Month: July 2023

I Choose You… Who?

Sunday night is the MLB Amateur Draft, and as some of you may have heard, the Pittsburgh Pirates hold the top overall pick. Now, the MLB draft isn’t QUITE the event the NFL Draft is because baseball players aren’t generally the same level of finished product football players are. Realistically, the guys they’re drafting tomorrow will make their first appearance in the big leagues in 2-4 years. So it’s not quite the same level of immediate help, but it’s still important for a team to get the decision right.

Generally, the two best players in this year’s draft are a pair of college players: outfielder Dylan Crews and pitcher Paul Skenes. They’re teammates at LSU, they just won the College World Series, and were the best hitter and pitcher in the country, respectively. (Crews, in particular, won the Golden Spikes Award, which is college baseball’s equivalent of the MVP.) And they’re both viewed as guys with star potential. Position players are generally a safer bet than pitchers because of the risk of arm injuries, but the Pirates need pitching talent more urgently. So, you’d think this would be a straightforward choice between these two guys, right?

Not necessarily.

The problem is that historically, the Pirates tend to be cheap. Though to be fair, it’s evolved from Just Plain Cheap to Strategically Cheap. In the old days, minor leaguers could ask for whatever sort of money they wanted, so the Pirates would pick a guy who wasn’t going to ask for a lot of money over the guy who was more talented. Bryan Bullington, Daniel Moskos, John Van Benschoten… the list is long and somewhat painful. Since 2012, baseball has introduced a “bonus pool” system that’s not a firm salary cap per player, but caps the TOTAL amount of money teams can spend on their minor leaguers. So there’s SOME degree of cost control because the players and their agents know there isn’t an unlimited bucket of money, but the best guys are still going to try and get every penny they can within that range.

And here’s where the “Strategically Cheap” part comes in. The current system assigns every pick a dollar value, and the total dollar values of a team’s picks represents their total pool of money. But that doesn’t mean the team has to spend it that way. So a team can go “over slot” and pay a guy more than the value his draft position was worth, or can go “under slot” and sign a guy cheaper. And in particular, if you sign a guy under slot, that frees up whatever “extra” money was left over to use on other players.

So the Pirates’ recent strategy has been to go under slot on their first-round pick to save money at the top, and then use that on their picks in later rounds. (What that usually means is using that extra money to convince guys who can still go back to college to give up college eligibility and turn pro now.) They still end up spending all their money, so you can’t really accuse them of cheapness in the same way they used to be, but they do tend to be reluctant to pony up for the star player and prefer to spread their money around.

The 2021 draft was a textbook example of this. Henry Davis, a college catcher from Louisville, was not particularly viewed as the best player in the draft. But they were able to get him for about $2M less than his slot, which let them throw extra money at a college lefty (Anthony Solometo) and two high schoolers who had first-round talent but were considering college football scholarships (OF Lonnie White and pitcher Bubba Chandler). Chandler is struggling at A-ball, but the other two guys are doing OK.

To be fair, in 2022 when they picked 4th overall, they actually went about $200k over slot on their first-round pick Termarr Johnson. So it’s not like they’ve NEVER gone over slot. But they do seem to like to spread the risk around.

So that brings us back to Crews and Skenes. The Pirates have about $16M total in their bonus pool, and pick 1-1 is valued at $9.7M. According to the rumor mill, Crews is almost definitely going to ask for above slot (among other things, he’s repped by agent Scott Boras, who tends to negotiate aggressively). Skenes may have to take a discount for the risk associated with pitchers, but nobody sees him signing for much less than slot.

So that’s where Wyatt Langford and Max Clark come into the picture.

Langford, who played left field for the University of Florida, is viewed as the next-best college player, and in a different year might be the frontrunner for the top pick. And you can find a minority of people who think he’s even better than Crews. He actually hit for more power than Crews (28 doubles, 21 homers vs. 16 and 18 for Crews, and that’s with 10 fewer games); Crews just did everything else better — faster, better defense at a tougher position, better overall contact and plate discipline.

Clark is a high school outfielder. Now, high schoolers inherently represent a bigger risk because you’re talking about taking a 17/18-year-old kid and guessing how he’s gonna play when he’s done growing, whereas college guys are closer to finished products physically and just need to improve on the craft of the game. But some people think Max Clark’s physical tools are good enough that he could be better than either Crews OR Langford. IF he pans out, which is admittedly a huge if.

So it’s really a question of Crews at a price over $10M, Skenes probably somewhere around 9 or 9.5, or maybe see if you can sneak Langford or Clark in at $7-8M and hope the LSU guys don’t make you look stupid for doing so.

So where do I think this all lands?

I’ll start by eliminating Clark. There’s been some scuttlebutt that the Pirates are seriously considering him, but even if you want position player over pitcher, I just don’t see it being worth the risk when you have two more refined college bats on the table. (Though if one wants to briefly make the case, it’s that you could get Corbin Carroll-type speed even if his power never develops, and if his power DOES develop, you’ve got a true five-tool guy.)

A month ago, I would’ve thought the Pirates would try to work the angles and gone with Langford. Play up the fact that he hit for more power than Crews and an almost identical OPS, drop some reminders in friendly press ears that Crews’ 2022 season wasn’t nearly as remarkable… it’s a defensible pick and maybe you save an extra million or two for other guys.

But the Pirates’ pitching woes since their hot start in April now have me thinking they’re going to open up the wallet for Skenes. They already lost J.T. Brubaker for the year in spring training. Luis Ortiz and Roansy Contreras have both slid backwards; Contreras is trying to sort himself out in the pen and Ortiz just got sent to AAA. Quinn Priester, the current top pitching prospect in the organization, is in AAA, but is holding his own more than knocking down the door (though to be fair, you can make a case he’s young for the level). Right now, it’s basically Mitch Keller, 43-year-old Rich Hill, and the power of prayer. (And as a cascading effect, the bullpen has been a hot mess, so they could use some starters who can work some quality innings and take pressure off the bullpen.)

To be clear, I don’t think any of these guys represent a horrible misstep. Not even Clark, though I feel like that might be too big a roll of the dice. But I keep coming back to this: if Langford and Crews are 1 and 1A, there’s NO pitcher in this draft… or even the last few drafts… who compares to Skenes. He throws triple-digits without exceptional effort and decent control, and his secondary offerings look pretty close to major-league ready. There’s legit staff ace potential here.

But that’s just the opinion of one fan. Check back in 36 hours or so to see what the guys who actually make the decision think, because that’s the opinion that matters.

Trying Out Some New Threads (Hour 36)

Like a lot of people, I’ve been frustrated with Elon Musk’s stewardship of Twitter since buying it. That’s probably its own post, but in summary: the guy has been leaning into selling conflict as the product. Elon’s version of the “town square” seems to be Thunderdome, and he seems to view his role as Shitposter-In-Chief rather than CEO or owner. That, and the degree to which he’s leaned into the idea that someone paying him 8 bucks a month makes their content worthwhile is, frankly, a fucking joke.

So I’ve been watching the rise and fall of the various Twitter clones with some interest, kinda hoping that a viable alternative would emerge. But I’ve also been skeptical that any of the options so far can really deliver the goods. I kicked the tires on both Mastadon and Post, but didn’t last more than about 15 minutes on either one. (And a third one that left such little impression I can’t even remember the name.) Mastadon was just too clunky with its distributed server model — trying to find people was more trouble than it was worth — and there was something about Post’s fixation on long-form posts that was too stuffy and academic. Brevity has its place in the universe. I’ll also admit I’m sort of interested in Bluesky, since their ethos seems to be “let’s just roll back everything Elon did and do that” with some changes on the back-end tech. But Bluesky is still invite-only and I’m not one of the Anointed Few.

So now we have Threads, Mark Zuckerberg’s direct assault on Elon’s fiefdom. Threads launched (at this writing) less than 48 hours ago, and it’s rumored to have already hit 50M users. And that’s the first advantage right there — where other Twitter clones had to build a following from zero, Threads is coming into the game with Meta’s userbase already in place. They just need to sell the idea of a new app to people who are already using the other ones.

Now, I suppose I should digress here. I have a longtime friend who works the financial side of the tech world, and he’s been adamant that this move doesn’t make a lick of sense from a business perspective. In summary, his two main points were a) it’s gonna be almost impossible to peel enough business away from Twitter to turn a profit, and b) the big success stories come from true innovation, not just copying off someone else’s paper.

Now, he’s probably right on both those points. “Defense will stipulate”, as the cop shows say. But that’s not really the lens I’m looking at here. I’m mostly just looking at this as a user of the product. Will people use this product instead of Twitter? And the answer is… a provisional “maybe?”.

The positives are that the vibe is pretty welcoming and carefree at the moment, but then again, some of that is confirmation bias because a lot of the early adopters are also people who want to get the fuck away from Elon Musk. The white supremacists (and ads) haven’t shown up to ruin things yet, so everyone’s in a good mood. The flip side of that coin is that it’s also really superficial. It’s almost like people are avoiding saying anything of substance because they don’t want to be the one to set off any conversational landmines. So it’s almost all “pineapple on pizza?” and people trying to get the intern who runs Dunkin Donuts’ account to reply to them.

It’s also generally chaotic at the moment. Nobody knows what this is supposed to be, so they’re just throwing things at the wall to see what sticks. I think that problem is exacerbated for people who weren’t already on Instagram. Since this thing is built on Instagram’s DNA, if you weren’t an IG user, it just fills your feed with whatever was generically popular on IG. Unfortunately, that translates to a dump truck of brand accounts, vapid clout chasers, and thirst traps. And LOTS of Taylor Swift fans.

For the moment, I’m willing to see that as a “me” problem; I need to curate my feed better. But… if it DOESN’T improve, that could be a problem. The one thing Twitter has traditionally done best is real-time current events. I live in Pittsburgh, and when we had that bridge collapse about a year ago, I learned more from Twitter than I learned from any conventional news source. Based on what I’ve seen so far, I’m still a little concerned about Threads’ ability to deliver that. I feel like Russia could drop a nuke on Ukraine and Threads will STILL be stuck on the pineapple-pizza question.

And bragging about follower counts. I’ve already reached my fill on people posting their follower counts, like anyone other than them should give a shit. I guess it’s preferable to crypto scams and white supremacy, but still… give it a rest.

There’s also the whole “how can you support Mark Zuckerberg?” angle. And I get that. I’m not sure it’s a net positive to put MORE power in Meta’s hands. I suppose my answer there is two-fold. First, I’ve been using Facebook for over a decade. If Zuck can pull some new nugget of data from my Threads presence he hasn’t already gotten from Facebook… my hat’s off to him. Second, it’s simply the lesser of two evils for me. Zuck might be an emotionless robot who doesn’t get human interaction, but there’s an element of active malice to Elon Musk’s plans for social media. He WANTS Twitter to be Louder Dumber 8Chan.

So that’s me gathering my first impressions in one place. It’s a place that has some potential, but it still has some kinks to iron out (including a web interface… I do sometimes prefer browsing from the desktop rather than my phone). Perhaps I’ll circle back in a few days or weeks or whatnot, but for now I’ve gotta get back to check whether Slim Jim has acknowledged my Meat Ambassadorship yet. See you in the Threads!

Who Am I? What Is This? (aka The “About The Blog” Post)

Who Am I?

Definitely not prisoner 24601, though I am resisting the urge to break into song as I’m writing this.

I’m Jason McDonald. Early 50s, native of Pittsburgh, PA. Single dad, dog owner… by day, I’m an IT guy who works for a local university: I fix the computers of the people who are going to change the world. By night? Not so much a “failed” writer because that would imply I ever made a serious effort at making a career of it. More of well-intentioned amateur, looking for a place to let my words run free and burn some mental energy off.

If you’re looking for formal credentials… well, I’ve never had a paid gig as a writer, unless you count the beer-money check I got for being an editor at my college newspaper. I have been fairly prolific answering questions on the Q&A site Quora, and back when they still ran a Top Writer program, I won several years in a row. I also spent a few years writing weekly episode recaps and occasional product reviews for a gaming podcast (Roll For Combat) I’m part of, though I stopped doing that when it started to feel like I was writing the same thing every week.

I’ve tried to start a blog two or three times now, but never quite reached critical mass with it. Life just kinda intruded. But with Quora in particular going downhill (worth its own post at some point), I feel like I should stop generating content for someone else and get back to doing my own thing.

What’s the blog about?

Still figuring it out, testing the waters. It’s going to start out as just “slice of life” with a possibility of it developing a more specific direction as we go. Though I can at least lay down some guard rails what you’ll see on here.

A lot of it is just going to be the reindeer games of daily living. Sports (with a somewhat larger emphasis on the local Pittsburgh teams), movies and TV, gaming (computer and tabletop), music… whatever happens to enter my mental gravity well on any given day.

I may hit on politics from time to time, but the last thing I want is to become A Politics Guy(tm). It’s one of these things where the things that are going on in the world do matter, and I can’t really keep quiet about it ENTIRELY but I also don’t really want to let it consume me either. Also there’s people that simply do it better than I do. (Among others: Jim Wright, aka Stonekettle, who has real and relevant experience from his days in the military, whereas I’m fully aware I’m Just Some Guy With Opinions On The Internet.) But just to put a stake in the ground, I lean left on a lot of issues, so… hope that won’t be a problem, but also don’t especially care if it is.

(One idea I had was just to pre-write a bunch of “soapbox” posts where I write out my thoughts on various issues, and then just point back to those if people care to hear what I think. We’ll see if that happens.)

I do have kids, but I’m going to be careful how much I talk much about them, just because they’re people with their own lives and I want to tread very lightly vis-a-vis turning them into content. They’re also both adults, so there’s not as much “parenting” to discuss at this point. So they may come up from time to time, but they won’t be a constant feature. My DOGS on the other hand…

I also won’t talk about work a lot, but mostly because this is supposed to be what I’m doing for fun. If something of general interest happens at work, I might mention it, but I’m sure as shit not going to spend my free time talking about the latest Windows security patches.

Lastly, I promise to never spoil the day’s Wordle.

What else?

Well, if you’ve read this far, you probably noticed that I write in an informal, almost conversational style. Pauses, changes of direction mid-stream, abuse of the ellipses… I do that more than I should. I hope it’s not distracting, and it’s likely to induce a stroke in your fifth-grade English teacher, but it’s also not likely to change any time soon. You’ve probably also noticed I have an open-door policy on profanity. I try not to be gratuitous with it, and am a firm believer of expressing yourself well, but sometimes the naughty word IS the right one to express the thought.

I’ll try to write something daily, as much to build good habits as to give The People something to read, but for now this is just something I’m doing in my free time, so that’s not some sort of ironclad commitment.

With all that said… LET THE WILD RUMPUS BEGIN.