As an avid reader of Seth Stohs' website, I had great expections for the Minnesota Twins Prospect Handbook 2009. I am glad to say that this book completely exceeded those expectations.

Further, this masterpiece should be in every baseball fan's collection. Why? Because the thought-provoking player profiles and picture-perfect descriptions will cure any fan's winter blues and serve as a ubiquitous reference once spring finally returns.

Everything you ever wanted to know about the future of the Minnesota Twins is contained within this book.

Congratulations, Seth, on the amazing work.

Baseball America has a successful and highly anticipated annual called a Minor League Prospect Handbook. Seth Stoh has a popular blog that focuses on the Twins Minor Leaguers called SethSpeaks.net. So should you expect an original effort or a rehash? A second question you might ask, is this strictly a reference book or does it provide narrative reading material?

Rest assured this is both a fresh approach and fresh material. If you read the author’s blog, you will find the book to be new material. If you look at prospect ratings, you will also find something different. Most, if not all off-season annuals consider prospects to be the top minor leaguers. With other approaches, this means you essentially get a filtered look at the available talent in the minor leagues, often just 5-10% of the players, and they are focused on their star potential. In this book there are 170+ entries on players that completed the 2008 season in the Twins Organization. Each entry gives a couple of sentences to a couple of paragraphs that focus on what this player did in 2008 to position himself for a role, any role, at the major league level. When warranted, the author gives a longer history of the player. No favorites, no prejudices, and little or no space wasted on writing about why they won’t make it.

For the second question, I would say the book is both reference and narrative. The book is laid out alphabetically by player’s name, so it does serve a reference when player transactions occur (Rule V, trades, etc.). But the entries are hardly cookie cutter copies of each other. The author has done a very good job in presenting short readable entries that vary enough to keep this reader engaged and eager to follow one entry after another.

I have been a long time follower of the Seth Stohs Speaks Blog on the Minnesota Twins, and this book is as excellent as the blog. Seth's commentary on the Minnesota Twins minor league system is more in-depth than any other source I have seen. He combines a good balance of the scout's and stat's perspectives.

This book is an excellent handbook on the Twins Minor League system, and I hope that it will become a yearly tradition. I highly recommend it.

The 2009 Prospect Handbook is not only a necessity for any real Twins fan (who plans to be a fan in the coming years, at least), it is a must for people who are interested in where babies... er... major leaguers... come from.

Not only are the profiles excellent and informative, they show a depth of knowledge and richness of information that simply can't be found in either a professional media outlet or most other blogs. One thing that I value so highly about Seth is his relentlessly positive outlook on the Twins and baseball in general; this outlook shines through in the book.

As a fellow blogger (though not one of any comparable distinction, I'm afraid), I am pleased to have Seth's book as a resource for information that will help me write entries and attempt to understand those damnable stats. I actually used it just tonight, actually.

Seth, congratulations on the publication of your book. Your story really goes to show that a person who cares enough about a topic, even one as elite-driven as baseball, can not only have an impact, but can become a driving force in the online community.

Seth Stohs does an excellent job in this Prospect Handbook. While to some it may be paragraphs on meaningless teenagers, to others it is a glimpse into the future of the Minnesota Twins. Seth provides background information, in-depth statistics, mini-scouting reports, and prospect rankings. It is truly an excellent work, and will get a lot of work on my desk.

I would give it five stars out of five, but an improvement that could be made for future issues is Seth's personal touch - his projection on where the players will spend the season, and how soon they could arrive in Minnesota.

I have already had to use this guide many times, and would recommend it to any fan. It is a great work, and one that will hopefully be updated annually!

This is the first ever book to focus in depth on the Minnesota Twins minor league system providing profiles as well as a prospect ranking of all Twins' prospects in the minors. The profiles are lively and detailed and in addition to the batting and pitching performance numbers, which could be easily found these days, Seth provides excellent analysis on these prospects, lightened by anecdotal and biographical information. The players in this book are not just names, numbers and slashes, this book makes you see more of them. Seth Stohs is probably the single best person outside of those in the Twins organization to produce an unbiased and in depth analysis of the Twins farm system, since he has been very involved with it for years. Bonus: the book includes several other Twins' prospect ranking lists, in addition to Seth's ranking. A must have for a Twins fan. Buy one for yourself and put one (or more) under your tree.

I've enjoyed reading Seth's Twins minor league updates on his web site for many years. It's convenient to have his reports on the players in the Twins minor league system in one book. Rather than a book of numbers, it's a book full of information about each player's background, current situation, and expected development; one paragraph per player. Anyone who's intersested in the entire Twins organization will find the book an engaging read. It's a little glimpse into the future of the organization.

Seth does a very good job. He is connected with these players. Box scores from a newspaper you cannot get the full picture. I love thumbing around this book. Who is the next Twins Superstar?