on April 1 (right) Jarren Duran's hair looked like a ill-kempt barrister's wig. Tonight (left), a mere two weeks later, he has naturally hued flow clearly exhibiting more than two weeks worth of growth.

How?

this week, we're joined by TP mainstay Hannah Keyser to talk about why designated hitters can't hit, whether baseball players are anxious like the rest of us, and a lot more. plus: we hand out some team slogans!

apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/its…
spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/3sNIBf…

I am realizing that I underestimated/never fully considered the details of just how isolated Ohtani was by virtue of the language barrier.

Meanwhile, pitchers who are making $30k in the minor leagues know that the fastest route to MLB (and a big payday) is to max out on velocity and spin. They can always get a job making 30k elsewhere. They know their bodies might break. Price of admission. wsj.com/sports/basebal…

anyone who purports to have a simple solution to the epidemic of pitching injuries — inevitably based on an earlier era when there was a less sophisticated understanding of sport science and physiology — is probably thinking about the problem far too narrowly.

What I love about this story from Zach is that it is an explainer for something incredibly basic — types or pitches — but at a super high level. Literally anyone at any level of baseball fandom can benefit from reading it. And now it’s an award winner! sports.yahoo.com/baseball-pitch…

Is an earthquake “weather”

The DH story was built on me asking questions raised by the excellent analysis Russell A. Carleton has done over the years. And now he's done more analysis...based on questions left unanswered by what I wrote! Very satisfying symbiosis since I am not this smart baseballprospectus.com/news/article/8…

Who does Juan Soto trust?

A deep dive into the past 20 months as Soto looks poised for a potential record-breaking future:

theathletic.com/5383787/2024/0…

Oh, to be clear, as thrilled as I was to have a piece at the ringer and to be back on MLB Network and to continue be on SNY…I am still very much looking for a full-time job. (Or many more part time jobs?) Way less fun to tweet about!

Very cool of the show to highlight the DH story at The Ringer.

For wayyyy more than we had time to get to: theringer.com/mlb/2024/3/29/…

“Is there a specific skill to DHing versus just hitting? I would defer to the people that have done it.”

For The Ringer, the universal DH has sorta been an offensive flop (DHs are in their flop era?) and what good DHs know that teams don’t seem to apply. theringer.com/mlb/2024/3/29/…

The “baseball zen” interstitials on mlb.tv are so close to being great and then they went and added the gratingly fake sound effects over top. Who can we talk to about this

Special one-hour edition of BNNY coming up on SNY at, to be precise, 6:14 pm. (After the Doc documentary). Join me, Sal Licata Hannah Keyser and John Jastremski in studio. John Harper will join from Citi Field. Met opener, Yanks, Lineup Card! Get in on this.

Heavy hitter (of writing) Hannah Keyser on heavy hitters of hitting!!! theringer.com/mlb/2024/3/29/…

Two years into the universal DH era, and more than 50 years after the role was first introduced, DH production has dried up. Why is designated hitting so hard?

@hannahrkeyser:

theringer.com/mlb/2024/3/29/…