I was pretty happy to finally receive my copy of Baseball Prospectus 2003. For those who don't know what this is, it's a 550 page baseball book that produces cutting-edge, objective baseball analysis using nerdy statistical techniques.

One example of this is the Pitcher Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm (PECOTA) that they've developed to predict the chances that certain players will "breakout" or "collapse" with performances that are 20% better or 20% worse than their performance last year.

Amazingly, the system notes that Barry Bonds has an 18% chance to "breakout," or perform 20% better than his performance last year, which was worth 1.04 runs per game more than the average player (a major league record).