The Baseball Listicle Lineup for January 9-23, 2023

Issue #60

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 January 9-23, 2023, starting with articles written by other baseball-focused Substack authors:

• Junk Wax on the Hall of Fame Ballot, by Wax Pack Gods, 1/22/2023

• Forgotten Great? 19th Century Pitcher Was True Workhorse, by Paul Semendinger at Here's the Pitch: the IBWAA Newsletter, 1/21/2023

• Memes and all, Cardinals’ Lars Nootbaar is Ready to be Breakout Star, by Josh Jacobs at Here's the Pitch: the IBWAA Newsletter, 1/20/2023

• If He Wins MVP Honors, Michael Harris II Will Join Elite Company, by Dan Schlossberg, second article at Here's the Pitch: the IBWAA Newsletter, 1/20/2023

• 5 (Blinkety) BLANK Baseball Cards, by Wax Pack Gods, 1/15/2023

• A Carlos Correa Redux, and More Baseball Thoughts, by Joe Posnanski, 1/12/2023

• Let's Get Back to the Hall of Fame Ballot, by Joe Posnanski, 1/12/2023

• Do The Pirates Have A Plan?, by Daniel Epstein at Here's the Pitch: the IBWAA Newsletter, 1/9/2023

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

• Ohtani and more: Next year’s most intriguing free agents, by Anthony Castrovince, 1/23/2023

• These 8 players need to stay healthy in 2023, by Thomas Harrigan, 1/22/2023

• 8 HOFers you may have forgotten were traded, by Daniel Kramer, 1/21/2023

• Sal Bando, A's captain and Brewers 3B/GM, dies at 78, by Adam McAlvey, 1/21/2023

• Which team is most likely to go worst to first?, by Will Leitch, 1/19/2023

• Roundtable: Which HOF snubs would fare better today?, by Mark Feinsand, Alyson Footer, Sarah Langs, and Mike Petriello, 1/18/2023

• 7 grizzled free agents we’d like to see get one more shot, by Will Leitch, 1/16/2023

• The funkiest windups in MLB history, by Manny Randhawa, 1/16/2023

• These batting stances are truly unforgettable, by Anthony Castrovince, 1/15/2023

• Here are 12 stunning projections for 2023, by David Adler, 1/12/2023

• With Correa not going to Mets, the top 10 lineups for '23 are ..., by Anthony Castrovince, 1/11/2023

• 7 prospects impacted by offseason moves, by Sam Dykstra, 1/10/2023

• Our crystal ball predicts the next 10 World Series champs, by Will Leitch, 1/9/2023

• 7 numbers that should improve in 2023, by Shanthi Sepe-Chepuru, 1/8/2023

• Who will win Rookie of the Year in '23? We polled baseball execs, by Jonathan Mayo, 1/8/2023

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.