Morning Reading

Perhaps more accurately, a couple of site updates and a couple news items for folks to read/watch.

First, the site updates — in keeping with the odometer turning tonight from 2013 to 2014, the 2014 Watchlist is up, and the 2013 Watchlist has been archived. With the downtime afforded by the winter break, I’ve finally gotten around to adding in the 2013 ballpark visits to Winston-Salem, Kannapolis, Hickory, Greensboro and Durham. Previous visits can be found on the “Road Trips” tab above.

Now, a story to read and a video to watch:

• With the perennial promises of new facilities for the Nats’ Low-A and High-A affiliates, it’s also a reminder that the minor-league stadium boom has a dark side to it, one that perhaps explains why it’s slowed so much and why I’m so pessimistic about it.

• If you’ve got 18 minutes to kill and can stand baseball slang interspersed with biomechanical jargon, then watch Trevor Bauer’s Pitch Design video. If nothing else, you might gain an appreciation of how something can be made very simple or very complex.