My predictions for 2015 are now up for Insiders. Earlier this week, Eric Longenhagen and I put together a lengthy post of prospect notes from spring training, covering players from Houston, Atlanta, the Yankees, San Francisco, the Cubs, and Texas. My top 50 prospects update went up earlier in the week, with very modest changes other than the addition of Yoan Moncada.
My latest boardgame review for Paste covers the tile-laying game NanoBot Battle Arena, a quick family-strategy game with a high interactive (read: screw your opponents) component.
- The revival of Baseball Prospectus continues with Alan Nathan’s superb (but math-heavy) piece on what kinds of spin matter in baseball.
- Worlds colliding: Brooklyn Nine-Nine cast member and former Parks & Recreation writer Chelsea Peretti once told a down-and-out pitcher that he was going to make the big leagues – and he did.
- This Vanity Fair profile of attorney Judy Clarke, who has defended the Unabomber, Susan Smith, and now Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, is remarkable for its prose and its content.
- ThinkProgress has a good takedown of the RFRA myth that Indiana’s law is just like the ones passed in nineteen other states. It’s not, and the difference is why people are so mad.
- The New York Times also wrote about the RFRA controversies, with a report that Walmart’s CEO asked the Arkansas governor to veto that state’s version.
- Meanwhile, in my former home of Arizona, the state government’s history of extreme anti-science lunacy continued with a law requiring doctors to tell women that abortion pill effects are reversible. Your views on abortion itself shouldn’t lead you to a point where you want doctors lying to patients or ignoring established science.
- Those cute animal pics you’ve been sharing are probably staged, and it’s not always good for the animals themselves.
- Boardgame news – there’s a Kickstarter running for an iOS adaptation of Reiner Knizia’s two-player fantasy game Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation (but without the LoTR branding).