00c2\u00a0 When they say something, they invariably back it up with evidence in an effort to convince you of their position.\u00c2\u00a0 Sometimes it works; sometimes you still end up disagreeing with them.\u00c2\u00a0 Either way, they always get you thinking and they are never boring.\u00c2\u00a0 I sometimes think that as the Internet has allowed everyone a voice, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s actually made people less willing to listen to others, rather than encouraging the sharing of ideas.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s amazing how many people you come across on the Internet who cannot cope with the idea of someone having a different opinion to theirs.\u00c2\u00a0 Okay, you have to acknowledge there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a healthy \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcnutter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 element out there on the message boards and forums, but even so \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Anyway, what I like most about BP is that, in a lot of cases, they use their numbers as supporting evidence to their content rather than being the focus of the actual articles.\u00c2\u00a0 Will Carroll has started adding in some stats to his regular \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcUnder the Knife\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 column, but essentially they are based around the information about player injuries that he gets from his many contacts in the game (warning: Will\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcs article from yesterday includes a link to a post on Curt Schilling\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcs blog where he talks about his latest injury.\u00c2\u00a0 This includes graphic, mid-operation pictures that are fascinating viewing but are a bit much when you\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcre surfing the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcnet while innocently eating some rhubarb crumble).\u00c2\u00a0 Kevin Goldstein\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s writing about prospects is unmatched, as is Christina Kahrl\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s analysis of all the latest transactions.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Joe Sheehan is never knowingly shy at stating his opinion on all the major issues in the game, while John Perrotto brings another different flavour to the mix with his \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcnewspaper sports journalist\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 type columns.\u00c2\u00a0 And of course if you are a dedicated fan of stats, there is plenty of cutting-edge statistical analysis to enjoy as well.<\/p>\n

So spend a bit of time this week looking through the fantastic content that BP publishes.\u00c2\u00a0 A full Premium subscription for the year costs \u00c2\u00a320 ($39.95), possibly around \u00c2\u00a321 if you have to pay an overseas transaction charge to your bank .\u00c2\u00a0 At \u00c2\u00a31.75 or less per month, you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t go wrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Baseball Prospectus.com\u00c2\u00a0has throwed its doors open\u00c2\u00a0this week allowing curious baseball fans the chance to sample what they have to offer.\u00c2\u00a0 Whether you are a stat fan who hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t yet taken the plunge into the Premium content, or if your natural inclination is to avoid the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcnumbers geeks\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 at all costs, it’s an opportunity worth taking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[553],"class_list":["post-516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb-2","tag-mlb-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=516"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4648,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516\/revisions\/4648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}