→ October 31, 2020
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Stick to baseball, 10/31/20.

My ranking of the top 40 free agents this offseason went up on Thursday morning for subscribers to the Athletic. I also answered some questions for Kaitlyn McGrath, our Blue Jays beat writer, on the state of the Blue Jays’ farm system.

My guest on this week’s episode of the Keith Law Show was Taylor Trammell, Mariners outfielder and author of a column on the Players Tribune called “Baseball Is Not Black Enough.” He was an outstanding guest, and I think this is one of the best interviews I’ve had, which is all to Taylor’s credit. You can subscribe to my podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and now Amazon podcasts. I appeared on TSN 1040 in Vancouver on Wednesday to talk about the World Series and the role of analytics in the sport, in which I think I expressed my views on the subject pretty well.

I sent out another edition of my free email newsletter on Friday to subscribers. Thank you all for the kind feedback, as always.

Here’s my weekly reminder that my books The Inside Game and Smart Baseball make excellent gifts for the baseball fan or avid reader in your life and you should buy lots of copies for everyone you know, like your Secret Santa person, or that annoying guy at work who thinks he knows everything there is to know about sportsball.

And now the links…

Please, if you are a U.S. citizen and you haven’t already done so, vote. Vote this anti-science, racist, authoritarian Administration out, so we can get back to arguing over whether Yadier Molina is a Hall of Famer instead.

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→ October 30, 2020
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Root app.

Root is one of the top 100 games on Boardgamegeek’s rankings, which skew heavily towards more complex games, especially those with very little luck or randomness, and it now has a gorgeous digital port from the heroes over at Dire Wolf, who have never missed on any of their adaptations of tabletop games (in my opinion). If you like Root, or wanted to try it but didn’t have the mates to make a game of it, this is absolutely for you. That said, I’ve cooled on Root since I first reviewed the game a few years ago, as I found the rules for each individual faction too fiddly, taking a lot of the fun out of the play.

Root is an asymmetrical game with four factions in the base game for players to try out. Each faction has unique rules, and a unique setup, so playing one gives you very little insight into how to play the others. The four represent forest creatures who function differently in the woods, and whose goals differ from each other’s. Two of them rely primarily on area control, but the cats start out controlling most of the board and try to hold on to it while building three building types in clearings they control, while the eagles start with just one well-defended clearing and score by gradually taking over more clearings and building further roosts. The foxes – I think they’re foxes – are more like a populist guerrilla army, and probably are best served making friends with one of the first two factions and fighting the other by sowing dissent in specific clearings. The vagabond, a raccoon in the physical game, is a lone wolf – no pun intended – who rarely benefits from battles, faring better by running around the board and trading goods with the other players (who can’t decline, but do gain from it). There are expansions to the physical game with even more factions to try.

The digital adaptation looks incredible. Dire Wolf used the art from the original game but makes the app look like a cartoon, and the animations are clever and fun, especially as the animals run from clearing to clearing (or, in the vagabond’s case, to hide in the forest). The app makes it extremely easy to see what you can do on a turn through sensible highlighting and good color contrast, and in general the app will present you with an option if it’s available to use, such as cards you might play at the start of a battle. I would like to see an option to turn off some of the animations – it takes too long to resolve battles, for example, and the smoke that appears when a clearing changes hands isn’t all that helpful – but they’re at least visually appealing.

The one aspect the app is missing is a stronger undo function. You can reverse some actions, but not others, like undoing a move from one clearing to another, and it’s unclear what the difference is. Experienced players would probably feel this lack less than I did.

Screenshot of the Root app, playing the eagle faction.

The app also comes with an outstanding tutorial that lets you play as each of the four factions, starting you off in each mini-game and then letting you finish them off by yourself. The rules of Root are fairly involved, and the tutorial focuses on the big picture rules, with the more detailed text rules available through the main menu. It also does a solid job of getting you acclimated to the screen and layout, which is like the physical game but with a slightly isometric view. All of the potential moves and the cards you have are displayed on the screen at all times, and you can click on your faction card to see the moves you can make each ‘day’ and how your faction scores. Moves available to you are highlighted in the lower right, and grayed out once they’re used or unavailable.

The problem I have with Root is that the more I play it, the less I enjoy it. There are way too many situations where you’re prevented from doing something because of an arcane rule – you don’t have a card matching that specific type of clearing, for example, although there were situations where I thought I had the right card with the right symbol and still couldn’t use it because I have no idea why not. One of the most frustrating experiences for any game player, regardless of skill level, is to be unable to do something obvious, like defend yourself in an attack, or build something you need to continue to play. Root is full of moments like that. I suppose adherents would say you have to plan accordingly so you don’t end up in those situations, but in the app, it’s even harder to keep track of what’s what. In the Steam version, at least, I couldn’t figure out how to zoom out to see the whole board, although I imagine that’ll be obvious on tablets; either way, it made planning harder because I could never figure out what cards I had to keep – and, unfortunately, you can lose cards to other players in Root. The best laid plans of mice and cats and eagles often go awry in this game. Whether that’s your cup of root tea (a card in the game) is really for you to decide.

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→ October 28, 2020
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The Everyday Parenting Toolkit.

The Everyday Parenting Toolkit is a very specific set of tools for parents, with guidelines that apply to kids of just about any age but a stronger focus on kids younger than about nine. The subject here is behavior, and behavior change, and the book, authored by Dr. Alan Kazdin, describes some pretty simple rules for engendering behavior change in children that focus on positive steps more than negative, certainly different than the way I think most or at least many people parent. It’s often difficult to get through because Kazdin calls every step of the method by its technical name, but this is evidence-based behavior management, and could help all of us with kids get out of the cycles of discipline and punishment that don’t really work to create the changes you want.

The basics of the method revolve around the A-B-C framework of Antecedents, Behavior, and Consequences. Before you can do any of this, however, you have to define the behavior you want, and do so in clear terms that you can communicate to your child and that your child can understand in a way that they can execute. If you can’t explain it to yourself, or to your spouse or partner, in simple terms, then your child isn’t going to be able to follow it and make the change you want.

Antecedents come before the behavior in question, and changing them can change the behavior – thus, you create an environment with incentives (or disincentives) to encourage the behavior you want. Depending on the child, the behavior, and how far the status quo is from the desired behavior, you might even choose to simulate the activity and the behavior so that your child has a chance to practice the behavior you want in stages – for example, ‘practicing’ a tantrum, but one with less screaming, or where they keep their body more under control. You need to identify specific behaviors you want to change, rather than general traits like generosity or kindness, and then use Kazdin emphasizes that what you do before the behavior occurs can have far greater impact than what you try to do afterward.

The Behavior stage of his method involves providing reinforcement when you get the behavior you want, or even just part of the behavior you want. This might be the ‘positive opposite,’ where your child is doing the polar opposite of the behavior you want, and thus getting to your desired outcome requires working in stages. You create a plan to get from point A (present behavior) to point B (desired behavior), and develop a program, with any co-parents, to encourage progress with reinforcement – primarily praise, specific praise that is delivered as close in time to the good behavior as possible. The plan should set specific, achievable goals for the child, and each positive step should be met with praise, effusive praise for younger kids especially, and maybe with very modest rewards like a point system.

Consequences are not what you might think, or at least not what I thought they’d be. Kazdin emphasizes the importance of positive reinforcement programs, arguing that they’re just more effective than negative reinforcement (what we usually think of as punishment). Punishments should be mild when used at all, and should be accompanied by a reinforcement program that encourages the ‘positive opposite’ of the offending behavior. (He points out that parents should never use physical discipline, and there is substantial research on the long-term negative outcomes associated with even ‘light’ corporal punishment like spanking, from worse mental health outcomes to decreased immune function. Don’t spank your kids.) You may also need to withhold reinforcement from undesirable behaviors; every parent knows the situation where they’ve had to stop themselves from laughing at something their kid did that you really don’t want them to repeat, but that was actually quite funny. I remember my daughter, then four and a half, saying “Daddy!” and clapping twice to get my attention for something, and I had to turn away so she couldn’t see me cracking up; that would have provided positive reinforcement for a behavior that, while pretty astute (I had clapped a few times to get her attention before), was not something I wanted to see become a habit. Withholding that reinforcement thus would have been a key part of a behavior-change program, had I instituted one at the time.

Kazdin states multiple times that punishment doesn’t work on its own and should be rarely used, and only to decrease some behavior. It can confuse your child if you’re trying to use punishment, especially as a restorative method, while also working to change behavior and ‘impart other lessons.’ Punishment doesn’t teach positive behaviors, only works in the very short term, and often provokes side effects like crying, avoidance, and even aggression (especially if you use corporal punishment). He describes the most effective way to use time outs, including that the first minute of time out does most of the work, and that time outs beyond ten minutes probably do nothing at all.

The remainder of The Everyday Parenting Toolkit is devoted to the need to develop a strong environment, or context, in your home to allow better behaviors to develop; and to real-world examples from families who’ve visited the Yale Parenting Center, where Dr. Kazdin is the director, and the programs the center developed to help those families implement sustainable behavior changes. The context chapter would probably apply to the greatest number of readers, because the eight steps he recommends could start at any time, regardless of how old your kids are, to encourage better behavior or just discourage undesirable behaviors, and perhaps limit the need for you to use the A-B-C method so that it’s more effective and easier for you to maintain.

My daughter is 14, but I still found value in The Everyday Parenting Toolkit for parenting her, as well as far more tips for my partner’s kids, who are both still in the single digits. I have zero background in psychology, but much of what Kazdin recommends here follows principles from behavioral economics – not just incentives and disincentives, but timing (rewards and reinforcements must happen very soon after the behavior), misaligned incentives, and the nonlinear effects of many of these steps, like time outs. Kazdin does rely too much on jargon here, even though it’s a book for the lay audience, and I found it to be a slow read for that reason – seeing “positive opposite” fifty times didn’t make the phrase more meaningful in my head, for example – but there are lessons here I’ll be able to use at home for a long time, and that I think every parent should know.

Next up: I’ve finished Max Porter’s Lanny and am now reading Emily Oster’s Cribsheet.

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→ October 24, 2020
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Stick to baseball, 10/24/20.

My top 40 free agents ranking is filed, and will run two days after the end of the World Series, so that could be as soon as Tuesday and no later than Friday. I did hold a Klawchttps://klaw.me/3ogZKgthat on Thursday.

My latest review for Paste covers the legacy game My City, from the prolific designer Reiner Knizia (Samurai, Lost Cities, Tigris & Euphrates), a fun tile-laying game that ramps up the legacy rules slowly enough to keep the game accessible.

My guest on this week’s episode of The Keith Law Show was longtime A’s beat writer Susan Slusser, talking about Billy Beane’s future, the free agency of Liam Hendriks and Marcus Semien, and the playoffs to that point. My podcast is now available on Amazon podcasts as well as iTunes and Spotify.

I sent out another edition of my free email newsletter earlier this week to subscribers. Thank you all for the kind feedback, as always.

As the holiday season approaches, I’ll remind you every week that my books The Inside Game and Smart Baseball make excellent gifts for the baseball fan or avid reader in your life.

And now, the links…

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→ October 23, 2020
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Mumbo Jumbo.

I can’t believe Ishmael Reed’s 1972 Mumbo Jumbo escaped my notice until just this year, when I grabbed it for $2 for the Kindle. It would have fit perfectly in the class I took in college called Comedy and the Novel – which, as great as it was, did not include a single book written by a woman or a person of color – and should be in high school curricula around the country. It’s postmodern yet largely accessible; it’s funny, yet incredibly serious; and it deals with timeless topics of race and culture. It’s also about a nonlethal pandemic, making it an interesting read in the time of COVID-19. There were certainly parts I didn’t follow, some of which is a function of my cultural illiteracy, but the end result is an important and very compelling work of magical realism and postmodern fiction.

The pandemic at the heart of this story is called “Jes Grew,” and the primary symptom is the desire to dance and have fun. Needless to say, the white powers that be can’t abide this, and the Knights of Templar (who still exist) team up with the shadowy Wallflower Order to fight it, while various Black leaders, many of whom are voodoo clergy, work against them. The story twists and turns while incorporating major historical events from the first half of the twentieth century, placing great emphasis on the 19-year U.S. occupation of Haiti, with appearances by a cornucopia of real-life figures, including President Warren Harding, dancer/author Irene Castle, and W.E.B. Dubois.

In the world of Mumbo Jumbo, voodoo is real, but its history has been suppressed by white people (as have many elements of Black culture), and the true history of Judeo-Christian religions is quite different from the one we’re given today, involving a gallimaufry of spirits and prophets going back to ancient Egypt. The voodoo priests are led by PaPa LaBas, a voudou priest who is named for one of that religion’s spirits known as loas, but the characters themselves are secondary to the “anti-plague” of Jes Grew, a fairly obvious metaphor for the spread of Black culture and white efforts to stop it and, when they can’t, their efforts to appropriate and assimilate it. The story winds through jazz clubs and speakeasies, including Harlem’s famous Cotton Club, and art museums housing stolen art from the developing world. It works in the search for a mystical text from the goddess Osiris that may explain the origins of Jes Grew and hold the key to stopping it. Reed even works in the since-debunked story that Harding was part Black.

There’s plenty of intrigue here, including several murders by the warring factions, a demonic possession, and a tense hostage scene, which was more than enough to hold my interest for its scant 200 pages (and something like 50 chapters). There’s a lot of subtext here that I know I missed, though, from Black cultural history to voodoo and spiritualism, caused by gaps in my own education, that I’m sure limited how much I could understand and appreciate what was going on in Mumbo Jumbo. I understood his points about Black culture and the long history of white attempts to suppress it, probably because I’m at least old enough to remember mainstream resistance to rap music – and more than one adult telling me in the late 1980s that rap was “a fad” that wouldn’t last – and how it was characterized. The levers of power in the entertainment world are still controlled by white people, mostly white men, which is why Tyler Perry had to finance his own productions, and why some people of color have to produce and direct films in which they star. That’s part of why I said Mumbo Jumbo should be taught in schools – that aspect of the book is still extremely relevant – although I think this is also a text that would reward the closer reading of an academic setting, with guidance on some of the book’s allusions that I probably missed. It was rewarding enough as is, but I think reading it in a class would be even more so.

Next up: I just finished Graham Swift’s new novel Here We Are and am about halfway through Dr. Alan Kazdin’s The Everyday Parenting Toolkit.

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→ October 22, 2020
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Klawchat 10/22/20.

Starting at 1 pm ET.

Keith Law: You know they won’t win. Klawchat.

Samir: Corbin Carroll and Tyler Freeman are two prospects for whom there were reports of unlocked power at the alternate sites. Did you hear the same? Which of the two do you think could surprise the most with their power tool?
Keith Law: Carroll had power before, so I’m not sure what would have been unlocked. I haven’t heard that on Freeman, but I’m also pretty skeptical of anything I hear from alternate sites because it’s all from the teams themselves.

Ken: The sign stealing scandal doesn’t appear to be going away which must be concerning to MLB. As more people begin to speak out MLB’s investigation of the Astros and Red Sox is looking worse. If the “Yankee letter” is unsealed and discloses other undisclosed infractions by the Yankees or other clubs is Rob Manfred done as Commish?
Keith Law: That’s hilarious. There is no chance this undoes Manfred as Commissioner. He’d be at greater risk if he penalized more teams, not fewer.

Michael: Have you heard any word/update on how some of the newer Rockie prospects have been doing at instructs, specifically Veen and Romo?
Keith Law: The Rockies aren’t allowing scouts at instructs, so no, unfortunately.

Derek: Alec Bohm…..future stud or SSS this year?
Keith Law: Future star with the bat. Probably ends up at 1B, which does cut off some of his statistical upside.

Ben (MN): Do you plan on reading Hugh Acheson’s new “How to Cook”? I bought it even though it is aimed at new cooks because I figure if it is Hugh it will be worth a read anyway. Do you have any favorite recipes from his other cookbooks?
Keith Law: I do – the only book of his I haven’t gotten was the slow cooker one. I just made his kohlrabi and pecan salad from The Broad Fork last night. That book also has a great carrot soup recipe and a shiitake/ponzu salad I love.

Preston: I don’t like not being super interested in the Series. Maybe it’s that my Cubs stunk it up. Maybe it’s no atmosphere. But I’d like to blame it on bullpenning. It just doesn’t make for a smooth watch. What can/should be done in the future?
Keith Law: If MLB capped the number of pitchers teams could bring, that would help. I think the 3 batter minimum rule has had the unforeseen consequence of teams filling their pens with more relievers capable of going an inning-plus, which makes bullpenning much easier than it was when teams had a specialist or two.

Jeremy: Was there more going on with mike foltynewicz than just decreased velocity? seems like braves needed help and some reports said his velo was coming back but he never got another crack. is he worth taking a shot on this offseason or toast?
Keith Law: Worth a shot, but he’s had some minor arm stuff that is concerning. I’d put him behind guys like Hamels or Kluber, who have longer track records of success but are coming off injury-wrecked years.

Krontz: Is there a board game bubble? If not, possibly soon? Finally, how can the industry adapt to sustain growth?
Keith Law: I read this at first as asking if there was a place where board gamers could all go and live in a bubble so they could play endless board games without fear of COVID-19, and that sounds pretty great, actually. Yes, there are more board games published right now than the market can really support. I’m not sure how long it will last, but my suspicion is that the $50+ games, and publishers that rely on those, will be at highest risk. An extended economic downturn would probably exacerbate that issue.

Randall: Who is that rays #1 prospect we’ve been hearing about for years ? He still #1 for you ? I haven’t heard much about him lately
Keith Law: You probably haven’t heard much about Wander Franco lately because there were no minor league games this year.

Dab: Do you think Brailyn Marquez ends up as a starter?
Keith Law: I think it’s possible, but he might be a better reliever.
Keith Law: As opposed to saying he can’t hold up as a starter, or lacks the stuff for it.

Jeremy: which GM jobis better — phillies or marlins?
Keith Law: Phillies. My understanding is that Gary Denbo has so much authority within Miami that a new GM would at least have to defer somewhat to his judgments on players, and I think many GM candidates would prefer the greater independence of the Philly job.

Randall: What’s the outlook for the Rockies ? Never hear much about good prospects from them. Future bright ?
Keith Law: I just did a Q&A with our Rockies beat writer about that.

J5: How many HR’s do you project Ke’Bryan Hayes hits during his prime years?
Keith Law: 15-20. I don’t think he has the swing path for more. I think he can really hit, though, and he’s an 80 defender.

John: With Mitch submarining a new round of stimulus to hamstring the next administration from growth is there any hope that without a clean democrat sweep we just see obstruction the next 4 years?
Keith Law: If the GOP holds the Senate, we will see obstruction for the next 4 years for sure.
Keith Law: That’s the GOP’s whole playbook and the Democratic Party still hasn’t adjusted.

Jeremy: buy-low free agents or trade options teams should consider?
Keith Law: My top 40 free agents ranking will go up two days after the WS ends. As for trade targets, I’ll write more about that in November.

Mac: Rocker or Leiter?
Keith Law: I’ll say “other.” This idea that Kumar Rocker is the clear 1-1 guy for 2021 is so completely ridiculous. We do this shit every year, naming one guy who’s famous as the obvious #1 overall pick, and most years it’s wrong. Rocker is a first-rounder, and Leiter will be too if he throws more strikes, but either has a lot to improve to get to 1-1 for me.

John: Is Arozarena much of a prospect going forward?
Keith Law: Yes, but October is an inherently small sample. He isn’t suddenly a top 10 overall prospect, even though he’s played like one this month.

Jason: What would you do if you were the Phillies?  Would McPhail go and who would you hire as President/GM?  The Phillies need a lot of help in the front office and most fans are worried who they will pick.
Keith Law: Everyone seems to think McPhail will retire after his contract expires next fall, so they could wait a year and hire both at that point (when Theo Epstein’s contract will also be up), or they could hire a GM now and plan not to replace McPhail in that role.

Guy B: How can I argue with some of my right wing friends that making someone wear a mask and being pro choice can be the same thing?  I find it hard to reason with them, thanks Keith.
Keith Law: It’s hard to reason with the unreasonable. You’re wearing a mask to protect other humans in your community.

Big Fan: Hi Keith, after a few years of patience, Dansby Swanson finally blossomed.  I know you’ve always been skeptical of his bat speed, but did Austin Riley show you anything this year that would warrant the same patience?
Keith Law: Nope, on the contrary, he has had every bit as much trouble with velocity as I expected. He whiffed on average or better fastballs more than twice as often as he had base hits against them. This is what he is.

Troy: IMO giving $200M to a C is a mistake. Am I wrong in thinking JT will be overpaid and Philly is right to let him walk?
Keith Law: Yeah I wouldn’t give him $200MM … even at a six-year deal, which seems like the longest he should get, that’s more than he’s likely to be worth as a catcher in his 30s whose durability will probably decline over the course of the deal.

Dab: On a scale of 1-10 how much does it bother you to see fans at the games now? I really don’t care for it at all. Pretty hypocritical of the league to make players be ultra cautious for months only to let thousands of people into the same stadium as them
Keith Law: A 10. Tiny reward, huge risk. And look at how few fans are actually wearing masks.
Keith Law: The biggest risk is going in/out of the stadium, where fans will be clustering at the entry/egress points and unable to distance.

Jason: Do you think the brewers window from 2018-2019 has closed?  If so, what should they do– Trade Hader?
Keith Law: No, not closed, not with Burnes and Woodruff looking like a 1-2 now. But it’s going to get harder and more expensive to build the rest of the roster around them because their system is so thin now.

Diego: Hello Keith – what will be your first travel spot after covid?
Keith Law: Sort of depends on when that point is, but if you’re talking leisure travel involving a plane, probably Europe.

Jay: Are there people out there who actually enjoy Buck & Smoltz?  Buck seems to have a pretty low level of baseball knowledge for a broadcaster, and Smoltz repeatedly criticizes the product and harps on all the confidence/momentum nonsense.  When Smoltz tries to explain mechanics, he uses weird terms of art that no casual fan is ever going to follow.  How do these two smug buffoons keep getting tapped to call LCS and World Series games every year?
Keith Law: I do not understand why we’re stuck with Smoltz, who seems to disdain the product on the field and utterly refuses to learn about other ways of looking at the game, in the critical role of color analyst. I just can’t listen to these guys. If he were just intellectually curious enough to consider different perspectives, and balance his commentary accordingly, it would be a quantum improvement. But I also don’t think you should have a job like that (or mine, for that matter) if you lack that sort of curiosity.

Nate: i know you’re a big Anthony Kay fan, but other than him, Pearson, and ryu, do the jays have anyone internally who you think can be slotted into the rotation starting in 2021?
Keith Law: Maybe Murphy can’t hold up as a starter but I’d give him a shot.

Greg: I’m not asking you if Bryse Wilson is going to be the guy he was against LA in every start of his career, but what are your future expectations of him? Can he be a mid-rotation type?
Keith Law: I do think so. Been on my top 100 at least the last two years.

Ted: Do you think Jonathan Stiever has good chance to be a top-end of rotation guy?
Keith Law: No, but I like him as a back-end starter who could get to mid-rotation.

Jason: What are you expecting at tonight’s debate, the same nonsense, does a mute button help? And Keith how many Chinese bank accounts do you have?
Keith Law: Different nonsense, I guess. It’s pretty clear Trump believes he can lie with impunity – and he’s not wrong in that – although a mute button probably helps Biden stay on message. I refuse to answer your second question on the grounds that I may incriminate myself.

Jack: If you’re GM of the Braves, what are your next steps to getting over that last hump?
Keith Law: Go add a corner bat. They’re weak at 3b, one OF corner (assuming Acuña and Pache handle two spots), DH if that’s permanent. Ozuna was a brilliant move. Maybe they try that again, a one-year flier on a guy who was down last year. But I think they also likely need to get a more guaranteed thumper at one of those spots.

Sho: When a player goes on a hot streak, how much do you attribute to 1) physical 2) mental 3) luck?
Keith Law: I’d say it’s nearly all luck, or randomness, which I think is probably a better word for it.

Jeremy: does luhnow run a baseball team ever again?
Keith Law: My guess is no.

Ted: Have you tried or heard of anyone trying one of those Ooni pizza ovens? I’m considering the pellet wood version.
Keith Law: I own one. It’s great. Gets to 800 degrees pretty easily, cooks a pizza (if you use the right dough, which has to be lower hydration than a dough for your home oven) in 90 seconds.

Bob Loblaw: The Cardinals are confounding.  How are they so good at scouting and developing pitching but so bad at scouting and developing hitting?  The Arozorena and Voit trades look like debacles, but even going back, why did they trade Marco Gonzalez for Tyler ONeil?  That was a bad trade
Keith Law: I’m afraid that they overreacted to brief looks on some of those guys – Gonzales was so bad in his debut, and it seems like they concluded that his stuff wouldn’t work in the majors. But I give them a complete pass on Voit, who became a different hitter after leaving.

Steve: Is there minor league baseball next year?  If no how far back will it set talent development and impact the industry for years to come?
Keith Law: The odds are that there are no fans in 2021, at which point I think MLB has to step up and subsidize at least some MiLB teams/leagues, because the long-term cost in talent development will be enormous. It’s a revenue problem.

Minka: Favorite sushi roll?
Keith Law: I nearly always keep it simple when I get sushi – if the fish is good enough to eat raw, I want to taste the fish, not fillers. So I usually get nigiri rather than rolls, and if I get rolls they’re very simple ones that highlight the fish. I avoid things with sweet sauces, or tempura, or avocado, at least when ordering for myself. I’ll certainly eat other things if someone else orders.

Ben: Do you think there was a true benefit (over what his traditional MiLB path would be) for a guy like Riley Greene to be playing at the Toledo camp this summer? You hear stuff about facing better competition, but how much of that do you buy into? He’s an extremely talented guy, but still very young and inexperienced.
Keith Law: It’s a binary question – you had two choices with Greene, or Carroll, or CJ Abrams: They go to the alternate site, or they don’t play at all over the summer. In that case, the first option is clearly preferable.

Nate: The marlins were a great story this year, but do you seem them as a team on the rise that could legit compete next year, or more of a bad team still a while away that just got lucky with some SSS success last year?
James: Are you concerned about Mike Trout’s defensive metrics? Or are they likely a fluke given the short season? And do you still see him as a 10 WAR player for the next few years?
Keith Law: Nate: An average-ish team that got a bit lucky, with upside over the next several years but probably not a playoff team in 2021.
Keith Law: James: All defensive metrics are unreliable for 2020. The sample size was just too small.

Pat D: I’m choosing to watch the Giants/Eagles game tonight because I like to torture myself by watching the Giants’ ineptitude, I refuse to watch the WS as a bitter Yankees fan, and I just can’t listen to Trump’s voice.  Does that sound sane?
Keith Law: No Ertz or Sanders, though. Gonna be really ugly.

Josh: Hi.  My household income is around $500,000.  Please, PLEASE tax me more, and give struggling families a fighting chance (comprehensive healthcare, after-school care through high school, etc.).
Keith Law: One thing I do not really understand is why so many people who make far less than whatever threshold Biden might set for a higher marginal tax rate – and I’m pretty sure I will be paying more if he’s elected – are opposed to it. If you make that much money, it is at least a rational view to say you oppose a plan that will cost you more in taxes and almost certainly yield you less value in direct return (although you may gain psychic value from improving public goods, or even secondary value from living in a safer or more prosperous community/country). If you don’t, though, why the fuck are you opposed to taxing people who earn annual income that puts them in the top 1% of US earners marginally more?
Keith Law: For the record: I’ll pay more under Biden, and I’m good with that. Fund health care. Re-fund environmental regulations, diversity training, and basic science research.

Tim: Game 7 NLCS, worst TOOTBLAN of all time?
Keith Law: Kolten Wong in 2013 (?) was pretty bad too.

Mike: Safe to assume if your boardgame list says medium complexity (or less) that a 10 year old could play? You don’t have a list oriented to families, right? anyway, have a great day.
Keith Law: Yes, that’s right. I chose to put complexity tags on those rather than carve out a separate list, because every kid is a little different and I figured you would know your kid(s) better than I would.

JR: Is “Piranesi” in your queue of books to read soon? I enjoyed it. I’ll admit I was shocked to see it was only 250 pages after her first book was over 1000.
Keith Law: Yes, but maybe over the winter.

DEF: I really like your lists of top board games and top 2 player board games. Any chances of getting a top solo board game list?
Keith Law: Yes, for sure, this winter.
Keith Law: I’ll include games that are strictly solo plus those with good solitaire modes.

Joel: Did Bryse Wilson and Kyle Wright do enough for the Braves to feel comfortable relying on them in 2021?
Keith Law: Wilson yes, Wright probably not. I expect both to make starts for Atlanta in 2021 but I think Wright will have to fight to maintain a spot in the rotation.

Kevin: What is your approach to following the election results on November 3rd? Most of my friends say they’ll tune out and wait for real developments. I seriously doubt my ability to do the same, as good as it may be for my mental health.
Keith Law: I’ve been involved in some local elections, especially Kyle Evans Gay’s campaign to flip our State Senate district blue, so I’ll be watching results at many levels.

J5: Lorenzen was ok as an SP in the short stint.  CIN will lose Bauer… any chance he makes the rotation?
Keith Law: I don’t buy it. I think he’s a reliever only.

J5: Is Julio Urias better suited in the bullpen w/ Price coming back next year?  Or does Gonsolin or May get the boot?
Keith Law: Urias should start if he can handle the workload. Also, I am not quite ready to bank on Price making 30+ starts next year … my guess is May starts in AAA (if such a thing exists) and becomes the call-up when they need another starter.

Josh: Enjoying any tv shows lately?
Keith Law: Just finished The Vow (great start, petered out in the last 3 episodes). Enjoying the new season of GBBO. Mostly watching the playoffs this month, though. We’ll get back on movies and TV next week.

J5: Lamet, Clevinger, Gore, Patino, Paddack, Davies… which one doesnt make it next yr in the rotation?
Keith Law: I think Gore is the odd man out right now.

Rupert: I have a 5 and 7 year old, and there’s basically no board game I’ve found that can keep their attention (or at least the 5 year old’s attention).  Any suggestions?
Keith Law: It depends a bit on what they like – I see a lot of games suitable for ages 5+, like Ticket to Ride First Journey, but if your kids don’t like maps or train games, that may not be the ideal choice. I haven’t cracked Dragomino, the young players’ version of Kingdomino, yet, but it looks promising.

Dr. Bob: RE: The Arozorena question. At only 19, Andruw Jones broke upon our consciousness in the 1996 playoffs and WS after only playing 31 games that year. Was he already considered a top prospect? In any words, is there any correlation to Arozorena?
Keith Law: Andruw was one of the best prospects in baseball before 1996. I think BA had him in their top 2 or 3, if not actually at 1.

Geoff: I’ve found myself thinking about this recently: what will be the point where you’re confident about/feel safe being around others in a “normal” way (i.e. no mask, large crowds, etc.)? After there’s a real, effective vaccine obviously, but right after? A few weeks after when infections are way down? Longer?
Keith Law: If infections are way down, and we’re seeing high enough vaccination rates in the places I want to go, then I’ll travel. It might be safer to travel to Europe, for example, where they have fewer batshit anti-mask people.

Ben: Keith, do you have any concerns about Biden’s connections with China, Russia & Ukraine? Not saying compared to Trump, just in a vacuum, does this new information trouble you at all?
Keith Law: No because I don’t fall for bullshit.

Jason: Is a healthy rotation of Soroka, Fried, Anderson, Wright, and Wilson a top 10-type rotation, or am I putting too much hope in Wright and hype into SSS from Anderson and Wilson?
Keith Law: With Soroka having some history of injuries and Wilson/Wright both showing at least some inconsistency, I’d like to see them take a shot at a one-year starter, even if that’s also someone who isn’t a lock for 30 starts, to increase their chances of getting those innings from somewhere other than the Josh Tomlins of the world.

Ben (Chi): What’s your take on all these Cubs layoffs?  Penny wise, pound foolish?
Keith Law: Misanthropic. Although given that Todd Ricketts profile in the New Yorker, I’m hardly surprised.

Mike: Keith, they have to do something about the time the World Series starts. With games taking close to 4 hours, am I the only one who checks out early & goes to bed?
Keith Law: I agree with this … we get up at 6:45 here for school and games ending around midnight means that I’m running on fumes most days. I actually went back to bed this morning because I had such a bad headache, which I think was a function of lack of sleep.

Guest: You’ve previously said Ian Anderson has the ceiling of a #2 but I believe this was before the development of his change. Does the new pitch change your view of his (already high) ceiling?
Keith Law: I’m holding to that because I think the breaking ball is a little light and the fastball is good not outstanding.
Keith Law: The changeup is a 70, though, and I did not have that.

Jason: Do you ever use UberEats or Doordash?What do you think about these delivery apps?
Keith Law: I don’t. I’ve read that their terms are pretty bad for the restaurants, so we always order directly.

TomBruno23: What is the deal with tea? Granted I like coffee and I sound like the people who hate on coffee. But tea to me tastes like someone took perfectly good water and ran it through a sewer.
Keith Law: There are so many kinds of tea – black, white, green, oolong, plus tisanes like red – and even within some of those categories there are vast differences in flavor profiles (e.g., green includes matcha, which tastes like grass, and hojicha, which is roasted and more earthy), that you might just not have found the right kind for your palate.

Ryan: As a Dbacks fan, please tell me there is hope for this team! The Dodgers are loaded. The Padres will be good for a long time too. But the Dbacka major league team is such a disaster, and the front office seems to think it will be fine next year?! Is there any hope they can compete again in 2022 or so?
Keith Law: Lot of hope. Really like the position player prospects in the low minors. But that franchise really needs an MiLB season in 2021.

Pizza is good: I asked a couple chats back if you thought frozen Pizzeria Bianca was worth a shot. I did and it was really terrific. Individual ingredients really stand out. Good rec. thanks.
Keith Law: Awesome! I know it’s quite expensive but for the best pizza in the country it’s not an unreasonable splurge.

Ridley: Just so we’re clear, Rudy Giuliani’s excuses were bullshit, weren’t they?
Keith Law: Oh absolutely.

J5: Out of these rotation candidates, Severino/German/Deivi/Montgomery/Schmidt, which 2-3 do you think makes it next year?
Keith Law: I wouldn’t bank on Severino being healthy for a full season, but he’ll make some starts. Deivi probably did the most to earn the spot.

addoeh: Any plans for a pizza list update?  I know you haven’t been able to cross many off your list recently.
Keith Law: I was going to do one this spring or summer, but the pandemic put it on hold.

Adam: Maybe the Padres didn’t send away any “premier” talent for Mike Clevinger, but they basically gutted their upper minor/major league depth in the trade for him. That could come back to haunt them in a full season, right?
Keith Law: Eh, Trammell’s the one guy they might most regret trading and he was in a different deal. I’m worried about this ridiculous Campusano story … felony charges for weed possession? was he in Georgia or Indonesia?

Josh: My theory (on people who make far less than whatever threshold Biden might set for a higher marginal tax rate, opposing it) is, way too briefly:  they (1) have no idea how much wealth is concentrated at far-right reaches of the income distribution curve (big numbers are really hard, even for smart people), and/or (2) aspire to the grievances of the 0.1% having to fork over millions in taxes.
Keith Law: I’ve heard #2 as an explanation for decades, but I think #1 is more plausible. And maybe it’s like people trying to understand how large the universe is and how tiny we are relative to it. We just can’t. So if you make $30K a year, can you really imagine the difference in wealth and standard of living for someone making 20 times that?

Mike: Is it a foregone conclusion that Lindor gets traded before next season?  If so, most likely landing spot?
Keith Law: I think so. I’m not sure what the market is right now, though. Some of the teams that should be most interested might not have the pieces to make the trade.

Ridley: Lauren Witzke. Please tell me she’s not going to win that seat.
Keith Law: She’ll be lucky to get 1/3 of the vote. She’s an open white nationalist running in a very blue state. She might win Kent or Sussex counties but more than half of our population is right here in New Castle.

TomBruno23: Jones was #21 pre-95, #1 pre-96 and #1 pre-97 on BA’s lists.
Keith Law: I was right! I should trust my memory sometimes. But not too often.

Guest: Thanks for the chat, Keith. Assuming owners approve the Mets sale, what do you think of Cohen turning baseball ops over to Sandy Alderson? I always loved Sandy, and am okay with pairing him with a young, smart GM (you interested in the job?) but I also wonder if it might be better to turn the page completely from past eras or even to try to lure Theo from the sinking ship that is the Cubs ownership.
Keith Law: Thrilled to see Sandy return, think he’s so respected that he’ll get the right kind of person in as GM. Plus the pattern of execs going over the GM to Jeff or Fred Wilpon is gone now.

Philip C.: Daniel Lynch reports from the alternate site were electric. What is timeline for his debut?
Keith Law: I bet we would have seen him this summer if the Royals had been contenders.

Mike: Franklin BBQ brisket is now available on Goldbelly.  $250 for a 5lb brisket.  Worth it?
Keith Law: I no longer eat beef, but I have had their brisket, and it is absolutely incredible. If you’re reasonable about portion sizes, that’s about $12.50 per portion – brisket is rather fatty, and if you’re eating 6-8 ounces, well, vaya con Dios – and that’s a good price for high-quality beef.
Keith Law: That’s all for this week. I’m taking a week off leading up to the election to volunteer for various campaigns, so there won’t be a chat next week, but the top 40 free agent rankings post will go up some time between next Tuesday and Friday, and I may do a live Zoom Q&A through the Athletic to support that. Thanks for reading, everyone. Stay safe, wear your masks, and vote for reason and science.

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→ October 21, 2020
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Just One.

Just One is a cooperative party game that took the Spiel des Jahres award – which has gone to a party game three times in the last five years – in 2019, despite some incredibly simple rules. There’s one real gimmick here, but otherwise it’s a very solid if not terribly novel word-guessing game that fits nicely on the shelf with the likes of Taboo, Codenames (the 2015 Spiel winner), and Werewords.

Just One’s ideal player count is 4 to 7, although there’s a tweak for playing with 3, and on each turn one of those players will be the guesser while all others will provide clues. At the start of the game, the players shuffle the deck and draw 13 cards, face-down, into a separate pile for that game. The guesser takes a card from the pile without looking, placing it on their personal easel facing away from them, and says a number from 1 to 5. Each card has five words on it, so the guesser’s number decides which word is the target for that particular round. Then every other player writes a single-word clue on their own easels, using dry-erase markers, and shows it to all other players except the guesser.

Why show it to other players first? If any two or more players wrote down the same clue, it’s invalid and those players must erase their words. The guesser only gets to see clue words that were unique, so it’s quite possible that you’d end up with zero clues and thus have no chance to guess at all, although I haven’t had that happen yet. The guesser has two choices – they get one guess at the target word, or they may pass. If they guess correctly, the team scores a point, placing that card into a separate pile. If they pass, the card is set aside with no gain or loss. If they guess incorrectly, however, they essentially lose two points, discarding that card plus the top card in the face-down pile or, if that pile is done, removing a card from the stack of successful cards.

The game ends when the thirteen-card pile is exhausted, after which players add up the cards in the success pile. Thirteen is a perfect score, although anything from nine and up is probably a successful game, although I think there’s a bit of a curve here where having more players makes it a little easier.

You can play with three players with one change to the rules: on each turn, the two players who are giving clues will give two words, on two separate easels, so that those players are comparing all four clues and will still eliminate any duplicates. This does alter the game quite a bit, because you can connect your two clues in certain ways – the rules don’t explicitly ban making the two words together into a single phrase or clue, although I think that’s against the spirit of the game, and you do risk having one or both clues eliminated if the other clue-giver has the same idea. It just opens up possibilities that aren’t there when you can only give one single-word clue.

That all makes Just One … just fine. It’s fun enough to play, especially when you have a lot in common with other players, so you’re likely to share experiences or associations with words, and thus can play into those but have to hope other clue-givers don’t remember the same incident or the same connection to which your clue refers. I do think party games work better when they’re competitive, and I think the word-guessing game has been done better by other designers, but I wouldn’t say no if someone asked to play this, and at under $20 it’s good value considering how many times you could conceivably play it.

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→ October 20, 2020
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Biased.

Dr. Jennifer Eberhardt is a social psychologist and professor at Stanford University who received a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant in 2014 for her work on implicit bias and how stereotypic associations on race have substantial consequences when they intersect with crime. Her first book, Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do, came out in 2019 and explains much of her work on the topic with concrete and often very moving examples of such bias occurring in the real world – often in Eberhardt’s own life – when Black Americans encounter the police.

The heart of Biased comes from Eberhardt’s work on racial bias and crime, and many of the stories that she uses to illustrate conclusions from broader research efforts involve the murders of unarmed Black men by police. One chapter starts with the shooting of Terence Crutcher, who was shot and killed by a panicked white police officer, Betty Shelby, who was, of course, acquitted of all charges in connection with her actions. (She later said that she was “sorry he lost his life,” as if she wasn’t involved in that somewhow.) Crutcher’s twin sister, Tiffany, has become a prominent activist focusing on criminal justice reform and raising awareness of the role white supremacy plays in endangering Black lives.

Eberhardt uses Crutcher’s story and her words to frame discussions of how implicit bias – the kind of bias that happens beneath our conscious thought process – leads to outcomes like Shelby killing Terence Crutcher. We can all recognize the kind of bias that uses racial slurs, or explicitly excludes some group, or traffics in open stereotypes, but implicit bias can have consequences every bit as significant, and is more insidious because even well-intentioned people can fall prey to it. Multiple studies have found, for example, that white subjects have subconscious associations between Black people and various negative character traits – and some Black subjects did as well, which indicates that these are societal messages that everyone receives, through the news, entertainment, even at school. When police officers have those implicit biases, they might be more likely to assume that a Black man holding a cell phone is actually holding a gun when they wouldn’t make the same assumption with a white man. This becomes a failure of officer training, not a matter of all cops who shoot Black men being overtly racist, while also drawing another line between those who say Black Lives Matter and those who counter that All or Blue or Fuchsia Lives Matter instead.

No other arena has the same stakes as policing and officer-involved shootings, but implicit bias also has enormous consequences in areas like education, hiring, and the housing market. Eberhardt runs through numerous studies showing implicit but unmistakable bias in the employment sphere, such as when test candidates with identical resumes but different names, one of whom bears a name that might imply the candidate is Black, receive calls back at vastly different rates. Implicit bias can explain why we still see evidence of redlining even when the explicit practice – denying the applications of nonwhite renters, or the offers of nonwhite home buyers, to keep white neighborhoods white – has been outlawed since the Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968.

Eberhardt also speaks to Bernice Donald, a Black woman who is now a federal judge but who experienced discrimination in education firsthand as one of the first Black students in DeSoto County, Mississippi, to attend her local whites-only high school, where she was ignored by some white teachers, singled out by faculty and students alike, and denied opportunities for advancement, including college scholarships she had earned through her academic performance. The implicit biases we see today affect not just students’ grades, but how students of different races are disciplined, and how severe such discipline is. Eberhardt doesn’t mention the school-to-prison pipeline, but the research she cites here shows how that pipeline can exist and the role that implicit bias plays in filling it with Black students.

Some of the studies Eberhardt describes in Biased will be familiar if you’ve read any similar books, such as Claude Steele’s Whistling Vivaldi or Banaji & Greenwald’s Blindspot, that cover this ground, but Eberhardt’s look is newer, more comprehensive, and punctuated by deeply personal anecdotes, including a few of her own. While she was a graduate student at Harvard, on the eve of commencement, she and her roommate were pulled over by a Boston police officer for a minor equipment violation, harassed, injured, and brought to the station, where a Dean from their department had to come vouch for their release. She eventually had to go to court, where she was acquitted of all charges – which included a claim that she had injured the officer, a claim the judge ridiculed, according to Eberhardt. Would that have happened if she were white? Would it surprise you to hear that the cop who hassled her and her friend was Black? And what, ultimately, does this, and research showing that Black motorists are far more likely to be stopped for the most trivial of causes and more likely to end up dead when stopped by police, tell us about solutions to the problem of implicit bias in policing? The answers are not easy, because implicit bias is so hard to root out and often isn’t evident until we have enough data to show it’s affecting outcomes. We won’t get to that point if we can’t agree that the problem exists in the first place.

Next up: I just finished Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo last night and am reading Graham Swift’s new novel Here We Are.

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→ October 17, 2020
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Stick to baseball, 10/17/20.

Just one piece this week for subscribers to the Athletic as I work on the top 40 free agents ranking, which will run a few days after the World Series ends: Nick Groke, our Rockies beat writer, asked me a bunch of questions about Colorado’s farm system, and I dutifully answered them. Klawchat, board game reviews, and dish posts should return next week.

My guest on this week’s episode of The Keith Law Show was my old partner-in-crime Eric Karabell, although Bias Cat did not make an appearance. My podcast is now available on Amazon podcasts as well as iTunes and Spotify.

I’m due to send out a fresh edition of my free email newsletter this weekend as well. We’ll see how that works out for me.

As the holiday season approaches, I’ll remind you every week that my books The Inside Game and Smart Baseball make excellent gifts for the baseball fan or avid reader in your life.

And now, the links…

  • Now some longreads: ProPublica details the fall of the CDC, undermined from above by the anti-science Trump Administration and from within by craven, spineless leadership.
  • Sara Benincasa’s essay “Fred and Me” is just wonderful and I won’t spoil it in the least.
  • Why has Germany handled COVID-19 better than its neighbors? By following the science, including implementing widescale, frequent testing.
  • QAnon, the batshit-crazy hoax embraced by multiple alt-right figures and now our sitting President, is tearing families apart as people become sucked into this utterly false conspiracy theory and alienate family members with their nonsense.
  • Lauren Witzke, the Delaware GOP candidate for the Senate seat currently held by Democrat Chris Coons, appeared on white-nationalist, anti-immigrant hate site VDare last month, not long before saying the Proud Boys provide security at her events. She has no chance to win, but still, Delaware Republicans should revoke their endorsement of her.
  • Draining the swamp update: A former patent litigator became a federal judge and is openly advising patent trolls to come to his court. This lets those trolls abuse the patent system (which has its own problems, but still) for their own profit, and ultimately American consumers will end up paying the cost.
  • The role-playing game designer outfit Roll20 is holding a 3-day virtual gaming con with proceeds to benefit a charity focused on racial justice.
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→ October 9, 2020
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Air, Land, and Sea.

Air, Land, and Sea is a great, simple, quick-to-learn, and highly portable two-player game that manages to bring something new despite the fact that the game is really just a deck of 18 cards. It’s very clever and reveals quite a bit more strategy with increased plays, yet it’s elegant and simple enough that almost anyone could play it.

Each player in Air, Land, & Sea will get a hand of six cards to start the game, and unless they get a card that allows them to draw another, that’s all they get. The cards have the values 1 through 6, one set for the Air, one for the Land, and one for the Sea. Players play one card at a time and may play them face up, using the value and text on the card’s face, to the theater matching the color on the card; or face down, getting a flat value of 2 and no benefit from the text, to any theater. They play each card to one of the three theaters of battle, the three names in the title of the game, and the sum of the values on their cards will be compared at end-game to the cards on their opponent’s side, taking into account any adjustments from face-up cards elsewhere on the table. If you play to a theater that already has one of your cards, the new card covers most of it, which matters for certain card abilities. If one player wins two of the three theaters, they win the game; the start player wins any ties. The winning player gets some number of points, up to 6, and the players play further games until one of them has 12 points.

There are two major twists, of course. One is that the cards with values from 1 to 5 have extra abilities that can range from invalidating an opponent’s card to allowing you to flip any uncovered card on the table (face-up or face-down) to changing the values of other cards in the same or adjacent theaters. Thus, the timing of when you play your cards is a huge part of strategy in Air, Land, & Sea, both in terms of lining up your own cards so that you can maximize the benefits of those card texts, and in hoping your opponent will play cards you can counteract with cards still in your hand.

Air, Land, and Sea set up on the tabletop

The other twist is that you can concede the game before it ends and deny your opponent the full 6 points they’d get if you played until both players had exhausted their hands. The number of points you receive for winning depends on how many cards are unplayed and whether you were the first or second player (which alternates in each game). It’s often clear early on that you can’t win at least one theater, because you didn’t get the right cards in your hand or because your opponent has stronger cards, and I’ve had several games where I had two cards left in my hand and realized they weren’t enough to win two of the three theaters for me, so concession was the right strategy. It lets you stop a game early so you live to fight another day.

The game does have a few quirks that might send you back to the rulebook or just require a few plays to get accustomed to them. One is that some cards, like Maneuver, require you to take the action in the text, rather than giving you the option. Another is that cards can be moved to another theater when covered, but never flipped. And there is a distinction between playing a card, which may trigger other card abilities, and moving one, which generally does not. Once you get the hang of those, though, the game flies by – no pun intended – rather quickly, and you can easily play an entire match in 20 minutes. And despite the short ruleset and small deck, there’s a lot of replay value because of the sheer number of possible combinations (my quick calculations show over 18,000 possible sets of 12 cards from 18, without considering the two different hands of 6, but I suck at combinatorics). I missed Air, Land, and Sea when it first came out – it was self-published in 2018, then picked up by Arcane Wonders and published in early 2019 – but at $15 on amazon it’s an easy addition to my best two-player games list.

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