→ May 6, 2022
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Music update, April 2022.

April was a lighter month for good singles, but we’re heading into a heavy period of new album releases starting today (Arcade Fire, Belle & Sebastian, Sunflower Bean, Warpaint). We get new albums from The Smile, Everything Everything, Porridge Radio, Stars, and Liam Gallagher this month, and Bartees Strange, Foals, Soccer Mommy, and Post Malahahahaha I can’t even finish that, next month. As always, you can click here to access the playlist if you can’t see the widget below.

Kae Tempest feat. Grian Chatten – I Saw Light. Tempest is a poet and spoken-word artist whose work I was unfamiliar with, but this song, featuring Grian Chatten of Fontaines D.C., flattened me. I heard the song and thought they might be a poet, just because the lyrics are that good, especially the depth of imagery within them.

Belle and Sebastian – Young and Stupid. This is the sweet spot for me with Belle and Sebastian – lush and a little more uptempo, with Murdoch’s wry humor throughout the lyrics, which he also exhibited in this tweet on Wednesday.

Sports Team – R Entertainment. Strong lyrics might be the theme for this month’s playlist; Sports Team does that thing I keep mentioning that I like where we get some British singer sing-talking clever lyrics over post-punk backing music. They’re just the right side of obnoxious for me.

Just Mustard – Mirrors. I think this Irish shoegaze band is starting to come into its own heading into their second album, with a better sense of its sound, including a slightly more prominent melody, and better production that better centers the vocals.

Jessie Buckley and Bernard Butler – The Eagle and the Dove. Yep, that’s Oscar nominee Jessie Buckley and former Suede guitarist Bernard Butler. Buckley’s career started on a British reality competition show, where she finished second, with the winner getting a part in a new stage production of Oliver! … which is a long way of saying she was a singer before she was an actress. It turns out she’s great at both, which you can see in 2019’s Wild Rose.

Let’s Eat Grandma – Levitation. I understand the joke in this band’s name (the importance of proper punctuation!) but I still don’t like it. Their sound, though, has a very mid-80s synthpop vibe that is catnip to me as a child of that era. This is my favorite song from them so far, coming off their third album, Two Ribbons, released last month.

Everything Everything – I Want a Love Like This. One of my favorite bands of the last decade, EE will release their sixth album, Raw Data Feel, on May 20th. This is the third single from that album – a fourth, “Pizza Boy,” dropped this morning – and I’m pretty excited about the direction so far.

Foals – Looking High. Foals promised that their upcoming album, Life Is Yours, due out June 17th, would be upbeat and danceable, and the early singles have delivered on that promise.

Cory Wong – Power Station. Wong has worked with a few musicians who worked with Prince, and this track sounds a lot like something we might hear from Prince’s endless well of unreleased tracks. I’m in.

beabadoobee – See You Soon. Beatopiacomes outon July 17th; withthis and “Talk,” both very strong singles with different vibes (this one is quieter and more lush, “Talk” is more straight-up rock), coming out in the last few weeks, I’m expecting a big leap forward on her second record.

The Head and the Heart – Shut Up. Every Shade of Blue came out in April and it’s really all over the place – it sounds like the work of three different bands who split the album between them – with this my favorite track on the album.

Arcade Fire – Unconditional I (Lookout Kid). I definitely worry any time Arcade Fire puts out a song with a second part, but this is actually a simpler and less pretentious affair than Win Butler has offered on similar diptychs (“Infinite Content,” the Orpheus/Eurydice tracks from Reflektor, or the two singles they released in March).

Interpol – Toni. The lead single from their forthcoming album The Other Side of Make-Believe, due out July 15th, is an understated affair from Interpol as they celebrate their 25th anniversary, a change from how they usually announce new albums – “PDA,” “Slow Hands,” and “The Heinrich Maneuver” were all heavier rock tracks and the lead singles from their respective albums.

Sunflower Bean – I Don’t Have Control Sometimes. This jangle-pop trio’s third album, Headful of Sugar, comes out today, featuring five songs we’ve heard already – four advance singles as well as the bonus track “Moment in the Sun,” a one-off single from 2020 that made my top 100 from that year.

Fontaines D.C. – Skinty Fia. Speaking of these Dublin punks, they dial the intensity down on their third album, as on the title track here. It’s hit or miss, unfortunately, as I think they’ve lost the righteous anger that made their last album, A Hero’s Death, more successful.

Iceage – All the Junk on the Outskirts. This track was left on the cutting room floor during the recording of 2018’s Beyondless, but they’ve “reconfigured” it and released in advance of their summer/fall tour.

Buzzcocks – Senses Out of Control. I assumed the death of Pete Shelley in 2018 would be the end of the Buzzcocks, but here they are … and this is actually pretty good, wth 66-year-old Steve Diggle handling vocals.

Working Men’s Club – Circumference. I don’t know if WMC qualify as “darkwave,” but I love their darker spin on new wave, which at least has strong roots in 1980s darkwave bands like Clan of Xymox and Bauhaus.

Wet Leg – Ur Mum. I’m just not on this duo’s wavelength despite the wide critical acclaim; the weird high/low vocal delivery just rubs me the wrong way, and I find myself in the minority in thinking their lyrics aren’t that witty. That said, there are three songs on their self-titled debut album I like, this one “Angelica,” and “Wet Dream,” which is a pretty solid effort.

SAULT – Luos Higher. SAULT changed their entire sound for their sixth album, Air, released last month with no advance notice, as with their previous records. They’ve dispensed with the ’70s funk and soul sounds, and all of the Black Lives Matter-themed lyrics are gone … in fact, just about all of the lyrics are gone. Air is almost all instrumental, highly experimental in music styles and forms, and simultaneously impressive and disappointing. I respect the ambition here, but what made SAULT’s first four albums in particular so incredible was their combination of smart, incisive lyrics and a modern twist on classic genres of music. Bring that beat back, Inflo.

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→ April 30, 2022
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Stick to baseball, 4/30/22.

For subscribers to The Athletic this week, I offered my first “overreaction theater” post, looking at the first three weeks of games from players who made their MLB debuts this month. I also held my first Klawchat in a while on Thursday.

Over at Paste, I reviewed the game Skull Canyon: Ski Fest, which combines a Ticket to Ride-like mechanic with extra rounds where you go get bonus cards that help you rack up more points or do more things with each turn. It’s quite good.

On The Keith Law Show, I spoke with Dr. Ellen Hendriksen, author of the fantastic book How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (which you can buy here). You can subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I sent out a new issue of my free email newsletter yesterday. You can find both of my books, Smart Baseball and The Inside Game, in paperback anywhere books are sold, including Bookshop.org.

And now, the links…

  • Why is the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) holding its convention in Budapest, home to Hungarian President Viktor Orbán, an anti-Semitic Putin adherent? Maybe because they agree with his views – and perhaps are trying to find new funding sources now that Russia’s spigot is off.
  • A beautiful response: A Florida resident is circulating petitions to ban any mention of the Bible in public schools there, which has a lot more basis in our Constitution than the state’s attempts to criminalize any mention of sexual orientation or gender identity.
  • Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s stunt at the border turned up no drugs and no migrants, but it will cost the state $4.2 billion. I thought the Republicans were the party of fiscal responsibility? How is any taxpayer there okay with this much money, about $425 per Texas household, being thrown away?
  • He’s also sending busloads of migrants to Washington, D.C., using people as objects – which, I suppose, is in line with Texas’ history prior to 1865. You can join me in donating to this GoFundMe to help these immigrants travel to their ultimate destinations or provide them with other needed items.
  • All the progress we’d made on reducing exemptions to childhood vaccination mandates is eroding, and we’re going to end up worse than where we started as religious zealots seek to further expand those exemptions (even though no major religion opposes vaccinations).
  • Eagle-Gryphon introduced a pair of new games from Portuguese designers, Lisbon Tram 28 and Porto.
  • Paradox Interactive, which makes video games and has co-published board games based on several of those titles, announced dates and info for PDXCON 2022. I attended this event in 2018, at their invitation & expense, and enjoyed it quite a bit, although I stuck to the tabletop stuff.
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→ April 28, 2022
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Klawchat 4/28/22.

Starting at 3 pm ET. My latest column for subscribers to The Athletic looks at the first few weeks for players who debuted in MLB this month. For Paste, I reviewed Skull Canyon: Ski Fest, a new Ticket to Ride-like game with an extra phase that lets you pick up more gear for the next day on the slopes.

Keith Law: In the final seconds, who’s gonna save you? Klawchat.

Matt: Why doesn’t MLB just stick Angel Hernandez at 3B rather than let him call strikes in a nationally televised game?
Keith Law: Don’t think they can dictate that? The umpires rotate through their positions, and I imagine there’d be a huge fight – maybe another lawsuit – if they denied him the right to work the plate in a nationally televised game.

Aaron C.: Cristian Pache has two walks in his first 63 PAs. A’s seem content to bat him 8th/9th. Even in a lost/rebuilding year, when does it become untenable?
Keith Law: He should be in triple A, and I say that as someone who is a longtime Pache believer.

JR: If the choices for the Mets next Monday are to cut Cano or Jankowski, or demote Smith, cutting Cano is the smartest option right?
Keith Law: Yes. If they don’t want to use Smith, and clearly someone in that FO does not like him, demoting him would hurt any trade value he has less – and I know other teams that like him.

Matt: When you worked in Toronto, did you ever get the sense that players “know” when a teammate sucks? Like say a #4 hitter is up. Does he feel pressure because the #5 hitter ( I’m talking to you Joey Gallo) couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn from 2 feet away? Or is the mindset more along the lines of hitting is hard, he’s a professional, he’ll get the job done.
Keith Law: I don’t remember that per se, but I do remember we could tell when players clearly didn’t like someone as a teammate – you could see the body language differ in the clubhouse, or who was talking to whom.

Aaron C.: Understand if you’d rather not name names, but have you ever scouted a kid with significant “make up” issues who ultimately turned his sh t around and thrived in the bigs?
Keith Law: Yes. But in some cases I can think of, I have wondered if the makeup concerns were overblown. Javy Báez comes to mind – his makeup was fine, he was just a ‘showy’ Latino player and (white) people didn’t respond well to it. They were wrong.
Keith Law: I don’t know about someone with, say, REAL makeup issues, like a drug problem, getting to the show and succeeding. The ones who come to mind never panned out.

JR: If you were in a front office for a team that planned on contending next year, after the draft would you try and sign Conforto to a 2 year/20-22MM contract? Basically guarantee him the QO $ he turned down last December + a little extra for this year to get him in your system? Or would it not be worth trying?
Keith Law: Yes. Not sure Boras would go for it, but yes.

zuke: Ugh….Bench clearing brawls. When will baseball start suspending guys for leaving the dugout and especially the bullpen to go push each other in a scrum?

10….over/under on how man bench clearing incidents the mets are involved in this year. Not even may and already over the old-school baseball macho BS.
Keith Law: I haven’t watched any of this stuff, sorry. I would much rather watch actual baseball. If I’m at a game and a brawl breaks out, I take out whatever book I’m reading. Never liked it in hockey either.

Aaron C.: Any new weeknight meals/recipes in the rotation? My ungrateful ass family has apparently grown weary of the usual blood, sweat and tears I serve them during the work week.
Keith Law: Have been doing one of pasta alla vodka or all’amatriciana more or less every week lately. Neither is very hard, and you can just use good-quality bacon if you’d rather not hunt down pancetta (which is unsmoked, and definitely has a more porky flavor) or guanciale (my favorite, but it’s expensive and harder to find). Otherwise it’s all stuff you probably have in your house. Trader Joes now sells bucatini for $1.70 a pound, and it’s great for pasta all’amatriciana.

Aidan: Is Ezequiel Tovar a top 50 prospect? What he is doing in the Eastern League at age 20 is impressive.
Keith Law: He’s a prospect. It’s only two weeks, though.

Snit: Thoughts on Kyle Wright so far this season?
Keith Law: Cautious optimism. Was so high on him out of college, but his fastball didn’t play the same in pro ball and he was heavy on the slider, which I thought would be the out pitch. His curveball is easy plus now and he’s locating his fastball as well as ever – he might have 70 command, although SSS applies.

ProjectHanyo: What do you think of the NIL and the potential changes in scholarship caps and third paid assistant? Thinking the threat of college becomes a bigger risk which could lead to a few things, like higher minor league salary. But my fear is that MLB will take the NCAA like the NBA and NFL have and make it its de facto minor league system and get rid of the minors.
Keith Law: I think Rob Manfred would be very happy to farm out player development to the colleges, which would be worse for baseball and for players. I don’t think the NIL rules affect baseball. More scholarships would.

Terrified Citizen: Are we going to full-blown war with Russia if this course of events continues?
Keith Law: I don’t think so, but, hey, I’m no Eric Feigl-Ding.

Buster: Hi Keith, do you think Maddux Bruns is the real deal based off his early showings this year and what he showed in spring training? Also, how much longer can the cardinals keep Michael McGreevy in High A as he’s just mowing em down and quite frankly, it’s unfair for those hitters lol.
Keith Law: Don’t think McGreevy’s developing there either. Command starters from college should do this in A-ball. I’m in on Bruns.

Jeff: Hi Keith, Twins fan here. Is this Joe Ryan for real?
Keith Law: No – see my comment under today’s piece. It’s not sustainable.

Noah: Are any of the royals “starters” salvageable. Talking Kowar, Singer, and Bubic. Brady just got sent down
Keith Law: Bubic is the one I think just needs to pitch. Kowar needs a breaking ball. Singer needs to go to the bullpen.

Seth: Your thoughts on Bryan Ramos? Is he now the Sox best prospect?
Keith Law: He was #11 on my White Sox top 20 before the season. I think he’s in their top 3 now.
Keith Law: Colás is off to a great start in A+, too.

ProjectHanyo: What do you think is causing all the higher than normal TJ/elbow injuries among the draft class? Last year would have made more sense given how colleges and high schools were restricted due to COVID with training.
Keith Law: Hypothesis: Guys barely pitched in 2020. Then they all pitched in 2021 like they hadn’t missed a year. Now the piper comes calling.

Eric: Why do I have to watch Cavan Biggio when Samad Taylor exists?
Keith Law: Preaching to the choir on that. The Jays fans mad online about my opinions on Biggio have been quiet.

Johnny Mo: If you’re the Cardinals can you rationalize moving Edman to SS and bringing up Gorman?
Keith Law: I can’t imagine that … I feel like it’s a big defensive hit to take. I also was looking at Edman’s batted ball data the other day, and, jeez, I missed on that guy completely.

Michael: I made an insensitive comment to you on your CODA review and want to apologize for that
Keith Law: Oh, thank you, but that’s truly not necessary.

Book: Sorry if I missed it, but have you recently made any good reading recommendations fiction/non
Keith Law: I’ve been reading more the last few weeks with more travel. Jason Mott’s Hell of a Book was amazing. Black Swan Green was excellent too. Emily Fridlund’s History of Wolves was very good. Non-fiction … I interviewed Dr. Ellen Hendriksen (How to Be Yourself) and Kathryn Schulz (Lost & Found) for my podcast after reading and enjoying both of their books.
Keith Law: Currently reading Eating to Extinction by Dan Saladino, about rare foods we’re at risk of losing due to globalization, climate change, or other stupid human tricks.

BD DC: Luis Garcia is killing the ball at AAA.  Has the light gone on?
Keith Law: I don’t believe in any hitter who has that much big-league time going back down to beat up inferior AAA pitching until he does it again in the majors. Not saying he hasn’t changed, but any varsity player should be able to hit JV pitching.

Elon Musk: Gonna stick around, Keith? Free speech for everyone!
Keith Law: I’m not going anywhere. I did set up an account on counter.social, @keithlaw, for folks who fled there from Twitter, but I am not deactivating my Twitter account.

Joe: I assume Gore is getting some help from bad teams but he looks pretty damn good considering where he was a year ago?
Keith Law: Both of these things can be true at the same time. I’m very pleased with where he is. I still see work to do.

Bob: You mentioned passivity in your report on Evan Carter. Have you found that to be somewhat innate and hard to change or the kind of thing a good development team should be able to help improve?
Keith Law: Depends on the person. No hard & fast rule there. Jeremy Hermida just watched this question go right by him.

Kevin: What’s up Klaw. Hope all is well. Long term for A’s…Murphy or Langeliers? Who would you prefer?
Keith Law: I would trade Murphy and promote Langeliers. Nothing against Murphy, but Langeliers provides a similar skill set, and Murphy should return a big haul. Of course, when you’re playing Christian Bethancourt at first base…

John Standing: Hey Keith, are you a believer in Taylor Ward’s start? Thanks
Keith Law: He has a .531 OBP. I am going to boldly predict that that will come down.

zuke: Does the international draft help players. They already gave away any real benefit when they capped it. But does the draft at least help with the “agent” issues?
Keith Law: If that’s coming to pass, I will write about it at length on the Athletic. I don’t think I could do it justice in a chat answer.

David: Does Jacob Berry have the type of elite bat where he could be a top 5-10 pick even if he ends up at 1B/DH?
Keith Law: I don’t think so. Maybe someone takes him there. He’s a DH.

addoeh: Any resto recs in Virginia Beach/Hampton Roads?  Couldn’t find any articles on The Dish.
Keith Law: I actually have not been down there since high school, other than a day trip to Norfolk to see Neil Ramirez about 15 years ago.

Adam: When Manny Machado says to the media that he’ll be “a very mad, mad, man” if Hosmer gets traded off the Padres, should that affect the FO’s actions at all?
Keith Law: No.

J: Another make up question-how does a parents make up issues (thinking of Jay Groome in the past, Justin Crawford this year with Carl’s record label fighting with an artist) affect the player’s standing
Keith Law: The Groome stuff was bullshit. Groome’s father ended up in jail for a whole host of crimes. Jay has had no makeup trouble I’ve heard of in pro ball – just trouble staying healthy.

Pepe: Thanks for your coverage of mental health topics over the years Keith. I suffered from social phobia my whole life but only later learned there is a strong comorbidity with ADHD, which i was recently diagnosed with. One aspect of ADHD is the ability to hyperfocus on things that a person is interested in or when a deadline is looming. This is sometimes framed as a superpower, but most acknowledge ADHD overall is burden to live with.

I saw a recent high draft pick mention he had ADHD on twitter and immediately wondered if teams factor conditions like this into evaluations? I feel like statistically an ADHD person may or may not be more likely to succeed in the bigs (not sure which). To me it seems like being able to focus in the moment or hyperfocus in preparation/training/theory would be a superpower, but also if baseball becomes unfun it would be much easier for these players to “check out”. Have you heard anything about this line of thinking when selecting amateurs?
Keith Law: Teams have different philosophies on such players – some view it as a negative, some don’t care, most I think would just want to know beforehand. A player with a real ADHD diagnosis can get an exemption to take medications, most of which are amphetamine derivatives, while playing, and those medications can confer real advantages to players – which is why some players try to use them without the exemptions.
Keith Law: I don’t know if I can answer any more concretely than that. How specific teams view these diagnoses I do not know.

J: With the NFL draft today, who is the biggest loss that you think baseball as a sport has lost to another sport
Keith Law: As a player? We’ve lost a few two-sport guys out of high school – Brandon McIlwain comes to mind – who could have been really good if they’d stuck with baseball, and then didn’t pan out in football either. (He’s with the Mets now and struggling.) Pat Mahomes was a prospect but everyone knew in HS he’d end up playing football, which I think was the right choice for him.
Keith Law: It’s often hard to say because even the best baseball prospects need a lot more time and reps before they get to the big leagues, and if they quit, it’s at age 17 or 18, before they’re finished products.

Adam: Have you noticed any specific changes that has allowed Nestor Cortes to become this effective? Granted between last year and this year we are still only looking at about a 1/2 year of innings, so it’s still small sample size territory? Is this likely just a great stretch, or do you see a potential mid-rotation guy going forward?
Keith Law: The cutter is the new thing, right? I don’t think he had that before he was waived and traded and sent to Scriberia or wherever. It might be a 70, though.
Keith Law: He might have the most interesting zero-to-hero story of anyone, though. The Yankees had him, lost him in the rule 5, got him back, got rid of him, got him back again, and now he’s (waves hands) this.
Keith Law: Lindsey Adler wrote about some of the Yankees’ pitch design stuff earlier this month, including the slider they call the “whirly” (there’s got to be a better way to say that).

addoeh: Can Keegan Thompson be a back of the rotation starter or is he more of a multi inning reliever?
Keith Law: 5th starter maybe?

Deke: Literally any reason to believe in Eric Hosmer being productive (not THIS productive, but productive)?
Keith Law: All available data says no.

Guest: Matt McLain- guy, Guy or GUY?
Keith Law: Guy. Maybe a 55 in the end.
Keith Law: He was on my top 100, and here in my Reds org report.

Tony: What is missing with Mitch Keller? Pretty much since he came up, his adjusted numbers make him seem like a solid pitcher, but his results are just so bad. Is he basically the anti-Matt Cain?
Keith Law: No changeup, for one thing. The FB is pretty true and I think hitters see it too well. LHB have given him trouble since AA, but now right-handers are too. I’d love to see him try a splitter.

SG: Do you think Elly De La Cruz will stay at SS or do you see a move to the outfield in the future?
Keith Law: He’s awfully big for SS. If he hits, we won’t really care where he plays.

Jon: What are your thoughts on Bauer’s leave being endlessly dragged out? I’m surprised the PA wouldn’t be urging for a quicker decision.
Keith Law: I do not understand it … it feels like both the union and league are kicking the can down Sinister Street (this is an obscure reference even for me).

Dr. Bob: RE: Today’s piece. If a young player is being overmatched, should the team send him down to the minors for a few weeks or let him try to figure it out in the majors? Is there a best development path?
Keith Law: I would not advocate for any of the players I mentioned today to be sent down. I don’t think it would benefit any of them.

Guest: Who would you draft first- Prelipp or Lesko?
Austin: Does Ivan Melendez (the Hispanic Titanic!) have a pro future or is hitting dingers every night in Austin his baseball peak?
Keith Law: Top 5 rounds.

Michael: We are seeing pitchers throw 104 now.  That was unthinkable 20 years ago. Do you think it can go much higher?
Keith Law: I don’t. There has to be a physical maximum, right? I recall an old study that put it around 105.

Appa Yip Yip: Any notes on Samad Taylor?
Keith Law: I was surprised they didn’t protect him. See my Blue Jays top 20 for more.

Mike: How does the last week or so change how we look at Andrew Painter? Does he start sliding up prospect lists?
Keith Law: It doesn’t. A week of performance shouldn’t change anything. And the #1 thing I would want to see from Painter this year is health.

Matt: Have you watched Winning Time? Gotta love the real life Lakers Barbara Streisanding the whole thing.
Keith Law: I haven’t. Never been much of a basketball fan.

Jonathan: Are you buying Tyler O’Niell going forward? Not necessarily as a consistent top 10 MVP candidate but as a legit above average player or is there still too much swing and miss?
Keith Law: He’s been horrible. He homered Opening Day and is slugging under .200 since then.
Keith Law: I’m just saying I don’t know what I would buy. I expected regression. This is more than that.

Pat D: Will starting pitchers ever pitch 7 innings again?  How many teams do you think will keep 14 pitchers during May with the new ruling?
Keith Law: I think the new normal is starters twice through the order. Expanding rosters might keep pitchers healthy but it will also ensure that we see more pitchers per game and no more 200 inning starters.

Cal: Hey Keith, I remember you being higher than most on David Calabrese in the 2020 Draft. Still very young, but any update on him?
Keith Law: Very young but the lost summer/fall really killed him. He needs to get stronger, and he needs to play. He’s in extended and I think he has a ways to go.

ProjectHanyo: Speaking of 2-way players, wonder how much Maurice Hampton regrets rejecting 1.8 million out of high school as he plays baseball only at Samford
Keith Law: I agree, but he did get a championship ring at LSU (football). That’s something. He’s actually hitting a little better lately at Samford and could go in the top 10 rounds

Walt: Following up on losing prospects to other sports, am I recalling correctly that you thought Jake Locker was potentially a high-level baseball player? Got a nice payday as a high draft pick, but never really panned out on the football field.
Keith Law: YES. That’s the name. Great memory.

UGW: Any chance Brady House stays at SS?
Keith Law: I would say zero.

Matt: Jan 6th Committee just said there will be 8 public hearings starting in June. Think it matters?
Keith Law: I think they are right to do it but I doubt it matters. A third of the country thinks those traitors were right.

Frank: What are your thoughts on using an opener?  Have you seen any data related to its effectiveness or lack thereof?  Lastly, is TB use of openers primarily to protect its young arms?
Keith Law: I understand the rationale. I find it annoying to my inner fan.

Rob: Acknowledging that it’s two weeks, are there any other prospects who look arrows up similar to Bryan Ramos?
Keith Law: Not for nothing, but he’s walked 2 times all year with 12 Ks. That’s at least worth considered as a counterbalance to the strong performance on BIP.

Andrew: What’s better for you- clicking to your articles through your Twitter account or just read from the Athletic app?
Keith Law: Doesn’t matter. I’m happy you’re reading. And so are my bosses.

Guest: What was the answer to my Prelipp/Lesko question- didn’t see the answer posted below the question
Keith Law: Prielipp will be able to throw before the draft, and that higher level of certainty helps him quite a bit. But we have basically no scouting looks on him since high school – four starts before the pandemic in 2020, seven innings total before he blew out last spring.

Pei: When someone asks a question such as “Is Joe Ryan for real” and you point out that his current start is obviously SSS and unsustainable, are you implying that you do not see nor have heard anything that suggests the player is tangibly different from how you evaluated him before the season? Because as a reader, when I see a question like that, I am interested in if there is any difference in the player at all, not if his SSS is real or not, which is an obvious answer
Keith Law: I see no difference in Joe Ryan 2022 versus Joe Ryan 2021. But, for better or worse, I take most questions literally. Is his performance this year sustainable? No, absolutely not. Is he a major-league starter? Hell yeah. I believed he was before 2022, too.

JR: I know you’re not a NBA guy, but can you recall the equivalent of Ben Simmons in the MLB? a seemingly healthy, all star caliber player, that can’t play likely due to mental health issues.
Keith Law: I can recall some minor leaguers, but not a major leaguer.

Marilyn: You as shocked as I am with what James Wood is doing?
Keith Law: Mostly. He mailed it in last spring, according to multiple scouts I know who saw him several times. Does he respond the same way when he struggles in pro ball?

Jay: Prediction time. Do you think the GOP flips one or both houses in midterms?
Keith Law: Yes

Ian: Obviously Daniel Espino is not going to have a K/9 approaching 20, but is he legitimately a #1 starter at his peak?
Keith Law: Yes.

TomBruno23: Wet Leg…9/7 at Delmar Hall, looking forward to that one.
Keith Law: The album disappointed me. I often like that droll sing-talky British style of vocals … but theirs annoys me more often than not.

Jim: Didn’t Greinke take time off because of mental health/social anxiety issues?
Keith Law: He’s going to the Hall of Fame. I was trying to think of a player whose career was derailed or substantially altered by mental illness.

Kevin: Would you consider yipps a mental health issue?
Keith Law: Depends very much on whom you ask.

Sam: Where does Kumar Rocker go in this draft?  Will he regret not taking the offer from the Mets, however low it may have seen?
Keith Law: My understanding is that the Mets did not make an offer. They did not have to do so because he declined to submit an MRI to MLB before the draft. Had he done that, they would have had to make a minimum offer to guarantee compensation in this draft if he didn’t sign. (which is a long way of saying the MRI program is unfair and anti-labor, but participating in it is better for the player than not.)

Guest: Is Dewon Brazelton Jr a prospect? Did you scout his father at all?
Keith Law: He was at NHSI. Looks a lot like his dad (who was before my time – saw him in the majors, not as a prospect). I don’t think Jr is a prospect, not now.

zuke: khalil greene comes to mind on players impacted my mental health.
Keith Law: Excellent one, yes. Clearly I should have you guys answer these questions.

Ed: Gordon Graceffo had the velo jump this spring. Short sample, but rolling in HighA.  Seems to be overqualified for that level.  Anything interesting there?
Keith Law: Yes, see my March scouting notebook that mentioned him.

Johhnycakes: James Triantos an MLB regular?
Keith Law: See the link in the last response.

Michael: College seasons are short and they use metal bats. So it’s SSS and has a huge variable. So how do you scout hitters there an feel that you are accurate?
Keith Law: You’re not scouting the stats, though. You use systems to handle statistical analysis. You scout the swing, the approach, the athleticism.
Keith Law: The metal bat is a problem, though.

Mike: Andrew Toles re. Mental health?
Keith Law: Schizophrenia, in fact. Talented, but not a very skilled prospect. The Dodgers continue to keep him under contract so he can have health insurance. That’s a kind thing that they’re doing and a sign that our country’s health care system is a fucking travesty.

Jim: Regarding mental health impacting a career, you could also make an argument for Jimmy Piersall, no?
Keith Law: Came to mind, but that is literally before my time, and I don’t know his story well at all.
Keith Law: That’s all for this week. Stay tuned for a draft ranking next week, going to 100 names, and then my first mock the week after that, probably going up on May 12th. I should have a draft notebook early in the week on some more players I’ve seen in person. Thank you all for reading, as always, and for your patience with the absence of these chats – Thursdays are often very busy for me and I’ve been traveling a bit more than usual. I’ll do more chats here and some Q&As on the Athletic too. Take care.

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→ April 16, 2022
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Stick to baseball, 4/16/22.

For subscribers to the Athletic, I had one new post this week, a roundup of top 2022 draft prospects I’ve seen, including Druw Jones, Termarr Johnson, and the now-injured Dylan Lesko.

Over at Paste, I reviewed Cascadia, one of the best new games of 2021, from the same publisher as Calico. It’s another hex tile-laying game but simpler to learn and play, with variable rules you can fine-tune to allow kids to join.

My own podcast returned with the Productive Outs guys – Ian Miller of Kowloon Walled City and Riley Breckenridge of Thrice – as guests. You can subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I’m due for another issue my free email newsletter this upcoming week. You can find both of my books, Smart Baseball and The Inside Game, in paperback anywhere books are sold, including Bookshop.org.

And now, the links…

  • Vanity Fair has a long investigative piece on EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit that has been at the center of the discredited lab-leak hypothesis, showing how EHA’s leader, Peter Daszak, made the situation worse both before the pandemic began and after the search for SARS-CoV-2’s origins began.
  • Writing in the New Yorker, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Elizabeth Kolbert writes about how two Florida lakes are suing to stop a development that would destroy nearly 2000 acres of wetlands. The lawsuit includes one actual human, as well as a marsh and a stream, and is the first of its kind in the U.S.
  • The Texas Observer, a progressive investigative journalism magazine that had a particular focus on Indigenous affairs, lost most of its staff in the last six months due to a series of bungled situations and a divide over the periodical’s mission.
  • Biologist David Sabatini resigned his tenured professorship at MIT after three senior officials at the school recommended revoking it in the wake of sexual harassment allegations against him and concerns over his behavior towards other members of his lab. He is still, however, suing one of the women who has accused him of harassment.
  • The British national who killed MP Sir David Amess was a “textbook example of radicalization” who started reading extremist propaganda online during the Syria conflict.
  • Texas is a shitshow in so many ways. Gov. Greg Abbott’s political stunt at the border has led truckers to demand that he stop inspections of every truck, a move he put in place due to baseless claims about border security. For a party that claims to be pro-business, this is a hell of a way to show it.
  • Opinion journalism is beset by structural problems and bad actors. There are ways to fix both of these issues, from better labeling of opinion vs. news pieces to proper editing (in a world where most publications have reduced editorial staff substantiall).
  • A Toronto man amassed a huge cache of guns and killed two men at random before his arrest, which may have prevented a mass shooting given the arsenal he had in his apartment.
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→ April 15, 2022
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Playground.

I have what appears to be a false memory of an American movie critic  Playground, Belgium’s submission for this past year’s Academy Award for Best International Film, was the best movie of 2021. It made the Oscars’ shortlist, but didn’t get to the final five, and after a very limited theatrical release here this winter it hit streaming (amazon • iTunes • Google) this Tuesday. It is a marvel of small cinema – it tells a simple story, with few characters and no gimmicks, in under 80 minutes, and it’s just devastating.

Playground follows two kids, Nora (Maya Vanderbeque), aged 7, and her brother Abel, about 10, and takes place entirely at their school – mostly in the schoolyard, which is a brutal place, and Abel even tells Nora that he’s going to beat up some of the new kids with the school bully, Antoine. Nora has a very hard time leaving her father on the first day of school, and ends up clinging to her brother, which causes Antoine and the other bullies to turn on Abel. When Nora sees this, she wants to tell her father, but Abel orders her not to, for fear it will make things worse – and, it turns out, it does.

First time writer/director Laura Wandel shot nearly all of Playground at the kids’ height, and in soft focus, so Nora in particular is always centered in the shot and the story. Nora’s anguish is the beating heart of the story; the adults who ostensibly run the school let her down at nearly every turn, and even when she believes she’s doing the right thing by protecting her brother, he turns on her as well, blaming her for his switch from bully to victim and for his growing isolation from the other kids. Wandel declines to shift the focus to the adults – when we see them in full, it’s because they have bent down to talk to the children on their level – because the failure of the teachers and administrators is not the point of the story. It’s simply assumed. The adults are often kept out of frame entirely, and sometimes their words are muffled, to further evoke the overwhelming disorientation of being a young child in a new environment where the rules are unclear and adults don’t always fulfill their obligations to you.

Vanderbeque gives the best performance by a child actor I’ve seen since Brooklynn Prince’s in 2017’s The Florida Project. Her wide-eyed look conveys fear and determination in turns, and her facial expressions reveal the inner torment Nora faces as she realizes that none of her actions have unequivocally positive consequences. When Nora’s choices lead not to Abel’s liberation from bullying, but to his ostracism and her own isolation, Vanderbeque’s features tighten up as the character holds back tears, and if you’re a parent, just watching her doing that might rip you apart. Nora is forced to make decisions she’s not equipped to make, which only deepens her torment, and after several turns of the screw we see her start to feel the effects of this pressure. She’s still just seven and a young-looking seven at that, so despite her role as the protagonist, eventually her youth and immaturity take over and she begins lashing out at classmates and her brother – more so after her own few friends start taunting her over her brother’s unpopularity.

At a taut 72 minutes, Playground can move through its story without ever letting its foot off the gas – it’s as tense as a thriller and never telegraphs its direction, which also underscores that feeling of dread that most children experience in such apparently hostile settings. The playground of the school constitutes so much of the kids’ experience that the film’s original title, Un monde, means “a world.” It’s a nasty, brutish place, and perhaps Wandel’s way of showing us a microcosm of what awaits Nora and Abel when they grow up. You’re just hoping they make it okay until the bell rings at the end of the last class.

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→ April 13, 2022
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Black Swan Green.

My reading of the entire David Mitchell catalogue continued during the offseason, as I read but never reviewed The Thousand Autumns of Jasper de Zoet (which I loved – brilliant prose and a compelling story), and now brings me to Black Swan Green, an autobiographical memoir set in Ireland in 1982. It’s the most straightforward of Mitchell’s novels that I’ve read, with relatively few references to people and events in his other novels, and a lovely, bittersweet coming-of-age story that reads like a way better Belfast.

Jason Taylor is Mitchell’s stand-in, a 13-year-old boy who lives with his parents and his older sister Julia, attending a boys-only school where he’s one of the less popular kids, due in part to his stammer. He’s friends with Dean Moran, one of the few kids less popular than he is; gets bullied by a few of the street toughs from the town; and harbors a quiet crush on Dawn Madden, who ends up dating one of the worst bullies in Black Swan Green, Ross Wilcox. Jason’s misadventures nearly always start in mundane ways – he’s at school, on the bus, at a carnival, at home, or just playing in the woods – but end up touching on one or more of the major themes: his parents’ fractious marriage, his difficulty in almost every social situation due to his stammer, and the difficulty of fitting in that teenage boys everywhere face. So much of Jason’s inner monologue revolves around trying to be cool enough that he’ll be accepted – or at least not bothered – by the town’s bullies, but not to attract undue attention and thus becomes a target for them for an entirely new reason.

Jason is a fantastic character, one I wish we’d see come back again in another novel – although I suppose he’d be a successful writer as an adult. I certainly saw enough of myself in him, despite the outward dissimilarities between us (I never had a stammer, and Jason is more comfortable fighting & playing sports than I was), to feel like both he and his story were realistic. Mitchell gives him everything a protagonist should have, building out Jason’s moral compass and personality through a series of normal events that many kids would face, from finding a lost wallet to standing up to bullies to coping with the conflict between loving your parents and recognizing that it’s not cool to be seen with them. It’s a more modern interpretation, but you can interpret Black Swan Green as the protagonist’s struggle against a world where toxic masculinity is the norm, a world into which he does not fit.

That does mean that the other characters are less fleshed-out, especially Jason’s dad, who is just kind of a dud as a person – although I would guess most of us know a Michael Taylor who talks a good game but doesn’t post when it’s his turn to be a good father or husband, and it’s hardly surprising when he eventually fails at all of his roles. Julia doesn’t get enough time on the pages, as she heads off to college partway through the book, but she’s the most interesting secondary character, as she softens towards her younger brother as both her time at home comes to a close and she better foresees the storm brewing in their parents’ marriage.

Black Swan Green – which has put the Charlatans’ “Sproston Green” in my head for the last week – doesn’t have the mystical elements that appear in most of Mitchell’s books, and other than a mention of Robert Frobisher, none of the major names who pop up in the Mitchell Literary Universe appear here. (Some characters here show up in minor roles in other books, especially Cloud Atlas, but none rang a bell for me so long after I read that work.) That’s for the better, as it would have been jarring to have that stuff show up in a roman à clef, unless the Horologists really did show up in Mitchell’s childhood. One warning: There’s a fair bit of homophobic language here, although I’m sure this is accurate to the time period and setting – I was 9 in 1982, in New York rather than Ireland, but this was the vernacular of teenaged boys in the 1980s – and it’s hardly glorified. It’s unsurprising to see Mitchell do straight fiction this well, and as much as I enjoy his broader and more inventive plots, this is among the best coming-of-age novels I’ve ever read.

Next up: Ellen Hendriksen’s How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety.

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→ April 10, 2022
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Stick to baseball, 4/10/2022.

I had two posts for subscribers to the Athletic this past week, my annual MLB season predictions post, which never fails to rile up people who don’t read the intro despite all the disclaimers I issue, and a draft scouting notebook that covered a slew of likely first-rounders, including Brooks Lee.

Over at Paste, I reviewed the trick-taking game Shamans, which is semi-cooperative, as at least one player in every round is a saboteur working against the others. I think it’s a better version of The Crew, a straight cooperative trick-taking game that won the Kennerspiel des Jahres award a few years ago.

I sent out a new edition of my free email newsletter this past week. You can find both of my books, Smart Baseball and The Inside Game, in paperback anywhere books are sold, including Bookshop.org. My podcast will return shortly – travel has made it difficult for me to find windows to record the last couple of weeks.

And now, the links…

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→ April 4, 2022
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Music update, March 2022.

Another strong month for new music, enough that I ended up cutting a few tracks – any time I do that I feel like it means the standard to make the playlist is getting higher. You can access it here if you can’t see the widget below.

Blossoms – Ode to NYC. I’d heard Blossoms before, but not much of their music, and nothing grabbed me like the two singles they released in March from their upcoming album, Ribbon Around the Bomb, have. “Ode to NYC” is like a mad scientist selected the best genes from Lord Huron and The Head and the Heart and made a new creature into this song. It’s also kind of amazing to me that a British band can so effortlessly co-opt the American indie-folk sound.

Riverby – Chapel. The vocals here from August Greenberg are stunning, on what is by far the best track on this emo-punk band’s latest album, Absolution. Just make the whole record out of this.

Hatchie – Lights On. This Australiandream-pop singer/songwriter is about to release her second full-length album, Giving the World Away, on April 22nd, featuring this track, “Quicksand,” and the solid title track.

HAIM – Lost Track. I have never cared for HAIM’s sort of inoffensive soft-pop, despite their acclaim from other musicians, many of whose music I liked. This is the first song by theirs I’ve really liked, as it doesn’t try to do much at all – there’s a good hook in the chorus, some nice counterpoint in the vocals, and it’s over in under two and a half minutes.

Soccer Mommy – Shotgun. Another artist I’ve never been able to get into, Soccer Mommy announced her third album, Sometimes, Forever, will drop on June 24th, with this lead single boasting a great hook in the pre-chorus line “Whenever you want me…”

Greentea Peng – Your Mind. Peng has shown an experimental bent since the start of her career, but she’s widening her musical template even further with this single, which leans further into jazz and if anything de-emphasizes her vocals in favor of more interesting music.

Elzhi feat. Georgia-Anne Muldrow – Already Gone. Elzhi is a Detroit rapper loosely associated with Danny Brown and the late J Dilla, with a discography that goes back to an EP he released in 1998. I’d never heard anything by him, but he has a strong old-school delivery that reflects those late ’90s roots.

Jack White feat. Q-Tip – Hi-De-Ho. White and Tip worked together on the final ATCQ album in 2016, so the pairing here isn’t surprising, but the song itself is. It’s not just Q-Tip making one of his hundred or so guest appearances, where he never mails it in but also never seems to exert himself that much, and it’s not just White playing a riff or two over and over again. It sounds like an experiment, like two people got in the studio and started messing with several ideas, but decided to release four minutes of that musical exploration even though it doesn’t confirm to expectations of what a single from two experienced, fairly mainstream artists should sound like.

Bartees Strange – Heavy Heart. Strange is a huge fan of the National but his music always sounds to me like a better twist on The Hold Steady.

Band of Horses – Warning Signs. I’d say Things Are Great is much better than Why Are You OK and somewhat better than Mirage Rock but not as good as Cease to Begin. So, if you already like Band of Horses, you should like this album, which for me was a mixed bag but more good than not.

Spiritualized – The Mainline Song. I’ve known about Spiritualized for probably 25 years, at least since Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space, which was widely praised by critics at the time and has only grown in stature since then. Also, it’s hard to believe that that album, OK Computer, and Urban Hymns are all a quarter century old. Anyway, this is a joyous track from Spiritualized that seems to catch them at the top of their game.

Weird Nightmare – Searching for You. Weird Nightmare is Alex Edkins of METZ, and this sounds a lot like METZ, unsurprisingly, although if anything it’s a bit tighter and more accessible.

Blossoms – The Sulking Poet. I haven’t put two songs from one artist on the same playlist in probably five or more years, so it’s a big fucking deal (to me, at least), when I do do it. Like, big enough that I was looking at Blossoms tour dates and debating whether it made sense to go to Lisbon for two days to see them in a music festival.

alt-J – Happier When You’re Gone. I’vegone from the world’s biggest alt-J fan to someone who’d be fine if they never released another album. The ambitious, experimental, meticulous songwriting from their first album, An Awesome Wave, is long gone in favor of more easily digestible and, consequently, more boring alt-pop songs. This track is probably the closest they’ve come at least to the sensibility of the first album since anything on their second record.

Everything Everything – Teletype. Contrast that with Everything Everything, who probably peaked for me with the two tremendous singles off Arc, “Cough Cough” and “Kemosabe,” yet who haven’t stopped trying to innovate, or given up their weirdness to pander to a larger audience. This draws more on electronic music styles than what we’ve heard from them previously, although the next track, “I Want a Love Like This,” goes in a different direction.

Sprints – Delia Smith. Sprints’ new EP, A Modern Job, features a couple of very strong punk-pop tracks that are more punk than pop, including this one, which names one of Britain’s most notable celebrity chefs.

Pillow Queens – Hearts & Minds. This Irish quartet released its new album, Leave the Lights On, on Friday, to positive reviews. There’s definitely an American alt-rock vibe to their music; I saw a comparison to the Killers, which holds if you consider the half of the Killers’ catalogue where they lean into roots and country-rock, like “Dying Breed” or “Lightning Fields” from Imploding the Mirage.

Melody’s Echo Chamber – Personal Message. A new artist to me, Melody Prochet released her first album a decade ago, and continues to make ethereal chamber-pop with a similar vocal style to Hatchie’s.

Arcade Fire – The Lightning II. Arcade Fire released two albums in March, right before Will Butler announced he was leaving the band. “The Lightning I” is a pretentious slog, while this track has more of the big energy that recalls their first two albums.

The Smile – Skrting on the Surface. I assume this supergroup’s album is coming very soon, with three singles released so far; it’s hard not to think of this as pre-Kid A Radiohead given the prominence of Thom Yorke’s voice and Jonny Greenwood’s musical direction, although nothing they’ve put out so far has the same rock vibe as Radiohead’s peak albums Pablo Honey and OK Computer.

Bloc Party – Sex Magik. I will probably forever want Kele & Company to make the next “Banquet,” but I’ll settle for something as frenetic and loud in that post-punk vein. Last year’s “Traps” had it, this mostly has it, while the newest single “If We Get Caught” doesn’t.

beabadoobee – Talk. Beatrice Laus’s second album Beatopia is due out on July 15th, and if this sunny fuzzed-out lead single is an indicator of what’s coming, I’m in.

The Mysterines – Means to Bleed. Lia Metcalfe and company finally released their first full-length album, but it didn’t include some of their best singles to date. Where’s “I Win Every Time?” Or “Gasoline?” Or “Bet Your Pretty Face?” There’s good material here, and Metcalfe’s deep, smoky voice pairs so well with the band’s crunching guitars, but they’ve toned some of the energy down a notch, and I miss their earliest work. I still think they’ve got a chance to be huge.

Drug Church – Fun’s Over. Musicians I know love Drug Church, and this marks the post-hardcore group’s second appearance on one of my playlists; their new album Hygiene is quick and punchy, with short bursts of mid-tempo punk with heavy bottoms and garage-rock production.

Crows – Garden of England. Crows’ debut album Silver Tongues was one of my favorites of 2019, and they just returned with their second LP, Beware Believers, on Friday. Their music is just as loud and angry, blending punk, garage, and thrash on this furious track released just a few weeks before the full record.

Opeth – Width of a Circle. Don’t get too excited – it’s a bonus track on the extended edition of Opeth’s 2019 album In Cauda Venenum. But it’s still new Opeth, and that’s good.

Vio-Lence – Upon their Cross. The lyrics don’t make a ton of sense, but the riffing from these Bay Area thrash pioneers is still good.

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→ April 3, 2022
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Phoenix eats, March 2022.

I ate at four new places in my run through Arizona last week, as well as hitting several old favorites – The Hillside Spot, FnB, Crêpe Bar, Matt’s Big Breakfast, and Cartel Coffee – and making a day trip to San Diego, where I went to The Mission for breakfast and Juniper & Ivy for dinner around a visit to see Brooks Lee play. I’m thrilled to see so many places still open given the industry attrition during the pandemic.

Fabio on Fire is an Italian restaurant out in Peoria, less than ten minutes from the Padres/Mariners complex, across Lake Pleasant Parkway from Sala Thai, which I recommended in October. Fabio was indeed running around the restaurant, although he was not actually on fire himself. I went with a friend for the pizzas, which were fantastic, Neapolitan-adjacent but with more toppings than you’d find in traditional Neapolitan pizza. I got the white pizza with prosciutto and arugula, one of my favorite combinations, and it was a real effort to stop eating it at the two-thirds mark. The edges are crusty but not charred, so I assume their oven temp is a little lower than the traditional Neapolitan standard, and have the flavor and texture you get from slow fermentation. There was so much on the pizza it could hardly hold the weight of the toppings, and despite a generous amount of prosciutto and shaved Parmiggiano on top, the balance of salt was good. We also shared a starter of fried calamari and zucchini that was a little underdone.

Myke’s Pizza is located in Mesa inside Cider Corps, a huge craft cider bar with a great selection of crisp ciders on draft with different flavors. Myke’s grew out of a successful pizza truck business and operates independently in the same space – the cider folks seat you, then you go to the pizza stand in back to order food. I got the arugula pizza, a margherita with smoked gouda and arugula added. It’s not quite Neapolitan style, but probably closest to that among common types of pizza, with a thin crust and a lot of air in the outer edge, just not as puffy on the outside or soft in the center. I enjoyed the cider as well, which for whatever reason never hits me the same way that beer does despite similar ABVs.

Kabob Grill-and-Go in downtown Phoenix has shown up on several best-of lists in the last year; I tried to go there during my trip to Fall League in October, but the wait for the food was too long for my narrow windows on those trips. I had some more time to work with this year, and was eating early enough that I only had to wait about 20 minutes, which is around the minimum they request for any order, to get my food. I went with the chicken thigh platter, which was probably two meals’ worth of food: two skewers of incredibly flavorful grilled chicken thighs on a bed of rice with a grilled Anaheim pepper and two enormous grilled tomatoes, along with a side of sauce and a small shirazi (cucumber & parsley) salad. The food is Persian-Armenian, and I think what I ate was jujeh kabob, chicken marinated in saffron, onion, garlic, and lemon juice. It was bursting with flavor – salty, tangy, a little spicy, the kind of dish you want to keep eating even when it’s too hot to eat or you’re already kind of full, both of which I experienced. The rice had very little taste, even of salt, so I assume the point is to just eat it with the meat. When I go again, and I will, I’m going to get one skewer and get a grilled eggplant salad on the side instead.

Da Vàng is a popular Vietnamese place in Phoenix just east of I-17, in an area with a cluster of other Vietnamese restaurants; it made Eater’s top 38 restaurants for Phoenix last May, a useful resource that includes many restaurants I already know and like (Tratto, Welcome Diner, Barrio Café, Glai Baan, Pizzeria Bianco, FnB, Little Miss BBQ, Chou’s Kitchen, Haji Baba, and Tacos Chiwas). It’s solid and very reasonably priced, with all of the staples I am used to seeing on Vietnamese menus; I went with a scout friend and we ordered spring rolls, bun (vermicelli noodles), and the savory crepe called bánh xèo, a crispy rice-flour pancake folded over a filling of shrimp and pork. I’d recommend getting that regardless of what else you order.

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→ April 2, 2022
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Stick to baseball, 4/2/22.

I had three posts for subscribers to the Athletic in the last ten days, two scouting notebooks from the Cactus League (here’s one, here’s the other), and my annual breakout candidates post. That last one is shorter than usual because I just couldn’t confidently back any other names for it.

I’m working on the next edition of my free email newsletter. You can find both of my books, Smart Baseball and The Inside Game, in paperback anywhere books are sold, including Bookshop.org.

And now, the links…

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