The Last Book I Read

I haven't actually finished reading this yet, as it's the type of book that one dips into regularly throughout the baseball season, but I'm well into this year's Baseball Prospectus. This has been my favorite baseball annual for about ten years, and although it lacks the quirky idiosyncrasies and broader cultural context that Bill James always brought to his books (which first drew me into the world of sabermetric analysis of my favorite game back in the eighties), it really sets me up to enjoy the upcoming season. The team comments are kind of a primer on the business aspect of the game, as well as offering an ongoing discussion of how to construct and manage a roster to maximize its potential to win. The player comments are succinct and pointed, and give this viewer more to watch for when I get to see a game live or on TV. Since there are multiple authors, one gets a few different perspectives on those issues, always backed up with plenty of evidence, numeric and otherwise. Over the years, it seems like the crew has become a bit more open to acknowledging that statistics aren't the answer to explaining everything, and the result is much more well-rounded analysis over all. It's always a kick when this arrives in the mail (I always pre-order from Amazon to make sure it gets here as soon as possible), signaling not just a new baseball season, but the start of another Spring. What could be better?