→ June 22, 2020
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Being Wrong.

Kathryn Schulz won a Pulitzer Prize in 2015 for her New Yorker story “The Really Big One,” about the earthquake that is likely to devastate the Pacific Northwest in the next half-century. It is one of the greatest longreads I’ve ever read, and one of the major reasons I’ve expanded my Saturday link roundups from what used to be a few links on most weekends to a dozen or more stories headlined by the best longreads of each week. It’s also why I wouldn’t move out to Seattle or Portland despite all of the benefits of living in that part of the country.

Her first book was 2010’s Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error, a meditation on and paean to the power of making mistakes, and an explanation of how our brains respond to the feeling of being wrong and how we use it, sometimes without realizing it, to learn and make better decisions in the future. It’s a book I wish I’d read a decade ago, and certainly before I wrote The Inside Game, but also helped affirm my longstanding commitment to owning my mistakes at work by detailing when and why my evaluations of certain players were wrong.

Schulz writes with a clarity and joy in the subject that is evident from the first lines. She asks “Why is it so fun to be right? As pleasures go, it is a second-order one at best,” and immediately has your attention: It is fun to be right, but why? And why does it feel so bad to be wrong, even if what you’re wrong about is ultimately something trivial?

Being Wrong breaks down the experience into three parts – where errors come from, what it’s like to be wrong, and what we can gain from being wrong and learning to embrace it. Part one dovetails well with other books I’ve read about the ways we think, but gets even further down into our mental processes than the sort of cognitive biases and errors I discussed in The Inside Game, such as describing how inaccurate our own memories can be (and why eyewitness testimony isn’t the unassailable truth our judicial system has long assumed it to be), how prior beliefs affect memory and observation (leading to cognitive dissonance), and how our thinking evolves as we mature and yet is still vulnerable to confirmation bias or forming conclusions based on insufficient evidence.

Part two goes into how we experience wrongness, while also continuing to explore the ways in which we are or become wrong. We can disbelieve things we know or strongly believe to be true simply because of the influence of others, which applies to spheres as different as religion or science. Schulz looks at some of the history of doomsday prophets who claimed that the Second Coming or a similarly cataclysmic event would occur on a certain date; when it didn’t happen, many of these prophets’ adherents didn’t give up on their faith in their soothsayers, but cooked up post hoc rationalizations why the prophets weren’t actually all that wrong in the first place. One such event, in 1844, spawned the Seventh Day Adventists, a sect that claims over 25 million followers even though it was founded by three followers of a prophet whose prophecy failed, leading them to concoct an explanation – utterly unverifiable, of course – that has hoodwinked people for over 150 years.

Schulz also delves into the persistence of memory – and how easily it can lead us astray, giving the story of Penny Beernsten, whose identification of the man who attacked and sexually assaulted her was overturned by DNA evidence that identified her actual attacker 18 years later. Beernsten has been extremely open about her experiences, including describing how she tried to remember details of her attacker’s face during the attack and how certain she was about her identification after the fact, as well as what happened to her when she learned that she was wrong and had sent the wrong man to prison for nearly two decades. This leads into a discussion of flawed prosecutions, where police officers and/or government attorneys will often cling to prior beliefs even when tangible evidence disproves them.

The third section, Embracing Error, looks at people and institutions that have made the active choice to accept errors as a part of life and build processes to trap them, minimizing their short-term impact and long-term frequency. This covers medical errors, which ended up the entire impetus for Atul Gawande’s excellent book The Checklist Manifesto, and how simple solutions like pre-operation (or pre-flight, or pre-anything) checklists can lead to significant reductions in errors, saving lives, injuries, or just cash. Schulz also explains how the awareness that we might be wrong makes us more apt to listen to the feedback or contrary opinions of others, avoiding the ‘yes men’ mentality of many leaders in government and industry. She wraps up the book with a detour into humor, asking why it’s so funny to us when other people are wrong (there’s quite a bit of research on this, which surprised me) but less so when the mistakes are ours, and uses that to launch into a philosophical discussion of fact versus art, certainty versus uncertainty, and how being wrong is essential to our survival and progress as a species. That assumes, of course, that we can admit we’re wrong, and then do something about it, which is certainly not the case in the United States today, where falsehoods are merely “alternative facts” and an entire party preaches science denial from wearing masks to stop a pandemic to denying evolution and climate change in its platform. Maybe they should read Being Wrong, but I have a feeling it wouldn’t get through.

Next up: About 2/3 of the way through Richard Nisbett’s Mindware: Tools for Smart Thinking.

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→ June 20, 2020
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Stick to baseball, 6/20/20.

My one piece for subscribers to the Athletic this week looked at which MLB teams just drafted their new #1 or #2 prospects. No chat this week as I was busy with work calls or family commitments every afternoon.

Over at Paste, I reviewed the Kennerspiel des Jahres-nominated game The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine, a cooperative trick-taking game that plays out over a series of 50 missions, like a legacy game but without asking you to change or destroy any components.

The Boston Globe just named my second book, The Inside Game: Bad Calls, Strange Moves, and What Baseball Behavior Teaches Us About Ourselves, one of its recommended sports reads for the summer. The book has garnered similar plaudits from major publications as a Father’s Day gift or for summer reading, including from Forbes, The New York Times, and Raise. My thanks to all of you who’ve already bought it; if you’re looking to pick up a copy, you can get it at bookshop.org or perhaps at a local bookstore if they’re reopening near you.

I’m sending out my free email newsletter a bit more regularly lately, which is a good sign for my mental health, I think. You can sign up for free here.

And now, the links…

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→ June 18, 2020
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Mystic Market.

Mystic Market ($20) is a marvelous light family game that you can quite easily play with your kids, requiring nothing more than color-matching and a little arithmetic to play. There are just a few simple elements to it, with some direct and indirect player interaction, perhaps a little too much take-that for younger players, but also enough to satisfy gamers who insist on a bit of meat even in their lighter games. I’m surprised it hasn’t found more of an audience.

Players in Mystic Market are trying to gather ingredients, in the form of cards in six different colors, that can be combined in sets and sold for prices that vary depending on the color of the ingredients – and the timing of the sale. You can collect these ingredients by buying one or two of them them from the market for one, two, or three coins apiece, based on their current sale price on the ingredient track, or by swapping cards from your hand, one or two at a time, without regard to color or current value.

The game has a track with little ingredient bottles (filled with glitter), and at the start of the game they’re arranged in rainbow order, with purple at the bottom and the most valuable at 15 coins for a set, while red is at the top and returns only 5 coins for a set. The catch is that when you sell a set, its color drops in value to the top of the track (5 coins), with every other color falling down the track to the next highest price. Thus there’s a huge timing element to the game, both in terms of when to sell your own sets, and whether to try to take cards your opponents might need to sell high-value sets.

The number of cards you need for a set also varies by color, from four red cards or four orange cards for a set of those colors to just two of blue or purple, and their frequency in the deck declines as their starting value increases. Thus at some point during the game the purple set, which is hard to collect given its scarcity, will sell for just five coins because someone else just sold a set, and collecting it becomes less profitable.

It rarely makes sense to sell sets at 5 or 6 coins, and you’ll usually sell at 10-12-15 and turn a profit. The heart of the game is that process of buying and selling, working the timing of your sales, and keeping an eye on what your opponents are collecting, whether it’s to grab a card they might need or to time your sale in a way to get the high price for yourself and make whatever your opponents were collecting far less valuable. There are also three “supply shift” cards randomly shuffled into the deck each game; each one moves one bottle to the highest value on the track and moves everything that was higher than that bottle back to the lowest point, disrupting all of the values and thus your strategy if you were mid-set.

If that were all there was to Mystic Market, it would be good enough but probably wouldn’t have much replay value. The Potion deck contains cards with special, single-use powers, and you can buy those for specific combinations of two ingredient cards. Buying (“crafting”) a potion is a free action, as is using any potion. Several of them do something nasty to an opponent – stealing a card, forcing them to discard a card of your choosing, swapping a card with you – while others boost you, such as letting you sell a half set for full price, letting you substitute a potion card for one ingredient to complete a set, or letting you take a single ingredient card for free. There’s even a card that has no power at all, but can be redeemed for 15 coins, very useful if you’re left with a blue card and a purple card but can’t complete either set later in the game. You could choose to remove the take-that cards from this deck if you don’t want to play with them when you have younger kids in the game, but I do think they add quite a bit to the game both in strategy and in making it harder for one player to run away with things.

Mystic Market plays two to four players and is suitable for kids as young as 8, maybe a little younger if they’ve played a few games before; there’s a little text in the game, on the Potion cards, that requires sufficient reading and thinking skills that would stymie much younger players. You play until the ingredient deck is exhausted, which I’ve found takes about 45 minutes for a full game regardless of player count. If you’re looking for a good family game while we’re all still mostly staying home, I think this would fit the bill.

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→ June 17, 2020
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Cyteen.

I started C.J. Cherryh’s Hugo Award-winning novel Cyteen back in February, which feels like a decade ago, but stopped after 190 pages because it was so slow and I was wrapped up in finishing the top 100 prospects package for The Athletic. I returned to it in late May and did indeed finish it the day before the draft last week, because I’m very stubborn, and it bothered me that I had just three Hugo winners left to read. (I now have two, the last two books in the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson, which in turn inspired the game Terraforming Mars.)

Cyteen is not very good, just as Downbelow Station, a novel set in the same universe as Cyteen that is Cherryh’s other Hugo winner, was not very good. They’re emblematic of what science fiction used to represent – books that were so heavy on the fictional science that they paid little attention to the aspects that make a novel good: plot, prose, and characters. Cyteen has a plot, sort of, although it’s paper-thin for a novel of more than 650 pages. The prose is leaden enough that you could use it at the dentist’s office to protect your chest during X-rays. The characters are at least moderately interesting, although I found it hard to get to them through the byzantine renderings of story and scene in the book.

Cyteen is set on a planet and two space stations of that name, serving as the capital of the Union, which has itself declared independence from the Alliance … none of which is necessary to know to read this book. The intrigue here is all internal to Cyteen politics, as the wise, Machiavellian leader Ari Emory, who runs the cloning-research station Reseune and serves on Union’s executive council, is murdered early in the book, after which some of her adherents initiate a program she’d designed to raise a clone of her to take over where she’d left off. The bulk of the novel follows her clone, also named Ari, and sets her in opposition to two groups: her ‘uncles’ Denys and Giraud, who are both powerful figures in the Reseune hierarchy and would benefit from Ari’s return to power; and the Warricks, Jordan and his clone/son Justin, as well as Justin’s clone and companion Grant, who were implicated in the first Ari’s death and remain untrusted rivals as the second Ari grows up and gains authority.

That’s about enough story for a novel of half Cyteen‘s length, but Cherryh stretches this out to a needless degree, incorporating all manner of side plots or irrelevant details that make this an utter slog to read. The discussions of young Ari’s puberty felt made me feel like I was invading a fictional character’s privacy, and it’s discomfiting to see a young girl’s moods reduced to a function of her hormone changes. The details of the cloning program are not interesting in the least, nor are those of the Alliance-Union conflict or the internal intrigues of Cyteen and Reseune politics. It just doesn’t work: making readers feel interested in the details of politics of fictional entities requires a lot of effort, at the macro level and the micro level of individual characters, and Cherryh just doesn’t do it.

The character of Ari is by the far the most compelling, although it’s more for what she represents than who she is. Ari is genetically identical to her predecessor, and her guardians attempt to mimic as many conditions of her predecessor’s upbringing as possible, as if by creating a perfect facsimile of the original’s nature and nurture they will thus develop a perfect facsimile of the original person. Of course, it’s never quite possible to replicate the ‘nurture’ half of the equation, and Ari deux is still a person with free will and agency, eventually pushing back against the bounds of her strict environment. It’s also a meditation of sorts on predestination, whether the second Ari can escape the destiny that’s been assigned to her by her genes and her makers.

The Hugo Awards have recently faced and defeated an attempted coup by a small number of white, male, pathetic authors who claimed that their works were being unjustly overlooked in the voting in favor of works with more progressive themes. My interpretation is that these authors, whose leaders include an open white supremacist, want a return to the earlier era of the Hugos and sci-fi in general, where setting took precedence over story or character – greater reliance on the science part of science-fiction or heavier use of fantasy elements in fantasy. Cyteen is heavy on the science, both hard sciences and soft, and that might be why it won the award in 1989, but I don’t think it would get nearly the same reception, critical or commercial, today. Cherryh is still writing and I presume she still has an audience, since I always see new books of hers whenever I’m browsing in bookstores, but this type of science fiction is best relegated to the dustbin of history.

Next up: I’m about to start Richard Nisbett’s Mindware: Tools for Smart Thinking.

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→ June 14, 2020
→ By

Stick to baseball, 6/14/20.

The MLB draft has come and gone, and subscribers to the Athletic can read all of my analysis. I broke down the draft classes for every team, with National League teams’ drafts and American League teams’ drafts in two separate files. I also wrote up my analysis of day one on Wednesday night, and held a Q&A for subscribers on Thursday afternoon, before round two began. You can also see my last mock draft, where I got 9 of the 29 first-round picks right, as well as pick #34, and at least alerted you to the possibility the Marlins would take Max Meyer over Asa Lacy at 3. My Big Board, showing the top 100 prospects in the draft class, went up last Saturday. It looks like 82 of those 100 players were taken; the other 18 all appear to have priced themselves off of teams’ boards.

My guest on this week’s episode of The Keith Law Show was Jonathan Mayo, one of the draft experts at MLB Pipeline, to preview the draft. You can also listen on Apple, Stitcher, or Spotify.

The Boston Globe just named my second book, The Inside Game: Bad Calls, Strange Moves, and What Baseball Behavior Teaches Us About Ourselves, one of its recommended sports reads for the summer. The book has garnered similar plaudits from major publications as a Father’s Day gift or for summer reading, including from Forbes, The New York Times, and Raise. My thanks to all of you who’ve already bought it; if you’re looking to pick up a copy, you can get it at bookshop.org or perhaps at a local bookstore if they’re reopening near you.

I’ll send out a new edition of my free email newsletter on Monday afternoon, once my latest game review (for The Crew) comes out over at Paste. You can sign up for free here.

And now, the links…

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→ June 11, 2020
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Music update, May 2020.

This month’s playlist is as long as usual, but the writeup is shorter because of the draft. I thought it was a pretty solid month for new music though, including several tracks I think will end up near the top of my year-end ranking. If you can’t see the widget below you can access the playlist here.

The Eddy featuring Jorja Smith – Kiss Me in the Morning. I haven’t seen The Eddy, the jazz-themed Netflix show from Damien Chazelle, but this song features the Grammy-nominated Jorja Smith, whose Lost & Found was one of my favorite albums of 2018.

Khruangbin – So We Won’t Forget. I have loved both singles from their forthcoming album Mordechai, due out on June 26th, as they seem like the trio are approaching their artistic peak.

Oasis – Don’t Stop (Demo). It feels like this track, a previously unreleased demo recently rediscovered by Noel Gallagher, first resurfaced six months ago, rather than about six weeks ago. It’s very vintage Oasis, which is a good thing in my book.

Fontaines D.C. – A Hero’s Death. There’s something about the line “Life ain’t always empty,” which these retro-punks repeat throughout the song, during this of all seasons.

Little Simz – might bang, might not. I was a little let down by Little Simz’ EP Drop 6, given how great her 2019 GREY Area was, but she’s still a great rapper and rises above the less interesting music on the new record.

Everything Everything – Arch Enemy. This lead single from their upcoming album Re-Animator – due out in August – is very E2, soaring, ambitious, and slightly manic in its instrumentation.

Maisie Peters – The List. I’m still waiting for the world to catch on to Peters, who just turned 20 in May and already has several incredible pop songs to her credit. This isn’t quite at the heights of “The Best I’ll Ever Sing,” but it’s close.

Ten Fé – Nothing Breaks Like a Heart. I didn’t even realize this was a cover of the Mark Ronson/Miley Cyrus song because they’ve so completely changed the song, turning into a haunting acoustic number that’s almost dirge-like with its funereal vibe.

San Cisco – On the Line. Even San Cisco’s lesser singles still have great hooks, like this one, which, like most of their best songs, has Scarlett Stevens sharing some of the vocal duties.

LA Priest – Beginnings. When I first heard this track, I was sure it was something from the former lead singer of Wild Beasts,but it’s actually Sam Dust, whose second album Gene just dropped last week.

Spielbergs – Go! This track, part of Adult Swim’s singles series, captures this Norwegian band at their frenetic best.

The Mysterines – I Win Every Time. The Mysterines should be stars by now, with great rock hooks and Lia Metcalfe’s snarling, riveting vocals.

The Naked and Famous – Death. I mean, maybe now wasn’t the right time to release a song so explicitly about confronting our mortality?

Disclosure – ENERGY. Disclosure burst on the scene with 2013’s “When a Fire Starts to Burn,” which featured a sample of preacher and motivational speaker Eric Thomas; they went back to the well for this title track from their upcoming album, using more of Thomas’ words as the vocals above music that absolutely lives up to the title.

Black Orchid Empire – Natural Selection. I wasn’t familiar with BOE before, but this is my kind of metal, with big, muscular riffs, and a real melody in the vocals.

Caligula’s Horse – Valkyrie. Progressive metal from the Australian band’s newest album, Rise Radiant, released on May 22nd.

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→ June 6, 2020
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Stick to baseball, 6/6/20.

I had two columns up this week for subscribers to the Athletic: my third stab at projecting the first round for next week’s MLB draft, and my ranking of the top 100 prospects in the draft class. I also held a Klawchat on Thursday.

My podcast this week featured my colleague Evan Drellich, talking about the state of negotiations between MLB and the union when we spoke on Monday. You can also listen on Apple, Stitcher, or Spotify.

The Inside Game has garnered several recommendations from major publications as a Father’s Day gift or for summer reading, including from Forbes, The New York Times, and Raise. My thanks to all of you who’ve already bought it; if you’re looking to pick up a copy, you can get it at bookshop.org or perhaps at a local bookstore if they’re reopening near you.

My free email newsletter continues to not write itself, yet I keep sending it out anyway. Feel free to sign up for more words from me.

And now, the links…

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→ June 4, 2020
→ By

Klawchat 6/4/20.

Starting at 1 pm ET. My latest mock draft is now up for The Athletic subscribers. My second book, The Inside Game, is out now in hardcover and would make a great Father’s Day gift!

Keith Law: Sorry, brief delay here as I have a radio hit I didn’t have written on my calendar. Feel free to leave questions and I’ll get to them as soon as I get back.
Keith Law: It’s a helping hand that makes you feel wonderfully bland. Klawchat.

Brad: How would compare Jordan Westburg to Logan Davidson, they’re both big SS with some questions about their hit tool?
Keith Law: Pretty different guys – I think Davidson is the better shortstop, better pure athlete, both guys with real questions about the bat though.

Andrew: What grade would you put on Austin Martin’s power and speed tools?
Keith Law: He’s a 55 runner, maybe 60 underway. I think he gets to 60 power in time given how hard he hits the ball.

UK Nick: Klaw, love your stuff and thanks so much for bringing the chats back… they fill a need at the moment. Have you ever read any of Bill Bryson’s books? Thoughts?
Keith Law: I haven’t, not for any particular reason though.

Raymond: Is there any chance that Lacy is available to the Jays at 5? Thinking maybe if the O’s take Gonzalez below slot, the Marlins take Martin or Veen and the Royals take whoever the Marlins don’t?
Keith Law: No.

Ben: I was planning on buying The Inside Game for my dad as a father’s day gift as a sort of low-stakes intro to bigger conversations about opening your mind and evidence-based thinking. Then, the last week happened, and we went from low-stakes intro conversations to high-stakes advanced conversations. He’ll still get that gift though, and I could still see the Inside Game as a helpful, low-stakes way to talk about bigger issues. Thanks for your stellar work on the book!
Keith Law: You’re welcome – thank you for buying it. I wish the stakes were lower than they are now.

Mike: Do you think the Red Sox are also in on the prep pitchers or do you think their focusing on prep position players only?
Keith Law: Zero chance they take a HS arm in the first round.

John: Where does Austin Martin fit best long-term defensively? Second?
Keith Law: I still think third base, assuming his throwing issue this February is resolved.

Geoff: How much money would owners really save by playing 50 games at a prorated salary as opposed to 82? What is really the point of this proposal other than not giving the union something close to what it wants?
Keith Law: I don’t know exactly how their TV/streaming revenue formula works, but I’d be shocked if they actually were better off financially with fewer games.
Keith Law: As in, I think the owners are lying.

Alan: Morning. Curious about Crochet not being present in your first round mock. Is the lack of track record causing the slide?
Keith Law: He only pitched once this spring, throwing an unannounced relief appearance on the final weekend that I was told only six scouts saw. He also got lit up by RHB last year. If he’s just a reliever, which is a real probability, then he’s not a first rounder.
Keith Law: Oh, also, he missed the first three weekends of the year for undisclosed reasons.

Guest: what is your take on top HS. players like Crews announcing that they are skipping the draft? What is the advantage to that rather than staying in and just turning down a deal if he doesn’t like it. Is there any benefit of just pulling your name from it?
Keith Law: No, not really. I find it a bit showy.

Dave: What’s your favourite foreign film (excluding well known ones, such as Parasite or Life is Beautiful)?
Keith Law: Amelie.
Keith Law: Burning is up there too.

Eric: I’m just so sad. I have upped my donations to senate and congressional candidates across the country, but even if we get trump and the gop out of power, it will not even come close to fixing the systemic issues of racism and oppression throughout the country. We all need to be better. Every single day.
Keith Law: I agree, especially that simply voting in better leaders will not solve systemic problems with roots that are 200+ years deep.

Ben: Klaw, thanks as always.  Haven’t really kept up to date with draft talk, just this week started reading some things you’ve put out, mock-wise, to familiarize myself.  Just curious, how do you think the abbreviated draft will affect team’s approach this year? Would it be silly to get away from best talent available over system needs?
Keith Law: Always BPA. Never draft for need. Now this year some teams may choose to be more conservative and rank college  talent over HS, or hitting over pitching, which is understandable given the state of the game and the economy, but I still wouldn’t draft for need.

Noah: Do you think we are tracking for next year will be more “normal” like full minor league season with fans? Or could this extend? It seems like other leagues are figuring it out so would we be able to progress that far by next February/March?
Keith Law: I don’t think there will be fans at games until there’s a vaccine. It simply won’t be safe to gather that many people with that kind of proximity.

Paul: No question here. Just hope we are all managing our anxiety levels in this escalating 2020.
Keith Law: Amen.

Chris: Hey Keith, in your latest mock, you had Boston taking a high-upside, higher risk HS player, whereas you previously had them taking maybe a lower-risk “safer” college arm that could end up in the bullpen. With a farm system as barren as theirs, shouldn’t they try to target a lot of these high-upside lottery tickets rather than going a safe route on players? Or do you think an organization can rebuild their farm by drafting safer college kids?
Keith Law: No, I don’t think rolling the dice on high-risk players is necessarily the right way to rebuild a system, because you could also easily end up with a lot of nothing. I prefer the mixed approach, like managing a portfolio, which also means you’ll get some players who move more quickly to the high minors and some who take more time.

Jamal: This years pitching, college in particular, seems much deeper than in the recent past. How would you compare this class to others?
Keith Law: I think it’s the best college draft class since 2011.

Jeremy: Thank you for the chat. In your first mock you had Canadian David Calabrese in the first. Where do you think he goes now.
Keith Law: I did not have him going in the first in any of my mocks so far.
Keith Law: He could go in the comp round A or early second.

Guest: You mentioned a clear Top 3 in your latest Mock draft.  If anyone is going to bump Torkelson, Martin or Lacy out of the top 3, who would it be?
Keith Law: I’ve heard Kjerstad more than Gonzales.

agirlhasnoname: The DJIA is within 10% of all-time highs, despite most companies having terrible revenues for a quarter or three or ten. Isn’t that a blueprint to show owners their valuations will remain high even with sustaining a total loss this year? Also, wouldn’t any financial institution rush to loan them money at near zero interest to cover outlays? Tired of owners crying poor and people eating it up with a spoon.
Keith Law: I find it absolutely unfathomable that MLB owners would be unable to borrow money to cover payrolls for scouts or minor leaguers. All the league has to do is play games and they bring in a ton of their revenues from broadcasting. Sports has generally been one of the most recession-proof industries there is. If you think MLB teams aren’t good credit risks, you think the world is headed for some sort of epic economic collapse.

Ryan: Why do we expect more from the New York Times?!? This is a publication that – and this is actually true – ran an excerpt of Mein Kampf in New York Times Magazine on June 22, 1941. This is in their archive.
Keith Law: I mean, it’s been 79 years. I would think they might have learned a thing or two.

Kyle: I enjoy the podcast but I have to ask, are those ads picked by The Athletic? There’s some interesting stuff being promoted that I can’t imagine you really endorse.
Keith Law: Yes, I don’t pick the ads. I have never used any of the products advertised on my show.

Guest: Royals likely to have a choice of Lacy, Veen, and Gonzalez. How would you rank them, and do you have a strong preference or is this a can’t go wrong with any of them situation?
Keith Law: Not sure Lacy is really getting to them. No way I take Gonzales over Veen, though, and it sounds like the Royals agree.

John: To what extent does a high school aged player need to go through Perfect Game, Five Tool etc.?  And if they do, at what age should they start?
Keith Law: Nobody needs to do that.

Chris: Any rumors on which prep players are looking for overslot deals, and how much they may be looking for?
Keith Law: I have heard some rumors, but would not repeat them here. It puts their collegiate eligibility at risk.

Robert: Manfred wouldn’t be dumb enough to actually mandate a 50 game season, right? Everyone must see through that.
Keith Law: I don’t think he can mandate one. It has to be negotiated.

Mark: Do you see any scenario where a team in the top 10 takes Crochet on a heavy underslot deal? Betting on the high ceiling and saving slot. Albeit giving up considerable safety/floor.
Keith Law: No. That would be very foolish.

Keith too: Keith, do you have a top 50, 100, 200 or anything for the draft available?
Keith Law: Tomorrow.

JO: Hey Klaw, As for just the bat, how does Torkelson compare to Andrew Vaughn?  I assume you have seen both in person. Does one seem to have more power than the other? Same for hit tool, approach and and barrel awareness. Or would you call them a push on hitting?  Thanks
Keith Law: Vaughn much better hitter. Torkelson has more power and could possibly play LF.

Don: Is there any benefit to post-TJ guys like Rodon and Kopech  just missing this entire 50 game season for more recovery?
Keith Law: I don’t think we can know that definitively, but there’s at least a belief based on some anecdotal evidence that guys taking a year off from pitching may be better off – post-TJ guys but also guys dealing with minor arm issues that didn’t require surgery.

Joe: Do you know what high school players have been connected to the Braves in the draft?
Keith Law: I listed at least one in the mock yesterday.

Marco: Do you think Reid Detmers has a chance to add velo to the FASTBALL and eventually  become a #2 SP?
Keith Law: No.

Josh: Based on your interactions with front office personnel, what is the general feeling about the number of undrafted free agents teams will pursue this year?  Are teams going to be selective and only bring in a few, or try and cast a wide net to make up for the later rounds being nixed?  I would think it is a small pool of players to begin with, just curious as to the approach.  Thanks!
Keith Law: Not very many. Who’s signing for $20K? College seniors and maybe a few older juniors?

John: Sad how many people think the flag only stands for the military, not things like equality or freedom.  Any books you would recommend to better understand systemic racism?
Keith Law: Others have posted better and more comprehensive lists … the two that come to mind that I’ve actually read are So You Want to Talk About Race and The Warmth of Other Suns. The former addresses systemic racism head-on; the latter explains its roots through three major stories from the Great Migration.

Garrett Crochet: No way I get past 22. I’m the Natsiest first round pick possibile.
Keith Law: No, there are Natsier picks available.

Chris: Are the rumors true that McMahon is falling because his fastball plays more like a sinker and analytical teams are out on him?
Keith Law: No. He’s not “falling.” I’m not sure where that even comes from.

Zzz: Any chance the White Sox could underslot Ed Howard at 11 and use those savings to get value with later picks?
Keith Law: I suppose there’s a chance but it’s not very likely.

Thomas: I’ve seen Michigan RHP Criswell as a top 100 draft prospect on some lists. Was curious if this is consistent with your board / if you had any thoughts on him.
Keith Law: He’ll be on my top 100. Too much reliever risk to be a top 50 guy.

Ridley: Who could possibly have guessed that a man who urged his supporters to rough up dissenters, asked police to not be too gentle with suspects, and who wanted to execute people who had been exonerated of crimes would turn out to be so enthusiastic about using force to put down protests? I guess there was no way to see it coming.
Keith Law: None whatsoever.

Jeb: What’s the argument against Bitsko in the first round? Cold weather, short history? Is signability an issue? I understand why he might not be a top-10 pick, but it seems like he’d be a pretty good gamble later in the first round based of stuff and age, at a minimum?
Keith Law: Didn’t pitch this spring and was barely scouted last year because he was still a 2021 guy until the fall.

addoeh: What do you make of some conservatives who only now, because of recent events, abandon the President?  If you had a friend who fell in this category, do you welcome them back to reality or ask what took them so long?  Initially, I think I’d do the former, since defeating him in Nov. is so important, but in the time I’ll ask the latter.
Keith Law: Exactly. For now, be glad they’ve come back to reality. Later you can excoriate them.

Ed: If Veen is gone how likely do you think Bitsko is to the Padres at 8 as under slot so they can spend on their next two picks?
Keith Law: No chance.
Keith Law: I don’t think the Padres are taking Veen anyway, and I see no chance they go HS arm at 8.

Robert: Are you disappointed with Trout’s lack of a response to ownership or current world affairs? I know he isn’t a public guy but we could really use his influence.
Keith Law: I … uh … what?

Jake: Are the owners doing us a favor by negotiating in bad faith? There’s no good reason for baseball to come back in the middle of a worsening pandemic and world-wide protests against police brutality, is there?
Keith Law: Money is the reason.

Todd Boss: Why is Justin Foscue suddenly getting 1st round mock draft buzz?  I don’t get it; a 6-foot guy who’s defensively challenged and might get pushed to an OF corner who doesn’t project for power?  What am I missing?
Keith Law: He wasn’t on my mock. He might go in the 20s but I tend to doubt it … I think Westburg would go first if any MSU kid goes in the first round.

Michael Conforto: How worried are you about a big COVID case spike from all the protests?
Keith Law: I worry about case spikes from states reopening too quickly. This is just the icing on the COVID-19 cake.

Josh L: Thoughts on NYT actually running the horrific Tom Cotton piece?
Keith Law: Reprehensible. Calling on the US military to attack our own citizens? What in the actual fuck? Plus that does absolutely nothing to address our national culture of white supremacy or police brutality or systemic racism – it just enforces them further.
Keith Law: We don’t need more militarized responses – we need to demilitarize the police.

Jason: How did the player remove himself from the draft? I remember that Brandon McElwain enrolled at South Carolina to play football, which meant he was no longer eligible, but this is different
Keith Law: There’s a newish process where you can request removal by writing to the Commissioner’s Office.

JO: Even though Emerson Hancock is dropping a few spots in many mock drafts, doesn’t he have the pitches to possibly turn out to be the best player picked in the 2020 draft? Is the reason for the drop due to poor performance in his first start more than anything else? Which would be SSS.
Keith Law: No, I don’t think he has the pitches to do that … his breaking stuff isn’t there.
Keith Law: He’s good, though.

Steve.: You talked about counting calories being the scientific way to weight loss and called keto a fad diet. Isn’t keto just a different scientific approach?
Keith Law: No. It’s more pseudoscientific than scientific. It’s also extremely hard to maintain over the long term, which makes it more of a fad diet than the kind of serious lifestyle change that leads to sustainable results.

Taylor: Do you find all of the social media support to be a bit hollow?  I agree with all of the many statements from any person/company/business/team with a twitter/instagram/facebook account, but isn’t it a little bit of grandstanding to have everyone come out with a statement?  I would prefer to hear what they are going to do versus just a blanket two paragraph statement.
Keith Law: Lego did it right. $4 million donation, pulled all advertising for police-related toys.

Chris: Is blaze Jordan going to be drafted high enough to sign or will he end up in college?
Keith Law: I think someone takes him high enough for him to sign, but he’s not really that good. It’s a bet on raw power he can’t get to with his current swing. Add him to the list of kids who were massively overhyped when they were 13 and didn’t turn out to be anything close to what they were supposed to be.

Geoff: I wish people would realize voting is step 1. It’s the minimum. It’s vital, so everyone should do it, but the ballot box isn’t a one-stop shop for solutions to centuries old systemic problems.
Keith Law: Yes, and no. Because the Republican Party has worked through legal and extralegal means to make it harder for POC to vote in this country, securing and restoring voting rights is step 1. Voting is then step 2.

Evan: If we assume Reid Detmers does not make any substantial improvement with his skill set (e.g. velo, repertoire quality, current level of ctl/cmd, etc. do not increase), what role does he currently project towards in the MLB? If he were to improve in any one area, which do you think is most likely and to what magnitude does that change his outlook?
Keith Law: That’s the kind of question I’ll answer in the top 100 tomorrow.

Don: How does Max Meyer compare to Carson Fulmer?
Keith Law: Not even remotely similar. Fulmer had a max-effort delivery with 40 command. Meyer has a good delivery, far more athleticism, and better command now projecting to above-average.

Luke: What are your thoughts on Robert Puason? Getting much less hype than Jasson. Who would you rather have long term?
Keith Law: Dominguez is the clearly better prospect of the two.

Craig: Putting aside the merits of the protests (and they are very clearly meritorious), why is it safe “to gather that many people with that kind of proximity” right now?  Why aren’t public health officials urging protesters to quarantine with other protesters?  If gathering in large groups is a public health risk, why aren’t public health officials noting that fact (while supporting the aims/goals of the protest) and urging countermeasures (self-quaranting, testing, telling immunocompromised people to support the protest in other ways, etc.)?
Keith Law: It’s not safe. However, freedom of assembly is one of our First Amendment rights. Freedom to go to a baseball game is not.

Johnny: As a clarification, do you view your mock draft as a prediction of what might happen or a ranking of what “should” happen with the best player available mindset?

If it’s a projection, who is the BPA for the M’s at 6? I want something to wistfully look back on when they go a wildly different direction
Keith Law: It’s a prediction. My opinion on players is not a factor.

Howey: I really appreciate the pieces published by The Athletic regarding the black experience in America, and the very active policing of “stick to sports” or “I got called a cracker once” comments below (If I don’t have to look at another one of Wil C.’s comments again I will be perfectly happy). Don’t know why this chat feels like the place to mention it, but I hope the higher-ups know it’s appreciated.
Keith Law: Well, I know the higher-ups read, so they’ll see this.

JB: Do you think Foscue is a 2B only?
Keith Law: Yes. Below average arm limits him.

Zachary: Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska: “When I saw General Mattis’ comments yesterday I felt like perhaps we are getting to a point where we can be more honest with the concerns that we might hold internally and have the courage of our own convictions to speak up.” Yes, a sitting Senator says she might be getting to a point where she can have the courage of her own convictions to speak up. Perhaps.
Keith Law: She has, like, five constituents. Is she just that afraid of pissing one of them off?

Eric: FYI: the flag is … a piece of cloth
Keith Law: That has been my opinion for a very long time. The idea of “respecting” a piece of fabric does not resonate with me. You may respect the country, or not. You may respect its institutions or its leaders, or not. Respecting an object of inorganic, inanimate material? No. Stand, sit, kneel, ignore as you wish. It’s just cloth.

Paul: Sorry – my question was cut off. What is your recommendation for ordinary people with limited financial means that want to donate with as much influence as possible. I’m assuming down ballot congressional races, buying from locally and minority owned businesses and donating to charities like Actblue. What else would you suggest?
Keith Law: My general rule for donating is to focus on local nonprofits with small, achievable goals that can be verified. “End world hunger!” sounds nice, but it’s never happening. “Feed five families in Wilmington” is doable. I give regularly to my local food pantry. I have given this week to the Ida B. Wells Society and to the Philadelphia Bail Fund, both of which get money directly to people who need it. Those are charities that work. I suppose if you’re a billionaire you can throw your (dark) money around in different ways, but for folks like us, stay small and local.

Kretin: I’ve read a lot about Meyer being slightly shorter than a pitcher should be. Is this a big concern for teams over his stuff and results?
Keith Law: He’s not, and it’s only a slight issue. I think if he were 6’3″ we’d talk about him at 1-1.

addoeh: Do you think a team with real WS expectations might take a few relievers that are ready now to increase their odds this year?  I’m thinking especially after the first round.
Keith Law: Yes.

Jason: How confident are you that Nick Gonzales will become an above-average regular (relative to your confidence for any draft prospects)? His lower EV’s scare me a bit.
Keith Law: I am not.

Kevin: Do you think front offices keep close tabs on what you (and people similar to you) are saying in chats like these or are they too busy focusing on their own info?
Keith Law: I know they read because sometimes they text me about them, although it’s more likely to be about a board game or a book or something.

Dave: The vibe on the west coast is that nobody is much excited about Biden, but will of course vote for him to get rid of Trump. What is the vibe in his home state of Delaware?
Keith Law: Most folks here revere the Bidens, and his visit to a black church this week was extremely well received.

Mr. Met: I’ve seen the Mets all over the place in mocks. Are they just in BPA mode without regard to position or college/hs?
Keith Law: That’s not true. I can’t and won’t speak to other mocks, but I think they go HS bat or college arm.

Long Island Is Racist: If you had told me in 2016 that under President Donald Trump we would be facing a recession, a horribly mishandled pandemic and “race riots” I would have absolutely believed you.
Keith Law: Long Island is racist, BTW. They kept voting in Peter King.
Keith Law: Not that one – the racist one.

Big Meat Pete: Did you see Pete Alonso’s posts on Instagram supporting Black Lives Matter? Strongly recommend looking for them. I was pleasantly surprised to see him take a stand.
Keith Law: I did, and yes, he did very well with those posts. Easy for someone in his position to say or do nothing.

Brad: Does Tom Ricketts truly think we are dumb? Saying 70% of their revenue is from the gate and crying poor.
Keith Law: He does think you’re dumb. You’ve seen members of mainstream media outlets repeat Trump’s lies without questioning or fact-checking them. I’m sure Tommy Boy thinks he can get away with the same.

Mary Jo: In a recent column on The Athletic, you showed why picking HS arms in the first round doesn’t frequently pay off. In a class full of good college talent, how many HS pitchers do you have in your top 20?
Keith Law: Rankings? I think 1.

Guest: You see that Trump may have committed voter fraud himself with his registration?
Keith Law: Yeah, I did, and it won’t go anywhere.

Guest: My understanding (as a Chemist), was that Keto is science-based.  In the era of science deniers that that you and I feel so strongly about, I’d appreciate if you cited your sources rather than just call something pseudo-science or fad without further evidence.  I am not doubting you, I’m just curious to see your side of the argument.
Keith Law: This is a chat. I’m not stopping everything to go link to multiple sources to back something up here as I would if I were writing a column or a book.

Mike: Any thoughts behind the mindset of police responding to protests about abuse with so much abuse?  And why hasn’t the MSM focused on it more?
Keith Law: It is far easier to write about violence than about peaceful protests.

Matt: I’m still trying to figure out why the National Anthem is played prior to sporting events in the first place.
Keith Law: If I were Commissioner, there would be no anthems and absolutely no GBA. You want a national pep rally? Fine. Go hold one on Main Street with 76 trombones. This is a sporting event, with fans and players from all over the world and from different faiths.

BVW: Are prep players MORE likely to skip this draft and head to college, since bonuses will be paid out gradually and the minor-league picture is hazy, or LESS likely, given that in college, they would suddenly be competing for playing time against nearly four full classes of upperclassmen?
Keith Law: More likely – but they may go to two-year colleges rather than four-year ones.

JeffinNZ: Colin Kaepernick insisted repeatedly in 2016 that he wouldn’t vote and others shouldn’t because he viewed Trump and Clinton as similarly racist. Leaving aside how ridiculous that is (is any American as racist as Trump?) and how that difference has been borne out, thoughts on what adults can do to get through to those with this mentality?
Keith Law: I don’t think you can get through to people who’ve decided that.

Gerald: Did you appreciate the comments of President Bush?  Many will discount everything he says because of things that happened while in office, but I do think he is generally a very good man that does love all people.
Keith Law: I appreciated his comments. I wish he’d acted on such sentiments when he had the power to do something. But I will take his comments now rather than silence.

Ben: … “the scale of losses across the league is biblical.”  If I had snorted into my coffee any harder, I may have drowned.
Keith Law: (whispers) They think we’re all stupid.

Hi: If Detmers isn’t available at  pick #11, who do the White Sox pivot to?
Keith Law: If he’s not there someone else from the top ten is there (by definition) so they might end up with Kjerstad or Cavalli.

Dean: Keith, when working for Toronto were you privy to their books or was that only shared with people in the finance department and top executives? Do you think the financial statements leaked from the Marlins several years ago were a complete picture?
Keith Law: I saw the books, yes. That’s why I’ve said for 14 years now that teams play with transfer pricing and pay themselves a pittance for broadcast rights, so the TV/radio entities take all the profits and the team itself appears to be losing money or making very little.

Tom: We obviously have to get out and vote, but when my choices in November are either a 70+ year old who can’t speak in complete or coherent sentences and has been accused of sexual assault, or a 70+ year old who can’t speak in complete or coherent sentences and has been accused of sexual assault, forgive me for not feeling real confident in how things will shape up for a while.
Keith Law: False equivalence.

Rick: If you were a ballplayer, would you want Scott Boras as your agent?
Keith Law: Yes. Why not?

Trevor: Do you think any goodwill is being earned by the teams/owners that are continuing to pay all staff and, especially, all minor leaguers?  Will there be any negative blowback from agents, or will they still always direct their clients to the highest dollar offer?
Keith Law: I think the goodwill is on the PR side. Maybe it means a few players re-up if the money is equal but I do not think any player or agent will turn down more money to stay with a team that paid them $400/week.

Dave: Over/Under 25% chance Cubs take a HS Pitcher in the 1st?
Keith Law: I’d say zero chance there.

JO: Speaking of Cavalli. Isn’t he going to be a reliever all the way given is command issues? Do you really think he can or should go in the first round? If so Isn’t it a gamble that his command will straighten up?
Keith Law: No, I do not see that at all with him. I think you overstate his command issues and underestimate the potential for an athlete like Cavalli, who was still hitting part-time last year, to improve in pro ball.

Andy: Baseball especially shouldn’t play the National Anthem, since a significant minority of the players aren’t from the US. I wonder how the Carlos Delgado situation would go now.
Keith Law: I wish more players would take a knee in baseball … it might put an end to any controversy around that practice.
Keith Law: (Non-troversy, really.)

David: Keith, looking forward to tomorrow’s list. Does Pete Crow-Armstrong project to develop enough power to make him an impact player? From what I’ve read, it seems that’s the element he’s missing from his game.
Keith Law: He could be an impact player between his glove and his bat, but I don’t think he ends up with plus power.

addoeh: Tom Cotton during 2015 Jade Helm – We can’t have the military attack citizens.

Tom Cotton today – Actually, that sounds like a good idea…
Keith Law: The capacity of the American right to ignore and contradict their own previous statements is bottomless.

Eric: My wife had to drive to Phoenix and back to LA and she surprised me with Pizzeria Bianco (which I never had before). She’s definitely a hall of famer
Keith Law: Agreed.

Mike: What do you think Mick Abel and Nick Bitsko’s floors are? Any chance either falls out of the top 20?
Keith Law: I wouldn’t be surprised if Bitsko fell to the comp round and was paid first-round money there. It’s a good outcome for him and would mean some team takes him with their second pick, mitigating their risk by presumably taking a bat or college arm with their first pick.

Aaron: Would the Braves go after a prep player who signs at slot in the 1st round if Pete Crow or Kelley are there? Or are they most definitely signing someone under slot with the 25th overall pick?
Keith Law: I never said anything about them going under slot at 25. That’s a fabrication. I don’t think PCA gets to their pick.

Ted: Thanks for the chat.   Since there are rumors that there may not be any milb this season, Any idea on where the newly drafted players will report once they’ve signed?
Keith Law: They may not, not for a little while. I suppose teams would eventually want players to come to their spring training facilities for an introduction of sorts, but there is no place for the kids to play now.

Nolan: How can people not see that the keto diet is a fad? The same diet emerges every ten years or so under a different name.
Keith Law: I remember having an argument with a co-worker on the Atkins diet when I was with Toronto … I said the same thing, it’s a fad diet, and not sustainable, and probably not very good for your body long-term.
Keith Law: Any “yo-yo” diets lead to rapid weight-loss fluctuations, and that is linked with higher risk of mortality.

Mike: Do you support the abolition of a policed state? I’ve been hearing that a lot lately, and am trying to picture what it would look like.
Keith Law: I don’t know exactly what that entails either, but I know I suppose demilitarizing the police. How much PPE could states, counties, and cities have bought with what they spent to buy military equipment for police?
Keith Law: And, again, who is harmed the most by overly aggressive, militarized police outfits? Communities of color. Not me, in my nice mostly-white suburb. I could sit here and say and do nothing, and the police would do what we expect police to do on a daily basis – keep us safe, maintain some basic sense of order. That is my privilege. I say something and donate money to relevant causes against my own interests. I do that because if people like me say and do nothing, then nothing will change in our lifetimes.
Keith Law: Thank you all for your questions and for your patience this week. I will be more active with chats next week, including a Q&A on the Athletic site and some sort of video chat the day of the draft itself (details TBD). Stay safe, but not silent.

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→ May 30, 2020
→ By

Stick to baseball, 5/30/20.

My second mock draft went up this week for subscribers to the Athletic; I think it was a lot better than my first one, which went up two weeks ago, based on the feedback I got from sources after it was posted. I also held a Klawchat on Thursday to take your questions about it. I’ll do another mock plus a draft ranking this upcoming week, then a final mock on June 10th, the morning of the draft.
 
Over at Paste, I reviewed Azul: Summer Pavilions, the third game in the Azul series (Azul and Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra). If you liked either of the first two Azul games, you’ll probably like this one as well, which offers the same tile-selection mechanic but new ways to place and score. Here on the dish, I reviewed La Isla, a midweight game from the designer of Castles of Burgundy and Carpe Diem.

My podcast this week featured Dr. Claude Steele, a psychology professor at Stanford and the author of Whistling Vivaldi, who spoke to me about stereotype threat and how players and evaluators might cope with it in sports. You can also listen on Apple, Stitcher, or Spotify. I also appeared on the Romantic About Baseball podcast to discuss my new book The Inside Game, the draft, and other issues in baseball.

The Inside Game has garnered several recommendations from major publications as a Father’s Day gift or for summer reading, including from Forbes, The New York Times, and Raise. My thanks to all of you who’ve already bought it; if you’re looking to pick up a copy, you can get it at bookshop.org or perhaps at a local bookstore if they’re reopening near you.

And now, the links … many of which are from the Washington Post this week, which wasn’t deliberate.

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→ May 29, 2020
→ By

La Isla.

I’ve got a mixed take on Stefan Feld’s “point salad” games. The Castles of Burgundy is one of my favorite games ever, probably my favorite heavy (or heavier, depending on your perspective) game. Bora Bora is a shade heavier, and pretty good, although I have to be in the right mood for it. His last two games have left me cold, however. Merlin was a total mess where it took a lot of work to get tiny gains in points. Carpe Diem was somewhat better but still not good, with at least one scoring method too many and a tile-selection mechanic that makes it way too easy to end up stuck.

La Isla isn’t his newest, but it’s probably his least-known title, and I don’t see any good reason for that. It’s not a point-salad game, really; there are only a few ways to score and they are all connected, logically and thematically. The game also features a lot of simultaneous play, so turns are very short, and you can play a whole game in under an hour. Yet it has the kind of strategic thinking I expect from Feld games, along with an extremely satisfying mechanic at the heart of the game that I find I really enjoy.

Players in La Isla are explorers trying to photograph five rare animals spread throughout the island represented by the game’s board. That board is variable, with ten interlocking pieces around a circular center piece, and both the board and the distribution of animals varies every time you play. The animals go in the green spaces around the board, and every such space is surrounded by places where players can place their explorer tokens. When a player places explorers on all spaces surrounding one animal – which can be two, three, or four spaces – they take that animal token and score for the number of explorers it took to claim it. Each player starts the game with a large, two-point token for one of the five animals.

That’s the heart of the game, but there’s more to the scoring, of course. There’s a deck of cards in La Isla that governs most of the play itself, with each card showing three things: a special ability, a resource color, and one of the five animals. Each player gets three cards on every turn and must choose one to use for its ability, one to gain the shown resource, and one to advance the shown animal on the scoring tracks. Each player has a cardholder with three spaces in it, and on each turn will place one card in one of those slots – covering existing cards from the fourth round onward – to gain that ability for as long as the card is still showing. The card selection process is simultaneous for all players, so the rounds move quickly.

To place an explorer on the board, you need to pay two resources of the matching color of the space where you want your explorer to go. (You only have five explorers, so once you’ve placed your fifth one, you start moving them, which is itself a strategic decision because you only have a few explorers to use to surround any animal token.) There are many special abilities that make this easier – you may gain a resource for where you place an explorer or the animal you take, or you may get to go on a certain type of space for one resource instead of two – making those abilities especially valuable in the early and middle parts of the game.

At the end of each round, players move up the five markers on the scoring board, one for each animal. When you move up a specific animal marker, you score one point for every animal token of that type you already have, so concentrating on one animal type has significant scoring benefits. The scoring board affects the end-game values of those same animal tokens, which start at zero but increase in value every few spaces; when the sum of the five values across all tracks reaches 7/9/11 points for 2/3/4 players, the game ends.

At end-game, the big points come. You score for each of your animal tokens based on their values on the tracks. For each set of all five animal tokens you have, you get another ten points – one of a few ways where Feld makes sure you can’t win just by going for a single animal type. And you get one point for every two resources left over.

La Isla requires you to have quite a bit of strategic planning, but you’re also always limited by the randomness of the cards. You have to have a long-term plan for what animals to go after, looking for areas of the board where you can be more efficient with your explorers and make the most use of the ability cards you have, but after a few rounds you’ll also be dependent on the resources that show up on the cards you draw. It’s easy to end up with a turn where you can’t place an explorer – it’s not ideal, and if you do that twice in a game you probably won’t win – because of that resource limitation, so planning ahead for that inevitability also becomes a strategic consideration. You’ll also want to push the animal you’re gathering up the track while trying not to push others up, although on some turns you won’t be able to move up your preferred animal at all and will have to determine which one to move that might just help their opponents the least.

There are two levels of ability cards in the game, with 120 level 1 cards and 60 more level 2 cards that introduce a bit more complexity to the game – some of which allow you to add up to two more explorers to your supply, others let you add a fourth slot for ability cards, and so on. They’re absolutely worth using but I agree with the rulebook’s suggestion that you play without them at least once to get the hang of the game itself.

Feld’s reputation for overly involved point-salad games is well-deserved, but La Isla isn’t one of them. There are only a few main ways to score – when you take an animal token, when you move up a marker on an animal’s scoring track, and at game-end for your animal tokens, so they’re all related, and require you to consider balance in your strategy. It’s also a brightly colored, visually appealing game, like Bora Bora (and definitely not like the original Castles of Burgundy), in a space where those features often get short shrift. If you’ve wanted to bump up to games a bit more complex than the family games I often recommend, but still want something good for kids 10+ and that plays in an hour or so, I would definitely suggest giving La Isla a shot.

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