BP Unfiltered: People Are Currently Reading The 2015 BP Annual And You Could Be Next

The first line of LaTroy Hawkins' comment in Baseball Prospectus 2015 says, "Hawkins is the only pitcher in every Baseball Prospectus Annual ever." You can take this as a testament to the Annual or as a testament to Hawkins. Let's look at the tale of the tape over the last 20 years:

So when you really sit down and you think about how hard it is for a pitcher to survive and thrive for one year, for one game, for one pitch, how much the game has changed in the last 20 years, how many players have suffered career-ending injuries, the answer is clear: it's way way more impressive that the Baseball Prospectus Annual is still around. The Annual is real

The 2015 Baseball Prospectus arrived in the mail today!!!

— Jim (@Yah_Mule) January 28, 2015

and if you order it today you'll be holding it in your hands … well, we're just the editors, not Amazon, so we have no idea when you'll be holding it in your hands. But soon. Look!

What bad day at work? @baseballpro @ChrisMellen #want #have pic.twitter.com/pWdeKQG0rm

— Larri Fish (@larrifish) January 28, 2015

There it is! In the wild! It's real! People have it! Look, everyone is proud of their baby. "Look how cute!" "Look how smart!" Except our baby really is gorgeous and intelligent and funny and all the things any discerning baseball fan wants from a baseball book. I mean, have you seen the contributor list? Essays are bylined again this year, as they were last year, and we got an incredible crop. And for the first time, comment sections are bylined as well (though it's worth noting that the comment bylines are more rough guides than a guarantee that the names at the top of the chapter wrote each and every word in the comments; there's more of a team aspect to comments than there is to essays):

I mean, come onnnnn. Look at that list! Throw three darts at that list and the three names you land on will be worth the price of admission. (Which as of this writing is a measly $17.79.) And then you've still got the other 27 chapters, which are amazing. And that's not even the end of it. The book also has:

• Manager comments by R.J. Anderson
• A foreword from Brian Bannister
• Essays from Russell Carleton; Dan Brooks, Glenn Fleisig, and Harry Pavlidis; and Robert Whiting
• Top 101 Prospects, with writeups from the BP Prospect Team

Oh, and Peter Gammons wrote the preface. NBD.

(!!!!!!)

When you can put an All-Star team like the one listed above together, more than anything you just want to let them flourish. We think they did. The book is full of the usual trenchant analysis and thought-provoking, innovative comments and essays that have kept the book going for 20 years. It also has, and this is a money-back guarantee, at least 479 jokes, one shrug guy ¯_(ツ)_/¯, one piece of post-apocalyptic short fiction, and 17 meditations on death. We are, in short, as proud of it as LaTroy Hawkins' mom is of him. LaTroy Hawkins will not come to your house for 20 bucks. The book will.