The Baseball Listicle Lineup for May 20 - June 2, 2023

Issue #94

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 20 - June 2, 2023, starting with articles written by other baseball-focused Substack authors:

• Cy Young Leaders, by G. Scott Thomas, at 5/31/2023

• MVPs at the quarter pole, by G. Scott Thomas, at 5/30/2023

• 5 Baseball Cards Built for Speed, by 5/28/2023

• Francisco Alvarez is Fitting In by Ray Kuhn and Does Monday’s Memorial Day Milepost Suggest Final Standings? by Dan Schlossberg at 5/27/2023

• Friday Rewind: Limbering Up, by Joe Posnanski at 5/26/2023

• The First Night Game in MLB Was Played 88 Years Ago Today by Matt Graves 5/24/2023

• 5 Baseball Card Graduates Wax Nostalgic, by 5/21/2023

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

• 7 underperforming teams and how they can turn it around, by Thomas Harrigan, 6/2/2023

• 7 bold predictions for June, by Anthony Castrovince, 6/1/2023

• Baseball's best players in the month of May, by Will Leitch, 5/31/2023

• 8 big All-Star voting storylines to follow, by Cole Jacobson, 5/31/2023

• There's a shakeup in Rookie Power Rankings, by Matthew Leach, 5/30/2023

• 40-40 year? We could see something even more rare, by Andrew Simon, 5/28/2023

• These sluggers haven't hit 3 HRs in a game ... yet, by Jason Catania, 5/27/2023

• Kimbrel third fastest in history to reach 400-save mark, by Todd Zolecki, 5/27/2023

• The October-starved teams most likely to make it in '23, by Will Leitch, 5/26/2023

• 10 former Top 100 prospects who are taking flight in '23, by Brent Maguire, 5/25/2023

• Ranking 10 potential first-time MVP winners, by Will Leitch, 5/24/2023

• Why these 7 hitters are so much better this season, by Henry Palattella, 5/23/2023

• These are the best offseason acquisitions so far, by MLB.com writers, 5/20/2023

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.