→ September 16, 2022
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Power Failure.

Power Failure is a clever small-box game from Genius Games that rethemes a Taiwanese game called Power On!, taking some of the concepts of the great route-building game Power Grid while including a key message about climate change. Sometimes a game just hits you the right way; Power Failure has just so-so ratings on BGG, for example, and my daughter really didn’t care for it, but I think it’s both clever and fun. It’s great value at $17 or less, as on Amazon or Miniature Market.

Power Failure has two main conceits: You’re building an engine of power plants that you can fire once per turn, with each plant type requiring different fuel (in the form of cards); and building and firing plants usually involves adding carbon tokens to the shared tower in the middle of the table. When that tower falls, it ends the turn of the player who placed the last token on it, and everyone else has to discard a card from their hands, simulating the environmental cost of generating energy, especially through dirtier forms like coal and natural gas. At the end of your turn, you can “fire” all your plants of one type, and then use the total power you generated to claim a City card that represents the power demand of one city, which is the only way to gain victory points in the game.

Beyond the tower, this is a hand-management game – you get a hand of cards that include power plants, fuel cards for some of those plants, and special action cards. On every turn, you can take three total actions, which can include selecting a card from the common market, playing a card from your hand (building a plant or using a special action card), or firing up all of your plants of a single type. You can do the same action type twice, and in the first two or three rounds you’ll use all three actions to play or draw cards.

There are three main types of power plants in Power Failure, coal, natural gas, and nuclear; plus renewable energy plants that require no fuel and fire automatically on every turn. All power plant types require that you add one carbon token to the tower when you build them. Coal plants require one coal fuel card each to fire them, and you have to add three carbon tokens per plant when you do so. Natural gas plants require one natural gas card each, and you add two tokens per plant when you fire. Nuclear plants don’t add carbon tokens, but you need two separate cards for each plant you fire, one for fuel and one to represent the handling of the nuclear waste. Some renewable plants generate a variable amount of energy, from 0 to 2 units, based on the number showing on the top card on the deck, so you can’t build an entire energy strategy around them, but they can be enough to supplement your other energy sources to get you to a better city card.

Thus your goal is to build an engine of plants, likely concentrating on one type, that you can fuel and fire every other turn or so to try to fulfill a contract on a city card. The catch for coal and nuclear plants, which are cheaper to fire, is that they pollute. For every coal plant you fire, you must add three carbon tokens to the tower, and for every natural gas plant, you must add two. So you might build an engine with three coal plants, which would generate 18 power, enough to claim any contract in the game, but you have to add nine tokens to the tower, doing so one at a time. The tokens are hexagonal wooden pieces about a half-inch thick, and you can stack them flat or vertically, depending on how hard you want to make it for the next player. When the tower falls, your turn ends, you generate no power, and everyone discards a card, after which you reset the tower by starting out with three tokens and play resumes. There’s a little dexterity involved here, which does exclude certain people from playing, unfortunately. I do think the idea is clever because of the way it introduces variability into the mix – every form of power production pollutes at some level, but it’s hard to predict who will actually be the polluter to push the total over some threshold.

Games take 45-60 minutes, and I think it’s good for any age range that can handle the token placement part of the game. There’s some light text required, but it’s manageable for younger players. I also appreciate the color scheme, which is brighter and clearer than Power Grid’s fifty shades of grey. It’s a serious engine-builder at heart, though, with the dexterity element a small part of the game. You can play it mostly solo against other players, or you can play more competitively with a “take-that” strategy that swipes fuel cards your opponents might need. I think it’s a small gem of a game that deserves a wider audience than it’s gotten so far.

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→ September 13, 2022
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Paris: La Cite de Lumiere & Eiffel.

Paris: La Cité de Lumière is a short but involved two-player game from 2019, bringing polyominos, tile-laying, and a unique drafting mechanism into a tight 30-minute playing time. It received a major expansion late last year in Paris: Eiffel, which debuted at Gen Con 2021 but hit the mass market this year, bringing further scoring cards to allow players to change strategies – but it doesn’t address my core issue with the game, the way the drafting forces you to potentially stop selecting building tiles.

Each player begins the game with eight square cobblestone tiles, each of which is divided into four squares that can be blue, orange, or purple, or just show a streetlight. One player is blue and the other is orange, while purple squares can belong to either player; you can only place a building on squares of your color or grey. In phase one, you may either place one of your cobblestone tiles on the game board, which is actually set inside the bottom of the box, or take one of the polyomino-shaped building tiles from the supply – but once you’ve placed all 8 of your tiles, you can’t take another building.

Paris: La Cité de Lumière base game.

In phase two, players alternate placing the building tiles they’ve taken on to the board. There are also eight Action cards placed around the board/box in each game, out of a set of 12 possible cards in the base game, which you can use to gain additional points or sometimes violate some of the rules of the game; each player has four action tokens that they will use to claim those cards during this phase, and once used a card can’t be reused. At game-end, you score for each of your buildings that is adjacent to a streetlight, earning the product of the number of lights and the number of squares covered by that building; and for your largest contiguous group of buildings, one point per square. You also gain a point for each postcard you used that shows a stamp, and lose 3 points for each building you took but failed to place (surprisingly easy to do).

The postcards are a huge part of the game because they’re so powerful. One allows you to place a fountain tile on cobblestones of your color or the neutral color, and then you get 3 points for each of your buildings that touches it. Another gives you a giant streetlight that lights up buildings two squares away rather than just adjacent spaces. Another gives you a purple cobblestone to place on a square of your opponent’s color, after which you immediately place a building on it. The game comes with a recommended set of eight cards for your first game or two, leaving some of the cards with complicated scoring for experienced players, although I don’t think there’s that much of a gap.

Paris: Eiffel adds eight more action cards, mostly based on actual landmark buildings in the city, and add new ways to score along with 3-D cardboard buildings you might place on the board. You still use just eight cards in the game, but can now mix and match from 20 choices rather than 12. The Eiffel Tower card lets you place the tower on a 4×4 area that contains at least one streetlight, after which those lights double their point value for scoring, while you also get two points for squares of your player color under the tower. The Obelisk (found in the Place de la Concorde) gives each player two points for every building they place that falls in the same row or column as the obelisk sits. Notre Dame and the Catacombs let you piggyback on one of your opponents’ buildings for more points or to count it in your largest building group. Quartres Pauvières lets you score for the number of board edges your buildings touch – 1, 2, 4, or 8 points.

The soring is definitely point salad-y, although the cards mean that the players get to pick their own scoring methods to some extent, and I think that’s probably the game’s greatest strength. It’s a novel approach to the asymmetrical two-player game. The weird drafting mechanism at the start just sinks the game for me, unfortunately. People do really love this game, though – it’s highly rated on BGG, which skews towards more complex games, but also has sold well enough to merit an expansion. It just isn’t my cup of thé.

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→ September 11, 2022
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Stick to baseball, 9/11/22.

I pushed this post back a day so I could file another post for the Athletic, so you had two from me in the last 48 hours – a scouting post on some top Guardians and Nationals prospects, and a second edition of my looks at September prospect callups. I also held a Klawchat on Thursday.

Over at Paste, I reviewed Next Station: London, a great new flip-and-write game with a route-planning mechanic that makes it a sort of a puzzle – the choices you make early in the game constrain your choices later. This is definitely the year of the roll/flip-and-write.

My guest on this week’s episode of the Keith Law Show was Wingspan game designer Elizabeth Hargrave, talking about her next big game, The Fox Experiment, now on Kickstarter (and already 500% funded in five days). You can listen and subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: The New Yorker looks at how Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and the Ottawa County police department have worked together to turn rape victims into defendants, putting one of their own on trial for accusing a cop – who has been accused by at least two other women of sexual assault – of coercing her into sex.

A column denying the extent of racism in Canadian society led to a successful effort to unionize the country’s conservative paper the National Post, securing gains for BIPOC employees in the process.

A Fox producer warned execs to stop Jeanine Pirro from airing her election-denial views, according to documents revealed in the Dominion Systems lawsuit against the right-wing juggernaut.

Billionaire Barre Seid has used his money to fund climate-change denialism and fight Medicaid expansion (that is, health care for our poorest citizens), while also funding a law school to churn out archconservative future judges, according to records unearthed by ProPublica.

One Alabama prison has been holding pregnant women there for weeks or months, in what appears to be a violation of basic Constitutional rights, to protect the fetuses from drug use.

David DeWitt of the Ohio Capitol Journal writes of the intolerable cruelty of Ohio’s total ban on abortions, including the suffering already of pregnant women needing essential medical care.

Nature’s editors write of the need for greater protections for scientists and researchers from threats and abuse, pointing at lawmakers and the executives running social media sites.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the House Minority Leader, introduced a new “Commitment to America” that is short on ideas and long on Trumpian insanity, according to Alex Shephard of the New Republic, pointing to the lack of details for how it will achieve vague goals, emphasis on truly counterproductive policies (like increasing fossil fuel production), and kowtowing to election deniers.

Oxford scientists may have developed an effective malaria vaccine. Malaria has long resisted traditional approaches to vaccine development because it’s caused by a parasite, rather than a bacterium or virus, and the parasite changes form once inside the host’s body.

Count me among those Duolingo users who hate the app’s total redesign, as it has removed most of the flexibility the old structure gave users to set their own pace; I used the app to try to keep my Spanish skills fresh, but wouldn’t do those lessons at the same speed or rate as those of Welsh, which I was learning from scratch. The founder’s comments don’t give me much hope, as they betrayed a real disdain for their customers.

I knew Florida state Rep. Randy Fine in college, and am not surprised to see the person he’s become as an adult or politician – he was one of the most vocal Florida officials to rail against “woke” Disney, but is also happy to spend thousands of dollars on the company’s cruises and products.

An 18-year-old student was elected to the Boise School Board, in no small part because his opponent refused to denounce an endorsement from a far-right extremist group that arrives armed with AR-15s to public events, supports book banning, and refers to undocumented immigrants as “illegals.”

As many GOP candidates across the country are trying to scrub anti-abortion or other hard-right rhetoric from their campaign sites, Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano is leaning harder in that direction, becoming “Trumpier than Trump” in the words of Axios’ Jonathan Swan.

Lots of board game Kickstarters etc. this week, starting with the solo-only game Legacy of Yu from Shem Phillips, designer of Raiders of the North Sea and the North Sea and West Kingdom series of games.

Disney is introducing a new Magic: the Gathering-style collectible card game called Lorcana, and Polygon has images of some of the superb art.

Keith Matejka, designer of the Roll Player games, has a new title on Kickstarter called Dawn of Ulos, a tile-laying game for 1-5 players set in the Roll Player universe.

25th Century Games has a Gamefound campaign up for expansions to its Prehistories and Space Explorers games.

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→ September 8, 2022
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Klawchat 9/8/22.

Keith Law: Come let the truth be shared. Klawchat.

Jackie: Paul Goldschmidt, the best player in Delaware’s history.  Future HOFer?
Keith Law: Yes. He could limp through the next few years and still make it. He’s going to clear 65 WAR with no trouble and could end up near 80 – that’s a no-doubter for me.

Kingpin: Nats IF Luis Garcia has 5 BB & 63 K in just under 300 AB. He’s only 22 iirc, so there’s still time for improvement, but his approach gonna hold him back?
Keith Law: Yes. Never been a big believer in that bat – he can put the bat on the ball but without impact or patience. Aggressive promotions when he was just a teenager may not have helped him in the end.

S. Murphy: Hey, Keith. Love the chats. Assuming all three of Peraza, Volpe, and Sweeney make it in the next two years to the majors.  What’s the most logical outcome for all three regarding playing time with the Yankees? I’m guessing Peraza at short, Volpe 2nd, Sweeney third, with DJ at first?
Keith Law: Sweeney isn’t near those other guys – he didn’t produce anywhere near the way a D1 product should in high A. Volpe is a shortstop and the guy you build around.

David (Denver): Given the Rockies’ bizarre management, I guess it makes as much sense as anything else they do or don’t do, but why isn’t a team like this more active on the waiver wire?  They should be claiming anyone with a pulse to maybe get lucky and find some free talent.  They just seem so content with the same underperforming roster year after year, while insisting that it just hasn’t quite reached expectations.  So why the process breakdown?
Keith Law: I agree, but they have a different philosophy than I would have if I ran that org. I’d probably run it like a science lab and just be experimenting constantly while trying to rebuild. They seem almost conservative for their situation.

John: Is there anything more inherently un-American than caring about the Queen of England?
Keith Law: Eh. Is it un-American to care about the Pope? A major world figure, the longest-reigning monarch in human history – yeah, I know about Louis XIV, he was five years old when he became king, he wasn’t actually in charge of anything beyond his own bowel movements – dies, that’s pretty big news.

DD: Are you a proponent of “steel-manning” when debating controversial topics?  Meaning, do you actively attempt to fairly restate the counterparty’s viewpoint and supporting logic/rationale, even if you strongly or vehemently disagree?
Keith Law: I have never heard of this, but it’s quite interesting.

Braves Questions: Was the Brian Bridges firing a result of the Carter Stewart signing issue?  I always liked his draft classes and am a little surprised Atlanta has apparently moved away from scouting to using more models for amateur evals under Brown.
Keith Law: I highly, highly doubt that. The team walked away from Stewart over his post-draft medical. You can’t blame that on the scouting director. And I agree, Bridges’s drafts look very successful in hindsight.

Sedona: Do you think Kerry Carpenter becomes an above avg MLB OF?
Keith Law: I do not.

JJ: Thoughts on Chaim Bloom?  The fanbase/media in Boston is just about ready to kick him to the curb.  Is he qualified to be the GM for the Red Sox?  It seems to me that a management position in Tampa Bay is a completely different animal than that job title with a team with twice the payroll, like the Red Sox or Yankees.
Keith Law: LOL. Yes, he’s qualified. I really don’t give a rat’s ass what the fanbase thinks and neither should anyone in that organization. I have vague memories of fans and media arguing that the Sox were wrong to move John Valentin to third base for an unproven rookie back in 1997.

The Ghost of Bobby Thigpen: Odds that Oscar Colas is the Sox starting RF next season on Opening Day?
Keith Law: They could always go outside the org, but he’s probably on their roster for a good chunk of next year in some role.

Sedona: There are some older MILB players that are showing 4 or more tools and excelling upper levels in the minors.  Some of them have a solid track record:  Vaun Brown, Matt Gorski, Addison Barger, Matt Mervis, and many more.  Do you see any of these guys will become MLB Stars?  If not, any off the radar older prospects you think that will become stars?
Keith Law: Well, Brown did most of that in A-ball at 24. I’ve seen Gorski (extra OF at best) and Barger (chance for a regular, more likely platoon IF). Mervis is 1B only so I’m not sure what the 4 tools would be.

Henry: I totally agree with your assessment that MLB owners will contract minor league teams if unionization goes through. What can the player’s association do to realistically stop that unintended consequence?
Keith Law: That’s a better question for a labor lawyer.

Nick: Jasson Dominguez has played really well since his promotion to high-a. Is he a possible riser on your next top 100?
Keith Law: He was already on my last top 100, and he’ll be on it again.

Casey: Alec Burleson was called up yesterday…do you think he’ll hit enough to be at least an average regular even with the defensive liabilities?
Keith Law: I’m a bit skeptical on the bat. Had him as more of a mistake hitter/power over hit type. He to be more than that to be a regular with the defensive issues you mentioned.

Kingpin: Do you see Jordan Walker creating more loft in his swing without hurting his contact too much?
Keith Law: Does he need to?

romorr: There are a lot of paths available for DL Hall next year, relief, AAA to continue starting, battling it out in ST, which would you like to see with him?
Keith Law: Start him in triple A unless there’s some real evidence between now and OD that he’s going to throw more strikes. I’m fine with him continuing to develop in the majors, but not if he’s going to walk 4 guys every start.

Jason: What’s up with Kahlil Watson, and can he turn things around and get back to where he was in your offseason ranking (obviously he won’t be there next January/February)?
Keith Law: Only 19, still showing tools, nowhere near as advanced a hitter as scouts thought coming out of HS. He’s been better with contact lately and driving the ball more but without enough results on contact.

Brittney: Safe to say the Cardinals were the winners of the 2020 draft? Any chance we see Hence on your Top 100 this winter?
Keith Law: Yes, and yes.

John: Should Andrew painter start next year with the Phillies?
Keith Law: Absolutely not.

Jason: What’s your honest take on the brewers? Seems like their starting pitching regressed. Is their offense that bad?
Keith Law: The offense was always going to be an issue. Their rotation hasn’t been at full strength most of the year, though.

AW: Have you seen enough from Volpe that he could provide a jolt down the stretch this season or does he still need some refinement in AAA?
Keith Law: I would call him up. I think he’ll rise to the occasion.

Robbie: If Harris and Strider were eligible to be on your prospect list today, would they both be top 5?
Keith Law: They’ve both got a year in the majors. That’s just not an apples to apples comparison.

Jobu: Which app would you recommend for learning a language?  I think you were using one to learning Welsh or Italian.
Keith Law: I used Duolingo and completed the Welsh course in it, but they recently changed the app to a very narrow, prescribed approach that stops you from learning at your own pace. I’m hoping they revert, given the negative feedback online, but the CEO/founder made some deeply paternalistic comments that make me think he’s dug in his heels.

Jimmy P: I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop on Elly ever since he joined High-A. A guy with his plate approach can’t sustain *this* in the majors, can he?
Keith Law: Maybe he can improve his approach? Really young and really talented.

Jeremy: Any thoughts on Tyler Soderstrom? He’s having a heck of a season with the bat but didn’t make your updated top prospects list – I know you’ve had an issue with his lack of a true position, is that what is keeping him off the list? Any other concerns?
Keith Law: That’s his #1 issue, yes.

Blaze Blaskovich: Ryne Nelson looked pretty nice – is that a fluke or does he have some mid rotation potential long term?
Keith Law: I’m in. Maybe an above-average starter.

Lark11: Have you heard any updates on Daniel Espino? Seems incredible that he’s going to miss the vast majority of the season with knee tendonitis and shoulder soreness. Any word on the severity of either? On when he’ll get back to throwing pitches in anger? Thanks!
Keith Law: I don’t think we see him till 2023.

romorr: Joey Ortiz has turned it around in a big way since July. And even his first week in AAA has impressed. Would you say his defense is better than Mateo this year? Shot to start out of ST?
Keith Law: Maybe not a better defender than Mateo but a much better overall player, and should be their OD shortstop next year.

jordan: in retrospect, should the white sox not have constructed their roster entirely with DHs and mediocre relief arms?
Keith Law: Perhaps not the ideal plan.

Guest: Keith is it true that rookie of the year has draft rewards and that’s why Dbacks and Orieloes may sit Carroll Gunner down the stretch some?
Keith Law: True, yes. Will they sit those guys? I don’t think either can lose eligibility even if they play every day.

Bill: Who would be a good fit for the Tigers’ GM position?
Keith Law: I’ve seen a bunch of good names and some extremely unimaginative ones. Josh Byrnes has been GM twice and succeeded in neither place. For him to get a third shot while qualified candidates, especially POC candidates, like Dana Brown, Jason McLeod, Billy Owens, Carlos Rodriguez, and others get passed over would be a giant fucking embarrassment for the Tigers and MLB.

Billiam: Endy Rodriguez any good?
Keith Law: Really good.

Josh: Strider or Harris for NL ROY?
Keith Law: I have an NL ROY ballot so I can’t answer.

romorr: Is Aberdeens park that bad for HR? Norby, and Cowser both put on a power display in Bowie. Norby especially has shown a little more than previously thought.
Keith Law: Other way around – Bowie is a very good HR park.

Lark11: Any thoughts on Reds shortstop Jose Barrero? It seemed like he things figured out at triple-A in 2021, then he fractures his hamate bone and now all he does is strikeout. Injury-related? Or, something less fixable? Thanks!
Keith Law: Hamate injuries can sap your wrist strength for a year. I’d wait and see.

Aaron C.: Tyler Soderstrom’s 2022 OBP is .319 between high A and AA. Why can’t us A’s fans have nice things?
Keith Law: If he were a catcher, it wouldn’t matter that much. But now, I don’t know what you have in him.

Adam: The Padres are currently still limping their way into the playoffs despite having Bob Melvin and a $200 mil roster. Can this be summed up with “baseball is hard” or is there an underlying cause to the struggles of AJ Preller’s rosters these last few years?
Keith Law: I mean, they have arguably the best player in the NL on their roster and he’s going to have 0 PA for them this year.

CVD: James Wood is a top ____ prospect going in to next season?
Keith Law: He was on my midseason top 50.

Lark11: Broad question, but what do you think of MLB’s recent trend of bringing all baseball-business in under the banner of MLB? I’m thinking of the minor leagues and of Topps. Is it good to acquire such business or better to have independent businesses growing your game for you? Also, is it a shady tactic to basically withhold licensing from Topps (who depends heavily on MLB cards) and then snatch it up for yourself? Or, is that standard business practice? Thanks!
Keith Law: Vertical integration is a mixed bag. In this case, MLB owning the minors might be better for player development, but worse for minor league fans, and maybe it’s just worse period if MLB owners persist in thinking of the minors as a cost center rather than an investment.
Keith Law: I have no idea about cards/licensing.

Pat: Thoughts on democrats’ strategy of helping extremist GOP candidates win their primaries?
Keith Law: It makes me nervous.

Alan: Last year you named Kyle Manzardo the sleeper of the Rays’ draft, which looks like a pretty good call. What do you expect from him — is a starting 1B/DH for a contender?
Keith Law: Starting 1B/DH for someone.

Paul: Hey Keith, I gotta ask you about Spencer Strider. He’s a very fun player to watch and interesting guy to root for. What do you make of his future? Does he need a 3rd pitch? Or is he just funky enough to where this current version of him can succeed for a while?
Keith Law: He gets LHB out right now, despite the lack of a third pitch. Every once in a very blue moon, you get a guy like this. I believe Bartolo Colon was this kind of pitcher when young – he could go through a lineup throwing mostly 4- and 2-seamers. But it’s rare, and one-year platoon splits are volatile enough that I’d like to see Strider do it over another season before buying into the argument that he can be an ace as a 2-pitch guy.

John: How does it effect your process when you see that two of the guys you were way low on (Goldy and Riley) are two of the better hitters in MLB?
Keith Law: Riley revamped his whole approach. Goldschmidt I just missed on, lacking enough looks and frankly overweighting input from scouts who, in hindsight, were disinclined to rate a player like him very highly. Two totally different cases – everything I said on Riley was accurate until he went out and addressed the clear holes in his approach, which is remarkable.

Jake: Does Trump get indicted before midterms, after, or not at all?
Keith Law: My guess, knowing basically nothing, is not at all.

Mike: Thoughts on the Guardians shortstop situation in the coming years? Rosario has been solid the past two years so is it worth keeping him or do you guy with Rocchio?
Keith Law: I think Rocchio’s a star. If Rosario doesn’t take a step forward with the bat next year, you just move him aside. He’s had a solid season but Rocchio will be better.

Michael: So the Cubs had a player debut the other day who did great. Looked him up and he’s a right wing nut. Is that just part of being a fan of a baseball team? On the one hand he’s a 20 something who’s probably not been exposed to alternative viewpoints. On the other hand yuck
Keith Law: For me, it would depend on his views. If he’s openly homophobic or transphobic or racist, I couldn’t root for him under any circumstances.

Jason: Re: John and the Queen of England, obviously the break in 1776 was a pretty big deal (and 1812, and supporting the Confederacy), but taking a broader view, we have a lot of shared history. We grew out of the British Empire, maintained their common-law legal system, have identified the “Special Relationship,” etc.
Keith Law: They have long been our greatest ally, and we have mostly been theirs.

Nick: Do you think Oswaldo Cabrera can hit enough at the mlb level to be a regular or is he more of a really good defensive utility player?
Keith Law: Utility guy.

Tim: Do you think Justin Steele could have a Jon Lester like career or is that asking too much?
Keith Law: I don’t see it. More like a fifth starter, of which the Cubs have a lot.

James: Will you be out at Arizona Fall League ? Hopefully rosters get announced any day
Keith Law: Yes, haven’t missed it since 2005.

Chris: Will Ceddanne Rafaela’s K rate keep him from becoming an MLB regular?
Keith Law: His K rate is fine. 20% or so.

Jon: How did teaching at Lincoln go? Are you going to do that again?
Keith Law: One of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. They invited me back but it was so much work and I needed to dedicate time to some other things, so I said no.

canada: Joey Meneses– real deal everyday player for the next few years, or just a flukey feelgood story that the Nats fans sorely need?
Keith Law: Flukey feel-good story.

Aaron: Last year you put Austin Riley’s WAR O/U at 5.5 and he currently sits at 5.4 on Fangraphs…

Has your projection of Spencer Strider at all changed based on what you’ve seen? I know it’s still a small sample but…..mighty impressive stuff so far.
Keith Law: Yes, for sure. The fastball is elite.

Heather: Huge difference between the Queen of England and the Bishop of Rome, as far as eighty million Americans are concerned.
Keith Law: We are not a Catholic nation. We were founded as a secular one.

PJ: Any thoughts on Wesneski’s debut for the Cubs?  I know it was against the Reds, but I’ve never seen a crowd as electric as that for two bottom-rung teams as they were watching Wesneski dominate that lineup
Keith Law: I think he’s sneaky good. Maybe just a reliever in the end but I’d start him first.

Guest: Thoughts on David Calabrese? You had him ranked fairly high in advance of the 2020 draft but then covid seemingly has impacted his development not unlike a lot of prospects from that draft.  He seems to be improving as of late.
Keith Law: He also got with a private hitting coach in the last year or so who screwed him up, but reverted back to his old swing in mid-July and you can see the results now. Probably shaking off a lot of rust too, since he’s Canadian and was stuck home during the pandemic.

Jeffrey: Why is Rougned Odor occupying a starting spot?  Anything besides “veteran presents”?
Keith Law: I have absolutely no idea.

David: Keith, re: Bloom. I think the biggest issue the fanbase has is that Bloom is the face of an organization that seems to be low-balling Devers, and after trading away Betts, losing Devers would cause a huge disconnect with fans. Think that’s a realistic possibility?
Keith Law: Yeah, but that’s not Bloom’s call, is it? That sounds entirely like ownership.

James: Who have you heard looks the best of all the new drafted guys so far in milb ? Small-ish sample
Keith Law: Very small sample and a lot of 21-year-olds mashing in low A, which they should do out of D1 schools.

Kevin: I think stealing classified nuclear documents and probably selling them off to Russia and saudi Arabia is more unamerican than caring about the queen.
Keith Law: As is defending the guy who did it.

Codey: do you think a team like az will trade some of these young outfielders? Carrol, Thomas, Varsho, McCarthy, Garrett seems like a lot
Keith Law: Carroll is a star and the guy you build around. Garrett is a great story but he’s the most expendable of the group. Thomas might be the best guy to trade because he could play CF for someone, just not for Arizona.

Tom: Any concern over Kiebert Ruiz’s meh offensive season?
Keith Law: No, and also I see a huge contact rate that I believe will turn into much more production next year.

Harris: How do you feel
Keith Law: to treat you like I do?

Codey: Has Brandon Pfafft of Dbacks farm raised his stock in your eyes?
Keith Law: No, he was already on my top 100 last winter.

Harris: How do you feel about the Harris extension?  I think it broke while you were on vacation.
Keith Law: Likely to pay off for the team, great for the player, more risk for the team than I think the general reaction would indicate.

Guest: Any notable 2022 draft debuts yet? Spencer Jones is performing really well in Tampa but he should be dominating in Low-A right?
Keith Law: Exactly. Rushing too. Props to Baltimore for pushing Dylan Beavers to high A, even just for two weeks.

Tim: Besides an injury is there anyway Andrew Painter’s not a top half of the rotation guy?
Keith Law: Sure, but I would not take that bet. I think he’s at least an above-average starter.

Aaron C.: The Oakland A’s have the worst OBP in MLB and have sacrifice bunted the third most times. Is intentionally giving up outs (on top of all the outs you’re ALREADY making) the new market inefficiency?
Keith Law: Imagine if I’d told you in 2004 that the 2022 A’s would be third in the AL in sac bunts. You would have asked me if Billy Beane was dead.

Jesse: Should Mets have known sproat wouldn’t sign? What exactly is going on there with him?
Keith Law: Why would they have known? My understanding is that the number he asked for after the draft differed from what he asked for before the draft. I have heard that he did something similar with Texas in 2019. At some point, you have to just accept that this is how the industry values you.

Robbie: This time next year – who will be the #1 prospect in baseball
Keith Law: Right now I’d guess Chourio.

Leites: Hi Keith!  Who would you rather have at this point – Bo Naylor or Ivan Herrera?  Which do you think has a better shot at becoming an average or above average MLB hitter?
Keith Law: I was a big Naylor guy in the draft, just sort of threw my hands up with his miserable 2021. Couldn’t be happier to see him develop into the player I thought he’d be. Athletic, quick-twitch, with feel to hit and more power at his age than I anticipated.

Jake: Any thoughts on Nick Yorke? Can you chalk this year up to injuries or are there deeper issues from what you’ve seen/heard?
Keith Law: Not giving up on him but he does highlight the risk of players whose value is entirely in their hit tool. He’s looked more like a regular this year than an above-average or better one.

Nick: Is Spencer Jones a top 100 candidate? He’s had a pretty hot start to his career and apparently the exit velo number are off the charts.
Keith Law: My top 100 is most definitely not a ranking of exit velos.

Tre: If you were running the Orioles, who would you target this offseason?
Keith Law: Every starting pitcher with a pulse.

Dave: Have you read anything else by Emily St. John Mandel besides Station Eleven?  I have The Glass Hotel and Sea of Tranquility on my shelf; was curious if you’d cracked either open.
Keith Law: Glass Hotel is beautifully written but Mandel didn’t stick the landing.

ZIrinsky: Would you sign Judge to a long-term (8+ years) contract or reallocate that money under the assumption that he’s probably already played his best baseball?
Keith Law: Unfortunately, the latter. His age, body, injury history point to an 8-year deal ending very poorly. Love the player, would try to go for a market-topping 4-5 year deal.

Codey: Do you believe the DBacks trade Gallen this off season? Also the cardinals trading him in the Ozuna trade feels like one of most lopsided in years yeah?
Keith Law: Yikes, I wouldn’t counsel that – he’s your ace next year, Kelly and Nelson behind him, hopefully Pfaadt gets there, try to get to 85 wins.

Leites: Who do think is a better bet at this point to develop a workable hit tool – Josh Lowe or Jarred Kelenic?
Keith Law: Not giving up on either player, although I wonder if Kelenic is just way too hard on himself, and might be better off in another place where he’s not dealing with the same expectations. I rarely say that about players but he looks like a different guy in the majors.

Tommy: What is Garrett Whitlock, long term?  A starter?  A closer?  A multi-inning reliever?  I suppose it’s OK that I’m not sure what he is, but I get the feeling the Red Sox aren’t sure, either.
Keith Law: Multi-inning reliever works for me. Don’t think he’s a starter.

Adam: If Busch stadium is not selling a confection called the Noot Bar, I will be severely disappointed.
Keith Law: It’s just Noot very good!

Zach: I recall you weren’t too high on Nick Lodolo when he came up, but he’s had an impressive rookie season despite another dumpster fire of a year from the Reds. Any change in his outlook from your perspective? Thanks.
Keith Law: He hasn’t, though – he’s been on the IL yet again, and has a huge platoon split, as predicted.

James: Have you heard anything about GCU shortstop Jacob Wilson for the 2023 draft ?
Keith Law: Saw him and wrote a little about him in March. Potential first-rounder, more like a clear day-one guy.

JL: I can’t recall if you’ve stated here or elsewhere before your stance on some of the new CBA items. But what is your stance on the shift being banned and pitch clocks?I vaguely remember  Would you consider a piece before next year on the various new rules?
Keith Law: Don’t like banning the shift. That’s just stupid. The pitch clocks in the minors have been a huge help for game times, though.

Sean: With Griffin McGarry at LHV as reliever do you forsee him being the first to see Philly out him Painter and Abel with Painter having the largest upside?
Keith Law: Yes. Even money they call McGarry up as a reliever this month.

addoeh: What would your entrance song from the bullpen be?  Think I’d go with Pink Floyd’s One of These Days.
Keith Law: Butthole Surfers’ “Who Was in My Room Last Night?” Tell me that guitar riff wouldn’t get the crowd going.

James: Keith what ever happened with Scott Kingery ?? He looked promising as a prospect and I know you liked him – just get a bag of money and stop caring ?
Keith Law: Jeez, that’s an uncharitable assumption. They messed with his swing. He’s never recovered from it.

Jason: Can Matt Brash be an effective starter?
Keith Law: I don’t believe so.

Tom: What do you think Pfaadt’s ceiling is? He’s been mowing ’em down in Reno
Keith Law: More like a solid-average starter, less ceiling than Nelson/Jameson but very predictable.

Chris: I always struggle looking at players with big AA/AAA stats who never show up on prospect lists. What are typically the flaws in those players that you notice? Example- Andres Chaparro. 23 with a 922 OPS at AA. Not on NYY top 30. Is he a non-prospect?
Keith Law: He’s not a prospect. I’ve seen him a bunch. Bad body guy and power over hit. OPS isn’t a great stat for evaluating players but especially not prospects.

addoeh: Nico Hoerner.  About what you expected at SS or a bit better?
Keith Law: Much better defensively than I expected. Will be curious to see if that holds up.

Lark11: If you were starting a baseball team and had the power to pick the position at which your best/star/leader player would play, what position would you pick? Starting pitcher? Catcher? Shortstop? Somewhere else?
Keith Law: Shortstop.

JC: What is going on with Kyren Paris and his recent ’76 Joe Morgan impersonation? Is he just on a SSS lucky streak or has he tapped into something?
Keith Law: Bit of both. Very young when drafted, like Calabrese. Needed to gain a lot of strength.

romorr: Kyle Bradish has shown flashes this year, but has he shown enough to start in the rotation next year? I’ll throw Kremer in there as well as a bit of a question mark.
Keith Law: Kremer can start, Bradish is a reliever for me with that delivery.

Mike: Do you think KeBryan Hayes can revamp his swing?  Seems to hit the ball hard when he makes contact, but mostly on the ground.
Keith Law: I think he could, and he’d be a 20-25 homer guy if he did.

JL: Pardon the ignorant question, but could you explain why a changeup is more affective to a batter of opposite handedness?
Keith Law: If you’re a RHP, your breaking pitches will break in to lefties, and thus right into their bat paths. If you leave those pitches up at all, even if they’d be good strikes against RHB, lefties can and should hit them. Without a change/split, opposing-side batters just have to decide “fastball or breaking ball,” and if they get that right, they have a great chance to make contact.
Keith Law: I’m a strong advocate of the splitter for any pitcher who can’t figure out a good CH, which can be an issue for guys who throw everything hard.

stixx23: There’s another Yankees single-season record in jeopardy this year. Cole is only 30K behind Guidry’s 248 in 1978. Do you find this list as strange as I did? Eight different pitchers (it was nine before last night) on the list as opposed to one dominating.
Keith Law: That Guidry year was something else, too. I wish I remembered it – I was five, probably saw a bunch of his starts but at that age would have had no real concept.

stixx23: Sorry, didn’t know return key would send message. Here’s the Yankees top 10 K in a season list:
1.Ron Guidry•1978 248
2.Gerrit Cole•2021 243
3.Jack Chesbro•1904 239
4.CC Sabathia•2011 230
Luis Severino•2017 230
6.David Cone•1997 222
7.Luis Severino•2018 220
8.Gerrit Cole•2022 218
Melido Perez•1992 218
10.Al Downing•1964 217
Keith Law: MELIDO PEREZ?

Ben: If Judge passes 61 dingers, do you consider him the “rightful” single season HR leader?
Keith Law: No, because I live in the real world.

Harrisburg Hal: when playing a new game, do you start with written instructions or online videos?
Keith Law: Depends on the game & its complexity level. Online videos can be great.

Punk in Drublic: Little off topic but do you have a link to a page where you have recommendations for different kitchen items (cutlery, sous vide, cast iron pan, etc). Just bought a home and need to outfit my 1st decent kitchen.
Keith Law: Yep, last time I updated it was 2019 but it all still holds: https://klaw.me/2DB4rf5

Jason S: A lot of teams are going to regret drafting Cam Collier, agree?
Keith Law: Not drafting him – yes, I think they are going to regret it.

Nick: So no? I mean exit velo is  predictive of success at the major league level. Teams use it in the minors for a reason. Seems pompous to dismiss it.
Keith Law: In isolation, it doesn’t tell us a whole lot, no, and that is all you offered. I mean, ONeil Cruz hits the ball as hard as anyone, ever, and he’s struggling at the moment. As for “teams use it in the minors,” they track it, but they do not “use it” as the sole measure of a player.

Ken: Why is there still a Royal family in 2022?
Keith Law: Cause tourists are money.

JT: Corbin Carroll’s swing (shut off stance) and body type (midget/anorexic) look exactly like Mike Fontenot’s. How can be possibly be a #1 overall prospect
Keith Law: I debated not posting this, but I wanted to tell you how incredibly offensive your language is. Grow up.

Walt: Way early to think about the 2023 Draft I’m sure, but do you have any early thoughts on the chances Chase Dollander going 1-1?
Keith Law: I’ll take the field right now.
Keith Law: There is no clear 1-1 candidate for next year, not right now.

Lark11: Regarding Elly De La Cruz, how exactly do you go about developing a “plate approach” when the player has such absurd tools? Do you keep advancing him until he *has* to get a better approach to succeed? Do you instruct him to take until he gets to a certain count? Do you teach him how to look for certain pitchers in certain counts? How do you develop/improve a plate approach with a sublimely gifted athlete?
Keith Law: Yes – you push him. He’s going to outathlete his level for a while. Make him struggle and hope he’s up to the challenge, mentally and intellectually.

James: Did you see Bill Simmons had your book Smart Baseball on his shelf behind him in recent tik tok ?
Keith Law: I didn’t but that’s great to hear.

Bo: Will KC ever move on from Sal Perez, and give the Catching job to MJ Melendez
Keith Law: They need to, yes.

Nick: I didn’t say exit velo would be the only reason. I said is he in consideration for the top 100 considering he’s off to a hot start and the exit velo has been good. As a first round pick I thought it was a legitimate question. Most top prospects coming up now have elite exit velo numbers.
Keith Law: He shouldn’t have been a first round pick, and you’re affirming the consequent here: Most top prospects coming up have elite exit velo numbers, but that doesn’t mean that most players with elite exit velo numbers are top prospects.
Keith Law: Jones has big power. He’s 6’7″ with a below-average approach and the history of position players his size is not good at all.

James: Do you still play Catan ?
Keith Law: Almost never. Too long, requires 3 players minimum, lots of other games I prefer.

JR: Does an author’s public views ever sour your perception of their body of work, and make you refuse to read their future work, even if it’s enjoyable? I’m currently reading the new Cormoran Strike book because I’m a fan of the series, but feel a little guilty about it.
Keith Law: Yes, in some cases. I would have a hard time reading her new work, at least.

Guest: Carson Whisenhunt looks like an absolute steal for the Giants. Do you think we could see him in SF in 2023?
Keith Law: 2024 is much more likely. I agree that pick was great value.
Keith Law: That’s all for this week – thanks for joining me and for your patience while I was on vacation etc. during August. Scouting blog & several new columns coming soon! Stay safe and go get that booster.

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→ September 7, 2022
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Corrosion.

I’m a fan of midweight engine-building games, from Gizmos to Fantastic Factories to Wingspan to Everdell to Furnace; it doesn’t seem to matter what else is in the game, as long as there’s a straightforward engine-building mechanic and the game doesn’t take two hours or require a 20-page rulebook, I’m interested.

Corrosion appeared in the U.S. last winter, another import by Capstone Games (publishers of Ark Nova, one of the best games of 2022 so far), and seems to have slipped a bit under the radar, but I like its twist on engine-builders: Most of the machines you build, and even some of the parts you use to build them, will rust after a few turns and must be discarded. Only the most expensive machines, which require chrome gears that don’t rust, last for the remainder of the game. It reminded me in theme of the CPRG Baldur’s Gate, where weapons and other items you get in the early part of the game randomly fall apart because of impurities in the iron mined in that region, but here is seamlessly integrated into an engine-building game with some contract bonuses and very light deckbuilding elements as well.

Players in Corrosion are trying to build the most valuable factories, using three types of gears (small, medium, and chrome) and steam to do so, taking actions by playing engineer cards from their hands and placing them in the sector matching their number. You can recruit better engineers to improve your deck, and you can build “one-shot” machines that work one time and are discarded, “turning” machines that operate several turns until they rust, and two levels of permanent machines that require chrome to build but are also worth victory points at game-end. You can also take bonus certificates that give you game-end points for certain conditions, although doing so requires trashing an engineer card from your hand.

Each player’s board has four sectors on it and a wheel that you will turn one sector at a time; when the wheel’s fourth segment, marked X, passes a sector, the player discards all gears stored in that sector and all one-shot or turning machines built in that sector, retrieves any engineers played to that sector, and then activates all turning machines in other sectors and all permanent machines on their player boards.

The game ends when the supply of award certificates or of special victory point markers (which players can get in several ways) is about to run out, which means you don’t actually get that many of your own turns, so Corrosion also lets you follow other players’ actions if you want. When one player plays an engineer card, any other player can mimic that card’s action by playing an engineer from their own hands of the same color and a higher value (cards are 1-4 and 4+, which is wild and matches any color). It allows you to fine-tune some of your action choices during the game so you’re not just restricted to the engineers in your hand, while also giving more value to the recruiting action, as all of the engineers you’ll add to your hand are valued 2 and up.

Corrosion also comes with an excellent solo mode where you’re just trying to maximize your score before you run through the automa deck four times; all the automa player does is remove some engineers and machines from the display, which can include the chrome machines that also carry special victory points. It’s more a matter of cycling through the machines and engineers, occasionally tripping you up by removing something you wanted but also giving you more options, and testing your ability to build a productive engine. I haven’t cracked 50 points yet, which is a low bar to clear, but I do find the solo mode fun.

The art is great here, but I do think the darker industrial theme makes this look heavier than Gizmos or Fantastic Factories despite being of similar weight, possibly even lighter weight than FF is; those games, which I do like better than Corrosion for other reasons, have bright colors and almost goofy artwork that make them seem lighter. Gizmos is definitely easier to learn, but the engines you build aren’t any less complex, maybe even more complex than those here but without the rust mechanic. Games should take 60-75 minutes once everyone has the idea. I give it a thumbs up, even though I would probably always pull Gizmos off the shelf before this one.

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→ September 6, 2022
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Get on Board: New York & London.

Get On Board: New York & London is the latest game from the designer Saashi, whose solitaire game Coffee Roaster is the best purely solo game I’ve ever played (and very accurate to its theme – the man clearly knows his coffee). This one is a two to five player game, a flip-and-write game with a fun route-building mechanic on a shared central board, as players compete to build bus routes to pick up and deliver passengers in the most efficient way for victory points.

The board here has two sides, New York for 2-3 players and London for 4-5, with only one rule difference between them (put a pin in that for a moment). Players start at different traffic lights on the map, and then will build a route from there by adding their own road pieces to cover individual blocks, never branching or doubling back, and marking off every icon their route touches on their personal scoresheets. There are twelve ticket cards that will determine how many pieces each player places per turn, and in what shape, with each player placing a different number/shape for tickets from what their competitors place.

Every intersection on the map has something there, and you score just about everything. Little old ladies are just happy to be there, so you score 1 to 3 points just for picking them up; everyone else has to be dropped off in some way, though. Tourists want to be delivered to tourist sites, and you get more points if you gather more tourists on your bus, up to 4 at a time, before getting to one of those sites. Workers want to go to office buildings, up to 3 at a time, with a bonus when you do so. Students don’t need to be dropped off in order at schools, but you do need to get your route to both to score, because your points are the product of the number of students you picked up and the number of schools on the route.

When you place a piece on a street where your opponent already has one, or, on the New York map, on a midtown block that’s marked in black, you cause Traffic, and you fill in one of the circles on the bottom of your scoresheet. The first few are just -1 point for every other circle, but eventually it’s -1 every time, and if you place a piece on a block that has multiple opponents’ pieces on it, guess what? It’s one circle for every piece already there. You can also choose to lose points if you want to alter the shape of pieces called for by the ticket – for example, if the ticket’s number calls for you to place three pieces all in a straight line, but you want to make one turn, you’d mark off one of the five spots at the top of the sheet. The first costs you 1 point, the next three cost you 2 points each, and the last one costs 3, after which, you’re stuck.

There are two other bonuses available, which can be worth up to 10 points each. Every player gets a card showing three lettered spots on the board, and will score 10 points if they get their bus route to hit all three of them. There are also two common objective cards in every game, where you have to pick up five students/tourists/workers or visit all three light blue or dark blue tourist sites, worth 10 points each for the first player to achieve it and 6 points for everyone after. Finally, there are four named sites on each map, a university, two tourist sites, and an office building, and when you reach one of those, you get a bonus equal to the number of matching people you’ve picked up in total to that point in the game.

It’s a lot of scoring rules, but the game play itself is simple and quick. Flip the next ticket. Add to your route, from the endpoint, matching the shape given by the ticket number and the guide on your scoresheet. You place those pieces, marking off everyone you pick up and every building you cross on your sheet, and if your route ends at a traffic light, you get to place a bonus piece for free. After twelve rounds, you’re done – add up your points (six categories), make your deductions (two), and you get your total. For two people it can take under a half an hour; for four, the most I’ve played with, it can take 45-50 minutes.

I do think the game shines at four players; the London map is a little better than the New York one, because it’s wider and gives you more flexibility. It’s worst with three, as the New York map gets too crowded, although I haven’t tried London with five. It’s probably fine for players 10 and up, maybe even as young as 8 if they know games, and I love the way the game encourages cognitive flexibility. You can also play this online at Board Game Arena, which has a great implementation. I think it’s likely to make my best games of 2022 list when I do that in December.

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→ September 4, 2022
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Stick to baseball, 9/4/22.

One new post for subscribers to The Athletic this week, looking at some of the more significant or interesting September callups from the last seven days. Some other good names, like Triston Casas, came up after I wrote it.

My podcast returned this week with Dan Pfeiffer, former senior adviser to President Barack Obama and author of the new book Battling the Big Lie: How Fox, Facebook, and the MAGA Media Are Destroying America. You can subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And now, the links…

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→ September 3, 2022
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Music update, August 2022.

And we’re back, after I missed a non-December monthly playlist for the first time in something like six or seven years, thanks to the combination of the late draft, trade deadline, Gen Con, and my big family vacation to the UK, so this playlist covers stuff from two months rather than just the one. We’ve got a ton of potentially great new albums and EPs due out the rest of the year, including stuff from the first four artists here, plus something new from the Arctic Monkeys, Suede, Christine & the Queens, Editors, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Dry Cleaning, and more. As always, if you can’t see the widget below, you can access the Spotify playlist here.

The Beths – Knees Deep. The Beths have released three fantastic singles ahead of their album, Expert in a Dying Field, due out on the 16th. I have gotten much worse at predicting which bands will break out into broader success, but man, if any band seems poised to do so right now, it’s the Beths.

The Wombats – Is This What It Feels Like to Feel Like This? One of my favorite bands going, the Wombats are putting out a six-track EP in November, just nine months after releasing their latest album, and this title track is a banger.

GIFT – Gumball Garden. The first time I heard this I was sure it was Tame Impala, or a Kevin Parker side project. It’s that precise psychedelic-rock vibe – or you might think DIIV if you’re familiar with them – and the vocalist sounds a good bit like Parker, but there’s no connection. GIFT is a five-piece band from Brooklyn and their debut album, Momentary Presence, is due out on October 14th. I love the whole track but the surprise guitar riff around the 1:35 mark is next-level.

Sports Team – The Drop. Sports Team’s second album, GULP!, is due out on September 23rd, a two-month delay due to production issues, but we’ve got four strong singles from the album now, including this, “R Entertainment,” “The Game,” and “Dig,” showing some versatility beyond their initial art-punk style.

STONE – Waste. Heavy post-punk music from a band led by the son of John Power, former lead singer/guitarist of the La’s (“There She Goes”) and Cast (“Alright,” “Sandstorm”), which is quite the way to rebel against your parents, I guess.

YUNGBLUD – Don’t Feel Like Feeling Sad Today. I’m not a big YUNGBLUD fan but this is a perfect little 2-minute punk-pop song.

The Mars Volta – Blacklight Shine. TMV’s first album in a decade, just called The Mars Volta, will drop on September 16th, and will feature this track as well as their latest release, “Vigil,” both of which are experimental yet also somehow rather accessible.

The Lounge Society – No Driver. This punk/post-punk quartet comprises four teens from Yorkshire who’ve been releasing music since 2020 and just released their debut album Tired of Liberty on Friday.

Young Fathers – Geronimo. The Mercury Prize winners return with their first new music since 2018’s tremendous album Cocoa Sugar, bringing a track that combines multiple genres with just a dash of rap mixed in.

Black Honey – Charlie Bronson. Definitely a rougher edge this time around from the Brighton indie-rockers, although you can still hear their melodic tendencies underneath the grit.

Two Door Cinema Club – Wonderful Life. This Northern Irish band will release its fifth album, Keep on Smiling, on Friday; this lead single came out in mid-July and is more of the electro-pop we’ve come to expect from the trio, maybe skewing a little more towards rock than “I Can Talk” or “Sleep Alone” did.

The Killers – boy. A leftover track from before last year’s Pressure Machine, one that sounds like it belonged on 2020’s Imploding the Mirage.

Martin Courtney – Sailboat. Courtney is the lead singer/guitarist for Real Estate, but released his second solo album, Magic Sign, this summer; this track might be my favorite thing he’s done, a soft psychedelic-rock track that features a perfectly timed guitar riff that elevates the song into something more.

Sam Fender – Alright. A B-side from the Seventeen Going Under sessions, this could easily have appeared on the album, and I do think it’s a good rule of thumb that when an artist’s B-sides are good enough to consider as singles in their own right (or, say, to include on one of my playlists), then the artist is pretty damn good.

Stella Donnelly – How Was Your Day? Donnelly is an acclaimed singer/songwriter in her native Australia, but hasn’t received a ton of attention outside of it, although her quirky vocal style and hooky melodies would fit in well in the British indie scene. Her second album, Flood, dropped a week ago. I am also obligated to mention that, according to Wikipedia, Donnelly’s mother is Welsh.

Rina Sawayama – Catch Me in the Air. Sawayama is a pop artist at heart, and this is one of her most straightforward pop tracks so far, with a big hook in the chorus.

Lizzo – 2 Be Loved (I Am Ready). I thought Special was generally strong, with two big standout tracks in “About Damn Time” and this song, which I think most clearly reflects her work with Prince before he died.

Broken Bells – We’re Not in Orbit Yet… James Mercer (the Shins) and Brian Burton (aka Danger Mouse) are back with their first new music since 2019’s “Good Luck” and first new album since 2014’s After the Disco with a track that reminds me in good ways of “The High Road” off their first record.

Tei Shi – GRIP. Tei Shi ended up in a fight with her old label after they refused to pay her the rest of her advanced for her last album, La Linda, and wrote this song in 2021 about the experience.

Death Cab for Cutie – Here to Forever. DCFC return with their tenth album, Asphalt Meadows, on September 16th, featuring this very upbeat song with an existentialist message as well as “Roman Candles.”

Jack White – A Tip From Me to You. A surprise second album from White, Entering Heaven Alive, dropped in July, this one more acoustic/downtempo and less experimental than this spring’s Fear of the Dawn.

The Linda Lindas – Tonite. The Linda Lindas are media darlings, which makes me worry their label (or manager) will turn them into some bland pop act, which is largely what happened to the Donnas back in the 1990s. This is a cover of a Go-Go’s song the Lindas often cover live, and it’s a great version, but ironic because the Go-Go’s were also co-opted by the mainstream music industry.

The Front Bottoms – More than It Hurts You. From their new EP Theresa, this track feels like a throwback to the earliest days of emo, with the overly earnest vocal delivery but an inherent pop sensibility underneath the emo trappings.

Muse – Kill or Be Killed. I fell off the Muse bandwagon probably around The Resistance in 2009, although I’d been a big fan of their earliest work, and this track has a strong “Muscle Museum” or “Cave” vibe to me, so maybe they’re going back to their roots a little bit.

Archers of Loaf – In the Surface Noise. I wasn’t a big Archers of Loaf fan in their 1990s heyday, but they are about to release their first new album in 24 years, Reason in Decline, on October 21st, and I do like this vaguely psychedelic-rock track.

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→ August 30, 2022
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SCOUT.

SCOUT was one of the three finalists for this year’s Spiel des Jahres award, losing out on the honor to the great game Cascadia, and just became widely available in the U.S. this summer with a new print run. It’s a small-box game from the Japanese publisher Oink, whose other tiny-box games include Deep Sea Adventure and A Fake Artist Goes to New York, and is their best title yet – a smart, abstract card game that’s very easy to teach but offers huge replay value.

In SCOUT, players receive hands from a deck of cards numbered from 1 through 10, with two numbers on each card, so it has a different value depending on its orientation. The dealer deals out the entire deck of 45 cards (removing a few for player counts below 5), and each player looks at their hand without rearranging any cards. You have to fight that instinct to sort them, which is difficult for most people. You can only flip your entire hand upside down, so you have two choices for your starting hand.

During the game, players will try to play sets (cards with the same value) or runs (cards in sequential value, ascending or descending) of greater value than whatever set/run is currently on the table, playing only cards that are adjacent within their hands. A set beats a run, if the number of cards in each is the same; a set or run of more cards than what’s currently on the table always wins; and if the type and number are the same, you need higher card values to beat the active set/run. So two 9s beats two 8s, a 5-4-3 run beats a 4-3-2 run, but a 9-8 run doesn’t beat a 2-2 set.

If you can play something better than what’s on the table, you take the current active set/run and put them face down in front of you, earning one point per card thus captured at the end of the round. If you can’t or don’t want to beat the active set/run, you can “scout,” taking one card from either end of the active group (but not the middle) and putting it in your hand, anywhere your like, oriented either way. The player who played that active set/run then receives a one-point token from the supply. This is the key to the game – taking the right cards to create new sets or runs in your hand, and doing so in a way that can create further sets or runs when you remove other cards by playing them.

Each player also has one “scout and show” token, usable once per round, where they can do both actions in the same turn – take one card from the table, then play a new set or run to beat and capture the active one. The round ends when one player has no hand cards remaining, or if all players scout and the turn passes back to the player who originally played the set/run on the table. Players get one point per captured card, one per token received from other players scouting their cards, and then deduct one point for every card left in their hand (except for the player whose set/run ended the round). The game continues with one round per player, so everyone gets to be the start player once, after which you add up all your points from all rounds.

SCOUT is incredibly easy to teach, and quick to play, working really well at 4-5 players; I actually haven’t tried it with 2, because there are a bunch of extra rules that I think will make it far less fun and simple. There’s some strategy to when you choose to take cards, and how you integrate them into your hand to create new sets/runs and perhaps set up further sets/runs after you’ve played something, while you also have to keep an eye on opponents’ hands to see if anyone is getting close to playing their last card. Full games take a half hour or so once everyone has the hang of things. The list price is $23, but Oink’s second printing of SCOUT sold out almost immediately; I sprinted to their booth on my first day at Gen Con to secure a copy because I was sure this would happen. If you can get a copy somehow, or are willing to wait for the next print run, it’s a definite winner, with bonus points for the easy teach and for its portability.

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→ August 28, 2022
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Stick to baseball, 8/28/22.

I jumped right back into the minor league thing this week, and have a new scouting notebook for subscribers to the Athletic, with notes on Anthony Volpe, Ricky Tiedeman, Orelvis Martinez, Everson Pereira, Quinn Priester, Jackson Holliday, and many more players.

Over at Paste, I reviewed the 2021 Kennerspiel des Jahres finalist Lost Ruins of Arnak, a great midweight game that looks like it’s going to be complex but plays simpler than that, combining a lot of common mechanics for a game that’s more than the sum of its parts.

My podcast will return on Monday, and my newsletter will return this week as well.

And now, the links..

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