As you may already know, we tried self-publishing on for size last year with Pro Basketball Prospectus 2009-10 and College Basketball Prospectus 2009-10. We had a positive experience with those books, and we’re moving into self-publishing baseball material this year.
I’m pleased to announce that we’ve signed our friend Joe Sheehan for the first book we’ll be announcing in 2010. "The Untitled Joe Sheehan Book" is going to expand on and update a few dozen signature pieces Joe wrote for BP over the years, and will be edited by Christina Kahrl. It will be ready for the printer by this year’s playoffs at the latest.
Joe will be maintaining a production weblog for the book, and we’ll be featuring that at BP.com. You’ll be able to get more information about the book there soon. Joe will also be doing several chats at BP.com in support of the project.
Now, back to working on the PECOTA cards… shooting for end of the week with those.
Thank you for reading
This is a free article. If you enjoyed it, consider subscribing to Baseball Prospectus. Subscriptions support ongoing public baseball research and analysis in an increasingly proprietary environment.
Subscribe now
Glad to hear Joe is back in the mix in some capacity but still holding out hope that he'll step back into his old role.
But please, enough with the veiled and not-so-veiled criticism of the decision that his BP column would cease. It's not like he's Bill James breaking the wand. He's just this guy, you know?
Rant off.
It's time to move on. There is a an entire contingent of extremely capable writers here at B-Pro, and it's time we start appreciating them, too.
I, at least, am excited about this continued collaboration with Joe, as well as all of the new content we've been seeing in web-form.
I know BP signed a bunch of that site's nominees for "Best Sabermetric Researcher or Writer." Those folks have already improved the BP site.
But please, bring back Joe Sheehan. The readers want him back. (What's the first comment's rating up to now, +100?) If Sheehan wants to write a book instead of a regular column, just tell us and we'll stop asking for more Prospectus Today. If that's not it, then somebody must figure out how to get Sheehan back.
That being said, Joe was a fun writer, but does he really fall into the sabremetric researcher/writer category?
From what I saw, the selection of nominees was pretty good...
For me to poop on.
Of course, with the recent changes to the writing staff tilting BP much further back in a research-oriented direction (and less in the more "general interest" direction represented by Joe), perhaps this will change next year.
But if Joe did want $$$ such that would mandate dropping a couple other writers, I'll cast my vote for the extra other writers.
I think being the messiah of an entire race of bone-heady aliens elevates you over being the first President of the Interstellar Alliance. As if THAT'S gonna last.
(Actually, I'm with you. It's Sheridan.)
Glad I could settle these things for ya. Anything additional you need, lemme know.
Palm notes or teleprompter?
DH or Pitcher batting?
Thanks for the help, these conundrums weigh heavily on a fella.
Go with the technical school since it's a 'Labor' Day game. Palm notes, as it's cool watching somebody trying to read with their hand in their face. DH, unless you drink heavily during the game and so have to pee all the time. Then Pitcher ABs help out there.
Similarly, would love to read a book by Gammons.
However, I hope BP goes straight to paperback - way less overhead, and more space on my bookshelves.
That being said, given that that book's purpose is to "expand on and update a few dozen signature pieces Joe wrote for BP over the years," I'm unlikely to buy it. I've already read nearly 100% of the columns when they first appeared on the website and I'm seldom inclined to explore the archives to reread his columns, so I doubt I'd buy a book with expanded, updated versions of the same articles. The original content / recycled content ratio doesn't sound very high. For what it's worth, I buy most of the BP baseball books.