Uncategorized — Page 52

→ February 22, 2021
→ By keith

Nomadland.

Nomadland has been the front-runner for Best Picture for several months now, taking home the Golden Lion at Venice, winning Best Film or Best Picture from multiple cities’ film critics associations (Boston, Chicago, Toronto, San Francisco, Houston, DC, Dallas, Seattle, and London), and landing four nominations at the upcoming Golden Globes. It’s a very different sort of film than anything I’ve seen, layering a traditional, fictional narrative on top of a work of cinema verité, based on an acclaimed non-fiction book but with Frances McDormand delivering what might be her third Oscar-winning performance. The movie is now streaming exclusively on Hulu.

Nomadland is about vandwellers, people who have chosen, or been forced to choose, to live itinerant lives in their vans or RVs, traveling around the country and taking on seasonal or other short-term work, but avoiding the fixed lifestyle and long-term obligations of home ownership. The book, by Jessica Bruder, was non-fiction, and explored this subculture of outcasts, misfits, and nonconformists, and the movie brings in many of the same people who appeared in Bruder’s book as the backdrop for the fictional story of Fern (McDormand), who is forced into this life when her job and the company town where she lived all go away in the span of a few months in 2011. (She’s not a real character, but the town, Empire, Nevada, became a ghost town, and the factory shown in the movie is still shuttered, although the gypsum mine has since re-opened and there are about two dozen people living in Empire.)

Fran is widowed and has nothing to tether her to Empire, including, it would appear, no real ties to friends nearby, so she buys a van, refits it for nomad life, and hits the road, starting out by working at an Amazon warehouse for her first seasonal job, then connecting with a group of nomads who teach her a little about the lifestyle and offer some tips. Many of these wanderers are real vandwellers from the book – Swankie, Linda, and the evangelist of the vandwelling lifestyle, Bob Wells, whose history of failing to pay child support is not mentioned in the story. One who isn’t is David, played by David Strathairn, whose voice would give him away even if you didn’t recognize him through his unkempt hair and white beard. He’s smitten with Fern, and the two run into each other multiple times, with David trying to convince Fern to come along with him and, eventually, to join him when he decides to give up van life and settle down with his son’s family.

Director Chloe Zhao’s previous feature, The Rider, also used non-actors in most of its roles, with its protagonist playing himself, so she’s mining some familiar ground here, but it is hard to imagine this movie without McDormand in it. She is utterly essential to this film, not her story specifically but the way she inhabits this niche in our world and makes it entirely plausible that she is, in fact, Fern, a woman abandoned by fortune who is trying to avoid going over the cliff. Her portrayal of an anguished, grieving person looks so effortless and so delicate that it reminds me of when extremely athletic players (often players of color) are accused of showing too little effort when the truth is that they’re just that talented.

Zhao also films this in a way that empathizes with the vandwellers without patronizing or mocking them. This could easily be misery porn, or a screed about our broken economic system (especially around health care), or a sort of weird cautionary tale about how people end up living out of their cars. Instead, Zhao presents this world without judgment, giving us the people in it as they are, so that their humanity is at the heart of the film, not their choices, and not their misfortune.

Nomadland is also frequently gorgeous as Zhao gives us soaring landscapes across the American West and some close shots of forests or other natural vistas, including the view from what I presume was supposed to be Fern’s old house, now abandoned but still intact. The film doesn’t romanticize the vandwelling life, but there’s a certain romance in the idea of getting in a van or an RV and just driving across these great unpopulated swaths of land, without so much as a destination in mind, although I find it hard to fathom doing that alone – and that’s without the added concerns that a woman would have making the same sort of journeys by herself.

Right now, Nomadland is my #1 movie from 2020, and my wife’s as well. I’ll go out on the shortest of limbs to say it’s going to take at least four nominations at the Oscars – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Cinematography – and I can at least see why it’s the favorite to win the first one, because it’s a great movie and, in a roundabout way, speaks to the economic uncertainty of modern American life. It also gives Zhao an excellent chance to become the second woman and the first woman of color to win Best Director (Kathryn Bigelow won in 2010 for The Hurt Locker). We should see two women nominated in that category in the same year, with at least one of Regina King (One Night in Miami) and Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman) joining Zhao, which would be a first, although knowing the Academy’s history I wouldn’t be shocked to see them screw this up too and give one nod to, say, Aaron Sorkin instead.

→ February 20, 2021
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 2/20/21.

For subscribers to the Athletic, all of my prospect ranking content is now on the site, from the top 100 to the org rankings to every team’s top 20 & org report:

Arizona	Houston	Oakland
Atlanta	Kansas City	Pittsburgh
Baltimore	LA Angels	St. Louis
Boston	LA Dodgers	San Diego
Chicago Cubs	Miami	San Francisco
Chicago White Sox	Milwaukee	Seattle
Cincinnati	Minnesota	Tampa Bay
Cleveland	NY Mets	Texas
Colorado	NY Yankees	Toronto
Detroit	Philadelphia	Washington

Podcasts: I was remiss in omitting these from my newsletter this week, but I appeared on several podcasts to talk prospects and rankings, including the Sox Machine podcast, the East Village Times podcast, and the Eutaw Street Report (Apple/Spotify). I’ve also recorded a spot on The Update with Adam Copeland, our Bay Area sports podcast at the Athletic, that should be available next week.

On my own podcast this week, I did a mailbag episode and ripped through as many of your questions as I could in about 35 minutes. You can subscribe on Apple podcasts, Amazon, and Spotify.

I finally sent out a new edition of my free email newsletter, talking a little bit about the anxiety and joy of releasing all of this content into the world. Also, you can still buy The Inside Gameand Smart Baseball anywhere you buy books; the paperback edition of The Inside Game will be out in April.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: At the Ringer, David Hill writes about a “beach bum” day trader who made millions with a long position on GameStop he’d started buying long before this year’s run-up.
The expanding ocean habitats of mackerel have led to a new debate over fishing rights in the North Atlantic.
A new Malayalam-language film called The Great Indian Kitchen explores gender inequality in the Indian home.
The Huffington Post’s obituary of Rush Limbaugh just tells it like it is.
Critical thinking skills, already in short supply, may not be the most effective counter to disinformation. The SIFT method – Stop, Investigate the source, Find better coverage, Trace to original context – may be a better approach.
Denmark has invested in tracking the different variants of COVID-19 spreading in its population, and the data so far on B.1.1.7, the UK variant, are not promising. This Science piece looks at some of the policy options ahead of them, and, potentially us.
An immunocompromised patient who died after a 154-day infection with COVID-19 may hold a clue to how the variants have emerged and spread.
Why are cases dropping so fast in the United States? Four reasons: distancing, seasonality, seroprevalence (partial immunity), and vaccines.
New data have shown that the pandemic has hit academic mothers especially hard.
Rational people in Connecticut are trying to eliminate the religious exemption to schoolchild vaccination requirements and the Republican Party is lining up with the loonies.
An Ohio State wrestler testified that Rep Jim Jordan (R-OH) asked him to help cover up allegations of sexual abuse by the team doctor while Jordan was assistant coach.
There was a big social media kerfuffle this week when various gynecologists took aim at Vagisil for deceptive ads targeting teen girls. Led by Dr. Jen Gunter, author of The Vagina Bible and sometime New York Times columnist, they argued that the company was preaching products that could be harmful while also shaming girls for things that are natural.
ERCOT officials said that Texas was mere minutes away from a catastrophic system failure that could have left Texans without power for months. The Huffington Post looks at why the storm knocked out so much of the power and how right-wing grifters and charlatans blamed it all falsely on green energy.
A tiny town in Iowa – Armstrong, population 840 – saw its mayor, police chief, city clerk, and former city clerk all arrested on charges of fraud, embezzlement, and “the deployment of a Taser against a civilian in exchange for cash.”
I can’t seem to muster any sympathy for the investor who gave $2.5 million for a “voter fraud” investigation and now wants his money back.
The Reply All podcast was starting a new series on the toxic workplace environment at Bon Appetit that led to the ouster of longtime EIC Adam Rapoport in 2020 when a similar scandal took down Reply All’s co-host and the senior reporter leading this story.
Nicole Hazen, the wife of Diamondbacks GM Mike Hazen, has been fighting a brain tumor for the last year, and the two of them chose to discuss it publicly.
Many prominent British actors are urging the UK government to renegotiate visa rules so they can continue to work in the EU.
Literary Hub’s list of 50 classic novels under 200 pages is pretty good, at least based on the half I’ve read and the others I know about.
I greatly enjoyed McSweeney’s Valentine’s Day gifts from famous fictional men.
But nothing made me laugher harder this week than this twitter thread about a Texas survivalist nut who isn’t very good at the survival part.
Board game news: I don’t know much about this game but folks are very excited for the Kickstarter for Stroganov.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: baseball, board game news, coronavirus, Humor, iowa, links, longreads, social media, stick to baseball, texas, vaccines

→ February 19, 2021
→ By keith

Calico.

Calico is a deceptively cute game, ostensibly a simple game about cats and quilts but in fact a much deeper strategic experience that asks you to plan every tile and think about every move. It would have made my top 10 last year had I seen and played the game in time to write it. It’s between printings right now, but its amazon page is still active.

Calico is a tile-laying game where each player gets a board that has a frame around it showing pieces of hexagonal quilt tiles, and three scoring hex tiles placed on the three designated spots on their boards, each showing a specific scoring method associated with it, such as AA-BB-CC (three pairs) or AAA-BB-C (a triple, a pair, and a singleton). Over the course of the game, players will draw tiles from the supply and place them on their boards to try to surround those scoring hexes with six quilt tiles of different colors and patterns to meet those scoring tiles’ requirements. The tiles come in six colors and six patterns. If you meet the scoring tiles’ rules in just color or pattern, you score the lower number, but if you meet it in color and pattern, you score more.

There are also cats in this game, three each time you play, who are looking around to lay on your quilt, but only if it matches the patterns they like in specific alignments of tiles. That can mean something as simple as three tiles in a row, or something more complicated like five tiles in two rows (a row of two and a row of three, forming a sort of trapezoid), or a chain of seven contiguous tiles in any shape. Cats only score based on tile patterns, not colors – the latter are immaterial – and in each game, you’ll get one easy cat to score, one moderate one, and one difficult one, with multiple options for each at the start of every game; they score 3, 5, and 7 points respectively. You can count the partial tiles in the frame towards these patterns.

And there are buttons, which you can get by placing three tiles of the same color together, either in a row or in a triangle, and once again you can count the frame’s partial tiles to create those trios. You can’t create a group of six for two buttons, however; each group of three has to be separate. There are six colors of buttons, and if you collect one of all six colors, you get a bonus rainbow button. They’re all worth 3 points apiece.

You start the game with two random tiles from the supply, and on each turn, you’ll place one of them on your board, then replace with one of the three tiles in the supply. The game proceeds until all players have filled their boards, at which point they score their points from the scoring hex tiles, their cats, and their buttons.

That’s as detailed a description of Calico’s rules as I can give, and it’s not even 500 words. It’s an extremely elegant game that you can learn in a few minutes, but the game changes each time you play depending on the hex tiles, the cats, and the random draws of quilt tiles from the bag to supply the market. The first two options can be random, but you can also use them to fine-tune the game to the difficulty level you want; the rulebook suggests a starter game with specific tiles and cats for first-time players, which I think is also useful for learning the game’s icons and symbols.

The one drawback to game play is that you’re limited to the tiles that appear on the table, and, with only three tiles of each specific color/pattern combination and 108 tiles in total, you can easily find yourself waiting for a tile that never comes. You have to play in a way that allows you to capitalize if you get the tiles you want but prepares you for the more likely outcome that you get some of what you need, and even so, you can still lose just because the right tile never appeared. That randomness can also help level out the playing field between older and younger players, or more experienced players and newer ones, and in this case I’d say the randomness is in service of the game’s larger goals rather than just being there for its own sake.

The art in Calico is cute, maybe a little over the top in that regard, but artist Beth Sobel is one of the best in the business, with Wingspan, Lanterns, and the new edition of Arboretum all to her credit. Those cats on the scoring tiles are, in fact, actual cats, and they get their own bio section in the back of the rulebook, if you care about such things. Ultimately I’m swayed by the combination of easy-to-learn rules, subtle strategy, and replayability, though, all of which make Calico (belatedly) one of the best new games of 2020.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: board games, family strategy games, highly recommended, strategy games, tile-laying games

→ February 14, 2021
→ By keith

The Shadow King.

Maaza Mengiste’s 2020 novel The Shadow King was nominated for the Booker Prize last year, making the shortlist before losing to the Scottish novel Shuggie Bain. An epic war novel that also comes across as deeply personal – which, it turns out, it is – The Shadow King also tells a forgotten story of the roles women play in wartime, roles that are not limited to staying home waiting for the men.

Set in Ethiopia in 1935, the main narrative revolves around Hirut, an orphaned girl taken in as a servant by a neighboring couple, Kidane and his wife Aster, as well as the nameless cook who also works for them. Kidane was friendly with Hirut’s parents and agreed to care for her, but Aster sees her as a romantic rival, and becomes increasingly abusive to Hirut through the novel’s first section. The cook has her own complicated, longtime relationship with Aster, and now tries to protect Hirut, as the two share cramped quarters while the vain Aster appears to live in relative luxury, demanding material rewards from Kidane and clutching them like heirlooms.

Then war arrives, in the person of the Italian fascisti, as the Italian tyrant Benito Mussolini attempted to annex the kingdom of Ethiopia, which they had tried previously to control via two prior wars and a disputed treaty. Their arrival leads Kidane to head off to war, but rather than waiting behind, Aster also grabs a gun and departs separately, also intending to fight, bringing Hirut and the cook with her. While at the front, they meet Minim, a poor man who happens to bear a strong resemblance to the Emperor, Haile Selassie, who ruled from 1930 to 1974 and was the last in a dynasty of rules that dated back to the 13^th century. Selassie had fled to England, where he was ruling in exile (and comfort), so the leaders of the Ethiopians’ untrained army, with simple weapons and no armored vehicles (compared to the Italians’ modern weapons and tanks and highly trained soldiers), realize that seeing their king would help motivate the soldiers, so they use Minim as a stand-in so the fighters would believe Selassie had come to join them at the front.

Mengiste sets you up to think Hirut will be the downtrodden heroine with whom you should sympathize, with Aster the antagonist, but the novel isn’t that linear in plot or purpose. Aster takes on a new role when the war begins, while Hirut also just becomes less central, and Kidane turns out to be less a protector than Hirut originally thought. Mengiste also introduces a second subplot around the Italian photographer Ettore, a Jewish man who is serving a government he knows may choose to end his liberty or his life at any time, and that he learns has likely killed his parents, even as he continues to document the war and the army’s killings by photographing every Ethiopian they execute in their final moments. His story and that of the women will, of course, intersect before Ethiopia falls and the novel ends.

This is a war novel, and a feminist one too, but in no way does Mengiste let the latter mitigate or soften any part of the former – her women are strong, and unwilling to be limited by any social customs that keep women from fighting when the country’s existence is at stake. The Shadow King is brutal and violent. Her descriptions invoke the dry, hot, dusty climate where the soldiers gathered to plan guerrilla attacks and futile defenses – the Ethiopians fought for about 16 months, but succumbed in 1937 – and where Minim takes on the role of body double. They also add to the sense of desperation around Ettore, a noncombatant in the service of a country that views him as less than human and that will, soon enough, be willing to send him to his death, but who is every bit the stranger in a strange land in Ethiopia and visibly an intruder and enemy to the native population. The juxtaposition of the stories can be jarring, certainly incongruous, but their intersection is one of the novel’s most powerful moments, combined with the return of Haile Selassie from exile and the aftermath of the Italian occupation. I haven’t read Shuggie Bain and can’t comment on whether this is better, but I easily understand its nomination.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: american literature, contemporary novels, ethiopia, ethiopian literature, highly recommended, historical fiction

→ February 13, 2021
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 2/13/21.

For subscribers to the Athletic, my ranking of all 30 organizations ran this week on Wednesday, followed by my team-by-team reports and top 20s for the AL East and AL Central:

The remaining four divisions will run on Monday through Thursday of this week. I also held a Klawchat on Thursday.

My podcast guest this week was Bobby Heck, Special Assistant to the GM of the Tampa Bay Rays and one of the architects of the Rays’ 2020 AL champs and the multiple pennant-winning Astros teams of a few years ago. You can subscribe on Apple podcasts, Amazon, and Spotify.

At Paste, I reviewed the press-your-luck game 7 Summits, co-designed by the designer of Sagrada.

My last edition of my free email newsletter shared some details of my recent nuptials; I’m overdue for another issue because I’ve been writing the team reports and top 20s. You can still buy The Inside Gameand Smart Baseball anywhere you buy books; the paperback edition of The Inside Game will be out in April.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: New Republic looks at QAnon and the cultification of the American right, which will continue without Trump and without the nonexistent Q. The same publication argued that the Democratic Party does not understand the QAnon phenomenon, which has enraptured more educated, well-off people than the Democrats think.
Also from the New Republic – this is a coincidence – the alt-right problem in standup comedy, where people like Gavin McInnes have tried to use comedy to legitimize their racist beliefs.
The Republican Party has willingly allied itself with armed self-styled militias.
Louisiana’s Attorney General Jeff Landry, a Republican, has sued a reporter for filing a FOIA request. The only way you could more directly assault freedom of the press would be to arrest the reporter – which I assume is next.
Donald Trump’s incompetence and science denial has helped the U.S. have the highest case and death rates from COVID-19 in the developed world. A new panel estimates that 40% of the deaths were attributable to federal government policies – not just our late response, but structural problems like reduced access to health insurance and growing income inequality. Trump inherited a bad public health situation and made it much worse.
Governors across the U.S. are allowing more and more indoor dining before enough people are vaccinated to control the pandemic, which could lead to greater spread of the more infectious variants already present in the country. Delaware has been among the best states in testing and in vaccinations, but we’re already moving to 50% occupancy in restaurants, which seems contrary to scientist’s recommendations.
“The only truly clean energy is less energy.” So-called “clean” energy requires a lot of dirty infrastructure.
Phoenix police may have specifically targeted Black activist Bruce Franks, Jr., when they arrested him and hit him with a variety of serious charges after his arrest during an August 2020 protest. The grand jury that indicted him didn’t see any video from the event, but were only given police testimony, which this ABC15 investigation found included multiple false statements.
Earwig and the Witch, the first 3-D animated film from Studio Ghibli, is a disaster across the board. It’s directed by Goro Miyazaki, the son of Ghibli founder Hayao Miyazaki.
Instagram has banned anti-vaxxer and COVID-19 denier Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for spreading disinformation about COVID-19 vaccines. All platforms should do the same. He’s a menace to public health, and his words will lead to more deaths.
If you’ve been to a baseball game in Arizona, you likely have heard vendor Derrick Moore and his signature “Lemonade, lemonade, like grandma made!” call. He’s facing some sort of serious medical issue and doesn’t have health insurance – nice country we have here, folks – so there’s a GoFundMe to try to help him.
My daughter and I have been watching The Mandalorian, which is entertaining but hasn’t quite lived up to the hype for us – nearly every problem the main character faces is solved by shooting everyone in sight. Anyway, Gina Carano, who played Cara Dune, will not be returning for season 3 after months of tweets that ranged from transphobia to COVID-19 denial to false claims about the election, with a recent post comparing the negative consequences she’s facing to the Nazi genocide against Jews. My best guess is that Disney had warned her they wouldn’t renew her contract if she didn’t knock it off, and she did it anyway.
TikTok might be good for the music industry, but it’s not good for good music, as the recent soporific “Drivers License,” which has spent four weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, demonstrates.
President Biden promised to fire any of his subordinates who harassed colleagues or otherwise treated them inappropriately, but the first major test of that came this week when a Deputy Press Secretary threatened to “destroy” a Politico reporter for writing about a relationship he had with an Axios writer. As of Friday night, the Deputy Press Secretary had only been suspended for a week. It’s not acceptable.
France has arrested five people so far for making online death threats against a teenager known as Mila, who posted several Islamophobic statements on social media.
Board game news: Renegade announced pre-orders for the June release of the second edition of Gravwell.
Asmodee’s years-long acquisition spree went in a new direction this week with the purchase of BoardGameArena, one of the most popular online board gaming sites. W. Eric Martin has some analysis of what this means over at BoardGameGeek.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: arizona, board game news, coronavirus, energy, hoaxes, links, longreads, star wars, vaccines

→ February 11, 2021
→ By keith

Klawchat 2/11/21.

Starting today at 1 pm. I ranked all 30 farm systems for subscribers to the Athletic yesterday, and my team-by-team top 20s and org reports began today with the AL East – Baltimore, Boston, NY Yankees, Tampa Bay, and Toronto. Also, I reviewed the fun press-your-luck game 7 Summits for Paste.

Keith Law: Use your detour, life’s like a seesaw. Klawchat.

RJ: How much of a change does the Khalil Lee trade make for the Royals and Mets
Keith Law: In their system rankings? None. But Lee is now on the Mets’ top 20, which will run early next week, and was 8th on the Royals’ list.

Trevor: Klaw – even amidst the financial uncertainty teams still PAID the top tier players with high-dollar or long-term contracts. Of the four, 5+ year or 9-figure contracts (Springer, JT, DJ, Bauer), which would you be most comfortable investing in holding it’s value?
Keith Law: Springer. That’s why he was #1 on my list – best long-term impact.

Max: I know it hasn’t been a full two years, but are you seeing changes with the Astros under Click re: incorporating traditional scouting alongside the advanced metrics?
Keith Law: Not yet, but I also think he wasn’t able to staff up effectively during the pandemic.

addoeh: Ford Proctor; new compact sport-utility EV being released later this year or Rays IF/C prospect?
Keith Law: Or protagonist in a bad 1980s action movie?

John Olerud: Why do you hate my Mariners? Seriously, though, on a pure baseball front, no matter where one is to rank the Ms farm system overall, it does seem that (despite maybe a few cringe-worthy moves during Dipoto’s “trade a paperclip for a house” phase) for the first time in a long time Seattle might finally have some workable approach to drafting and development. That said, in knowing what you know and talking to the people you trust to put together these lists, would you agree with this sentiment? Or do you think in your estimation that the Ms ownership would do better not to extend Dipoto’s current contract and look elsewhere?
Keith Law: I do think they’re heading in the right direction on multiple fronts, not least of which is that they’re keeping prospects rather than trading them. I think the confusion among some Mariners fans is that the top of the system is so good – and hasn’t been like this in at least a decade – but it falls off very quickly after the top tier of seven guys.

NYT Parody Lede: Former President Trump may have incited the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, but these five people in this Ohio diner think he didn’t do anything wrong.
Keith Law: Don’t give the Grey Lady any ideas.

nickolai: Thoughts on MLB’s decision to deaden the ball for 2021? A return to sanity, or just something else MLB will F up?
Keith Law: Half measure. Really need to see the strike zone change as well, or we’re going to end up with fewer home runs but no reduction in strikeouts.

Ben (MN): The running joke is that you hate every fan’s favorite team, but do you ever get negative feedback from people in the business (non-players or family members)? I’d imagine it would look a lot different than the internet comments, but any angry voicemails or texts over the years saying something like “how can player X not make your list”?
Keith Law: Extremely rarely. It’s what makes fan complaints so hilarious. Team execs know my information is good and my opinions are at least backed by research and evidence (which doesn’t make them right, of course). But this is the time of year when every fan is an expert on the other 29 teams’ prospects.

xxx(yyy): favorite cold weather food?
Keith Law: The most honest answer is pizza, which is also my favorite hot weather food, and my favorite lukewarm weather food.

Deke: I’m sure the massive deadline was a good motivator, but how are you/have you been dealing with 2020/2021-based ennui? I feel like everybody I know has hit a wall over the past few weeks.
Keith Law: What’s really hurt is the sudden arrival of more snow and ice than we’ve had in Delaware in at least five years, so I haven’t been able to run much at all. I’m playing some more games online, and trying to meditate more, but like you I am just over all of this. I will finish all the team writeups by EOD Monday and I’m going to take a couple of days to recharge somehow.

Alex: Looking at the Marcell Ozuna contract as a Braves fan, I can’t help thinking that it was an outright steal. Of course, it feels like every corner outfielder has been underpaid this winter. Since he’ll be playing the field for one more season, how many runs do you think he’s likely to give back with the glove? Do you feel that his negative defensive value is overstated or is he really Adam Dunn out there?
Keith Law: I don’t think he’s as bad as Adam Dunn and I agree the deal was great value for them.

Guest: While I’m not disappointed with the Mets offseason (Porter notwithstanding) I thought there were some head scratching moves. The Springer thing I could understand because of DH uncertainty. I thought they overpaid for Mccann. Also, why not try and make a better offer for Darvish? I’d rather get him than pay $40m for Bauer. OR try and get Arenado.
Keith Law: They could have topped the Arenado offer, certainly, although I have no complaints about them acquiring Lindor and Carrasco.

John: Hi Keith! Could you please compare Robert Hassell vs Zac Veen in terms of overall raw tools ? Who is better prospect ? Thanks
Keith Law: I think that question is answered more fully on my top 100 than I could give you here.

Ben: Hi Keith. Thanks as always for your work. Do you hear any scuttlebut or have any theories on why the Yankees seem to have so much trouble keeping their players—at both the minor and major league level—healthy?
Keith Law: Is that true? More so than other clubs?

Fred: Besides Dylan Carlson, which Cardinals’ prospects have the highest ceiling? Walker? Winn? Hence?
Keith Law: Probably Walker, but his probability is low – he has a ways to go with the bat. He’s as raw a hitter as the typical Mississippi high school product (he’s from Georgia, so I’m saying he’s analogous to MS kids, who have the worst track record in the draft of any southern state).

Onion Bubs: You may have addressed this somewhere before, and if so, I apologize: When ranking farm systems, how much do you weigh the top few prospects vs. the depth of the system?
Keith Law: You need both. A system with 4-5 high-end prospects but no depth is not going to rank ahead of a system with 3 high-end prospects but depth of 10-12 more guys with everyday upside.

Chris: Thoughts on the Bauer contract?
Keith Law: No.

Arty: If you’re the Cardinals, given how the infield is looking, do you feel comfortable going into the season with an outfield mix of O’Neill/J. Williams/L. Thomas/Bader/Carlson or do you think they should add another OF to the mix?
Keith Law: I really hope they give Williams a shot. He’s never been an elite prospect but I think he’s a big leaguer, and he may surprise us and be a soft regular.

Jason: Pecota has the brewers winning the central. Do you agree? and, do you think they should sign Turner if they can?
Keith Law: Without doing any real work to investigate the question I would pick the Cardinals.

Dave: Thanks for the time today. From the prospect stable of middle infielders – who do you ultimately see as the 2B/SS combo for Cleveland?
Kane: What can you tell us about the Diamondbacks host of pitching prospects? Anyone stick out to you as someone who pitches near the front of their future rotation?
Keith Law: If Arias hits, he’s your shortstop, but that’s a huge if. Rocchio at 2b seems like the most probable of their current MIF prospects to stay at a position and hit.
Keith Law: Dbacks report will be up next week but I think Walston’s their top pitchiing prospect in terms of ceiling and also present value.

Chris: Hi Keith I’m looking at the mariners ranking of 13th compared to being 11th last year and noticed you increased the rankings of their 1, 3, 4 and 5 prospect from this year to last and that they retained prospect eligibility of the majority of their top 15. What led to this drop, did other systems improve a lot, was last year a down year, or did the graduation of sheffield and lewis (7 and 10 last year) effect their ranking more so than the addition of hancock (rated higher than white) and trammell (rated higher than dunn)?
Keith Law: There are 29 other teams in baseball and their systems also changed in the last year.

Jason: Thoughts on Keston Hiura playing first?
Keith Law: I wonder if he’s really going to hit enough to be more than a 50 there. He can hit, but I don’t see more than average power, and his other tools are all limited.

Ben: Do you think Brian Cashman sees the Dodgers acting like a big market team with big revenues and feels frustrated that Steinbrenner won’t let him do likewise?
Keith Law: I mean, I could see 28 other GMs playing a symphony on the world’s 28 tiniest violins.

Mike: Hi Keith. Love your books and all your writing! Question about PTBNL. When the Sox have 3 of them in this deal do they have an actual list of names they can choose from in the future or are there just parameters of the types of guys? Thanks!
Keith Law: In this deal I assume there’s a list for each team – you can take 2 of these 5.

Thomas: Your ranking of my team’s prospects isn’t as favorable as some other media outlets’. Therefore, I will choose to assume yours must be wrong. Definitely no confirmation bias here.
Keith Law: Every year.

Jake: I’m curious about what you heard about Seth Corry to jump him into your Top 100. I don’t believe he ever made it to the alternate camp so not even that meager bit of playing time last year.
Keith Law: Instructs.

Reverend Cory: Thanks for all your hard work Keith! Long winded question here. I grew to appreciate and generally love the use of analytics in the game over the past 15 years, but the last 2-3 I’ve started to sour on how organizations use them. Seems like we now have a league where every team is run like a hedge fund. It provides a great ROI for the owners, but it’s taken a toll on my enjoyment for the game. Do you think there is a solution for this? Thanks again.
Keith Law: MLB is set up as an effective profit machine in which it is no longer necessary for teams to win to make money.
Keith Law: I don’t know how you fix that other than creating incentives for teams to win.

MannyKay: I’ve never seen any mention of The Strokes on your music lists. They’re easily my favorite band of the 2000s. Are you not a fan?
Keith Law: Not really. Not not a fan, but I don’t find their music that interesting.

Ben (MN): Keith, I appreciate your willingness to discuss your own experiences with mental health. My wife has struggled to control anxiety, and often has trouble sleeping more than 5-6 hours a night (or less), largely due to her anxiety. The problem can spiral out of control at times, with poor sleep leading to anxiety about sleep, leading to more poor sleep, leading to more anxiety in daily life, etc. It seems to be at least partially genetic as her mom had a similar experience. She has been reluctant to seek help, largely because she is worried they will recommend medication, which she doesn’t want. Do you have any advice for positively encouraging people who may be reluctant to seek help for anxiety/mental health needs?
Keith Law: The most significant point I would make to your wife is that there are many medications available for GAD, and they are effective for many people at low doses that have limited side effects. I have been on SSRIs for over 8 years. I was also worried about starting one, worried that it would change my personality (it did, sort of, but for the better!) or that it would dull my thinking (it has not). I understand the hesitancy, but medication for my anxiety has been an unmitigated positive.

Jake: Have you heard anything more on how teams will organize their non full season prospects without the short season leagues? Any chance we see teams evolve towards 2 complex league teams mirroring hi and lo A ball?
Keith Law: Yes, that’s what will happen, which I think is kind of stupid in that there are communities out there that would gladly host these teams and allow someone to make a little money off attendance while baseball continued to build the national fan base, but instead they’re going to run twice as many teams in AZ and FL in the middle of the summer when it’s a thousand fucking degrees outside and all those players will play in front of no fans.

Arnold: Although the pandemic hospital rates are falling, it still seems like a bad idea to be opening spring training so soon. MLB proposed pushing back the start, but the players objected and MLB caved. I am pro-player on most disputes with management, but the players seem short-sighted on this.
Keith Law: The players didn’t object; they held to the terms of the collectively bargained agreement. I do think the season should be pushed back, but I don’t blame the players on this.

Arty: Reports are that Nolan Gorman is going to get a position switch now that Arenado and Goldschmidt have the corners locked down for a few years.. Can he handle 2B or is more likely going to have to move to LF?
Keith Law: I’d say right field.

Eric: Wader Franco+Fernando Tatis Jr+Ronald Acuña+Juan Soto=baseball is in good hands
Keith Law: Yes, if MLB gets more serious about marketing its nonwhite players. Especially those whose first language isn’t English. I think Tatis should be on the cover of everything, in every commercial, and to be fair I’m seeing more of him out there in the non-baseball world than I can remember seeing previous Latino stars, but MLB has to build massive campaigns around these guys.

Guest: Hi Keith, I’m wondering, if at all, how do certain teams developmental infrastructure impact your rankings? For example if a pitcher with the Rays get the benefit of the doubt more than say the Cubs who haven’t developed a pitcher in what seems like decade. I’m assuming evaluators like yourself would say not at all, but even subconciously
Keith Law: No, you can’t do that because any player can change organizations at any time (like Khalil Lee!). The player evaluations are all team-agnostic.

MannyKay: Based on your positive comments about Jahmai Jones’ potential, is it fair to say the Orioles won that trade in your opinion?
Keith Law: Yes, no-brainer for them. I love Jones and think he’ll thrive there.

Chamaco: Apologies if he is on your top 100 list or graduated off of it (and I just missed this), but I was wondering what you thought about Michael Kopech’s potential this year and in the future? If you Google “Michael Kopech,” you find a lot of non-baseball related articles, which can make it more challenging to find good information on him.
Keith Law: He’s on the top 100.

Matt: FYI- Many board games, including some on your Top 100, are buy 2 get 1 free at Target and Amazon today.
Keith Law: I’m looking at the amazon list now – from the BOGO list, I would recommend Splendor, Ticket to Ride, Blokus, Castles of Burgundy, and King of Tokyo.

Chris P: While I think Cavan Biggio is at least deserving of a roster spot, I really think the Jays should try to move him now while his value is likely going to be at its highest. The fact he struggles against quality fastballs is concerning.
Keith Law: It’s fatal. He can’t hit what is now an average major-league fastball. That’s why his best month in the majors has been September – he sees lower-quality pitching and pads the stats against them. I agree, I would shop him now, but to be honest, most other teams see the same flaws. His value is very low.

xxx(yyy): anything specific on the valentines menu for this weekend?
Keith Law: I haven’t planned that yet … I’ve got some CSA options still here and will figure something out around whatever veg I haven’t used elsewhere yet. I have a few ideas at least.

Jose: Do expect fans to be allowed at the minor leagues games this season ?
Keith Law: I do not, and if we’re not mostly vaccinated I don’t want fans at the games even (or especially) if they allow scouts and media.

Dee Arby: What are your thoughts on how we can become a more intellectual society? Or is that just a pipe dream and the masses will always be extremely gullible?
Keith Law: Greater investment in public education. Unfortunately we’re heading the other way, with huge dark-money efforts undermining public education (funded in part by the Dbacks’ owners) or trying to push right-wing ideologies into schools.

Rodney: Loved reading your Jays list this morning. How do you think time at the alt site changes a timeline for a player like Gabriel Moreno? The hitting approach seems advanced for his age, but catching takes time. Could he start at High-A, but see AA this year with a mid-2022 timeline, whether it’s in Toronto or elsewhere via trade?
Keith Law: Yes, I’d say that’s a possible-optimistic timeline.

Chris P: There were a few goons in the comments of an article on The Athletic about the health and safety protocols MLB and the PA agreed on, that were saying this is stupid because it’s all based on fear of something that isn’t *really* that dangerous. Regardless of if they are correct (they aren’t), how can people not see that this is also a huge financial issue. Imagine a player, staff, ump, or someone associated with them dies from Covid when it could have been prevented or at a minimum, addressed by the league like this. The money they’d have to pay out is worth way more than just a few health and safety rules.
Keith Law: Or, if you want to be really callous, the lost productivity when there’s a community outbreak, with associated quarantining, caused by MLB activity.

Santaspirt: I know you look back on previous top 100 lists you make and are always trying to improve your evaluations. You mention specifically undervaluing Goldschmidt as a prospect and using that example to evaluate Hoskins. The majors is littered with players who never made a top 100 – are there any other types you’ve noticed that are being undervalued at the moment? Types who don’t look like much but consistently break in to the show?
Keith Law: You may notice in a lot of my writeups this year acknowledgments of players who are under six feet but still project as big leaguers, even as stars (Corbin Carroll). I think that industry bias is still strong.
Keith Law: I mean, if Carroll was 6’3″, he goes top 3.

Nolan: I’m curious why Bauer seems to be causing such a clear divide within the baseball fandom. The most generous read of his behavior is he’s a troll. That’s just who he is and the online presence he’s cultivated, regardless of your take on it. But people seemed to have reacted so strongly to writers just pointing out that he has a history of behavior that any club would have to consider when deciding if they should sign him. Is that the main issue, that what some view as “censorship” or “cancel culture” is really just due diligence on a guy someone is about to pay an obscene amount of money to? Wouldn’t any club *rather* their 40m a year pitcher not also be an internet troll?
Keith Law: I do think some of his fans view this as cancel culture stuff, but I would be far more concerned that, given the chance to acknowledge his history of bullying on social media and promising to learn from the feedback, he chose to deny it all. That unwillingness to take responsibility for his words and actions does not speak well for the accountability he will have to take as a player and member of a new team.

Zac: Can you explain the difference between a #1 and #2 and #3 pitcher is?I think it would help me understand your prospect breakdown and why a pitchers ceiling is where it is?
Keith Law: I think of them in tiers. There should be about 15 aces (#1 starters) in any given year, give or take a few. Each tier below that – 2, 3, 4 – would have about 30 guys, one per team. There might be 30 Opening Day starters, guys who are first in their teams’ rotations, but they’re not all truly #1 starters who’d be aces on a majority of teams.

Alex: Does Tevin Vavra have enough of an arm to play 2b (one of the Os blogs had concerns of him playing 2b, much less filling in at SS)?
Keith Law: Yes.

Chris P: It has been pretty tough since the holidays with the weather and tighter restrictions, so I just want to say thanks for keeping up with the prospect rankings and giving us something to look forward to. My interest in baseball feels like it’s been waning, so this is coming at a great time.
Keith Law: Here’s hoping we get games soon for us to watch and argue about.

Aaron C.: Any new recipes/cookbook endeavors in klawland?
Keith Law: Cookbooks no, but the CSA has pushed us to try a lot of new recipes. This has been a huge hit – pasta with sausage, broccoli rabe, and chickpeas. I used chicken sausage and about 50% more pecorino romano than the recipe called for.

xxx(yyy): wife and i are going to go back and watch some classic movies she hasn’t seen – any comedies you think that stand the test of time?
Keith Law: His Girl Friday.

Dan: Thanks for that chat even though it’s so obvious you hate my team. I was surprised by what seems like a light return for Benintendi. Had the bottom really fallen out that much for him? Do you expect a return to the performance from even his rookie season?
Keith Law: He seems like he needs swing help, maybe something significant, and/or the Red Sox just felt they couldn’t help him develop any further. I’m shocked – I thought he’d be far better than this, at least hitting for consistently high averages even if he didn’t have 20+ HR power.

Tristan: Reading your org rankings, I’m struck by how quickly the Jays have rebuilt. They started after teams like Baltimore and Detroit who still seem years away from being years away. Is the credit deserved org-wide, or are there key personnel you look at driving this success?
Keith Law: It’s org-wide IMO but I also think their international scouting department deserves to be singled out for their substantial contributions.

Aaron C.: When you penned your “joined the Athletic” piece, you mentioned possibly writing about labor relations IIRC. Still in the cards for you/your editor?
Keith Law: Yes, hoping to get to that soon, now that we’re in CBA negotiation time.

Jon Weisman: Hi Keith. Would you be able to name your five favorite comic-strip characters of all time? (BTW, I’m not strict about it being exactly five.)
Keith Law: Opus, Steve Dallas, Hodgepodge, Portnoy, Calvin.

Dee Arby: Hitters who make the majors by age 20 usually turn out to be stars. Is this the year Devers goes full bonkers?
Keith Law: He was pretty good in 2019. I’m still a buyer.

PJ: any chance the new CBA will allow players to hit free agency earlier? Seems like front offices are more weary of giving big contracts to 30/31yr olds, and that is what is driving these slow and underwhelming hot stove winters
Keith Law: I’d love to see that. Owners supported it in 1994 – they tried to force through much earlier free agency, I think after 4 years – but I don’t think they would do so now.

Pat D: I feel like this is the least interested I’ve been in the Oscars since before I became capable of seeing movies independently, even though it seems like I can watch all of the contenders through various streaming services. I’m not sure if this is due to not being constantly bombarded with trailers and promotion due to lack of theater-going, or just general malaise from the year of COVID. What’s your interest level this year?
Keith Law: Interested but we haven’t had time to see enough contenders yet, and the fact that the overall favorite, Nomadland, is still trying to do theatrical runs not only dims my interest but actively pisses me off. There’s a pandemic going on right now. Nobody should be watching movies in theaters.

Eric: Is Donald trump the worst American alive?
Keith Law: High bar to clear.

Jason (D.C.): If you’re the Rays, what do you do with middle infield when Wander Franco ready? Should they trade Adames or move to 2B? I assume Brujan will be there.
Keith Law: I bet Adames ends up traded. Not a knock on him, but he’d have more value in trade than he would as a 3b for them.

Tom: Can Brian goodwin be a league average OF for the pirates?
Keith Law: No. I’d bet on Oliva over Goodwin, although I think Oliva is a food 4th OF.

Todd Boss: In all your time ranking organizational farm systems, what would you say were your individual best and worst systems? Like, 2018 Atlanta or 2019 San Diego as best and maybe Baltimore 2018 as worst?
Keith Law: The Angels had the worst ever, maybe five years ago. This year’s Rays’ system would make my top 3. San Diego 2019 is probably the best.

Casey: Do you think the Reds offseason was bad enough that they should look into kick starting a rebuild? Suarez and Gray look like great trade assets, and with the coming compensatory picks, that could move the Farm System in the top 10 in my opinion.
Keith Law: I’d trade Suarez to try to fill shortstop, move Senzel back to the infield, and still hope to compete this year.

xxx(yyy): What prospect were you the most “sure” on that ended up missing? Why? Assuming that guys like Josh Hamilton doesn’t really count since his issues were off the field-based
Keith Law: Justin Smoak.
Keith Law: It wasn’t just me – I remember pro scouts seeing him in his first go-round in pro ball, saying how did this guy get to the 11th pick.

Adam: Should the Padres regret not delaying Tatis’ service time? He’s already two years closer to FA without even playing 162 games.
Keith Law: I don’t think they regret it one bit after that playoff run in 2020.

JL: Assuming they have rotational health this year (a big assumption), what happens with Kyle Wright and Touki Toussaint and Bryse Wilson? Especially for Wright and Touki, proving they can pitch in AAA isn’t the problem. If feels like a waste to have them not getting big league innings. Will it hurt development to have them pitch in Gwinnett for most of another season?
Keith Law: I’d put Touki in a longman role. He needs reps in the majors and that’s the best way to get them.

Sim: You mentioned in your last chat that Oneil Cruz’s legal issues had no bearing on him dropping off of your top-100. Was there something specific in his performance in the Dominican this past year that caused you to drop him 30+ spots in the rankings? I’m assuming the Pirates list will clarify some things.
Keith Law: There is no “dropping.” This isn’t Billboard where players move up or down with a bullet. I start each list from scratch.
Keith Law: I couldn’t tell you without looking where O’Neil Cruz was a year ago on my rankings. I can tell you I really don’t think he’s a shortstop.

Eric: Is a regular-stuffed Oreo still an Oreo?
Keith Law: That is the only Oreo.

Scully: In the Red Sox ’21 prospect rankings, you mention Dalbec could wind up on the roster depending what they do with Devers. Would that be a positional move to 1B for Rafael?
Keith Law: Yes, I know that’s been discussed.

Ed: What do you see as probability of a Vlad Jr breakout this year? He seems to be more committed after his down, by his standards, last season and seeing his contemporaries explode on the scene.
Keith Law: It’s really about the swing. He’s a bright enough kid to figure it out on his own but my understanding is he’s not someone they’re going to be able to take aside for a whole swing optimization.

nb: Keith – Mazel Tov on the wedding! Glad something good came out of 2020! I get that the Phillies system is bad, but do you think there’s hope for it to move up? Seems like the oast 2 drafts have been good and they have some younger guys like Kendall Simmons. Thanks!
Keith Law: I agree. Also one of their best prospects, Luis Garcia, had a horrible 2019 (not entirely his fault) and didn’t get 2020 to reestablish himself.

Scully: I’m sure you’ll write up an analysis of the KC-BOST-NYM trade… any quick thoughts you’d like to share here?
Keith Law: I won’t write it up, not with 3 players’ identities still unknown.

JL: No question, but just wanted to say that I re-read Smart Baseball this winter and am halfway through Inside Game and they’re two of the best books I’ve read in a long time. I even got a co-worker who is marginally interested in baseball to read Smart Baseball and he loved it.
Keith Law: Thank you. You can pre-order the paperback edition of The Inside Game, due out April 6th.
Keith Law: Sorry, I suddenly needed to eat some Oreos.

Paul: What does GM do all day? Not sarcastic, but when they’re saying we’re monitoring the trade market etc. does that mean they’re on the phone with 29 other GMs just asking if they’re buying or selling? If you’re Al Avila and you’re know you’re not making any big moves in the offseason – what are they doing all week?
Keith Law: Running an entire organization. The job of a GM is a lot more than just player acquisitions.

Jim Ed: Thoughts on the Red Sox returns in the Beni trade?
Keith Law: I like PTBNL #2 more than PTBNL #1 or PTBNL #3.

Jeb: No desire to have this posted. Just wanted to say thanks, as an Athletic subscriber. Love the content. I used your signup code so hopefully you get credit for my account in some manner.
Keith Law: I do get ‘credit,’ at least in the sense that the Athletic keeps track of such things, and I do too to see what readers particularly like or don’t like.

Ridley: I’ve seen you list “True Faith” as a perfect song and I wholeheartedly agree. Are there any others on your list? *stares in “Under The Milky Way”*
Keith Law: Great song as well.

Don Gately: the O’Neill Cruz situation just kind of went away and it seems like he’ll just be back with the club for spring. Was anything released about how/why it didn’t go further?
Keith Law: He was exonerated. And most importantly alcohol was not a factor.

Eric: @Ben – I have severe anxiety disorder. It took a full-on breakdown for me to seek help, and I wish I had sooner. Lexapro (for anxiety) and thc/cbd (For sleep) have been godsends.
Keith Law: I can’t vouch for the weed part personally but I appreciate your comments here.

John Olerud: Thank you so much for your response. If there is time for a follow up and continuing on with what you said: even if the Ms or any top-heavy farm system lacks depth, if they were to “really hit” on, say, four or more of those top 7 (given the overall quality of that bunch), would you say they might be in a better position to compete down the road than some of the teams you rank above? That is, given that generally teams are trying to get as much value or WAR as they can out of each key position on the field, I guess I’m just wondering or trying to calibrate how to assess quality vs. quantity in a albeit unrealistic vacuum where every prospect were to reach their “future value” potential.
Keith Law: OK, but then why are we assuming the M’s will hit on 4 of those top 7 but not assuming a similar ‘hit’ rate for any clubs around them?

J. hawley: IF YOU KEEP CANCELING AND SILENCING ME I WILL KEEP GOING ON NATIONAL NEWS SHOWS TO TELL YOU HOW SILENCED I AM BEING!
Keith Law: I worry he’s going to end up some sort of hero to the alt-white and will end up a strong candidate in the 2024 primaries, which we’ve now seen, at least on the GOP side, are structured in a way that favors extreme candidates.

Dan: You called Mick Abel the best HS arm in last year’s draft, but he finished in your ‘just missed’ range. Is it especially difficult for a HS pitcher to make the top 100 just due to the proximity to the majors? Or was it a less than stellar HS pitcher class?
Keith Law: In The Inside Game I went through the history of high school pitchers in the draft, especially in the first round, and their lower success rate relative to other classes of players. I incorporated that into my draft rankings and am doing so as well in my pro rankings. It’s about avoiding bias in the rankings – I love Abel and think he’s a stud, but the base rate for HS pitchers just out of the draft is low.

Perry’s Relief Core: Was Jordyn Adams anywhere near your Top 100? Thanks for taking the time, Keith.
Keith Law: No. 80 runner, 80 athlete, but if you put him in the majors now it might be a 30 hit tool.

Kelsey: How diverse is the scouting world? How many women are in the industry?
Keith Law: Few women, but when I worked for the Jays I don’t believe there were any women in baseball operations jobs other than office roles. Now there are a few dozen, I think. We’re at the point where a team hiring a woman as a scout is no longer notable, and that’s great. What we need now is more GMs who come from underrepresented minority groups, and more managers too.

Uli Jon: I always mean to tell you that the Athletic comments section is not the cesspool those things tend to be, not vintage Deadspin but usually well thought out and some good interaction with writers. Then the “Keith Law hates my team” brigade came out yesterday. Hoo boy.
Keith Law: Yep. I didn’t even look at the comment thread yesterday, because if I want whines I’ll go to the liquor store.

Jason: Can Corbin Burnes be a Cy Young GUY?
Keith Law: Yes.

Morris: Been following you a long time, and my two favorite accusations of bias against you all time are 1) you get both “Klaw hates the Jays because he used to work for them” and “Klaw overrates the Jays because he used to work for them” and 2) “Klaw hates Lavarnway because he went to Yale.” What are your favorites?
Keith Law: I forgot about Lavarnway. The people who insist I hate the Yankees are extra-special, since I grew up a Yankee fan and my parents & sister are still Yankee fans, and my grandmother was one until she was about 98 or so. Also, anyone crying about East Coast bias really needs a pacifier.
Keith Law: My patience for these complaints declines every year. Grow up already. I do not have the capacity to hold all of these supposed biases against teams in my head. My cognitive load is high enough as it is.

JT: Are you still very much hopeful for Tirso Ornelas? Do we just have to be patient until we have some game action for him?
Keith Law: Yes.

PJ: What do you think would be the key to getting us consistent games under 3 hours?
Keith Law: Fewer commercial breaks. No commercial breaks for pitching changes. And raise the bottom of the strike zone.
Keith Law: We’re not getting to 2.5 hour games, though. That’s over.

Jason: When ranking farm systems, do you assign points (e.g., players’ FV, probability, etc.), or is it more of a feel?
Keith Law: It’s feel. Any point system would be arbitrary at its heart.

Jill: Do you own any Bitcoin? Or any crypto? Thoughts on it?
Keith Law: No. I doubt its long-term value, and it is an environmental disaster.

Uli Jon: Forgot to say…congratulations to you and your bride. Best wishes to the new family.
Keith Law: Thank you. Approaching our one month anniversary (menoversary?) already!

Jimmy: Any good deals to sign up for The Athletic you have in your pocket? Looking forward to signing up!
Keith Law: theathletic.com/klaw is the current promotion.

Guest: Re Austin Wells- I thought you list a prospect at a position where you think he’ll play but you list him as a catcher despite your (apparently majority view) he can’t catch. Where does he play- RF? 1B?
Keith Law: No, I list guys where they play now. Not sure where he’ll best profile.

Monte: Just to second what you said for Ben, I resisted getting help for depression/anxiety until this past year (I’m 37) for the same reasons (changing my personality, becoming a Xanax Zombie, etc.). It’s nothing like that. Outdated stereotypes. All it does it let my brain quiet down and not freak out about, like, laundry.
Keith Law: Exactly. I could really get anxious about some ridiculous things. Or, frequently, nothing.

Don Gately: Plans to read A Children’s Bible? Loved the voice
Keith Law: I had not heard about this book but it looks interesting.

Tom C: The team hate accusations have been hilarious as usual. Take the Orioles fans – I looked it up, the team has made the playoffs 3 times this century. They have 6 total winning seasons. What have they been so happy about that they get mad because your assessment doesn’t match other reviews?
Keith Law: Also, the expectation that a team that has completely ignored international scouting – you know, where the best player in the NL came from, where the #1 and #3 prospects on my top 100 came from as well as the guys at 16 and 19 and 20 and 24 and 25 and 25 – for a decade, and that has zero international prospects of their own signing in their top 20, would have a top ten system is delusional.

John: Friends in Baltimore are worried the O’s are eventually going to leave, with Nashville as a potential destination. Have you heard these rumors and, if so, any sense of it actually happening?
Keith Law: I’ve never heard that. Only one team has relocated in my lifetime, and that was an extraordinary situation. MLB does not want to allow franchise relocations without an extremely high bar to clear. They just want to use the relocations as a threat.

Tom: Can singer be a good number 3? He’s got the command for it i feel like
Keith Law: He doesn’t have the command and he doesn’t have the third pitch for it.

Appa Yip Yip: Cancel culture isn’t real. Anyone who claims to have been “cancelled” is just experiencing consequences for the first time and they still get to publish self indulgent screeds on the opinion pages of the new york times. The literal opposite of having their voice taken away.
Keith Law: I agree. Bari Weiss got “cancelled,” even though her entire career started with her trying to cancel professors she didn’t like, and she was rewarded with a job at the New York Post. It’s all a giant grift, pandering to the alt-white. And it works.

G: Nick Gonzales’ profile (hitter friendly college environment, small sample strong performance in the cape,) gives me bad Kevin Newman vibes. Is there concern his bat won’t ever play enough for 2b?
Keith Law: Newman was a better runner and played shortstop better in college than Gonzales did. I would say Gonzales shows more with his present hit tool, though.

Michael: Do surprise players that make it big ever make you recalibrate how you look at things? Being a Brewers fan, it seems like most of our high rated prospects tank, but we get gems out of left field like Brandon Woodruff (though I will admit you were earlier on him than most).
Keith Law: Yes, they do, and I appreciate you remembering I had Woodruff on a top 100 (and I’m still hanging on to Zack Brown, pecan pie, and homemade wine).

Max: Keith, you’ve mentioned “CSA” a couple of times in the chat. What is that?
Keith Law: Community Supported Agriculture.

addoeh: If you had a wedding reception with a large group of friends/family, what songs would have made your “do not play” list?
Keith Law: Oh, we had one. Maybe I’ll publish our Spotify wedding playlist?

Brian: I havent been able to join in a while and wanted your opinion on something that came up a few months back – there was an inaccurate statistics floating around social media about suicides and a line about the Prevention Hotline. I hate made up stats as much as anyone but at what point does the message (call the Hotline) become greater than the means by which it went viral (the made up stat)?
Keith Law: The message wasn’t call the hotline, though. The message was “end the lockdowns.” And it was manipulative folderol from people whose real interest was not saving lives, but making money.

Eric: Just want to send prayers and love to Pedro Gomez’s family, friends, loved ones and anyone who knew or followed him. What a horrible loss.
Keith Law: Horrible. Absolutely unfathomable. We have lost way too many people just in our little corner of the sports world in the last twelve months.

Cryptologist: How is crypto an environmental disaster?
Keith Law: Mining bitcoin uses 121 TWh per year, almost as much electricity as the entire country of Norway. And it has no societal value at all.

Pat: In regards to international scouting “Where the best player in the NL came from” doesn’t narrow it down enough. Tatis? Soto? Acuna? That, alone, is reason enough to scout internationally, no?
Keith Law: You would think. Of the four fan bases most whiny about my org rankings, three are fans of teams – the White Sox, the Tigers, and the Orioles – who have gotten little to nothing from the international side.

The Sloth: Was there a Phish song in your wedding playlist? and why was it “Waste”?
Keith Law: “Heavy Things” and “Bouncing Around the Room.”
Keith Law: OK, that’s all for this week, but I will try to do another one next Thursday once the top 20s have all run. Thank you all so much for reading and subscribing and for all of your questions. The AL will run this week and the NL next. Stay safe and please wear your masks – two masks, really – as we’re finally seeing the light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: klawchat

→ February 9, 2021
→ By keith

Gods Love Dinosaurs.

Gods Love Dinosaurs is the latest game from the designer of Magic Maze, a Spiel-nominated family game from 2017 that I still have yet to play or acquire (although I’d love to … so many games, so little time). Magic Maze is cooperative, while Gods Love Dinosaurs is competitive, but both games have simple rulesets and mechanics that make both setup and learning fairly quick processes. I’m not sure that GLD follows through on its promise, though – the game might actually be too simple, and I found it hard to get any sort of strategy or plan going as a result.

The premise of the game is that you’re trying to build out an ecosystem, placing one new tile each turn, that has six main species in it, three prey, two predators, and an apex predator in a dinosaur. The prey don’t do much except multiply; the predators in your ecosystem will move in prescribed ways and eat prey in their path, but they must eat something each turn or they’ll “go extinct” (die). Every few turns, the dinosaurs activate, eating everything in their path, predator or prey, but only when a dinosaur eats a predator do you get a bonus egg, which you can keep as a point at game-end or use to hatch another dinosaur to eat more predators and get you more points. The game ends when the tile supply is exhausted.

You draw those ecosystem tiles from a central board that has five columns, with one of each animal species (excluding dinosaurs) underneath each, and then a dinosaur meeple that will move left to right as columns are cleared. You place one tile into each column per player, but don’t refill those vacated spaces immediately. Most tiles show one animal species on them, and when you take that tile, you take a meeple (animeeple?) of that type. When a column is cleared, its associated animal is activated. For prey, that means reproduction: Each prey meeple you have spawns one more prey meeple (one assumes via parthenogenesis) into a neighboring hex as long as it’s of that species’ preferred terrain type. Predators move in a very specific pattern, with each species moving differently, and must eat at least one prey to survive, so placing your tiles and your prey becomes one of the most important decisions – I would argue the only important decision – you’ll make in the game.

The dinosaur activates if that meeple is under a column when it’s cleared, after which it slides to the right to the next column. Each dinosaur may move five hexes, in any pattern, and eats everything in its path, but it must end on a mountain hex – the one on which it started, or a different one. Each prey it eats is merely consumed, its existence a meaningless speck on the fabric of time, while each predator consumed yields an egg. If you have an empty mountain hex when dinosaurs activate, you may pay one egg and place a new dinosaur on that space.

That’s all there is to the game – the process repeats until you’ve run out of tiles, and then everyone adds up their eggs and dinosaurs, one point for each. There’s no player interaction, and in our experience it’s hard to get enough predators on the board to have many (if any) left after you have at least two dinosaurs and activate them. You can’t plan for the long or even medium term here; you just have to plan for the next dinosaur activation. That makes it sound like a kids’ game, and my daughter did like the game more than I did, but I don’t think you could play this with children under 10 or so because of some of the spatial reasoning involved in setting up the next feeding. I might be wrong about that age limit, as the box says ages 8+, but I think I’m also just not very fond of the game and may not be giving it enough credit. I’m still hoping to pick up Magic Maze in the near future, though.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: board games, boardgames, family games

→ February 6, 2021
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 2/6/21.

I had two new posts for subscribers to the Athletic this week: a breakdown of the Nolan Arenado trade, and a look at a dozen prospects who just missed my top 100 ranking. That ranking ran the previous Thursday. I did a video chat via the Athletic’s Twitter account on Tuesday. Org rankings will run on February 10^th, and team by team reports begin the next day.

I’ve had two podcasts since my show returned from my holiday break last month, with guests Britt Ghiroli, national baseball writer for the Athletic; and Seattle Mariners prospect Adam Macko, who was born in Slovakia and first learned to play baseball in Bratislava. You can subscribe on Apple podcasts, Amazon, and Spotify.

Over at Paste, I reviewed the game Cloud City, by one of my favorite designers (Cacao, Gizmos, Silver & Gold), but it was a huge disappointment.

My last edition of my free email newsletter shared some details of my recent nuptials; I’m overdue for another issue because I’ve been writing the team reports and top 20s. You can still buy The Inside Game and Smart Baseball anywhere you buy books; the paperback edition of The Inside Game will be out in April.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: One of the worst and most generally underreported aspects of Trump’s reign of error was the spate of executions of federal inmates while Trump was a lame duck. ProPublica has the inside story of their rush to kill as many people as possible.
Jeff Passan has the incredible story of outfielder Drew Robinson, his improbable survival from a suicide attempt, and his ongoing effort to come back to baseball despite losing an eye. My colleague Levi Weaver shared his own story of depression in the wake of Robinson’s story.
“We can have democracy, or we can have a surveillance society, but we cannot have both.” This editorial is deeply philosophical but ties into multiple issues of our day, including the erosion of privacy and the velocity of misinformation.
The Guardian looks at the power of Big Lens, the duopoly that controls most of the world’s eyeglasses market.
Josh Miller, a spring training announcer for the Giants, has resigned after an Arizona state Senator revealed that he was sending her vulgar, misogynistic tweets.
Tanzania’s government has rejected the COVID-19 vaccine as part of their ongoing denial that the virus even exists in their country, which appears to be run by MAGA people (MATA?).
Dungeons & Dragons has an anti-Semitism problem, derived from its use of JRR Tolkien’s mythology and non-human races – the dwarves were, by his own admission, a mythical representation of some awful Jewish stereotypes.
Anti-vaccine terrorists put a temporary halt to a mass vaccination setup at Dodgers Stadium. I have no sympathy for these people. This is terrorism and they should be charged as such, and Facebook should be held responsible for their tacit aid in promoting it.
Those same anti-vaxxer nuts are also misusing the federal VAERS database to spread misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccines. If someone uses VAERS to claim the vaccines are unsafe, just ignore them. That data is not clean or reliable enough to use for that purpose.
That misinformation, combined with systemic inequalities in our health-care system, means that the mutations to the SARS-CoV-2 virus will spell disaster for our Black communities.
Speaking of terrorists, one of the people who has been charged with storming the Capitol on January 6^th has asked a judge to allow her to travel to Mexico for a “work retreat.” I’ve seen a lot of articles saying permission was granted, but that doesn’t appear to be the case.
Erik Malinowski was right: Never tweet.
Fifty years of cuts to the top marginal tax rates did not result in “trickle-down” benefits for people in lower income strata, according to a recent study out of LSE (which I may have linked previously, but it came up recently when my daughter asked about JFK and Reagan as Presidents).
St. Louis is now paying a $5 million settlement to a (Black) protester beaten by four (white) cops who turned out to be an undercover cop himself. Great use of tax funds, guys.
Rochester police officers pepper-sprayed a suicidal 9-year-old girl, renewing scrutiny of the department’s use of a hood on a Black man who suffocated as a result.
Did a supermassive black hole influence the evolution of life on earth? Something to muse about, at least.
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump continued to enrich themselves as a result of their unappointed, unelected positions in the Administration in 2020, with combined income of at least $23.8 million. The grift worked, folks.
Copper and Cotton, one of the most acclaimed new restaurant in the Phoenix area of the last few years, is closing as its head chef is moving to Utah.
Board game news: Jamey Stegmaier, designer and owner of Stonemaier games, asks if the Kickstarter mindset is increasing consumer confusion around things like ‘deluxe’ components and special versions of new games.
Japanese publisher Oink Games has a Kickstarter up for three new titles, one of which is a reimplementation of three previous game Deep Sea Adventure.
Tweet of the week:

pic.twitter.com/Etccw1hPdp
— Jon Adams™ (@citycyclops) February 1, 2021

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: arizona, board game news, coronavirus, death penalty, Economics, links, mental health, rochester, social media, st. louis, stick to baseball, suicide, tanzania, the swamp, vaccines

→ February 5, 2021
→ By keith

The White Tiger (film).

Aravind Aviga’s first novel, The White Tiger, won the Booker Prize in 2008 for its grim, satirical look at the pernicious effects of caste and economic discrimination in India, just as the country was working to change its global image to that of a more modern society. (As if modern societies were somehow free of this sort of discrimination.) It seemed perfectly suited to an adaptation for the screen but it took over ten years for filming to begin, and the movie finally saw the light of day this winter, appearing on Netflix in January. I loved the book, and the film, which is very faithful to the original text, is also great, with some reservations.

The White Tiger tells the story of Balram, a poor child in the state of Rajasthan, who realizes early on that there’s no escape from the underclass if you’re not out for yourself, and the promise of upward mobility is a fiction for people like him. He manipulates his way into a job as a chauffeur for Ashok, the son of the village’s wealthy landlord, known just as “The Stork.” He gets the job, and tries to ensure his job security, by being obsequious to his bosses no matter the insults or abuse they throw at him, until one night, Ashok’s wife, Pinky, has an accident while driving, and they make Balram take responsibility. After that, the gloves are off, and Balram’s loyalty to himself takes priority over his loyalty to his employers. Yet Balram is no saint, and rationalizes away some of his own worst behaviors even before the accident, arguing that this is India and it’s every man for himself.

Balram is played by Adarsh Gourav in his first film role, and he’s spectacular. Balram narrates the book and the movie, and the film just wouldn’t work without the right actor in that role. The character has show many faces in the story – among them simpering, wounded, and righteously angry – and make it credible that they’d all come from the same human. He’s at his best in the moments when Ashok and his family turn on him and he realizes they view him as somewhere between hired help and farm animal. Priyanka Chopra helped the film become reality and served as executive producer; she also appears as Pinky, playing her as an Indian woman who grew up in the United States and has more worldly values, including viewing Balram as, at least, an actual person, in contrast to her husband or, worse, her father-in-law. Her character probably has the most depth after Balram’s, but I’ve never found Chopra that convincing as an actress (in English language works, though), and she’s pretty stiff in this role.

The framing device for the film feels somewhat extraneous. As the film opens, we see Balram, grown up, at the head of his own business, as he writes a letter to then-Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, bragging about his life story, praising the Chinese economy, and asking for a meeting. It’s mostly just padding, and it spoils a few plot points if you’re watching carefully. I also would have preferred not to see the successful Balram until he reached that point in the story.

Gourav really does drive the film. Balram is a great character, an antihero inhabiting a story that usually provides us with a simple, easy to cheer for protagonist, like some sort of modern Horatio Alger tale. Instead, Aviga’s story reveals layers of cunning and venality in Balram as a way of indicting the hollowness of India’s economic miracle, and exposing how income inequality might replace the caste system as an obstacle to upward mobility in class or just personal wealth. I suppose that actually makes it a lot like the United States, just not in the way they intended.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2020 best adapted screenplay nominees, adaptations, indian films, movies

→ January 31, 2021
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 1/31/21.

My ranking of the top 100 prospects in baseball ran this Thursday for subscribers to the Athletic; the column of guys who just missed the list will run on Monday. Subscribers can also read my breakdown of the Jameson Taillon trade. I also held a Klawchat on Thursday afternoon.

Over at Paste, my review of the game Cloud City, a disappointing game from a designer whose work I really love, is now up.

I joined my friend Eric Longenhagen on the Fangraphs Audio podcast this week to talk top 100s and the process of assembling them, especially in this weird year.

My most recent edition of my free email newsletter shared some details of my recent nuptials, and I’ll send another issue at some point this week. You can still buy The Inside Gameand Smart Baseball anywhere you buy books; the paperback edition of The Inside Game will be out in April.

And now, the links…

David Sirota weighs in on the New York Times‘ publication of what amounted to a GOP press release and other media nonsense in the wake of the terror attack on the Capitol.
The Times fired a reporter earlier this month for saying she got “chills” during Biden’s inauguration, but when reporter Don McNeil used the n-word and other offensive terms on a trip with students, they promoted him.
Scientific American looks at the most worrying mutations in five COVID-19 variants.
The BBC looks at the twenty-year search for the billions of dollars stolen by former Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha.
A former KGB agent alleges in a new book that the Russian agency cultivated Trump as an asset for nearly 40 years.
A white Ohio state Senator named Stephen Huffman (guess) questioned whether “the colored population do not wash their hands as well as other groups,” and now he’s leading the Ohio Senate Health Committee.
Dr. Peter Hotez, author of Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel’s Autism, wrote that Biden’s new vaccine goal is good, but not ambitious enough.
Sen. Josh Hawley’s “ludicrous clean-up act,” to try to undo the damage done to his reputation earlier this month, is already underway.
A new study showed that some bacteria adapt to antibiotics by changing their shape, which can reduce the surface area for antibiotics to penetrate.
Delaware’s Senate passed our version of the CROWN Act, banning discrimination against people based on their hair or hairstyle. It has to pass the House and be signed by Gov. Carney, but both are extremely likely.
A Magic: the Gathering card sold for over $500,000 at auction last week.
Asmodee and Game in Lab announced a clinical study that showed that playing board games might help Alzheimer’s sufferers.
I haven’t seen or played the game Coffee Talk, but this one-year lookback makes it sound kind of weirdly fun. Then again, I bought Necrobarista two months ago and still haven’t played it, so maybe I won’t.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: board game news, coronavirus, delaware, links, ohio, science, stick to baseball, the grey lady

Tags

Archives