The Baseball Listicle Lineup for April 20-May 4, 2023

Issue #85

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 week April 20-May 4, 2023, starting with articles written by other baseball-focused Substack authors:

• Expansion Class of 1998, by G. Scott Thomas, at Baseball's Best (and Worst), 5/3/2023

• 5 Wacky Moments Over The First Month Of The 2023 Season, by Elizabeth Muratore, at Here's the Pitch: the IBWAA Newsletter, 5/3/2023

• JoeBlogs Hall of Fame: The Fourth Class, by Joe Posnanski at JoeBlogs, 5/3/2023

• April Is Over but the Pirates Are Still in First Place, by Daniel Epstein, at Here's the Pitch: the IBWAA Newsletter, 5/1/2023

• 5 May Day Baseball Cards, by Wax Pack Gods, 4/30/2023

• Hitting the Panic Button on Two of My Faves, by Molly Knight, at The Long Game, 4/29/2023

• Friday Rewind: Six Degrees of Dick Groat, by Joe Posnanski at JoeBlogs, 4/28/2023

• Expansion Class of 1993, by G. Scott Thomas, at Baseball's Best (and Worst), 4/26/2023

• TTDMS: The quality start, by G. Scott Thomas, at Baseball's Best (and Worst), 4/25/2023

• 5 Baseball Cards to Crash a Birthday Party, by Wax Pack Gods, 4/23/2023

• MLB Is Back in Its Villain Era, by Molly Knight, at The Long Game, 4/23/2023

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

• How every team’s big offseason addition is doing, by Will Leitch, 5/3/2023

• Best signing? Future trade bait? Execs polled on 1st month, by Mark Feinsand, 5/3/2023

• The most surprising lineups, pitching staffs, by Thomas Harrigan, 5/3/2023

• Best division ever? AL East setting historic pace, by Sarah Langs, 5/2/2023

• There's a change atop the latest Rookie Power Rankings, by Matthew Leatch, 5/1/2023

• Here are our All-Star picks for season's first month, by Will Leitch, 4/30/2023

• What each team learned in the season's first month, by MLB.com writers, 4/30/2023

• These teams’ playoff odds have changed the most, by Thomas Harrigan, 4/29/2023

• Return to health brings return to form for these 8, by Henry Palattella, 4/27/2023

• Unveiling the Out-of-Position All-Stars, by Andrew Simon, 4/26/2023

• New stat identifies which backstops are elite at preventing steals, by Mike Petriello, 4/26/2023

• A slow starter to watch on every team, by Will Leitch, 4/22/2023

• These 14 under-the-radar pickups are paying off, by Manny Randhawa, 4/22/2023

• Introducing the Starting Pitcher Power Rankings, by MLB.com writers, 4/21/2023

• This week in baseball stats, from Shohei to Wisdom, by Sarah Langs, 4/20/2023

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.