The Buhner.com Blog

I’m done with my yearly baseball book purchasing, and as my shopping list comes to a close, there’s one book that’s missing that has been there in previous years - John Sickels’ Baseball Prospect Book. It’s not because I dislike the book - I’ve just spent a decent amount of money/Amazon gift certificates on books this year, and another $25 on Sickels just wasn’t happening.

I give Sickels a lot of credit - despite his getting squeezed out of doing a nationally publicized book a few years back (he wrote the Minor League Scouting Notebook for Stats Inc. for six years before Stats stopped producing those type of books), he took it in stride and self-publishes his book, and sells enough of them to keep doing it every year. His book can only be purchased through him, so he doesn’t have the backing of an Amazon or Barnes & Noble to get his book out there, but sells thousands of copies every year. It’s a quick and dirty book - no pictures, Courier New font, and a plain cover. I bought it the last two years and enjoyed it greatly, and still have both copies which I enjoy pulling out from time to time, just to look back at what John thought of players breaking out currently.

This year though, I made a big investment into Baseball America, subscribing for two years - a hearty $100+ investment. That, plus several Amazon.com gift certificates that were sitting in my account waiting to expire led me to purchase BA’s Prospect Handbook and Deric McKamey’s Minor League Baseball Analyst. BA’s book is similar to Sickels’ book, except maybe a little prettier and a little more scout influenced, while McKamey’s book - new this year - seems to be a bastard child of minor league analysis and Ron Shandler’s work. From what I’ve read a few places, McKamey tends to be a bit more “realistic” regarding players and their futures compared to BA - if a player is going to be a part-time player, McKamey says he’s going to be.

Either way, I feel as if I’ve betrayed John Sickels a little bit. Not only did I not buy his book this year, but I bought both of his competitors. So I encourage anyone who might be reading this to go out and buy John Sickels’ book (which is linked above), especially if they’re somewhat serious baseball fans or guys in somewhat deep roto leagues that go to pick up the hot new rookie mid-season only to see someone drafted him in March. Plus, they’re even more fun to have a year or two later, when you can pull them out and see if John thought the guy going for the MVP was going to make it in the majors.