keith — Page 7

→ August 28, 2024
→ By keith

Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs.

I’m not a Gloomhaven guy, for a variety of reasons, but foremost among them is that I just don’t care for modern role-playing games. I did play a little pen-and-paper D&D in the 1980s, and got into several CRPGs, including the Bard’s Tale, before going all out on the Baldur’s Gate series. Those experiences cemented a style of RPG in my brain that’s hard to dislodge; if a modern RPG isn’t built on the same framework, it feels counterintuitive and slow to me.

Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs gives me that same feeling, although I do respect the cleverness of the design and the way it packs a lot of game into a tiny box. Based on a fan expansion for the massive, $120, 20-pound Gloomhaven tabletop RPG, Buttons & Bugs is a strictly solo endeavor that has 20 scenarios to play through where your character gains levels, skills, and items … but the combat system at the heart of the game is so clunky that it drove me kind of nuts. (It’s between printings, but you can pre-order the second printing here, with shipping expected in September.)

In Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs, your intrepid hero has been debiggified (my word, not theirs) to a miniature size and must fight through a series of adventures to get back to some kind of final boss that will reverse the curse and make you full-sized again. The battles will increase in difficulty, and your character will gain some new skill cards, better items, and a very modest number of hit points as the game progresses.

The combat system revolves around cards, and I don’t care what Gloomhaven fans say – this is the clunkiest combat system I’ve ever seen. You start out with four cards in your hand, with two actions on each side. You’ll pick a top action from one card and a bottom action from another on each turn. If those are the A sides of the cards, you’ll pick them back up and flip them to the B sides, which have different actions. Once you’ve used all of the B sides, you have to rest to pick them back up, but you will lose one card from your hand each time you do this. If you ever have just one card left in your hand, you lose the scenario. (You also lose if you run out of hit points.) Top actions usually involve attacks; bottom actions usually involve movement. That means if you’re hemmed in by a monster and just want to attack with both your actions, well, tough luck – you’re going to waste some of your turn with movement points you can’t use. I played several scenarios as the thief, and there’s a lot of movement on the thief’s initial action cards that is close to useless on the early maps because there’s no place to run, literally.

There’s also a single die with three values on it that works as a sort of attack modifier for you and determines the monsters’ initiative and exact actions (skewing towards more movement or more offense) on each turn. It’s fine for the monsters, as it mixes things up a little bit, but for you it’s just a nuisance – it adds a tiny bit of randomness in most cases, adding or subtracting one from your attack value, except very rarely it can either double your attack or void it entirely. Remembering to use it and then move the peg down the board to track the current modifiers was more trouble than it was worth.

I think the design here also presupposes some familiarity with Gloomhaven’s combat system, icons, and terminology. I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out what one symbol meant, since it’s not explained on the one reference card with the game itself, so I had to read the online rules (accessible with a QR code) and then go re-read them to find the symbol, which was just off to the right of my phone’s screen. It’s a dark element, and while it appears on one of the thief’s starter cards, there’s no explanation anywhere in the box of what elements are, and I don’t think you can even use that bonus action (+2 to your attack if you have consumed a dark element) with that initial card set.

I absolutely love the idea of this game – a solitaire dungeon-crawl with a solid story that’s a little bit funny and that has some great components to keep the game truly compact, like the hit point dials you use for yourself and for your adversaries. A whole campaign in a box the size of a new set of business cards is awesome. If the game had a more user-friendly combat and item system, I probably would have played it all the way through. It’s just too fiddly for me, and that may be just a function of my own experiences playing RPGs with other ways of handling combat.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: boardgames, role-playing games, solitaire games

→ August 27, 2024
→ By keith

Outer Banks eats.

We spent last week in the small town of Corolla, North Carolina, at the northern tip of the Outer Banks – beyond Corolla, there are houses, but the roads aren’t paved, and you may wake up to find a wild horse hanging out in your yard. It’s very quiet, which was wonderful, but also has enough amenities that we could get whatever we needed, which also meant we could cook in the house we rented or head out to eat. So while this is probably the most obscure place for which I’ve ever written up restaurants, here’s the rundown of everything we ate on the trip.

There were two restaurants I’d recommend regardless of where they were – they weren’t just Corolla good, but legitimately good. Mama Easley’s is a fried seafood place with a solid beer selection, and the seafood was superb across the board. We were down there with another family of four, so I got to try a little of everything – the fried shrimp were the best item, but everything was fried perfectly, with no excess oil anywhere. The French fries were too spicy for the kids, with something Old Bay-like but without that odd stale flavor of actual Old Bay (sorry, Marylanders, I just think it’s overrated), while the hush puppies were a hit. My wife got the grilled bay scallops, the one non-fried item we had, and they were cooked just the way I like them, which is just the hotter side of rare – I know scallops are usually just seared so that the center is still slightly translucent, but I like it pushed a touch farther than that so they’re hot through but still tender. I ate way too much fried stuff that night, and drank a local beer (I don’t remember what sort), so I didn’t exactly feel great the next morning, but I have no regrets.

Agave Roja was the other big hit, a Mexican restaurant in a strip mall (across from the Food Lion) that goes upscale from typical Mexican restaurants in that area. We ordered take-out, so we probably missed out on a little of the experience, getting four different types of tacos – fried shrimp, fried fish, carne asada, and pollo asado. I skipped the steak, but the other three were all excellent and the shrimp was not spicy despite what was supposedly a mango-habanero salsa and chipotle aioli. The fish and shrimp came on flour tortillas, while the other two came on corn; the latter should have been doubled as they fell apart almost immediately. There was a ton of flavor on all of the tacos, both in the protein and the various toppings, although I’m not sure what was listed on the menu was exactly what we got on top of each taco.

I grabbed lunch one day at Sooey’s, a barbecue spot in the same strip mall as Agave Roja, and it was perfectly average BBQ. I got a half-rack of ribs, which the host said was her favorite item on the menu, and some collard greens and fried okra, because I was in the south and I love both of those things. The ribs were smoked properly, with a visible ring and the meat coming free from the bone, and had enough flavor on their own that they didn’t need the sauce (which was not that interesting anyway). The collards were the best item of the three, while the okra needed more salt.

We tried two pizza places in Corolla, with Corolla Pizza (located at the northern edge of town) the better of the two; it’s pretty close to New York City pizza but the crust needed to be cooked just a little more, as it had zero color on the under side. Giant Slice’s pizza was cooked more, but the toppings were nowhere near the same quality and the sauce was too sweet.

For coffee, I would suggest seeking out The Kind Cup, which is in Corolla Village, the closest thing there is to a town center here, and a short walk from the lighthouse and museum. The Kind Cup roasts their own coffee to a variety of levels, with a medium-roast for their espresso; I was a little bummed that they didn’t have any light roast on drip or for sale as whole bean that particular day, as they do roast and sell some single origins. The building is also a small art gallery and craft shop, and it’s across the street from a modest, well-curated bookshop called The Island Bookstore. I also tried the coffee and gelato at Doppio, with the gelato very good (I had the dark chocolate) and the coffee darker than I like it. Our friends got a bunch of pastries from Northern Lights Bakery & Coffee; I don’t even usually like sticky buns, but theirs was outstanding. Apparently there’s a line out the door most mornings within an hour of them opening, according to the locals.

Beyond food, Flying Smiles Kites is in the same shopping center as Northern Lights, and they sell an impressive selection of board games – they had Trio, Castles of Burgundy, Scout, Carcassonne, and more beyond the games you’d find at Target. We ended up buying a kite … and, most fittingly, they also had the real-time game Kites in stock. They do ship games, too, so if you wanted to pick up Trio from a friendly local game shop, it’s here.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: bbq, coffee, mexican cuisine, north carolina, outer banks, pizza, seafood

→ August 17, 2024
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 8/17/24.

I’m on PTO from the Athletic this week and next, so there won’t be any new content from me over there until the week of August 26^th. I had some plans to hit a Blue Rocks game last week, before my PTO, but 2+ inches of rain in our area scotched that (although they did play on one of those days, which flabbergasted me because that field doesn’t drain well). I was on the road a ton this week – something like 23 hours in the car in the last five days – so I don’t have as many links as usual, either.

I’ve got a review filed to Paste for Rock Hard 1977, the board game designed by Runaways bassist Jackie Fox (Fuchs) that was also my #1 new game from Gen Con this year.

I do have a newsletter half-written, so feel free to run over and sign up (it’s free) before I finish the damn thing already.

And now, the links…

The plastics industry is pushing to change the rules on what they can label “recyclable” – in short, if something could, hypothetically, be recycled, they want to label it as such, regardless of whether such recycling is readily available or feasible. I see this crap already with things labeled “compostable” that require access to industrial composting, so you can’t just throw it in your home compost bin or pile.

Israel has destroyed every university in Gaza. The Nation’s Sondos Fayoumi spoke to many of the students at those universities whose dreams have now been shattered.

Donald Trump’s nephew Fred has a son with a severe disability. He wrote how, while President, his uncle said that people like his son “should just die.”

The Queens Criminal Court vacated 46 convictions after the DA found that NYPD officer James Donovan fabricated testimony. That’s the good news. The bad news is that Donovan pled guilty to a minor perjury charge and was allowed to retire, with 30 lost vacation days his only penalty.

The chief of police in Millersville, Tennessee, is under investigation by the state for all kinds of malfeasance, and when Channel 5’s Phil Williams spoke to him, the chief called Williams a pedophile.

My friend Tim Grierson interviewed Carol Burnett for the LA Times. I am so jealous.

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins lied about Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, and then lied about why Facebook took his page down, only admitting his error on the second point a few days later. Khelif is now suing several prominent online figures, including J.K. Rowling and Elon Musk, for cyberharassment for their roles in spreading the false claim that she is not a woman.

We’re already seeing some of the pernicious effects of the SCOTUS ruling that overturned the Chevron doctrine, as the U.S. Air Force is declining to clean up drinking water it polluted with PFAS in the Tucson area. Yes, a government agency is saying they can pollute your drinking water and then they have no responsibility to remediate it.

A trans panic law in Idaho banning children from receiving medical care without a parent’s consent now means that a child raped by their parent can’t undergo rape-kit testing for potential criminal charges. It was never about protecting children.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune’s editorial board published a reality check on the so-called “Tampon Tim” meme, although I don’t see why one is necessary. If putting tampons in public school bathrooms triggers you, you are the problem.

Michele Morrow, the Republican running for the North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction post, said in January of 2021 that Trump should set “the Constitution to the side” and stage a military coup. Between her and Holocaust denialist Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate for Governor, no red state needs to turn blue faster than North Carolina this year.

NPR fact-checked Trump’s so-called news conference on August 11^th and found 162 lies and distortions.

These weirdos’ attacks on Vice-President Harris for not having kids will only backfire on them, writes Jess Grose of the NY Times. I think it already has, to some extent.

In August of 2023, the police chief of Marion, Kansas, raided the offices of the local paper, the Marion County Record, in a clear violation of press freedom. One year on, no one has been charged, lawsuits are still pending, and the paper still hasn’t been cleared of any wrongdoing.

The LA Times’s Michael Hiltzik writes that the lab-leak conspiracy theory is an attack on science and an active threat to public health.

Speaking of conspiracy theories, the New York Times’s Stuart Thompson explains that when they’re debunked, their adherents either double down in their belief or move on to a new hoax. This is a well-studied phenomenon going back to the Seventh-Day Adventists, whose prophecy of eschaton failed … so they just kept changing the date, rather than admit the whole thing was a fraud.

A white man in London attacked a mother and her eight-year-old daughter, stabbing the child eight times, until a Pakistani security guard ran over and saved her.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: conspiracy theories, coronavirus, environment, hoaxes, idaho, kansas, links, longreads, north carolina, police, stick to baseball, tennessee

→ August 10, 2024
→ By keith

Age of Wonders: Planetfall.

Age of Wonders: Planetfall is a 4X video game from Paradox Interactive that came out in 2019 and, from my reading, had all of the trappings of that genre, from resource management to economic and military development to a tech tree. Hobby World published a board game adaptation from a first-time designer that borrows the art from the video game but has nothing more to do with it, slapping the IP on a bad Splendor clone that might be more fun to play if it didn’t try so hard to get the sci-fi art and theme involved in game play.

Age of Wonders: Planetfall has seven decks of cards representing the seven planets players will “explore” over the course of the game, with cards in each successive deck increasing in cost and value. Cards can require you spend either strength or energy, and they may have a minimum experience level before you’re allowed to purchase it. For each round, you shuffle one planet deck and deal either all of the cards (4-5 players) or all but three cards (2-3 players) to the center of the table in three rows, next to the operations board that shows levels I, II, and III; each card shows three levels of costs and they become slightly less expensive at higher levels.

Players will go twice per round, moving their ship to a card or a space on the operations board, resolving those, then repeating the cycle before all remaining cards are removed from the game to make room for the next planet. The turn order depends on what cards players chose in the last turn; you resolve cards left to right, starting with level I, and then move each player counter to the topmost empty spot on the ops board to show turn order for the next round. You can choose any card on any level as long as you have the resources and/or experience required to buy it; every deck has several “power-up” cards that just give you energy and maybe a victory point or two, and you can also choose one of the three spots on the operations board to get 5-7 free resources or victory points or experience, so you can’t end up without a legal play.

Each player has an individual player board with four tracks, three in the middle and a victory point track around the outside. Strength and energy are expendable resources; you spend them to gain cards, and each has a maximum you can get at one point. Experience and victory points never go down, with experience maxing out at 10 while VPs have no limit. You have to gain experience as the game progresses or you won’t be able to acquire valuable cards from later planets.

Most points in the game come from the VPs you get as you go from cards, but each game also begins with three goals (public objectives) players can shoot for, some of which are competitive (points for having the most of something) while some are open to everyone (e.g., one point for every strength you still have left at game end). A few cards also provide game-end bonuses, although those only appear in the last 2-3 decks so you can’t plan ahead too much for those.

It’s a light engine-builder along the lines of Splendor but with the sliding resource scales seen in dozens of other games, such as The White Castle and Khora. The art and card names are kind of a distraction here, and I didn’t feel the theme at all – the rulebook even talks about combat against a neutral opponent but that just means you can buy some cards with strength instead of energy. Instead, it’s Splendor in Space, except that game already exists in Space Explorers, which I think does a better job of grafting Splendor’s engine-building framework on to a space theme, and gets a little better with some of the expansions. I haven’t played the actual video game here, but from reading about it I don’t see where the connection is – this seems like an IP extension to cash in, without a lot of meat to the game behind it.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: boardgames

→ August 10, 2024
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 8/10/24.

I’ve been tied up the last few Saturdays with other things, so here’s a quick rundown of what you might have missed.

I wrote 14 different trade-deadline reaction pieces at the Athletic but there isn’t a single link to all of them beyond my author page, so if you missed anything that’s the place to start.

You can see my annual Gen Con recap post, which covers every game I saw at the convention plus my top ten games from the show and which this year ran over 10,000 words, over at Paste. I also reviewed the light family game Biomos, which I kind of liked when I first played it but eventually decided had too much randomness for me.

Stadium has changed its programming schedule and I’ll no longer be going to Chicago, but instead will be doing remote video work for them that will appear before their broadcasts of minor-league games (it’s all AAA games this month) or will show up on Amazon Echo devices and MSN. Unfortunately, I know several people lost their jobs in the changeover there, with some resources moving to the new Chicago Sports Network.

And now, the links – just some of the ones I saved over the last three weeks:

Longreads first: ProPublica obtained several training videos from Project 2025, the Trump-linked plan from the right-wing Heritage Foundation to largely dismantle the federal government, advising people on how to skirt judicial review, to remove any references to climate change, and to avoid creating any kind of evidence through open records. You can read more about the details of the GOP’s plans in the Boston Review. The Atlantic dove into the Project 2025 plan to end free weather information by shutting down the NOAA.
A massive new study published in Nature found that COVID-19 vaccinations reduced the incidence of common cardiovascular events.
A study published in the BMJ showed that wearing surgical face masks reduced the incidence of respiratory symptoms consistent with infection.
New York City gave a subsidy running to the hundreds of millions to the Yankees and to the UAE’s Prime Minister for the Willets Point soccer stadium project.
Also from ProPublica: Washington state’s policy of giving tax breaks to data centers is now conflicting with the state’s attempt to shift towards green energy. First it was crypto; now it’s AI. Regardless of the reason, we need to make tech companies pay for this kind of excessive energy usage – and if that means I don’t get AI-generated summaries and search results that I didn’t ask for, oh well.
Two rational explanations for the non-troversy over the Olympic women’s boxers Imane Khelif and Lin Y-ting: The BBC goes into the scientific differences between genotype and phenotype, and why chromosomes aren’t the final answer on gender; and RTÉ points out that the so-called “controversy” all stems from a discredited source whose test results were never explained. I’d add to this that the whole thing reeks of transphobia, and somehow trans folks were roped into the attacks despite actually having nothing to do with the matter, because the right sees them as popular scapegoats.
A dozen scientists authored a letter to Rutgers asking them to open a formal investigation into two professors who have been harassing and attacking researchers who have studied SARS-CoV-2’s zoonotic origins, comparing them to Pol Pot and referring to some as “murderers.” Richard Ebright is a lab-leak conspiracy theorist who has been particularly virulent (pun intended) on Twitter for years now, and the university has appeared to do nothing whatsoever about his behavior.
The Journal of Virology published an editorial that points out the harms that come from continuing to promote the debunked lab-leak theory. In the spirit of full disclosure, my employer published an editorial that pushed this failed hypothesis two months ago.
Why is there so little coverage of Egypt’s attempt to bribe President-elect Donald Trump in 2016 with a $10 million ‘donation’? The Philly Inquirer’s Will Bunch argues that a large part of it is that bribery has become tacitly accepted in America, all the way up to the Supreme Court.
J.D. Vance endorsed a book authored by one of the main pushers of the insane Pizzagate conspiracy theory, far-right influencer Jack Posobiec, that argues that anyone who doesn’t agree with their right-wing views is “unhuman” and “vermin,” mirroring the language Adolf Hitler used to demonize Jews before the Holocaust.
The Bulwark dove into Vance’s dog-whistling comments about “cat ladies.”
Pro-school voucher groups dumped $4.5 million into primaries in Tennessee last week, some backed by Charles Koch and Betsy DeVos, both strong opponents of public education.
Through the end of July, the U.S. had seen three times as many measles cases in 2024 as it did in all of 2023, thanks entirely to anti-vaxxers and the credulous fools who listen to them.
I’m not sure how this didn’t get get more coverage – far-right protesters in Israel stormed military bases hosting Hamas militants and the IDF’s military court. Meanwhile, just yesterday video emerged of IDF forces raping a Palestinian detainee, and Israel’s National Security Minister and Finance Minister both appeared to defend the accused rapists.
Gojira’s awesome performance at the Olympics’ Opening Ceremonies earned them a brief writeup in the New York Times.
A pastor in Florida who is the father of nine children was arrested on charges of raping his 15-year-old niece. No trans people or drag queens were involved.
Elon Musk shared a deepfake of Kamala Harris through his Twitter account, which violates the policies of his own site.
The Hugo Awards almost had a second huge scandal in as many years, but this time they got in front of it, revealing that someone had spent thousands of dollars to try to buy 377 votes for a particular finalist in one of its categories. Last year’s Hugos were undermined by the revelation that the organizing committee disqualified several nominees that ran afoul of the Chinese government’s preferences.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: anti-science, florida, gaza, gender issues, hugo award, israel, links, longreads, olympics, project 2025, social media, stadium scams, stick to baseball, tennessee, vaccines

→ August 2, 2024
→ By keith

Music update, July 2024.

July finished with a bit of a bang, from a music perspective, at least, as this playlist doubled in size over the final week of the month. It also had two of my favorite new albums of the year so far, from Griff and Childish Gambino, as well as new singles from three contemporary artists I really like – from three entirely different genres, too. As always, if you can’t see the playlist below, you can access it here.

Griff – Tears For Fun. Griff’s full-length debut, Vertigo, came out this month and was a huge success in her native UK, coming in at #3 on their album charts in its first week. It’s an incredible record of lush pop tracks, replete with sophisticated melodies, the sort of record that should appeal to fans of Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, etc. if American fans even hear any of her music.

Lotte Gallagher – This Room. I assume I won’t be the last person to wonder if she’s related to the Oasis boys, but she’s not; she’s a singer/songwriter from Melbourne, Australia, which seems to be producing as much great indie pop/rock music per capita as any country in the world right now. I wish I’d come up with the comparison to Sam Fender, but I saw it in a fluffy profile of Ms. Gallagher and I can’t find a better one.

Michael Kiwanuka – Floating Parade. The first new track from the 2020 Mercury Prize winner since the 2021 single “Beautiful Life” is a gorgeous, bass-forward track with meditative lyrics about the struggles of daily life and how we seek out ways to escape it.

Sampha & Little Simz – Satellite Business 2.0. Theoriginal “Satellite Business”was an 84-second filler track with no percussion on Sampha’s 2023 album “Lahai,” but this version is blown out to 4:53 with a drum machine and a bangin’ guest verse from Little Simz. It completely reimagines the track with a big, frenetic energy that makes it one of Sampha’s best songs to date.

Jorja Smith – High. Smith appeared on Bando Stone and now returns with her first new solo track of 2024, not counting the ‘reimagined’ version of falling or flying she released in May. “High” really showcases her voice over a smooth house beat, with production that puts her vocals front and center, where they belong.

Childish Gambino feat. Foushée – Running Around. If Bando Stone & the New World is indeed the last Childish Gambino album, it’s a real tour de force and a hell of a swan song. Donald Glover bounces across all manner of genres, even going full emo on this track, in a broad, unpredictable, ambitious record by a mad musical genius. I also recommend “Lithonia,” a ballad with a great twist at the chorus; and the instrumental “Happy Survival,” featuring Khruangbin.

Crows – Bored. Crows’ third album, Reason Enough, comes out on September 27^th; this lead single seems to lean harder into their punk roots, which I suppose isn’t that surprising for a band on IDLES’s record label.

Japandroids – Chicago. Japandroids released this new single off their upcoming album Fate & Alcohol with anote that this record will be their last. It’s their first new music since 2017’s Near to the Wild Heart of Life.

Pastel – Deeper than Holy. Pastel’s handful of singles so far have shown a deep reverence for the heyday of Britpop, often bridging the gap between that era’s biggest rivals, Blur and Oasis.

Primal Scream – Love Insurrection. Primal Scream’s first new music since 2016 sounds like they paired up with Khruangbin to reimagine late-1970s funk/disco. Their twelfth album, Come Ahead, comes out in November.

Los Bitchos – Kiki, You Complete Me. Los Bitchos play cumbia-influenced rock, mostly instrumental, with this particular song recalling 1960s surf rock and spy-movie soundtracks.

O. – Sugarfish. That’s about as SEO-unfriendly a band name as you can conceive. O. is a duo from London that works with saxophone and drums, but they run the sax through all kinds of effects pedals to make it sound like other instruments, including a distorted guitar. Their debut album, the appropriately titled WeirdOs, dropped in June.

Sunflower Bean – Shake. This title track of an upcoming EP from the Brooklyn trio is probably the heaviest thing they’ve ever done, driven by a single guitar riff, with Julia Cumming ceding most of the lead vocal work to Nick Kivlen.

Hinds – Superstar. This is the fourth single from the duo’s upcoming album, Viva Hinds, which drops in September, and continues a trend of cleaner production and tighter songwriting that preserves the chaotic nature of their overlapping vocals.

Katie Gavin – Aftertaste. Gavin is the lead vocalist for MUNA and will release her first solo album, What a Relief, on October 25^th on Phoebe Bridgers’ label. This is unabashed folk-pop and utterly infectious.

GIFT – Light Runner. The fourth single from GIFT’s second album, Illuminator, which is due out August 23^rd, is my least favorite so far but does continue in a similar vein of shimmering, layered psychedelic rock, just without as strong of a hook as “Wish Me Away” or “Going in Circles” offered.

Blossoms – Perfect Me. Blossoms’ latest album, Gary, comes out in September, and they’ve released two singles so far, with this upbeat indie-pop number miles ahead of the drab, pretentious title track.

The Beaches – Takes One to Know One. The Beaches had a minor hit last year with their album Blame My Ex and the track “Blame Brett” – I mean, with that big brain on him, who else would you blame? – and now they’re back with what appears to be a one-off single that has a similar sound to the last record, with a sunny pop-rock vibe belied by the cynical lyrics.

Alison Goldfrapp – I Wanna Be Loved (Just a Little Better). I can’t believe Goldfrapp is 58, but, then again, I can’t believe I’m 51. This is her first single on her own record label, coming on the heels of her first solo album, last year’s The Love Invention. The backing music, a new wave/disco blend, sounds like it could have been an outtake from a Yaz record, although the vocal style is obviously quite different from the other Alison’s.

Envy – Beyond the Raindrops. I was completely unfamiliar with Envy before I heard this track, even though they’ve been recording since 1998. They’re a Japanese post-hardcore/post-rock band who started out in the ridiculously-named “screamo” scene, a term that seems to mean nothing at all at this point other than that I generally don’t dig bands lumped under that umbrella. This track, from Envy’s upcoming album Eunoia, is somewhere between post-hardcore and shoegaze, with a darkly atmospheric vibe and spare vocals.

Glass Animals – A Tear in Space (Airlock). Glass Animals’ latest album, I Love You So Fucking Much, is their first since the global success of “Heat Waves,” which now holds the records for the longest stay on the Billboard Hot 100 and the longest time on the chart before hitting #1. There’s nothing on this album to rival that track or “Life Itself;” it’s consistently good, without any huge standouts. If you like Glass Animals in general, you’ll like the album.

Flotsam & Jetsam – Burning My Bridges. The second track from their fifteenth album, I Am the Weapon, due out on September 13^th, finds these 1980s thrash icons just a little bit mellowed, but still thrashing away, with just two members remaining from their debut album. I prefer the previous single, “Primal,” but this is still a solid throwback to the Bay Area thrash sound that marked their first couple of LPs.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2024 in music, alternative, indie, Music, thrash

→ July 25, 2024
→ By keith

Klawchat, 7/25/24.

My ranking of the top 60 prospects in baseball is now up for subscribers to The Athletic.

Keith Law: I’m sick and I’m tired of reasoning. Klawchat.

Not Bryce Harper: Can the Phillies realistically add a good relief pitcher and RH hitting OF without giving up Painter, Miller and Crawford?
Keith Law: I would think so – those types of deadline adds don’t usually return top 50ish prospects.

Patrick: What gets you excited about a prospect?
Keith Law: Talent – and that comes in many forms. It can be big tools, athleticism, explosiveness, or even just great instincts. I just like good players.

Patrick: My beloved Brewers seem to be achieving with smoke and mirrors. Should I be anxious they don’t move pitchers up as aggressively as young hitters, or trust in their track record?
Keith Law: I’d look at the individual pitchers – is there someone they aren’t moving up fast enough? I don’t think that’s the case.

Sevento: If you had been drafting at pick 16, and intended to overslot Carter Johnson at pick 56, who would you have taken?
Keith Law: I don’t think I can fairly answer that question because I don’t know the signability of the other options. Could I have gotten Ryan Waldschmidt at the same price Morlando got? (I doubt Waldschmidt/his agent knew he was sliding to 31.)

TomBruno23: Enjoyed that updated Top 60 and, as a BFIB, great to see J.J. Wetherholt slotted in at #22. Also, unsolicited rec that the Arjun Nimmala doc on MLB.tv was entertaining.
Keith Law: I’m willing to bet on Wetherholt getting healthy, especially being with a new training staff. It really is a fantastic swing & approach.

KC: Is Dansby Swanson done? Or was he never that great to begin with?
Keith Law: Bit fast to give up on a guy after a really solid year in 2023, no?

Rick Rude: What do you think of Luke Dickerson getting 3.8m? Were teams valuing him as the top ~22 pick that this would entail?
Keith Law: I had heard of one or two teams (Yanks?) possibly on him in the late first. Good for him for getting paid. He’s pretty talented and I’m not going to bemoan a player getting $500K more than I might have thought he would get.

John: hey Klaw, do the Dbacks have the prospect depth to make significant additions. I know you’ve said they are pretty top heavy in the past.
Keith Law: I’d rather ask if it’s worth them giving up major prospects for what is basically a wild-card run. I’d be okay with them standing pat.

James: Has your opinion on the runner on 2nd to start extras changed at all? Do you like it? I thought I remember you didn’t like that change initially
Keith Law: I still hate it.

Troy: Is the Miz (Brewers) a reliever for sure? Could he help this year in that role?
Keith Law: I can not imagine a guy with that delivery AND that level of command/control ending up a starter.

James: So the Angels regret not trading Shohei you think?
Keith Law: I’m sure the baseball folks wish they had, but the owner is probably fine with the extra revenue he got in that last month-plus.

James: Saw your post about the NYT Crossword – great to see you do them also! I can only seem to do Monday and sometimes Tuesday but they get exponentially harder Wed-Sun – as the week progresses are you able to compete all days of the week? Or does it get too hard for you by a certain day?
Keith Law: They take me longer as the week goes on but I do finish every day – I think my streak is approaching 300 days now. I just hate the gimmick ones like today’s. I’m a traditionalist. My grandmother was a big crossword solver too. She used to buy the Star tabloid just to do its crossword.

Johnny Mo: Is Quinn Matthews a GUY at all?
Keith Law: He’s a real prospect. I don’t know if he’s a starter with that delivery.

Bye Bye Balboni: What would Jonathan India cost prospect wise for NYY? Also do you see any surprise bats become available next week? Market seems limited at this point. Thank you for all the great content!
Keith Law: Probably a better question for Ken or Jayson … I don’t track the trade market much.

James: Do you think Mike Hazen with the Dbacks ignores scouting and just uses your guide? He seems to grab guys you have ranked higher than most that are still on the board when he picks
Keith Law: I know they scout pretty heavily, but they’re just one of the scouting departments that values players along similar lines to me (Reds too).

Matt K: Thanks for chatting, Keith – love your stuff! Big Brewer fan, and I notice a couple of ’23 drafted high schoolers who have made the top 60 today. Is Cooper Pratt a guy that isn’t far away from there? Once he taps into more power?? Also has Eric Bitonti showed as much in ACL as one would hope to have him on that same track? Thanks!
Keith Law: I love Pratt’s bat but I need to see more game power/hard contact and then I’ll buy in completely. Bitonti’s probably been a touch better than I expected – still striking out just slightly more than you’d like, but the hard contact is there.

James: Would you still take Dylan Crews over Paul Skenes if the draft was today?
Keith Law: Does Skenes have the splinker? He didn’t in college. That’s a huge difference for me.

Matt Murton Enthusiast: Where do you think Moises Ballesteros’ work behind the plate ends up on the 10 to 2014 Kyle Schwarber scale? Am I wrong in thinking the bat is ready for ’25?
Keith Law: Aside from his weight, he might also have the issue where the bat is ready well before his defense. 2025 might be aggressive but I wouldn’t say it’s impossible.

James: Hear a lot of chatter about the White Sox dealing Crochet… why not just sign him long term or keep him?
Keith Law: He’s already blown out once and had a shoulder issue in college. This is the most he’s ever pitched in a calendar year at least going back to HS.

John S: What’s a hypothetical package you’re putting together for a SP if you’re the Orioles? I’d love to include a current player on the roster (a la Mountcastle/Urias/Injured Mateo) but figure Seattle is the only team that would be interested.
Keith Law: Mountcastle + Norby + Basallo + 4th guy from lower in the system (Estrada?) should get you anyone on the market, no? Again, not my beat and I know I’m out of my lane here.

Howie: Hi Keith, thank you for your work and these chats. I know that you’ve been a bit lower on Spencer Jones than others, and this year he hasn’t done much to argue against your view of him. If you are the Yankees, would you let him go for a rental (maybe one additional year) of a player like a Rengifo? He can help, but will he really move the needle? I know Jones is becoming more like a lottery ticket – but I’d hate to lose out for a mid-return….
Keith Law: No, I wouldn’t give him up for a rental of a guy who may not even be worth a win for the rest of the year. Hold on to Jones and see if he can make adjustments … I am skeptical, because he really hasn’t done that before, and I don’t think he has Judge’s aptitude, but if you think in terms of expected value and there’s a 5% chance he can improve his approach for more contact, esp. in zone, that’s a superstar, and the value of 5% superstar and 95% up-and-down guy is probably more than the value of two months of Rengifo.

Mike: Hi Keith – As an M’s fan, I’m a little concerned that they are going to squander this incredible group of starting pitchers they have, since they were cheap in the offseason when it came to bolstering the offense. If you were the GM, would you dip into their wealth of prospects to add 1 or 2 of the better available bats before the deadline, or stand pat and let those bats mature? Thanks!
Keith Law: I’m not sure if calling them cheap is fair, but I would definitely be willing to part with Young, Arroyo, or Ford for an impact bat.

Buck: The Brewers don’t seem to trust Tyler Black anywhere in thr field. He’s fast, but has no arm. Seems odd they’ve completely abandoned 2B & until recently the OF. He hasn’t looked great at 1st. Is he a DH?
Keith Law: I think he can handle first base if he gets more reps there. He’s a good athlete. He just can’t really throw.

Oz: I know you don’t grade drafts, but are there any classes you think really stand out?
Keith Law: Loved the Reds, Dbacks, Nats, Rockies, Red Sox.

Howie: Roderick Arias – I get it that short season disappearing has an impact here, but do you send him to AFL to help him figure it out? Is it a lack of understanding of the strike zone? How worried should we be?.
Keith Law: He’s actually hit much better the last few weeks, which could be just randomness but I’d at least monitor to see if it lasts. I do expect a lot of these teenaged hitters in low A to have seasons where they struggle badly in the first half because they’re overmatched, and some of them turn the corner in the second half once they’ve figured some things out, made adjustments, etc. Not all, but some.

TFT: While the Red Sox have 5 players in your top 60, they are all position players. Are there any Sox pitchers close to making your top lists?
Keith Law: No … Perales was off to a great start but he blew out, and it’s a tough delivery to repeat. Wikelman’s a likely reliever. I liked the Tolle selection but he probably isn’t a top 100 type right now.

James: Rockies CF Brenton Doyle just a guy? Seems to be great at defense and the bat is OK? Haven’t looked at the box scores or advanced metrics on him but been impressed just watching
Keith Law: Elite defender, the bat is just OK but he’s benefited greatly from his environment. More than ‘just a guy’ as long as he’s a Rockie.
Keith Law: As in, I don’t think the bat holds up if he’s elsewhere.

Howie: Kamala has a big choice coming up. I recognize that picking a VP from a swing state is important. And people like Governors – so Shapiro has my interest a bit. But Mark Kelly has so many positives from my perspective. He has first hand knowledge (and is reasonable) on the border, swing state, combat pilot, first hand understanding of the importance of gun control. Seems like a slam dunk candidate. What do you think?
Keith Law: I agree. Kelly is #1 on my top 60 VP prospects ranking.

James: Thoughts on inflation in America?
Keith Law: It’s come down substantially. It’ll probably remain around where it is as long as the economy keeps growing at this rate – inflation is almost inevitable in an expanding economy. What we lack is comparable wage growth to balance it out, and that’s a complex problem to fix, although the weakness of our labor laws is one factor.

Zihuatanejo: Who among the Dodgers’ young starters is most likely to be included in a deadline trade package? Who (if anyone) should be considered safe from a trade?
Keith Law: Don’t they need all/most of those guys, now and next year? I’m not sure I’d rush to trade any of them unless it’s for a multi-year starter candidate.

James: If you had to choose a coffee creamer flavor what flavor choosing?
Keith Law: I don’t use them, but I do think vanilla + coffee is a great flavor combination.

Tom: Keith, thank you for the chat. As a Mets fan, I am curious if Clifford would be “close” to a top 50 ranking, perhaps more like a 50-100th slot? Also, following Sproat, who do you view as their next best Pitching prospect? Big fan of your stuff on The Athletic.
Keith Law: Clifford’s a no. Plus-plus power, minus hit. Their next best pitching prospect is Jonah Tong. (Also, Jesus Christ what the hell is happening in Syracuse?)

Jack Z: Keith – the Braves don’t have any top 60 prospects currently and are starting to reach a point where position player depth could become an issue. Do you see any players in the system with future top 50 ceilings? Do you like their draft this year?
Keith Law: I am not a fan of leaning on HS pitching like that, but Caminiti was the best HS arm in the class and could end up a top 20 guy in a couple of years.

Chris: How far off was farmelo from your top 60? Would he be top 100 or does his swing and injury make it to be determined for you?
Keith Law: It’s all injury. He was on my top 50 in May, but ACL tears suck and speed/defense is a big part of his game.
Keith Law: That’s one of the more upsetting injuries of the year.

Jibraun: I’ve seen a lot about Wetherholt’s bat, but not much about his glove. How do you project his defense? And which position do you think he ultimately settled at?
Keith Law: 2B for me. Good hands, limited range at SS.

Ken: I guess the home run derby didn’t ruin Bobby Witt Jr. swing
Keith Law: Can we just kill that narrative? Throw it on the pile with the Verducci effect.

addoeh: With more NIL and scholarships coming to college baseball, at least for the SEC and maybe one or two other conferences, and the potential for for MLB to get rid of another level of the minors, how much is the calculus of the decision of signing vs college changing for HS seniors? It seems MLB wants to outsource the cost of development to college baseball more and more.
Keith Law: I think it’s shifting substantially. I believe JJ Cooper tweeted that this was the lowest % of HS players to go in the top ten rounds? I know I noted it was the most college-heavy first round ever.

Zihuatanejo: Just for fun, which of your top prospects would make the best potential running mate for Harris?
Keith Law: Oh, Max Clark, hands down. He’d crush it. I don’t know his political views – this is just on personality.

Moke Rizzo: Thomas and Finnegan for George Klassen and a lotto ticket or two? Feels about right.
Keith Law: I might do that. Depends on the lotto ticket – Caba’s too much, Tait might be a little light?

Bob: Is the Democrat strategy going forward to replace any candidate that might not win the election regardless of the primary.
Keith Law: (charlie brown teacher noises)

Danny: Hey Keith! I suspect you won’t answer the speculative, but around where would you slot River Ryan if he wasn’t in the majors? (Yes I read the note!)
Keith Law: He was around 45 on the top 50 in May, so it’s not that speculative.

JeffG: Have you ever seen so many popup guys in a midseason list? Is it mostly promotions/draft class or is player dev driving it?
Keith Law: Oh I love it. Makes the job fun. All of the above – lot of graduations, a lot of guys falling (Colson, Lesko, Termarr), middling draft class that didn’t place a ton of guys on the list, and some real development wins.

Adam: What’re your thoughts on Kelenic so far this season? He has shown flashes of what he was supposed to be and has made some tangible change. Wish he would walk more than once a week though
Keith Law: I’m comfortable saying this is probably what he is. 2.5-3 WAR guy, could be more if he does learn to walk more than once a week.

KC: With thousands of minor league players, is it hard to keep track of them all? Is there something that makes you seek out what a certain player who wasn’t on your radar is doing now?
Keith Law: I don’t keep track of all of them, just a sliver off the top. If a scout mentions a player, or I notice some unusual production, I dig deeper.

Guest: Are you heading to Mondegreen next month? We’re really excited about it and have been looking for good two-player boardgames specifically good for travelling if you have any recs.
Keith Law: Yes, probably just two days of the four as I’m dropping my daughter off at college that week. Jaipur, Yokai Shuffle, Patchwork, That’s Pretty Clever, Silver & Gold all travel well and are good with two.

Andy: Is it bad the Salas is almost giving Cartaya vibes at this point? Obviously, I didn’t see either at this stage of their careers, but should San Diego be worried?
Keith Law: Very different to me.

Ben: I’m excited to see so many Red Sox prospects make the top 60 (and understand just because a player isn’t on the list doesn’t mean they are terrible). Has anything changed in their approach to drafting and scouting that has yielded so many exciting prospects? Or does this reflect that they’ve had a few years with really high draft picks?
Keith Law: I think they’re developing hitters better the last few years.

Scott: Speaking of the Orioles, who is a guy in their system that wasn’t on your radar in January that you now think could turn into a GUY ?
Keith Law: Arias & Estrada were well off the radar – I knew of them, but didn’t consider them near that top tier – who have taken steps forward this year. Interesting that their draft guys are not taking steps forward, though.

KC: Is there some possibility that the Trump shooting attempt was staged and that shooter is a patsy? Pretty odd he didn’t just spray bullets and stopped shooting so quickly and pretty odd that Trump who ran away the last time someone came near him acted so tough
Keith Law: No. I’m not interested in insane conspiracy theories.

Mike: Alec Burleson is a confusing guy for me. I wasn’t high on him coming up based on things I read. He doesn’t walk but doesn’t strike out. He squares the ball up really well and hits for power but is awful on defense. I remember you weren’t high on him. Any change? Maybe a guy you could use as a platoon bat at DH?
Keith Law: Yeah, that’s fair. Platoon DH and apparently a pretty solid DJ.

Kamala Harris: The early returns on Biden dropping out seem to be overwhelmingly positive right?
Keith Law: Yes. 100%.

Sevento: Xavier Edwards is looking like Luis Arraez with speed and solid 2B defense. Are you buying that he can be your Arraez replacement?
Keith Law: Doesn’t hit the ball hard enough.

addoeh: How much criticism should Hoyer get for never addressing 3rd since 2021? Every option the Cubs have tried since they traded Bryant has been internal and had serious deficiencies going in (Wisdom, Bote, Madrigal, Morel, Mastrobuoni).
Keith Law: Well now it’s Shaw and Smith in line for the position so I think it’s been addressed – and I don’t blame them for giving Morel a shot given how hard he hits the ball.

James: I heard something interesting on the ESPN broadcast of the draft… talking about GM’s might be more incentivized to take college guys that will be in the majors soon to help make them look better sooner so can get new contract etc – any truth?
Keith Law: That has always been true. This was my 23rd draft and there has never been a time when this wasn’t the case.

Chris: Re: Top 60, do you have concerns with Eldridge? I understand being limited to 1B lowers his value, but in comparing him with someone like Kurtz, they both appear to be 1B with power and Eldridge is two years younger with a year and a half of success at age appropriate levels
Keith Law: Eldridge is 6’7″ and has to prove he can control that giant strike zone.

Paul: Assuming the Nats are able to improve King’s approach (not a guarantee I understand), do you think he could justify his selection at number 10 on his own merits? I’ve seen mixed opinions on the selection and wanted to read your opinion on that specifically.
Keith Law: Yes. Loved the pick.
Keith Law: I liked King more than scouts/FO people I talked to over the spring.

Doug: Keith, please endure yourself to M’s fans and call the ownership cheap. We’ll love you forever.
Keith Law: Are they? I actually don’t know the answer to that.

Adam: Whatre your thoughts on Drake Baldwin?
Keith Law: At worst he’s a solid backup.

John: I have a question for you. Do you think there is any way to change the way we educate people regarding probabilities? It feels like we live in such a binary world today, which just feels so disorienting to me. Are concepts like expected value and randomness really too difficult to teach to the masses?
Keith Law: Yes, and I would much rather see American high schools teach statistics than calculus – even though I fucking loved calculus so much I took multivariate calculus as an elective in college. It’s just not useful.

Josh: Caveats of SSS and scouting the stat line given, are there signs that maybe Termarr Johnson is on the rebound/starting to figure it out? Saw he wasn’t on the Top 60 today, can he regain Top 60 status by the end of the year?
Keith Law: I know of no signs he’s rebounding. I saw him right before the ASB and the approach & swings were not good.

Gordon: Hey Keith! I suspect the Cubs agree with your Owen Caissie evaluation based on their handling of his development. What would you do with a player like him? Trade him before he makes the big leagues? The power is obvious but lots of other questions. Is it worth sticking with him in the 5% chance he puts it all together?
Keith Law: I’d be willing to trade him for something more than a rental.

Zirinsky: Hi Keith. What do you do as an organization when you have a team like the Yankees that looked amazing for 65 games or whatever and has now looked dreadful for 40 or so. Are there ways of determining which is “real” and which isn’t? And if they’re both “real,” then what? I guess the question is how much can a front office/coaching staff do when a team is playing so poorly.
Keith Law: Isn’t the most obvious explanation that they’re the team they’ve been for the last 105 games? That would always be my default answer unless the composition of the roster has changed in a significant way.

Mike: With high auto loan rates: buy or lease ?
Keith Law: Isn’t leasing a terrible idea from a financial perspective? Not my area but I personally would not lease a car.

Chris P: Rough start for him in the bigs, but do you think Adam Mazur can be a 3-4 guy in a rotation?
Keith Law: More a 4-5.

Caleb: What’s the biggest message Dems need to send to voters this fall? Other than ‘Fuck Trump – he needs to go’
Keith Law: If I were running comms for them I would not stop talking about abortion rights and Project 2025. And maybe educating all candidates on how to counter a Gish gallop.

Doug: Keith, how quickly do you think Seattle can move Emerson? If he can finish the year healthy and play in the ACL, is a 2025 AA debut and a late 2025 call up out of the question?
Keith Law: If he’s the guy I think he is that is not out of the question.

Jwr: Rumors of deals based on Mayo for Skubal. Good potential deal for both sides?
Keith Law: I think Detroit has to try to get more, no? Not saying it’s an unfair deal, but you have to maximize what you get here.

Cody Schoenmann: Any thoughts on twenty one pilot’s new record ‘Clancy’?
Keith Law: I absolutely fucking hate that band.
Keith Law: HATE.

Rob: Saw Jarlin Susana was up to 103 recently and his K/9 rates are impressive. Does he have the stuff to stay a SP or is he destined for backend of the bullpen in your opinion?
Keith Law: Almost certainly a reliever with the delivery and poor control.

Honkus Wagner: Have you noticed any meaningful changes in the Rockies scouting department/methodology the last couple of years? or are us fans doomed to continue suffering the meddlings of ownership. give me hope
Keith Law: Loved their draft this year. I think Danny Montgomery’s doing a good job.

Adam D.: What would you say is a reasonable timeline for Tibbs to land in San Francisco?
Keith Law: Possible end of 2025, at worst early 2026. Advanced SEC/ACC bats are getting there as fast as ever.

JR: Do you think Vientos has figured things out and can maintain this level going forward? Would you let Alonso walk, move Vientos to 1B and give Baty another shot at 3B this fall?
Keith Law: Yes and yes. I don’t think I want to invest long-term in Alonso.

C: It seems the Yankees have experienced almost system-wide regression (Jones, Arias, Warren etc). Is that the consensus around the industry or is there still some optimism that this is an aberration?
Keith Law: It’s been a rough year for them.

Mik: I definitely like Kelly too. I think Shapiro makes a ton of sense. Anyone else you like or don’t like for running mate?
Keith Law: Beshear is great on multiple levels, although if you think a candidate can help you win a state – and I’m not sure that’s true any longer – Kentucky’s pretty unlikely to flip blue. Cooper might be better for that reason.

JeffG: You’ve got a lot of Catchers on the list, how close was Ralphy Velazquez?
Keith Law: He’s not a catcher. He hasn’t caught a game all year.

romorr: Curious of your opinion on Mayo. Rumors of trading Mountcastle are out there. Would you personally do this to get Mayos bat in the lineup?
Keith Law: I’d much rather trade Mountcastle and promote Mayo than trade Mayo.

Punk in drublic.: Owen Cassie didn’t make your updated top 60, how close was he to making it and what were the reasons he didn’t make it?
Keith Law: Check the comments under the article.

Seth: What in the world has happened to Ke’Bryan Hayes? I knew there was a chance he would not hit for much power, but he has been a zero with the bat.
Keith Law: This has been a Pirates problem for a while – who has improved their power or at least contact quality since entering that system? – and I don’t have an answer.

JJoe: I didn’t drop out, I was forced out.
Keith Law: Once again, I am not interested in insane conspiracy theories.

Brent: How far down has Colson Montgomery slid?
Keith Law: He hasn’t been the same player since the back injury, on offense or defense.

Tartrazine: Was Luke Keaschall close to making the top-60?
Keith Law: No.

Adam: Is Pittsburgh the nicest park in baseball currently? Am in the best area?
Keith Law: My favorite MLB park.

Honkus Wagner: Noticed Xavier Isaac was off your top 60. he seems to be getting a lot of hype the last couple of months. curious what your thoughts are there
Keith Law: Also went into that at length in the comments. The hype is not justified.

The Sloth: First of all, Any Phish on your schedule this summer (Mondegreen is in your backyard, right?) Second, how worried are you about Dylan Lesko? Thanks!
Keith Law: Worried enough that he’s not on today’s update.

Ethan: Given the uncertainty around Marte and impending free agency of bader, what do you think the cost would be for the nets to acquire Luis Robert Jr. If they attach benintendi’s contract would that lower the acquisition cost?
Keith Law: I don’t think the White Sox are that concerned with saving money – they need to add talent any which way.

Corey: Which of Boston’s top prospects – Teel, Anthony, Mayer, Campbell – do you think will open next season in the majors ? Is there a spot for Meidroth in future or should they trade him and Yorke for pitching ?
Keith Law: I know Meidroth is having a good season but I am not on that swing at all.

JR: Do you ever fly southwest airlines? They have a big presence in my city and I fly them regularly. I’m excited for the end of unassigned seats, but not all are.
Keith Law: Used to fly them all the time when I lived in Phoenix, but post-pandemic they cut most of their nonstops out of Philly so I had to switch to American.

Honkus Wagner: re: Xavier Isaac. to expand on my question, am curious what difference there is between him and Basallo on a macro level. Does Basallo have a significant chance to actually catch? he looks big for it already. Are the bat profiles between Basallo and Isaac that different?
Keith Law: Huge difference in the bats, yes.
Keith Law: Also I think Basallo has a significant chance to catch, although not in Baltimore.

Drew: Boy, if the Republicans really want to teach the Democrats a lesson they should replace THEIR nominee, huh?
Keith Law: Great idea!

Corey: Where would you start Braden Montgomery next season and how quickly does he reach the majors ? Sox will have a lot of OFs to choose from the next season or two, who stays ? Duran I’m assuming, who else ?
Keith Law: Of the top college bats in this class, he’s the one I would say might need a slower progression. I don’t think he’s as advanced right now as Kurtz, Bazzana, Condon, etc., but has more upside than just about anyone except maybe Condon.

JR: Do you remember when you first started doing chats at the 4 letter? I feel like it’s been close to 20 years. Pretty impressive you’re still doing chats all these years later.
Keith Law: First one was July 2006, I think.

Scott: Better player long term: Colton Cowser or Heston Kjerstad?
Keith Law: Kjerstad for me. Cowser’s been exposed this year. Weird how I stopped getting angry tweets and comments about omitting him from my top 100.

DH: What are your thoughts on Chandler Simpson? Can his other skills make up for hitting the ball softly?
Keith Law: I don’t think he’s a prospect. 80 run, 20 power.

Henry: Excellent use of a Matt Johnson lyric (The The) in your most recent newsletter.
Keith Law: Thank you. He’s putting out a new album this year which made me delve back into their early catalog. I still can’t get into Mind Bomb but the stuff before that holds up.

Lars: You are very honest about when you “miss” on a prospect. In general, do you think your misses come more often from thinking players are going to be better than they turned out to be or vice-versa? Thank you for your time doing this.
Keith Law: I think it’s both. I probably have more misses in terms of thinking guys will be better, because that’s just the nature of the business, but the misses the other way are more notable (Sale, Goldschmidt).

DH: Thoughts on Charles McAdoo- Pirates late round draft guy last year looks great.
Keith Law: Too soon to say, definitely need to see a larger sample in AA.

Quan: Can you explain the difference between Lazaro Montes and Josue De Paula for you….as someone without near as much knowledge as you they seem so similar to me
Keith Law: Very different body types, positional outlooks, and approaches at the plate.

Johnny Baseball: Why did Ryan Sloan fall to the 2nd round?
Keith Law: He didn’t ‘fall.’ Lots of top HS guys go after the first round and get first-round bonuses, like Dickerson today, because that’s the right strategy for teams to maximize their total value in a draft.

KC: I do appreciate you still doing these chats. Was the best part of espn.com back in the day with you and some others. Like a better version of AMA
Keith Law: That’s why I moved them here – so I could keep doing them even after ESPN axed them and the Athletic was inconsistent about them. I know they help me promote my work at the Athletic, but I also enjoy doing them, and I feel like it’s a way to be accountable to all of you as well.
Keith Law: That’s all for this week – we have to take Susie (our new rescue dog) to the vet in a little while. Thank you all for your questions and for reading. I’ll have a bunch of pieces around the trade deadline as long as we get some hot prospect action. And I’ll be at Gen Con next weekend – if any of you are attending, let me know and we can try to meet up for some gaming. Stay safe!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: klawchat

→ July 21, 2024
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 7/21/24.

The draft is over, let us go in peace. I wrote a lot of words about it this week, including an analysis of every first-round pick, some general thoughts on Day One of the draft, and team-by-team draft recaps for all American League clubs and all National League clubs. Prior to the draft, I posted a final mock (where I got 9 of the 30 picks right, and am still mad about two I changed from the previous version) and updated my ranking of the top 100 prospects in the class while also posting 25-odd more scouting capsules for guys outside of the top 100. I also wrote up some thoughts on last Saturday’s Futures Game. That’s all for subscribers to the Athletic. On this site, I held a Klawchat on the Thursday before the draft.

I sent out a new edition of my free email newsletter on draft day. You can sign up here for more words from me.

I’ll be back in Chicago on Monday to appear on Stadium’s Diamond Dreams and other programming. You can watch via the Stadium app (visit watchstadium.com to download) or if you have the sports package on Youtube TV, Roku, etc.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: This LA Times article frames a good story very oddly. There’s a mentally ill man living in a million-dollar home in the north San Fernando Valley, strewing his property with all manner of junk, including over 100 vehicles, posing an environmental hazard to the area and obviously creating an eyesore and a safety issue for neighbors. The story centers the neighbors who bought their home for $1.2 million, unaware of the hoarder next door, and local authorities are unable or unwilling to help. The real issue here is that there’s a person here in dire need of mental health treatment, not that the neighbors can’t sell their house.
Three (!) excellent pieces from ProPublica this week. A secretive organization of wealthy Christians called Ziklag is pouring money into elections to help push their vision of theocracy. Members include the Uihleins, the owners of the U-Line company and major backers of the Federalist, and the owners of Hobby Lobby. Arizona Republicans told voters allowing school vouchers to pay for private-school tuition would save taxpayer money, but instead they’ve destroyed the state’s education budget that’s being covered by cuts to water conservation programs and other essential initiatives. Many judges decline to recuse themselves from cases where family members have financial interests and there’s no real way to force them to do so.
I saw this Foreign Affairs editorial, on how the U.S. President has always been above the law in the eyes of the rest of the world (and not in a good way), before realizing it written by a college classmate of mine, Yale Law Prof. Oona Hathaway.
An L.A. journalist who wrote about officer gangs within the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department found himself the subject of surveillance and harassment from the LASD in apparent retaliation for his work.
This summary of what you need to know about J.D. Vance comes from Teen Vogue, which appears to once again be one of the few outlets willing to cover this election and the threat to our democracy honestly.
Texas Monthly looks at Major League Rugby’s plans to grow the sport – at least in Texas.
First it was crypto, now it’s AI, but one new technology after another is driving huge upticks in energy consumption. The solution is a use tax – if Meta wants to force AI search on all of its users, make them pay more for the energy they’re consuming.
A Senate committee report on working conditions at Amazon found that 45% of Amazon warehouse workers were injured on Prime Day 2019 as they tried to cope with the massive volume of sales. When I pulled this story up, there were three links to other stories on CNN on the right side of this column pushing deals on amazon, so … yeah. (Full disclosure: I did purchase about six items on Prime Day.)
Political violence in America is not new; serving in public office comes with it the constant threat of people who want to kill you.
The Wall Street Journal’s Lindsey Adler wrote about Paul Skenes’s splinker, the pitch that has made Skenes one of the best pitchers in baseball and a huge sensation beyond the sport’s core fans.
Scientific American weighed in on how the need for speed is driving an increase in Tommy John surgeries. I’m with Brian Bannister here, firmly.
Bad-faith politicians and pundits, mostly on the right, have attacked California Democrats for “watering down” a sex-trafficking bill, but Reason explains why these changes are good policy and not, as the opponents claim, about protecting sex criminals.
Rep. Cori Bush wrote about SCOTUS’s right-wing coup and how to fight back, although 1) that would require that Democrats gain control of both houses of Congress and hold the White House, and 2) the Court has held power to invalidate certain laws for over 200 years, since 1803’s Marbury vs. Madison, and undoing that seems like a large undertaking.
Repairing the hole in the ozone layer remains one of the great achievements in global science policy of the last 50 years, so of course we’re now about to screw it up through pollution from all of the satellites that are falling back to earth as they run out of juice.
Influential Portland chef and restaurateur Naomi Pomeroy, a James Beard winner who competed on Top Chef Masters back when I used to watch the show, drowned while inner-tubing near Corvallis.
Workers at Bethesda Game Studios, publishers of Fallout and Elder Scrolls, voted to unionize this week.
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg was on Real Time with Bill Maher and offered a two-minute takedown of Vance.
A St. Louis-area woman made a false sex-abuse claim against her son-in-law’s political rival to try to sink his primary campaign for a state House seat.
Three board game-related Kickstarters of note: Lucky Duck Games, publisher of Chronicles of Crime and Tang Garden, has a KS up for The Flames of Fafnir, a “competitive tower-defense game, with a traitor mechanism” that promises a “physics-based” element.
Sinister Fish has a has a Kickstarter up for Yonder, a “fantasy worker-placement game” from the designer of Villagers and last year’s Moon.
And another Kickstarter to help fund the 8^th African Boardgames Convention (AB Con) in Abuja, Nigeria. AB Con 7 was self-funded and held over two days, a first for the convention, and their goal is to build out to a four-day con with space for at least 3000 attendees.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: amazon, arizona, baseball, board game news, california, climate change, environment, links, longreads, los angeles, missouri, police, rugby, scotus, stick to baseball, top chef, unions

→ July 13, 2024
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 7/13/24.

I posted a third projection for Sunday’s first round of the MLB draft, and updated my Big Board of the top 100 prospects in the draft class, both for subscribers to the Athletic. I also took your questions here in a Klawchat on Thursday. On Saturday, I’ll have a new post with smaller scouting reports on about 20-25 more players in the draft class, guys whose names you might hear Sunday or Monday but who didn’t make the cut for the top 100.

At Paste, I reviewed Neotopia, a perfectly cromulent filler game for family play that didn’t bring anything new to the tabletop. I do like the way the scoring forces players to think about balance throughout the game, though.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: Gateway Church founder Robert Morris blamed his 12-year-old victim for the sexual abuse he inflicted on her. And so did Morris’s wife, according to the victim, Cindy Clemishere, who courageously came forward a month ago with the story, leading to Morris’s abdication and the resignations of four other Church leaders. No drag queens, no trans people, just a pastor and the leaders of a giant, tax-exempt religious organization.

Texas Monthly exposed how the Texas Senate has buried sexual harassment claims against its members and senior staffers even after it revised its policies to supposedly address the issue.

Also in Texas – what a great government they have down there! – the state has spent years siphoning public funds to so-called “pregnancy crisis centers,” usually religious groups that try to convince pregnant women not to have abortions, but there’s no evidence it has had any effect at all, aside from violating the principle of separation of church and state.

Vaccine denialist and antisemite Robert F. Kennedy Jr. helped spawn a measles outbreak in Samoa that killed several children. He’s denying that, too.

Vaccines save lives. We need new strategies to increase vaccine uptake and counter bullshit from bad actors like RFK Jr.

Donald Trump is Unfit to Lead: He Is Dangerous in Word, Deed, and Action. The NY Times editorial page belatedly gets the point. Biden may not be fit to be President. Trump is a threat to our democracy.

Trump is also lying to the press and public by saying he doesn’t know about Project 2025. We’ll see if Inquirer columnist Will Bunch’s belief that Project 2025 is poison for Trump’s candidacy is valid.

A Russian Kh-101 cruise missile struck a children’s hospital in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, killing at least two children. Trump has said he would encourage Russia to “do whatever the hell they want.”

It doesn’t matter what Trump says or does, though. His supporters don’t waver. If they think an action is bad, and Trump does it, they change their opinion of the action. If that’s not cultlike behavior, well, I don’t have a better word for it – and the media needs to cover his campaign accordingly.

A former student of the Kyrene School District in southeast Phoenix is suing the district for failing to address a long string of antisemitic bullying incidents that already resulted in a citation from the U.S. Department of Education.

Meanwhile, Arizona’s public schools chief is trying to push the right-wing PragerU materials into classrooms, promoting the misinformation group’s content on the department website, by claiming that teachers have only been presenting the “extreme left side” in classrooms. I’m very glad I didn’t raise my daughter there.

Our brains are wired to see patterns – even when they aren’t there. Which, coincidentally, is the theme of a single released last month by Mercury Rev.

Voters in Jackson County, Missouri, resoundingly rejected a sales tax hike to use taxpayer funds for stadium projects for the privately-owned Chiefs and Royals just three months ago, so, of course, the owners are just going to try to put it up for another vote and threaten to move the teams out of state.

Many species of tropical frogs are endangered because of a fungus that causes the disease chytridiomycosis; it turns out the fungus is heat-sensitive and a sort of ‘sauna’ can help kill the fungus and save the frogs.

Plaid Hat Games introduced a Kickstarter for Wandering Galaxy, a board game set in the Crossroads universe.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: arizona, board game news, environment, links, longreads, metoo, neuroscience, religion, science, stadium scams, stick to baseball, texas, trump, ukraine, vaccines

→ July 11, 2024
→ By keith

Klawchat 7/11/24.

I have a new mock draft and a final top 100 Big Board draft prospects ranking up for subscribers to the Athletic.

Keith Law: I can’t stay too long. Klawchat.

Scott: You released an updated ranking earlier this week. I’m curious what you are hearing or seeing at this point that is causing the rankings to change.
Keith Law: Teams had players in for workouts, interviewed guys at the combine, full-season data is now available, more video from end of year/summer stuff… a lot has changed since my last update.

Lynn: Keith – I know that it’s still a relatively small sample size and questions remain about how hard he makes contact, and where he plays but has your assessment of Jacob Wilson changed at all?
Keith Law: No, he’s played in two insanely good hitters environments and still doesn’t make enough hard contact.

Tristan: With no rookie-level ball in spring (thanks again, MLB!), it was pretty clear Arjun Nimmala was overmatched with the Dunedin assignment to start the year. After a reset, he’s come back looking much better based on the stat line. I read up until recently he hadn’t faced a pitcher older than him all year. Green light from you that he remains on track? Start him in High-A in ‘25 or hold off?
Keith Law: We have more than two months left to this season, so any talk of where he should start 2025 is premature. I said before the year he should start in extended/the complex and that turned out to be an accurate assessment.

Turner: Wanted to thank you because I read my first Ann Patchett novel (Bel Canto) last week based on your praise for her work and loved it.
Turner: Sorry, my question is if any of her novels would crack your top 100 list if updated today? Probably not important but I do love a top 100 list!
Keith Law: Bel Canto remains a top 50 all-time novel for me. I’ve loved all of her work except Run, but Bel Canto is her masterpiece.

davealden53: Will Bednar has been promoted twice this year despite pitching less than 30 innings. The strikeout numbers are great but the walks are concerning. Any reports on whether he’s still shaking off rust from the back injuries or will control be an on-going issue?
Keith Law: He’s walked 11 guys in 8 innings in AA. I’m not hearing reports on him because that’s non-prospect territory.

davealden53: Even adjusting for the PCL, Drew Romo’s offense seems potentially worthy of an ML roster spot. But how does is his catching progressing?
Keith Law: He’s always been a strong defender, but I disagree on his offense. He’s walked 8 times in 66 games playing in maybe the best hitter’s park in professional baseball, at a mile above sea level, so pitches don’t move as much. What on earth will that look like in the majors?

Gurnam: Big fan of your work going back over a decade. What’s the likelihood that Oakland takes Wetherholt if he’s there at #4? More or less than 30%? Would you take Wetherholt at #4 if you were running their draft? Thanks.
Keith Law: Way less than 30%; I have heard it’s more likely Montgomery or Kurtz. I’d take Wetherholt over either but bear in mind I don’t see medicals or get a doctor’s opinion on them like teams do.

JJ: Garrett Crochet — should the White Sox build around him, or trade him before his next arm injury? Or should they just save us all the grief, and fold the franchise?
Keith Law: Trade him but maybe this winter since his likely output the rest of 2024 is limited by workload considerations.

Jackie: WAG time — who is the top ranked prospect that gets traded this month?
Keith Law: Someone in Baltimore’s system.

Heather: Would we be better off if we junked our whole system of government, and replaced it with a parliamentary system?
Keith Law: I mean, Italy changes governments every time someone sneezes, so I’m not sure that’s a solution.

addoeh: In the mock, you talked about how the Brewers will pick whoever falls to them that was ranked much higher. Are they just really neutral on the draft model they subscribe to that they can pursue this philosophy?
Keith Law: No, I think it’s that their draft model is very down-the-middle – and that’s a good thing. They’ve drafted well for a long time. Only Eric Brown Jr stands out as a miss, a guy who was an overdraft on the day he was taken and has proven to be so.

Jimmy: Which of the lsu arms goes first you think? Gage jump or holman?
Keith Law: They both go in the same range, I think. Second round.

David: Any chance Smith or Burns fall out of the top 10?
Keith Law: Unless there’s a medical I don’t know about, zero.

Mike G: Saw your comments about Ben Hess yesterday, do you think it’s possible he makes it to 50 for the Red Sox?
Keith Law: I’d be floored.

Jimmy: Is sloan a safe bet for top 30 pick at this point?
Keith Law: No.

Dana: Can Ben Rice be the Yankees’ long-term answer at first base?
Keith Law: Maybe as a platoon piece.

mike: What a day for Bluejay pitching prospects yesterday – both Tiedemann and Macko leave starts with forearm tightness. Manoah, Barriera and Maroudis already have had TJ this year. this is bad luck and not a systemic issue with the Jay right??
Keith Law: Tiedeman’s had arm trouble – and delivery questions – for a long time now. And Macko’s had arm trouble going back at least two years.
Keith Law: So I don’t think it’s systemic.

Matt: Why do some players like Gary Sanchez fall off a cliff at an early age and others like Beltre seem to thrive as they get older?
Keith Law: Beltre was a way better athlete than Sanchez.
Keith Law: Don’t know if that’s the answer, but it might be.

Joshua: Do you have you think the Nats preference would be to take any one of the “Big 6” college bats at #10 over Yesavage or anyone else in that spot? Thanks.
Keith Law: Oh yes. Yesavage is not in the top 10 by talent. He’s clearly in tier 2.

champdo: Who do you think has the better chance at success: Caminiti or Griffin?
Keith Law: Caminiti, but he also has the injury risk of a pitcher.

Lark11: Hey Keith, Jac and Condon are both taller hitters (6-5/6-6), but to my untrained eye Jac’s swing seems more compact and shorter to the point of contact, whereas Condon seems to have a bit more length. Basically, it feels like Condon has more “tall hitter risk” than Jac. Is this reflected in the fact that the main risk to Jac’s offensive game is chase rate rather than contact rate? Whereas some talk about the risk to Condon’s offensive game being contact rate/hit tool related. Is Jac better positioned to minimize the traditional “tall hitter/long levers” risk? Thanks!!!
Keith Law: Don’t agree on the swing length, and Caglianone has substantially worse plate discipline.

Ryan: How likely do you think it is that Seaver King is actually there at 21… I would love it.
Keith Law: Didn’t have a great year after the transfer, I think it’s even money or better he gets out of the top 20.

Josh: If you’re picking first what’s the point of all the smoke screens?
Keith Law: Trying to strike the best $ deal with whoever you’re taking.

Matt: Higher upside: Justin Crawford or Aidan miller?
Keith Law: Crawford more upside, Miller more probability.

Braydon: The 5 names you have with the Cardinals are Rainer, Burns, Smith, Montgomery, and Wetherholt. What are the odds their pick isn’t one of those 5?
Keith Law: If I thought they might take someone else, I would have listed them.

AK: As a Tigers fan, who of the consensus top 5/10 has the best chance to slip to their pick at 11? Thanks for doing this!
Keith Law: Griffin. And I’ve heard them on him.

Sleepy: I’ve seen it mentioned on other sites that it may be possible that Cags could play corner OF whereas others believe he’s 1B only. Could he cut it in a corner or is he 1B only in your eyes?
Keith Law: I’d try him in a corner to see. Good enough athlete with 80 arm. Dumb to waste him at 1b only.

JT: McGonigle was a guy you liked at this time last year, and he is hitting a ton so far. Do you see him developing enough power to be an above average regular / occasional All-Star?
Keith Law: Yes. He’s hitting the ball harder than I expected for year one. (And a lot harder than Jacob Wilson!)

Andy: If Condon goes pick 1, who is your prediction at pick 2?
Keith Law: Bazzana.

Kevin: Why is the MLB draft structured differently than the other major sports? Blows my mind that teams knowingly pass on the best available player to get someone worse but that can be signed cheaper. Would MLBPA not agree to some sort of structured rookie scale that locks in contract value at each draft slot? Thanks Keith
Keith Law: Why would the union agree to that? What do they get out of it?

Jordan: thoughts on george wolkow? please, white sox fans need something to take us away from this apathy
Keith Law: Dude has a 42% strikeout rate. This ain’t it.

Ryan: If you were the GM of the Red Sox, would you buy/sell/do nothing? Would you be willing to move one or two top prospects? A lot of mixed messaging happening in Boston on their intended path.
Keith Law: Buy.

Dallas: how good is James tibbs bat (only 50+ tool) where teams would consider taking a future platoon bat top 12 overall?
Keith Law: “Future platoon bat” is rather pessimistic.

Insert Witty Name Here: Curious to know what kind of speakers/headphones you use for music? I asked a few years ago I think and you said you don’t have use for high quality speakers. But the other day I listened to Moby’s new album through my phone and thought it sucked. Then I played it in my car with my expensive speakers and the added sound changed everything.
Keith Law: finally had to get airpods because I got a new phone. It’s that or the car. Nothing fancy, not willing to spend $ for more.

Craig: The groups of players who would have been traditionally taken in rounds 21-50, what are they doing in this new world? Are they going to independent leagues, signing post-draft FA deals with MLB orgs, giving up on organized ball and getting their teaching degree?
Keith Law: Indy ball, undrafted free agents, a lot will just go to college.

Ryan Hall: Hello Keith. What would you do in the Jays situation? Just trade expiring contracts or burn it down? Also, any pizza recommendations in Phoenix downtown?
Keith Law: Bianco, Cibo, Federal.
Keith Law: I’d wait ten more games to decide.

SJ: It looks like a lost year for Jordan Lawlar. Is he someone you’re concerned about long term or were the injuries all just bad luck?
Keith Law: Concerned that he seems to have trouble staying on the field.

Paul: I’m a new dad to a 4 month old. How are you managing raising kids under the looming specter of the collapse of democracy? I don’t even know how I’m going to begin to talk to him or try to keep him safe
Keith Law: It’s on my mind pretty often, but what’s the solution?

Miguel: Is there going to be anyone for me to watch at Stanford next season? Or, if I want to see some mlb prospects, should I just pick games to go based on which ACC team is in town?
Keith Law: Sasaki is worth going to see.

Jon: Do you think Jordan Walker will get back to the majors at some point this year?
Keith Law: Yes, but I’m starting to wonder about what’s happening to some of the bats over there – he and Carlson in particular have stalled out. Two former top ten prospects and neither has progressed as expected.

Matt: Rece Hinds is having a great start, but considering his MiLB K rate, can he really be a MLB regular?
Keith Law: No.

Matt: It was 118+ degrees 4 days this week in Las Vegas. Call me crazy, but maybe we shouldn’t be building cities in these locations let alone move a f’ing MLB team there.
Keith Law: Agree. We should be providing people with an incentive to live elsewhere, or if they’re in places like that to at least live in ways that are a little more sustainable (e.g., in Phoenix, incentivize residential construction near the light rail).

Section 34: Is Matt Etzel a prospect? 10th round pick but promoted to AA faster than the 1st rounder at the same position. Thank you.
Keith Law: Sort of. Need to get his lower half involved more to drive the ball. Great athlete. Wrote about him in February and again in May.

Kip: At what point would you transition Waldrep into a relief role? He didn’t get a lot of swing and misses in a small MLB sample, even with that split.
Keith Law: Uh, he’s less than a year out of the draft.

Jimmy: whats the likely order for catchers to come off the board? Sounds like moore/janek then a gap to lomavita?
Keith Law: Yes and wouldn’t be surprised to see Cozart get in there over Lomavita.

Insert Witty Name Here: Who would you like to see replace Biden at the top of the ticket?
Keith Law: If they replace him, it’s Harris or don’t bother.

Greg: Who is a better long term player- Cowser or Kjerstad?
Keith Law: I have ranked Kjerstad higher since he came back from his illness/injuries. Cowser is a platoon bat at best, and he’s been awful for three months now.

Anonymous: How would you fix Vance Honeycutt’s swing?
Keith Law: What’s wrong with his swing, exactly?

Jimmy: are there any players with medical concerns that may cause a small slide?
Keith Law: If I know any of that, I don’t report it unless MLB has put it out there. I am not going to be responsible for a player sliding like that.

TomBruno23: Quinn Mathews…A Guy?
Keith Law: Yes, if he holds up. Worked way too hard in college.

Guest: Is there a combination of Pirates minor league pitchers, not including Bubba Chandler, that gets an impact bat with some years of control back? Thinking guys like Harrington, Solomento, Burrows, and Ashcraft. Thank you!
Keith Law: No.

Mike Trout: Can Vientos be a solid regular at 3B? 1B? Not expecting a 154 wRC+ going forward but he’s been fun to watch.
Keith Law: Yes.

Matthew: George klassan. Where the heck did he come from and do you think he’s for real?
Keith Law: I keep hearing reliever from scouts who’ve seen him but he’s a very different guy than the one they drafted, who was misused at Minnesota.

Insert Witty Name Here: Re: new dad. I have younger kids too, control what you can control. We’re an adaptable species, we’ll be fine. Keep perspective that the news never reports the good things because it doesn’t sell. Everything will be alright. People have been claiming the end of the world since forever.
Keith Law: Sometimes the world does end, so to speak. Dictators get elected. Stable countries collapse. Nothing is permanent.

Mucho: Does it seem like there’s any chance the M’s go hitter at 15, or is it basically down to Yesavage/Cijntje?
Keith Law: I keep hearing pitching for them.
Keith Law: Those are the main two names but there could be others.

Mike: From last year’s draft, would your rather have Teel, who is doing well in AA and is a catcher, or Jenkins who has a higher upside, but is in low A ball? The scarcity of catchers seems makes me actually think this is closer than it likely is…thanks,
Keith Law: Pretty sure I had them ranked 6th and 5th, respectively, on draft day, so I’d say that’s a toss-up.

Jeremy Haber: Are Jac C. and C. Condon destined to be 1Bs, and if so, why are they projected top-5 picks considering how that has gone recently (Vaughn, Torkelson)?
Keith Law: Please read what I wrote about Condon.

Matt: Biden is fine. You know Trump is gonna pick some batshit VP Qanon believer that Harris will eviscerate in a debate. He just has to stem the tide until then.
Keith Law: I don’t think the debates matter that much in the end. I think the endless media coverage matters a lot more. I was pleased to see the NYT editorial board belatedly write something about how Trump is a danger to our country.

JK: Have you followed the NY Times best books of the 21st century list? Thoughts?
Keith Law: OK, I just scanned it (I’d only seen 100-81 before). The ones I’ve read are mostly worthy; I think Trust is overrated, perhaps here for recency bias, and seeing Alice Munro on there after the stories this week revealed what a shitty human being she was makes me queasy, but seems like a decent enough list. I do think they got the wrong Adichie book, though. Half of a Yellow Sun is far better than Americanah.

chewbalka: Safe to assume you’ll do a midseason update after the draft? Thanks for everything you do, it really helps these days.
Keith Law: yes, I always do one a week or so post-draft, where I consider the just-drafted guys (and assume they sign, which is usually true but not 100%).

Luke: Chances of Angels taking Rainer or Griffin?
Keith Law: Zero.

addoeh: Trump is more likely to have his own health concerns become front and center or say something dumb about an important issue, like when he said women who get an abortion should be prosecuted. Oh wait, that’s already happened and not really covered.
Keith Law: Yep. And his speeches are rambling messes – you can see video and transcripts if you look for a minute. For some reason, they don’t generate the same headlines even in the mainstream (that is, non-rightwing) media.

Jacob: Do you have takeaways from the Cape so far this summer? In this draft class, ‘25, or ‘26?
Keith Law: I have absolutely no idea what’s happening on the Cape. I am focused on the draft that is happening in three days.

Mucho: Are teams concerned that Gillen might have chronic injury issues, or just that his arm hasn’t bounced back from the labrum tear?
Keith Law: That his arm hasn’t bounced back. I haven’t heard “chronic injury issues” from anyone.

Dan S: Even with his hitting struggles, how many teams would want KeBryan Hayes in a trade? Is he someone you’d trade away or trade for?
Keith Law: I highly doubt he’s available but I bet you there are teams looking at him as a buy-low guy of sorts. The Pirates have had so many hitters underperform in the majors, especially in terms of power and hard contact, in the last decade.
Keith Law: Also, I think almost every team without an established 3b would want him.

Danny: Are you surprised by the links to Tommy White and Blake Burke to the Yankees in the first round? Last time they went something akin to that route in the first round (or first pick) was Eric Jagielo in 2013.
Keith Law: Yes but 1) they tend to go their own way in the draft and 2) I’ve heard them linked to a lot of names who’d be for later rounds, I think. They may just be holding their cards close to the vest on the first round. I know they value exit velo a ton but Oppenheimer usually prefers athletes.

Danny: Do you think Dakota Jordan could/is likely to fall to the Yankees at 53?
Keith Law: Yes.

The Darkness: Who are some of the really high-grade character guys this year, a la Nick Solak from a few years back?
Keith Law: I absolutely could not care less about who the nicest white guys in the draft are, sorry.

Jim: Trump looks and sounds like the same guy he was in 2015, for better and worse. Biden in 2015 vs. Biden in 2024 looks like he’s had a lobotomy in the interim. It’s obvious why one is a much bigger issue.
Keith Law: Trump’s threat was insufficiently covered in 2015-16, too.

Matt: One huge concern of mine is Project 2025. Sooner or later the GOP WILL win- whether it’s this year or 4-8 years from now. And the christofascism will be implemented into our laws.
Keith Law: It’s already happening in the south. Oklahoma forcing the Bible into schools – although the late Daniel Dennett probably would have approved, knowing kids will read it and see how often it contradicts itself etc. – and Louisiana forcing the Ten Commandments into classrooms … it’s all indoctrination. And I thought these folks were against indoctrination in public schools!

Josh: Is Kristian Campbell becoming a GUY?
Keith Law: Yes.

Tim: The consensus on this years draft is its not very deep. So if you are a HS player who gets drafted in the middle to late rounds does it make sense to go to college with the assumption 3 years from now will probably also not be a very deep draft?
Keith Law: I wouldn’t take that bet. Three years is an eon in baseball terms. Charlie Condon wasn’t on the radar out of HS; Travis Bazzana wasn’t in the same hemisphere as the top HS guys in 2021, literally.

Brian in NoVA: The main difference between Trump now vs in 2016 is that the institutions and supposed safeguards put in place by the Constitution have been greatly weakened by the Courts. There will also be no adults in the room to slow him down this time if he gets elected.
Keith Law: This is also accurate. The adults in the room will be enabling him and the Project 2025 people.
Keith Law: Honestly, the Democrats should be pushing two messages – abortion rights and Project 2025.
Keith Law: A few folks have asked some character/makeup questions about specific draft players. I’m avoiding those because I have made that mistake in the past, spreading that kind of gossip, and while sometimes it’s right, it’s unverifiable and I don’t want to hurt anyone’s draft stock based on innuendo.

Danny: You saw Agustin Ramirez a couple weeks ago and I think you said at the time he looked rough at the plate. Any feedback since and how legit is his offensive profile?
Keith Law: Haven’t seen him since – and I just said he had a rough night. Didn’t evaluate him either way.

Chris: I think your response of it being Harris or no one to replace Biden demonstrates the problem with the Democratic Party and underscores what got them into this mess to begin with: namely, they treat the nomination as a coronation rather than an open process. It’s also why we got Clinton in 2016 when Biden decided not to run. It leaves voters feeling left out of the process and taken for granted.
Keith Law: I’m saying Harris or no one as a practical matter – if the party passes her over, they risk alienating large groups of multiple voter blocks they need to win. The time for a larger pool of candidates has passed.

UGW: Ready to believe in Jake Irvin?
Keith Law: Maybe when he shows he can get LHB out at a better clip. Guys with large platoon splits don’t last as starters until they close them.

Danny: How concerned should we be about Roderick Arias and Spencer Jones’s K rates?
Keith Law: Way more on Jones due to his age. Arias would be in Staten Island if Rob Manfred hadn’t gone all General Sherman through short-season ball.

Salty: Keith – when watching upper-minors games, do you notice any talent or maybe diminished player development due to the contraction of teams a few years ago, or is that too general of a topic to comment on?
Keith Law: The rumor is MLB is going to try to cut another level from the minors. I think that’s the absolute stupidest idea I’ve heard in 20 years. You’re destroying the product. We are already seeing the harm done to players from the loss of a level (technically two, advanced rookie + short-season). So … let’s make the problem worse?
Keith Law: That answer applies to both questions.

Alex: Sebastian Walcott- on schedule for an 18 year old in High-A?
Keith Law: Ahead.

Mike J: Hey Keith, thoughts on what Leo Jimenez can do if he’s the starting SS rest of the way due to Bichette missing time with injury or getting dealt? Is a league average WAR (good defense, below average bat) reasonable or do you think he’ll struggle out of the gate?
Keith Law: I don’t predict what guys will do in half a season but I think long term he’s a regular or better.

Jimmy: I would guess cintje goes before brecht just bc brecht viewed as rp and?
Keith Law: Brecht isn’t viewed as a reliever, but he has more reliever risk because of his lack of command/control and the need to help him get a more consistent arm swing. He’s raw for a college arm, but has big upside in his size, athleticism, and arm strength (both on the FB and SL, so this isn’t just pure velo).

Tim: So the Democrats should run a fear-based campaign centered around the idea that tens of millions of their fellow citizens are trying to turn the country into Nazi Germany, while providing little to no positive messaging about their candidate or his/her plans for the future?
Keith Law: Yeah, Tim. That’s exactly what I meant. ?

Salty: More contraction is wild. Everyone I know with kids that have taken them to the Lakewood Blue Claws talks about how great a time everyone had, and I’m sure that’s a sentiment shared by many other ML parks across the country. There has to be a better way to either market or support that product then just letting them die out.
Keith Law: I know some people at MLB look at that and say, ‘why are we paying the players for minor league owners to reap the profits?’ instead of saying, hey, these teams are providing us with a service of value, giving prospects a place to play, where we just have to pay their salaries but don’t have to worry about running entire teams.

Mike: Was going to ask about the Phillies and Vance Honeycutt and realized you mocked him to the Phillies this morning. Teams really that concerned he won’t hit enough in the pros that he falls that far despite all of the other tools?
Keith Law: I don’t think it’s “falling” … as far as I can tell, no hitter has ever gone in the first round after striking out 80+ times that spring.

RoyalBlue: I read Hader comparisons with Hagen Smith. Do you see reliever risk?
Keith Law: I’m sorry, but there is no comparison here. That’s just bad.

Danny: What chance (is there a chance) Waldschmidt makes it to the Yankees?
Keith Law: Highly doubt it.

Kendall: I think one of the big issues is that the whole republic was based on everyone acting in good faith. It’s not like the Supreme Court ever had an army available to enforce the Civil Rights Act or Roe. Thankfully, everyone mostly did act in good faith for a long time, but it seems now that one party has decided to stop.
Keith Law: Yep. And those SCOTUS justices appear to be available for purchase.

Kevin S.: There was an open primary process. Nobody of substance lined up to run against Biden, and quite frankly I can’t think of a single example of when a serious primary challenge worked out for the incumbent party (whether successful or not). At this point, there are practical and structural reasons why harris is the only alternative if Biden withdraws.
Keith Law: Yes. There may be a really strong case here that Biden and his camp should have planned for a strategic withdrawal from the 2024 race last fall, but they didn’t, so the options right now are limited.

Michael: I know Amaya didn’t have a ton of at bats in the minors but do you see any chance that he develops into an acceptable everyday catcher? He’s looked terrible all years.
Keith Law: I am really surprised at how bad he’s looked at the plate. I know a lot of people who at least thought he’d hit for some power/hard contact, and I would put myself in the group too. He’s done none of that.

Adam: Does AJSS have a 3rd starter future? If not what is he missing?
Keith Law: A viable third pitch.
Keith Law: Gotta go see a man about a dog … no, really, I have to go to the vet to pick up medicine for the dog. I’ll be contributing to the Athletic’s live draft blog throughout Sunday night and will write up my thoughts on day one for subscribers for Monday morning, and if I have anything new at all I’ll update the mock before the draft begins too. Thanks as always for reading!

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