The Baseball Listicle Lineup for May 4-19, 2023

Issue #88

Latest edition of this regular feature here at Now Taking the Field—a roundup of my favorite recent baseball articles. Somewhat similar to my own writing topics, I tend to like “listicles” the best—articles that are either written in list form or that make heavy use of lists and charts of data, players, rankings, etc. I’ll of course include other favorite baseball articles in these weekly round-ups, but you’ll find most will be of that type. I’ll especially be focusing on articles by other Substack baseball authors, and articles directly from MLB.com itself, but I sometimes do read articles from other sources too.

Here are my favorite articles for the weeks May 5-19, 2023, starting with articles written by other baseball-focused Substack authors:

• HOF: The Very Best, by G. Scott Thomas, at 5/19/2023

• The New York Mess, by Joe Posnanski, at 5/17/2023

• 5 Manager Cards that Put Us In Our Place, by 5/14/2023

• Moving the A’s, by G. Scott Thomas, at 5/9/2023

• Brent Rooker's Breakthrough, by Ben Hatch, 5/7/2023

• Revisiting Five Bold Preseason Predictions, by Molly Knight, 5/5/2023

• HOF: Three Catchers, by G. Scott Thomas, 5/5/2023

Beyond Substack, these were my favorite articles from the writers at MLB.com these past two weeks:

• These teams may already be looking forward to Trade Deadline, by Thomas Harrigan, 5/18/2023

• 10 players getting buzz as potential trade candidates, by Mark Feinsand, 5/18/2023

• Who are the early Cy Young favorites?, by Thomas Harrigan, 5/17/2023

• They started slowly, but these 9 hitters are hot now, by Brian Murphy, 5/17/2023

• On pace for what?! How more milestones could be met in '23, by Anthony Castrovince, 5/16/2023

• Get to know these 10 breakout relievers, by Theo DeRosa, 5/16/2023

• Here's the freshly updated Top 100 Prospects list, by Sam Dykstra, 5/14/2023

• Greinke becomes 5th pitcher to ring up 1,000 different batters, by Anne Rogers, 5/14/2023

• 10 biggest surprises so far this season, by Will Leitch, 5/12/2023

• Which teams might be sellers at Trade Deadline?, by Mark Feinsand, 5/12/2023

• One quick fix each team needs, by MLB.com writers, 5/10/2023

• The History of the Baseball Cap, by Michael Clair, 5/9/2023

• These prospects are off to the hottest starts this season, by Jim Callis, 5/9/2023

• Who are the early MVP favorites?, by Thomas Harrigan, 5/8/2023

• These 8 players could turn things around, by Brian Murphy, 5/5/2023

And finally, if you are interested in daily, yet quick-read, baseball-related email newsletters, you can’t go wrong with these three:

• Baseball Reference Newsletter - recaps of yesterday's top performers, a look ahead at today's games, unique milestones and Stathead spotlights, and "On This Day" and "Born This Day" lists.

• MLB Morning Lineup - links to the latest articles, videos, and more from MLB

• Horsehide Trivia - a challenging baseball trivia question each day, from D. Bruce Brown

Did you know? I wrote a book with the same title as this Substack newsletter / blog: Now Taking the Field: Baseball’s All-Time Dream Teams for All 30 Franchises. It was published in early 2019, by ACTA Sports, the publisher of the annual Bill James Handbook and other popular titles. You can learn more about it at www.NowTakingTheField.com, or buy directly at Amazon and other booksellers.