Where were we at
Long time no see!
For the few who know this space and the lesser who’d thought what I was doing, being 1 year AWOL and all of that, let’s say 2023 had a lot of downs and some ups.
Health-wise I had my fair share of troubles, minor illnesses and a trip through the knife that KO’d me for about a month, but I’m in the best shape of my life, just like your favorite pitcher/hitter come Spring Training.
Baseball has been not too kind to me, Astros losing to Texas in the ALCS still hurts, while BaseX, the Italian Center for Sabermetrics I’m a referent for, still is a project more than a reality, having collaborated with FIBS but not yet under a contract.
I’ve also realized baseball analysis is moving away from macro questions, whether that is plate discipline, roster construction or else, to the smallest micro issues: a pitcher’s FB shape, a hitter’s bat path to name a few.
That makes writing about them a journey and a half, as a lot of the data comes from Trackman, Rapsodo and proprietary systems which are not readily available to the public.
If I had to go on yapping about Savant stats, classic sabermetrics and your run of the mill WAR, I’d rather you read FanGraphs and all other professional, specialized publications which are far better and knowledgeable than me.
That’s why I’m not planning to be back, not in a structured, constant manner at least. I’ll maybe write a piece or two when something comes up, and not in the analytically filled way I used to.
At the end of the day, I think it’s time to acknowledge I’m far from a unique voice in the baseball enviroment, just another maniac eating tables and spitting out numbers, and if that’s what I can offer, I wouldn’t even buy it myself.
I will talk baseball, Kdramas and everything I used to talk about in the years past, my interests didn’t change a bit strangely enough, but I’ll do it in a different way: instead of providing cold-blooded analytical facts, I’ll just spew out whatever comes to mind, letting my thoughts flow out without the constraints of graphs, scales and dimensions.
Writing stuff shouldn’t be a planned endeavor, rather a way to blow steam out, calm yourself down and interact with whoever wants to follow your ramblings, and that’s what I’m going to do.
I didn’t start all of this to have an audience and as I went on writing, I lost the point, feeling kind of pressured to put out stuff.
Whenever I’ll have something to say, you’ll hear from me.
So here I am, back from the dead, tired but alive.
I’ll be back, different but still me.
Spring is on its way.
