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.

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.