About

I'm the Senior Baseball Writer at The Athletic, which I joined in January 2020 after thirteen and a half years at ESPN. Before that I spent four years with the Toronto Blue Jays, most of it as Special Assistant to the General Manager, doing amateur and pro scouting and sitting in on the decisions I now write about. Before that I wrote for Baseball Prospectus, starting in 1997.

I studied sociology and economics at Harvard and took an MBA at Carnegie Mellon, neither of which is why anyone hires me, but both of which turn out to explain a lot about how organisations talk themselves into bad decisions.

I've written two books, Smart Baseball and The Inside Game, with a third coming in 2027.

What's here

This site has been running since 2006. It is where everything that isn't baseball goes, and after twenty years that is a lot of things.

• BooksNovels mostly, and I finish nearly everything I start, which means the reviews include the ones I regret.
• Board gamingReviews and rankings, plus the annual Gen Con writeup. I've been covering games for Paste since 2013.
• MusicWhat I've been listening to, updated monthly, with no pretence that it is comprehensive.
• FoodCooking, mostly. Occasionally a strong opinion about coffee that I stand behind.
• KlawchatThe long-running chat. Prospects, brining, and whatever else turns up.