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Beta testers,

Hopefully you heard about our Best of Baseball Prospectus books last Friday.  We're just finishing them up and at this point we have some reasonably complete PDFs.  We're submitting them for printing within days or even hours, depending on a couple of things, but until we have to hit send we could use your help proofing them.  For Baseball Prospectus Beta testers only, we're adding free copies of the book to your Digital Downloads and releasing the PDFs early to you.  To get to them

  • make sure you're logged in, but you'd have to be logged in to see this post, so there you go.
  • click 'manage my profile' in the blue login bar on any BP page header (or you could click here)
  • scroll to the Digital Downloads header.  You should see a PDF highlighed in green, which you can click to download.

Please submit any comments, questions, or requests in this thread, and anything that we can incorporate before we go to press we will.

Enjoy, and thanks!

Thank you for reading

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jrmayne
12/09
Thanks for access! Cool beans!

Quick editing notes from the first 13 pages or so (up to the first pre-existing article.)

Thank You: BP uses serial commas throughout; should be a comma after "Goble."

Foreward: I'd use a dash in paragraph two rather than the comma after "bases," but King might not like that.

Irregular use of umlauts in "Voros," should be standardized (Forward - no umlauts. Table of contents - umlauts.)

From Jaffe's opening on offense, I think "mid-Nineties" should be "mid-nineties."

That's all I have, which isn't exactly adequate payment for free access. Thanks again.

--JRM




jrmayne
12/09
OK, Part 2, Neyer's Foreward:

Comma after "published" in line two of the forward should be excised, says me.

In line five of the forward, I think the "There" after the ellipsis should not be capitalized, or it should be four-dot ellipsis.

The last two paragraphs should be punctuated in parallel; I suggest a question mark after "Arrogance."

Good luck, guys. Hope this sells well.

--JRM
BurrRutledge
12/10
Agree with JRM - cool beans, indeed. And good luck with the sales of this collection!

My quick take in a read of Jay's intro to Volume I after a long week both in the field and in the office:

Page 12 of the .pdf: It might be useful to the new reader if the acronym (PED) is printed in parentheses immediately after it's spelled out the first time it's used.

Page 15: The word 'that' is repeated: "The move has been frequently used against several lefty sluggers of recent vintage such as Adam Dunn, Jason Giambi, David Ortiz, and Jim Thome, but Fox points out that that—theoretically, at least—there exist pull-heavy righthanded hitters against whom such a shift might be successfully employed as well."

Page 15: The paragraph beginning with "Speaking of models..." should probably be three sentences instead of two. Let the first thought stand on its own. Next sentence begins with "He elegantly..."


All the best. Now off to bed with me.
BurrRutledge
12/11
Day 2, Chapter 2. Mike Fast's introduction for Pitching:

Page 103 of the .pdf: middle of the first paragraph: "do certain combinations of pitch types augur for better success as a starter" ... suggest removing "for" from the sentence, and possibly even replace "better" with "greater."

Page 103: Second paragraph: "Another major area of ongoing research is in the quantification of pitcher effectiveness, in at least two general areas." Remove the first "in."

Page 105, last paragraph: "As this sort of video record becomes available and computing power increases, the ability
of the analyst to make a detailed analysis of every play will also only continue to increase." Remove the "also," the "only," or both of these words from the end of the sentence.

...


I will be unlikely to get the chance to read any more of the intros before you self-publish, but thanks for the chance to preview them! Once again - good luck!


BurrRutledge
12/11
I lied.

I just read CK's intro to Chapter 3, and I have no copy-editorial suggestions. Cheers!

On to Chapter 4. Comments, if any, to follow.

dpease
12/11
Thanks for the comments--we've already included some of them in the editing. I was planning on submitting the books tonight for final print but unfortunately it doesn't look like that will happen.
BurrRutledge
12/11
I am particularly fond of the credits... an excellent counterweight to Ben's introduction regarding the benefits and dangers of keeping the band together.
BurrRutledge
12/11
Please don't let my tardiness affect your publishing schedule. I'm doing this for fun - you're doing this for business.
BurrRutledge
12/11
Chapter 4 introduction

Page 279 of the .pdf, first paragraph "McGraw could function not only as the team’s on-field boss but also as a part-time general manager, scout, and instructor, acquiring, developing, and training his own prospects without recourse to the minor leagues." Suggest a colon between "instructor" and "acquiring" rather than a comma.

Page 279, end of the second paragraph: I'm not sure what "mouthier" refers to with regard to Derek Jeter’s and his work ethic . Frisch had Derek Jeter's work ethic, but he was 'mouthy' to whom - to teammates? To McGraw? To opponents? For clarity, it might be useful to compare Alomar's results, Jeter's work ethic, and a third player's mouth... or drop the 'mouthier' aspect entirely, since it doesn't seem to impact the rest of the annecdote.

Page 279, third paragraph: "For Frisch, being captain meant..." I think you mean "For McGraw, Frisch being the captain meant..."

Quoting Frisch on Page 280: "Thevenow hit a grounder to my left as I was moving to second, and I couldn’t have topped the ball if I’d had a net on a long pole." ... couldn't have stopped the ball.

Page 280, first paragraph after the quote: "... it was clear that the relationship was irreparable, and that December, McGraw traded him to the Cardinals for Rogers Hornsby." Given all the commas in this compound sentence, it may read easier if the end is changed to "McGraw traded him to the Cardinals for Rogers Hornsby that December."

Page 281, last paragraph: "... stripping away those
arbitrary distinctions and getting at story, the decisions, accidents, coincidences, and yes, emotions, that motivated the events on the field—and in one case (mine) ourselves." Suggest a colon between "story" and "the decisions" instead of a comma.
BurrRutledge
12/11
I find it amusing that upon re-reading my own comments, I find mistakes that require editing.
BurrRutledge
12/11
Volume II, Colin's intro to Chapter 5 -

Page 12 of the .pdf: "And since most of us our introduced to the game as children..." most of us were introduced...

On to Jason Parks...
BurrRutledge
12/11
No copy-editorial suggestions for Parks' intro.
BurrRutledge
12/11
No copy-editorial suggestions for Tommy Bennett's intro.


Once again, good luck! And, g'night.
bornyank1
12/13
Thanks for all your suggestions.
dpease
12/12
having the best beta testers pays off for us again--thanks everyone.

What do you all think of the product? How'd we do on size, ratio of old/new content, additional value provided by re-formatting and re-packaging everything, etc?