→ July 5, 2025
→ By

Stick to baseball, 7/5/25.

I posted my final (mostly) Big Board for the 2025 draft this week for subscribers to the Athletic, and then held a Q&A to take questions on it on Wednesday.

Paste Games is now Endless Mode, still under the Paste umbrella, but its own site with more coverage of all things gaming, which will include about twice as many stories from me each year. My first story at the new site is a review of the 2024 reprint of Gold West, a great, family-level strategy game that went out of print with the demise of publisher Tasty Minstrel Games.

I’ll try to get another issue of my free email newsletter out this upcoming week, before the draft drowns me in content.

I appeared on Seattle radio to discuss the Mariners’ farm system and possible draft picks this week, and talked mostly Orioles prospects and the draft with Ryan Ripken on his Youtube show.

And now, the links…

  • Longreads first: The Hollywood Reporter explains that Pixar’s Elio, which is on pace to be the studio’s biggest box-office flop ever, was stripped of some key thematic elements in what appears to be an attempt to remove queer-coded parts of the film and make the main character more “masculine.” The only Pixar films to fail to reach $100 million in domestic box office gross were the ones affected in some way by the pandemic (Onward, Luca, Soul, and Turning Red); Elio is at $49 million after two weeks, and saw a 44% decline from week 1 to week 2.
  • Futurism looked at incidents of “ChatGPT psychosis,” where people using the energy-hogging AI tool descend into madness, believing the software is telling them deep secrets about the universe or communicating from beyond the grave or other nonsense. There are no guardrails around these LLMs and clearly no will at the federal level to even consider them.
  • It was not a great week for the New York Times’ coverage of Zohran Mamdani, but this editorial by M. Gessen nails how Mamdani’s opponents cover their anti-Muslim bigotry in the veneer of claims that he’s antisemitic. Gessen points out that Mamdani is the only mayoral candidate who has spoken about real antisemitism and the costs it imposes on Jews in New York and beyond.
  • A couple of rich homeowners in King County decided that some very old trees were blocking their view, so they had the trees cut down. Except the trees were on public land, and no one is taking responsibility for the actual destruction.

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→ July 2, 2025
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Music update, June 2025.

I don’t mean for these playlists to keep getting longer, but they just keep putting out great music – I end up cutting a few tracks every month to avoid them reaching three hours. This month’s has 34 songs and runs two hours, eleven minutes, with two of the year’s best albums released in June as well.

As always, if you can’t see the playlist below, you can access it here. And if you have a streaming service beyond the majors that you like, throw it in the comments.

Little Simz feat. Michael Kiwanuka – Lotus. The title track from Little Simz’s latest album is the jewel in this particular crown, an eclectic, ambitious record that seethes with indignation. The rapper loaned $2.2 million to her longtime friend, collaborator, and producer Inflo for the first-ever live SAULT concert, but he didn’t pay her back, causing her to be late on her taxes that year; she’s now suing him, and nearly every song and lyric on Lotus is in some way about her feelings of betrayal and hurt over the experience.  Other standout tracks include “Lion” (feat. Obongjayar), “Blood,” “Thief,” and “Blue” (feat. Sampha). Remind me never to piss her off.

Kate Nash – GERM. Nash’s new single is a spoken-word affair that attacks transphobes like J.K. Rowling by pointing out that there’s no actual evidence that trans women pose any risk to cis women, while these so-called ‘feminists’ ignore the actual harm done to all women by cis men.

Creeper – Headstones. The British goth-metal throwbacks released this thrashy lead single ahead of their next album, Sanguivore II: Mistress of Death, which is due out in late October.

Hotline TNT – The Scene. Hotline TNT’s Raspberry Moon was the second-best new album I heard in June, a big step forward for this rock band – I hate when they’re called shoegaze, that’s flat-out wrong and a misunderstanding of the term – with stronger melodies from their heavily-distorted guitars. Other standout tracks include “Julia’s War” and “Candle.”

Lord Huron – Bag of Bones. The fourth single released ahead of Lord Huron’s newest album, The Cosmic Selector Vol. 1, is the strongest one yet; the record comes out on July 18th.

Elbow – Timber. The four-song EP Audio Vertigo Echo is also part of the deluxe edition of Audio Vertigo, the album released last year that featured “Lover’s Leap.” All four tracks on the EP are solid, with “Adriana Again” the best of the set.

Calibro 35 – Reptile Strut. Thistrack from the Italian band funk-rock band sounds like Jethro Tull recorded the score for a 1960s spy film.

TAKAAT – Amidinin. TAKAAT is the band that backs up Mdou Moctar, and on their first EP as an independent act, they sound … well, a lot like Mdou Moctar’s music, just with a little less of the shredding. It’s still excellent.

WITCH – Queenless King. WITCH is one of the original Zamrock acts and returned in 2023 with their first album in 39 years, re-forming with a new lineup; they’re back again with Sogolo, released last month, with the same ebullient sound that melds 1970s psychedelic rock with traditional Zambian music. Only singer Emanuel “Jagari” Chanda remains from the original band, as the others all died from AIDS-related causes by 2001.

Sudan Archives – DEAD. Sudan Archives’ last LP Natural Brown Prom Queen was my #2 album of 2022; this is her first new music since then, although I can’t find any word of a new LP.

Emma-Jean Thackray – Weirdo. Thackray’s latest album, also called Weirdo, is largely a reflection on and document of her grief when her partner, producer Matthew Gordon, died unexpectedly in 2023. The record is similar in style to her last full-length, 2021’s Yellow, and despite the somber subject matter includes a lot of upbeat jazz/funk tracks, including this one and “Wanna Die.” I feel like Laufey gets a lot of the attention that should go to Thackray, whose music is more authentic to jazz but less poppy.

Nathan Salsburg – Ipsa Corpora (Excerpt). Salsburg’s latest album, Ipsa Corpora, is just one 40-odd minute track of him playing acoustic guitar, with nothing else, and it’s mesmerizing. I wasn’t familiar with him at all before finding this on the NPR new music playlist. This is just a two-minute excerpt from the back half of the album, and it includes one of my favorite sequences.

Suede – Trance State. The second track from Suede’s upcoming album Antidepressants continues in the dark post-punk vein of the previous single, “Disintegrate,” and I couldn’t be more excited for the full record. It feels like it’s squarely aimed at my age cohort, anyone who came of age as a music fan in the early 1980s.

Just Mustard – Pollyanna. Okay, this is real shoegaze. The Irish band’s last album, Heart Under, was also in my top 10 for 2022, as one of the purest distillations of the original shoegaze sound of the early 1990s, including some of its harsher elements. This track softens some of that, so vocalist Katie Ball is a little easier to hear above the music, but the result is that they sound a little more like Lush and less like MBV.

Steve Queralt feat. Emma Anderson – Lonely Town. Speaking of Lush, here’s their guitarist Anderson on another track from Ride bassist Queralt’s first solo album, Swallow,and it turns out when you mix Lush and Ride together you get a song that sounds like both bands. Weird.

World News – Don’t Want to Know. Dreamy jangle-rock from London. These guys look too young to be making music like this.

Lake Ruth – An Offering. Lake Ruth’s new album Hawking Radiation was inspired by Adrian Tchaikovsky’s novel Children of Time, the Heaven’s Gate suicide cult, and the art of Paul Klee, a diversity of sources that shows up in the music, which draws on psychedelic rock, electronica, and even some pop elements.

Sophia Stel – Everyone Falls Asleep in Their Own Time. Stel is a singer and electronic musician who released one EP last fall and is back with this single; it reminds me of Beth Orton, the better aspects of Sarah McLachlan’s music, even a little Tasmin Archer’s “Sleeping Satellite.”

Rocket – Crossing Fingers. This LA-based band took its name from the Smashing Pumpkins song, perhaps influenced by a desire to find the least SEO-friendly name possible, and their sound reflects that vein of early-90s alternative, guitar-driven rock. Think early Weezer, Helmet, Dinosaur Jr.

Mike Bankhead – Something that I Can’t Explain. Mike’s a longtime friend of the dish, long enough that I couldn’t even put a finger on when he started reading and commenting. He’s also a singer and bassist, and this alt-rock song is his first new track since 2023’s EP I Am Experienced.

flowerovlove – new friends. One of the weirder comments I’ve gotten on my music posts over the almost fifteen years that I’ve been writing them has been the claim that I dislike pop music. Like a lot of people, maybe most, I started out as a fan of pop music, and that’s still reflected in my playlists in music that reminds me of that era of pop. It has also made me wary of contemporary, big-label pop, because it’s so overproduced, but there’s plenty of good pop music out there if you’re willing to look a little harder for it. flowerovlove is a perfect example – she started out releasing her own music in the pandemic, and although she’s now signed to a major label, so far she hasn’t compromised her bedroom-pop sound.

Obongjayar – Gasoline. This song is from the soundtrack to F1, and continues the year of Obongjayar, as he released his second album Paradise Now in May and appears on two of the best tracks on Little Simz’s new LP. (Her appearance on his record, however, is its worst track. This song isn’t on his album but would fit quite well there with its mix of Afrobeat, electronic, and western pop traditions.

Young Fathers – Promised Land. Young Fathers did the entire soundtrack to 28 Years Later, most of which is background music rather than full-fledged songs. It also includes a reading of Rudyard Kipling’s poem “Boots.” “Promised Land” is its most traditional track, at least in line with the Mercury Prize winners’ typical output.

SPRINTS – Descartes. This Irish punk band’s second album, All That Is Over, is due outon September 26th, and this first single is one of their best tracks to date.

The Minus 5 – We Shall Not Be Released. Another friend of the dish, so to speak, as I interviewed Scott McGaughey on my old podcast and have met him and the other members of The Baseball Project. The two bands are touring together this fall.

Arc de Soleil – Sunchaser. Arc de Soleil is composer/producer Daniel Kadawatha, who does a pretty solid Khruangbin impression – as does Balthvs, who I nearly included on a playlist earlier this year. I don’t think any of these knockoffs are as good as Khruangbin, but they’re good enough to listen to in their own right, and the guitar melody here reminds of some of the better stuff from the brief heyday of guitar instrumental albums from when I was in high school/college.

Wavves – Spun. The riff at the start of this track reminds me a ton of Superdrag’s “Sucked Out the Feeling,” a song that I love until the chorus until it seems to try too hard to be edgy; then Nathan Williams shifts gears slightly for the second half of the song without losing that core melody. This is the title track from Wavves’ latest album, their first of new material since 2021.

The Beths – No Joy. The second single from the Beths’ upcoming album Straight Line was a Lie, due out on August 29th, isn’t one of my favorites from them, actually. The hook isn’t as good as those on their best singles, and I think the super-short lines in the verses take away from the wordplay in Elizabeth Stokes’ lyrics.

Jehnny Beth – Obsession. Jehnny Beth’s latest single is pure madness – cacophonous, disjointed, just glorious – and an excellent sign ahead of her new album You Heartbreaker, due out August 29th.

Puffer – Jimmy. Puffer are a Montréal-based punk band who seem to have a DIY ethos, recording and releasing their debut album, Street Hassle, themselves. They don’t have much of a previous footprint, just two EPs to their name prior to this record, but it’s great if you’re a fan of classic, old-school punk.

Lowen – Waging War Against God. This track is actually from Lowen’s 2024 album Do Not Go to War With the Demons of Mazandaran, a superb blend of doom and extreme metal with Persian music. It would have made my list of the best albums of the year had I heard it in time.

Tulip – Arabella. I linked to the Texas Monthly story on Tulip’s origins in a Saturday roundup earlier this month; they blend symphonic metal and death metal elements, slightly overproduced in my view, and I’ll give anyone who escapes from the sort of controlling religious environment they escaped some extra points.

Unleashed – Hold Your Hammers High. Unleashed is one of the pioneers of Swedish death metal, before the ‘melodic’ death metal movement that grew out of the Gothenburg scene … but this track, from Unleashed’s upcoming album Fire Upon Your Lands, sounds a lot like late-80s thrash with vocals that are more shouted than growled.

DRAIN – Nights Like These. DRAIN is a crossover thrash (meaning a blend of traditional thrash and hardcore punk) revival band from Santa Cruz, which makes sense given that sound’s deep roots in the San Francisco area (Metallica, Exodus, Testament, and Death Angel all came from that scene). The vocals are a bit death-growly for me, but the riffage behind them should satisfy fans of the genre.

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→ July 1, 2025
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Lloyd McNeil’s Last Ride.

Will Leitch’s Lloyd McNeil’s Last Ride is the heart-warming story of a police officer and divorced dad of an 11-year-old son who discovers he has terminal brain cancer and decides to die on the job so his son can get more cash in death benefits. It’s definitely the most enjoyable book you’ll read about dying of glioblastoma this year.

(Disclaimer: Will’s a friend – someone I’ve actually spent time with on multiple occasions – so there’s just no way I was going to be objective about this book. If I had disliked it, I just wouldn’t mention it at all, so bear in mind that this is one time you can actually accuse me of bias and be correct.)

Lloyd is a cop in Atlanta, the son of a decorated, hard-nosed, military-minded cop who was a sort of legend in the force himself until he died of a heart attack, possibly hastened by the case of a serial killer that he couldn’t solve. He learns at the very start of the book that his headaches are caused by an aggressive type of brain tumor called a glioblastoma that will kill him in a matter of months, and do so in ugly fashion as he starts to experience memory loss, extreme mood swings, and pain in his head he describes as “lightning bolts.” He doesn’t tell anyone at all about the diagnosis – not his son Bishop, his partner Anderson, his boss, his ex-wife, nobody but his doctor. He realizes that his life insurance policy isn’t going to do much for his son, paying for about a year of college if they’re lucky, and realizes that there are large payouts coming to any officer who dies in the line of duty, so he decides to find a way to do just that, only to learn that he’s a pretty good cop and not that good at the dying part.

Lloyd’s letters to his son, which he calls his ten edicts, are interspersed throughout the narrative and lend some gravity to the proceedings, which otherwise are quite jovial for a story about a guy with a time bomb in his brain and a gun at his hip. (To say nothing of his car, which is a weapon in its own right when Lloyd’s behind the wheel.) Those poignant interludes are an accurate reminder of every parent’s nightmare – that you won’t be there when your kid grows up to experience all of the big moments, to tell him how to change a tire or ask someone on a date, to answer the phone (or a text) when something’s wrong and they need their mom or their dad. The real genius of the book is that those moments aren’t sappy or maudlin, which they could so easily be. They read as honest and clear, probably clearer than any of us could really be if we sat down and thought too hard about what writing that kind of letters really meant, and as a result they hit some big emotional notes without dragging down what is otherwise a fast-paced novel with some great action sequences once Lloyd decides he has a literal death wish.

I would still rank Will’s first novel, How Lucky, as my favorite of the three, because I think its protagonist, Daniel, is such an incredible, compelling character, and I love the way the tension builds in that story. That’s not a knock on Lloyd McNeil’s Last Ride, as they’re different books with clearly different goals. There are even nods in this book to Will’s second book, The Time Has Come, that I won’t spoil, and a few other Easter eggs scattered here and there. I’d say Lloyd McNeil’s Last Ride is his most earnest book, but I feel like that word has morphed into a backhanded insult, like a pat on the head for a writer who’s mailed in the emotional stuff in most of their previous works. It’s very thoughtful, getting the details right in the important ways, and even in more trivial ways, like details of what an Atlanta cop’s daily routine might be like, that most readers wouldn’t even notice. (I only realized it after reading the acknowledgements.) It’s a novel with a big heart that earns your response through its honesty, with a strong main character and some levity to get you past the fact that the main character is staring death in the face from page one.

Next up: I actually finished Rita Bullwinkel’s gimmicky, Pulitzer-finalist novel Headshot last week and am reading Masashi Matsuie’s The Summer House.

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→ June 28, 2025
→ By

Stick to baseball, 6/28/25.

For subscribers to the Athletic this week, I had a scouting notebook on Jesus Made, Luis Peña, Trey Yesavage, and some Orioles and Brewers low-A prospects, and a post on the 2025 draft prospects who might be the first to reach the majors.

Over at Paste, I reviewed Conservas, a solitaire push-your-luck game that brings environmental sustainability into its victory conditions.

I also sent out another edition of my free email newsletter on Monday.

And now, the links…

  • Longreads first: The fast-fashion craze is a huge drain on the planet’s resources, although this Scientific American feature also examines some entrepreneurs fighting to make clothing more sustainable.
  • Kate Shemirani was a nurse in Britain who lost her license for spreading false information about COVID-19. Her anti-medicine insanity ran so deep that her 23-year-old daughter just died of a treatable cancer because her mother opposed her getting chemotherapy. Shemirani’s two sons blame their mother and are urging social media sites to crack down on misinformation.
  • Gregg Gonsalves writes in The Nation about the cowardice of Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a physician who voted to confirm RFK, Jr., knowing full well what the noted anti-vaccine crank would do as head of the HHS.
  • Harvard hired a researcher to examine the school’s historical ties to slavery … but when he found too many, they fired him.
  • Everything is bad – it’s just as terrible as you imagined and probably worse – but a three-judge panel struck down a Louisiana law requiring public schools to display the Ten Commandments. Your religion is yours; don’t force it on me or my kids or anyone but your own.
  • I really hesitate to share anything made by AI, but this satirical newscast is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in months.
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→ June 24, 2025
→ By

A History of the African-American People (Proposed) by Strom Thurmond.

A History of the African-American People (Proposed) by Strom Thurmond lives up to the absurdity of its name, although I’m not sure if it reaches whatever the goals of its authors, Percival Everett and his colleague James Kincaid, may have had in writing it. It’s an epistolary satire, written entirely in the form of letters and emails between those two, a foppish dandy named Barton Wilkes who works in Sen. Thurmond’s office, an editor at Simon & Schuster and his assistant, and others, as the plot to write the book of the title becomes increasingly convoluted and the behavior of several people involved becomes unhinged.

The aide to Sen. Thurmond, Barton Wilkes, is positively nuts, as I think is clear from the first few pages. He proposes the book to Simon & Schuster, arguing that Sen. Thurmond is uniquely qualified to opine on the subject of Black people in the United States since Civil War, in part because he was alive for pretty much all of that period. Somehow, he gets an editor, Martin Snell, interested in this preposterous proposal, possibly through some acquaintance with Snell’s assistant Juniper, and the project progresses far enough that Everett and Kincaid come in as ghost-writers. The plan is that Wilkes will send them the Senator’s notes and they’ll turn it all into a book somehow. Of course, the Senator’s actual involvement in or awareness of the project becomes an open question, Wilkes and Snell both appear to be perverts, Everett and Kincaid can’t stop sniping at each other, there’s a possibly mobbed-up rival editor at S&S, and somehow Juniper’s sister ends up part of the story, too.

The obvious target of the satire is Thurmond, who was Senator for about 120 years and spent most of that time pushing white nationalist ideas, particularly anything related to segregation. He split off from the Democrats after World War II, running for President in 1948 as a “States Rights Democratic” candidate and carrying four states. (Since then, only one third-party candidate has earned any electoral votes, another racist windbag, George Wallace, in 1968.) The Thurmond in this book is well aware that he’s about to die and wants to both set the record “straight” on his legacy and possibly grease his path into some sort of afterlife. Everett and Kincaid don’t want any part of whitewashing (pun intended) the Senator’s grim history, and it’s not like they’re getting much money from the project either, although it seems to offer some professional benefits to Kincaid within the story. (I wondered if he was even a real person, but he is, and his specialty is on the sexualization of children in Victorian literature and culture.) Thurmond’s an easy target and the two take him down rather efficiently, although they could obviously have spent even more time lampooning him as a sort of Foghorn Leghorn in Nazi garb and discussing the legacy of his legislative initiatives.

What I didn’t understand was all of the frippery around that part. Snell and Wilkes both seem to be sexual predators of a sort, and Juniper spends most of the novel trying not to become the victim of either of them. Juniper then finds himself farmed out to Vendetti, the editor who definitely does not have mob ties, a switch which ends up putting two people in the hospital. It’s not homophobic, and I’m not sure either Snell or Wilkes is ever identified as gay, but the authors seem to play these two men both trying to sleep with another young man for some kind of humor I didn’t exactly get.

In the end, this book also didn’t land for me, just like American Desert, although that had the benefit of a more coherent narrative and more of Everett’s brilliant prose. This book is comical, and has plenty of laughs, but mostly it’s just so unrealistic that you’ll wonder what we’re doing here.

Next up: I just finished my friend Will Leitch’s newest novel, Lloyd McNeil’s Last Ride, and started the last of this year’s Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalists, Rita Bullwinkel’s Headshot.

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→ June 21, 2025
→ By

Stick to baseball, 6/21/25.

For subscribers to the Athletic, I posted my annual ten-year redraft column, looking back at the 2015 class, along with the companion piece on the first-rounders who didn’t pan out. I also held a Klawchat on Thursday.

I have a free email newsletter and more people should sign up for it.

And now, the links…

  • This piece is from 2022, but I found it while looking into the band Tulip, whose latest single popped up on a Spotify playlist. Turns out their origin story is fascinating – the two leads were married to other people and members of a conservative evangelical church, then fell in love and were excommunicated. They left the church and formed a symphonic metal band.
  • ICE is trying to deport a Texas woman who is married to a U.S. citizen, arresting her when she returned to the mainland U.S. from her honeymoon in the Virgin Islands. Ward Sakeik is considered ‘stateless,’ as she was born a refugee and arrived in the U.S. on a refugee visa when she was 8. The federal government wants to deport her to Israel, even though she has never been there or in Palestine. This is not someone who arrived here illegally, or overstayed a visa, or committed a crime.
  • Two Michigan parents let their baby girl die of jaundice because they believed God would heal her. They’re going to prison, in part because they’ve said they’d do the same thing all over again. They belong to a Pentecostal church that preaches faith healing, but the church apparently doesn’t proscribe seeing doctors.
  • JK Rowling called the Scottish newspaper The National “anti-woman,” so the editor of the paper, Laura Webster, responded.
  • Stonemaier Games announced the summer release of their newest title, Vantage, an open-world, cooperative, exploration game where players have all crash-landed on a planet and can communicate with each other but can’t see anyone else’s locations or views.

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→ June 19, 2025
→ By

Klawchat 6/19/25.

Starting at 2 pm ET. My redraft of the 2015 MLB draft class and companion piece on the first-rounders who didn’t pan out are both up for subscribers to The Athletic.

Keith Law: Make a whole new religion. Klawchat.

Danny: Had really high hopes for Chance Adams and James Kapreilian. Kap the most talented Yankees pitching prospect in the last 15 years?
Keith Law: Good question. Probably the highest I ranked any Yankees pitching prospect in that span unless I’m forgetting someone way back. (I never bought the Adams hype. Reliever all the way.)

Chris: Hi Keith, I’m not sure there’s any point to the question “Should the Red Sox have traded Devers?” But it can be frustrating for fans to be told “the industry models have this contract as underwater” and “it saves them money in the long run” as justification for jettisoning the guy in his prime who made fans love the team in the first place, who sells the most jerseys, and who is the team’s best player. Do some of these front offices not understand what makes fans watch their team, and what sells tickets?
Keith Law: Yeah the industry models line … I’m not even sure where that came from, who’s feeding that nonsense to writers, but it’s kind of meaningless without a shit ton of context they don’t provide. Underwater for one team could be above for another. Any projections of financial return have wide error bars around expected player performance and the expected value of production, which in turn depends on the expected playoff status of the team. But to your main point, any FO that cites a contract being underwater as the reason fans should like a trade is completely missing the point. Fans want to win. Fans don’t care about that belt that MLB used to give whoever did best in arbitration.

Fred: Any concern in the number of pitches thrown in that recent college no hitter?
Keith Law: A longtime scout texted me after it ended to ask what the heck the Razorbacks were doing. Wood missed six weeks this spring with shoulder inflammation; that’s not the kid to push a little harder (119 pitches is high, but not a number I’d automatically call out as excessive) in a high-stress game. He’s a first-rounder if someone clears the medical. Does the added effort of those last 10-20 pitches add to his risk of injury in the short term – or maybe make his predraft MRI worse?

Teddy: How often do you look back at past drafts and say, “Wow, I guess that team really did/didn’t know what they were doing?”   How many years after a draft takes place before a fan base gets to be judgmental about their team’s performance?
Keith Law: So, Teddy-Heather-Jackie-JJ … you submitted at least four questions under different names. Don’t do that. It’s weird.
Keith Law: To answer your question, I’d say after five years, you have a pretty good idea of what picks worked or didn’t, but it takes more like 8-10 to write the whole story of a draft. By that point the HS picks are in their peak-production years, so we should be able to form a coherent opinion on who did well.

Yakety Sox: Thanks for doing this, Keith. Where are you on Logan Henderson, these days? Did his brief stint earlier this year change anything about your opinion of him? Still a back end starter or something more now?
Keith Law: Still a back-end starter – I don’t see the breaking ball he’d need to be more – but he’s one right now.

Danny: Off the top of your head, is Carlos Lagrange the Yankees best pitching prospect/2nd best prospect? Any idea what injuries Ben Hess and Bryce Cunningham are dealing with?
Keith Law: No, I would still have him behind those two unless one of them has a serious injury.

Jim: So, how long until Congress and the Felon-in-Chief rescind today as a Federal Holiday?
Keith Law: I’m surprised they haven’t done so already.

JoRo: Thank you Keith for all your top notch analysis! What has happened to Keibert Ruiz & Francisco Alvarez? Have you listened to the latest Psychedelic Porn Crumpets album?
Keith Law: Listened to the PPC album – it’s good but not that memorable, if that makes sense. I would never object to someone putting it on, but couldn’t tell you a favorite song or anything. I still think Alvarez is going to hit and hit for some real power – he’s only 23 and I firmly believe in the axiom that catchers take longer to develop. Ruiz may just not be that good; he certainly isn’t an average catcher and the power he’s flashed at times in the majors (~2023) or minors just isn’t there enough.

Nick: Between Zazueta and Liñan, which Dodger pitcher has the brighter star in your book, and does either have the chance to be a mid-rotation starter or better?
Keith Law: Zazueta projects as a starter; Liñan is more likely a reliever than a starter. Not sure if I’d go mid-rotation on Zazueta yet.

droopydave: You put out a notice against RFK a few months ago.  But are you on-board with removing the artifical dies in our food? Sounds like a good thing.
Keith Law: That’s the problem with it – it sounds like a good thing, but isn’t it just chemophobia in a cheap suit? “Artificial” doesn’t mean bad or harmful, but RFK Jr and his army of wellness grifters and science deniers say it is, using the appeal to nature. (Although they also attack seed oils, which are perfectly safe and often healthful, and those are natural.) If there is actual evidence a food additive is harmful, then ban it. In the absence of actual, firm evidence, then let consumers decide. If you want to eat “all natural,” that’s your prerogative. I mean, Amanita bisporigera are all natural too. I’m gonna pass on that one.

Kip: Thanks for doing these. Has Didier Fuentes moved into Atlanta’s top five? Do you have the same projection (mid-rotation starter in a few more years) as you did earlier this year?
Keith Law: I haven’t looked much at all into reordering any team’s internal rankings but I do still see Fuentes as a potential mid-rotation starter. It’s three real pitches and the splitter looks like it’s going to keep getting LHB out for him.

Finnegan: If the Nats were allowed to trade the #1, what one player would be a fair trade for both teams?
Keith Law: It should be an All-Star caliber player, right? You get to take whoever you think is the best player in the draft and pay him less than $11 million to control his rights for six-plus years of service, in all of which he’ll probably be further underpaid. If that guy is going to generate 25 WAR before free agency, which is on the low side, what’s that worth? a 2000% return?

Justin: In your Mets list, you mentioned “it’s bizarre that he doesn’t miss more bats with this arsenal.”  That appears to have continued this year.  Any further understanding here?  I’m wondering if there’s something weird about his repertoire that gears more toward weak contact than toward whiffs.  58 gb%!  Overall would you say that he’s made strides this year to the tune of being a top 100ish prospect?
Keith Law: um … who’s that about?

Campbell: So, Kristian Campbell is a terrible fielder at second base — not his fault, since he wasn’t a second baseman in the minors.  It took one day at the Major League level before Roman Anthony had to (rather publicly) get tutored by Alex Cora on how to field ground balls in the outfield.   Do the Red Sox have a problem with the minor league fielding instruction?  Or do they just not care about fielding in general?
Keith Law: well, I’d say calling up a player to play a position he doesn’t know how to play is questionable personnel management, at least. But I also know that across much of baseball, minor league development is more focused on hitting than fielding.

Justin: Josue De Paula doesnt look like he should be fast, but he has 19 stolen bases.   I certainly don’t expect him to have a 40 SB pace in the majors someday or anything, but is there enough speed and savvy there for, idk, 20 per season?
Keith Law: I don’t think so. It’s below-average speed. Minor league stolen base totals can be kind of skewed by pitchers who can’t/don’t hold runners, catchers who can’t throw, etc.

Justin: I can’t help but be more impressed by Samuel Basallo’s season than Roman Anthony’s.   A .336 ISO from a 20 yr old in AAA just *feels* wild and special. Do you think he gets the call soon?   Itd probably be naive to think he’ll thrive in the majors, but do you think he can at least survive there yet to the tune of, idk, a 95 wrc+ once space is created?
Keith Law: I like that you’re being realistic here … there’s such an assumption that every elite hitting prospect is going to bang right away, even though most of them don’t. Cam Smith’s rookie season is even more impressive if you compare him to higher-drafted or higher-ranked guys this year who are struggling with the same competition he’s hitting. And yes, I think a 90-95 wRC+ from Basallo is a reasonable expectation, especially since he understands the strike zone and has legit power.

Danny: Any dope on the Yankees’ pick at 39? Impossible to predict who they’ll take (or will be available) but any sustained interest in prep shortstop class?
Keith Law: No dope there, sorry. Just a wild guess, but Cooper Flemming sure seems like their flavor.

Justin: The Pirates hired a consulting firm to come up with the Ben Cherington hire 5+ years ago.  At the time, that gave me some confidence that the ship would be steered in the right direction. Here we are in year 6 of a rebuild, and the Pirates seem to have year-3-of-a-rebuild level talent. Obviously some of this is Bob Nutting’s fault, but what happened here?   Shouldn’t an average GM be able to lose on purpose for 5 years and then come out on the other end with more talent than he knows what to do with?
Keith Law: Ownership needs to take a large portion of the responsibility there. They’ve also done some things really well, especially in pitching development. Their hitting development hasn’t been as successful, and I think that’s overshadowing a lot of things. Is Termarr Johnson, owner of one of the most widely praised hit tools in the last five drafts at least, failing to develop on scouting, on player development, or just on him? Henry Davis, who hit absolutely everywhere through AAA – is that a function of asking him to play RF in his debut, irregular playing time since, or were we just wrong about his bat? And so on. It’s complicated. I can say “they haven’t churned out enough hitters” but when you dig a little deeper I don’t see a consistent trend to point to

JoeRo: Keith- will see the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp this weekend. Anyone I should keep an eye out for?
Keith Law: Joe Mack. Not a ton else. I’m not a big Deyvison de los Santos believer.

Aaron C.: How do you watch baseball when you’re at home? Let’s say a top prospect is called up and you want to check him out. On in the background while you cook dinner? Check out his at bats the next morning on the app over coffee?
Keith Law: I’ll watch live on mlb.tv or, if he’s in the minors, sometimes wait a day or two till it’s in Synergy and I can just watch all of his pitches/swings in a row.

Aaron C.: I’ve sent your top 50 pizza list to lots of folks who love them some pizza and it got me wondering: what’s the single most disappointing pizza you’ve ever eaten? The one that you were SO looking forward to, but for whatever reason, it broke your cold, dark Klaw heart.
Keith Law: See? two questions from the same user and the same name and I still answered both. Santarpio’s – hyped for years, it’s maybe average. Also they’re cash only and doing that in 2025 is sus.
Keith Law: Also Taconelli’s in Philly. Revered by locals. It’s fine.

James: Can you expand on choosing Bregman over Tucker? Bregman seems close to washed and Tucker seems like a top 5 MVP guy for years to come
Keith Law: Bregman’s at ~3 WAR this year. Close to washed?

Chris: With Emmet Sheehan returning from TJ last night, what is his ceiling?
Keith Law: I’ve always thought reliever over starter but you have to give him a shot to start with that stuff.

Justin: Let’s say a team has a lot of interesting pitching and has at least a little bit of evidence of developing it well.  Let’s say they are terrible at developing hitting.  Would they be better off drafting a pitcher that they’ve shown an ability to develop, and then maybe trade away any eventual pitching excess, or taking the hitter who is hopefully good enough to transcend their bad hitting development?  This is a philosophical general question, but also a Pirates question.
Keith Law: Yes. It’s the law of comparative advantage. You just have to believe that the trade market will exist when you need it to – that market is not as fluid as, say, real-world commodities markets are.

Kip: I’m not confident Hurston Waldrep will even be able to succeed as a late-inning reliever. Is there any hope for him?
Keith Law: They haven’t tried him in relief yet. I’d like to see if that helps at all before throwing in the towel. The splitter is still an out pitch.

Guest: Since you’ve often said that nobody reads the intro (!), have you endeavoured to put easter eggs or inside jokes in there?!?
Keith Law: I do in articles sometimes. A few people catch them but most people fly right past them.

Jim: Hey Keith, is it me, or did Davey Martinez’ “it’s not the coaches” presser sound like someone waiting for the axe to fall.  And, should it fall?  Thanks!
Keith Law: I don’t know if he’s the real reason they’re so bad right now, but that speech was ill-advised. “Fuck them players” is not the way to keep your job.

Larry: Odds Gavin Fien gets to the Dbacks pick at 18? I really like him and he seems like their type of player.
Keith Law: I think 50% chance or better.

Corey: Are the Rockies bad at drafting, developing, or both? Some of their picks seemed right at  the time, but it seems like most of them failed to turn into anything substantial
Keith Law: They have been bad at developing for some time now, but I know they have made some significant changes since Bill Schmidt took over as GM, and I see signs of hope. Also, please send Charlie Condon to AA already. He’s got a .491 OBP in A+. Several of his draft mates are in the majors!

Aaron C.: In a recent chat, someone asked if Druw Jones might be considered a bust and IIRC you said (paraphrased) he was trending that way. Who’s the player(s) who approached the absolute brink of “bust” for you, but still salvaged even a half-way decent MLB career?
Keith Law: Devin Mesoraco. Two-plus years in, he was a non-prospect.

Ryan: With the Dbacks having a pretty large hole in CF, and Caldwell being at least a couple years away, do you think they’d entertain the idea of moving Lawlar to center?
Keith Law: I have never heard anyone suggest that. I know they see Lawlar as a shortstop, although with Perdomo there I’m not sure how they’ll reconcile the two.

Campbell: Has there been a prospect you specifically wanted to watch play in person, and didn’t have to leave the state of Delaware to do it?
Keith Law: We have a high-A team right here in Wilmington, so that happens all the time. If you mean draft guys, Kevin McGonigle played at the Wilmington stadium in his draft year, although that only saved me a 40-minute drive.

Jackie Daytona: Which cubs prospect would you be looking to flip for pitching if you were Jed?
Keith Law: Caissie.

Ollie: What can you tell me about two Dbacks prospects in the AZL guys who have had great starts- Enyervert Perez and JD Dix?
Keith Law: Dix is the better of the two. Had a scout tell me he thought Dix might be their best draft pick from last year, which is really saying something. Perez has legit power, not sure about the hit tool or ultimate position.

A Salty Scientist: Scouting the statline, but Chase Burns looks really exciting with the K and BB numbers. Like even more exciting statlines than Bubba and Painter. What does he need to still work on? Are the BB numbers control over command at this point?
Keith Law: Fastball is still very true, and he needs to throw his changeup a lot more.

TJ: In hindsight, would the Cubs have been better off keeping Smith and Paredes? Tucker has been awesome, but those two are having solid years and Smith looks like a future star.
Keith Law: A good bit of Paredes’s success this year is the home park – he’s got a decent home/road split. and I think Tucker’s actually been a little unlucky based on the batted-ball data. I’d accept an argument that giving up six years of Smith for one of Tucker is going to turn out to be a bad move.

Chris: Best baseball player ever?
Keith Law: Barry Bonds.

JJ: Did you know Mr. Peanut’s first name was Keith?
Keith Law: I didn’t because it’s not. Weird.

James: What’s keeping Anthony Volpe from making the leap to above average regular? Could the same be said about Chourio?
Keith Law: The power he flashed in AA – and what I projected from that – hasn’t come to fruition yet. Still some time for that.

davealden53: Is there a rules-based solution to the increased pitchers injuries or is this just what the future of baseball will be?
Keith Law: We need to discourage pitchers from throwing max-effort on most or all pitches. Reducing the size of pitching staffs might address that, so that pitchers have to pace themselves more as they know they’ll likely stay in the game longer … but will they do so? Will more guys get hurt in the short term from working through fatigue because we’ve never developed them to throw 100-110 pitches as a starter or 30-40 pitches as a multi-inning reliever?

Taylor: My fridge went out and my food went bad. I’m in Chandler AZ. What should I have for lunch?
Keith Law: is Chou’s still there? That’s the easy pick.

Jay: So, are we about to join the war?
Keith Law: you mean start a war?

Brian: Hi Keith, I know you saw Reading not that long ago. You didn’t write anything about Keaton Anthony, and while I know he’s never really been much of a prospect, he’s just hit at every level—Including 4 doubles & a .917 OPS in his first 7 games at AAA. Is it just a college kid who won’t be able to handle major league pitching?
Keith Law: Yeah, I don’t see more than an emergency call-up.

Paul: if you were picking for the Nats at the top of this draft, what direction would you go in?
Keith Law: Probably Doyle. You could talk me into Holliday.

Ben: Your thoughts on the Cards’ Rainiel Rodriguez? Are we looking at a future top 50 prospect?
Keith Law: answered that in a previous chat … maybe is the best I can do for you.

Kevin: If you are the Red Sox, would you potentially trade Arias for a bat like Brent Rooker, given there may not be a spot for Arias in the MLB infield anytime soon
Keith Law: No. I think Arias is too good for that.

Alek: Is there a world in which Daylen Lile is a solid every day guy? What else does he need to do? He passes the eye test so far in the majors and raked in the high minors at just 22.
Keith Law: The best chance of that happening is if he’s a +5 RAA or better CF. Otherwise I don’t think he has the juice to be an everyday guy. I saw him a lot in Wilmington, and while he’s a little better hitter now than he was here, the power isn’t there.

TJ: The Angels lineup has two players hitting above .270 and 6/9 (not nice) players with OBP’s less than .300, including two below .200. Is it that hard to field replacement level players?
Keith Law: It’s not, but you have to draft better than they have – and I’d extend that to say you have to let your amateur scouts do their jobs in full and take players who might need more time to reach the majors.

Rich: Klaw you rule. You seeing any specific themes or reasons behind the Yanks dip in player Dev (position players especially) last couple of years?  Seems a lot of guys (Lombard aside) have just stalled. Is it approach?  Profile of who they take?  Player dev lacking?  All of the above?
Keith Law: How so? I mean that sincerely – who’s not developing who should have? They’ve got a nice stable of arms coming, spread now between A+ and AA, and a couple of really solid bats. I didn’t like the Spencer Jones or Trey Sweeney picks, so I’m not surprised neither of them has panned out, but in Jones’s case I understand the logic (it’s 80 power and a plus athlete). I just didn’t think he could hit. And they’ve done an excellent job getting the most out of some lower-round picks of pitchers, polishing them into guys who are good enough to trade or use as up/down starters.

Troy: The Miz seems unlikely to make it as a starter. Closers are nice, but I always felt Hader was more valuable as a 2-3 inning fireman whatever stretch of the game was needed. Is there a reason teams don’t try elite relief guys in such a role. I feel Miz would fit well in that role.
Keith Law: I agree, but a guy who gives you 150 innings as a low-volume starter is probably still going to be more valuable than a 75-inning reliever.

Alek: Saw kiley had kade anderson1/1 to wash….have you heard any connection there?
Keith Law: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6417805/2025/06/12/mlb-mock-draft-202…

David: Is the long-term plan to leave Mayer at third if/when Bregman opts out? Is Story going to stay at short or will he be the guy that moves? What are they doing with Campbell and Rafaela? Make it make sense please!
Keith Law: Mayer should be at short. He also should be in AAA … last I looked he was whiffing on breaking stuff more than half the time. They called him up before he made any adjustment to that firm front side.

James: I don’t follow college baseball at all, but love when non P4 schools do well. Any real prospects on Coastal Carolina or Murray State? Looks like a lot of older players
Keith Law: Caden Bodine, Coastal’s catcher, could go in the late first. No one on Murray State. And I’m with you – 100% rooting for the Chanticleers here.

Nick R: Would love to know what you’re hearing about Ms at 3?
Keith Law: Same as above – I published a mock draft just a week ago. It’s all in there.

Rich: Speed at which teams getting guys to majors after draft surprising you last couple of years?
Keith Law: No. There’s a strong financial incentive to do so, and the best college competition is good preparation for AA.

Rich: With all pitchers seeming to be ticking time bombs, are the Pirates just been foolish is wasting Chandler’s arm/pitches in minors at this point?
Keith Law: At this point I would probably just call him up, although I know they’re still working on the breaking stuff.

James: Should the Pirates have pitched Skenes vs. Skubal because it gives them a better chance to win and something fun to do in a miserable season?
Keith Law: I’m surprised MLB didn’t lean on the two teams to get their act together.

Zac: If you were the Tigers, would you move Clark and Mcgonigle to AA? Clark has struggled a bit lately, but I feel like they’re ready.
Keith Law: I would have moved them up Sunday night.

J: Hi. Wouldn’t normally ask a question like this, but i was recently informed that Andrew Heaney, Dennis Santana, and IKF for Jordan Lawlar was a reasonable trade and not an offer of 3 journeymen gotten for free having good years that Mike Hazen would laugh at. Please clarify.
Keith Law: Had I had a drink in front of me, I would have spit it out.

Jay: Are we about to go to war? Without congressional approval?
Keith Law: I can’t imagine Republicans would go for such a blatant abuse of executive power, Jay. What are you even thinking?

J: Feel like most teams Harry Ford would be up around now, but he’s in a weird spot. Feels like a trade likely, but what do you think most likely course of action with him?
Keith Law: Would be up to play where, though?

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: Been to Long Island recently?  Looking for some new food recommendations.
Keith Law: Last time I was there was to see Sean Newcomb pitch at Stony Brook. It’s been a while.

Jason: Odds the brewers could have 3-4 top 20 prospects going into next year with Made, Pena, Pratt, Quero? Also, do you see Pena moving a bit faster than Made, though with less upside?
Keith Law: Odds of 3-4 in the top 20 are probably zero.

Izzy: Is Iron Maiden the best heavy metal band ever?
Keith Law: Yes. What’s the question, though?

Izzy: How has Mookie looked at SS this year? I’ve seen some metrics that say he’s been top 5, but then asked Eric L at FG and he said Mookie’s arm was weak and gave him a 45 grade. Where are you?
Keith Law: I haven’t seen anywhere near enough of him to offer a subjective opinion. I don’t watch as much MLB stuff because I’m typically watching minors or amateurs in the spring.

Anxiety on LI: This time next year best chance at top prospect overall:  Made, Pena, Griffin, other
Keith Law: Other.

Jason: Has your projection Eduardo Quintero changed? How much of his power this year been a product of where he’s playing?
Keith Law: Rancho has always been a great place to hit, but he’s actually hitting much better on the road, in neutral parks. K% is a little higher than you’d like but it’s a great season. Does it change my projection … I don’t think so?

Evan F.: Any winners from the MLB Combine this week?
Keith Law: It’s only about the interviews, really. I’m not there – I’ll talk to scouts after it’s over.
Keith Law: I have never seen the point of going, since most of the good prospects don’t play in the games there.

Brian: Any thoughts on why the Phillies have been so bad at developing both hitters and relievers? Kerkering and Conor Brogdon are really it since Hector Neris debuted in 2014 & Rhys Hoskins is probably the only above average bat they’ve developed since the core of the 2008 team.
Keith Law: I have long believed that you develop relievers by bringing in a lot of starters and letting them sort themselves out. I don’t feel like they’ve done a ton of that – and they’ve also traded a lot of prospects away, too.

StanleyHudson: Are Painters recent struggles at AAA concerning? Do you see him as a legit future #1? Best current/past MLBer comparison? Thanks Klaw, love your chats!
Keith Law: They’ve got him using the slider heavily, and it’s probably his worst pitch. The numbers are worse as a result, so that doesn’t bother me, but I don’t get forcing the slider on him when the CB is plus and the FB plays.

James: I get that Skenes is a generational talent and it would be a PR nightmare to trade him. But given that he’s one pitch away from TJ, isn’t the smarter play to trade him if you can get a current MLB starter, a potential future MLB starter and three likely field players given how bad their offense is? Horton, Wiggins, Alcantara, Caissie and Rojas? Wouldn’t that make them a much better club both now and in the future?
Keith Law: Could you ever really get full value for what he brings to the franchise? Not just on-field value, but as the centerpiece, someone fans will pay to see.

Darren: I know you hate Delauter (a joke of course) but, given the hole in RF in Cleveland, he should be up pretty damn soon you’d like to think?!
Keith Law: Yes – if he’d been healthy he would probably have been up in April.

John: Isn’t it in teams’ best interest to leave players in the minor leagues for as long as possible?  Why put Roman Anthony (or Bryce Harper or Juan Soto) on a fast track through the minors, and then lose him to free agency just as they hit their presumed physical prime?  Instead, the players get rushed through the minors (where many are not learning the defensive half of the game at all), and their prime physical years are played for the guy’s second team, not the team that drafted him.
Keith Law: The point of developing prospects is to get their value on the field in the majors. If you hold a guy down for service-time reasons, then you’re not reaping any benefits from his bat/arm when he’s ready. You’re betting on a highly uncertain return six or seven years in the future over a more certain return now.

Jib: Is Joshua Baez doing what you thought he might be able to do? Or is this a testament to the Cardinals shift to actually growing their player development program? Or both?
Keith Law: I’m cautiously optimistic on that one, and very much crediting it to the new PD folks.

Bobo: Will Andrew Bailey tell Kyle Harrison to throw his slider more?
Keith Law: The true slider? I hope so. Not the slurvy one. Or help him try to alter its shape.

James: Have you tried Tribute Pizza in San Diego? Bianco level
Keith Law: No but it’s on my list.

Mike: Who is the most talented player of the past 10 years that won’t make the hall of fame? First thought is Byron Buxton but wanted your take.
Keith Law: He is the Eric Davis of our era.

zoor: Kevin McGonigle on #1 prospect watch ?
Keith Law: Yes.
Keith Law: That’s a guy more likely to be #1 in January than any of the other three in the question above where I said “Other.”

Justin: sorry, the question about the Met with stuff that lagged the K’s was about Nolan McLean.
Keith Law: ahhh … yeah, that trick can work if he cuts the walk rate. Great athlete with limited pitching experience so I see more growth than usual for his age.

Guest: The Mets have 4 players for two positions, 2B & 3B. Mauricio, Baty, Vientos, and Acuna. Who do they trade, start, or demote?
Keith Law: Mauricio for sure. More likely Vientos than Baty.

Darren: Alfonsin Rosario is having a good year. Is the swing and miss showing enough improvement to get excited about him? Is he ready for the AA test yet?
Keith Law: It’s not, just talked to a guy who saw him and isn’t buying that it’s real improvement.

Bobo: do you think the Giants should commit to Devers at 1B and start giving Eldridge reps in RF?
Keith Law: No, Eldridge has had enough issues at 1B that I wouldn’t try a harder position with him.

Dylan: How far away was Slade Caldwell from making your updated top 50?
Keith Law: About four inches.

Woodsy: Did you happen to read Joon Lee’s piece about the Red Sox’ front office dysfunction and highly questionable AI hiring practices?
Keith Law: Oh, I did. Corporate culture really matters, especially given how much baseball asks of scouts and coaches and how little they’re paid.

Sean: Looks like Fuentes is getting called up to start this weekend against Miami.
Keith Law: Of course he is. I’m surprised they didn’t pluck someone from the complex league.

Woodsy: What’s on your Mount Rushmore for cocktails?
Keith Law: Good one to end on. The Last Word. Manhattan. True daiquiri. Dark & Stormy. Honorable mention to Naked & Famous. And if it’s made with a good vermouth I still love a Negroni and many of its variations.
Keith Law: Thanks for all of the questions, and a happy Juneteenth to all of you. Next Big Board update is scheduled for July 1st or 2nd, and then it’ll be mock drafts from there on out. Stay safe!

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→ June 14, 2025
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Stick to baseball, 6/14/25.

For subscribers to the Athletic this week, I published my second mock draft of 2025 and held a Q&A that afternoon. I also posted a minor-league scouting notebook on Travis Sykora, Carson Benge, and a few others from that Nats-Mets high-A game. I did see Trey Yesavage’s double-A debut this week but am holding off until I get to at least one more game somewhere so I have enough for a column (Aidan Miller didn’t play in that game so it was really light on prospects).

I appeared on Kauffman Corner with Soren Petro and Rany Jazayerli to talk about the Jac Caglianone callup, the Royals’ 2024 draft, and briefly about this year’s draft class as well.

You can subscribe to my free email newsletter for more content from me, which I’ve sent out three times in a month, not quite at my goal of returning to weekly issues but getting closer!

And now, the links…

  • This was the week for lazy columns saying that Bluesky is “failing” or something similar despite the platform passing 35 million users and publishers saying repeatedly they’re seeing better engagement there than on Twitter. This blog post on Tedium does a solid job of reacting to those columns without overreacting, making what I think is the key argument: it’s about community, and what Bluesky has in its favor right now is a sense of community that’s been absent from other social media sites for some time.
  • NYPD Chief of Department John Chell pleaded guilty in 2013 to departmental charges of misconduct, but that undersells it – he committed tax fraud by using a false identity to hide money he took in from a side hustle. It’s at least the 11th investigation into his actions since he joined the force. He’s the highest-ranking uniformed official in the NYPD. Why is he still employed?
  • A Texas man has been charged in a case where he poisoned his pregnant girlfriend with abortion pills. The charges aren’t related to her, though; he’s only been charged with murder for the death of the fetus. The girlfriend’s life and body don’t matter. Texas has a religious-based “fetal personhood” law, under which Justin Banta, who works for the U.S. Department of Justice, has been charged.
  • Wikipedia toyed with putting AI-generated summaries atop some of its articles, but pulled them down after a strong negative response from editors on the site. I don’t even care why they did it – we don’t need AI-generated stuff everywhere and too few people are talking about its environmental cost.
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→ June 12, 2025
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American Desert.

I guess it was inevitable that I’d eventually find a Percival Everett novel I didn’t love. I wouldn’t say I hated or even disliked American Desert, but it is my least favorite of the nine Everett novels I’ve read so far, primarily because what happens between the shocking opening and the superb conclusion is so disjointed.

Ted Street is a professor at USC who is married with two kids, often unfaithful, and about to be denied tenure. On his way to walk into the ocean to kill himself, his car is hit by a UPS driver, and he is decapitated. In the middle of his funeral, three days later, he sits up in his coffin – his head reattached by a clumsy mortician – and starts talking. Chaos ensues, Ted becomes a media sensation, and he finds himself stalked by religious nuts and government operatives. He also begins to see his own life with much greater clarity, and discovers that by touching someone he can see into their memories, which becomes one of the main ways he navigates his way out of trouble … which is how he spends most of the novel, as he’s hounded by all of those groups and just wants to get back to his family.

The premise of American Desert isn’t entirely new, but it’s still a strong start: If someone appears to truly come back from the dead three days later, there’s going to be a huge public reaction to it, from fascination to terror, from religious fervor to scientific inquiry, and media there to try to make a buck off it. It opens up questions about mind-body dualism, life after death, the meaning (or lack thereof) of life, and more. You’d get people claiming he was the Second Coming, and probably people trying to kill him, and every scientist and crackpot in the world would want a look.

Everett hits all of those points, more or less, with varying degrees of success. The main problem with American Desert is that his focus on sending up his targets in religion, science, and the government subsumes and ultimately overwhelms Ted, who becomes more of a pawn within the story than he should be. His character is inherently interesting, but the story doesn’t get very deep into his character, particularly the question of what, if anything, this second chance at life means for him. He recognizes that his first life was a series of screw-ups, and now he has not just a fresh (okay, perhaps a poor choice of words for an animated corpse) start, but he also sees the world, including his own life, very differently.

This a mild spoiler, although the book is twenty years old so I’m not too concerned, but one of the most fundamental issues with the construction of American Desert is that Ted is barely with his family in the book – in fact, his wife and kids end up going to Catalina Island for a weekend after he’s been kidnapped, leading to a whole separate and very uninteresting subplot around the three of them and Ted’s sister-in-law. The dynamic of a man returned from the very, unequivocally dead to his family, with a literal new lease on life, where he is fully aware of the harm he’s perpetrated and ways in which he’s failed his wife, kids, and himself would be fascinating. In the process of satirizing various institutions, however, Everett largely skips this part entirely. It made for a book that moved quickly, with lots of plot, but without the depth that characterizes all of the other eight of his novels I’ve read so far.

Next up: Dr. Susan David’s Emotional Agility.

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→ June 9, 2025
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Masters of Renaissance.

Masters of Renaissance might be the game that finally kills Gizmos for me, as it scratches the same itch but is more balanced overall, without a dominant strategy (which is a common but not unanimous complaint about Gizmos) to cut the value of repeat plays. It’s the card-game version of a heavier worker placement game called Lorenzo il Magnifico, which was designed by three of the top Italian designers in the field who are responsible in part for games like Egizia and Tzolk’in, among others. Masters has an extremely satisfying resource management aspect along with simple victory conditions that capture some of the vibe of the original while putting it in a much more accessible package. (Right now it’s only available used in the U.S., such as here from Noble Knight, but it’s available new in Europe, with publisher Cranio selling it for €32.)

In Masters of Renaissance, players will gather four resources to buy development cards from the 3×4 card market. Each player has three columns for those cards, which come in levels 1, 2, and 3; you can only build a level 2 card on a level 1 card, and a level 3 on a level 2. Each development card has a color, a cost in resources, and an action that will be available for the rest of the game.

On your turn, you can choose to take resources from the resource market, which is also a 3×4 grid; to acquire a card; or to activate the visible cards in your play area. The market is one of the best parts of the game: it has 12 marbles sitting in a little plastic tray, with one marble always left out (so sad). To take resources, you pick a row or a column, take the resources matching those marbles’ colors, and then use the 13th marble to push the row/column so that one marble falls out, changing the market for the next player. There are marbles for the four resources, one red marble that lets you advance on the faith track, and white marbles that have no value (unless you get a card that says otherwise).

You only have six spots to store resources you take from the market, however, and if you end up with any resources you can’t store, every opponent moves up one spot on their faith tracks for every resource you have to discard. Your storage has three rows that can hold 1, 2, or 3 resources of one type, and you can’t store the same resource type in two rows. It’s a very tight constraint that I find makes decision-making easier because some moves are just so obviously bad that you can eliminate them from consideration. The storage limit doesn’t apply to resources you get from activating cards, though. Buying a card is just a matter of paying the appropriate resources and placing the card in one of your three columns; if you buy a level 2 or 3 card, it covers up the card below it except for its victory point value.

Activation is the most powerful action, and if you’re savvy about the cards you acquire, you can build a potent little engine even though you’ll never have more than three development cards active at any one time. Most cards let you convert one or more resources into other resources and/or faith points, and there are no cards that leave you worse off – at the very least you’ll swap one resource for another of a different type. Every player’s board has a default action of trading any two resources for one, useful if you can’t get the resource you really need for a future action.

Players also start the game with two Leader cards they may be able to play once they meet the cards’ conditions, which include having certain development cards in your play area, having at least X of a specific resource, or reaching a certain level on the faith track. These leaders are worth additional victory points and most of them give you a new power, like an additional conversion action, a discount on future card purchases, or the ability to take another specific resource when you take a white marble (a double-edged sword given the storage limits).

The game ends when a player builds their seventh development card or reaches the end of the faith track. You then tally up your points from all played development cards, even if covered; any points from leaders; and the highest point total you’ve passed on the faith track. There are also some small bonus tokens on the faith track that you can flip to their scoring side through the call to the Vatican, which isn’t that complicated but which I won’t explain here for the sake of brevity.

I can’t avoid comparing Masters of Renaissance to Gizmos because the cores of the games are just so similar: gather resources in four types, use them to buy cards, use the cards’ powers to convert and/or gain more resources, score the cards for points. Masters of Renaissance can allow a player to run away with things, but it’s a matter of choosing the right cards and getting lucky with what cards are available in the market when you have the resources to buy them. Creating synergies across your cards and leaders is the key to winning, but that’s true for all players, and I haven’t found specific cards that are overpowered, not even the leaders. It doesn’t have the cute marble dispenser that Gizmos has, and it could use better art that made the icons and point values easier to see at a glance. Otherwise it hits every high note, and plays like its own game rather than the poor cousin of another game, which is true of a lot of card- or dice-game adaptations of heavier titles.

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