Uncategorized — Page 116

→ November 4, 2017
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 11/4/17.

My one ESPN piece this week is not Insider: I spoke to Jharel Cotton and Jabari Blash about the hurricane damage and recovery efforts in their home territory, the US Virgin Islands. It’s bad, yet it’s getting virtually none of the attention here that Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico are getting. If you’d like to help, you can donate to the Community Foundation of the Virgin Islands, St John Rescue, or Family Resource Center, all of which are heavily involved on the ground on the islands.

I also held a Klawchat on Thursday.

Smart Baseball makes a great holiday gift, or at least I think it will, since this is actually the first holiday season since its publication. Also, please sign up for my free email newsletter, which is sort of weekly, and includes some mini-essays that don’t appear elsewhere plus links to all my writing.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: The Atlantic looks at how children who have to parent younger siblings carry the effects into adulthood.
Also from the Atlantic, a writer went to live in a Norwegian town that gets no sun for two months each winter yet has low rates of depression despite the long darkness.
ProPublica looks at leftists who work to dox neo-Nazis & white supremacists. Read it until the end.
The Boston Globe looks at a number of former Patriots players now living with dementia or who’ve died of CTE-related causes.
The Guardian examines the failed history and new potential for a vaccine against the common cold.
A ShareBlue reporter was violently arrested while asking a question of the GOP nominee for Virginia governor. The Fairfax County police chief has defended the officers’ actions, in part because the reporter violated the county law against swearing in public.
A judge at Gitmo sentenced a Marine general lawyer to 21 days in confinement for “disobeying” the judge’s orders. What did the lawyer do? He excused three civilian lawyers from the case on ethical grounds.
The Trump Administration has shelved a planned ban on the brain-damaging pesticide chlorpyrifos, an organophosphate that is already banned for residential use but is persistent enough in the environment that it’s found in most of our bodies. There are multiple studies showing potential evidence of harm from chlorpyrifos, including one that shows a possible link to autism.
I’d love the opinions of the scientists in the audience on this one: is fear of a sixth mass extinction overrated? I understand what the scientist in question is saying – there will be new speciation – but I can’t see how what we gain could possibly make up what we’ll lose.
Another piece that left me with questions: Is organic farming actually worse for climate change?
Thirteen federal agencies issued a joint report on Friday, saying that the activities of man are causing climate change. You’d like to think that this would be the end of this stupid, brainless debate, but we all know it’s not.
This came after President Trump nominated a thoroughly unqualified candidate to be the USDA’s top scientist, Sam Clovis, who admitted he lacked any credentials and then withdrew after his name appeared in the probe into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.
He was hardly alone; Trump’s pick to lead NASA doesn’t understand how science works.
Yet another junk science article appeared, claiming a link between mercury (in processed foods this time) and autism, even though all the evidence says there is no link whatsoever between the two.
Doctors and scientists in New Zealand blame Andrew Wakefield’s bullshit documentary for declining vaccination rates. They should take a tip from Australia and stop allowing vaccine deniers into the country.
Another great podcast episode from The Hidden Brain, on the power of checklists, featuring Dr. Atul Gawande, author of The Checklist Manifesto.
LawFareBlog breaks down the so-called Uranium One scandal, separating the actual legal questions from the hype being sowed by you-know-who.
This story hasn’t seen much ink here in the U.S., but the Guardian looks at how a British analytics firm connects Trump, Assange, Bannon, and Farage. The company may have made an “impermissible donation of services” to Farage’s Leave (“Brexit”) campaign.
Three Republican Congressmen have introduced a bill demanding that Robert Mueller recuse himself from the Russia probe, based on a specious argument around that Uranium One story.
Vox asks what if Mueller proves collusion and the right just ignores it?
The Wall Street Journal editorial page’s coordinated attacks on Mueller have led to internal divisions at the paper, which shares a parent with Fox News, and may hasten the ongoing exodus of top journalists. It’s a shame; I remember when the WSJ‘s editorial page was home to some of the best op eds in American journalism.
The Republicans’ tax bill has gotten poor reviews from many economists and many individual sectors of the economy. American higher education officials oppose it, as the bill would make attending college and graduate school more expensive while reducing charitable donations. College is too expensive as it is, but the deductions they’re targeting here may only be making it more expensive, just like student loans do, by allowing colleges to raise tuition.
George Will writes how the tax proposal contradicts the Republicans’ self-proclaimed goals of fiscal responsibility. Their “reform” proposal is anything but, and won’t do anything to reduce deficits or the debt.
The BBC’s America First series looks at the American adults who can’t read (video).
The LA Times reported that Walt Disney won’t give it advance screenings of holiday movies in response to a piece the newspaper ran covering the company’s relationship with the city of Anaheim.
Twitter unveiled some new policies on removing tweets or suspending users; while most of the focus was on the policy covering non-consensual nudity, it covers quite a bit more, including sexual harassment on the site, and at least hints at a crackdown on hate tweets and hate groups there.
Joe Ricketts, patriarch of the family that owns the Chicago Cubs, shut down a set of news sites he owned after the writers voted to unionize.
Racist flyers accusing immigrants of “taking over” the New Jersey town of Edison appeared in voters’ mailboxes this past week. The fliers don’t indicate who funded them, which violates state election law.
A judge in Mississippi banned a mother from seeing her newborn because she couldn’t pay court fees. Although the judge resigned from the family court where he made the ruling, he still serves on the Rankin County court, where all four justices are white men.
The liberal Center for American Progress made word clouds for Trump’s responses to terrorist attacks, split by the races of the attackers.
Liberty University kicked an anti-Trump Christian author off campus, with armed officers removing him and warning him he’d be trespassing if he set foot on the campus again.
The New York Times‘ Health section looks at what men who rape or sexually assault women have in common, including research done by asking such men directly about their crimes.
A Twitter troll who spouted pro-Trump nonsense was actually a fabrication of the Russian government’s ‘troll farm’, yet was quoted widely in American and British news outlets.
Okra, a consistent recommendation on my Arizona dining guides, has closed, as one of the co-owners is moving to California. Crudo, Okra’s sister restaurant, remains open and under the reins of Chef Cullen Campbell.
A Kickstarter for a new printing of the boardgame Folklore: The Affliction blew past its $30,000 goal in the first week.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: links, stick to baseball

→ November 3, 2017
→ By keith

Waiting for the Barbarians.

I’d sort of avoided J.M. Coetzee for a while, given his reputation for dark, depressing themes; one of his two Booker Prize-winning novels, Disgrace, involves rape as a significant plot point more than once in the book. I was in a used book store in Manhattan in June, however, and saw Waiting for the Barbarians, which made the Guardian‘s list of the 100 greatest novels ever written, on the shelf for a few bucks, and figured at 156 pages it would at least be over quickly if I hated it – and maybe it would surprise me. I can’t see it as a top 100 all-time novel, but I got more out of the book than I expected, as it’s a fable that seems to combine some of the best of Italo Calvino and Kazuo Ishiguro (the latter of whom won the Nobel Prize for Literature, as did Coetzee), in a work that I’d call the better Darkness at Noon.

The story is set in an unnamed frontier town at the edge of the Empire, where the main character, the Magistrate, has served his country for some years when a Colonel arrives and “interrogates” some prisoners, including a father and son, about the activities of nearby barbarians who might threaten the town or the Empire itself. The Magistrate is dubious about the actual level of the threat, and is disgusted by the Colonel’s use of torture, which kills one of the prisoners and leads to questionable answers – likely the ones that the Colonel wanted anyway to justify a military effort against the barbarians. When the first effort yields a new set of prisoners, who are further tortured, the Magistrate takes pity on one woman among them who’s been blinded by the Colonel’s men. This decision and a journey to eventually return her to her people pits the Magistrate against the Colonel, who declares him a traitor and makes him a political prisoner and pariah in his own town.

Waiting for the Barbarians was first published in October of 1980, winning the James Tait Memorial Prize for that year, but it certainly seems to presage the United States’ two invasions of Iraq (1991 and 2003), especially the latter which, as we now know, was predicated on questionable intelligence about the Iraqi regime’s possession of or attempts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Coetzee’s use of nameless towns and characters only emphasizes its fabulist, universal nature; he’s discussing core features of leaders who operate without viable opposition and exposing how functionaries may work to provide the answers desired by their superiors rather than the correct or just ones. Coetzee exposes the worst of humanity here, but it’s all well-grounded in actual events that preceded the book’s writing, in dictatorships and democracies.

I read Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon, considered one of the peak novels of anti-communist literature, back in 2008, but couldn’t connect with any of the characters and found the narrative to be distant and cold. Coetzee infuses the Magistrate with more complexity; he’s flawed, a little bigoted, or at least mistrustful, but also highly empathetic, and less disdainful of women than the government officials or soldiers who come to the village and do as they please. The submissive response of the residents of the town, who seemed to respect the Magistrate until the Empire turned on him and labeled him a traitor, mirrors the inaction of many residents of past aggressors, including the Axis powers of World War II, who stood by while their neighbors were arrested, tortured, or murdered. The Magistrate seems to hope that if he stands up for what he believes to be just, others will support him; instead, people he thought were his friends act as if he’s not even there, until later in the novel when the tides shift the other way again and it’s safer to come out on his side.

This is a very grim worldview, but it’s an accurate one, and the 37 years since the book’s publication haven’t dulled its (deckled) edges one iota. Leaders continue to provoke conflicts and pursue wars on spurious grounds to distract their citizens or stage some patriotism theater. Had Coetzee made the Magistrate more of a one-dimensional martyr, it would have come at a great cost to the story’s staying power, but because his protagonist is so thoroughly human, it seems like a story that, while depressingly real, will have staying power for decades to come.

Next up: Angela Carter’s Wise Children, also on that Guardian list.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: african literature, fables, guardian 100, nobel prize, political novels, south african literature

→ November 2, 2017
→ By keith

Klawchat 11/2/17.

While you’re here, check out my free email newsletter, sent weekly or just whenever I feel like it, but not more than weekly, really.

Keith Law: I was dumbfounded by truth. Klawchat.

Jake: Seems like Dodgers fans are looking to pin the blame on someone. Is it supposed to be Darvish?
Keith Law: Never a fan of putting the blame for the loss of an entire series on one player, or even just on a manager. Darvish hurt them, probably more than any other individual player, but he was far from alone. Roberts had a bad series, especially Game 5. The Dodgers’ LHB had some atrocious at bats in high-leverage spots last night. Bellinger’s error in the 1st was critical. And yet they still came within a game of winning.

J.P.: What do you make of this new complication between the Ham Fighters and the MLBPA with regards to Ohtani?
Keith Law: I actually think it’s a positive sign that everyone is trying to find a workaround. Maybe he will come over after all.

Tim: Shane baz? is it true he has plus fastball, plus slider plus cutter and average to above curveball and average change?
Keith Law: No.

Eric: After the Vegas shooting, Trump is suspiciously quiet. After the NYC attack he tweets immediately – to blame someone else. Your thoughts?
Keith Law: I think he’s playing to his base and they eat it up like soylent.

Chris : What would your offseason plan look like if your mets? Other than pray for health of Conforto, Wheeler, Matz, Harvey, Thor, Familia, and Cespedes, I’m kind of puzzled on how this team improves that much this offseason. Their health alone is what separates them from 70 and 90 wins, no?
Keith Law: I think that’s fair – their health is a bigger source of potential gains than any offseason acquisitions would be. I also would guess that would make them reluctant to spend this winter, assuming they had any money to spend, because they could spend well and still fall flat.

Pat: Hi Keith, thank you for your prospect coverage. Why is Sandy Alcantara not missing more bats? Is it lack of elite secondary stuff, little deception, is his fastball too straight? I would just think a guy that throws 100 would strike out more batters. Thanks Keith.
Keith Law: Fastball is pretty true, just hard, but velocity alone doesn’t miss bats. You need deception, movement, or spin. He will show you above-average secondary stuff but it’s not consistent. He’s also pretty young, so I’m not terribly worried.

Ed M.: Hi, Keith. I just finished reading Smart Baseball and loved every page. I’m a 36-year-old lifetime baseball fan and I love learning as much as I can about the analytical aspect of the game. One question for you: the phrase “reach/reached base safely” often comes up in your book. This isn’t meant to be a smartass question, but when does one NOT reach base safely? Aren’t all batters/runners who reach base also safe?
Keith Law: We tend to exclude reaching on an error from calculations of times on base.

Harold : Now that teams that blatantly tanked have won the the WS two years in a row, should MLB change the draft rules to eliminate Tanking?
Keith Law: They did condense the slot values of the top picks in the most recent CBA, which I think would discourage deliberately losing … but I don’t think Houston deliberately lost so much as they realized it was stupid to spend money on mediocre veterans. Buster & I discussed this on the podcast today.

Peter : Is Bobby Witt Jr closest thing we’ve seen to Harper in terms of pure talent coming out of high school? Not saying he’s just as good or that type of generational prospect.
Keith Law: No, he’s not in Harper’s class.

Lark11: Defensive shifting makes logical and intuitive sense; places fielders where hitters have higher probability of hitting the ball. That said, I’m somewhat struggling with its effectiveness. MLB BABIP by Year: 2013: .297; 2014: .299; 2015: .299; 2016: .300; and 2017: .300.
Keith Law: BABIP includes home runs, which have increased over that time period, but aren’t affected by defensive shifts. Also, aren’t exit velocities and launch angles increasing? Those should affect BABIP, or at least expected BABIP.

Eric: Thoughts on J-Up’s 5-year deal with the Halos?
Keith Law: Love it for the Angels. Yes, he’s risky, lot of volatility in his performance, but he’s a potential 5-win player and still in his peak years. He was my #1 free agent going into the winter.

Ralph: Would you rather have Pence or Trump as president?
Keith Law: I would absolutely take Hunter Pence as President over the current occupant.

Junkyard Dog: Who do you like more between Justus Sheffield and Max Fried? Who has the higher ceiling?
Keith Law: Sheffield.

Ben: We have officially arrived in an alternate reality, where fossil fuels can prevent sexual assaults and the air is TOO clean. Children need to breath dirty air to build up immunity for Christ’s sake! …..I weep for humanity.
Keith Law: The reality is that these anti-science “scientists” can say whatever they want, and their followers will just accept it.

Adam: The Braves and Coppolella drama has me thinking; Is it an open secret within your industry which GMs are despised by their peers, and what role does the media have in skewing the public perception of these men?
Keith Law: I tend to hear if people don’t like dealing with a certain GM or agent, or even a scouting director, but I think what you hear through the media lens is distorted.

Keith Law: Some food no one cares about is really good and your favorite player is awful.
Keith Law: Wrong. Everyone cares about good food.

Microsoft Excel: So do all the computers and spreadsheets in Houston get WS rings? Asking for a friend
Keith Law: Yes, one ring per vacuum tube.

Rick: Loved your newsletter, but I couldn’t help thinking how much your decision might have changed baseball history. If you had gone to the Astros, they surely would have drafted Kris Bryant, and the Cubs never would have won the World Series.
Keith Law: You’re very kind, but you failed to consider the possibility that I’d have given terrible advice and the Astros would never have sniffed the playoffs.

Hey there: Do you have a favorite/least favorite kind of player to scout (other than assholes like Chapman, or guys that can’t play)?
Keith Law: I love athletes. Granted, I can’t stand it when they have physical tools and no instincts or feel, but there’s absolutely something electric about seeing players who can do things with their bodies that even an average professional athlete can’t do.

Mike: I was wading way too deep into this with my wife last night, but now that it’s complete, where do you think this World Series ranks among those since 2000?
Keith Law: The blah game 7 hurts; I’d put this behind last year’s and 2011 for sure, probably 2001 as well. I could argue for 2002 and 2014 in there somewhere.

Roger: Should the Astros add Whitley and Tucker to their 25 man roster to start the 2018 season, or let them work in the minors for a few more months than bring them up mid-season?
Keith Law: That’s very premature.

Jim Nantz: I’m worried Conforto’s shoulder injury is going to sap his power for next year? Do you share this concern?
Keith Law: I don’t think we have any evidence either way on this.

Dr. Bob: As a Dodgers fan, I’m bummed at the end result, but I’m hopeful looking to the future. Friedman has built the right kind of organization. The team’s deep pockets has allowed it to eat dead money without hampering its ability to sign other players. We’ll see if the process adjusts the “book” that Dave Roberts seemed to be working from.
Keith Law: I wonder if Roberts is the right guy going forward, which I know sounds weird given the season they just had, but it does appear that he’s not a very good tactical manager, and I don’t know that he’s a good developmental manager, at least with young pitching. I don’t think firing him is some panacea or even a good idea, but the more I see him, the more I think they can do better. And, building off that, they’re going to have to develop young pitching soon, so they don’t have to go trade for a Darvish each July.

Roger: Do you ever really get an offseason since minor league ball is essentially now year round?
Keith Law: I’m done. The minors ended in mid-September, and I’ve already gone to the AFL.

David: Cardinals GM John Mozeliak has said an impact bat is most likely going to have to come via trade. There’s speculation the Cards will be in on Christian Yelich and Josh Donaldson, maybe even acquiring both players. Cards fans are worried two such acquisitions will deplete the farm system. Do the Cards have enough surplus prospects to make a couple of deals and not be barren? Who in this system is untouchable in your eyes? Thanks.
Keith Law: Not sure anyone could trade for both those guys and still have depth – maybe Atlanta, but even they’d have to pay with quantity – but the Cards do have a lot of prospects with value to other clubs and I don’t think they have anyone untouchable right now.

Andy: Did I miss it, or was the atrocious strike zone in the Series glossed over?
Keith Law: Nope, it came up, and I know the teams had a lot to say about it. It was game to game, though. Bill Miller’s was by far the worst. Last night was no picnic either.

Daniel: This is obviously not a small ‘if’ but if Kaprielian returns to form and stays healthy, could you see him becoming the top pitching prospect in baseball? Seemed to have that profile before he went down. Just hadn’t pitched enough yet.
Keith Law: He has #1 upside if he’s healthy. He hasn’t been healthy for a full season in pro ball, which would probably eliminate him from consideration for #1 overall.

Josh: Besides Ticket to Ride, any game recommendations for a newly-reading kid? Shorter play times would be preferred.
Keith Law: Depends on age, but I get the sense you’re talking 4 or 5, and there are now kids’ versions of TtR, Carcassonne, and Catan.

Ridley Kemp: Howdy Keith,

I have a long-ish Charlie Morton question. I’ve always been a fan of his because of his extreme ground ball rates and his ability to avoid the long ball. He’s definitely become a different pitcher this year, working up in the zone, getting more strikeouts at the expense of allowing more home runs. My question is: Is he really a better pitcher now? His ERA and FiP this year is about the same as what they were in most of his healthier years (2011,2013, and 2014). He certainly LOOKS better, but are the results that different?
Keith Law: He did just post the lowest FIP of his career, and that’s not adjusted for league/year … his ERA- was a career best, and it was just his second ERA+ over 100 (which is average) in any season over 20 IP. So yeah, I think he’s better.

Chris: Can I get an FYEAHBASEBALL!
Keith Law: Fuck yeah, you can.

Tracy: Hi Keith, I usually ask you questions related to books or current events but I actually have a baseball question—an odd one, but here goes: If you were able to go back in time and survey a particular baseball era, not just scouting players but also observing the way the game is played at that time, which would it be? For me, it would be going back to the height of the old Negro Leagues and seeing what we really missed out on.
Keith Law: Oh, 100% on that. There’s so much myth around those guys and so little facts that I’d love to see what it really looked like.

Ben: GOP tax bill apparently allows churches to endorse political candidates. Unless they plan on taxing churches, that should be illegal, no?
Keith Law: Of course it should, but nobody cares – and good luck getting anyone to agree we should tax churches. (Reminder that the Church of Scientology harassed its way into tax-exempt status.)

Jim Nantz: When will your top FA list comeout?
Keith Law: Monday.

Michael: Hi Klaw – thoughts on the Gabe Kapler hire? While I was initially in the Wathan camp, the more I have read the more I like this move.
Keith Law: I’ve known him a few years and I’m a big fan. Ideal hire for a club that will be full of young players for the next few years. Brings energy & new ideas. And he’s actually managed a year in the minors, which puts him ahead of a lot of recent managerial hires.

Bobby: Keith – thanks in advance. Love these chats. I have always thought that managers in baseball don’t move the needle much. Clearly, Cashman thinks otherwise as he is taking a risk moving on from a very good manager in the hope of finding a great one. What do you think in general re manager importance and specifically re the risk Cash is taking and the commitment he is showing (to the concept that a manager is very important).
Keith Law: I’m not clear that this was Cashman. Couldn’t it have been ownership? It feels too impetuous to be Cash.

Archie: Do you think the game is trending too much toward the 3 true outcome model? If so, what would you do to “fix” things?
Keith Law: Tighten the manufacturing specs on the ball, and raise the bottom of the strike zone (which already happened a little this year).

Casey: On a scale of doesn’t matter to existential dread, how much consternation should Dombrowski’s hiring of LaRussa give Sox fans?
Keith Law: Doesn’t matter. Doubt he has any influence.

Zach: What do you make of hearing that Darvish was tipping his pitches (according to Beltran on postgame show)? After he was traded to Dodgers, they apparently “fixed” that issue.
Keith Law: Eduardo Perez said the same for us last night – he specifically saw a hand movement. If that’s true, then the question would be why no Dodger coach picked it up after the first inning.

Michael: Hey Klaw – What do you think is the actual deal with all of the anti-sabermetrics comments across the board. These people are so angry, you’d think someone kidnapped their kids. Do you think it’s just a matter of: this is what I know, this is what I am used to, math is hard, I’m not getting younger, get off my lawn, and waaaaaa, waaaaaa – ?
Keith Law: I think many people view technology as an existential threat. And they’re not entirely wrong – Houston is replacing pro scouting with video work and analytics. Automation is affecting all industries. Beat writer jobs are disappearing because of technological changes. So I get it. But it’s evolve or die. You can’t just will away analytics because they bother you.

Mika: Do you believe it’s likely we’re living in a computer simulation? On a scale of 1-100, how full of crap is Elon Musk?
Keith Law: I think the ratio of media attention Musk receives to the quality of his commentary is too high and increasing exponentially. (And yet he’s doing some legitimately good work, like Tesla getting a hospital in Puerto Rico back online with solar panels.)

Podcast: It’s kind of funny how Game 7 pretty much turned on exactly what you said to Buster on the podcast about Hinch being more flexible than Roberts
Keith Law: I thought Hinch managed a great game last night and a great series in general, whereas Roberts didn’t seem to have a clear plan if Darvish was out that early.

Bobby: Where would you rank the Tiger’s farm system right now? Middle of the pack? Who else is likely to be dealt this winter? Thanks!
Keith Law: I haven’t started any prospect work at all, but eyeballing it, I’d say below middle of the pack.

E: Have you seen Trumps’s quote on the tax cut? Every time his words are written down and read, it reinforces just how little he knows about, well everything.
Keith Law: If this issue matters to any of you, I would suggest ignoring what the President says and focusing on what the actual tax cut/reform proposal says – and what experts say it will do. For example, they’re proposing cutting the mortgage interest deduction dramatically. The way it’s shaped, it will adversely affect homeowners who financed very expensive houses … and homeowners in very expensive real estate markets, which almost all happen to be in blue states. And that, in the longer term, would likely slow the acceleration of house prices as the real cost of buying & financing houses above the threshold increases because you lose some of the tax break. That’s one tiny bit of the proposal and already its effect is complicated.

Todd: Domingo Acevedo the next Betances or is he a legit starter?
Keith Law: Reliever for me. Out of control delivery.

Drew: First of all, thank you for all of the work you do throughout the season. I particularly appreciate your appearances on the BBTN podcast, and wanted to ask you something about that. While I agree that Darvish’s two world-class clunkers in the WS shouldn’t costs him tens of millions of dollars, do you think it makes a reunion with The Dodgers unlikely? As analytically savvy as the front office is, do you think they’re keeping fan blowback in mind?
Keith Law: No, I don’t think that would affect them, but if having him for three months told them something about him – his psyche, his preparation, whatever – that they didn’t like, that would affect their decision beyond what the data suggest.

Walt: How difficult would it be for a team to go 11-0 and break the 2005 White Sox record?
Keith Law: Entirely doable. If we had another 200 postseasons before the end of the world, which seems unlikely, some team would do it.

Andrew: Any books you can suggest on how to manage time?
Keith Law: I’ve seen books on the subject but have never read any. My advice to people who ask about my own time management is probably not great, but it’s to look at how much time you use on unproductive things each day. If you watch 2 hours of TV each night, that’s obviously your choice … but it’s 2 hours you’re not doing something that might be more productive, whether it’s work, learning, reading, being with family, whatever you value. And maybe you value TV time. Maybe you’re Alan Sepinwall and TV time is work. It’s all about what you want to accomplish during the day.

Willy: I’ve read that Eloy is a protypical RF, and I’ve read that he’s barely a LF who may and up at 1B. What do you think?
Keith Law: He’s a good RF. Anyone who said he’s barely a LF hasn’t seen him.

Joe: How easy are in-game adjustments to make for a player? I’m thinking specifically of Bellinger laying off the breaking ball down and in but am asking if that is something we should expect from players?
Keith Law: I think in-game adjustments are tough. Maybe half of MLB hitters can do that. Probably less than that.

CapePorpoise: Any opinion on the meal delivery services HelloFresh and their ilk? For couples like my wife and I with limited menu imagination, It is kind of fun to be working with fresh tarragon and dill and rosemary in these meals, and we’re definitely getting the kind of variety we’d otherwise never experience.
Keith Law: Never tried them, but I also work from home, so i have the time to go shop for food, and I actually enjoy it.

ck: Not necessarily my opinion, but if Kershaw was available for 4 IP, why not start him?
Keith Law: It’s an excellent question. I might argue that the Dodgers had 3 options to start, and they chose the worst one. (That’s a bit of a conceit – I don’t know that they knew that beforehand or that we did, and Alex Wood hasn’t really been the same guy since the last DL stint.)

Todd: Am I wrong in saying that last off season the Yankees were under rated, but now next season they’ll be way over rated? See it all the time in sports, an upstart team has a big season ahead of schedule and everyone inflated expectations.
Keith Law: Yes, that’s the typical pattern, but they could alter their fortunes depending on what they do in free agency, especially for pitching.

Andy: If you’re Cleveland, what decision are you making about Bruce, Santana, and Brantley?
Keith Law: Brantley has an option that I assume they’ll decline. The other two are just free agents, so the decision is made.

Lark11: Any early thoughts on Griffin Conine and where he’ll go in the 2018 draft? First rounder? Top half of the first round? Thanks!
Keith Law: I have been told first rounder, not top 10 type, although the college crop is weak enough that some guys will be pushed up into that tier. The UVA hitters weren’t supposed to be top 10 prospects coming into spring 2017 and ended up going 7 and 8.

Chris: Book question: I have To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis next on my to-read list. Having read your review, do you think you missed a lot by not reading Three Men in a Boat first?
Keith Law: I read Three Men in a Boat right afterward, but the other way around would have helped. It’s a quick read and in the public domain if you have a Kindle or iBooks.

CKS: Given the blatant disregard for the international free agency rules by most teams, is there any push to finally fix the problem? Or will this continue to be an issue for years to come?
Keith Law: The lesson of the Atlanta scandal is, as always, don’t get caught.

Hinkie: I know it’s very early … but … could you give us a top of the draft mock (shot in the dark guess): 1 Tigers _______ , 2 Giants ________ , 3 Phillies ________
Keith Law: Nope. It would be pure bullshit.

Kris : Should the Braves go young in rotation or trade for a pitcher?
Keith Law: If they trade, it should be for a power bat. The system has a ton of pitching but little to nothing at the corners or with power.

Alan: Favorite movie of 2017?
Keith Law: So far, Dunkirk, but I’ve only seen 12 movies so far.

Philip: If you were in charge of the A’s, would Bruce Maxwell still be in the organization?
Keith Law: If he’s guilty of threatening someone with a gun, then no, I would cut him loose.

Jeffrey: Orioles should move Machado in the offseason or mid-season? And how can they justify bringing back their whole coaching staff?
Keith Law: Should move him and Britton this winter, don’t get the sense they plan to do either (yet).

Jason: Keith, I have never had anxiety until a couple weeks ago an intruder attempted to enter our home a few weeks back. Now I feel very nervous and anxoius going to sleep. Any advice?
Keith Law: Wow, I’m sorry that happened to you. That’s a discussion to have with a doctor; when I had my worst anxiety/panic, I took Xanax to help me sleep for about a week until I could get used to a regular sleep pattern.

CapePorpoise: Have you read much John Fowles? Granted, I was much younger, but French Lieutenant
Keith Law: Only read that one. Didn’t love the unique ending.

Derek: Thoughts on Dave Martinez as the Nats new manager?
Keith Law: I’ve only heard good things about him, other than that he doesn’t interview well, which as I’ve said before is a terrible way to evaluate a manager hire anyway.

Hinkie: What do hear about Gabe Kapler, both as a new manager and as a person ?
Keith Law: O AN HE SEXY

JJ: I’m guessing this was Carlos Beltran’s last ride. If so, is he a HOFer?
Keith Law: I think he’s a borderline guy by historical standards. I’d probably vote for him.

Cindy: Austin Riley has had some great results in the AFL. I’ve read a scouting report here or there that says that he has cut down on his swing, lost some weight, and is now able to catch up with high velocity fastballs….something he couldn’t do before on a regular basis. Have you heard anything about this? How far away is he from the majors?
Keith Law: Saw him. That’s just not true – I saw velocity blow him up again, as his bat is still slow. He’s gotten better at third base, though; that was true during the season as well.

Craig: Thanks for the chat Keith, really enjoy your work. Any feeling on if Tanaka opts out or not? Would you if you were him?
Keith Law: It depends on the health of his elbow, and I doubt anyone has a great read on that other than him and the team doctors.

JJ: Three playoff managers got the axe after their post-season was done: Baker, Farrell, and Girardi. Are any of those three “game changers” that should hired elsewhere immediately?
Keith Law: No, but all three did fine jobs and none deserved to be fired based on team performance or the jobs they did on the field. (We often don’t know off field factors.)

Todd: Better in 2 years? Bregman or Moncada?
Keith Law: Bregman.

Bobby: Would anyone in their right mind actually make a play to deal for Miguel Cabrera? I’ll never say never after seeing Prince Fielder dealt but this seems impossible
Keith Law: That would be bonkers.

Josh: Thanks for answering the kid game question. I’m actually talking about a 1st grader who can handle Ticket to Ride but isn’t quite where she can read and comprehend quickly enough to make competitive decisions in real time. And our lifestyle is such that long play time like TtR is too much.
Keith Law: Splendor might be pushing it a little … but maybe not. It’s largely a color-matching game and the graphics & tokens are kid-friendly.

Corey: Also, Americans are increasingly terrible dealing with gray area or nuance. Everything in the US including obviously our politics has grown either/or, zero-sum, us vs them. People can’t accept that analytics is one tool among many. That somehow, you can only run a team with “the nerds” or the “baseball guys” but not both.
Keith Law: This would apply to many issues in our society outside of sports. But yes, the idea that using analytics means you hate scouts or coaches or humans is wrong.

Bobbo: The blurb you did for Farlight in your Paste – Best of GenCon 2017 enticed me. Also the one for Echo. did you play/obtain them? any chance of full reviews for either? thanks for the chatting!
Keith Law: I haven’t seen Farlight beyond that demo, but I hope to catch them again at PAX Unplugged. I don’t know which game you mean by Echo, sorry.

Karl in Utah: Was this year from Whit Merrifield an anomaly or do you think it is sustainable (assuming the juiced ball stays in place)?
Keith Law: I do not think it’s sustainable.

Eric Reiners: I’ve read reports that eliminating the mortgage interest deduction entirely would be one of the easiest ways for the government to boost revenues while keeping the effect on the middle/lower class as light as possible. Real estate values would initially take a hit across the board, but it’d be an effective way of tackling the deficit. I’m surprised they even took this step, to be honest, as it mostly affects rich white people. But on the other hand…they had tax cuts to rich white people to fund.
Keith Law: It would affect the middle classes more. US tax policy has encouraged home ownership for decades. Pulling that deduction entirely would amount to a regressive tax that hits the lowest-income homeowners more than the highest-income ones.

Ryan: Has Randolph progressed at all for the Phillies? For someone drafted for his pure hitting ability, he has struggled.
Keith Law: Not really. It is disappointing.

Drew: My daughter just turned three today. Any book recommendations from when yours was that age?
Keith Law: I believe that’s when I read her the first two Mary Poppins books and the first two Winnie-the-Pooh books.

Jason: It appears Keaton Huira played the field without any issues with his elbow. Assuming that continues would he skyrocket up your Top 100 lists? How high?
Keith Law: Skyrocket? He’ll be on the top 100. Let’s leave it there for now.

Harold: Sounds like you don’t want to pay your fair share.
Keith Law: On the contrary, I have no complaints at all with what I pay in taxes; if anything, I think our local/state taxes here in Delaware are too low. But I don’t see the economic benefit to reducing my taxes while raising those on lower-income households, or of giving me more of a reduction than the lower-income households get.
Keith Law: Thanks as always for all of your questions. The top 50 free agent rankings post will go up on Monday for Insiders, and I’ll be around at some point next week to chat about it. Enjoy your (sadly baseball-free) weekends.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: klawchat

→ November 1, 2017
→ By keith

In This Our Life.

Every decision, right or wrong, must be reached alone, and enacted in complete loneliness.

Ellen Glasgow won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1941 for her novel In This Our Life, which was adapted into a 1942 film starring Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland that altered key plot points while causing controversy by keeping the novel’s portrayal of racial discrimination in the South. The novel is depressing as hell, really, as nobody ever really gets what s/he wants out of life within its pages, despite the fact that the two generations follow entirely different paths in search of an elusive happiness.

The novel centers not on the two sisters played by Davis and de Havilland, but on their father, Asa Timberlake, who is married to a possibly-hypochondriac woman, Lavinia, in a totally loveless marriage to which he feels honor-bound because of her illness and their modest financial condition. He’s in love with a widow, Kate, whom he’s known for decades, and who keeps two dogs of which he’s also very fond, as Lavinia never permitted him to have a dog in the house. His two daughters, strangely named Roy and Stanley, are polar opposites to each other, Roy the practical, mature older sister, married to a young doctor named Peter, while Stanley is spoiled, immature, and demanding, using her looks to try to get whatever she wants, even if what she wants belongs to Roy. Stanley is due to marry Craig as the book opens, but ends up running off with Peter, setting in motion a series of calamities that ruin almost every life involved, including Asa’s.

The racial discrimination story is secondary to the novel’s plot, but by far the most interesting aspect of the book today, given the change in social mores around divorce and infidelity since the novel’s publication. Parry is an ambitious young black man, the son of one of the Timberlakes’ servants, who wants to become a lawyer and is hopeful that Lavinia’s cousin William Fitzroy will help finance his education. Parry works occasionally as a driver for the families, but when Stanley, driving drunk, hits a family and kills a young girl, she and her mother conspire to frame Parry for the crime – something which Asa can’t abide, which triggers the one real inflection point in the story, where he’s forced to consider taking an action against his family for what seems to be the first time in his life.

Glasgow’s prose around Parry and his family is dated, but the ideas are still relevant – social and economic discrimination, differential treatment by law enforcement, the understanding that opportunities for black youths would be limited in a still-segregated south. The racism of the whites in the book, especially Lavinia and William, is less overt than even in contemporary Pulitzer winners, but no less insidious for its talk of keeping black people “in their place,” and discouraging Parry from aiming at a profession because, in reality, the idea of an educated black man scares them. This subplot stays in the background of most of the book, but it’s far more interesting than watching the machinations of the pampered, entitled Stanley, and the way everyone – including her uncle William, with whom there are intimations of inappropriate attentions (or worse) – bows to her wishes. She damages everything she touches and has the audacity to put on a “why me?” act, which directs all the reader’s sympathy to Roy, who at least has some complexity to her character and shows growth through the series of crises precipitated by her husband’s betrayal.

Apropos of nothing else, I enjoyed this quote, which Roy says to her father about Craig:

I mean, he notices. He can see the color in the sky, and he knows that the change from baseball to football isn’t the only way to tell when it is autumn. Some men don’t know any more than that about seasons.

I’ve got just two Pulitzer winners left to read – James Cozzens’ Guard of Honor and Mackinley Kantor’s Andersonville.

Next up: Angela Carter’s Wise Children, which appears on the Guardian list of the 100 best novels ever written.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: american literature, pulitzer prize, racism

→ October 31, 2017
→ By keith

Music update, October 2017.

Happy Halloween! Lots of great new tracks and albums this month, including a few totally unexpected returns from artists who’ve appeared on my playlists before, plus one metal act I haven’t really bothered with since I was in high school. If the widget below doesn’t appear you can access the Spotify playlist directly.

Django Django – Tic Tac Toe. Huge comeback single for the Mercury Prize-nominated act after the mild disappointment of their 2015 album Born Under Saturn, which had a few good tracks (notably “Shake and Tremble”) but no breakout hits like “Default” or “Hail Bop.” This song is a promising tease of their third album, especially the swirling, textured chorus where the song’s structure is turned inside out.

Wolf Parade – You’re Dreaming. Cry Cry Cry, their first record since the band reunited, came out on October 6th, but I found it overall a bit weak – but I was never a huge WP fan the first time around. This was the best track to my ears.

DMA’S – Dawning. Compared to Oasis after their first record, this Australian band goes more Britpop on this lead single from their upcoming second album. I admit to a bit of nostalgic affection for the song, given how much it reminds me of that late-90s movement that by and large never caught on in the U.S.

Quicksand – Cosmonauts. Their first album since 1995, Interiors, is due out on November 10th. They’re still touring, but without guitarist Tom Capone, who was arrested and charged with trying to steal over 40 items from a Phoenix-area CVS and then resisting arrest. Song’s good, though.

Bully – Kills to Be Resistant. Bully is fronted by Alicia Bognanno, who seems way too young to be producing music that is so reminiscent of the less-polished side of 1990s grunge. Their first record earned quite a bit of positive press, but I found it lacking in actual musical interest – not enough hooks, not much connection between vocals and music, etc. This track, from the band’s just-released second album Losing, is my favorite from Bully so far.

Beck – Colors. The title track from Beck’s latest album is one of a half-dozen bangers on the record (which includes my #1 song of 2015, “Dreams,” in two versions), which is a complete departure from the sound on his Grammy-winning last album Morning Phase. This is the Beck material I love – inventive, layered, genre-crossing.

Blushes – To the Bone. I’ve seen reviews comparing Blushes to Foals … okay, yeah, this sounds a lot like Foals, or at least like Foals’ best stuff, so we’re good here.

Porches – Find Me. Porches is led by singer/multi-instrumentalist Aaron Maine, and they’re weird – that’s mostly a compliment, although it sometimes doesn’t work very well (like on “Country,” another single off their upcoming third album). “Find Me” is more in line with their haunting 2016 single “Hour,” a nicely creepy track for Halloween.

Gulp – Morning Velvet Sky. Gulp is Scottish vocalist Lindsey Levin and bassist Guto Pryce, who’s better known as the bass player for Welsh rock icons Super Furry Animals. This track is less rock, more synth and bass, with a hypnotic, driving bassline throughout the ethereal song.

Sampha – Blood on Me. Sampha Sisay just won this year’s Mercury Prize for his debut album, Process, which gives us an unsteady marriage of classic R&B sounds, especially in the vocals, and current electronic/drum-and-bass sounds. This song, my favorite from the album, actually first appeared as a single in August of 2016 in the UK; it’s more uptempo and I think more intense than the rest of the album.

MisterWives – Never Give Up On Me. This was a surprise, given that MisterWives just released their second album in May, without this track on it. This might be their poppiest song yet, but it’s also a great showcase of what Mandy Lee can do with her voice when she lets it rip.

Prides – A Wilder Heart. Prides’ “The Seeds You Sow” was my #8 song of 2014, but it didn’t even appear on their disappointing debut album the following year. Their seven-song EP A Mind Like the Tide, Part 1, just dropped on Friday, including the single “Let’s Stay in Bed All Day,” which I included on my September playlist, and this slow builder with a strong finish.

Tune-Yards – Look at Your Hands. Tune-Yards are probably best known for the alternative hit “Water Fountain,” which has a fantastic chorus and some great drumwork, but which loses me in the verse. I still don’t love Merrill Garbus’s singing voice, but this track is more evenly mixed between vocals and music, and her musical inventiveness gets higher billing as a result. It doesn’t quite have the huge hook of “Water Fountain,” though.

Alice Merton – No Roots. I’ve been remiss with this track, which I had earmarked for my September playlist and forgot to include, so I’m putting it here for completeness’ sake even though you’ve probably heard it. It’s already hit the top ten in several countries in Europe and is #14 on the next Billboard Alternative Songs chart, still trending up.

Sleigh Bells – Rainmaker. Yep, that’s the drum loop from “Paid in Full.” That’s all I’ve got here.

Liam Gallagher – I Get By. I’ve seen more praise for the Oasis singer’s solo album As You Were than I could possibly muster; it is long, and it certainly tries to recapture the peak Oasis sound, but it only barely scrapes the bottom of what his former band was able to do over its first three albums. Lead single “Wall of Glass,” which made my June playlist, is solid, as is this song, but the rest feels like filler, like an artist who wants to mimic a specific sound rather than write compelling singles.

Versing – Body Chamber. If you listened to just this song, and I asked you their home city, you’d probably guess it on one try. Their debut album, Nirvana (we’re not even pretending, are we), just came out at the very end of September.

The Dear Hunter – The Right Wrong. This song is the lead single from the prog-rock act’s new six-song EP, All Is As All Should Be (which, by the way, is definitely NOT true), with some clear nods to progressive icons like King Crimson and Marillion but within a manageable running time.

Catholic Action – Propaganda. The Glaswegian quartet just released In Memory Of, its first album of punk-tinged jangle-pop, on Friday; it’s hit-and-miss, with short, quick bursts of guitar-driven melodies that don’t always click, with this song the best track on the record.

Sleater-Kinney – Here We Come. They’re back, and they’re still angry, and why wouldn’t they be?

Helloween – Pumpkins United. I admit to a certain fondness for Helloween’s two late-80s underground classics, parts one and two of the Keeper of the Seven Keys series, which contained a number of surprisingly catchy power-metal tracks that seemed to bridge the gap between Iron Maiden and other NWOBHM acts that still brought big hooks and the less melodic thrash bands that were coming out of California at the time. This new track is the first song to feature original guitarist Kai Hansen since he left the band after the second Keeper album.

Moonspell – Evento. Moonspell is a Portuguese gothic/melodic death metal act who are consistently big sellers in their home country, with four different #1 albums in Portugal, but little recognition outside it. Their 11th album, 1755, drops on Friday; it’s a concept album about the Great Lisbon Earthquake of that year (which also inspired a new boardgame, Lisboa, that just came out this summer), sung entirely in Portuguese, with symphonic elements along with the expected death growls. Stuff just sounds more menacing when it’s not in English.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2017 in music, alternative, metal, Music, progressive metal

→ October 30, 2017
→ By keith

The Westing Game.

A mystery novel aimed at kids, Ellen Raskin’s The Westing Game is perfectly charming even for (much) older readers. I tackled it to vet it for my daughter (who then said she wasn’t interested, but I bet she’ll come back to it at some point), finding myself caught up in how the author packed such a clever, intricate plot in a short novel. It won the Newbery Medal for the year’s best work of children’s literature; I think it’s only the fifth winner I’ve read in its entirety (along with The Giver, A Wrinkle in Time, The Graveyard Book, and Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH). Although it takes a temporary turn towards the dark in the middle, I’ll spoil it just a little bit to say that Raskin wraps up the entire story very nicely, and shows the reader just how many clues were right there the entire time for the characters and the audience alike.

The start of the book is a bit of a slow burn, but once you get about a third of the way into it, the pace picks up dramatically, once the long setup is done. Samuel Westing, a reclusive millionaire and owner of Westing Paper Products, dies right at the beginning of the book, and has set up an elaborate scheme for his sixteen “heirs” – most of whom are unrelated to him and surprised they’re even mentioned – to compete in teams of two for the prize of the inheritance. Many of the heirs have unspoken connections to Westing or his family; some are in the apartment building where the story takes place, Sunset Towers, under false names. Each team gets a set of five one-word clues and must try to follow the oblique instructions in Westing’s will to identify which of the heirs killed Westing and thus win the prize.

The star of the story is the youngest heir, “Turtle” Wexler, a mischievous, astute thirteen-year-old girl who will kick the shins of anyone who pulls her hair braid, and who plays second billing to her older sister Angela within the family. Turtle and a judge, J.J. Ford, an African-American woman who is open about her connection to Westing, do the bulk of the real investigating, Turtle to win (and also to make money in the stock market), Ford for the thrill of the hunt. The narrative jumps around to other pairs as well, which I think helps to obfuscate the actual answer to the mystery by giving the reader too many ideas about the various clues, enough to send me in the wrong direction for about half of the book. There’s no other character as magnetic as Turtle, who seemed to me to be a direct ancestor of another of my favorite child protagonists, Flavia de Luce.

The real gift of this book is how Raskin has her characters playing with words, thinking about their meanings, the order, even messing with pronunciations or misspellings, all to try to decipher the clues. It’s a subtle encouragement to the reader to do the same – to expand one’s thinking about how we use words, and how tiny shifts can alter the meanings of anything we say or write, including, to pick one relevant example, the irregular will of an eccentric millionaire.

There’s one scene that might be disturbing for younger readers, although it’s eventually resolved in a way that should satisfy everybody. The remainder plays out as a fairly straight mystery novel, with a structure that certainly recalled Agatha Christie’s ‘bigger’ novels, where she uses a larger cast of suspects and moves the narrative around frequently with shorter chapters. The Westing Game feels in spots like a mystery for adults that was slimmed down – not dumbed down, just made shorter – for younger readers, given how quickly the narrative jumps, often with one character noticing something or coming to a conclusion right before the switch. It works, and might keep younger readers more engaged, although given how many mysteries I’ve read for adults I did get the occasional sense of watching a video with too many jump cuts.

Next up: I’m halfway through Elena Ferrante’s The Days of Abandonment, her second novel, written before the Neapolitan quartet that begins with My Brilliant Friend.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: american literature, light murder, mysteries, newbery medal, young adult literature

→ October 29, 2017
→ By keith

Gateway.

Frederik Pohl’s 1977 novel Gateway won the sci-fi awards triple crown the following year (Hugo, Nebula, and Locus) and was even loosely adapted into a computer game in 1992 – but it’s kind of lousy as a work of science fiction. Pohl ignores much science that was known or understood at the time, and other elements have become even more ridiculous over the last few decades, and he handwaves a lot of stuff away by filing it all under the mysterious technology of a lost alien civilization. If you can suspend your disbelief of all of this nonsense, though, he’s actually telling a pretty good war story that delves into issues of PTSD and survivor’s guilt while also looking into the risks that desperate people might willingly take to win the equivalent of a lottery prize.

Set at some unknown date in the not terribly distant future, Gateway follows the story of a successful explorer named Robinette Broadhead (variously referred to as Bob, Robbie, etc. depending on who’s talking) who left a dead-end life on earth as a food ‘miner’ to go to the asteroid known as Gateway. Within this story, humans have discovered the artifacts of a vanished alien race, known as the Heechees, who left tunnels on Venus and built a space station by hollowing out a large asteroid, from which they appear to have launched intergalactic exploratory missions. Humans have now occupied Gateway, which is run by a supranational corporation, and send willing explorers out on missions on the ships that they found docked in Gateway. Each ship’s destination is preprogrammed – changing it blows up the ship – and the destinations vary widely, with some ships returning with valuable weapons or tools, some returning with nothing, and some never returning at all or returning with the crew dead of starvation or worse.

We meet Robinette as he’s talking to Sigfrid, an artificial intelligence psychotherapist (everything is automated!), and it becomes apparent that whatever happened on his last mission has left him with guilt about something – even though he came back to a significant reward. The narrative alternates between short chapters of his conversations with Sigfrid and longer flashbacks detailing his tenure on Gateway, including the months where he stalled rather than jump on an outbound ship. Those passages cover a common theme in dystopian sci-fi, where characters with no hope for adequate employment, money, or food end up taking on enormous risks for a shot at a life-altering payout. It’s more powerful than the conversations with Sigfrid, which read like an unintentional parody of Freudian psychoanalysis and become overbearing, like we’re getting a commentary track on the main story. Pohl has crafted a small set of characters, centered on Robinette, who face long odds with a high risk of a very unpleasant death and still choose to board these ships because it’s their one chance at a decent life. (Pohl even has characters yearning for “Full Medical,” which sounds a lot like really good health insurance.) The explorations that matter in this book aren’t the ones on the Heechee ships, but of how these characters respond to this extreme scenario, with evidence of the risks and rewards arriving daily.

The science-y stuff here is really silly. Einstein showed that nothing can exceed the speed of light, and anything with mass would see that mass increase without bound as it approached the speed of light. Pohl has humans living in tunnels on Venus, even though scientists had known for at least ten years that the climate of that planet was totally inhospitable to our sort of life. The infrastructure of Gateway itself would have worked better if Pohl had tried to explain it less – the point isn’t how it works, but what such an environment does to the characters. Of all of the sideshows in the book, the idea that space tourists would come to Gateway, which has no apparent attraction for visitors beyond its existence, rang the most true – it’s about bragging rights, or signaling one’s wealth, both universal values that would still be in full force in Pohl’s bleak vision of our future.

The conclusion, where Pohl reveals just what happened on Robinette’s last mission, is very clever even if (I think) it also plays fast and loose with the science, where Robinette made a choice that made him the sole survivor without him realizing that that’s what the outcome would be – and now he carries the emotional scars from it. You can draw easy parallels to the wartime experiences of soldiers who’ve had to make decisions that cost fellow fights their lives, or who managed to escape a situation that killed many of their comrades, which gives Gateway a war-novel feel without the war. Even the missions themselves could work as allegories for the kinds of sorties Air Force pilots might have been asked to make in mid-century wars, or excursions on land into enemy territory with high rewards but high risk of capture or death. If you can get past the silly science, there’s quite a good story underneath here.

Next up: I’m just about done with J.M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: american literature, dystopian, hugo award, locus award, nebula award, science fiction

→ October 28, 2017
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 10/28/17.

No new Insider content this week, as I was writing up the top 50 free agents package. That and a look at the offseason trade market will run the week of November 6th. I did hold a Klawchat on Thursday.

I spoke with Arizona’s KJZZ about my book Smart Baseball and the rise of Big Data in the sport. You can find links to buy the book here.

I also run a free email newsletter with personal essays and links to everything I’ve written since the previous newsletter. If you’re already a subscriber, thank you, and yes, I’m overdue to send another one out.

And now, the links, with boardgame stuff at the end as usual…

I don’t know how anyone could have missed it, but it turns out a tiny Montana firm with ties to the Secretary of the Interior somehow got the biggest contract to restore power in Puerto Rico. Then the Daily Beast‘s Ken Klippenstein got a hold of the contract itself, with some sweetheart clauses to protect this little company from pretty much anything, like, say, getting sued for doing a bad job. And now the White House is slowly backing away from the deal. Drain the swamp, indeed.
The longread of the week was clearly the New Yorker‘s profile of the Sackler family, who’ve made billions by selling opioids, often to addicts rather than people in pain. I wonder if any institutions, including my own undergrad alma mater, will return the money the family donated or take its name off any buildings.
The Atlantic goes long on the potential negative impacts of increased personalization of news – that is, limiting what each of us sees based on what each of us seems to want to see. There are some positives from the algorithms behind these feeds, but newsrooms need the right people and technology to profit from them.
The New York Times looks at how an EPA stacked with former chemical industry officials is rolling back regulations on the use of chemicals where there’s strong evidence of harm to humans. Even more notable is the EPA PR official’s response to a request from the author here, which reads like a Facebook comment.
As more and more women come out against Harvey Weinstein, the women who’ve accused our current President of sexual harassment wonder why these accusations haven’t affected Trump at all.
North Carolina’s state legislature might be the most vile in the nation. The Republicans who control it are trying to rig the courts via gerrymandering after multiple judicial defeats.
Economist Paul Krugman says Trump’s proposed corporate tax cut amounts to $700 billion in foreign aid because of how much of corporate America is foreign-owned – and asks why on earth we would want to do that.
Media Matters argues that the Clinton/uranium investigation is “bullshit” promulgated by Breitbart and Sean Hannity.
The Environmental Defense Fund lists five environmental rules that industries have asked Trump to eliminate. As you might expect, they’re rules that attempt to protect consumers and/or the environment, but raise costs for certain industries.
Millennials are paying for news, contrary to every bit of nonsense you’ve heard about what millennials won’t do or what thing they’re ruining now. I wonder if some of this is a desire to get news from reliable sources given the prevalence of both fake news and highly biased ‘news.’
A Cornell professor who oversees a $22 million federally-funded program to improve school lunches has been accused of misinterpreting, omitting, and otherwise screwing up the data behind several of his studies, leading to at least three retractions by journals of papers he’s published. The New York Times explains one of those retracted studies, on kids and cookies. What I can’t find, shockingly, is any evidence the USDA might pull his funding.
Chef Dan Barber, author of The Third Plate, opened a pop-up in London called wastED, selling foods made from ingredients that would normally be discarded. He’s done it in NYC too.
A new Dark Matter coffee shop in Chicago will give 100% of its proceeds to suicide prevention while also serving as an outreach location that will provide support and training to the community.
Anthony Bourdain spoke candidly to Slate about his role in encouraging ‘bro culture’ in restaurant kitchens as the industry is dealing with the John Besh scandal (and surely more to come).
Amazon has been deleting unfavorable reviews for an anti-glyphosate book that has been accused of relying on weak or junk science, while also allowing reviews by associates of the author (a violation of amazon’s terms) to stay up.
Vulture (for whom I write occasionally) has oral history of the Seinfeld episode “The Contest”, which is particularly interesting for what went on with the network.
Paste (for whom I write more than occasionally) looks at the inherent violence within Castle Wolfenstein II, including the uncomfortable ‘storyline’ in the game.
Hillsborough wants to put the new Rays ballpark in Ybor City. Who’s going to pay for it? Are Florida voters dumb enough to fall for this trick yet again?
A man in Portugal beat his ex-wife with a nail-studded club and avoided jail because the Portuguese judges said his anger was understandable, citing an 1886 ruling and the Bible. A Portuguese politican called it “Sharia law in the Court of Porto,” a fair warning given the rise of hard-right theocrats, including Senate candidate Roy Moore, in the last two years.
Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has an agreement to develop a quayside neighborhood of Toronto, which a lecturer in the ethics of technology warns is a dangerous precedent.
Audio link: Richard Thaler, winner of this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics, appeared on NPR’s The Hidden Brain to discuss the predictability of our unpredictability.
Author Patrick Tomlinson presented a thought experiment that he says puts the lie to anti-abortion arguments. Ben Shapiro, himself a pro-lifer, responded on his site, although I think at least two of his four points really miss the mark.
An Indian researcher and former English professor has worked for years to catalog the nearly 800 languages spoken in India, a number that may have dropped by 50% since 1960.
Boardgames! The Kickstarter for ROOT, a new asymmetric game from Leder Games, blew past its modest $24K funding goal in the first five days.
Asmodee announced Fantasy Flight Digital, a new division that will bring FFG titles to tablets and Steam. Fantasy Flight is best known for its Star Wars miniatures and dice games, Netrunner, Game of Thrones, X-COM, and new hit Legend of the Five Rings, but also has some straight Eurogames like Hey That’s My Fish and Ingenious.
Asmodee also released a teaser for the upcoming app version of the complex strategy boardgame Scythe.
The New Yorker looks at the ‘resurrection’ of Dungeons & Dragons, although I know the game never really went anywhere, and of course it inspired hundreds of later games, both RPGs and many tabletop games that integrate role-playing or dungeon crawl elements.
I don’t care for Scrabble or the knockoff Words with Friends, but enjoyed this Vice piece on how WwF essentially hacked the game via its user-generated dictionary.
Rama.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: baseball, boardgames, food waste, gmo, Languages, links, longreads, stick to baseball, taxes, the swamp, tv

→ October 27, 2017
→ By keith

Everybody Lies.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz made his name by using the enormous trove of data from Google search inquiries – that is, what users all over the world type in the search box – to measure things that researchers would typically measure solely by voluntary responses to surveys. And, as Stephens-Davidowitz says in the title of his first book, Everybody Lies, those surveys are not that reliable. It turns out, to pick one of the most notable results of his work (described in this book), that only 2-3% of men self-report as gay when asked in surveys, but the actual rate is probably twice that, based on the data he mined from online searches.

Stephens-Davidowitz ended up working for a year-plus at Google as a data scientist before leaving to become an editorial writer at the New York Times and author, so the book is bit more than just a collection of anecdotes like later entries in the Freakonomics series. Here, the author is more focused on the potential uses and risks of this enormous new quantity of data that, of course, is being collected on us every time we search on Google, click on Facebook, or look for something on a pornography site. (Yep, he got search data from Pornhub too.)

The core idea here is twofold: there are new data, and these new data allow us to ask questions we couldn’t answer before, or simply couldn’t answer well. People won’t discuss certain topics with researchers, or even answer surveys truthfully, but they will spill everything to Google. Witness the derisive term “Dr. Google” for people who search for their symptoms online, where they may end up with information from fraudsters or junk science sites like Natural News or Mercola, rather than seeing a doctor. What if, however, you looked at people who reveal through their searches that they have something like pancreatic cancer, and then looked at the symptoms those same people were Googling several weeks or months before their diagnosis? Such an approach could allow researchers to identify symptoms that positively correlate with hard-to-detect diseases, and to know the chances of false positives, or even find intermediate variables that alter the probability the patient has the disease. You could even build expert systems that really would work like Dr. Google – if I have these five symptoms, but not these three, should I see a real doctor?

Sex, like medical topics, is another subject people don’t like to discuss with strangers, and it happens to sell books too, so Stephens-Davidowitz spent quite a bit of time looking into what people search for when they’re searching about sex, whether it’s pornography, dating sites, or questions about sex and sexuality. The Pornhub data trove reveals quite a bit about sexual orientations, along with some searches I personally found a bit disturbing. Even more disturbing, however, is just how many Americans secretly harbor racist views, which Stephens-Davidowitz deduces from internet searches for certain racial slurs, and even shows how polls underestimated Donald Trump’s appeal to the racist white masses by demonstrating from search data how many of these people are out there. Few racists reveal themselves as such to surveys or researchers, and such people may even lie about their voting preferences or plans – saying they were undecided when they planned to vote for Trump, for instance. If Democrats had bothered to get and analyze this data, which is freely available, would they have changed their strategies in swing states?

Some of Stephens-Davidowitz’s queries here are less earth-shattering and seem more like ways to demonstrate the power of the tool. He looks at whether violent movies actually correlate to an increase in violent crime (spoiler: not really), and what first-date words or phrases might indicate a strong chance for a second date. But he also uses some of these queries to talk about new or revived study techniques, like A/B testing, or to show how such huge quantities of data can lead to spurious correlations, a problem known as “the curse of dimensionality,” such as in studies that claim a specific gene causes a specific disease or physical condition that then aren’t replicated by other researchers.

Stephens-Davidowitz closes with some consideration of the inherent risks of having this much information about us available both to corporations like Google, Facebook, and … um … Pornhub, as well as the risks of having it in the hands of the government, especially with the convenient excuse of “homeland security” always available to the government to explain any sort of overreach. Take the example in the news this week that a neighbor of Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook mass murderer, warned police that he was threatening to do just such a thing, only to be told that the police couldn’t do anything because his mother owned the guns legally. What if he’d searched for this online? For ways to kill a lot of people in a short period of time, or to build a bomb, or to invade a building? Should the FBI be knocking on the doors of anyone who searches for such things? Some people would say yes, if it might prevent Sandy Hook or Las Vegas or San Bernardino or the Pulse Orlando or Columbine or Virginia Tech or Luby’s or Binghamton or the Navy Yard. Some people will consider this an unreasonable abridgement of our civil liberties. Big Data forces the conversation to move to new places because authorities can learn more about us than ever before – and we’re the ones giving them the information.

Next up: J.M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: data science, highly recommended, math, non-fiction

→ October 26, 2017
→ By keith

Klawchat 10/26/17.

Starting at 1 pm ET. Questions go in the frame below, NOT in the comments!

Keith Law: You can do it your own way – if it’s done just how I say. Klawchat.

Keith: How important a role does a particular team’s development capability and track record play in your rankings? It strikes me that the abilities of individual teams to develop talent varies widely and often is underrated when assessing a prospects progress. What teams do you think are better in this area? Does it vary by positions? Any prospects you think we harmed because they were drafted by the wrong team?
Keith Law: I don’t consider it at all. The rankings of players are team agnostic because a player can change orgs at any time.

Deacon Phillipe : What’s your reaction to the Girardi firing?
Keith Law: Confusion. But I know there may be details we don’t know.

Guy F.: Am I correct to profile you as an index fund guy? Do you own individual stocks outside what you might get from Disney as part of your comp package?
Keith Law: I am an index funds guy, period.

Deacon Phillipe : I’ve been rooting against the Astros because I hate seeing their blatant tanking rewarded. I know they were playing by the rules of the game, but they basically made a mockery of 3 seasons worth of games to get higher picks. Even the Cubs never sunk so low when they tanked. (I rooted against them last year).
Keith Law: I disagree. One, what they did wasn’t just legal, it was smart – the rules gave them every incentive to do this. Two, asking teams that aren’t going to win anyway to throw away cash on veterans just to win a few more regular-season games does nothing for me. I’d rather see prospects and fringe players get those opportunities. Maybe you’ll find a JD Martinez or a Chris Taylor or a Marwin Gonzalez in there.

Chris: Pax Unplugged will be my first gaming convention. I’m only able to go for one day (Friday) and was wondering if you had any tips for how to approach it? I’m feeling overwhelmed by all the options and going solo so my schedule is whatever I make it.
Keith Law: They can be pretty overwhelming. I’d say leave yourself lots of time to wander the floor and just explore all the new stuff on display, and if you have certain games you love, look for their tournaments or for any free-play sessions. I’ll be at PAX Unplugged all 3 days, and on the Saturday (Nov 18) I’ll be signing copies of Smart Baseball if you bring yours along.

Jimmy Z: Keith, (sorry, screwed up and hit enter before asking question): Joe Girardi. 2014 – Yanks have a -31 run differential, yet win 84. 2016 – Yanks have a -22 run differential, yet win 84. 2017 – Yanks are picked by no one to make the playoffs, and in their “2nd rebuilding year” Joe takes them to Game 7 of the ALCS. Am I missing something here?
Keith Law: I can’t believe that this was about Joe’s on-field results. I also don’t think he can be blamed in any way for their ALCS loss. He made some mistakes, and had some weak spots, but they were legitimately beaten by a better team.

Angel: Hey keith do you see Albert abreu in the top 100 at some point next season?
Keith Law: Possible but not likely. Secondary stuff isn’t that advanced right now.

Joe: As someone who spent so much time in recent years scouting many of the guys killing it in the World Series this year, how cool is it personally to see them all come together like this on the biggest stage?
Keith Law: It’s very rewarding to watch these guys reach the pinnacle.

edward: thanks, keith – thoughts on who the phillies should be looking at for their next manager?
Keith Law: Someone with a strong developmental track record. Gabe Kapler is on their list, and I know him fairly well, enough to recommend him. (The reports that they’d chosen Dusty Wathan already were not accurate. I don’t know where that came from.)

gus johnson: Do you think a player’s salary should be considered in the MVP Voting? To measure the true value of a player, shouldn’t we consider both the results AND the cost? For example, Stanton’s 6.9 WAR isn’t as valuable as Rendon’s 6.9 WAR from a cost perspective.
Keith Law: No. No. Also no.

Chris J: How do you see the Red Sox setting their lineup with Pedroia out around 2 months? Mookie at 2B? Chavis at 2B? Brock Holt?
Keith Law: Probably Holt. Chavis is pretty questionable at third, no reason to think he’ll be able to go right to 2nd and handle it.

Jimmy Hillman: Thanks for the chat! Of the two Pirate prospects that were exalted by many in 2015-2016 but had a rough 2017 – Glasnow or Meadows – which one do you think has the better chance to bounce back in 2018 and reclaim some (all?) of that shine?
Keith Law: Meadows. Health will go a long way for him.

Lyle: The last several Mariners GMs have generally failed to develop and keep position player prospects (essentially Kyle Seager and Mike Zunino are it for the last dozen years). Everyone else either busts (Ackley, e.g.) or is traded away for pennies (Adam Jones, Chris Taylor, etc.) How do the Mariners go about changing that culture in their system before Kyle Lewis and Evan White arrive?
Keith Law: They already changed GMs since all that. But also ownership has to say they’re willing to take a few years of losing to rebuild it – I think the mandate now is for DiPoto to try to win, and that may mean trading someone like Lewis for major-league help.

Mike: Bote has been crushing in the AFL but I’ll give that to a SSS and the Arizona climate. A story came out that he has changed his swing over the last couple of years. He is already 24, but do you think he has a chance as a starter?
Keith Law: Probably a bench guy. Think he can hit some, maybe not enough bat + defense to be more than a second-tier regular at 2nd base, but likely a real utility guy you can plug in at four or five positions.

Brian: Keith what is your take on Nicky Lopez in the Royals system? Looks to be good defensively at short and has a good approach at the plate. Utility infielder or potential starter? Thanks.
Keith Law: Outside chance to start. Can hit, can play short. Power is light, approach isn’t actually that great. Good instincts, though. Stands out in a weak system.

Evan: What are your thoughts on the Mets new manager Mickey Callaway?
Keith Law: He’s never managed, so we just don’t know. I’m not a fan of hiring managers with zero managerial experience at any level.

jp: Does the huge number of cord cutters mean clubs are gonna struggle with future TV deals? Seems like a bubble that could burst, but then again, plenty of fans are still gonna want to watch the games.
Keith Law: It depends on where and whether cord-cutters go for their baseball content. If MLB.tv ends up with a local team option, then that might balance out the revenues – but also provides another chance for MLB to smooth out the revenue gaps between the largest and smallest markets. If 100% of TV revenue came from MLB.tv, for instance, then they could simply divide it equally among all teams. Then the revenue gap would be from attendance and corporate sponsorships, so large market teams would still have an advantage, but much less of one, and maybe revenue-sharing could even go away.

Moltar: If the Mets don’t add Guillorme to the 40 man, he’ll definitely get rule-V’d, no? I feel like the glove would play off the bench at the minimum.
Keith Law: I’m not sure – I wouldn’t say it’s definite. It might be an 8 glove and a 3 bat. That’s not easy to carry.

Dan: Albert Almora Jr. improved mightily against RHP in the second half (123 wRC+). With his above average defense and ability to crush LHP seems like he’s turning into an above average regular.
Keith Law: I do think he’s a regular.

Ben: Have you gotten a chance to see much of Andrew Knizner at AFL? How would you compare to Carson Kelly?
Keith Law: Not even close to Kelly for me. Kelly’s the same seasonal age and already has succeeded in AAA, with good receiving skills and more bat. Knizner has to catch or he’s not a prospect, and I don’t think the glove is a sure thing.

John S: Houston makes the world series. Its rebuild has been marvelous even if not perfect (Aiken, Appel). And… they fire their scouts. What gives? I read that the org wants to focus even more on analytics. Fine and well, but it’s not like there is some cap on what can be spent on scouting. Is it an issue of too much information dilutes useful information?
Keith Law: They believe pro scouting is becoming obsolete. I disagree, of course, but it is their philosophy that trackman data and video ‘scouting’ can replace it.

Stuxnet: Its been a disappointing few years for the Texas Rangers, and they look like they have a mediocre major league team with a bad farm system, putting them in a bad spot for the future. Is it time for them to get a new g.m. in place, since it appears the rest of the league has passed Jon Daniels by?
Keith Law: They won the AL West in 2016, Van Winkle.

Moltar: Consensus seems to be that Calloway is a good hire, but what kind of impact can we expect to see him make on the Mets’ pitchers in the upcoming season?
Keith Law: I would guess very little, now that he’s the manager and not the pitching coach. The latter will be the name that matters to your question.

Amy: Cora got his gig! What will you do with all this free time? Also, thoughts on how Sox get some power in there?
Keith Law: I’m thrilled for him. It’s a good situation given the solid young core on that roster … and potentially difficult given some of the personalities among the veterans. Devers has power, Betts showed more power in 2016 than 2017, Bogaerts has power when his hand isn’t hurt, I think Benintendi will be a 25-30 homer guy. What they could really use is a power hitter at 1b, but the four big 1b free agents (Hosmer, Santana, Morrison, Alonso) aren’t really power bats. I like Sam Travis a lot as a prospect, but I think he’s more a hitter for average than for power.

Craig: I keep thinking back to Brett Gardner’s amazing at bat in Game 7 of the ALDS. I was rooting for the Indians, but by about pitch 10, I just wanted the at-bat to be over. If I felt that way watching it, I can’t imagine how Cody Allen felt trying to pitch to him.

Is being able to continually foul-off pitches a skill that can be taught? If so, how?
Keith Law: I think it’s a function of hand-eye coordination above all else. That is the biggest thing I didn’t see with Pedroia as a rookie (well, that and he was out of shape in September 2006) – he was exceptional at fouling off pitches he couldn’t hit, which is how he made that really unconventional swing work.

Jake: How has Tyler Jay looked in AFL?
Keith Law: What I saw was great, but I talked to Eric Longenhagen last week and he saw about 2 mph less on the fastball than I did.

Dennis: Which are your favorite Agatha Christie novels?
Keith Law: Murder of Roger Ackroyd always stands out for me. I’m nervous about this movie … the ending of Murder on the Orient Express is so iconic that they can’t change it, and I think a lot of people know it, so how will they craft a compelling story where a decent portion of the audience knows the culprit?

Warren for Pres 2020!: Do you think that whenever Trump’s reign of terror is over, we’ll see a cascade of books from various current/former WH staff, such as Sean “Puffy” Spicer and Sarah Huckabee “Don’t Call Me Colonel” Sanders, detailing their true feelings about the human bottle of Ipecac they’re forced to defend and rationalize on a daily basis?
Keith Law: No question. Once it’s safe, there will be dozens of books, documentaries, even some “Game Change” style TV series about it.

Alex: Keith what do you make of all the coaching/front office changes the Giants have made? From the outside the coaches seem like the least of their problems.
Keith Law: I’d heard they felt like the clubhouse had gotten stale. Whether that’s true, or at all relevant to the on-field performance, is another matter.

RSO: Is Brett Gardner criminally underrated? He has the 47th best WAR all-time for a left fielder, and was second this year in WAR (ahead of Gary Sanchez) on the Yankees.
Keith Law: He’s spent about 1/3 of his games in CF, which probably skewed those rankings, and I’ve noticed some centerfielders who play left end up with crazy defensive numbers there because the average at that position is pulled down by the Matt Kemps of the world (hey, we can’t play this guy anywhere, so put him in left). His WAR puts him right with Jeff Heath, a player from the 1940s who played in a roughly similar number of games, and whom I’d never heard of till just now.

Dennis: Are Jahmai Jones and Brandon Marsh of the Angels top 100 prospects? If not, are they close?
Keith Law: Jones was on my top 100 already.

Bort: Hey Keith, thanks as always for your writing and for the chat. If Luis Castillo’s changeup continues to be effective against lefties (21% whiff rate, .110 ISO this year) but his fringy slider doesn’t improve, do you think he will still be an above-average starter? Do you think he’ll be better than Dinelson Lamet, who seems to have a fringy changeup but an effective slider?
Keith Law: I think I’d rather have the FB/CH guy than the FB/SL guy. You can still get same-side hitters with the CH but it’s really hard to get other-side hitters out with a breaking ball (as a starter – lots of relievers do this).

Ron: HI Keith- Any thoughts on the Twins hiring of John Manuel? Good, bad or not any impact? Do you think Molitor is going to embrace more analytics or still old school? Thanks!
Keith Law: Very happy for John. I wouldn’t say the hiring of any area scout, no matter how good, would have an impact the average fan would see. That’s no slight on John, whom I expect to do excellent work for the Twins.

Darryl: Starting a MLB team from scratch today…who’s your 1st pick? Trout? Harper? Correa? Seager?
Keith Law: Still Trout. All great choices. Machado belongs in the discussion set, though.

Amy: Do you think Mookie could still play 2b? Is he capable?
Keith Law: I do, he was very good there, but you’d lose a lot of defense in the OF from doing so.

Matt: The Cards have put together a pretty nice, cost-controlled rotation ( Weaver, CMart, Reyes, Flaherty). Knowing that young SP can be fickle, how do you think this sets them up for the next few years?
Keith Law: I don’t think that’s enough in bulk innings or starter certainty. They can certainly supplement from outside – and you didn’t include Hudson or Alcantara, both reasonably close – but that’s only a beginning, not a complete solution.

Sam: Considering the success Altuve is having do you see scouts being more open to not rule someone out because of size or other traditional measures or is he just so far of an outlier that it will have no impact?
Keith Law: Bregman was the #2 pick in the draft, and wasn’t going much later than that anyway, and he’s maybe 5’8″. Benintendi’s no giant. Stroman might be 5’9″, Sonny Gray 5’8″. Nick Allen is 5’6″ and got $2 million (I think) in the draft last year. So teams are open to it. It’s just one factor among many – if you’re small, but strong, with a sound swing, and play a skill position, you’ll still get lots of consideration. Altuve was just so small at 15 that he couldn’t even get the Astros to sign him – they cut him the first time from their scout team in VZ and he had to come back the next day with his dad to beg for another chance.

Jesse: Have you tried Century: Spice Road yet? I think you and your family might really enjoy it. It’s similar to Slendor with maybe a little more strategy.
Keith Law: I played it at GenCon and agree it’s very similar to Splendor, with maybe a little more variation in how you can approach the game. But I didn’t think it was novel – it felt familiar to me.

Evan: Was Avi Garcia’s season a BABIP driven mirage, or is he actually good now?
Keith Law: Can it be both?

Chris: Do you have more info on Jhailyn Ortiz, stats looking good and as a Phillies fan never heard of him
Keith Law: Very interesting power bat with feel to hit, better athlete than expected given his size. They gave him a lot of money as an amateur, and I know some scouts were down on him because they thought he’d get fat, but so far he’s looked great.

Matt: I haven’t seen this mentioned, but the way the Dodgers managed the game last night was…odd. Using 9 relief pitchers in a game vs Verlander?
Keith Law: Hill was wobbly early, no problem with going to Maeda. Really, I can’t blame Roberts for anything. Hinch pressed the “HIT DINGERS” button and that was that.

Eddie Gaedel: If Kong is allowed to return in 2018, do you have the same moral aversion to him as you do to domestic abusers? After all, he risked people’s lives by driving drunk, and he was a serial offender. Can baseball allow him to return on a probationary period, and should they?
Keith Law: I would have no problem with MLB banning him, or even the government saying he can’t get a work visa now. He’s dangerous.

Jimmy: How much do teams factor in Coors for free agents leaving Colorado? I’m mostly wondering if teams will overlook some of Jake McGee’s struggles and treat like he’s the same guy he was with the Rays.
Keith Law: Statcast data will help players in extreme environments, I think. I’m a big McGee fan and will have him fairly high for a reliever on my FA rankings, which I believe go up 11/6.

Matt: What is your degree of confidence that any of De La Cruz, Albertos, Clifton, or Alzolay will be able to help Cub rotation at some point in ’18 or ’19?
Keith Law: 2018, very low. 2019, Alzolay or maybe Clifton. De la Cruz can’t stay healthy and Albertos, while very talented, has barely pitched.

RSO: I know in the past you said Gleyber Torres is best suited for SS, but with Didi Gregorious in tow, what position would you rather play him at 2B or 3B?
Keith Law: Moving Torres off shortstop wastes a good portion of his value.

Ed: I spatchcocked my Turkey last year, and am already getting request this year for it despite not even hosting TG. There is no going back
Keith Law: Really is a game changer. Plus it cooks faster.

Evan: Do the Braves have a hidden gem at catcher in Alex Jackson or is he still too big of a liability behind the plate?
Keith Law: You need to read my AFL posts. He was the lead item in the second one.

Harrisburg Hal: Thanks for posting about the board game apps last week – after feeling like I’d mastered Splendor, I purchased Jaipur and got repeatedly pummeled by the AI.
Keith Law: The Jaipur app’s medium AI kicks my ass. I am not good at that game.

Pete: Last night’s game was fun to watch, but to me, the best play was Hernandez’s tying single that scored Forsythe, which was more fun than watching solo home run after solo home run. If baseball keeps the same ball, combined with the length of games, this isn’t a good long-term outlook for the enjoyment of the sport. Thoughts?
Keith Law: Agree – the last three innings were exciting, but I’d much rather see more balls in play and fewer HR/K. It also felt like we were just waiting for the next homer. It’s aesthetic, though – it was still a great game.

Kelly : How does being on the disabled list affect the Rule 5 draft? (For example, Sam Coonrood in the Giants system was Rule 5 eligible but is on the DL for Tommy John’s.)
Keith Law: There is no offseason DL. All those players must be activated and assigned to a roster.

Steven: Last night Smoltz implied the analytics were to take Hill out after 4 but that seemed to hurt them later when they were very low on bullpen depth when it mattered. Seems like this was a case of over analysis rather than a manager observing that he had a guy who was pitching well with a decent pitch count. Had the been able to get another inning or two out of him it may have made a big difference in the 8-11 innings.
Keith Law: Maybe, but I didn’t think Hill looked sharp, and you really can’t manage inning 5 around innings 10 and 11.

BigPapaChuck: Do you think the Braves already know their fate but have to keep silent until MLB announces it after the WS? They have to have a lot of contingency plans in place, no?
Keith Law: I don’t think that is the case.

Pat D: The word is that the Yankees will look for someone with a mind to analytics. So obviously Dusty isn’t a candidate, right? Is there anyone you know of who might fit that bill who’s ready?
Keith Law: I never heard that Girardi was anti-analytics, so maybe they just want someone even more in favor of using it? It’s a little strange to me. I also don’t know if they’d consider a rookie manager again, or if they want someone who’s managed MLB teams before. Manny Acta is one of the latter who I know is very open to analytics, since I worked with him on BBTN.

JP: % chance Stanton is traded this offseason? And best guess where to?
Keith Law: Low. 20%.

Tom: In the post game last night, Frank Thomas said he didn’t like bringing guys in for a 6 out save essentially because they haven’t been in those situations all season, and hence haven’t practiced it. Granted this was on the heels of Jansen and Giles both blowing leads, but do you find merit in this logic?
Keith Law: I don’t, and I don’t think it was the reason they blew those leads. Jansen threw one bad pitch to Marwin. Is that because he wasn’t used to facing five batters in an outing?

Chris : Who’s going to shell out years and dollars to this year’s starting pitcher FA class? It seems like all clubs realize second contracts for SPs dont make sense unless your name is Scherzer or something.
Keith Law: Except that they’ll all get to the GM meetings, look at their depth charts, and realize they need pitching, and this market is all they have. Guys will still get paid, at least on a per-year basis.

Daniel: Shipley is now old for a prospect but is he still a SP for you? Stillhas two solid secondaries and is a great athlete despite the dip in velocity.
Keith Law: Still a starter, but he needs his old fastball back to be more than a five.

Dr. Bob: You go to the AFL every year. If it is a lot of SSS and guys working on things, what are you and other scouts hoping to see there?
Keith Law: It’s not really guys working on things – that’s instructional league – just guys getting more reps. So it’s a good way to look at swings, deliveries, BP, guys facing better competition than they saw during the year, plus a lot of players on the 40-man bubble (like Guillorme) on whom you might want one more scouting report.

Chris : Would you move Wheeler or Matz to the bullpen? Does it even matter, bc more likely than not they’ll both just get hurt anyway?
Keith Law: I’d consider it depending on what the doctors say. Relief work isn’t a panacea for arm trouble; some guys would get hurt with all the back-to-back usage too.

Daniel: I read that you had Houser 92-95 with a good CB in the AFL. If he can remain healthy he’s a SP, yes?
Keith Law: He’s a starter.

Martha Stewart: Are there any cooking shows you watch besides Iron Chef? Do you have a favorite ‘ethnic food’?
Keith Law: I don’t watch Iron Chef, just Top Chef. Isn’t pretty much all food ethnic?

Jimmy: I’ve read a few times that the Yankees’ player development people have great success helping their pitching prospects throw harder. It always comes up in profiles about Chance Adams. Do you know if there’s any evidence that they’re actually better at it than other teams? Or is this just an anecdote someone noticed and a bunch of other people grabbed?
Keith Law: It’s anecdotal evidence across a pretty long list of players, so I’m inclined to believe it. I know I’ve seen a lot of these guys in Trenton the last few years. Adams isn’t even the best example, with a slightly above average fastball. They got Tate’s fastball back. Sheffield throws harder than ever now. And they keep finding these relievers, like Cody Carroll, late in the draft who get into the system and suddenly start bumping 98.

Craig: How do you feel about Trump’s tax plan announcement?
Keith Law: I think the evidence does not support their claim that tax cuts for the highest income levels will boost economic growth. That may have been true in the 1960s, when the top marginal rates were over 50%, but it appears to be untrue today, when even the top rates are moderate for a developed country. I do think tax cuts can stimulate the economy, but need to go to people who’ll increase consumption as well as investment, and I think no one wants to talk about the benefit of radical tax reform because both parties love to regulate behavior through taxation. (But please, tell me why anyone should be able to deduct mortgage interest – up to $1 million of it! – on a *second* home.)

Timothy : How much stock do you put into the AFL? (Ex: Alex Jackson)
Keith Law: AFL performance is close to meaningless. It’s too small of a sample, in a very hitter-friendly environment. Joey Terdoslavich led the league in homers one year and Atlanta fans went nuts when I said he wasn’t really a prospect.

Patrick: What do you think of Thario? Can he be marketed as a starting infielder and used as trade bait, or is he better served in a utility/depth role? Do you like him or Wade better?
Keith Law: Thairo is a second division starter for me, or a good utility guy. Might have more value in trade in a package given their depth chart.

Clyde: Did Michael Gettys make any progress this year? 191 whiffs certainly suggest not, but he did up his walk rate, I believe.
Keith Law: He was repeating high-A. No.

Nick: Does Justus Sheffield have #1 stuff?
Keith Law: Sure looked like it in the AFL. We’ll see if he can pitch with that stuff for a full season, but it’s very promising.

Brian: Can we please kill the K Zone, now also appearing on Fox? I would like to see the pitch with my own eyes. If it’s a debatable call, show me the K Zone on replay. Am I wrong?
Keith Law: Not a huge fan either. I have Gameday for that stuff. I tend to watch games both ways.

Antonio: What is it about Chance Adams that doesn’t really get him prospect list love? Supposedly throws hard and the numbers are obviously there. I don’t get it.
Keith Law: Doesn’t throw that hard, doesn’t have a real out pitch, undersized without great fastball plane.

Patty O’Furniture: Giancarlo’s not really going to the Giants, is he?
Keith Law: It makes no sense for either club. The Giants’ system is weak at the moment, so the Marlins wouldn’t get much of a return. And the Giants would be taking on an albatross contract for a player who doesn’t make them a contender right away.

Sean: Keith, having just finished your book and reading about the Astros use of high-speed cameras and such in their pro scouting, I have a question about player development. How much is this stuff being used in the minor leagues?
Keith Law: It’s all over the place. You can’t go to a minor league game without seeing the cameras the parent clubs have set up to record their own guys and the visitors.

Daniel: Is it just injuries that have derailed Gilbert Lara so far? Or is he not that good?
Keith Law: I think he’s just not that good, but he’ll turn 20 on Monday and I don’t want to entirely write him off.

Pete: Isn’t a stale clubhouse what you get when all your players are old?
Keith Law: You might say that, yes.

Ridley Kemp: Are you aware of any benefits that Major League Baseball is involved with for Puerto Rico? I’ve been poking around and can’t find anything, which surprises me given the league’s ties to the island.
Keith Law: They gave $1 million in the wake of the hurricane, and individual teams have done more as well (I think the Pirates in particular have).

Patty O’Furniture: Would a bad contract swap of Matt Kemp for Jacoby Ellsbury be beneficial for either team? Or is that just kicking the can down the road?
Keith Law: I’d rather have Ellsbury. I don’t think Kemp has any value at all.

addoeh: I assume you have started your free agent list. How difficult is it to get to 50?
Keith Law: Getting to 50 isn’t hard, but the quality drops off right around 30. Beyond that, my capsules will be much shorter.

Ryan: What are your thoughts on the direction the Pirates are heading? They obviously had a fantastic 3 year run, but are now coming off of back to back losing seasons and the young reinforcements that were supposed to be arriving to bolster those playoff rosters have not lived up to expectations aside from Bell and maybe Taillon. I’m concerned the window already shut without them ever even getting out of the NLDS.
Keith Law: Might be time to churn the roster a bit – not a full rebuild, but to trade away some guys approaching free agency before they leave. They also had disappointing years from four of their top five prospects, and that has to turn around, obviously.

Dennis: As an Angels fan, I’m glad that Mike Scioscia’s ridiculous 10 year deal is up after next season. Do you agree that they should hire a new manager?
Keith Law: Yes. If they won’t just fire him, they should tell him beforehand this is it, and if he wants to stay and manage, they’ll honor him at season-end with some big celebration or whatever. I don’t care. They just need new thinking in the dugout and he’s not providing it.

Matt: I’ve heard you mention often that the Orioles aggressively revamp their young pitchers’ deliveries. Zach Davies also mentioned this briefly in a Fangraphs interview. Could you give us some specifics? What are they doing? Is this a Dan Duquette thing? Or a Buck thing? Or just a long-standing Orioles thing?
Keith Law: My understanding is that it’s been Buck and also some of their pitching coaches, not Duquette. I personally don’t like it – I would never change a pitcher’s delivery unless he was having injury or effectiveness problems. You’re asking for trouble.

Alex: Have you heard any scouts discuss Kolby Allard’s year? Was his velocity as down as reports say – 88-92. I know you had him in your Top 50.
Keith Law: He was 88-93 the last time I saw him in HS, and generally is 90-93 anyway, so I don’t know how this is “down” enough to worry about, especially for a young guy who doubled his workload this year.

Sage: Thoughts on Chili Davis new cubs hitting coach.
Keith Law: Who knows? I really don’t think we know much about the values of most coaches, unless they have several big successes or several big failures.

Max: What kind of return do you think the yankees would get if they traded Didi this offseason?
Keith Law: I wouldn’t deal him for less than a mid-rotation starter. And you might get more, if one was available. With Torres coming off TJ, though, there’s no urgency for a deal.

Ghost of Randy Smith : Do you think the Red Sox would take Miguel Cabrera?
Keith Law: They’d be foolish to do so.

CL : I saw on Baseball America that Max Fried was comped to James Paxton, would you agree with this assessment?
Keith Law: I would not. They’re so different from delivery to stuff to health history.

Matt: Pete is wrong. The best play was clearly the 2nd Base Ump getting drilled in the nads.
Keith Law: It worked on so many levels!
Keith Law: I just realized we’re way past 2 pm, so I’ll wrap this up now. Thank you all as always for reading and for all of your questions. I should be back as usual next Thursday to do this again. Enjoy the rest of the Series! #fyeahbaseball

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