My ESPN content from the past week:
* Scouting reports on prep RHP Tyler Kolek and JC righty Heath Fillmyer.
* My report on this week’s Sally League matchup between Hunter Harvey (Baltimore) and Lucas Giolito (Washington).
* Scouting notes from my Georgia trip last week, including a rant on NC State overusing Carlos Rodon.
There was no Klawchat this week because my flight to Houston didn’t have wifi, and the “Top 25 under 25” ranking has been pushed back to April 24th. Also, as I mentioned here last week, if you want new Behind the Dish episodes any time soon, let ESPN know.
* If you missed my review of Thinking, Fast and Slow, it’s worth checking it out – the book is popular among the more analytically-minded front offices in MLB.
* The wonderful Agricola iOS app is on sale right now, $4 (down from $7), and the two IAPs are on sale as well. I own the whole set, and it’s the best complex boardgame app available.
And now, to the Saturday links….
- An epic NY Times piece on the Jameis Winston “investigation.” In reality, false rape claims appear to be pretty rare, so why is there still so much comfort in letting a star athlete skate without properly vetting the charges?
- That incredibly detailed (and very long) LA Magazine piece on Yasiel Puig’s journey from Cuba to MLB.
- A Birmingham pastor was forbidden to share food with the homeless … because his church vehicle doesn’t have a food-truck permit.
- A little scary: A Johns Hopkins study of 966 mother-child pairs found a link between prenatal SSRI use by the mother and autism-spectrum disorders in the baby … but only for boys. I don’t pretend to know if that sample size is sufficiently large.
- A Japanese company says it won’t charge the US fees to use its maglev technology, hoping we’ll use it for a high-speed rail line from Washington to Baltimore. We lag behind the rest of the developed world in consumer rail transportation, although our urban centers are more spread out than those of Europe or east Asia.