Zach Crizer's Avatar

Zach Crizer

@zcrizer.bsky.social

Baseball, culture + fandom at The Bandwagon. Subscribe: Bandwagon.ghost.io More of my work: https://linktr.ee/zach.crizer

2,058 Followers  |  488 Following  |  627 Posts  |  Joined: 03.07.2023
Posts Following

Posts by Zach Crizer (@zcrizer.bsky.social)

It's the best airport drink right?

05.03.2026 13:56 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

It is a key distinction. Was paranoid throughout that I was going to write β€œslider” out of habit.

04.03.2026 23:57 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Lol bsky.app/profile/jake...

04.03.2026 19:03 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Everything is coming up @rjandersonwrites.com

04.03.2026 18:13 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
MUTINY AFTER MIDNIGHT
YouTube video by Johnny Blue Skies MUTINY AFTER MIDNIGHT

Not going to be news here but the Johnny Blue Skies (Sturgill Simpson) country-funk-protest-party record he dropped on YouTube is wild (positive). youtu.be/QKHGmFvzjJ4?...

04.03.2026 18:13 β€” πŸ‘ 4    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
Post image

For a more blood-curdling instance: The D-backs bullpen! Run and hide! www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article...

04.03.2026 14:32 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
Post image

If you haven't already been reading the @baseballprospectus.com team previews, highly recommend. The visuals are such a strong, easy guide to visualizing each piece of a team. www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article...

04.03.2026 14:31 β€” πŸ‘ 8    πŸ” 4    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 1
Preview
Keep Slides Weird Somewhere around the summer of 2023, I developed a nagging feeling that the slides in Major League Baseball games were better. ByΒ better, I didn’t mean cleaner or more fundamentally sound, but I reco...

Are the slides better now?!

A Bandwagon theory, investigated. bandwagon.ghost.io/keep-slides-...

03.03.2026 13:26 β€” πŸ‘ 15    πŸ” 9    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 2
Preview
The Bandwagon Baseball, fandom + culture | MLB analysis, news and writing

If you enjoy, consider signing up to support the fan-focused baseball coverage at The Bandwagon. bandwagon.ghost.io#/portal/signup

03.03.2026 20:05 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
About 15 years ago, I visited Austin, Texas, for a journalism conference. You couldn’t shake a stick at a barbecue restaurant without spotting a magnet, bumper sticker or tie-dyed T-shirt imploring you (or someone) to Keep Austin Weird.
It was a marketing slogan that innately but perhaps cynically understood the nature of how any appealing thing β€” a city, a business, a method of improving outcomes in a lucrative professionalized sport β€” gets recognized and rushed into mass production, eventually losing the original appeal in the process. The arc of anything that accumulates value bends toward standardization. Quirks get shaved off. The shoddy becomes sleek. Character becomes characteristic. Soon enough, all the coffee shops with decent cold brew have brushed concrete floors and a cardamom bun on offer, chalkboards printed machine-neat in sans serif fonts.
Baseball versions of this happen all the time. It happened with catcher stances and the full windup and outfielder positioning and No. 2 hitters and the infield shift. It is happening with the new pitch boom and stuff metrics and first-pitch swings and fastball usage.
Styles only make fights until someone figures out which one wins 50.1% of the time.

About 15 years ago, I visited Austin, Texas, for a journalism conference. You couldn’t shake a stick at a barbecue restaurant without spotting a magnet, bumper sticker or tie-dyed T-shirt imploring you (or someone) to Keep Austin Weird. It was a marketing slogan that innately but perhaps cynically understood the nature of how any appealing thing β€” a city, a business, a method of improving outcomes in a lucrative professionalized sport β€” gets recognized and rushed into mass production, eventually losing the original appeal in the process. The arc of anything that accumulates value bends toward standardization. Quirks get shaved off. The shoddy becomes sleek. Character becomes characteristic. Soon enough, all the coffee shops with decent cold brew have brushed concrete floors and a cardamom bun on offer, chalkboards printed machine-neat in sans serif fonts. Baseball versions of this happen all the time. It happened with catcher stances and the full windup and outfielder positioning and No. 2 hitters and the infield shift. It is happening with the new pitch boom and stuff metrics and first-pitch swings and fastball usage. Styles only make fights until someone figures out which one wins 50.1% of the time.

And after thinking about how to do this for a very, very long time, I did prove something to myself. Maybe not what I set out to.

Hope you'll follow me down the rabbit hole. bandwagon.ghost.io/keep-slides-...

03.03.2026 20:03 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
Video thumbnail

Set out to prove that baseball's slides are just *better* these days.

bandwagon.ghost.io/keep-slides-...

03.03.2026 20:01 β€” πŸ‘ 6    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

πŸ“ˆπŸ“ˆπŸ“ˆ stupefied freeze frames

03.03.2026 18:55 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

that Josh Harrison play created one of the funniest baseball freeze frames

03.03.2026 18:19 β€” πŸ‘ 16    πŸ” 3    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
Keep Slides Weird Somewhere around the summer of 2023, I developed a nagging feeling that the slides in Major League Baseball games were better. ByΒ better, I didn’t mean cleaner or more fundamentally sound, but I reco...

really good piece from @zcrizer.bsky.social here. Great piece, tbh. On slides, whether they're getting better, what "better" means, and the scourge (my characterization) of homogeneity:

03.03.2026 16:50 β€” πŸ‘ 8    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 1
Somewhere around the summer of 2023, I developed a nagging feeling that the slides in Major League Baseball games were better.

By better, I didn’t mean cleaner or more fundamentally sound, but I recognize that was the most obvious way to understand the hypothesis. And by that reading, it was pretty universally dismissed as wrong. After enough raised eyebrows and blank looks, I started phrasing the question in a way didn’t besmirch my own baseball-watching credibility: β€œDo you think slides have gotten better or worse?”

I remember asking one team’s TV play-by-play announcer, while chatting in a clubhouse, and getting a response he found self-evident: β€œOh, definitely worse.”

Somewhere around the summer of 2023, I developed a nagging feeling that the slides in Major League Baseball games were better. By better, I didn’t mean cleaner or more fundamentally sound, but I recognize that was the most obvious way to understand the hypothesis. And by that reading, it was pretty universally dismissed as wrong. After enough raised eyebrows and blank looks, I started phrasing the question in a way didn’t besmirch my own baseball-watching credibility: β€œDo you think slides have gotten better or worse?” I remember asking one team’s TV play-by-play announcer, while chatting in a clubhouse, and getting a response he found self-evident: β€œOh, definitely worse.”

If that sounds counterintuitive to you ... I understand. bandwagon.ghost.io/keep-slides-...

03.03.2026 13:36 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
Keep Slides Weird Somewhere around the summer of 2023, I developed a nagging feeling that the slides in Major League Baseball games were better. ByΒ better, I didn’t mean cleaner or more fundamentally sound, but I reco...

Are the slides better now?!

A Bandwagon theory, investigated. bandwagon.ghost.io/keep-slides-...

03.03.2026 13:26 β€” πŸ‘ 15    πŸ” 9    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 2
Dear Mom and Dad,

I know what you’re thinking: what are we supposed to make of spring training? It can all feel pretty disconnected from the flow of regular-season baseball.

Oh, and why am I writing you a letter instead of texting like normal? Well, there’s this nostalgia-maxxing trend on TikTok, so I decided to check it out. Screen time down, productivity up. The clubbie is going to show me how to buy a stamp; pumped to do that later.

Dear Mom and Dad, I know what you’re thinking: what are we supposed to make of spring training? It can all feel pretty disconnected from the flow of regular-season baseball. Oh, and why am I writing you a letter instead of texting like normal? Well, there’s this nostalgia-maxxing trend on TikTok, so I decided to check it out. Screen time down, productivity up. The clubbie is going to show me how to buy a stamp; pumped to do that later.

At @dmagazine.bsky.social today, a little old-school correspondence on how to appreciate new-school spring training. www.dmagazine.com/sports/2026/...

02.03.2026 15:09 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
Dear Mom and Dad,

I know what you’re thinking: what are we supposed to make of spring training? It can all feel pretty disconnected from the flow of regular-season baseball.

Oh, and why am I writing you a letter instead of texting like normal? Well, there’s this nostalgia-maxxing trend on TikTok, so I decided to check it out. Screen time down, productivity up. The clubbie is going to show me how to buy a stamp; pumped to do that later.

Dear Mom and Dad, I know what you’re thinking: what are we supposed to make of spring training? It can all feel pretty disconnected from the flow of regular-season baseball. Oh, and why am I writing you a letter instead of texting like normal? Well, there’s this nostalgia-maxxing trend on TikTok, so I decided to check it out. Screen time down, productivity up. The clubbie is going to show me how to buy a stamp; pumped to do that later.

At @dmagazine.bsky.social today, a little old-school correspondence on how to appreciate new-school spring training. www.dmagazine.com/sports/2026/...

02.03.2026 15:09 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Oh god that comp comes up like 3 grafs into the pitchfork review so this isn’t interesting at all lol ignore me

25.02.2026 23:34 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 0

Am I wrong to say they sound like Parquet Courts minus all the pretentiousness?

25.02.2026 22:49 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
An early spring training study guide Good morning from the middle of a blizzard, it’s going to feel especially notable that baseball is on TV today. As promised inΒ last week’s essay on the rise of game-calling from the dugout, I’ve got ...

Bonus Bandwagon, making its debut on Ghost. πŸ‘€

A spring training study guide with points of interest including:

⚾️ The Astros' self-created Isaac Paredes conundrum
⚾️ Chase Burns' potential
⚾️ An elite nickname in the making for a Mariners prospect

bandwagon.ghost.io/an-early-spr...

23.02.2026 17:03 β€” πŸ‘ 7    πŸ” 3    πŸ’¬ 3    πŸ“Œ 0
Post image

Very extreme Twins prospect Emmanuel Rodriguez homered again today.

Wrote about him and his wild PECOTA projection in this morning’s Bandwagon. bandwagon.ghost.io/an-early-spr...

23.02.2026 23:01 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

we love a well-written, free-to-read sports newsletter that switches from a bad platform to a good one, don't we folks

23.02.2026 17:23 β€” πŸ‘ 110    πŸ” 8    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

I found it very straightforward -- had easy integrations to import the archives and subscriber lists from Substack.

23.02.2026 17:21 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
Post image

Unforeseen perk of switching platforms: The Bandwagon's background color now translates to the email newsletter. bandwagon.ghost.io

23.02.2026 17:20 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
About The Bandwagon The Bandwagon is a newsletter for baseball fans who want to fan smarter. In this space, emotional investment transcends team allegiances and curiosity reigns over preconceived notions. I'm Zach Crize...

You can sign up to receive the newsletter directly in your inbox β€” and support the project aimed at helping baseball fans fan smarter β€” right here. bandwagon.ghost.io/about/#/port...

23.02.2026 17:05 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
An early spring training study guide Good morning from the middle of a blizzard, it’s going to feel especially notable that baseball is on TV today. As promised inΒ last week’s essay on the rise of game-calling from the dugout, I’ve got ...

Bonus Bandwagon, making its debut on Ghost. πŸ‘€

A spring training study guide with points of interest including:

⚾️ The Astros' self-created Isaac Paredes conundrum
⚾️ Chase Burns' potential
⚾️ An elite nickname in the making for a Mariners prospect

bandwagon.ghost.io/an-early-spr...

23.02.2026 17:03 β€” πŸ‘ 7    πŸ” 3    πŸ’¬ 3    πŸ“Œ 0

Jumbo Russell Branyan awaits his moment to shine. www.mlb.com/video/russel...

21.02.2026 18:50 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
Post image Post image

Some news: The Bandwagon is switching to Ghost.

Plus, I’m opening up a way to support the newsletter so it can stay free for all fans.
bandwagon.substack.com/p/the-call-i...

19.02.2026 16:39 β€” πŸ‘ 80    πŸ” 12    πŸ’¬ 4    πŸ“Œ 2

Oh, never took it as criticism. The internet is indeed internet-ing about it.

20.02.2026 16:33 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0