→ May 24, 2018
→ By

A Brief History of Infinity.

Infinity is a big topic, to put it mildly. The mere concept of a limitless quantity has vexed mathematicians, philosophers, and theologians for over two centuries. The Greeks developed some of the first infinite series, some divergent (they approach infinity) and some convergent (they approach a finite number), with Zeno making use of these concepts in some of his famous paradoxes. Galileo is better known for his observations in astronomy and work in optics, but he developed an early paradox that he argued meant that we couldn’t compare the sizes of infinite sets in a meaningful way, showing that, although we know intuitively that there are more integers in total than there are integers that are perfect squares, you can map the integers to the perfect squares in a 1:1 ratio that appears to show that the two sets are the same size. Georg Cantor later explained this paradox in his development of set theory, coining the aleph terminology for infinite sets, and then went mad trying to further his theories of infinity, a math-induced insanity that later afflicted Kurt Gödel in his work on incompleteness. There remain numerous – dare I say infinite? – unsolved problems in mathematics that revolve around infinity itself or whether there are an infinite number of some entity, such as primes or perfect numbers, in the infinite set of whole numbers or integers.

Science writer Brian Clegg attempts to make these topics accessible to the lay reader in his book A Brief History of Infinity, part of the Brief History series from the imprint Constable & Robinson. Rather than delving too far into the mathematics of the infinite, which would require more than passing introductions to set theory, the transfinite numbers, and integral calculus, Clegg focuses on the history of infinity as a concept in math and philosophy, going back to the ancient Greeks, walking through western scholars’ troubles with infinity (and objections from the Church), telling the well-known story of Newton and Leibniz’s fight over “the” calculus, and bringing the reader up through the works of Cantor, Gödel, and other modern mathematicians in illuminating the infinite both large and small. (It’s $6 for the Kindle and $5 for the paperback as I write this.)

Infinity can be inconvenient, but we couldn’t have modern calculus without it, and it comes up repeatedly in other fields including fractal mathematics and quantum physics. Sometimes it’s the infinitely small – the “ghosts of departed quantities” called infinitesimals that Newton and Leibniz required for integration – and sometimes it’s infinitely large, but despite several millennia of attempts to argue infinity out of mathematics, there’s no avoiding its existence and even the necessity of using it. Clegg excels when recounting great controversies over infinity from the history of math, such as the battle between Newton and Leibniz over who invented the calculus, or the battle between Cantor and his former teacher Leopold Kronecker, who disdained not just infinity but even the transcendental numbers (like π, e, or the Hilbert number) and actively worked to prevent Cantor from publishing his seminal papers on set theory.

Clegg’s book won’t likely satisfy the more math-inclined readers who want a crunchier treatment of this topic, especially the recent history of infinity from Cantor forward. Cantor developed modern set theory and published numerous proofs about infinity, proving that there are at least two distinct sets of infinities (the integers, aleph-null, are infinite, but not as numerous as the real numbers, aleph-one; aleph notation measures the cardinality of infinities, not the quantity of infinity itself). I also found Clegg’s discussion of Gödel’s incompleteness theorems rather … um … incomplete, which is understandable given the theorems’ abstract nature, but also meant Gödel earned very little screen time in the book other than the overemphasized parallel between his own descent into insanity and Cantor’s. I was disappointed that he didn’t get into Russell’s paradox*, which is a critical link between Cantor’s work (and Hilbert’s hope for a resolution in favor of completeness) and Gödel’s finding that completeness was impossible.

Let R be the set of all sets that are not members of themselves. If R is not a member of itself, then it must be a member of R … but that produces a contradiction by the definition of R.

Clegg does a much better job than David Foster Wallace did in his own book on infinity, Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity, which tried to get into the mathier stuff but ultimately failed to make the material accessible enough to the reader (and perhaps exposed the limits of Wallace’s knowledge of the topic too). This is a book just about anyone who took one calculus class can follow, and it has enough personal intrigue to hold the reader’s attention. My personal taste in history of science/math books leans towards the more technical or granular, but I wouldn’t use that as an indictment of Clegg’s approach here.

Next up: I’m reading another Nero Wolfe mystery, after which I’ll tackle Michael Ondaatje’s Booker Prize-winning novel The English Patient.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,
→ May 23, 2018
→ By

Mary and the Witch’s Flower.

Hayao Miyazaki is retired, or so he says – he’s pulled this trick before, at least – but his protégés continue to make films that are very much in the spirit of his work, with the latest incarnation Mary & the Witch’s Flower (amazon • iTunes), a 2017 release in Japan that received a brief theatrical release here in January. Directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi (who also directed The Secret World of Arriety and When Marnie Was There for Ghibli) and animated by Studio Ponoc, the film was an enormous commercial success in its native country and deserved a far better fate here. It was eligible for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature this past winter, and was yet another entry that was passed over for the execrable Boss Baby.

Based on a children’s novel by Mary Stewart called The Little Broomstick, Mary & the Witch’s Flower tells the story of the young girl of the title, who discovers a rare flower in the woods near her great aunt’s estate: the fly-by-night, a glowing flower that, according to local legend, is valued by witches for its immense magical powers. She finds the flower with the help of two cats, Gib and Tib, who then lead her to a broomstick that takes her to a secret magical school in the clouds, Endor, but this isn’t Hogwarts or Brakebills, and something is very amiss with the headmistress (voiced by Kate Winslet) and the chemistry teacher (Jim Broadbent). When they find out Mary (Ruby Barnhill of The BFG) has the fly-by-night, they drop all pretense and seem willing to try anything to seize the flower, including kidnapping Mary’s friend Peter to try to turn him into a warlock. Mary has to choose whether to use her last remaining bulbs to rescue her friend, and also finds out (somewhat predictably) that this isn’t her family’s first encounter with the fly-by-night or Endor and its faculty.

Miyazaki’s films have a distinctive look and feel, including a particular appreciation for natural landscapes and an obsession with flying; Yonebayashi brings all of those visual and aural elements to Mary & the Witch’s Flower, to the point where I doubt most casual fans of the genre would recognize that Miyazaki wasn’t directly involved in this film. It also has the same sort of childlike sense of wonder that most of the master’s scripts brought, but the story itself isn’t as tight or compelling; it’s pretty obvious that Mary’s getting home, Peter probably isn’t going to turn into some sort of monster, and who the mysterious girl in red from the cold open grows up to be. It’s a kids’ movie that’s really just for kids, whereas Miyazaki’s best movies — Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Ponyo — were much more nuanced and thoughtful, so that they offered something for adults as well as children. I know Miyazaki’s students won’t and can’t just replicate all aspects of his films, but Yonebayashi seems to have focused here on mimicking the style of his mentor without providing the same kind of substance that a film like this should offer.

Of course, it’s still #BetterThanBossBaby.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,
→ May 21, 2018
→ By

Thank You for Being Late.

Thomas Friedman’s Thank You For Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations is a solid book about the fast-moving present and immediate future written by a man whose prose is firmly, almost embarrassingly stuck in the past. Friedman has obviously thought deeply about the topics in this collection of connected essays, and talked to many experts, and there are many insights here that would be useful to almost anyone in or soon to enter the American workforce, as well as to the people who are attempting to manage and regulate this fast-moving economy. It was just hard to get through the clunky writing and jokes that don’t even rise to dad level.

Friedman’s main thesis here is that the world is accelerating, and many people – I think his main audience is Americans, although it’s not limited to them – are unprepared for it. Technology has substantially increased the pace of change since the Industrial Revolution, and 100-plus years of accelerations now has the developed world changing at a rate that leads us to a point where it doesn’t even take a full generation of people to churn through more than one generation of tech. These technologies also collapse borders, threaten sovereignty of states, and increase economic inequality. Everyone reading this likely knows about the debate over automation and machine learning (please, stop calling it AI, they are not the same thing), but Friedman is arguing that we need policy makers at all levels to accept it as given and respond to it with policies that produce a populace better equipped to cope with it – and that people themselves accept that continuous learning is likely to be a part of their entire working lives.

Friedman refers to the cloud – a term I’m not 100% sure he even understands — as “the supernova,” a pointless and confusing substitution of a fabricated term for a more commonly accepted one, and then refers back to it frequently throughout the book as the source of much of this technological change. He’s certainly correct that the power of distributed computing has allowed us to solve more problems than we were ever able to solve previously, no matter how many chips you were able to cram into one box; he also gives the sense that he thinks P = NP, that this accelerating rate of growth in computing firepower will eventually be able to solve problems that, in nonmathematical terms, probably can’t be solved in a reasonable time frame. And Moore’s law, which he cites often, has changed in the last few years, as the growth in the number of transistors Intel et al can put on a chip has slowed from 18-24 months to more like 30, and with Intel projecting to hit the 10 nm transistor width this year, we’re probably butting up against the limits of particle physics.

The strongest aspects of Thank You For Being Late are Friedman’s exhortations to readers to accept that the old idea of learning one job and then doing it for 40 years is probably dead. Most jobs, even those we might once have spoken of dismissively as blue-collar or low-skilled, now require a greater knowledge of and comfort with technology. (There’s an effective CG commercial out now for University of Phoenix, where we see a mom working in a factory where all of the workers are slowly replaced by machines until one day the supervisor comes for her. She eventually pursues some sort of IT degree through the for-profit school, and the commercial ends with her walking through stacks of servers.) He lauds companies like AT&T that have already set up programs for employees to take new courses and then make it easier for those employees to identify new jobs within the company for which they qualify – or could try to qualify with further learning. He also discusses municipal and NGO efforts to build job sites that help connect people with skills with learning opportunities and employment opportunities.

There is, however, a bit of a Pollyanna vibe about Friedman, who refers to himself repeatedly as an optimist, and seems to think that more people in the American working class have the time to be able to take classes after hours – or that they have sufficient background to go get, say, a certificate in data science. I looked up some of the programs he mentions in the book; the one related to data science expected students to come in with significant knowlege of programming or scripting languages. He supports government efforts to support lifelong learning and to improve diversity in the workplace and in our communities, but doesn’t even acknowledge the potential government role in ensuring equal access to health care (essential to a functioning economy) or the mere idea of universal basic income, even if to just explain why he thinks it wouldn’t work.

And then there’s Friedman’s overuse of hackneyed quips that felt dated twenty years ago. “Attention K-Mart shoppers!” didn’t resonate with me in the 1980s, since there wasn’t a K-Mart anywhere near where I grew up; the chain has since been obliterated by competition from Wal-Mart and Target, and K-Mart operates 75% fewer stores today than it did at its peak, fewer than 500 nationwide. “This isn’t your grandpa’s X” is just lazy writing at this point; besides, if my daughter read that, she’d likely point out that her grandpa is a retired electrical engineer with two master’s degrees who already did a lot of the lifelong learning that Friedman describes.

Friedman’s writing is also dense, which I find surprising given his background as a newspaper columnist; perhaps he feels like he’s finally set free to prattle on as long as he wants, without anyone to stop him. There’s a level of detail in some parts of the story, such as his overlong descriptions of the halcyon days of the Minnesota town where he grew up, which I’m sure was very nice but probably not quite the Mayberry he describes.

There’s value in here, certainly, but I found it a grind to get through. This could have easily been a series of a dozen or so columns in the New York Times — that they wouldn’t run today because they’re too busy running columns denying climate change or explaining how so-called ‘incels’ need sex robots — rather than a 500-page book. He’s right about his core premise, though: Expect to learn throughout your working life and to see your job, whatever it is, change regularly over the course of your career.

Next up: Roddy Doyle’s Man Booker Prize-winning novel Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,
→ May 20, 2018
→ By

Stick to baseball, 5/20/18.

I was busy this week, including posting another first-round mock for next month’s MLB draft (Insider).

For Vulture, I ranked the 25 best board game apps for mobile devices, considering anything available for iOS or Android. Steam-only titles were not eligible.

For Paste, I reviewed the light deduction/puzzle game Automata Noir, a fun filler title that lets you do a little more than most deduction games where you’re just trying to guess who’s the bad guy.

PennLive asked fifty Pennsylvania librarians for their summer beach read recommendations and one kind soul recommended my own Smart Baseball, now available in paperback.

I’ll be appearing at Washington DC’s Politics & Prose on July 14th along with Jay Jaffe to talk baseball & sign our respective books (or I can sign Jay’s and he can sign mine, whatever you fancy).

And now, the links:

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , ,
→ May 19, 2018
→ By

Locking Up Our Own.

James Forman, Jr., was a public defender in DC for six years, right after he clerked for Sandra Day O’Connor, and encountered the results of two decades of disastrous policies in the criminal justice system of the nation’s capital, many of which led to differential policing and mass incarceration of the city’s black residents. He discussed the history and causes of this system in his 2017 book Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America, which lays much of the blame for the high incarceration rates on policies embraced and advocated by black community leaders themselves. The book won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction this past April.

Forman’s parents met while working for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (known colloquially as “snick”) during the civil rights movement, which he says spurred his decision to move off the career track into the public defender’s office, eventually moving from there into teaching at Georgetown’s and now Yale’s law schools. Where the 2016 documentary The 13th laid all of the blame for the high rates of black incarceration in the United States on two-plus centuries of racism and white domination – a view that is largely justified – Forman’s book lays bare the role that leaders in black communities played in supporting those policies. Foremost among them: Fighting early progressive efforts to decriminalize possession and personal use of small amounts of marijuana.

Washington DC didn’t achieve some semblance of home rule until 1973, and Congress still holds the power to overturn some laws passed by the DC council and could even, in theory, dismiss the city’s council at will. This gives the city’s residents a status not too much greater than those of territories like Puerto Rico or the U.S. Virgin Islands, although I suppose if two hurricanes knocked out power to DC for several months the federal government would be a little quicker to address the problem. DC’s population is nearly half African-American, and the high rates of incarceration and different policing strategies in its neighborhoods with higher black populations have had a severe effect on the city’s economy, including continuing high crime rates. Forman explains how DC got into this mess, going back to the end of the civil rights movement and explaining how it was actually a white progressive council member who tried to decriminalize marijuana possession, but found himself opposed by black church leaders, Nation of Islam leaders, and even some black city council members, all of whom ended up working together to scotch the proposal (which may not have passed muster with Congress anyway). When a similar proposal arose a few years later to create mandatory minimum sentencing to fight rising crime rates in DC – themselves at least in part the result of the crack cocaine epidemic – black community leaders were all for the new law, responding to residents’ concerns about violent street crime and home invasions, but also enforcing a longstanding moral viewpoint that African-Americans could defeat stereotypes about them by, in essence, behaving better. If DC cracked down on even trivial crimes, even misdemeanors, the theory went, it would improve the quality of life for all DC residents while also working against white politicians and community leaders who worked to disenfranchise and/or limit the economic mobility of people of color.

None of this worked, as Forman writes, and instead helped fuel a new DC underclass – as it did in other cities, including Detroit, the US city with the highest proportion of residents who are African-American – of blacks, mostly men, who were now de facto unemployable because they had criminal records. Such ex-convicts also could find themselves ineligible for certain government assistance programs, turned down for housing, and even unable to vote. Forman, as a public defender, worked with many such clients, but, in his own telling, he was struggling upstream against a system that simultaneously limited the advancement of African-Americans in its police force and judiciary and also aggressively pursued policies that further hindered the black community. He touches on greater arrest rates in black wards of DC versus white, the long-term harm of “stop and frisk” policies (formally known as a Terry stop, and of dubious constitutionality, especially when opponents can show disparate impact by race of police targets), and the formal and informal obstacles that efforts at community improvement can face from municipal police forces – even when officers and administrators are themselves African-American.

Locking Up Our Own is a sobering look at how we got here, but perhaps short on prescriptions for undoing forty years of damage. Marijuana decriminalization is finally happening, although it’s driven by white stoners and libertarians rather than black citizens and provides no procedure for vacating past convictions for trivial possession cases. Stop and frisk was ruled unconstitutional in NYC in 2013, but our current President and Attorney General have both explicitly endorsed the practice. Mandatory minimums remain popular, in large part because they serve “tough on crime” candidates well – and who would dare to stand up and say that criminals deserve shorter sentences? A path to greater African-American enfranchisement and sovereignty in majority black neighborhoods would likely be impossible in any system where higher level, white-dominated government bodies can invalidate city or state policies. Any change that starts at the bottom will fail without a change at the top.

Next up: Claude M. Steele’s Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,
→ May 17, 2018
→ By

The Insult.

The Insult (iTunes • amazon) was the one modest surprise among the five nominees for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars this past year, edging out Golden Globes winner In the Fade and the highly-regarded Israeli film Foxtrot. The first Lebanese submission to earn such a nomination and just the fourteenth film ever submitted for consideration from Lebanon, The Insult is a multi-layered drama that uses a minor disagreement to build a courtroom drama, a fable about racism, and a demonstration of how tiny gestures in either direction can have enormous consequences.

Toni Hanna is a Lebanese Christian man who works at a garage and lives in an apartment he hopes to buy, along with his very pregnant (and ridiculously beautiful) wife Shirine. He’s hosing off his balcony on one day when the excess water runs out his drain pipe, which apparently is a code violation, on to a few construction workers led by the foreman Yasser, a Palestinian man who has lived in Lebanon for years and married a Lebanese woman. When Yasser and his crew fix the pipe without Toni’s permission, he destroys their work, leading Yasser to call him a “fucking prick.” Toni demands an apology, but when Yasser balks, Toni takes him to court in a lawsuit that begins as something trivial and ends up a national news story, spiraling well beyond the control of either man. The trial exposes the origins of Toni’s racism and the ‘forgotten’ history of sectarian violence in Lebanon, including one incident where the PLO and PFLP (both major Palestinian terrorist organizations) played a significant part.

The superficial story in The Insult plays out a bit like a smarter Law & Order episode. The two trials – the first in a small court, the second an appeal argued by experienced lawyers working pro bono – feel overly dramatic, although it’s possible the Lebanese justice system works something like this, with judges asking witnesses and even members of the courtroom audience questions. There’s a big twist right before the midpoint of the film that amps up the drama quotient of the trial, although in the end it doesn’t matter much to the main plot around the dispute between the two men.

The plot thread around race is, I think, the Big Point of The Insult, and you could carry the framework very well to a similar story in just about any multi-ethnic state. Palestinians are an underclass in many nations in the Levant, and there appears to be widespread resentment against them and their somewhat protected status in Lebanon, so when Toni appears to be fighting back on behalf of Lebanese Christians, he garners public support and finds a well-known lawyer willing to take on his case to make a point. Yasser ends up with a young lawyer who says she wants to take his case because no one stands up for Palestinians’ rights, and she’s derided as a sort of limousine liberal by her opponents while also gaining popular backing from Lebanese Muslims and several politicians pushing for national unity.

The film goes too far in justifying Toni’s feelings towards Palestinians, however, when it delves into the history of his family and the incident from his childhood, the Damour massacre, that spawned his lifelong animosity towards them and support for nationalist-Christian politicians. The scene where that story is unfurled is also quite over the top, again feeling very TV-dramatized, and almost crushes the better plot thread of a quiet shift towards reconciliation between the two men. There’s one moment of sincere kinship that arises by accident, and then Yasser finds a way to deliver to Toni what he thinks Toni really wants from him, enough that the outcome of the trial – which we do see, even though I thought the script might end right before the verdict was delivered – feels a bit secondary. There’s an actual moral here, reminiscent of “A Thousand Trees” by Stereophonics, about how a tiny gesture either way can start a conflagration or defuse a potential riot: At any point, an apology from Yasser or a statement of forgiveness from Toni would have ended the entire conflict. The two men could have simply shaken hands in front of the cameras and brought the two sides together. The Insult doesn’t quite cop out to that extent, even though the legal stuff feels manipulative (even with a superb secondary performance from the wonderfully-named Diamond Bou Abboud as Yasser’s attorney). The story ends up taking a middle path, wrapping up the story in a satisfying enough fashion that still felt like it could have been stronger without the more crowd-pleasing aspects of the story to drown out the humanist plot at the movie’s heart.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,
→ May 16, 2018
→ By

Why We Sleep.

Why do we sleep? If sleep doesn’t serve some essential function, then it is evolution’s biggest mistake, according to one evolutionary scientist quoted in Matthew Walker’s book Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams, which explains what sleep seems to do for us, what sleep deprivation does to us, and why we should all be getting more sleep and encouraging our kids and our employees to do the same.

Walker, a sleep researcher and Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at Cal-Berkeley, begins by delving into what we know about the history of sleep in humans, and how sleep itself is structured. Humans were, for most of our history as a species, biphasic sleepers – we slept twice in each 24 hour period. We retain vestiges of this practice, which only ended in the 19th century in the developed world with the Industrial Revolution, in our Circadian rhythms, which still give us that post-prandial ‘slump’ that led to customs like the siesta. (It had never occurred to me that the word “circadian” itself came from the Latin words for “almost a day,” because that rhythm in our bodies isn’t quite 24 hours long.)

Sleep is, itself, two different processes that occur sequentially, alternating through a night of full sleep. Most people are familiar with REM sleep, referring to the rapid eye movements visible to an observer standing not at all creepily over you while you slumber. The remaining periods of sleep are, creatively, called nREM or non-REM sleep, and themselves comprise three different sub stages. Both phases of sleep are important; REM sleep is when dreaming occurs, which itself seems to serve the purposes of helping the brain process various events and the associated emotions from the previous day(s), as well as allowing the brain to form connections between seemingly unrelated memories or facts that can seem like bursts of creativity the next day. Your body becomes mostly paralyzed during REM sleep, or else you’d start moving around while you dream, perhaps kicking, flailing, or even acting out events in your dreams – which can happen in people with certain rare sleep disorders. N-REM sleep allows the body to repair itself, helps cement new information into memories in the brain’s storage, boosts the immune system, and contributes to feelings of wakefulness in the next day. The part of N-REM sleep that accomplishes the most, called deep or N3 sleep, decreases as you age, which is why older people may find it hard to sleep longer during the night and then feel less refreshed the next morning.

The bulk of Why We Sleep, however, is a giant warning call to the world about the hazards of short- and long-term sleep deprivation, which Walker never clearly defines but seems to think of as sleeping for a period of less than six hours. (He calls bullshit on people, like our current President and I believe his predecessor too, who claim they can function well on just four or five hours of sleep a night.) Sleep deprivation affects cognition and memory, and long-term deprivation contributes to cancer, diabetes, mental illnesses, Alzheimer’s, and more. Rats deprived of sleep for several days eventually die of infections from bacteria that would normally live harmlessly in the rats’ intestinal tracts.

We don’t sleep enough any more as a society, and there are real costs to this. Drowsy driving kills more people annually than drunk driving, and if you think you’ve never done this, you’re probably wrong: People suffering from insufficient sleep can fall into “micro-sleeps” that are enough to cause a fatal accident if one occurs while you’re at the wheel. Sleep deprivation in adolescents seems to lead to increased risks of various mental illnesses that tend to first manifest at that age, while also contributing to behavioral problems and reducing the brain’s ability to retain new information. Walker even ends the book with arguments that corporations should encourage better sleep hygiene as a productivity tool and a way to reduce health care costs, and that high schools should move their school days back to accommodate the naturally later sleep cycles of teenagers, whose circadian rhythms operate somewhat later than those of preteens or adults.

One major culprit in our national sleep deficit — which, by the way, isn’t one you can pay; you can’t ‘catch up’ on lost sleep — is artificial light, especially blue light, which is especially prevalent in LED light sources like the one in this iPad on which I’m typing and the phone on which you’re probably reading this post. Blue light sources are everywhere, including the LED bulbs the environmentally responsible among us are now using in our house to replace inefficient incandescent bulbs or mercury-laden CFLs. Blue light confuses the body’s natural melatonin cycle, which is distinct from the circadian rhythm, and delays the normal release of melatonin in the evenings, which thus further delays the onset of sleep.

Sleep confers enormous benefits on those who choose to get enough of it, benefits that, if more people knew and understand them, should encourage better sleep hygiene in people who at least have the discretion to sleep more. Sleep helps cement new information in your memory; if you learn new information, such as vocabulary in a foreign language, and then nap afterwards, you’re significantly more likely to retain what you learned afterwards. Sleep also provides the body with time to repair some types of cell damage and to recover from muscle fatigue – so, yes, ballplayers getting more sleep might be less prone to injuries related to fatigue, although sleep can’t repair a frayed labrum or tearing UCL.

Walker says he gives himself a non-negotiable eight-hour sleep window every night. I am not sure how he can reconcile that with, say, his trans-Atlantic travel, but he does point out that changing time zones can wreak havoc on our sleep cycles. He suggests avoiding alcohol or caffeine within eight hours of bedtime — so, yes, he even says if you want that pint of beer, have it with breakfast — and offers numerous suggestions for preparing the body for sleep as you approach bedtime, including turning off LED light sources, using blue light filters on devices if you just can’t put them down, and even using blackout shades for total darkness into the morning.

There are some chapters in the middle of Why We Sleep that would stand well on their own, even if they’re not necessarily as relevant to most readers as the rest of it. The chapter on sleep disorders, including narcolepsy and fatal familial insomnia (about as awful a way to die as I could imagine), is fascinating in its own right. Walker also delivers a damning rant on sleeping pills, which produce unconsciousness but not actual sleep, not in a way that will help the body perform the essential functions of sleep. He does say melatonin may help some people, although I think he believes its placebo effect is more reliable, and he questions whether over the counter melatonin supplements deliver as much of the hormone as they claim they do.

Why We Sleep was both illuminating and life-altering in the most literal sense: Since reading it, I’ve set Night Shift modes on my devices, set alarms to remind me to get to bed eight hours before the morning alarm, stopped trying to make myself warmer at night (cold prepares the body for sleep, and you sleep best in temperatures around 57 degrees), and so on. I had already been in the habit of pulling over to nap if I became drowsy on a long drive, but now I build more time into drives to accommodate that, and to give myself more time to wake up afterwards – Walker suggests 20 minutes are required for full cognitive function after even a brief nap. Hearing the health benefits of sleeping more and risks of insufficient sleep, including higher rates of heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer’s, was more than enough to scare me straight.

Next up: I’m halfway through Brian Clegg’s A Brief History of Infinity: The Quest to Think the Unthinkable.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,
→ May 12, 2018
→ By

Stick to baseball, 5/12/18.

This week brought the return of the redraft columns, where I go back ten years and ‘redraft’ the first round with full hindsight. This year’s edition redrafted the first round of 2008, led by Buster Posey and with several guys taken after the tenth round (one in the 42nd!) making the final 30; as well as an accompanying look at the 20 first-rounders who didn’t pan out. Both are Insider pieces, as is my column of scouting notes on Yankees, Phillies, Nats, and Royals prospects.

My review of the new Civilization board game is up at Paste this week. Civilization: A New Dawn takes the theme of the legendary Sid Meier video game franchise and simplifies it to play in about an hour to an hour and a half, but I felt like some of the better world-building aspects were lost in the streamlining.

Smart Baseball is now out in paperback! I’ll be at DC’s famed bookstore Politics & Prose on July 14th to flaunt the fruits of noble birth and, perhaps, sign copies of the book. I’m also working on a signing in greater Boston for later that month, so stay tuned for details. Also, please consider signing up for my free email newsletter.

I also wanted to mention a few new baseball books by folks I know that have come out in the last six weeks: Russell Carleton’s The Shift: The Next Evolution in Baseball Thinking, which I think goes well with my own book without covering much of the same ground; and two books on the Dodgers, Michael Schiavone’s The Dodgers: 60 Years in Los Angeles and Jon Weisman’s Brothers in Arms: Koufax, Kershaw, and the Dodgers’ Extraordinary Pitching Tradition, even though Jon liked the movie Moneyball and therefore was wrong about it.

And now, the links…

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,
→ May 11, 2018
→ By

Not Dead Yet.

I came of age as a music fan right around 1980, thanks in part to some of those old K-Tel pop hits collections (on vinyl!) that my parents bought me as gifts, one of which included Genesis’ hit “Abacab.” I loved the song right away, despite having no idea what it was about (still don’t), and it made me a quick fan of Genesis, and, by extension, Phil Collins’ solo material, which at that point already included “In the Air Tonight.” I’d say I continued as a fan of both until the early 1990s, when Genesis released their self-immolating We Can’t Dance (an atrocious, boring pop record) and Collins’ own solo work became similarly formulaic and dull. It was only well after the fact that I heard any of the first phase of Genesis, where Peter Gabriel was still in the band and their music was progressive art rock that featured adventurous writing and technical proficiency.

Collins’ memoir, Not Dead Yet, details the history of the band through his eyes as well as a look at his solo career and his tangled personal life, some of which made tabloid headlines, leading up to his inadvertent effort at drinking himself to death just a few years ago. The book seems open about many aspects of Collins’ life, including mistreatment of his three wives and his children (mostly by choosing work over his familial duties) and his refusal to accept that he had a substance-abuse problem, but there’s also a strain of self-justification for much of his behavior that I found offputting.

From a narrative sense, the book’s high point is too close to the beginning: When Collins was just starting out in the English music scene, his path intersected with numerous musicians who’d later become superstars and some of whom would be his friends and/or writing partners later in life, including Eric Clapton, Robert Plant, and George Harrison. The Sing Street-ish feel to those chapters is so charming I wondered how much was really accurate, but Collins does at least depict himself as a star struck kid encountering some of his heroes while he’s still learning his craft as a drummer. I also didn’t know Collins was a child actor, even taking a few significant stage roles in London, before his voice broke and he switched to music as a full-time vocation.

The Genesis chapters feel a little Behind the Music, but they’re fairly cordial overall – Collins doesn’t dish on his ex-mates and if anything seems at pains to depict Gabriel as a good bandmate and friend whose vision happened to grow beyond what the band was willing or able to achieve. It’s the stuff on Collins’ personal life that really starts to grate: He talks about being a terrible husband and father, but there’s enough equivocation in his writing (often quite erudite, even though he didn’t finish high school) to suggest that he isn’t taking full responsibility for his actions. He cheated on two wives, he ignored their wishes that he devote more time to his family, and he seems to have harassed the woman half his age (he was 44, she 22) who became his third wife and mother of the last two of his five kids.

It’s also hard to reconcile Collins’ comments on his own songwriting, both on solo records and in later word for Disney films and Broadway shows, with the inferior quality of most of his lyrics. Collins’ strengths were his voice, his sense of melody, and of course his work on the drums. His lyrics often left a lot to be desired, and their quality, never high, merely declined as he became more popular. Even his last #1 song in the U.S., “Another Day in Paradise,” is a mawkish take on the same subject covered more sensitively in “The Way It Is” and a dozen other songs on visible poverty in a developed, wealthy economy.

Since that’s all I have to say on the book, I’ll tell one random Collins-related story. When I was in high school, MTV briefly had an afternoon show called the Heavy Metal Half-Hour, which they later retitled the Hard 30. It was hair metal, so not really very heavy by an objective standard, but harder rock than what they played the rest of the time. One day during the Hard 30 run, they played … Phil Collins’ cover of “You Can’t Hurry Love.” I’m convinced this wasn’t an accident, but a test to see if anyone was watching. The show was cancelled a few weeks later.

Next up: I’m about halfway through Peter Carey’s Booker Prize-winning novel Oscar and Lucinda, later turned into a movie with a very young Voldemort and Queen Elizabeth.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,
→ May 10, 2018
→ By

Klawchat 5/10/18.

So much new content today – for Insiders, my 2008 redraft column, and a piece with scouting notes on Yankees, Phillies, Nats, and Royals prospects. I also have review of the new Civilization board game up at Paste.

Keith Law: Here’s a chance to chat our way out of our constrictions. It’s Klawchat.

Joe: Keith, any ideas why Buck is starting Joseph over Sisco so often?
Keith Law: I really can’t explain any of the on-field decisions happening over there. Buck has certainly seemed disinclined to use young players the front office brings up.

Dave: Antuna’s K rate is way up in A ball (and stats way down). How concerning is this or SSS?
Keith Law: Yasel Antuna? He’s *18*. He’s younger than several top HS prospects in this year’s draft. I’m eyeballing it but I think he’s the 3rd youngest player in the Sally League, at an age when he should probably be cutting social studies for Senior Day.

Zach: Will Trevor Williams have a long term MLB career and if so, at what role. His stuff seems underwhelming but at the same time, his ERA/FIP going back a year is 3.52/3.86 and a low HR rate in over 30+ starts.
Keith Law: Back end starter thanks to his command.

Bob: I’ve seen reports that Faedo’s velocity is down and his Ks are pedestrian, but his overall performance has been good. Do you have any reports that suggest a lower than anticipated ceiling?
Keith Law: That’s pretty much what I’ve got too.

Andrew: Nice game from Morejon last night. Who has the highest ceiling out of these three? Morejon, Paddack, Quantrill
Keith Law: Morejon, but I think all three are at least mid-rotation starters if healthy (always an if … that’s two TJs and Morejon has had arm issues too).

Andrew: Thoughts on Tirso Ornelas so far this year? More than holding his own as an 18 yr old in the MWL.
Keith Law: One of my favorite swings in the minors. I’m all in.

Lloyd: Just wanted to revisit your on-point assessment of the Brewers’ sticking Corbin Burnes in Colorado Springs. The home/road splits are astonishingly cartoonish thus far. What’s the theoretical bigger picture here – have him face “better” hitters? Would you say based off the road numbers he’s more or less ready?
Keith Law: I’d rather see him in the major league bullpen. I haven’t even looked at his stats this year because I don’t see what I’m supposed to glean from the guy playing games in near zero G.

Phil: why wouldn’t the cardinals go for machado? I feel like they are in need of consolidating talent given their surplus of young outfielders and pitching depth in the minors…great candidate for a 3 for 1 trade no?
Keith Law: I made this argument on Bernie Miklasz’s radio show this morning. The only hesitation I might have is that a good Cards 3-1 or 4-1 offer would include Kelly or Knizner, and with Sisco there I don’t think the Orioles would favor a package headlined by another catcher.

Tom: Are the A’s in on Kelenic at all?
Keith Law: At all, yes. Gorman too. But I think those are less likely than the college guys.

Josh: Pretty much every preseason list had Heliot Ramos over Austin Beck. Has the first month changed either of their perceptions in any way?
Keith Law: No. Not only is it SSS, but they’re playing at the same level, and Beck is 10 months older than Ramos.

Jake: Do you think Walker Buehler is up for good? If (massive if) the whole Dodgers rotation is healthy, is Buehler someone who starts postseason games for them (basically one of their top 4 starters)?
Keith Law: Depends on what they plan for his workload but I doubt he goes back down for more than a reverse cup of coffee. Hard to see a scenario where he isn’t one of the ten best pitchers in the system. Do not see him starting games for them in October – if they make it – if everyone is healthy.

Tom: What would your plan with Buehler be? They obviously need him now with their injuries and place in the standings, but it’s a long year and he has never thrown more than 98 innings in a year.
Keith Law: Just to stay with Ferris here, the (last year’s IP + 30) threshold has been debunked, but there’s obviously some upper bound on what he can handle. I’d probably target a plan that gets him to 130-140 in the regular season, but with statcast data the Dodgers might get an early warning if he’s wearing down at all, and should be prepared to adjust on the fly. If he has to skip a start, or become a long reliever for a few weeks, then that has to be the priority over squeezing a few extra innings out of him.

Some guy @ 3 Rivers Art Festival: Is Kevin Newman and Clay Holmes, plus two other guys enough for the Pirates to pry Machado from the Os? If not, what do you think it will take? Yeah, I know no way NH does this.
Keith Law: It’s not close to enough, and why would the Pirates acquire Machado now in his walk year?

Hi Erix: Someone asked this of Jay Jaffe, and I’m curious to get your thoughts, Keith. Robinson Cano … no-brainer HOF?
Keith Law: Almost certainly a HoF on merit, but “no-brainer” implies that he’ll sail in on the first ballot and I really doubt that.

Albtead34: It looks like the Rangers have the makings of a good young core. What are your thoughts on Mazara and is Profar going to be part of that core?
Keith Law: Mazara was one of my breakout candidates for this year, so obviously I’m a believer and I think he’s a core player for them. I’m cautiously optimistic about Profar – since he began playing regularly he’s not hitting for enough average but he’s putting the ball in play and showing some power, while drawing walks at an adequate clip. I think there’s still a regular in there and I hope he gets regular playing time for the rest of the year.

Reds Fan (Concerned?): Good afternoon, how concerned are you with Senzel’s vertigo issues this year & last? Can medicine get him back to good health so he can enjoy his life and get back to what he does best?
Keith Law: I’m not qualified to answer that at all.

Matty: Ian Kinsler has been pretty terrible at the plate in Anaheim while David Fletcher has been raking in Salt Lake. What’s the likelihood that Fletcher gets his shot sooner than later?
Keith Law: Salt Lake is a tremendous hitter’s park, in a hitter’s division. Fletcher has played all of two games this year outside of one of the PCL bandboxes. He slugged .354 last year.

Moe Mentum: In college, what did you major in? Would you choose the same major if you could do it over again?
Keith Law: Economics & sociology (joint). Would major in applied math if I could do it again.

Grover: Obviously they won’t blow it up, but if the Dodgers are hovering around .500 at the break, would it make sense for them to move some of the pieces that probably aren’t part of the long term plans (Grandal, Puig, Ryu, Hill?)
Keith Law: Yes and I wouldn’t doubt that they would do so. I know they’ve dangled Puig before.

Adam: Do you think an old dog has learned a new trick? Any changes to Markakis swing or just hot at the moment?
Keith Law: Just hot.
Keith Law: “hot.”

Mark: Are Tatis Jr’s strikeouts worrisome?
Keith Law: We’re hitting a theme here. Tatis is 19 in double-A, and has been raking the last few weeks after a slow start. You have to consider a hitter’s age relative to his level. Without that variable, any ‘analysis’ is worthless.

Moe Mentum: Best song by Talking Heads?
Keith Law: “Burning Down the House” remains my favorite. Brilliant then, no less so now. “Psycho Killer” is great, of course, and I’ve always thought “Blind” gets short shrift because it was their final album and they broke up right after its release.

Alex: what is your go to rum to drink neat?
Keith Law: Can’t beat Zacapa.

Mark: When do you think teams start thinking about making significant trades?
Keith Law: After the draft.

James: Better rest of career, Harvey or Meseraco?
Keith Law: I liked the deal both ways – Mets needed a catcher, Mesoraco still has some pop, neither guy is really fully healthy and I’m not sure we could ever expect either to be so. If you told me to take one, it’d be Mesoraco, but I do not agree with folks who think Harvey is toast.

Adam D.: Any new whispers from the #sources on what the Giants may do at #2? Your article this morning got me fired up for what they could potentially do picking this high.
Keith Law: Same names with them. I don’t know if anyone will really know what the teams up top are doing till very close to the draft but I do feel like the top six picks will include five college guys, the names everyone is putting out there – Mize, Bart, Bohm, Madrigal.

Guest: Lourdes Gurriel seems to swing and miss and awful lot. Doesn’t walk much either. Fringe regular?
Keith Law: I saw him a few times last year and didn’t think he was a regular.

Dan: Read your post on Loaisiga today. Top 100 prospect in your next rankings?
Keith Law: I won’t do 100 again until January.

Grover: Thoughts/projections on DJ Peters?
Keith Law: Upside of a 55, but realistically he might struggle enough with contact in the majors to play as a below-average regular most seasons but who has some above-average years.

JG: Are you encouraged by Gonsalves’s start at AAA. Can he be a mid-rotation guy?
Keith Law: Think more back end than that. Lack of a breaking ball really limits him.

Greg: If you had to redo a mock, would you still have Gorman to Atlanta?
Keith Law: Next mock will run on Thursday, then another two weeks after that, then another on draft day.

Justin : How do you deal with close friends or family who are vocal Trump supporters?
Keith Law: I have no family members or close friends who are. I have ended any contact with distant friends who are. Actually, that’s not quite true – I think I have one close friend who is a Trump supporter, but he’s never said so, and he’s pretty clear about wanting to avoid discussing political or social issues with me, knowing where we disagree. I have no problem with that, but you did say “vocal” and he wouldn’t qualify. He’d probably call me a vocal anti-Trumper.

Bob W.: Keith, what is your opinion, if you’ve formulated one, about the desirability of shortening the MLB regular season to, say, 154 games? My kneejerk reaction is that I’m opposed to it, but I’m open to changing my mind about it. Thanks
Keith Law: Oppose, primarily because it forks the history of the game.

DH: If you knew they’d all end up as average fielding 1B, how would you rank the bats of Nolan Gorman, Noah Naylor, Triston Casas?
Keith Law: If you’re asking pure hit tool, Naylor, Casas, Gorman. If you’re talking total offensive upside, Gorman, Naylor, Casas. However, Noah Naylor is not a 1b. He’s an above-average runner with arm strength and is going to play a skill position.

Marissa : Should anything be taken from TJ Zeuch’s promotion to AA or was it expected that he would be promoted around now
Keith Law: Maybe a year later than expected?

Butts: Is Micker Adolfo for real? Can I get excited yet?
Keith Law: Yeah, I would. He may take a step back when he gets to Birmingham and faces AA pitching, but he has always had enormous tools. I think I said in last week’s chat that he could barely play baseball when he was signed. He’s come a long way, baby.

J.P.: Soto’s on his way to Harrisburg. That was fast. Do you see him making it to DC this season at this rate if there’s room?
Keith Law: I don’t think his approach is ready for that or close to it.

TJ: Is Chance Adams kind of cooked?
Keith Law: No, but I would love to see him move to the pen. I think his fastball will tick up and he could be a Jason Frasor type, maybe better.

Ron: Is D German a Major League starter?
Keith Law: I would bet no, maybe 70/30 against, but you have to try him out there, no?

Greg: Any chance of Connor Scott, Seigler or Denaburg ending up in Gainesville next year?
Keith Law: Denaburg has been hurt since I saw him (I think he was hurt that day – I have video of him stepping off the rubber and rolling his shoulders like he was stiff) and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see him get to school. Potential top 10 guy for 2021.

Chimmy: Franmil Reyes – fluke?
Keith Law: Every game he has played this year has been in a PCL bandbox: 17 at El Paso, 8 at Las Vegas, 4 at Reno, and 4 at Albuquerque (where he went 11 for 17 with 4 homers).

Brandon: With Jay Groome essentially missing out on the first 2-3 years of his development, how much do you think that will set him back in the long run?
Keith Law: A lot. What a shame. He could come back with all his stuff, but he’ll essentially be 21 with the experience of a HS kid.

Grover: Would you have taken a chance on Harvey if he was completely unwilling to go to the minors and try and sort things out?
Keith Law: Yes.

Bertie Wooster: Did you get a chance to see Nomar Mazara as a prospect? Just a general questions on prospects – when you see a prospect and know he needs to develop in this area or that – do you then check back in after two or three years in the bigs- and see if they’ve made the adjustments?
Keith Law: Yes, saw him at 17 in the AZL. I’m not sure what the second question means … I always keep tabs on ex-prospects who haven’t panned out yet, because I need to think about why not, and if I should still project development for them.

John: Royce Lewis put up decent numbers in low A last year and is now putting up huge numbers. How soon should the Twins look to move him up?
Keith Law: It’s been 20 games. Yes, he’s putting up huge numbers, mostly contact/batting average, but I think it’s awfully early to be moving guys up unless they played half a season or more at that level last year. (FTR, I’m shocked Soto was moved up. He was very good when I saw him, but he didn’t scream “get him to AA” either.)

Paul: Any names connected to Atlanta’s second round pick?
Keith Law: I don’t even bother asking about second round picks or later. No team knows that today.

addoeh: And remember kids, Keith isn’t advocating cutting social studies class for Senior Day.
Keith Law: Yes I am.

TP: Any idea why Kelenic is playing for a travel team rather than a high school team?
Keith Law: I believe it exposes him to some better competition in that Iowa weekend league. I saw him, and that travel team he’s on is better than your typical cold-weather HS team.

Burt Reynolds: Is Sixto Sanchez hype more built around projection than present day skills? Obviously he is still young for his level but I have not seen any stats that stick out saying this kid is a #2 pitcher.
Keith Law: Kid was 96-101 at age 18 last year without much effort and good control, and struck out a man an inning in low-A before he was promoted. How many 18-year-olds can say all of that? Maybe one or two a year?

Marissa : Keith, thanks for the chat. Do you notice anything significant with Conforto’s early struggles or is it too early for Mets fans to panic?
Keith Law: I honestly don’t know to what extent we can point to his shoulder to explain it. I think it’s fair to wonder, but if that’s the case, then does that mean he won’t be right all year or until he takes more time off?

Ron: Who would any team give up the farm for Machado, when he’s there for the taking in 6 months?
Keith Law: If he can turn you from a borderline playoff team into a division winner, sure. If you’re way out of it, or already locked into a division title (likely, at least), then no.

Justin : David Price may have hurt himself playing video games? Big deal, little deal, no deal?
Keith Law: I’m pretty sure I saw that that is not a plausible explanation for this injury.

JR: Has anyone ever recommended “Everything I Never Told you” by Celeste Ng? I just finished and really enjoyed. Think you would like it too – and at just under 300 pages it’s a quick read.
Keith Law: I believe a reader recommended her other novel to me. Just haven’t gotten around to it. I’m currently reading Oscar & Lucinda, which won the Man Booker Prize; it’s good but kind of slow, as I think Carey was trying to write like the British masters of the mid-19th century and he did it too well.

J: I’m about 90% certain Vladdy Jr. will be up with the Jays at the ASB. When do you think Adames gets the call for the Rays?
Keith Law: If you said August 1st I’d say I was with you on Baby Vlad. Adames probably late June.

DH: Is Garrett Hampson good enough to crack the everyday lineup in Colorado?
Keith Law: Maybe … but man, I don’t know if he’s going to have enough power to be an everyday guy.

Kay: Any chance Bart makes it to the Mets?
Keith Law: Right now I would say 10% or less.

Scott: Have you seen Darick Hall? 28 HR last year at low A, already 10 at high A this year and walking more. I can only read the stat line, but the numbers remind me of Ryan Howard in that he’s pretty one-dimensional with a lot of power.
Keith Law: Yes. Older kid without any other tools. He’s nearly 23.

Steve: Do you think Bundy is hurt? Is he tradeable?
Keith Law: I don’t know if he’s hurt, but you don’t try to trade a guy like that after the worst start of his career. If you wanted to trade him three starts ago, sure, but now? Isn’t every other GM going to ask “why are you offering him today?”

Josh: Keith I an electoral question. I’m Liberal as they come, my state senator is a pro-Trump Republican. Problem is the only person running against him not only lacks charisma or political savvy, I have serious doubts about whether he is capable of the job other than being a rubber stamp to whatever the Democratic leadership tells him. We need to flip our State Senate back (this is NY) but I seriously question the candidate’s competence. Nobody else is running as of now, and it seems unlikely anyone else will. What to do?
Keith Law: What’s your other option? This is a problem inherent in our electoral system; other methods may produce better results but are more complex. My state Senator is a moderate Republican, and is competent and very nice (we had a long chat once about a law, which she ended up supporting, banning gay conversion therapy in Delaware), but because our state Senate is 11-10 D-R, we might be better off on some issues, like certain issues of science and the environment, with a less ‘competent’ Democrat. I may decide to vote that way, because it’s one or the other – I don’t get to shop for a better third option.

Grover: How annoying is the hot take narratives criticizing the DOdgers and Yankees for pulling pitchers during no-hitters? No-hitters strike me as special, fun moments, but it’s not like you get an extra win for it.
Keith Law: And there’s no way Buehler was finishing that. You want to make the next Bud Smith?

mike: From “win now” standpoint Vlad Jr. may justify a call up to DH full time with Toronto, however when does a call up make sense developmentally? other consideration is service time/control matter…. When do you think Vlad Jr debuts in Toronto??
Keith Law: They already have the extra year of control. If they want to play the super two game, but lose a month of his production, well, I think that’s just dumb, but teams do it.
Keith Law: (I’m not 100% sure he’s ready, BTW, but if he’s not now, he will be.)

San Cristóbal D.R: Hey Keith big fan .. I used to love Andújar at first but his OBP is way too low.. I think he need to go back to AAA least for now when drury comeback
Keith Law: His OBP and walk rate are too low, but it’s also just a month.

Jor: How far up the Yankees’ prospect list can Jonathan Loaisiga jump if he keeps this up?
Keith Law: With Freicer hurt, Abreu just back from injury, and Adams struggling, Loaisiga might be their 2nd or 3rd best pitching prospect right now. (Medina is in extended, and he’s the ‘maybe’ in there, with Sheffield 1.)

Josh: Thoughts on Fernando Romero thus far? 2 plus pitches?
Keith Law: Yes two plus pitches.

AGirlHasNoName: Why wouldn’t the market for Machado be less than in the last off-season? The packages being discussed seem like an awful lot of value for five months of a guy that can leave afterwards.
Keith Law: The O’s absolutely should have dealt him in the offseason and I said so at the time. The buyer would have gotten a full season of production plus a draft pick.

Eminor3rd: Given that picks 2-6 or so look like they’ll have players of the same “tier,” is it valid, at all, to say that it makes sense to go with a college position player in order to reduce risk?
Keith Law: I’m a little lost on this one. I think those picks will all be college position players. However, I think there are a couple of HS players who might make sense up there – Carter Stewart in particular – but who, for various reasons, aren’t likely to go that high.

Mark: Do you think the balls in play thing is an issue? What’s the fix?
Keith Law: Yes. Raise the bottom of the strike zone (which they did a little last year).

Andy: Why do the Brewers have an AAA team in Colorado Springs. What is there to keep them from taking Beloit, which has a Single A team, and saying, in 2019, this franchise will be our AAA squad and put them in the PCL or IL.
Keith Law: Many minor league teams are independent entities with franchise agreements with their leagues. The owners of Colorado Springs are moving the team to San Antonio after the season, and that move takes the PCL franchise with it. (San Antonio is moving to … Amarillo? Somewhere else in Texas.)

Scott: I have always thought that San Diego should draft college bats early (unless there is an outlier like Gore) and sign FA pitchers. They do not seem to follow this thinking. What are your thoughts on how SD should build their roster?
Keith Law: I don’t think they should force it. If the right college bat isn’t there, don’t do it. And Preller wants upside – at 7 they’re not likely to get a college bat with upside.

JG: What were your thoughts on Altuve as a prospect and a young Major Leaguer? Any inkling he would turn into MVP material?
Keith Law: I thought he’d be a regular. I saw him all of once, at a Futures Game, before his callup, but thought his swing was good and he was very strong for his size. I had no clue he was going to become a plus runner and basestealer and never forecast this power.

Adam Trask: NYT’s Kepner says we should re-examine Ruben’s tenure in Philly, saying he left the club in good shape. What say Klaw?
Keith Law: No, he did not leave the club in good shape, not the major league team and not the farm system.

NYTT: Love how big you’ve been on Bryse Wilson since he hit Rome last year. What’re your thoughts on him? Is he a higher floor/lower ceiling type guy or does he have significant upside in him?
Keith Law: Higher ceiling. Think he could end up a #2.

Timmy: I saw The Florida Project recently. Not trying to ruin it for anybody, but what is your take on the last scene? Is it really make believe – like kids pretending to go “on a safari”?
Keith Law: It’s fantasy. There’s no way that could have been real within the context of the film. It also underscores the dichotomy between the setting of the last scene and the setting of the rest of the movie.

K.C.: Does Newcomb’s use of a change up make him a viable #2-3?
Keith Law: He’s always had a good changeup.

Grover: I know college pitch counts has been a crusade for you (and one I agree with), but how is it that some of the more egregious coaches can continue to get top pitching recruits despite this practice? I have to imagine most of these kids and their parents have dreams of making the major leagues, don’t they recognize that throwing 150 times in a college game is detrimental to that?
Keith Law: The coaches tell the parents they’re the experts and they know what they’re doing, and most parents don’t know any better. How Vasil’s father, an attorney, didn’t lose his mind over the coach burning him for a useless inning of relief two days before his start, or Deason’s parents aren’t seething that their kid went 140 pitches the other day for U of Arizona (#naptime), is beyond me.

Tim: Can you name 5 prospects that are better than Juan Soto?
Keith Law: Yes. Vlad, Eloy, Gore, Tatis, Mejia.

Dave: Does the regression in control for Freicer Perez change your outlook for him at all?
Keith Law: The fact that he’s hurt changes my outlook, at least for now. A bad month doesn’t change my outlook on players without some underlying, systemic explanation.

Yuri: You might have answered this in the past, but who are your go to old school metal bands? Only recently started listening to Judas Priest, Dio, Danzig – and have really been digging them all.
Keith Law: Maiden is kind of the king of that mountain for me, as well as Sabbath. Then it’s more about certain songs, often ones that have some nostalgia value.
Keith Law: For whatever it’s worth, Danzig is more hard rock to me than metal. They dressed like a metal band but their music was never very heavy.

deetee: Most anticipated boardgame of 2018?
Keith Law: Founders of Gloomhaven & Rising Sun come to mind. Some other lesser ones by designers I like (Mercado comes to mind).

Ryan: Can you try to explain what front offices are doing at this moment to prepare for the draft? I’m assuming the fact-finding phase never really ends but at some point they have to be switching into the decision making phase. The whole process is fascinating to me.
Keith Law: Lot of teams doing scout meetings – bring the whole staff to one place to review all the players over 2-3 days – this week or next, before the college conference tournaments.

JR: I’m getting old. The 2008 MLB draft is the first one I really followed and remember (probably thanks in part to your coverage). Seeing some of those names in the re-draft was just depressing. It’s really been 10 years already since those guys were drafted?
Keith Law: I had the same thought. It’s weird to me that I’m now redrafting drafts that happened after I left the Jays.

Evan: Going to Tokyo/Kyoto, any food recs? (not sure if youve been)
Keith Law: Never been, sorry. But I might be in Stockholm in the very near future, so I’m happy to take food or other recs from readers. I’ll have most of an afternoon and evening free before the event I’m going for.

Mike: What kind of reports have you gotten on Jesus Luzardo this season? Is he a top 100 guy for you at this point?
Keith Law: Nothing but positive since spring training. Stuff better, still has great control. He wasn’t far from the 100 this offseason, so with graduations/injuries, it’s fair to say I’d have him on.

Louie: What is a good first step for someone who thinks some kind of medication for anxiety/depression is necessary? Is it best to just be up front with a professional about it and what you think you need or will that seem like you are fishing for prescription?
Keith Law: Talk to your primary care doctor first. SSRIs, the main drugs of choice for treating depression or generalized anxiety disorder, are not drugs of abuse.

Rey: Keith, I’m loving your book. I’m just wondering why you focused on UZR and didn’t speak about DRS in the defense chapter? Is it later in the book?
Keith Law: I have always preferred UZR.

John: What did you think about Soto, Kieboom, and Agustin Monday? You mentioned that Soto ran a 70 to 1st — how does that gibe with the 40/45 speed I’ve seen elsewhere. Thanks!
Keith Law: I have a blog post up on those guys. I don’t know about the 40/45 speed. The stopwatch doesn’t lie – you can’t run like that to first with below-average speed.

Josh: Is it time to worry about Paul Goldschmidt? Under .210 average since 9/1 last year which is over 200 AB and has not had had a month below .230 since his rookie year… he is striking out at an alarming rate ( on pace for 200+) and if you take away his first week and a half of the season, he is not walking as much or taking as many pitches. His bat looks really slow against even just moderately good FB. Thoughts?
Keith Law: So a third of a season. I know I say this over and over, but we’re still talking about a fairly short period of time in the career of a hitter with a long, established track record of all-star performance.

Jimmy R: I have a week long family reunion next week in a big house. There’s 20 of us going, 3 are huge Trump supporters. My brother asked that politics not be brought up. But if we are spending a week together, I don’t see how it’s not; especially with all this crap happening on a daily basis. My plan is to be quiet and not bring it up but I’m wondering what I can do if there’s a huge breaking story that can’t be ignored. What you think?
Keith Law: I wouldn’t go. I’m not staying quiet – all that is necessary for the triumph of evil, and all that – so I’ll bow out.

Kevin Maas: I refuse contact with someone who disagrees with my politics. P.S. I’m so tolerant. -KLaw
Keith Law: Google the “paradox of tolerance.” You might learn something, popper.

Tim: I’m excited about Seranthony Dominguez simply because if his name. Can he pitch? Bullpen the final destination for him?
Keith Law: Legit two plus pitches with pretty good command. Bullpen guy.

Jamie: Seeing how the Astros won it all and have a great future, any regrets not taking that job?
Keith Law: Absolutely not.

QMan: Have you ever considered a full review of MLB stars with rankings? Basically an ageless top 25< 25 with tool grades?
Keith Law: Nope nope nope land of ten thousand nopes.

Scott: I know you said Soto’s approach needs some refinement, but do you think the Nats with this most recent promotion might be hoping that Soto will be ready at some point next year to take over in RF if Harper doesn’t sign? Or do organizations not take stuff like that into consideration?
Keith Law: I’m sure getting him to the majors in the next year, while they’re still good, is part of their thinking.

Nick: What is a realistic outcome for Justus Shefield? Above average MLB starter? More?
Keith Law: Above average major league starter, yes.

Matt: Have you heard any tracks from the new Arctic Monkeys’ album? Any reviews so far?
Keith Law: Tomorrow, right? I haven’t heard anything yet.

QMan: Why is there no grade for batting eye or feel for the zone? As OBP has become so important in the last 15 years why is there kontool associated with it?
Keith Law: There is. I think most teams have it as a box on the scouting report.

Turner Watts: I got some Himalayan salt skewers as a gift for teacher appreciation day. Have you ever used before?
Keith Law: No. I don’t much go for fancy salts – it’s still almost entirely sodium chloride, and few if any people can taste the difference – but salt skewers of any color sound interesting.

Andrew: When you’re scouting a player at a high school game, where do you usually prefer to sit to watch the player?
Keith Law: Behind the plate for a pitcher, then up the line to watch his delivery from the side. For a hitter, I stand to see his open side (see his hands, not his ass).

K.C.: What sort of potential does Bryce Wilson have, and why wasn’t he viewed more highly out of high school?
Keith Law: Bad delivery out of HS. Atlanta cleaned him right up. Answered on his potential above.

JR: Thoughts on sports betting? Do you think it should be legalized and regulated in every state? I live in Vegas and enjoy being able to place the occasional wager (and am fortunate that I have the means to do so).
Keith Law: Yes, it should be legalized, regulated, and taxed. It’s going to happen anyway; better to generate some state revenue from it, and also police potential malfeasance. I think weed should be legalized as well and handled the same way.

Soto Can Hit!: Were you saying you did not think Soto’s approach is ready for AA or MLB this year with regards to the earlier question you answered?
Keith Law: Is not ready for MLB right now.

Kevin: Have you had a chance to see Bichette play this year? Numbers look good still, but I don’t know much about the quality of the league to say anything. Still high on him?
Keith Law: Yes, and yes.

JR: Baseball ceases to exist tomorrow, but ESPN honors your contract and lets you choose which other sport to cover. What sport do you pick?
Keith Law: Lacrosse.

Anthony: Who do you view as being the most likely prospect from your offseason top 100 to come up next? With Mejia’s injury, Senzel’s vertigo, etc., is anyone closer than Adames (possibly) in late June?
Keith Law: Vlad could really come up at any point, although I’m not predicting it just yet. Or Robles, when he returns from the DL.

PD: A lot of the top Pirates draft picks from last year (Baz, Jennings, Uselton) aren’t currently playing in leagues (held back in extended?). Is this a sign of a more conservative organizational approach or does this raise concerns about their current ability?
Keith Law: All in extended. All three HS kids, very young, also probably managing the two pitchers’ innings.

Mike: Nathaniel Lowe has been tearing the cover off the ball in A+. What have you been hearing about him?
Keith Law: Nothing, since he’s an older 1b repeating the level.

Chris: I’ve always loved your redraft columns, do you think you’ll have time to add a 2007 one now that you’re not writing a book?
Keith Law: No, probably not. The editors last year wanted me to redraft 2012, not 2007, but I said it was too soon for that.

Justin : Which of the Pulitzer fiction novels that you read is most accessible for your average reader?
Keith Law: To Kill a Mockingbird or The Yearling.

Steve: how close is Brendan Rodgers to being MLB ready?
Keith Law: I think I’m seeing him Monday, so maybe ask me next chat!

Concerned: Recently got my daughter her first round of shots, and my family was concerned that we didn’t spread them out more. I don’t agree with them, but why are they wrong?
Keith Law: They are wrong because they don’t really understand anything about biology. The human immune system is exposed to thousands of potential pathogens every day, even those of infants or toddlers (who put everything in their mouths). The tiny number of weak or dead viruses in vaccines are a drop in the ocean to our bodies. And thank you for vaccinating, both for taking good care of your daughter and for helping maintain herd immunity for those who can’t be vaccinated.
Keith Law: That’s all for this week – thank you as always for reading. The 2008 draft busts piece will go up on Saturday rather than tomorrow, so please keep an eye out for that as well. As for the next chat, bear with me as I’m not sure yet when it will be. Enjoy your weekends!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: