He puts the hard "g" in "gifs". Look around you (not actually because that would be weird) and survey the BFIB digital landscape. Birds on the Black is like a COVID vaccine card - pretty much everywhere and proudly represented at that. With everything from branded merchandise to podcasts to a significant social media presence, BotB is an absolute content creation machine powered by intelligent, talented, funny creators (and me too on occasion). BotB is like 100Thieves but

MLB broadcasters explaining defensive runs saved and launch angle has reached "NFL announcers explaining the meaning of 'RPO' at least a dozen times a game" levels, and I loathe it. I'm not opposed to the inclusion of metrics in the broadcasts even if they intermingle with traditional statistics. What I am opposed to is the way metrics get introduced, conveyed, and used/abused. The presentation layer for advanced metrics is limited by the inflexibility of the conventional t

Unless you live under a rock or get most of your sports information from Facebook, you probably know that the Dodgers are hosting the Cardinals tonight in a best-of-one series to determine which team will face the 148-win Giants. Both Vegas oddsmakers and collective skill favor the 147-win Dodgers - a frugal team that scraped together a team of nobodies with a mere $247.7MM in Opening Day payroll. Fortunately for the Cardinals, betting odds are truly irrelevant and skill is

The fallacy of the maturity of baseball chances is the belief that because your favorite team has lost more frequently than expected in the past that the team is more likely to win in the future to restore balance to The Force. The underlying assumption is that the past team and the present/future teams are similar enough in constituency that maintenance of this belief isn't largely a function of improved components. Depending on your source of choice the Cardinals have a 2-

After nearly a dozen complaints from world-renowned ornithologists, bird watching enthusiasts, and Larry Bird, the St. Louis MLB team is changing its name. "We appreciate the efforts to inform our organization that we're not woke enough to understand how the use of our previous team name was offensive to the Northern Cardinal. After 10-15 minutes of deliberating over some organic selzter served in biodegradable cups at a restaurant that supports a shelter for at-risk pet ro

"Neither a seller or a buyer be." - Polonius (Hamlet - paraphrased beyond recognition but approved by Shakespeare during his most recent podcast) At the beginning of June, the idea of the Cardinals becoming active buyers before the trade deadline seemed reasonably plausible. Just 17 wins and 24 losses later a team with more holes than a Kardashian family reunion has no reason to buy. The Cardinals have no reason to sell either. Guys like Bader, Edman, O'Neill, and Sosa coul

MLB is working with the Atlantic League to test moving the pitching rubber back a foot to make it 61' 6" from home plate in hopes of evaluating the impact of such a change on strikeout rates. The idea is to "fix" the game by reducing the frequency of the three true outcomes in favor of meaningful contact because a ball in play equates to excitement and strikeouts are boring. Of course, the change will be implemented halfway through the minor league season for the Atlantic Le

The Cardinals waited.....and waited....and waited some more. Nothing. Then something. After the Cardinals finally unburdened themselves of the ruggedly handsome managerial deficiency that is Mike Matheny, something Wong-related finally happened. He popped off. He thrived. Given an opportunity by not-Matheny to play every day without having to look high over his shoulder for anyone looking to displace him, Wong spent 2019 playing like the guy he was always expected to be. He w

You've got free time. I've got free time. In my free time I've adapted something attributed to Einstein into a brain teaser that could consume several minutes (or hours) of your free time. You're welcome. Five houses painted five different colors stand in a row. One player lives in each house. The five players all drink some type of beverage, drive a certain type of car, and have a certain pet. None of the players drink the same beverage, drive the same type of car, or

Seriously. Do you have some vested interest in the players that may or may not join an exclusive club of elite and semi-elite baseball people? Perhaps you really like the town (or village, hamlet maybe?). Maybe you are big into overpriced museums in the middle of nowhere. Have you actually visited Cooperstown. If not, then please understand that getting there is the logistical equivalent of attempting to summit Everest without sherpas. It's a minimum 51-day investment of

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred probably despises kittens, rainbows, and helping old ladies across the street. He just seems like the kind of guy who vehemently opposes anything the rest of us consider beautiful in this world. He wants everybody off of his lawn and his neighbor's lawn as well. The opposite of love is not hate - it's Rob Manfred. Want to ruin the game so many love and cherish? He's the guy. He's the guy who leaves the toilet seat up even though he hasn't act

The moment news broke about Gerrit Cole's 9 year / $324M deal with the Yankees, I began trying to put into perspective a number that's well over 324,000,000 times what I'll earn in a lifetime as a blogger. The experience was like attempting to fully appreciate the amount of time it would take Yadier Molina to run to the moon. Unfathomable. Finding a useful point of reference was challenging, but I spent at least 5 minutes trying. Consider the "Cole" a standard unit of measu

The Cardinals started 2019 with a top ten Opening Day payroll and subsequently dedicated an immense amount of time to proclaiming that fact across the land. Their claim is supported by incontrovertible evidence available on the Google, so this isn't about the veracity of said claim. In fairness, they fell just short of the 8th place Astros for 8th place (a team that may or may not have spent the difference on metallic containers). The Cardinals spent money. They constantl

Baseball Twitter during the early offseason is like a threeway with way too much eye contact - awkward, but you still have to get through it. The dented trash cans from the Astros' dugout haven't even been replaced yet, and there's already far too much talk of Mookie Betts becoming a Cardinal, Anthony Rendon becoming a Cardinal, and Yadier Molina remaining an active Cardinal in perpetuity. Only one of these things sounds truly appealing, and it's not Rendon or Molina. That

If you solely concentrate on the stained glass of the Cardinal, it looks like it could be in a church somewhere. It would be fitting for the picture atop this article to be from a church as we will be discussing the St. Louis Cardinals just a couple dozen hours after their 2019 season dying a terrible death at the hands of the Washington Nationals. If you take in the entire picture, bar top and all, taken on the main drag of a small town (Abingdon) in the southwest corner of

It’s a tradition unlike any other. Once the Cardinals have played their final game, I delete the At-Bat app from my phone. As with most years, there is more baseball to be played. I’ll watch with an odd emotional detachment typically reserved for discussions about the possibility of life on Mars. I can’t be bothered to really care. I’ll still monitor events from afar, but the remaining focus will shift to rooting against Team Walgreens and the Yankees..and the Astros. Basical

"Only fight the battles you can win, idiot." -Sun Tzu in "The Art of fWAR" (unpublished probably) Now, I would normally ignore someone playing to the crowd a bit, but this was "General Hux's speech to the First Order troops that looked an awful lot like a Nazi rally" level pandering. It wasn't really, but I so wanted to use the "General Hux" line, because geek. It wasn't nearly that bad, but it was laughably absurd when you contemplate such a hefty stone being cast so poorly

Predictions that you didn't know you needed from an source you really can't trust... At no point will the National Anthem be performed by Ludacris, but it should be, because they probably won’t get Outkast. Either would be “lit af” as the kids say these days. At least one postgame interview involving Paul Goldschmidt will have all the energy of a Billy Eilish acoustic performance. That’s what we’ve come to know and expect from the guy who makes vanilla exciting. A dozen or mo

In case you were wondering about my initial response to the news of Chris Duncan's passing, there you go. Just don't think that reaction is limited to the passing of professional sportsball players or famous people in general. It's the exact same thing I think every time I hear of someone being diagnosed with cancer, undergoing cancer treatments, or dying as the result of complications due to cancer. The Chris Duncan news does not impact me any more or less than the same ne

Since taking over the starting catching duties from an injured Yadier Molina, Matt Wieters has slashed a completely unsustainable .256/.348/.563. That 12-game span undeniably represents a ludicrously small sample size, but it’s far better than anyone should expect from a backup catcher sitting 2nd on the depth chart behind Molina. Innings are hard to come by, and there is usually just enough time for a cup of coffee and a passed ball before Molina miraculously heals from what