🇺🇸 b 🗽 g 🇺🇸 h 🗽

I know there are more insidious uses of AI, but one of the most depressing to me is when it pops up in local TV ads. These things are supposed to be folk art; put your uncle in a bad wig like god intended.

@Travis_Sawchik In an alternate cap-and-floor universe, teams are interested in acquiring Nick Castellanos expiring deal (and then cutting him). More offseason business is good for overall interest/business.

oh brother

Dear Subscriber, With the first games of Spring Training just around the corner, we are sharing some important updates about your subscription with Major League Baseball. Your MLB At Bat subscription has been rebranded as MLB+. With MLB+, you have access to everything that was included in your MLB At Bat subscription plus 24/7 access to live MLB Network programming (US only), including select live out-of-market games. We are notifying you of the annual automatic renewal of your MLB+ Yearly subscription for the 2026 full yearly price of $59.99. Your Subscription With MLB+, you can listen to all regular season MLB games live or on demand (with no blackout restrictions). You have the choice of home or away broadcasts and alternative Spanish audio (where available). US subscribers can also watch MLB Network programming 24/7 through the MLB apps - including select live out-of-market games as well as MLB Network shows like MLB Tonight, MLB Central, Intentional Talk and MLB Now – through the 2026 season and offseason. Plus you can stream live MiLB games, MLB Big Inning, and original series and documentaries.

Oh good, MLB is killing one of its best products: an app for season-long radio broadcasts. It's merging it with all the other video & streaming stuff and jacking up the price. I hope the radio option comes with the new #STLCards TV option but that's unclear at the moment.

The one man who made Kyle Farnsworth the most searched pitcher in Iowa Former big league pitcher Kyle Farnsworth was born in Wichita, Kan. He went to high school and college in Georgia. He pitched for Chicago, New York, Detroit, Atlanta, Tampa Bay, Kansas City and Pittsb...

"I have done some deer hunting up there, but wouldn't think that would make me the most-searched old, washed-up baseball player in 2025."

The full, ridiculous tale of how one man made Kyle Farnsworth @baseball-reference.com's most searched pitcher in Iowa for 2025: www.mlb.com/news/kyle-fa...

Contrast of Forms, by Fernand Léger, 1913, (rotated) 📸 by Mike Segar

#18 What I think will happen in the next CBA negotiation Plus, did the strike zone really change?

And also ... a scenario forecasted by @hannahrkeyser.bsky.social almost a year ago in The Bandwagon. bandwagon.substack.com/p/18-what-i-...

Happy Birthday, Abe. Below, Lincoln the Rail Splitter, Currier and Ives 1860.

What would MLB look like with a salary cap? Explaining the wide-ranging, game-changing effects From free agency to guaranteed contracts to franchise values, a salary cap would completely remake the MLB landscape.

What would MLB look like with a salary cap? Everything you need to know about the wide-ranging, game-changing effects, from free agency to, yes, competitive balance

MLB wants an NHL-style hard cap. $240m ceiling, $160m floor could be target

www.nytimes.com/athletic/704...

Sam Phalen tweet: Great job by many of you flagging this. Here are FOUR different times this offseason where #WhiteSox GM Chris Getz has referred to Luisangel Acuña as a switch hitter. Acuña is, in fact, NOT a switch hitter. Not great. Four times isn’t a misspeak.

Did David Stearns lie to Chris Getz to get rid of Luisangel Acuña? It's possible!

The Pentagon and the FAA have clear structures in place to ensure that they are, in fact, in clear communications with each other. These structures have existed for decades.
The US military must obey FAA regulations at all times by the law.
I used to work as a CTR for the USAF office that did this.

Pre-2023 the Cardinals were a fun fact factory of truly impressive “have not done this or that bad thing in x many years” anecdotes. I think we’re down to 1) have not had a 10-game losing streak in a long time (1980); and 2) have not had a 100-loss season in a really really long time (1908).

PECOTA projections at Baseball Prospectus, which foresee the Cardinals going 66-96 in 2026.

Since Branch Rickey took over as club president in 1917, the Cardinals have never lost more than 93 games in a season.

What it was like to be a bush at Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance The bushes on the field during the halftime show became a meme after the internet found out they were actually human performers.

great story www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/...

Cardinals Farm Director Rob Cerfolio Discusses a Deep St. Louis System The rebuilding Cardinals have a lot of talent in the pipeline, and Cerfolio is playing a key role in developing it.

line from Rob Cerfolio's interview at FanGraphs is gonna stick with me for awhile bc so much of public player evaluation has turned the other way: "We’re not solving for Double-A performance. We’re solving for major league impact."

blogs.fangraphs.com/cardinals-fa...

due to the magic, wonder, and vagaries of time, tomorrow is now today. PECOTA projected standings are live, please commence rending garments and gnashing teeth

Cardinals Farm Director Rob Cerfolio Discusses a Deep St. Louis System The rebuilding Cardinals have a lot of talent in the pipeline, and Cerfolio is playing a key role in developing it.

Cardinals Farm Director Rob Cerfolio Discusses a Deep St. Louis System blogs.fangraphs.com/cardinals-fa...

Only one Olympic pair, the Czech brother-sister pair of Daniel Mrázek and Katerina Mrázeková, skated to AI music. But they ran into a problem — the first time they asked AI to spit out a 1990s song, it plagiarized the lyrics to an actual awesome 1990s song, “You Get What You Give” by the New Radicals. (A true banger, maybe my favorite 1990s song, tbh.) The video is STUNNING, I have no idea how they thought they could get away with it. For the Olympics, they swapped that one out for a new AI song, which also sucks but isn’t directly stolen from anybody.

wild AI story from the Olympics
ice dancers were told to use songs "in the style of the 1990s." One Czech pair tried using AI to pump out a song to skate to, but their AI bot fully plagiarized "You Get What You Give" by The New Radicals and they had to change it
sports.beehiiv.com/p/olympics-d...

“His stories have tapped into the zeitgeist in ways that should make us uncomfortable,” @mousterpiece.bsky.social writes of Scorsese’s ‘Taxi Driver.’ “The story of Travis Bickle is a discomfiting affair, because young men like him have always existed, often hiding in plain sight.”

I wrote some jokes about what these chatbots might actually look like. But I also did some serious digging about this agreement and the company the MLBPA just partnered with.

So @jamessmyth621.bsky.social and @jaysonst.bsky.social have been all over it this morning.

I just want to add that MLB and the NFL have the same level of competitive balance despite MLB playing 10x more games *and* allowing a lower percentage of its teams into the playoffs.

St. Louis Cardinals Top 53 Prospects In case the number of prospects in the headline didn’t give it away already, this is a very deep system.

St. Louis Cardinals Top 53 Prospects blogs.fangraphs.com/st-louis-car...

according to a pediatric ER doctor my wife follows on Instagram they have started to see children coming in sick because their parents are asking ChatGPT what the correct dosage is on over the counter medication instead of just looking at the instructions on the bottle

Which second baseman led the position in Process+ last year?

One of my favorite targets for fantasy in a really shallow position

Watching BEAUTY AND THE BEAST with the kids and it looks absolutely gorgeous. Such beautiful animation. So impressive

Ms. Hart has become an A.I. evangelist. Through her author-coaching business, Plot Prose, she's taught more than 1,600 people how to produce a novel with artificial intelligence, she said. She's rolling out her proprietary A.I. writing program, which can generate a book based on an outline in less than an hour, and costs between $80 and $250 a month.

Oh she’s a scam artist, got it! Every single time you hear about a person offering coaching in one of these pieces they’re just a scammer and the media falls for it

Hector Gomez tweet: BREAKING: Urban music artist Bad Bunny paid for the insurance of players Carlos Correa and Francisco Lindor; however, neither the #Astros nor the #Mets granted them permission to play in the 2026 World Baseball Classic, per Carlos Baerga.

Non zero chance Bad Bunny shades the Astros and Mets during his Super Bowl halftime show

Amid chaotic data center debates, industry warns Illinois will miss out unless privacy law weakened Residents already have demands about jobs and the environment. Now data center operators want Illinois to reduce its biometric protections.

"Residents already have demands about jobs and the environment. Now data center operators want Illinois to reduce its biometric protections." www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/08/d...