Day 18: 30 baseball books in 30 days of April, '09: The prospects of the MLB prospects in the right prospectus

The book: "Baseball Prospectus: The Essential Guide to the 2009 Baseball Season"

The authors: Edited by Steven Goldman, Nate Silver and Christina Kahrl, forward by Keith Olbermann

How to find it: Plume Books, 628 pages, $21.95

Where we'd go looking for it: Get it straight from the home website of the Baseball Prospectus (linked here), join the club, and get a discount.

The scoop: Is it too late to use this for your fantasy draft?

Good.

Then you can read this for what it really provides -- the 14th edition of a guide, spinning of the Bill James' Baseball Abstract, that has a lot of depth and width when you're trying to figure out why certain players and teams end up doing certain things that you should have seen coming.

Remember when the phone book arrived, and your dad got excited about it (OK, so see the movie "The Jerk" to get the full effect). That's how MLB GMs act when they get this in the mail.

Take it from a reader review on Barnes & Noble: "Whether you're a casual fan or a fantasy nut, you'll treasure Baseball Prospectus. It provides more stats than you'll ever need or even knew existed. They provide projections of statistical performance that are uncannily accurate. In the past General Managers of professional teams have endorsed this book. If you watch baseball on TV, your viewing experience will be greatly enhanced."

How it goes down in the scorebook: If Olbermann gives it the stamp of approval, we're on board. Lord knows, we'd hate to be one of the world's worst people for failing to endorse this as well.

Also read: "The Bill James Gold Mine 2009" (linked here)