One of those 'Year in Review' things: 2017

31 Dec, 2017

The last time I wrote something here was December 31, 2016 when I signed off of my first year in review post by saying that I was going to write more on this page.¹

0-for-1 on my public New Year’s Resolutions.

Either way, I’m back for another year and once again I’ve procrastinated and sit here in the living room thinking back on a 2017 year that turned out to be even more disappointing than 2016—at least on a nation-wide level.

Once again, personally, some really awesome things happened for me this year. First and foremost I started working full-time for the first company I interned for: Baseball America.

Ever since I started my first blog on the internet way back in high school—around 2010 or 2011 I think—I knew that I wanted to write about baseball for a living. I didn’t have a specific job in mind at the time, but I do know that if you told me back then that I’d be walking into BA everyday a year after graduating college I would have been ecstatic. And I still am.

My role at BA has changed a bit since that exciting tweet pictured above, as I’m now the head MLB Draft writer, with my former colleague and mentor Hudson Belinsky leaving this summer to join the Arizona Diamondbacks as an area scout. He’s going to crush it in that role, and I’m extremely grateful for the time I was able to work with him and learn the ropes. Go D-backs.

Hudson was just the first of two BA employees to join the team ranks this year, continuing the BA-to-MLB pipeline that’s been going on for years now. The second, of course was John Manuel, who joined the Minnesota Twins a few months ago. I owe my career to John, as he was the person who decided to give me a shot at an internship back in 2014 and once again gave me a chance to join the BA team earlier this year. Being able to say I worked with him, and call him a friend still, is a tremendous honor for me. Go Twins.

That said, I’m looking forward to continuing to learn and grow with Baseball America in 2018. We have a lot of awesome things planned and a great team in place under the leadership of J.J. Cooper and Matt Eddy.

With that, let’s jump into some of my ‘best of’ lists:

The best stories I wrote in 2017

1. Garrett Mitchell a unique talent in many ways—Mitchell was one of the top high school prospects in the 2017 draft class, but went to UCLA, where he’s now one of the most exciting freshmen in the class. He’s also a Type I Diabetic and I was fortunate enough to be able to tell his story and how he overcomes that on a daily basis while staying at the top of his game.
2. Gifted MacKenzie Gore wraps storied high school career—Gore was the third overall pick in the 2017 draft and comes from a small 1A school in North Carolina. This is our high school player of the year story, and couldn’t have gone to someone more deserving.
3. Brice Turang the latest star in a family of athletes—Turang is one of the top prospects in the 2018 high school draft class and has been well-known on the showcase circuit for a while now. This story is about how his competitive family has helped him become the polished player he is today.
4. Myer Turchin doesn’t let cancer slow him down—This was one of the more touching stories I got to write in 2017, about a boy named Myer who inspires everyone he meets with his courageous fight with cancer. Nothing is slowing him down.
5. Pitch-framing analysis of 2018 high school catchers—This was co-written with Justin Perline, one of our fantastic interns this summer, and is one of the only analytical looks at high school pitch-framing that I know of. Justin built some fantastic visual models with the data that TrackMan was kind enough to share with us to help create an awesome story that was paired with some scouting feedback on the catching class and catchers in general. A different, and hopefully useful, way to break down a strong catching class this year.
6. 2018 Washington Nationals Top 10 Prospects—This is not really a “story” per say, but I’m counting it because this is the first part of the Nationals chapter in our 2018 Prospect Handbook, which is my first experience writing for the book. As one of the most anticipated products that BA puts out every year, I take a lot of pride in being able to put my name on one of the chapters. Can’t wait for the book to come out (If you pre-order here you will get a bonus supplement with 30 extra scouting reports for free).

The best albums I listened to in 2017

I listened to a lot of music again in 2017, and it continued to revolve mostly around hip hop. Here are my favorites listed in order, and if you follow me on Twitter you shouldn’t be at all surprised by the first album on the list:

1. Damn.—Kendrick Lamar
2. American Teen—Khalid
3. ALL-AMERIKKKAN BADASS —Joey BadaSS
4. DROGAS Light—Lupe Fiasco
5. The Beautiful & Damned—G-Eazy

There was a pretty significant gap between Kendrick and the rest of the albums here for me, whereas last year’s top five was a lot closer together. There was a ton of good stuff early on in the year and a bit of a drop off after Joey B.’s album dropped. Here are the honorable mentions (listed in no particular order):

• Blue Chips 7000—Action Bronson
• No_One Ever Really Dies—N.E.R.D
• Jungle Rules—French Montana
• Big Fish Theory—Vince Staples
• Funk Wav Bounces Vol.1—Calvin Harris
• Woodstock—Portugal. The Man
• SHINE—Wale
• Alone Together—Skizzy Mars
• 17—XXXTENTACION
• FREE 6LACK—6LACK
• Everybody — Logic

Just two lists this year, as I was terrible at keeping track of the best stories that I read in 2017, and probably read a ton more than I did in previous years. Sorry about that, I’ll try and keep better track in 2018, which leads us into the ‘looking forward’ section.

I’m still not big on New Year’s Resolutions, but there are a few things I want to focus on during 2018. For one, I want to read more. I said this last year and I’m saying it again. That starts with a colossal Brandon Sanderson book that I got for Christmas and hopefully will lead to me reading more books than I have in previous years.

I’m also trying to kick sugary drinks from my diet because I’m essentially addicted to them at this point.

Lastly, I want to continue to write more frequently, although I’m not going to fall into last year’s trap and pledge to write regularly here on Medium. As I’m employed with BA, I feel that all of my writing time and energy should go there so you can find most of my work at baseballamerica.com or by checking out my author page.

That about wraps it up this year. I hope everyone had a great 2017; here’s to an even better 2018.

Happy New Year.

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