My ranking of the top 100 prospects went up this week, and my org rankings went up last week, so ESPN set up a landing page that links to all my prospect content. When the individual team top tens and reports go up next week, you’ll be able to reach them from this page as well.
ESPN split my top 100 ranking into five posts this year, twenty prospects per page, so here they are from the top to the bottom:
- Prospects #20 to #1
- Prospects #40 to #21
- Prospects #60 to #41
- Prospects #80 to #61
- Prospects #100 to #81
- Prospects who just missed the list
I held a Klawchat Friday after the whole list was up.
And I even got another boardgame review up, this one of the new edition of the 2000 game Citadels, which is actually designed for 4 to 8 players, with rules variants included for 2 or 3. It’s definitely best with four or more, though.
You can preorder my upcoming book, Smart Baseball, on amazon, or from other sites via the Harper-Collins page for the book. Also, please sign up for my more-or-less weekly email newsletter.
And now, the links…
- Aziz Ansari takes Trump to task for his anti-Muslim rhetoric in this NY Times editorial.
- The House of Representatives quietly changed a rule that will make it easier for the federal government to sell off national park lands, or to transfer them to the states and let the states sell them.
- The Environmental Protection Agency froze its grant programs and slapped a gag order on employees. This is happening all over the executive branch, apparently, such as the adminstration’s “control-alt-delete” strategy on climate change policy. These orders led to a series of “rogue” Twitter accounts that ostensibly will allow employees of those agencies to still leak information to the public – if those accounts are what they say they are. TIME‘s Jeffrey Kluger says Trump will lose his war on science, but doesn’t quite point out that we may all be losers before science eventually wins.
- Do you live in Iowa? If so, your state’s GOP is pushing a bill to expand non-medical exemptions to vaccinations for schoolchildren. This is dangerous and utterly baseless. Call your state representatives and senators Monday and tell them to stop this madness.
- Do you live in Kansas? That state’s GOP has introduced a bill defining a person’s “sex” by their chromosomes, and of course, they’re pitching it as a “student privacy and protection act,” despite zero instances of any actual violation of the privacy or safety of cis students. It’s flagrantly anti-trans, but, as with all these bills, ignores people who are not born male or female, collectively called intersex. It’s a hate bill, and even worse, it’s government-sponsored religion. Call your state representatives and senators Monday and tell them to stop this madness.
- Do you live in South Dakota? Well your state GOP is actively subverting your right to vote on laws, reversing a voter-passed ethics reform package and now trying to double the number of signatures required to place something on the ballot in the first place. Do they run the state for themselves, or do they run it for the people? Call your state representatives and senators Monday and tell them to stop this madness.
- Do you live in Pennsylvania? Well your state GOP gerrymandered the hell out of your state, with one district around Philly ranked among the ten “most rigged” districts in the country. This is a tougher change, because fixing it would require an amendment to the state constitution, but still, call your state reps and senators Monday and ask how to fix this so that neither party gets to do this in 2020.
- Net neutrality, a fundamental principle of the open internet, is about to die after Ajit Pai became head of the FCC. It’s probably too late to stop this one – Trump’s election made this a fait accompli – I still say call your Representative and Senators on Monday to say you support net neutrality and want the Open Internet Order to remain in effect.
- Sean Spicer, Trump’s Press Secretary, has killed the traditional way the media reports on a President.
- Two great pieces from Esquire‘s Charles Pierce: on last week’s Women’s March and on Trump’s rabid bullshitting in his interview with ABC News. The latter piece also points out the major, major problem that Trump’s brand of absurdity covers up: A fringe, conservative, and often evangelical wing of the Republican Party is now dismantling social and environmental programs that have been in place for decades. Do most Trump voters know what rights and benefits they’re about to lose?
- Dan Savage has revived his 2006 site and fundraising campaign ITMFA, which stands for something you can figure out by clicking. I never believed W was worthy of impeachment, for the record. He turned out to be an unsuccessful President, but that’s wholly different from what we’re facing now.
- A neo-Nazi who’d been walking around the University of Florida campus wearing a swastika armband drew protests and was later “jumped” by two men who ripped the armband off him. You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t feel too sorry for the guy.
- The Guardian looks at the incredible shrinking printed circuit board, which they call the vanishing computer. Intel, AMD, and their ilk are now printing transistors so small and so close together that they’re reaching the physical limits of what’s possible. We can’t make transistors any smaller because we’re at the atomic level here, and that means our devices, which have been increasing in speed and power for four decades, are hitting a wall.
- One of the very, very few positives that might come out of a Republican Administration and Congress is a renewed emphasis on nuclear power, which environmentalists have opposed even though it doesn’t contribute to climate change. NuScale Power has applied to build the country’s first small, “modular” reactor, and within that article there’s a mention of a company trying to bring back the molten salt reactor design, which runs on ‘spent’ nuclear fuel from light-water reactors.
- A law professor in Alabama fought a traffic ticket and turned it into a constitutional rights question. It’s funny, but also disturbing, given how much the city’s mayor clings to the cameras even after orders to stop using them, in part because a private company is profiting from their usage.
- The woman who accused, under oath, Emmett Till of grabbing her fabricated her testimony. She’s now 82, and maybe feels some guilt, but will get away with ensuring that the murderers of a 14-year-old black boy got off scot-free.
- Are we entering a post-statistics democracy, where populist distrust of traditional statistics is undermining our society, and traditional methods of gathering statistics may tell us less about our populations than they did in the past?
- This piece is from 2013 but was relevant to some Twitter idiocy I encountered this week: we don’t need vitamin supplements, although the supplements industry would like us to think otherwise.
- In December, a woman of Indian descent was stopped and questioned by police for “walking while brown,” in her words. One officer questioned if she was here illegally.
- In Finland, people drink a milder, possibly more healthful coffee that’s mixed with dried mushrooms. I like coffee too much to try this, and also the article put this song in my head.
- Hey girl, Ryan Gosling doesn’t understand how he became a meme.
- This Onion article hit a little to close to home: Explanation Of Board Game Rules Peppered With Reassurances That It Will Be Fun. But why pick on Ticket to Ride in the photo, when that game’s rules are easy? Have the authors ever seen the rules for Caverna or Android: Netrunner?
I found my self laughing and then feeling a bit introspective when reading
https://www.jwz.org/blog/2017/01/there-is-nothing-more-american-than-punching-nazis/
I’m still furious about the election, and physical violence is almost never the answer, but part of me really likes the idea of punching a Nazi, although that’s probably the part that isn’t actually about to do it.
I have always in the past had a bad habit of withdrawing from the news when I don’t like what’s happening politically. For example, I couldn’t bring myself to read election roundups after the November election. It’s a bad habit and something I realize is so important not to fall into with the nonsense that is happening right now. I think it’s so important for everyone to stay educated and not lose sight of what is happening. I feel like this has evolved from a bad joke into something that is just scary and it is important for anyone who feels strongly about what is occurring to make our voices heard wherever possible.
Thanks for the great links Keith.
The gerrymandering in PA drives me insane. I live in the 15th Congressional district, which is typically regarded as somewhat of a swing area. But it’s only been won by a Democrat three times in my lifetime, and that guy turned Republican after he left office. But take a look at how the district lines used to be, and how they are now, and tell me how it makes sense. Charlie Dent ran unopposed in 2014, for crying out loud!
Thank you for the great list. There’s so much hitting the fan right now that it’s hard to keep up and even harder to know what’s important to keep your eye on. The stuff that individual states are doing feels especially important right now. The smoke coming out of Washington is providing cover for some really ugly state-level actions. On a similar note, if you live in Texas, the governor wants to get antebellum with the Constitution: http://gov.texas.gov/news/press-release/21829
I’m departing momentarily to go play my first game of Stone Age. I have watched the Wil Wheaton YouTube episode on the game, as well as another run-through. I’ve unpacked all the pieces and stared at them, and read through the instructions. It seems mind-bendingly complex for me and my fellow middle-age beer drinking buddies to enjoy on our first try. But here goes nothing….
It’s really not. You want to grab one of the three special spaces first (+1 food track, +1 tool, +1 people), then you’re trying to gather resources to buy cards and eventually buildings. Cards bring resource bonuses up top and points bonuses on the bottom. Don’t ignore those bonuses as they form a huge part of final scoring.
Mistakes were made, but gameplay went relatively smoothly, and we all liked it a lot. Looking forward to exploring the various strategies one can employ (as opposed to stumbling into them, as most of us did on this initial play).
Boy, I can’t imagine how long next week’s Stick to Baseball will be
And the weeks to come. This might turn into a Saturday Fifty.
Keith I found it interesting that your Vitamin link discussed how the term antioxidant could be misleading (though a powerful marketing tool) as far as health is concerned…and then the mushroom coffee link leans on the health benefits from the free radical fighting antioxidants! I guess it really does demonstrate the point made in the first article! *sips a shiitake latte
I read those at different ends of the week so I totally missed that. You’re right, though.
I think – and I am not a biologist or anything of the sort – that compounds we ingest as food (and thus with zillions of other compounds) have a different effect than those we ingest on their own in pills. That to me is the most compelling reason to eat more plants and avoid most supplements. (Except I take an iron pill once or twice a week because I have always had low iron levels in my blood. It’s sort of …
.
.
.
.
…ironic.)
Your dad joke skills are impressive. I’m sure your daughter loves it haha
Food writer Marion Nestle, quoted by food writer Michael Pollan in I believe “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” may have said it best (paraphrasing), that you can’t isolate the nutrient from the food and get the benefits, and you can’t isolate the food from the diet, and you can’t isolate the diet from the lifestyle. It’s all part of a whole.
The concerns over the lack of accommodation for intersex individuals in Kansas has merit, but the assumption that the government should have to accommodate people who wish to be identified as something other than the sex they were born as makes no sense.
I believe I have some empathy for trans and intersex students. It can’t be easy, and public restrooms can be fraught places anyway. I also believe the supposed creeper menace is absurdly overstated. And yet, these bills seem to be deciding between groups to be discomfited, and whichever side you choose you are implicitly ordering the other to “get over it”. This situation deserves to be addressed, but a more creative solution is begged for than what has been discussed so far (Obama’s idea of withholding a portion of federal education funds was a political disaster IMO). Do public schools not mandate a nurse’s station with an attached restroom? Maybe that could be employed in a solution that would satisfy (more or less) everyone.
Allowing black people to use the same schools, lunch counters, water fountains and restrooms required some people to be “discomfited,” and ordering the racists to get over it was the right thing to do. One solution forces a minority to segregate itself from the population and be otherized, the other requires bigots to get over themselves.
people who wish to be identified as something other than the sex they were born
Gender. You can’t change your sex – not at the chromosomal level, certainly, and you can’t exactly change your sex organs, not entirely. You can change your gender, though, and since transgenderism is real (and not, say, a wish, or a function of someone’s imagination), then it’s reasonable to expect the government to accommodate such people the way they might accommodate people with physical disabilities.
You can scare-quote discomfiture if you like, but isn’t it the reason we created a binary segregation for restrooms in the first place? Do you advocate unisex restrooms in schools, since the solution to your other examples has been to allow everyone to partake together in the activities those arenas designate?
Additionally, there’s the matter of asking kids to make a call in re gender that they’re not necessarily prepared to make. My niece is gay, and she’s always had a somewhat deep voice and she was more muscular than most girls. When she was about 15 she was undergoing a gender identity crisis, and believed for a short time that she was trans, enough to research reassignment. She’s 26 now, and she’s happily a gay woman. Her flirtation with the idea that she might be trans was, she says, due to the messages she was receiving from others about her phenotype along with her feelings of otherness that sprung from being gay in a conservative community. Forced to make a call, she may well have opted to use the boys restroom in 10th grade, only to revert to using the girls restroom in 11th grade. And here’s the thing — she would have been uncomfortable in either, as she still is today (she needs a female friend or family member to accompany her to the restroom in many situations, as she’s routinely taken as male and has been repeatedly argued with and had management called on her in bars and restaurants). She is destined to be discomfited, no legislation will cure it, and she knows that and adapts the best she can.
The federal government identifies and classifies individual by their sex, not their gender.
https://www.census.gov/history/pdf/2010questionnaire.pdf
KLaw, now that the commissioner’s office has announced the punishment for the Cardinals over the hacking of the Astros’ system, what is your take on what was levied? At first glance, it seems like a lot, but after the first few minutes, I started thinking it seemed like a wasted opportunity for the commissioner to set an example. The two picks are a big deal, but $2M is chump change to the Cardinals. I would rather have seen more picks (or higher level picks in future years, since this year the Cards don’t have a 1st rounder) instead of the relatively minor amount of money that is changing hands and a couple of non-1st round picks)
KLAW:
Just to be clear, I believe you posit that Trump is a science denier re climate change and then rip Kansas for identifying a person’s gender based upon their chromosomes. On what criteria would science base an individual’s gender……..how they were feeling?
You are also confusing sex and gender. You’re also conflating genotypic sex (your specific combination of X and Y chromosomes, such as XY, XX, XYY, XXYY, and XXX) with phenotypic sex (your physical characteristics, which in rare cases do not align with your genotype).
Kevin, in addition to Keith’s reply, you might also note that science is able to diagnose depression, bi-polar disorder, chronic pain, and many other conditions that do not have obvious physical manifestations. I’m not conflating all these things as the same as each other or as the same as gender identity crisis, other than to note that we are able to determine that people have genuine conditions that are not apparent on physical examination. So your implied “gotcha” of Keith’s scientific consistency is simply unwarranted.
Kevin, are you arguing that someone who has XY chromosomes, but is androgen insensitive, and thus appears fully female (including genitalia), should be forced to declare their gender as male?
Also, is the government going to karyotype every born child? Because this is not standard. No, this is a solution in search of a problem. Transgendered individuals have been using the restroom of their choice for years and nobody noticed or cared. Those with newfound concern will be the first to complain when a large and muscular transgendered male is forced to use the ladies room because they happen to be XX.
Salty and Matt,
Transitioning individuals deserve our respect and their rights etc. etc. I was not making an emotional argument. Also Salty I am not asking for any government involvement whatsoever, but that will be inevitable. I was simply pointing out that we are dismissing science in one argument while at the same time insisting on its absolute certainty in another. I am not some Kansas bible thumper, in fact, I recently served as an officiant at a transgender wedding. Fairly evolved thinking for a 57 year old kid raised Roman Catholic. However, we have a state that wants legislation passed that defines a person’s sex by their chromosomes. I do not think it is a “hate bill” as Keith called it, although I am certain I would not vote for it. Science is evolving boys. All science, including climate. I love how climate is settled but gender is evolving. Fascinating. Some of the very same live and let live people who are for protecting alternate view points and safe spaces for students and whatever gender you identify as are calling for imprisonment of “climate deniers”. Cue the gasps. You are a denier sir. To the gallows. What about the case of Rachel Dolezal the former NAACP President who represented herself as African American until she was outed by her lily white parents. But she “identified as black”…… so the heck with the chromosomes…..can she now qualify for minority scholarships? And who decides? I identify as a .320 hitter with great range at shortstop and believe I deserve to be signed to a Major League contract. The truth is I was not. Sabermetrics would bear that out. Ya know guys, science.
I am not asking for any government involvement whatsoever, but that will be inevitable.
I do not see why government involvement has to be inevitable. There are many societal conventions that do not need to be codified. Individuals who look and self-identify as male/female have been using restrooms of their choice for decades without the need for these laws.
Science is evolving boys. All science, including climate. I love how climate is settled but gender is evolving.
Of course science and our knowledge derived from it moves forward. Our understanding of anthropogenic climate change is better today than it was several years ago, which was better than a decade ago. The science of sex determination is also very well understood, as well as common abnormalities. However, science does not equal policy. I believe that policy should be based upon a foundation of scientific knowledge when appropriate, but reasonable people can disagree about what policies should be implemented. Burying one’s head in the sand when it comes to inconvenient facts is not reasonable disagreement over policy.
Respectfully, the rest of your comment is full of strawmen and does not warrant a serious response.
“I recently served as an officiant at a transgender wedding” is the new “I’m not racist because I have a black friend.”
No, but I will alert the Nobel Committee.
Geez Kevin, I lost track of the number of diversionary rants and strawmen in your response.
If “some people” are calling for climate change deniers to be imprisoned, then those people are wrong. I certainly didn’t say that, and I don’t believe Keith did either.
As others have said, a statement about science is not the same as a statement about policy. My response to you was only to point out that, contrary to what you implied in the post I replied to, there are many areas of medicine (read: science) that do not have obvious physical manifestations but which are nonetheless accepted. That does not mean that one simply accepts them as fact when someone self-diagnoses: if you say you are bi-polar, there are tests to be done before we consider that a diagnosis. Those tests may not be 100% conclusive, but they are accepted as indicative evidence. Same goes for gender identity issues. Do you accept that there is a legitimate basis to diagnose certain mental disorders, but not to diagnose gender identity issues? If so, what’s the basis for the one versus the other?
On the other hand, if you say you bat .320, there are very definitive physical tests we can perform, and we’ll decide one way or the other. These are not equivalent questions to be decided.
Matt,
My father used to say that sometimes a man can remain silent and hide his ignorance and other times he opens his mouth and removes any doubt. He has been gone for many years and I so appreciate you bringing back his memory with your ignorance. Why would you presume I’m white? Is it because I am making a salient, cogent argument? Hmmmm Nice try.I don’t have A black friend. I have a black wife and two black children for that matter. And I have a black face.
Let me type slowly so you can follow along……….IT’S SCIENCE!!! Get your head out of Keith’s ass. We all love Keith. He’s the best. I had one point and one point only. The legislation (imho) is not a “hate bill”. As this discussion about gender evolves so to will people’s opinions. I just personally would not presume to call others with differing and evolving opinions hateful, At least not in this case. I know what hate looks like.
Dude, that’s a version of a quote often attributed to, alternately, Mark Twain or Abraham Lincoln. I mean, maybe your father was a Twain fan, but he did not invent that saying.
Also, to go back to your main point and not the myriad of tangents that this latter response proposed, there’s significant scientific literature about the medical basis for gender identity. Most of this focuses on brain structure via brain imaging studies and genetic differences via twin studies to explain the science of transgender identity. This is not the same as chromosomal sex, but it still has a scientific basis.
As Matt correctly pointed out, I was simply noting that you were preempting prejudicial statements with a defense that could charitably be described as odd.
“Why would you presume I’m white? Is it because I am making a salient, cogent argument? Hmmmm Nice try.I don’t have A black friend. I have a black wife and two black children for that matter. And I have a black face.”
This does not seem like the proper venue in which to confront our own insecurities. That being said, I appreciate that you noticed I gave it the old college try and so forth.
(n.b. this response was typed exceedingly slowly due to the linear relationship between the speed at which a post is typed and the ability of readers to comprehend it. ‘IT’S SCIENCE!!!’™)
I think you meant to respond to “Mat G”, not “Matt”. I said nothing about you personally (other than observing you made some strawman arguments), and I presumed nothing about you. Hell, I even took it as possible that you bat .320 and belong in the majors.
I will say in Mat G’s defense that he did not appear to assume anything about your race. He was comparing the statement you made “but I officiated at a transgender wedding” to the statement that others sometimes make “but I have a black friend” to defend prejudicial statements. Beyond that attempted clarification, I won’t try to speak for him.
That said, you still haven’t addressed my note about science, aside from an ALL CAPS statement which you typed slowly that “it’s science”. I’m not sure what that means or how it addresses what I said.
When you see a man casting pearls without getting even a pork chop in return—it is not against the swine that you feel indignation. It is against the man who valued his pearls so little that he was willing to fling them into the muck… – Ayn Rand
You tried dude.
Thank you for footnoting that properly Salty. Wouldn’t want ol “Funcher” to point out the obvious! By the way thanks “Dude”. And may I also add that I have never witnessed such self congratulatory pretentious nonsense in my life. And Salty holy cow!! You’re so deep you quoted Ayn Rand. Such an obscure reference too. You know there is new research on how much wood a wood chuck could chuck…..but science has in fact determined that it was the egg that came first not the chicken. Do you guys have to actually remove a rib to perform that act on yourselves? Was that too esoteric? is it difficult for you guys to blow yourselves?
Kevin: Do that last part again and I’ll ban you. You started this discussion. You will continue it in a civil fashion or you will not continue it at all.
Kevin, my last comment was 100% snark, so I apologize. I do feel that this debate ceased to be productive a while ago, so I’ll tap out.
Kevin,
Calm the circus.
I offered a mildly tongue-in-cheek reply regarding the quote and a sentence or two about science in a discussion that was begun about the science of gender and sex. I’m sorry if you’re hurt by that, but name-calling and suggestions to put myself into a physically impossible position seem unproductive and unwarranted, so I am out.