Link City #1

I'm back! Did you miss me? It has been a couple interesting months. After I posted the first part of my offensive values post, I realized that I had no idea what I was doing. I had just kind of jumped into the deep end and hoped I could swim. I didn't fully realize all the time I would need to fully research and understand the data I was messing with and then be able to flesh out an article that was interesting to read and I could feel proud of. My hope is that now I am comfortable enough with my data and that I have figured out how to better manage my time to I can both put out timely writings and have them be meaningful.

My goal for the foreseeable future is to post three times a week. I want to have a post full of interesting links (and maybe some commentary) on Mondays, a post on baseball/sabermetrics on Wednesdays, and a post about whatever (more than likely MTG) on Fridays.

Here are some things on the internet I have read in the last couple weeks that I have found interesting:

Baseball

First, is an article from Tom Verducci on the merits of banning the shift in baseball. While I can understand his position, he seems to focus quite a bit on one type of player and his stats seems to be a bit too cherry picked for my taste. While it is indisputable that offense is down as a whole across MLB, the shift is just a scapegoat I think.

Here is an article from Johnathan Judge as well as a quick post from Dave Cameron here explaining that Verducci's methodology may be over-simplified. They do a much better job of explaining why than I could.


Magic: The Gathering

I happened upon an interesting way to separate Magic cards from Reddit user u/alexpwalsh. I spent an hour or so constructing the separators, and I think they look great!

Over on Channel Fireball, Frank Karsten takes at look at "the optimal mana curve" for both constructed and limited decks using computer simulations. He even goes so far in one case to take a look at when you should mulligan your opening hand. It should be noted that his methods are completely context neutral, and are probably not super useful in practice. But it's certainly an interesting read, and definitely an interesting place to start if you're trying to build "the perfect deck."

Also on Channel Fireball, Owen Turtenwald tell us all about his Pro Tour M15 experience. Watching his reaction when he found out he made top-8 was something I will never forget. I hope some day that something will make me jump around like a kid again with a big grin on my face the way he did.

Miscellaneous?

I think that will be it for this week. Something quick just to get back into the swing of things!