Stick to baseball, 2/19/22.

My prospects ranking package is now all posted for subscribers to the Athletic. Here’s the complete rundown of everything that ran:

BaltimoreHoustonChicago Cubs
BostonLA AngelsCincinnati
NY YankeesOaklandMilwaukee
Tampa BaySeattlePittsburgh
TorontoTexasSt. Louis
Chicago White SoxAtlantaArizona
ClevelandMiamiColorado
DetroitNY MetsLA Dodgers
Kansas CityPhiladelphiaSan Diego
MinnesotaWashingtonSan Francisco

I also did two Q&As over at the Athletic, one the day the farm rankings went up and one the day the top 100 went up.

Since my last stick to baseball post, I’ve reviewed several board games over at Paste as well, including Nidavellir, one of my favorite games from 2021; Equinox, a new version of Reiner Knizia’s game Colossal Arena; The Rocketeer: Fate of the Future, a two-player game based on the 1991 cult classic; and Wilson & Shep, a cute bluffing game for players as young as five.

I’ve done a bunch of podcasts and radio things related to the top 100, including the Seattle Sports Union; the Update with Adam Copeland (talking Giants prospects); Press Box Online (Orioles); Sox Machine (White Sox); and Karraker & Smallmon (Cardinals).

My own podcast returned in late January, with three episodes since my last roundup: Michael Schur, author of How to Be Perfect and creator of the show The Good Place; the post-punk band Geese, an episode where I answered a bunch of reader questions on the top 100 too; and union labor lawyer Eugene Freedman, who gave his thoughts on the MLB lockout. You can subscribe via iTunes, Stitcher, amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And now, the links…

Comments

  1. Brian in ahwatukee

    Jennifer Rubin is never correct. She’s an awful commentator and that she’s now a democrat speaks volumes about where the Democratic Party is and the maxim that people fail up. Her entire thesis is nonsense. What she suggests requires an incredible amount of organizing and frankly we have the answer already. The democrats who control all three chambers can’t be bothered to move because of some parlor rules that never seem to matter to Rs. I mean, Biden should be banging the drums for this but he’s nowhere to be found. We know why that is. I suppose the more cynical reason is that he’s just following Obama doctrine- he won. Nothing else matters other than that.

  2. “Tubthumping” is a very strong candidate for worst song of the 90s, even though the late 90s featured many other viable candidates. Just seeing the title makes me cringe. I’ll never forget how hard radio stations/MTV rammed that song down the world’s throat.

  3. The Ohio stories here are painful. I live ten minutes from New Albany — the area we live also straddles Franklin County, where the city of Columbus sits, and Licking County as NA does — which is probably most notable as the home of Les Wexner of L Brands fame (Abercrombie &Fitch, Express, Victoria’s Secret, etc.). Someone like Derrow sitting on the school board there does not surprise me. Having lived in Columbus a hair over two years now, the severity of its segregation (racial and ideological) has become increasingly apparent as I explore the area.

    The Ohio Statehouse is a train wreck, with a GOP supermajority that has been entrenched in both bodies since the mid-90s. This is not a partisan jab as I find supermajorities of any party to be anti-democratic breeding grounds for corruption (Hi, Illinois!). Coingate and House Bill 6 are the examplars of that corruption, with Larry Householder the poster child. If you want a microcosm of our mindless, tribal politics, look no farther than 72% of Householder’s district voting for him in 2020 despite a a federal indictment for corruption backed by highly credible evidence of wrongdoing. I will give the statehouse credit for voting to remove him, though the fact that 21 members voted not to sends its own message.

    The slate for Rob Portman’s open U.S. Senate seat is the nail in the coffin. It’s a race to the reactionary bottom with naked opportunists (J.D. Vance), politics hacks (Jane Timken) and lizard people (Josh Mandel) vying for the crown of Most Regressive. The trends are depressing, and we are actively looking for opportunities in other states.

  4. Jason in Regina

    Hi Keith,

    I’m a SK Jays’ fan, looking to ask 3 quick questions to Jays’ experts like yourself, related to a project I’m working on.

    Is there a way I can send them by email? No spam involved, I promise!