Link City #2

Here's a list of things that I found interesting this week!

Baseball

Jeff Sullivan attempts to explain how the Orioles are beating their projections. Unsurprisingly, he fails. That said, the Orioles are having a heck of a year. And while I'm not a huge fan of results-oriented thinking (I do not think that being in first place makes the Orioles a good team, or vice versa), results are what matter and the Orioles have them.

Drew Fairservice takes a look at Mike Trout and why his value on the basepaths has taken a dip this season. It's interesting to look back on Trout's (short) carrer, and how he has changed so much as a hitter. He's no longer as valuable on the base paths (and this article suggests that that fact might be up for debate), but just keeps getting better with his bat to offset the decline. If nothing else, I think this article serves as a nice reminder on the merits (or lack thereof) of small sample sizes.

Dave Cameron writes about pitch framing and how it may or may not impact his vote for NL MVP. While I see the merits of pitch-framing and have no trouble seeing it's value to a team. I'm not sure if that skill alone is worth considering a player for the MVP ballot. That said, I love Cameron's willingness to entertain all options and really put some thought into something like this. Defense is part of the game too, and preventing runs is probably just as important as creating them.

Magic: The Gathering

Reid Duke explaining What is Magic? I think this is both a perfect primer for a new player to the game, as well as a good way of explaining what the game is for people who just don't understand. 

Marshall Sutcliffe explaining the his and Brian Wong's "Quadrant Theory" for drafting. I think like it a lot more than BREAD. The quadrant theory makes you think more about a card than "is it good", which is all I have found myself doing when I consider BREAD while drafting. The quadrant theory makes you consider WHEN a card is good. Which I think will lead to more synergy throughout a draft deck and, therefore, a better draft deck.

Mike Linnemann explaining some of the real-world inspiration for Khans of Tarkir. If you like to dabble in being Vorthos (as I do), this is the article for you. 

Nick Vigabool shows some statistics on how M15 has impacted standard. As for me, M15 has led to many different deck ideas (with varying levels of success). My favorite of which was a mono-red deck featuring Goblin Rabblemaster, which I was delighted to see pop-up at Pro Tour M15. My deck is built slightly different from the one Jeremy Dezani and the like ran, but that is because I have set mine up for post-rotation. I've had quite a bit of success with it nonetheless. Here is a decklist if you're interested.

Miscellaneous (a.k.a. reading about Batman)

I spent a lot of time this week looking at Comics Alliances's posts on Scott Snyder and the Batman: Zero Year story arc. There were several different interviews with Snyder that took place in different times throughout the arc, but my favorite by far was the last interview that took place after the story was over. It gave me a whole new outlook on the story, and gave me a better appreciation of both the story itself, and the choices the creative team made.

I also enjoyed this post from Andrew Wheeler on the story from the perspective of a new reader. I don't really have anything to say about it, I just like to read new and different perspectives on things I've been involved with for a long time.