Stick to baseball, 6/17/24.

For subscribers to the Athletic, I posted my annual ten-year redraft, looking back at the 2014 draft class, plus the annual column on first-rounders from that class who didn’t pan out.

Over at Paste, I reviewed the new deduction game Archeologic, which I thought was too easy to solve and didn’t offer any new mechanics to make me want to play it more.

I sent out another edition of my free email newsletter last week, detailing my misadventures with travel and phone alarms.

And now, the links…

  • The four members of R.E.M. were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and sat down with CBS’s Anthony Mason to discuss the honor, their careers, their opposition to a reunion, and more.

Stick to baseball, 3/23/24.

At the Athletic, I wrote about a bunch of prospects I saw in the Cactus League, including two Breakout games; plus a list of six breakout candidates for 2024; as well as a Q&A with our fantasy expert Nando di Fino.

At Vulture, I wrote about the surge in cooperative tabletop games that started with Pandemic and then picked up during the … pandemic, really, along with a list of 14 of the best.

Now that this post is up I’ll begin the next edition of my free email newsletter.

And now, the links…

Stick to baseball, 2/24/24.

My entire prospect rankings for 2024 are now up for subscribers to The Athletic, including:

I held a Klawchat earlier this week to take questions on the lists and more.

Over at Paste, I reviewed Apiary, the latest game from publisher Stonemaier Games (Wingspan, Scythe, Tapestry); The Search for Lost Species, a deduction game and sequel to my #1 game of 2020, The Search for Planet X; and The White Castle, my #1 game of 2023, designed by the folks behind The Red Cathedral.

I also sent out a new edition of my free email newsletter last week, about how we had to put our cat, Hexie, down when a blood clot traveled to his descending aorta and paralyzed his hind quarters. It’s been tough.

And now, the links…

Stick to baseball, 10/7/23.

I’ve had one post up for subscribers to the Athletic since the last roundup, with my hypothetical postseason awards ballots for 2023. I do have another story filed for Sunday, so keep an eye skinned for that.

Over at Paste, I reviewed Votes for Women, a (mostly) two-player, asymmetrical game about the fight for women’s suffrage. It’s fantastic, and I also love that this review went up the week that Glynis Johns turned 100.

On the Keith Law Show this week, my guest was MLB’s Sarah Langs, talking about the season that was, who she would vote for in the various awards, and what excited her about this year’s playoff teams. You can listen and subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And now, the links…

Stick to baseball, 9/23/23.

For subscribers to The Athletic, I posted my annual Minor League Player of the Year column this week, as well as my last regular-season scouting notebook of 2023, covering prospects I saw from the Red Sox, Orioles, and Nationals. I’ll head to Arizona in October for Fall League coverage, of course. My podcast will be back next week and I’ve already filed my next review for Paste.

And now, the links…

Stick to baseball, 9/9/23.

Nothing new this week other than two contributions to headlines on the callups of Jordan Lawlar and Evan Carter, but I’ll be back next week with the players I got wrong column. I did hold my first Klawchat in ages, though.

On The Keith Law Show this week, I spoke with Jonathan Abrams, New York Times reported and author of the 2022 book The Come Up: An Oral History of the Rise of Hip-Hop, which comes out in paperback on October 3rd. You can listen and subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And now, the links…

  • Vulture exposes the corruption behind Rotten Tomatoes’ algorithm as studios and publicists have paid small-time reviewers, who are often inexplicably included in the site’s calculations, to post positive reviews or withhold negative ones. I’m not included in RT’s metrics and I’m not paid by any studios or publicists, so you can always trust my reviews, even if they’re not any good!
  • Parents of trans kids who spoke to the New York Times’ Azeen Ghorayshi spoke out against the reporter and how they felt used and misled by her actions. Ghorayshi wrote a fairly uncritical piece about the so-called whistleblower at a St. Louis clinic for trans kids, but didn’t accurately reflect the sentiments of the parents she spoke to, while the whistleblower appears to have fabricated or inflated most of her claims.
  • The Florida town of Mount Dora established a program where businesses can declare themselves safe spaces for LGBTQ+ people and display a decal in their window to that effect. Several Florida Republicans are vowing to stop the program, because they are apparently opposed to the First Amendment, or too stupid to understand why it applies here.
  • Christian nationalist commentator Matt Walsh, who doesn’t understand the biology of gender, decided to dunk on a single woman for a Tiktok video about her Saturday routines, and even the National Review said it was a bit much. Walsh’s view is that women exist solely for procreation, so it’s unsurprising that Julia Mazur’s unmarried, childless lifestyle would be so confusing to him.
  • The Kids Online Safety Act isn’t about protecting kids, at least not for its Republican backers – it’s about blocking LGBTQ+ content online, according to sponsor Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R). It has broad bipartisan support, however, and I contacted both of Delaware’s Senators to voice my opposition, even though both are sponsors of the bill as well.

Stick to baseball, 7/16/23.

For subscribers to the Athletic, here’s an index to my draft coverage from this past week:

I also recapped the Futures Game and wrote a brief note on the call-up of Pirates’ right-hander Quinn Priester.

I had Joe Sheehan back on the podcast last week, before the draft, and then skipped this week to write all that stuff above. You can listen & subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I’m a little pressed for time so let’s get to the links:

Stick to baseball, 6/30/23.

I posted my 2023 Mock Draft v3.0 this week, and as usual did a Q&A to take your questions on it. Going forward, I’ll have the last Big Board update later this upcoming week and then mock 4.0 on Saturday, the morning I fly to Seattle to cover the Futures Game and then the draft. I also did a just-for-fun piece on who I’d put on the All-Star rosters, and then I avoided the comments entirely. I was a lot more active in the comments on the other pieces, including my scouting blog on Jackson Holliday and Brady House. And I weighed in on Friday night on the two players going to Kansas City in the Aroldis Chapman trade.

Over at Paste, I reviewed Rebuilding Seattle, a midweight economic game with some polyomino tile-laying aspects, an imposing game on the table that plays pretty quickly and doesn’t have that many rules to learn.

And now, the links…

Stick to baseball, 4/1/23.

Since the last roundup, I’ve written three new posts for subscribers to the Athletic – my annual predictions post, my first dispatch from spring training (mostly Cactus League), my annual breakout player picks, and a draft blog post on three potential first-rounders from Wake Forest and Miami.

Over at Paste, I reviewed the cooperative game Paint the Roses, which has simple rules but poses a difficult deductive challenge for players, working best with three or more.

I appeared on the streaming Scripps News Network to talk about why major-league salaries keep rising while minor leaguers’ haven’t, although this was recorded and aired before the recent CBA announcement.

My podcast will return now that my spring training travel is over, with David Grann lined up as my next guest. I did send out a new edition of my free email newsletter about two weeks ago.

And now, the links…

Stick to baseball, 12/31/22.

I skipped last Saturday’s post, since it was Christmas Eve (iiin the drunk tank…), but since the last roundup I’ve written up the Daulton Varsho/Gabriel Moreno trade and the still in-limbo Carlos Correa signing with the Mets.

Over at Paste, I ranked the ten best new board games of 2022, and posted reviews of two of them – Kites, a real-time cooperative game; and Lacrimosa, a heavier game based on the life of Mozart. For those of you interested in my board game content, I’m going to do some small giveaways of promos and small expansions via my Instagram account starting this week, so feel free to follow me there if you’re interested.

I’ve got a bunch of non-work writing to do this weekend before I get back to prospect calls on Monday, with a new issue of my free email newsletter next up once this post is done.

And now, the links…