Stick to baseball, 4/6/19.

No ESPN+ content from me this week, although I have a draft blog post to file tonight that will cover what I saw at NHSI this week as well as potential first-rounder George Kirby of Elon. I did hold a Klawchat on Tuesday.

Meredith Wills helped me do some of the research that went into Smart Baseball, and, in addition to being an astrophysicist and general baseball expert (who realized that a change in the thickness of the baseball’s laces likely explains the current home run surge), she’s also a knitter and generally quite crafty. She’s disassembled many baseballs to look into their construction and is now selling crafts made from the leather on these baseballs, repurposing material that would otherwise go to landfills.

And now, the links, with a note. I didn’t get through all the longer reads I’d saved this week, so I may post a bonus roundup tomorrow or Monday. We’ll see how my weekend goes.

Stick to baseball, 3/23/19.

I had two ESPN+ pieces this week – my annual breakouts column and my first scouting notebook from Arizona, covering prospects from the Padres, Dbacks, A’s, and Royals. I’ll have a draft blog post up this weekend looking at four potential first-rounders, including presumptive #1 overall pick (today, at least) Adley Rutschman. I also held a Klawchat on Thursday.

There will be a fresh email newsletter in the next 2-3 days as well. You can sign up free and never miss a word.

And now, the links…

Stick to baseball, 2/2/19.

My ranking of the top 100 prospects in baseball ran this week, with four separate pieces: #1 through #50, #51 through #100, my column of fourteen more guys who just missed, and a ranking of the top 20 prospects just for impact in 2019. I also held a Klawchat on Wednesday and a Periscope video chat on Thursday.

My ranking of all 30 farm systems will run on Monday, February 4th, after which the team by team reports will run, one division per day for the following six days. I’ve written 24 of the 30 team reports so far, if you’re curious.

Many thanks to the White Sox blog SouthSideSox and writer katiesphil for this lovely review of Smart Baseball.

And now, the links…

Stick to baseball, 1/26/19.

I had one ESPN+ piece this week, on the three-way trade that sent Sonny Gray to Cincinnati. I also held a Klawchat on Thursday. The 2019 top prospects package begins its rollout on Monday.

At Paste, I reviewed the cooperative game Forbidden Sky, from Pandemic designer Matt Leacock, who adds a fun STEM element to the same framework he’s used in Pandemic and the other Forbidden titles.

And now, the links…

Stick to baseball, 1/12/19.

No ESPN+ content this week, as I’m working on the prospect rankings and saving those extra bullets in the hope that someone like Bryce Harper or Manny Machado will eventually sign. I did hold a Klawchat on Thursday.

My latest review for Paste covers the deduction board game Cryptid, one of my top ten games of 2018, in which each player gets one clue, and you need to deduce all other players’ clues to identify the one hex on the variable board where the Creature is hiding for that specific board and set of clues. It’s quite fun, like a board game with a puzzle at its heart.

And now, the links…

Stick to baseball, 11/17/18.

My one piece for ESPN+ subscribers this week looked at some major names on the trade market this offseason. I also held a Klawchat on Friday.

I appeared on the Pros and Prose podcast to talk about Smart Baseball and other topics related to the book and reading/writing in general.

I’m back to sending out my free email newsletter every week to ten days or so, as the spirits move me. The spirits usually include rum, of course.

And now, the links…

Stick to baseball, 11/4/18.

For ESPN+ subscribers, I ranked the top 50 free agents this offseason. I also held a Klawchat on Wednesday, before a brief vacation to Disneyworld to help my parents celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary.

I’ve been better about sending out my free email newsletter, which isn’t to say the content is better, just that I’m sending it more often.

And now, the links…

Stick to baseball, 8/4/18.

For Insiders this week, I had a slew of trade writeups:

I also held a Klawchat on Wednesday before I headed off to Gen Con 2018. You can see some of the photos I took there, the country’s biggest board gaming convention, on my Instagram. The writeup will come later this week.

I’ve been better about sending out my free email newsletter lately after slacking a bit during the spring (in large part because I can’t use the site’s editing function on an iPad), so, you know, do that signup.

And now, the links…

  • Longreads first: The hard-to-believe true story of how an ex-cop led a conspiracy to rig the McDonald’s Monopoly game.
  • The Guardian rank a lengthy excerpt from a new book on denial and denialism, Keith Kahn-Harris’ Denial: The Unspeakable Truth. The excerpt covers a lot of ground, describing why denialism is more than just the denial of truth, why facts tend not to stop or change denialists’ minds, and the dangerous new phase of denialism before us.
  • The Verge has a longread on the gaming of Amazon’s listings and sales system by self-published romance authors. It’s just a bizarre subculture, and has led to a lawsuit over two authors’ use of the word “cocky” in their books titles. The journalist who wrote this piece, Sarah Jeong, just joined the New York Times editorial board; Vox, which owns the Verge, has a great piece on the non-troversy that alt-right trolls used to try to get her fired.
  • The Rumpus’ editor Lyz Lenz writes that writing still matters in the age of despair. Write like a motherfucker, as Cheryl Strayed (Wild) once wrote.
  • Why would the University of Michigan allow the presentation of “research” on homeopathy? Homeopathy is woo. After you dilute the substance in question that many times, all that remains is bullshit.
  • The Minneapolis Star-Tribune editorial board called on the state to crack down on doctors who spread anti-vaccine lies, as California is trying to do.
  • There’s a huge Dunning-Kruger epidemic in the anti-vaccine community, which has also managed to diverted time and funds away from more important vaccine research towards needless studies debunking claims like the nonexistent vaccine/autism link.
  • Spike Lee accused the President of giving the green light to the KKK and other hate groups during a wide-ranging interview with the Guardian about his upcoming film Black Klansman.
  • Gizmodo details how two strangers tried to wreck an Alabama realtor’s life by spreading a false story about the realtor sleeping with someone else’s husband.
  • The Washington Post looks at the board game Twilight Struggle’s new relevance in this political environment. I happen to find the game wildly overrated; it’s long, hard to set up, and requires intimate knowledge of the two player decks to play it well.
  • This Psychology Today essay assailing the ‘lack of resiliency’ of today’s college students seems to me to paint with an excessively broad brush, and contradicts the message we give our kids today to reach out when they need help. I’m also a little skeptical of the veracity of some of the stories – they sound like they were crafted for viral tweets – but even if they’re true, I’d rather too many kids ask for help than too few.
  • The anti-LGBT group Alliance Defending Freedom has been working to undermine basic protections for LGBT citizens, especially trans youth, using disingenuous and even dangerous language.
  • Former big leaguer Adam Greenberg, whose MLB career consisted of two PA, one in 2005 and one in 2012, is now running for Congress in Connecticut as a Republican. The fact that he’s turning to politics is interesting in itself, but the NY Times author here, John Altavilla, spends almost no time on Greenberg’s policy positions.
  • Would-be populist – and clear Islamophobe and race troll – Ben Shapiro is backed by a wide network of billionaire conservatives, many of whom also support more reviled figures like Ann Coulter and the Breitbart site.
  • Turning Point USA, the hard-right conservative group founding by diaper-clad college students, has been courting and praising anti-Semitic troll Bryan Sharpe, who has denied the Holocaust occurred and uses the triple-parentheses notation favored by white supremacists to identify or out Jewish people.
  • These QAnon people are batshit insane.
  • The Pennsylvania gun rights lobby watered down a bill aimed at keeping domestic abusers from obtaining guns.
  • The Washington Post profiled New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, although the piece doesn’t question him enough about their opinion pages.
  • An Astros fan wrote an open letter to the team’s GM, criticizing the decision to acquire Roberto Osuna.
  • There’s a new shape in town – really, totally new to mathematicians and physicists, but something that appears in nature: the scutoid.
  • An “Instagram star” – seriously, how the fuck is this a thing – is in hot water after her cookbook included ‘recipes’ likely to sicken or kill people who try to eat those dishes. One example that would be obvious to anyone who knows food is the advice to forage for and eat raw morels. A good editor is important; a bad one can lead to a PR disaster. Also, maybe don’t give someone who just takes nice pictures a cookbook deal.
  • Jack White (ex-White Stripes) is now the co-owner of a baseball bat manufacturer.
  • And finally, a video, as comedian Aamer Rahman explains why there isn’t any such thing as “reverse racism:”
  • Stick to baseball, 7/7/18.

    I had two new posts for Insiders this week, one on the Futures Game rosters, which were announced on Friday; and a post of scouting notes on Orioles, Phillies, Rangers, White Sox, and Royals prospects I’ve seen in the last few weeks. That Futures Game column included Houston’s Forrest Whitley, but he was removed from his last start with “left oblique discomfort,” so I’m expecting him to be replaced on the roster before game day.

    I have two book signings for Smart Baseball coming up this month. Next Saturday, July 14th, I’ll be at Politics & Prose in Washington, DC, signing books and talking baseball with Jay Jaffe; and I’ll be at the Silver Unicorn Bookstore in Acton, Massachusetts, on July 28th, hosted by store owner and former Fangraphs/Hardball Times writer Paul Swydan.

    And now, the links…

    Stick to baseball, 5/26/18.

    My ranking of the top 100 prospects for this year’s MLB draft is up for Insiders. I held a Klawchat on Friday.

    Over at Vulture, my ranking of the 25 best mobile board game apps went up last week.

    Smart Baseball is now out in paperback! I’ll be at Politics & Prose in DC on July 14th and am shooting for an event in the Boston suburbs on July 28th. Throw a comment below if you think you could make the latter event.

    And now, the links…