→ September 21, 2021
→ By

Seven Bridges.

Seven Bridges is a “stroll-and-write” game based on the famous mathematical problem, eventually proved unsolvable by Leonhard Euler: Can a pedestrian walk through the German city of Königsberg, crossing each of its seven bridges exactly once? Euler’s proof became a foundational one in the history of graph theory, but that’s beyond the scope of the game. (The game is currently unavailable, but I’ll update this post when Puzzling Pixel gets the next print run.)

In Seven Bridges, all players begin by marking in the same square on their pages, showing a grid map of the city with, indeed, seven bridges, along with thirteen ‘landmarks,’ some trees, lots of buildings, and numbers around the map’s edge. On each player’s turn, they roll the game’s six dice, which the players then draft, one at a time. The dice show seven different shapes of roads: a straight line, a cross, a T, an elbow, a half-street, a 2 with a straight line, or a 3 with a straight line. You must fill in roads on your map using the shape of the die you select, connecting one of the edges of the shape your existing network of roads. (In rare instances when you can’t legally do so, you may ‘downgrade’ to a less valuable shape.) The 2 | and the 3 | die faces mean you may draw a continuous line up to that many spaces long; you can go shorter than that, but you can’t break it apart or turn its direction. Each player gets to roll five times over the course of the game.

Passing landmarks, which are marked with single letters on the board, earns you the choice of eleven bonuses, seven immediate and four you can use later. The immediate bonuses match the shapes on the dice, so you can fill in one of those shapes on your board, following the usual rules. One of the extra bonuses allows you to fill in the handful of footpaths – bordered by dashed lines rather than solid ones – on the map. The other three are re-rolls, which either let you roll all remaining dice again, or stop the draft and distribute all remaining dice to players as you see fit.

You don’t have to cross all seven bridges to win this game, but you do get more points for crossing more bridges. You score for crossing bridges and passing by landmarks; the more of each, the more each subsequent one is worth. You score for the largest closed loop of roads/footpaths you completed by multiplying its number of bridges cross by the number of 90 degree turns in it; I think five is the maximum number of bridges you can possibly get, but you can absolutely get 8 or more right angles into a loop. You score a point for each building you pass, and for each tree you pass. You score for each road you take to the edge of the map, worth a number of points from 1 to 6 that is shown at that edge. And you score points for each bonus you received and used during the game, again from 1 to 6.

The game is kind of mathy under the hood, which strongly appeals to me; there’s a spatial relations aspect, and a clear push-your-luck aspect to the way you place your roads. You can go big, and end up without the shapes you need to complete a major route, or you can play it safe and hope no one else completes something larger. You can also head to certain areas of the map that are dense with trees but don’t promise you much in the way of other bonuses. There seem to be a lot of ways to win here, and just as many ways to screw it up.

I’ve only played this with two players, several times, however, and with a different opponent each time. Games took maybe 20-30 minutes, and if both players already know the rules, it could easily come in under 20. With two players, since you draft three dice on each roll, you only have ten total rolls over the course of the game. With the maximum of 6 players, you’d have 30 rolls, and that’s going to take some more time. Seven Bridges was first released at the very end of 2020, after my year-end list, so it qualifies for this year’s, and it has a very good chance to make my best of 2021 list. It’s quick to teach, offers very little downtime between turns, and does a fantastic job of bringing a mathematical puzzle into a board game format. It might be the best roll-and-write I’ve ever played.

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→ September 14, 2021
→ By

Network Effect.

The six books on the shortlist for this year’s Hugo Award for Best Novel were all written by women, which I believe is a first. The list includes N.K. Jemisin’s tremendous The City We Became and Susanna Clarke’s triumphant comeback novel Piranesi, as well as a sequel to the awful 2019 winner The Calculating Stars.

Martha Wells’ Network Effect might have some momentum going into this autumn’s vote, as the novel won the top prize in both the Nebula and Locus awards, which would give it the Triple Crown of science fiction (also won by The Calculating Stars, so clearly it doesn’t mean anything more than baseball’s Triple Crown). It’s the first full-length novel in her award-winning MurderBot series, which stars a nameless android called a SecUnit as the protagonist that is gradually evolving more humanlike thoughts and emotions after breaking free of the technology that chained it to its employers. It’s also very, very good at killing.

The novel opens with a brief story where SecUnit thwarts an assassination attempt against its boss, but the bulk of the novel surrounds a kidnapping attempt that brings SecUnit and his boss’s teenage daughter Amena on a ship that is full of hostile humanoid beings, which SecUnit calls Targets, and that is about to take them through a wormhole away from their own ship and her family. That’s all the plot the book really needs, although Wells adds some layers of intricacy and brings back a character from one of the earlier novellas.

Network Effect plays out like a hard-boiled sci-fi book, as SecUnit is sarcastic, dry, and often unfeeling, although not quite to the degree of being callous, and there is a mystery at the heart of the story – not just who is behind the kidnapping, but why. (I’ll spoil something obvious: It’s not just about the Targets.) We get a lot of ass-kicking, in which SecUnit specializes, and some cool technology bits, like SecUnit’s mini air force of drones, and some technology bits you’ll just have to accept and move on, like all of the mental coding that goes on in the book.

SecUnit is a robot, ultimately, which means it runs on code, and that proves central to the story, as multiple bots in the book end up turning the nature of source code into a pivotal plot point. Wells appears to be using this as a metaphor for human consciousness, and a way to explore the most basic questions of identity and dualism. If a bot is deleted, and restored from a backup, is it the same bot? What if someone copies a bot’s kernel and loads it into a new body? You could just read Network Effect as just a rollicking sci-fi adventure – which it is – and ignore this detail, but I think Wells is at least trying to do something more here.

There’s a fair bit of in-world jargon that threw me off, since I haven’t read any of the previous stories set in this universe, and you do have to just accept a lot of the technical stuff as given, especially anything revolving around coding. The action and the three-dimensional rendering of SecBot, who could easily be flat and boring, are strong enough to make up for any deficiencies in those other areas, and Wells deftly steers the plot through a couple of very sharp turns that give this book a ton of narrative greed. I don’t think I’d vote for it over Jemisin’s or Clarke’s books, but it is a very fun ride.

Next up: Colson Whitehead’s new novel Harlem Shuffle, which comes out today.

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→ September 11, 2021
→ By

Stick to baseball, 9/11/21.

My latest column for subscribers to the Athletic covered the transformation of Austin Riley from replacement-level hacker to Atlanta’s best player.

On the Keith Law Show this week, I spoke with MLB’s Sarah Langs, talking about this year’s award races, although it looks like our AL Rookie of the Year favorite might be heading to the injured list. You can subscribe to my podcast on iTunes and Spotify. I also appeared on the Athletic Baseball Show again on Friday.

We’ve cleared over $800 raised to help Afghan refugees resettle in this area, money I will donate to Jewish Family Services of Delaware when I receive it. You can buy your “I’m just here for the #umpshow” T-shirt here to support the cause.

I brought back my email newsletter this week, talking about our family’s experience with COVID-19 last month. And, as the holidays approach, I’ll remind you all every week that I have two books out, The Inside Game and Smart Baseball, that would make great gifts for the readers (especially baseball fans) on your lists.

And now, the links..

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→ September 10, 2021
→ By

Noise.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman’s first book, Thinking Fast and Slow, has been hugely influential on the baseball industry and on my own career, inspiring me to write The Inside Game as a way to bring some of the same concepts to a broader audience. Kahneman is back with a sequel of sorts, co-authoring the book Noise: A Human Flaw in Human Judgment with Cass Sunstein and Oliver Sibony, that shifts the focus away from cognitive biases towards a different phenomenon, one that the authors call “noise.”

Noise, in their definition, involves “variability in judgments that should be identical.” They break this down into three different types of noise, all of which add up together to be “system noise.” (There’s a lot of jargon in the book, and that’s one of its major drawbacks.)

  • Level noise, where different individuals make different judgments across different sets of data. The authors cite “some judges are generally more severe than others, and others are more lenient” as an example.
  • Pattern noise, where different individuals make different judgments with the same data.
  • Occasion noise, where an individual makes different judgment depending on when they see the data (which can literally mean the time of day or day of the week). This is probably the hardest for people to accept, but there’s clear evidence that doctors prescribe more opioids near the end of a work day, and judges are more lenient when the local football team won on Sunday.

There’s a hierarchy of noise here, where level noise comprises pattern noise, and pattern noise comprises occasion noise (which they classify as transient pattern noise, as opposed to “stable” pattern noise, which would be, say, how I underrate hitting prospects with high contact rates but maybe Eric Longenhagen rates them consistently more highly). That’s the entire premise of Noise; the book devotes its time to exploring noise in different fields, notably the criminal justice system and medicine, where the stakes are so high and the benefit of a reduction in noise is likely to justify the costs, and to ways we can try to reduce noise in our fields of work.

As with Thinking Fast and Slow, Noise doesn’tmake many accommodations for the lay reader. There’s an expectation here that you are comfortable with the vernacular of behavioral economics and with some basic statistical arguments. It’s an arduous read with a strong payoff if you can get through it, but I concede that it was probably the hardest I’ve worked to read (and understand) anything I’ve read this year. It doesn’t help that noise is itself a more abstruse concept than bias, and the authors make constant references to the difference here.

Some of the examples here will be familiar if you’ve read any literature on behavioral economics before. The sentencing guidelines that resulted from Marvin Frankel, a well-known judge and human rights advocate, pointing out the gross inequities that resulted from giving judges wide latitude in sentencing – resulting in sentences that might range from a few months to 20 years for two defendants convicted the same crime. (The guidelines that resulted from Frankel’s work were later struck down by the Supreme Court, which not only reintroduced noise into the system, but restored old levels of racial bias in sentencing as well.) The authors also attempt to bring noise identification and noise reduction into the business world, with some examples where they brought evidence of noise to the attention of executives who sometimes didn’t believe them.

Nothing was more familiar to me than the discussion of the low value of performance evaluations in the workplace. For certain jobs, with measurable progress and objectives, they may make sense, but in my experience across a lot of jobs in several industries, they’re a big waste of time – and I do mean a big one, because if you add up the hours dedicated to filling out the forms required, writing them up, conducting the reviews, and so on, that’s a lot of lost productivity. One problem is that there’s a lack of consistency in ratings, because raters do not have a common frame of reference for their grades, making grades more noise than signal. Another is that raters tend not to think in relative terms, so you end up with oxymoronic results like 98% of employees grading out as above average. The authors estimate that 70-80% of the output from traditional performance evaluations is noise – meaning it’s useless for its intended purpose of allowing for objective evaluation of employee performance, and thus also useless for important decisions like pay raises, promotions, and other increases in responsibility. Two possible solutions: ditching performance evaluations altogether, using them solely for developmental purposes (particularly 360-degree systems, which are rather in vogue), or spend time and money to train raters and develop evaluation metrics that have objective measurements or “behaviorally anchored” rating scales.

It wouldn’t be a Daniel Kahneman product if Noise failed to take aim at one of his particular bêtes noires, the hiring interview. He explained why they’re next to worthless in Thinking Fast and Slow, and here he does it again, saying explicitly, “if your goal is to determine which candidates will succeed in a job and which will fail, standard interviews … are not very informative. To put it more starkly, they are often useless.” There’s almost no correlation between interview success and job performance, and that’s not surprising, because the skills that make someone good at interviewing would only make them a better employee if the job in question also requires those same skills, which is … not most jobs. Unstructured interviews, the kind most of us know, are little more than conversations, and they serve as ideal growth media for noise. Two interviewers will have vastly differing opinions of the same candidate, even if they interview the candidate together as part of a panel. This pattern noise is amplified by the occasion noise prompted by how well the first few minutes of an interview go. (They don’t mention something I’ve suspected: You’ll fare better in an interview if the person interviewing you isn’t too tired or hungry, so you don’t want to be the last interview before lunch or the last one of the day.) They cite one psychology experiment where researchers assigned students to role-play interviews, splitting them between interviewer and candidate, and then told half of the candidates to answer questions randomly … and none of the interviewers caught on.

There’s plenty of good material here in Noise, concepts and recommended solutions that would apply to a lot of industries and a lot of individuals, but you have to wade through a fair bit of jargon to get to it. It’s also less specific than Thinking Fast and Slow, and I suspect that reducing noise in any environment is going to be a lot harder than reducing bias (or specific biases) would be. But the thesis that noise is at least as significant a problem in decision-making as bias is should get wider attention, and it’s hard to read about the defenses of the “human element” in sentencing people convicted of crimes and not think of how equally specious defenses of the “human element” in sports can be.

Next up: Martha Wells’ Nebula & Locus Award-winning novel Network Effect, part of her MurderBot series.

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→ September 4, 2021
→ By

Stick to baseball, 9/4/21.

My newest column for the Athletic was pushed back to Monday, so keep an eye out for that. In the meantime, I did hold my first Klawchat in a while on Friday.

On the Keith Law Show this week, I spoke with Dr. Sian Beilock, author of Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To, an intangible that is actually both tangible and mutable. You can train your brain to do better in high-pressure situations. You can subscribe to my podcast on iTunes and Spotify. I also appeared on the Athletic Baseball Daily show again on Friday.

We’ve cleared over $800 raised to help Afghan refugees resettle in this area, money I will donate to Jewish Family Services of Delaware when I receive it. You can buy your “I’m just here for the #umpshow” T-shirt here to support the cause.

I’ll resume the email newsletter this weekend, now that things are calmer and less COVID-y around the house. And, as the holidays approach, I’ll remind you all every week that I have two books out, The Inside Game and Smart Baseball, that would make great gifts for the readers (especially baseball fans) on your lists.

And now, the links…

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→ September 3, 2021
→ By

Klawchat, 9/3/21.

Keith Law: Pain finds me everywhere. Klawchat.

Heather: If you don’t answer my question, I’ll give you a thumbs down.
Keith Law: Dammit, I’m already downvoted before we begin.

Guest: Keith, I am an RN who cannot seem to get through to my family members about the vaccine. What would you suggest is the best way to objectively reason with people who are listening to bad sources, or have we just lost a significant portion of the country to a cult?
Keith Law: It’s some of both, really. I had an argument with an anti-vaxxer recently – in person, of all things, and she wasn’t masked! – who trotted out every dumb anti-vax trope, from microchips to vitamin D to fake side effects. There was no getting through to her. But we are also prone to overweight highly memorable anecdotes, which skews us towards negative ones – if you see a facebook post that claims the vaccine has killed 5000 Americans (they haven’t, and the correct number is probably 0), that’s going to lodge in your mind, and it will take a lot of patient counterarguments to dislodge it. So I’d pick your battles here, find a family member who is hesitant but not refusing, and start slowly with them.

Pat: Glass Tiger? You’ve hit a new low!!
Keith Law: That song has been in my head for three days. I have no idea why.

Guy B: Just curious if you suffered any storm damage in your area of the country?  If so, stay safe.
Keith Law: We did not, but we were fortunate. If you’ve seen images of the Brandywine River overflowing its banks – it reached 22′, which is believed to be a record high – that is less than 4 miles from our house, and multiple roads near us were impassable. We also know someone whose backyard was damaged by the tornado up in Mullica Hill, NJ. We happen to live on slightly higher ground – nothing is THAT high in Delaware – and just far enough from the river here that we did OK. Thank you for asking.

Pj (Jersey City): What is wrong with cody bellinger at the plate? He looks completely lost.
Keith Law: My guess is it’s a lingering effect from the shoulder injury. He’s getting beat on fastballs. You don’t just forget how to hit a fastball.

ben: Hi, I’m the guy who said hello at the setbreak of the Hershey show. How was your Phish experience?
Keith Law: Good! And I’m glad you popped in here, because I have felt bad since then for failing to ask your name. Anyway, the shows were good, and I’m glad we didn’t get “Tweezer” but did get a bunch of the songs I know best from when I was in college. A “YEM” would have been nice, but I’m not complaining. I think I saw you at the second show, which had the encore of Trey solo stuff? That’s not really my cup of tea.

Joe: Nick Yorke’s bat seems to be living up to the Sox expectations. Have you heard any reports on his defense? Ave glove at 2B, below average, but playable or maybe a LF but the bat will probably play?
Keith Law: Heard raves on the bat and maybe 45 defense at second. More than playable as long as he hits like this. Maybe he was just underscouted because of the pandemic – I have still never seen him.

John: Daniel Lynch has been good his second time up. Is this what you expected from your Wilmington looks?
Keith Law: Getting there. I think there’s more improvement ahead of him, especially working more as a 3-4 pitch guy who doesn’t rely too much on the fastball (up to 99, regularly at 97, but plays below that because of lack of life/movement).
Keith Law: The Royals are going to get very interesting very soon. Next year they should have a better rotation, plus Witt, Pratto, maybe MJM.

Bob: How is the business of minor league ball? I’ve been shocked at how sparsely games I’ve attended have been and the crowd shits on MiLB.tv have been similar. Should we be concerned that minor league ball is something that never really comes all the way back?
Keith Law: I’ve noticed the same when I’ve been out at games this year. Nobody is drawing. It’s definitely a concern because that’s their main revenue source – and I don’t want a situation where more MiLB owners feel compelled to sell to MLB.

Bill S.: Keith, (accidentally hit send too soon, I’ll try again).  The Dodgers organization has clearly been successfully through the minors with player development.  However, does their perennial contender status actually hurt them with the final stage of player development – young players in the majors?  
Thinking about Gavin Lux, and to a lesser degree Zack McKinstry this year.  To finish their development young players need to play regularly in the majors.  Yet, the Dodgers divisional race makes it hard for them to roll out players who are not fully baked.  How should they handle Lux, as well as other talented minor leaguers that will eventually come up and need regular time?  Thank you!
Keith Law: It’s a reasonable concern, especially for players who come up at positions where the Dodgers have established regulars – Lux (Seager), Keibert (Smith, plus Cartaya behind). Easier on the pitching side because they can always work in those guys in long relief first. I think the Dodgers are among the top 2-3 organizations for drafting & development, but even they can’t ignore those structural issues and it may mean certain players don’t develop fully unless there’s an injury.

Bob: I think you mentioned some concerns about Michael Harris’ approach earlier in the year. His BB rate has improved some recently, have you heard if he’s made some real improvements there?
Keith Law: It’s not his walk rate – it’s his recognition of offspeed stuff. Be careful not to scout the stat line.

Derek: Has Kevin Made’s second half performance and tools he’s displayed elevated him to the same or near-prospect level of Ed Howard?
Keith Law: I mean, they’ve both been pretty bad. They’re really young & inexperienced for pro ball, so I’m not saying they’re no longer prospects, but I don’t know what you’re seeing here.

JJ: Red Sox failing to sign their high second round pick — is that on Fabian (and his “advisors”)  for way overvaluing himself, or on Chaim Bloom for not having a clear understanding of what it would take to get him to sign before making the selection, thereby wasting the 40th pick in the draft?
Keith Law: That’s 100% on the advisers and the player too. Failure to understand the market, to recognize what a bad year he had, and most of all, to get that it’s a draft – the system sucks for players, but this is the system. He’s going to be a fourth-year junior next year and pretty much has to go top 20 to beat what he would have made from Boston. When you go a whole spring and don’t make adjustments to the way pitchers are getting you out, you’re not a first-rounder.

Deke: So what’s your strategy to avoid feeling despondent about **waves generally at the entire world**? Because my strategies of late are not working.
Keith Law: I’ve avoided reading too much about a lot of the awfulness in the world. Texas turning into a fundamentalist theocracy, which has been coming for years, is beyond depressing, but reading more about that isn’t going to accomplish anything except reminding me of the high cost of low education.

Jackie: It used to be that 300 victories was the benchmark for automatic entry into the HOF for starting pitchers, but no one’s coming close to that number in the foreseeable future.  The 500 HR threshhold went out the door for hitters with Sosa/McGwire/Palmeiro.  Do you think there are any automatic statistical threshholds left?
Keith Law: There might be for some voters, but I don’t think there are any more.

C-Note: Best guess….% chance Bauer pitches in the MLB again?
Keith Law: It sounds like 0%, and I’m fine with that.

Robert: I’ve seen it said that Yoelqui Cespedes has some pitch recognition issues.  Can some of this be attributed to rust (not playing)?  Either way, is this a skill that can develop?
Keith Law: It is a skill that can develop, but it’s rare, and I think this is just what he is right now – a big tools guy without that core skill.

Stevo: I get that MLB pitchers spend all of their time focused on pitching which is why their hitting suffers but why haven’t we seen a pitcher/hitter like Ohtani before?
Keith Law: Ohtani strikes out in a third of his PA. Before the last 2-3 years, the industry would have considered that unacceptable and made him just a pitcher.

Joe Don: Keith, there’s a very loud contingent of Texas fans demanding that the team sign one of the soon-to-be big money free agents, specifically mentioning Trevor Story and Carlos Correa. Given how far the Rangers are from being competitive again, does it make any sense for them to dive head-first into this year’s free-agent pool?
Keith Law: I would say no – not that I’d oppose them doing so, because I don’t think there’s huge downside, but I think they’re a good 2-3 years from contending.

Mitch: Any thoughts on the Wingspan app?
Keith Law: It’s great other than the AI, which I think needs to be stronger. Anything below ‘hard’ is too easy. But it plays great on the iPad and I love how they’ve set up navigation of your tableau.

Josh: I think I remember you saying you wanted to cover Labor negotiations when you joined at the Athletic. That still a plan? I’d like to hear your (balanced) thoughts as this gets messy.
Keith Law: Yes, the pandemic and then some life stuff have all kind of gotten in the way.

Jon V: How does A. Rosario fit in the Guardians long term plan? More reps in CF? Move Ramirez back to 2B and see if he can play 3B?
Keith Law: If they trade Jose Ramirez, which I think is the right move for them at this point, I’d try Rosario at third … but just pick a position and let him hit. He’s finally turning into the guy he was supposed to be and I think it’s no coincidence that it comes 1) outside of Queens and 2) with more consistent playing time.

Guest: I’m 35 and in my lifetime the number of climate disasters has gone from once every 5-10 years to all the time. How can such a large part of the population be so blind to what is right in front of them and greatly impacting their lives?
Keith Law: Two reasons. One is so much of the messaging from the media and one entire political party tells them it’s not real, even though a lot of that is funded by oil & gas. And two is that I think it threatens a lot of folks’ blind faith in a deity who will protect humanity, even from our own mistakes. We’re going to make the planet uninhabitable. I don’t care what God you believe in – nobody is coming to save us from ourselves.

Nick: How concerned are you about Alec Bohm’s season?
Keith Law: Long term, I think he’s still going to be an above-average bat. But you can add him to the pile of Phillies prospects who haven’t developed. The player development changes were overdue. There’s a lot of lost value in players who’ve stalled or regressed after entering that system.

Jason: Austin Riley’s now put together almost an entire great year at the plate. In the past, you were skeptical of him having prolonged success because of his bat speed. And I also thought he couldn’t hit a slider. Is it now time to say we both underestimated him and he’s maybe going to be a borderline all star third baseman going forward?
Keith Law: I think he’s better than that. I’d put the over/under on his WAR next year at 5.5. He is absolutely an all-star.
Keith Law: I have more to come on that topic on Monday. My latest post was supposed to go up today but they’re holding it for next week instead.

Lara: My parents named me after the love theme from “Dr. Zhivago” — no offense to them, but that movie stunk out loud.  Is there a universally praised classic movie that you thought was unwatchable?
Keith Law: I couldn’t finish Unforgiven. I think An American in Paris is a boring plotless mess. I also couldn’t finish Tom Jones despite loving the novel.

David: What chance does CJ Abrams have of being the Padres’ starting shortstop in 2022, with Tatis moved to the outfield permanently?
Keith Law: I feel like that has become much more likely this year, although we do have to see how Abrams comes back from the knee injury.

Romorr: There are a few 2B options for the Orioles.  I’m more hyped for Vavra since he’s a LHB.  Any chance he’s a regular there?
Keith Law: If he’s a regular, that would be the position. I do like him – he’ll get the most out of his tools.

Chipper Jones: Should the Braves organization distance themselves from my crazy statements?
Keith Law: Yes. They should part ways with you, as the Nats did with Bob Boone.

Romorr: Have you noticed the Orioles approach in the minors?  Lots of guys putting up insane walk numbers.
Keith Law: Yes, and I’ve seen some of their prospects – it’s passivity, not selectivity. Maybe it turns into the latter in time, but it’s not the kind of quality AB I’d want to see.

Josh: The Orioles farm seems position player heavy from a birds eye view.  Does the team have any pitchers besides Rodriguez and Hall that can be mid rotation starters?
Keith Law: Maybe there’s someone in the Florida Man League I don’t know about yet, but I would say no, you have the two, and Hall has to get healthy.

Brett: What do you think of Vinnie Pasquantino as a prospect moving forward in the Royals organization?  He is mashing in AA but as an 11th round pick I’m just wondering if he has a big hole or weakness that will be exploited as he moves up further in the org and faces better competition.
Keith Law: Wasn’t he a side character in The Irishman? Does he paint houses? He’s too old even for AA and while his performance is great it’s not that meaningful given his age.

Doreau: The (Devil) Rays have the best record in the AL, yet the last three home games, they’re drawing 8500 a night, and half of them are Red Sox fans.  It’s been almost 30 years; when does MLB pull the plug on the market, and move to San Antonio/Portland/Vegas/Memphis/anywhere where people would show up?
Keith Law: It’s not quite that simple – there’s a lease involved, for one thing, and MLB isn’t letting any team move without a sweetheart stadium deal at the destination.

Guest: Do you think we lose any part of 22 before a collective bargaining agreement is reached ?
Keith Law: If MLB’s most recent offer is any indication of their stance, yes, definitely.

PJ (Jersey City): I read a rumor that the Orioles planned to use underslot money to pay Fabian. Would the Red Sox intentionally take Fabian to throw a wrench in another team’s draft strategy?
Keith Law: No, that would be pretty self-defeating – but they’re also under no obligation to adhere to a deal a player may have struck with another team, either.

Danny: Do you have any early observations/thoughts on Jasson Dominguez’s first season?
Keith Law: He’s exceptionally young for full-season ball. That he’s doing anything at all there is a good sign. But I do think for whatever reason – bad evals, the lost year – he’s not going to race through the minors the way some scouts/execs thought he might.

Chris: why did Deivi roll out of the Gas Station a lemon, and can he be repaired?
Keith Law: They lowered his arm slot. I have NO idea why.

Buck: Garrett Mitchell starting to rise up prospect lists?
Keith Law: No.

Andy: With the current scandal about a non-real football program playing games against high schools, is there any worry that the top high school prospects in baseball will leave their high schools and only do elite teams? I’m reminded of Kelenic who didn’t play high school baseball at all, though most kid’s parents can’t build a baseball complex for them.
Keith Law: That has been rumored for as long as I’ve been in the industry and it still hasn’t happened. In Kelenic’s case, he had a real reason to do so – his HS season was so short that it would have been hard for teams to scout him. You’ll always see a few cold-weather kids just do travel teams, and some will move south (like to IMG). But for most, the path of least resistance is to play for your high school.

Danny: Any notable observations of 2021 draftees in their first couple weeks of games?
Keith Law: That’s all SSS stuff. Just be careful.

Skippy: I asked in spring training and you were still skeptical so I was hoping to see what you think now, is Tyler O’Neill improvement at the plate real? He’s dropped his pull% about 5% while adding it to his center%. Still a high K guy but he’s held it steady at 31% and a 7%BB rate. .343 OBP and Slugging .503, is it real? Or just a talented guy who’s had a good season but still maybe isn’t sustainable longer term?
Keith Law: I’m taking the under on this.

addoeh: Patrick Wisdom is a great story but he strikes out a ton and he’s hit a lot of home runs (25) but not a lot of doubles (8). It just seems like he’ll be the opening day 3B, because the Cubs have a ton of areas to address, but by June that  might look like a mistake. Am I way off base here?
Keith Law: Nope, I would say exactly the same thing.

Leites: Hi Keith!  Thanks for doing these as often as you do.  Any reason for optimism for Bo Naylor’s hit tool?  or Jeter Down’s?
Keith Law: I really think the Guardians erred by bumping Naylor up two levels this year. Still a believer in both players, but they’ve been disappointing nonetheless.

Mac: Termarr Johnson is the best High School hitter since?
Keith Law: Depends on who you ask. One scout told me it’s the best HS hit tool he’s seen in maybe a decade; another said he thinks the way Johnson’s swing works will cause a lot of trouble when he gets to see better pitching.

Sean: Is Casas ready for opening day next year?  I know dalbec has shown some signs of life but it’s hard to see him ever being more than a fringe MLBer.
Keith Law: Dalbec is below replacement level. I don’t get why people keep trying to make him a thing – if he had a few more PA to qualify, he’d have the second-worst K% of any hitter this year. I think Casas is more of a second half callup.

Noah: Also, sorry, this is a second question from me and I don’t want to inundate you with too much, but as a Mets fan I have to ask: shouldn’t job one be to fire Sandy Alderson?  The guy has presided over an organization that has had multiple sexual harassers/abusers, an acting GM with a DUI, and men who have committed domestic violence.  I am really shocked that he has so far skated.
Keith Law: I can’t imagine he is still there by November. Whether he’s fired, resigns, or is just pushed aside, he’s been the one overseeing the mess you described. It’s not even about the team on the field.

Mike: Isn’t it horrific that the worst part of Trump’s “legacy” is his ability to turn SCOTUS into an extension of the Catholic Church that has obliterated the separation of church and state?
Keith Law: Yep. Also, I can’t believe Democrats still don’t get that a huge part of the GOP strategy is to put younger judges on the court so that they hold those seats forever.

Matt: I have a really hard time believing Bauer won’t pitch again. He may be suspended for all of next year and by 2023, I could certainly see some team hoping the public won’t remember what he did and take a chance on him because of the talent. If he was a lesser player, his career would be over, but I have to think some team will think it’s worth whatever PR hit they take.
Keith Law: I don’t think so.
Keith Law: He’s always been a headache. Now he’s a headache who has admitted in court to violent behavior towards women.

Nick: Guessing Greensboro is a pretty good hitters park but So it would it be better for Pirates to move up Nick Gonzalez and Peugero to get a better indication of progress ?
Keith Law: Agreed – and yes, it’s a great hitters park.

Todd Boss: Cade Cavalli now in AAA: based on your scouting reports earlier this seems kind of surprising perhaps?  Or is the promotion evidence of the team making him face guys who can actually hit 100 and force him to work on command?
Keith Law: Yes, I would bet that’s exactly their belief – and I agree with it. He did get hit around in his first AAA outing, and now he gets to make some adjustments.

PJ (Jersey City): Rosario has been good in Cleveland, Gimenez has….not. Is he just a 4A guy at this point? Or is he still too young to give up on?
Keith Law: More than a 4A guy but never that good a prospect for me. Classic case of a team promoting a guy who’d be young for his levels and look good for teams that rely heavily on models that take that into account. But I think he can be a good utility guy or maybe have a long career as a regular SS on teams that don’t have a better option around.

Buck: Aaron Ashby back of rotation type?
Keith Law: Really think he’s a reliever. Delivery and command point there.

Mrs. Webber: “2001” was so pointlessly boring — nothing happens for three excruciating hours.  But I thought Stanley Kubrick was incredibly overrated; he ruined both “The Shining” and “A Clockwork Orange” by straying too far from the books.
Keith Law: I didn’t find 2001 boring, but I also didn’t like how far it strayed from its source book. I still have actually never seen The Shining, though.

Brett: Vinnie Pasquantino is 23 years old in AA FYI
Keith Law: I am aware of that, thank you. He’ll be 24 in a few weeks.

Bort: Do you prefer Frelick over Mitchell?
Keith Law: Frelick has the higher floor, and yes, in this case I would take him over Mitchell.

Max: Is Matt Brash on the verge of surpassing Hancock and Kirby in the Mariners stable of young arms?
Keith Law: No, definitely not. A prospect, yes, but not better than those guys.

Dan: Just scouting the box scores, Bryson Stott has had a really impressive year. Have you heard or seen anything that suggests that his major league outlook has improved?
Keith Law: Actually have heard the opposite from scouts this year.

Mac: Can Andrew Vaughn be anything more than a mistake hitter?
Keith Law: Yes. Isn’t he already more than that?

Danny: Do you think we’ll have more prep pitchers in the 2022 first round because of the purported depth or do you think the industry’s recent aversion pushes a lot of those guys to later rounds?
Keith Law: Most teams don’t want to take that risk; we might see 3-4 HS arms in the first round in a good year, but teams see the opportunity cost and would rather take those guys in the comp/second rounds. Also I think the HS bat group for 2022 is pretty strong.

Stan: Brendan Rodgers. Your thoughts on his progression this year? Future outlook? Thanks!
Keith Law: Two things I am pleased about. He’s playing regularly, finally. And he’s actually showing power on the road, too. I would still guess he’s more likely to hit .300 than hit 30 homers, but this is still good to see. I loved his bat in HS, and have been disappointed that his eye at the plate hasn’t been better at any level in pro ball – which could be a side effect of playing in great hitters’ parks, or a player development issue. But this is a good start and I still think he becomes an All-Star at 2b.

Mike Sixel: Pick one to answer: What happened to Max Kepler? Is there any realistic path to the Twins starting the year with a good MLB rotation next year? thanks!
Keith Law: Aaron Gleeman had a great piece on Kepler’s low batted ball quality leading to consistently low BABIPs.

Matt: To everyone shocked about what’s happening in Texas, elections have consequences and if you were paying attention, you knew this was gonna happen.
Keith Law: Yep. But I also think a lot of Texans are extremely happy with what’s happening there. They want to live in a theocracy as long as the victims are someone else.

Alex In Austin: Is it appropriate to comment on the atrocious details Jonah Keri admitted to this week?
Keith Law: Sure. Fuck that guy. I hope he rots in jail for a long time. But white men tend to get lighter sentences, and I’m not optimistic he’ll get a sentence commensurate with his crime or the possible threat he still poses.

Thomas: It’s been like thirty minutes and you’ve already already suggested that three people (Bauer, Chipper, Alderson), who are accomplished in the game, should be removed from the sport. Who made you the hall monitor? Doesn’t this get tiring?
Keith Law: Bauer is the only one on that list who might be removed from the sport, and if you’re arguing against that, we don’t have a whole lot of common ground here.

Keith Law School: Before I ask my question, I want to say I enjoy everything you write about outside of baseball.  My question though, is do you ever get “outrage fatigue”? I get that there’s a lot wrong in the world, but I feel like it’s always been that way and it always will. Do you ever take a moment or two and just smell roses and feel content and happy at all?
Keith Law: Remember what I wrote earlier about overweighting certain anecdotes? You’re doing that right now. And making a really absurd inference about my overall state of mind from a superficial view of things I write and say online – especially in a forum like this, where people are asking pointed (and very good!) questions.

Trevor: Thoughts on a Mark Appel comeback?
Keith Law: Completely rooting for him. We have more track record of pitchers coming back after years away than hitters doing so. But he’s not even close to average control yet and that’s a big hurdle.

Ned: Who are you higher on long-term: Jake Burger or Gavin Sheets?
Keith Law: Give me Burger.
Keith Law: mmmm …. burger

Andy: Jose Barrero – guy or GUY?
Keith Law: GUY. Top 75 or so.

Guest: Is Drew Rasmussen a legit starting pitcher?
Keith Law: Two time TJ recipient with heavy use in college. Odds are against it.

Good Eye: How do you distinguish between being a hitter being passive and not selective?
Keith Law: I am not being flippant here when I say you have to watch the games.

Jay’s Dad: Tanner Houck seems like a possible future closer.  As a starter?  I’m not feeling it.
Keith Law: He has a great arm, but he doesn’t have a decent weapon for LHB and that’s going to be a problem in the long term. I think he’d be superb as a closer, but I also wouldn’t advocate moving him to relief yet.

Brett: Hey Keith – just FYI, I don’t think you’re an idiot and knew you knew Pasquantino’s age. Whoever that “Brett” is that added to my original question is not me. Weirdo.
Keith Law: I think Brett2 was trying to say Pasquantino wasn’t old for AA, but he is. Also, to be absolutely clear, I’m not saying Pasquantino is not a prospect, but that the extremely impressive production is not evidence that he’s suddenly a good prospect, if that makes sense. I feel like I should be rooting for him as a fellow paesano.

Danny: Luis Medina was great down the stretch in 2019 in A ball, was very good to start this season in high A, struggled for the better part of this season but has been much better as of late in AA. Has your opinion of whether he can stick in the rotation changed much this year?
Keith Law: I feel like you may be mis-stating my opinion on him. I was hoping to get him this week in Bowie but the storm threw everything off here. I’m hoping to get him in Somerset next week, maybe Wednesday if they hold to their current rotation.

Icarus: Do you think that Ha-Seong Kim will become an average hitter?  Should he be playing everyday in AAA instead of riding the bench in MLB?
Keith Law: I don’t think he’s going to hit here, so I’m not sure sending him to AAA will address anything. Maybe he’s just a nice bench player.

Ben: Casey Mize has taken a giant step forward this year… is he our future ace?
Keith Law: I think so – but I’d like to see him use his splitter more.

Josh: Are there any expected long term issues with Jordan Lawlers injury?  The DBacks can’t afford this.
Keith Law: Not that I know of.

Guest: How good is Julio Rodriguez going to be?
Keith Law: He’s going to hit for a ton of power. Maybe a 30 doubles/35 homer guy. RF only and he has some length to his swing that he’ll have to learn to work around.

Matt: Re: Rays. I was at the Reds-Cards game on Wednesday and attendance was ~10K. It’s just a different world right now and the Rays aren’t the only team failing to draw fans.
Keith Law: Also true. Pandemic, economic inequality, and the fact that MLB teams don’t have to draw fans to make money any more.

Matt: Interesting thing about 2001 – the book and the movie were written together by Kubrick and Clarke, so neither is really a “source” for the other.  There’s a terrific book about the entire creative process; I highly recommend it!
Keith Law: I did not know this. Thank you.

Paul: Has Tavares figured things out after spending some time in AAA and not having to work out his struggles in Texas?
Keith Law: For a guy who’s spent about 2/3 of a season in the majors, Taveras hasn’t hit as well in AAA (facing easier pitching) as I would have hoped. It’s more power, but less avg/BABIP.

Josh: I know vaccine mandates for 40 man guys have to be negotiated with the union, but could a team have a mandate for non-40 man players?  Would players have enough leverage to fight it?
Keith Law: Probably a better question for a lawyer.

Noah: I can’t believe some of the people here are suggesting that you talking about shitty people being removed from their jobs (in response to people like me asking some of these questions) makes you some kind of scold.
Keith Law: Me neither.

John: Is there a reason to have hope this country can ever get along?  Seems like a large portion would rather see it burn than learn the meaning of compromise
Keith Law: How do you compromise with people who don’t accept the reality of climate change? Who think vaccines are dangerous (but horse paste isn’t)? Who don’t want basic science taught in schools? Who think women are chattel? Who refuse to see hard evidence of racism in front of them? You can’t compromise with religious fundamentalists. We learned that in Afghanistan. Why is it different here?

Keith Law School: You totally misread my question. I wasn’t trying to be a dick, I was just stating that most of your links are regarding the problems of the world.  It was an innocent question asking if you do take moments to enjoy the good parts of the world.
Keith Law: If you mean the Saturday links, it’s because that’s where the best writing tends to be. But when I find great writing on other topics, I include it too.

Uncle Eddie: Was this strikeout rate from Jarren Duran expected?  I feel like he’s taking too many hitting tips from Bobby Dalbec.
Keith Law: Also his first go-round in the majors. The gap between the minors and MLB seems to be bigger than ever right now.

Matt: Did you see that Bobby Flay and Giada special on the Food Network where they travel to Italy? Man, Italy has shot to the top of my places to visit.
Keith Law: I did not, but I don’t think I’d want to visit Italy with someone who thinks you put heavy cream in pasta alla carbonara. Italy is my favorite place in the world to visit, though. It’s not just the food, although the food is incredible. Italy may be a mess in a lot of ways, but the entire ethos – that work is a means, not an end, and life is to be enjoyed and appreciated – should be our model.

Jesse B: Andy Pages is striking out 30% of the time albeit with big time power. Do you think that’s something he can improve or will he always be a 3 outcome player?
Keith Law: He’s striking out 24% of the time, and with everything else he does, he’s a hell of a prospect.

Paul: I think more than ever the Republicans have done a great job of making issues black and white. So if its vaccines, voting rights, climate change, reproductive rights etc. as long as it “pisses of the libs” it must be good. As long as the issues continue to get drawn that way I don’t see how we ever pull out of this death spiral.
Keith Law: I agree.

Matt: Johnny Bench just tested positive and won’t be at Hall of Fame induction. He was vaccinated and still got sick.
Keith Law: You can get vaccinated and still get sick – but you are substantially less likely to require hospitalization, to require intubation, or to die. And you’re contagious for a shorter period of time. My wife had a breakthrough infection, and she did get sick, with some lingering symptoms even two weeks later, but she didn’t have to go to the hospital, and my daughter and I, who were both vaccinated later than my wife was, never so much as tested positive.

Eric: I’m not anti-vax or pro-ivermectin or any of those things – but don’t you think it is counterproductive that I can’t read a mainstream news report on ivermectin that actually discloses it’s a legitimate safe drug for human use? Not recommended for covid, but it has legitimate uses. Instead, 99% of the coverage would leave the reader believing it’s only used for farm animals.
Keith Law: I’m wondering what the benefit of including that point would be. It does have legitimate uses for certain worm parasites in the GI tract, although, unfortunately, it doesn’t work against guinea worm disease. But in an article on IVM and COVID, that seems like it’s not germane.

Keith: will Colas immediately be the White Sox top prospect and what do you think his ETA and impact might be on the big league club?
Keith Law: No, and I’d really like to see him face some actual pitching first.

Stephen: Is it worth Witt Jr. and/or Pratto getting some time in the majors this month?
Keith Law: I think so. I know the business side would say no, but I’d love to see those guys get 50-60 AB and a month in the MLB clubhouse.

Dr. Bob: RE: Passivity vs. selectivity. I could tell the difference by watching like you can, but player’s comments are sometimes telling. Kolten Wong said that STL wanted him to take more pitches. He intimated that he became more passive as a result. Now he’s being more aggressive and it’s working for him.
Keith Law: Some guys just shouldn’t hit like that. Some guys shouldn’t try to change their swings to hit for more loft. There is no one size fits all approach to hitting. I fall into that trap sometimes too, downgrading players for aspects of their swings that might not work for the majority of players but might work for them.

Brett: Is it entirely plausible that Kristian Robinson never plays another game for MLB?
Keith Law: I think that scenario is unlikely, but sure, not entirely impossible. It would be a shame because this seems to be a clear case of mental illness.

Guy B: Also the problem with the folks sucking up all the ivermectin is that they are making it harder for people who actually need the product, it’s pretty simple really.
Keith Law: Yep. And these ding-dongs are now taking up space in emergency rooms because IVM can cause terrible side effects when taken in non-therapeutic doses.

Corey: This season has demonstrated a significant difference between AAA and MLB pitching ad we’ve seen most prospects struggle when they come up. That being said, what to make of Franchy Cordero ?  He’s an MVP in Worcester but awful in Boston.  Is he a Wily Mo Pena-esque AAAA guy or does he figure it out eventually ?
Keith Law: I think he’s a 4A guy.

Paul: When you go to concerts etc. are you masking up? Are you taking any Covid precautions? ie  Are you only going to shows that require proof of vax or negative test?
Keith Law: Haven’t been to an indoor concert but the plan/hope is exactly that – we’ll mask, of course, but stick to shows that require those things. Philly venues can do so – my daughter and I went to a restaurant that asked to see our vax cards last week – but not all have chosen to. I know Johnny Brenda’s is asking for proof of vax.

John: Fair point on compromise, and agree on all of those issues as not really offering opportunity.  However, even areas where there is need (infrastructure, health care) there is zero compromise for any improvement.  I’m not saying to compromise principles but there should be reasonable areas of common ground to build better roads, or is that all lost as well?
Keith Law: That is a better question for someone who covers the swamp, really.

Rick: Do you still think Gore can be an ace down the road or are the struggles he’s had just too much to fix to get to that level?
Keith Law: Ace upside, positive signs in his return, long way between AZL success and the majors. Stuff is still top of the line.

Wil: Wanted to ask something I don’t know if you’ve been asked lately and everyone should be asked – How are you doing?
Keith Law: I’ll end with this, which Wil asked at the top of the chat. All things considered, we’re good. The last few weeks weren’t fun, but we’re fortunate, and we recognize it. We’re just trying to be prudent about the choices we make. Things are good here, and I hope that most of you can say the same, if not right now then very soon.
Keith Law: Thank you all for reading and for your patience with my relative absence the last few weeks. I do have a column due up on the Athletic on Monday, and should be able to get to games & to write more regularly this month. Stay safe this weekend, everyone – not only because of the pandemic, but because Labor Day is such a heavy travel weekend. Thanks again.

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→ September 3, 2021
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Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About.

Jasper Fforde was kind enough to appear as a guest on The Keith Law Show last month, and I asked him a question – of which I’d warned him in advance – about what books he would include in a class on comic novels. It was inspired by my favorite class in college, “Comedy and the Novel,” which introduced me to at least three of my all-time favorite novels: Jacques the Fatalist, If on a winter’s night a traveler…, and my favorite novel ever written, The Master & Margarita.

One of Fforde’s answers was Mil Millingham’s Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About, and having read it, I can see why Fforde recommended it – it shares much of his style of humor, appreciation of the absurd, and derisive attitude towards all things bureaucratic. The book alternates between two parallel threads: The narrator, Pel, arguing with his girlfriend, and losing; and Pel’s day job at the library of the local university, where all sorts of shenanigans are taking place, including open corruption, the construction of a new building over what might be a graveyard, and not very much librarying.

Pel’s arguments with his girlfriend, an attractive German blonde named Ursula with a personality that might be described as slightly vampiric, are by far the funnier half of the book. While Millingham is certainly not showing Ursula’s best side, he doesn’t paint her as a witch, or a permanently unreasonable person, or one of those, “women, am right?” women. She’s more strong-willed, occasionally unreasonable, but less unreasonable than Pel is, and if anything, he comes off worse – he’s not going to die of overexertion, and he seems to step right into it every time one of those arguments goes on for more than a line or two. She’s just right more often than he is, and his narrative attempts to make her seem the unreasonable one reflect more on him. They have two young sons, who act as boys that age do, and whose antics will probably be hilarious to those of you with kids and mildly amusing to those without.

The stuff at work is a lot less compelling, and gets to the fundamental problem with Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About, which is that the story here is as thin as rice paper. Pel’s former boss has left the country for parts unknown, and it appears he has absconded with Someone Else’s Money, which might itself be enough raw material for a cracking comedy of errors, but Millingham dispenses with that, mining it for some racially insensitive humor and eventually just moving along to another story. Pel also sexually harasses a colleague, falls into a giant hole, says the absolute wrong thing to some extremely annoying journalists (who would have been shot, or at least pushed into that giant hole, in the United States), and repeatedly fails to do his job – which seems to barely meet the requirements of a job, except that he gets paid for what little he is asked to do (which he doesn’t do anyway). It seems like Millingham had the idea of depicting a highly dysfunctional workplace, which has been done before but I’ll allow it, and then populating it with idiots and loonies, which has also been done before but will often make me laugh anyway, but it never adds up to anything here. Even when he catches one of his antagonists doing something he shouldn’t be doing, it’s nowhere near as funny as it should be, because those various colleagues of his are not that well-drawn, so when they fail or flop, it’s less funny than he might have planned.

The Ursula stuff, however, is the goods. I could have read a whole book just about the two of them arguing over matters large (they move to another house, and it goes as well as you’d expect) and small (Ursula scares off the gutter cleaners by speaking German to them, which culminates in a riotous high-speed car chase). That’s the sort of book that doesn’t need much plot, and the ending Millingham gives this novel would have worked better if the entire thing had been just about the two of them. So I’d still recommend Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About if you’re in the mood for a laugh, as long as you keep your expectations for plot on the lower side.

Next up: Daniel Kahneman’s new book Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment.

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→ September 2, 2021
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Music update, August 2021.

August finished with quite a bang for new music, so this playlist more than doubled in length in the last week, but I’ll take this as a great sign for how we’ll finish a year that has seemed a little flat for new music. Perhaps the imminent fall/winter tours are driving all this new music coming out. Anyway, if you can’t see the widget below, you can access the Spotify playlist here.

Robert Plant & Alison Krauss – Can’t Let Go. Fourteen years after their hugely acclaimed collaboration Raising Sand, which won six Grammy Awards, Plant and Krauss have reunited for a follow-up, Raise the Roof, due out on November 19th. This track, written by Randy Weeks and previously recorded by Lucinda Williams, is a hell of a lead single. It’s just about perfect.

Jungle – Truth. Jungle’s third album, Loving in Stereo, has a few bangers, including this, “All of the Time,” and “Keep Moving,” and some slower tracks that don’t do it for me. Jungle’s best work makes you want to dance. I want more of this.

CHVRCHES – Final Girl. CHVRCHES’ fourth album, Screen Violence, is a real return to form for the trio after the disappointing Love is Dead, with stronger lyrics and better hooks, as well as real guitars. This, “How Not to Drown,” and “Good Girls” are the highlights for me.

The Wombats – If You Ever Leave, I’m Coming With You. Now that’s more like it – this feels almost Glitterbug-esque, from the big hooks to the delightfully absurd lyrics. Their fifth album, Fix Yourself, Not the World, drops on January 7th.

Geese – Low Era. Geese announced their debut album, Projector, will drop on October 29th, including this track and their first single “Disco.” The Brooklyn quintet’s second track is slower, more dissonant, but still kind of intoxicating. I get black midi and alt-J vibes from them, which could cut both ways, but for now I’m excited for the album.

Kid Kapichi – American Scream. Kid Kapichi’s This Time Next Year is one of my favorite albums of 2021, and the deluxe version, which comes out on October 29th, will include four unreleased tracks, including this one.

Purity Ring – soshy. It’s written as one word but Megan James sings it as “so shy,” which I would say is a bit toocute. But it’s a good song, more uptempo than a lot of their stuff, while still a strong musical showcase for James’ vocals.

Creeper – Midnight. Creeper’s EP American Noir is supposed to serve as an epilogue to their incredible 2020 album Sex, Death, and the Infinite Void, with 8 new tracks running 19 minutes, including this very “Because the Night”-like duet, and the intro song “Midnight Militia”, a 75-second throwback to the punk sound they showed on their debut album, Eternity, in Your Arms.

Quicksand – Colossus. I was a little underwhelmed by Quicksand’s latest album, Distant Populations, after their surprisingly strong comeback album, 2017’s Interiors. It’s their first album without guitarist Tom Capone, who was arrested for shoplifting while on their last tour and appears to have some mental health issues. This is the best track on the record, though, with the most vintage Quicksand sound to it.

Turnstile – DON’T PLAY. Turnstile is definitely the it band on the rock side of things right now; I compared their song “BLACKOUT” to early Helmet, and Helmet certainly had that kind of buzz before Meantime hit. Anyway, Turnstile’s album GLOW ON is out now, and it’s great, a mixture of hardcore punk and plenty of post-punk tracks, more of the latter, really, which makes all the talk of them as a hardcore band seem a little behind the times. They’re good, and I think this album is going to be all over year-end lists, but they’re a lot more than just a hardcore punk band now.

Deafheaven – In Blur. So Deafheaven has gone from blackgaze to shoegaze, dropping almost all the trappings of death/black metal that characterized their previous four albums; the only screamed vocals on Infinite Granite come at the very end of a few songs, and I don’t think I heard any blast beats. Sunbather was on every critic’s top ten list for its year, or so it seemed, and I would bet you a huge amount of money most of them never got through the entire album and/or have never listened to it since, because almost nobody can stand that much screaming. If they could, extreme metal would be a shit-ton more popular than it is. Anyway, my guess is Deafheaven realized that they’d make a lot more money by toning down the black metal nonsense and crafting something that would appeal to a wider audience – which they could do without compromising the remainder of their musical aesthetic. Infinite Granite is a good shoegaze album, and that should boost their popularity. It is, however, not exactly groundbreaking stuff; if you put this album in 1993, it would fit in nicely with Ride and Slowdive, more accessible than My Bloody Valentine’s two albums of the era but with a similar vibe. The crime will be if this record gets worse reviews than Sunbather despite being music most people could actually enjoy.

Thrice – Robot Soft Exorcism. It’s funny; I always like Thrice’s lead single off a record a bit more than their second single, regardless of how much I end up liking the eventual album. I like “Robot Soft Exorcism,” especially the energy in the chorus, although “Scavengers” was better. Anyway, Horizons/East will be out on the 17th, and I look forward to seeing them here in Philly in October.

Chrome – Terminate. Not gonna lie: I had no idea Helios Creed was still going. Scaropy is the 23rd album released under the Chrome name, although I think it’s also fair to say Chrome hasn’t been real Chrome since the last Edge/Creed record, 1982’s 3rd From the Sun. Anyway, I don’t think Scaropy is very good, but this is the best track on it.

Unknown Mortal Orchesta – That Life. I included this track primarily for that weird, briefly dissonant guitar riff. Without that, the track would be utterly generic, but that riff is great.

Ariel Posen & Cory Wong – Spare Tire. Instrumental jazz-funk from two great guitarists … and it’s under 3 minutes, so it doesn’t overstay its welcome (if anything, they could have gone another minute and it would have been fine considering how strong the groove is).

Griff – One Night. Griff’s mixtape came out in June and reached #4 on the UK album charts, and now she’s back with another gem of a new single. The 20-year-old singer/songwriter seems headed for pop stardom, at least over in Europe, although I’m hoping the U.S. will catch on.

Maisie Peters – Elvis Song. Speaking of heading for stardom, Peters’ debut album, You Signed Up for This, came out a week ago on Ed Sheeran’s record label, and is likely to debut in the top 3 on the UK albums chart on Friday. The album is very good, with Peters’ great knack for telling stories about teenage romances gone wrong, but it’s also slickly produced pop that made me miss Peters’ more singer-songwritery stuff from when she was first starting out.

Courtney Barnett – Before You Gotta Go. I love Barnett the lyricist, and I have resigned myself to Barnett the singer. Whether I like her songs comes down to whether there’s a decent melody beneath them, regardless of tempo, although there’s a clear correlation between the two. This song is a little faster than her norm, and it has a little groove to it, so that the thing she does best – I’d call her a top 5 wordsmith in music right now – gets a chance to shine.

Alien Boy – The Way I Feel. This Portland quartet might have just stepped out of the mid-90s, with jangle-alt-indie-pop sounds and a hint of shoegaze in the production. The band’s name comes from a 1980 Wipers song, which was about James Chasse, who was later murdered by police in 2006 after he was arrested and beaten, breaking 26 bones, while he was probably having a psychotic episode.

Gorillaz feat. AJ Tracey – Jimmy Jimmy. I might be alone in this, but I’ve found most of Gorillaz’ output since their first two albums to be pretty boring. Even this song sounds like Damon Albarn mailed in the music – is that just a sample from “Clint Eastwood” on a loop in the background – but Tracey’s vocals make it something better than the typical Gorillaz track.

Jorja Smith x GuiltyBeatz – All of This. Smith did tell us in May that she would Be Right Back, and here she is again, now with an amapiano collaboration with Ghanaian-Italian producer GuiltyBeatz.

Tom Morello & Phantogram – Driving to Texas. This sounds like a great Phantogram song, but it’s going to appear on Morello’s upcoming album, and I don’t know that I hear him here. Maybe that’s a sign of how expansive the new record will be?

Dream Theater – Alien. It’s 9 minutes, just to warn you, but if you like Dream Theater’s proggy style, then you’re probably okay with that. There are some great guitar lines here, although James LaBrie’s voice is sounding a bit worn.

Exodus – The Beatings Will Continue (Until Morale Improves). I can’t believe these guys are 1) still at it and 2) still making almost exactly the same music as they did 35 years ago. Also, I have to make my Exodus joke: It will never not bother me that “Toxic Waltz” is in 4/4 time.

Omnium Gatherum – Paragon. This Finnish melodic death metal band tends towards a more progressive sound than, say, the Gothenburg school that influenced them, and Omnium often mixes some clean vocals in with the death growls, as they do here in the choruses (are those actual harmonies?). It’s the guitar work that reels me in, though, enough for me to ignore some of the ridiculous vocals.

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→ September 1, 2021
→ By

Summer Camp.

Summer Camp has flown under the radar among new games this year because it’s a Target exclusive release (at least for now) and comes from a publisher not known for tabletop strategy titles, Buffalo Games, a publisher of jigsaw puzzles and party games. Yet Summer Camp is from Phil Walker-Harding, the mind behind Cacao, Gizmos, Imhotep, Imhotep: The Duel, and Silver & Gold, and it’s a straight-up deckbuilder, one that – dare I say it – is actually fun for the whole family. It’s so light and breezy for a deckbuilding title that you can play with anyone in the house who reads fluently. Right now, it’s $24.99 on Target.com, although I found it for 10% off in store a few weeks ago.

Summer Camp does have a modular board of 9 tiles that you arrange randomly in a 3×3 grid at the start of each game, forming three paths across the board, left to right, that your campers will try to traverse as you play. Each path is tied to a specific activity – Cooking, Water Sports, Outdoors, Friendship, Arts & Crafts – and has merit badges for campers who get all the way to the end of the path before the game ends, with more points for those who get there first. Along the paths, certain spaces give you a one-time bonus, allowing you to move any camper one more spot, to draw one more card into your hand, or to gain one snack bar (+1 energy for purchasing cards).

The heart of the game is your deck, which you’ll build as the game progresses, trying to get more powerful cards to drown out the relatively weak ten cards with which you start the game: seven Lights Out card, which have no value other than their purchasing power of 1 energy; and one card for each of the three paths that allows you to move your camper forward one space. Other than the Lights Out cards, all cards have an action on them – move 2+ spaces, move any camper one space, draw another card, discard & draw, gain 2-4 energy for purchases on this turn, and so on.

On each turn, you draw a fresh hand of five cards from your deck, and at the end of your turn, you discard all cards to your discard pile, shuffling the latter when your deck runs out. All cards have a value of 1 energy if you don’t use them, so you will never have a turn where you can’t do anything – even drawing five Lights Out card lets you buy one or more cards with a total cost of 5. There are also three stacks of generic cards, not tied to any of the separate path decks, that are always available to purchase – S’mores, cost 2, worth +2 energy for purchases; Scavenger Hunt, cost 3, which lets you discard 1-3 cards and draw that many again; and Free Time, cost 4, which lets you move one camper on any track one space forward. That’s a huge part of what makes this game more friendly to younger players and casual gamers – you will never have a wasted turn. You can always buy something, and the cheapest cards to buy are still useful.

There is some light strategy involved in how you move the campers, balancing the points value of getting the merit badges first – when you get all your campers to the first bridge, one-third of the way across the board, you get the top badge in that pile, and there’s another pile worth more points when you get all your campers to the second bridge – against the value of getting to the end of a path first. You also may move certain campers to trigger those space bonuses, especially the one where you get to draw another card, which can keep your chain of moves moving or just get you more buying power. If there’s a best way to build a deck here, I haven’t caught on to it yet; there is no card anywhere in the game that lets you trash any cards (like the Chapel card in Dominion), and the fact that only two cards are available from each path deck at any given time makes it very hard for one player to monopolize a good card or build a deck full of a specific type of card. That serves to balance things out, and may frustrate experienced players who like deckbuilders that give you more control, but for a game that is clearly aimed at family play – right down to the theme – it makes perfect sense. It’s great for ages 8+ and the box’s suggested play time of 30-45 minutes is about right once everyone gets the deck concept.

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→ August 28, 2021
→ By

Stick to baseball, 8/28/21.

Nothing new from me at the Athletic this week as I’m still dealing with an illness in the family, but I hope to have my next piece up on Thursday of this upcoming week.

I reviewed the board game adaptation of Red Rising for Paste this week, and also reviewed the book from which the game is derived.

I created a T-shirt celebrating the #umpshow to raise money to help Afghan refugees who are settling in the Wilmington area. Proceeds will go to Jewish Family Services of Delaware – they’re aware a donation is coming – and possibly a second group depending on how best we can help. We’re over $650 raised through T-shirt sales, not counting the handful of you who’ve donated directly to JFSD, so thanks to all of you who’ve bought the shirt or donated.

On The Keith Law Show this week, I spoke to CHVRCHES’ Lauren Mayberry about their new album, Screen Violence, which came out yesterday; as well as the toxic environment of social media, working with Robert Smith, and more. You can (and should!) subscribe on iTunes and Spotify. I also appeared as usual on the Friday edition of the Athletic Baseball Daily show.

I’ll be back with an email newsletter and I hope a chat this upcoming week. And don’t forget that my second book The Inside Game is now out in paperback.

And now, the links…

  • The New Yorker profiled my colleague Katie Strang, who has become the industry’s leading writer on athletes and coaches accused of domestic violence or sexual assault.
  • Dr. J. Stacey Klutts, a clinical associate professor of pathology and clinical microbiology at the University of Iowa, wrote a great primer on what we know now about the Delta variant. The Des Moines Register should have asked him to write an editorial, not the unqualified grad student and COVID-19 minimizer they invited instead.
  • Many professors are leaving their jobs rather than teach in-person, especially at schools that won’t require masks or vaccines. Some schools are, of course, prevented from issuing such mandates because of the death cult running their states.
  • More U.S. police officers died of COVID-19 in 2020 than from all other causes combined. Yet I keep seeing reports of officers and even union chapters fighting vaccine mandates.
  • A new lawsuit accusing Horatio Sanz of grooming and abusing a teenage girl that names him, Saturday Night Live, and NBC may blow the lid off a bigger story about the culture on that show and impugn other cast members from that time, notably Jimmy Fallon.
  • Facebook refused two Representatives’ request for more information on the company’s (minimal) efforts to fight COVID-19 misinformation on its platform. I found multiple groups dedicated to the deworming drug Ivermectin, including at least two that purport to help people get prescriptions for it, active on Facebook just this week. Reporting them has had no apparent effect.
  • Eagle-Gryphon Games has brought us a new(ish) title from the late designer Sid Sackson, combining elements of his games The Great Race and Can’t Stop into Route 66 The Mother Road, now on Kickstarter and already well past its funding goal.
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