In praise of the best season preview around
A low effort newsletter to take us into the holiday weekend
First off, I’m not going to write anything on Thursday, so Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you eat the exact amount of food that gives you the most happiness.
Now, some people would say that it’s unwise to preview the upcoming MLB season before almost any of the big free agents have signed. Yoshinobu Yamamoto just got posted yesterday! Jung Hoo Lee still hasn’t been posted yet. Shohei Ohtani sure hasn’t signed anywhere. Lucas Giolito is still out there, just waiting for the Giants to take a flier on him.
But to me, this is the best time to preview next season. Because if you can get it right now, oh boy, you must be really good.
Also, the subject of this newsletter will absolutely not get it right.
So what is it? What is this mysterious preview that has reddit users raving, saying, “That was mesmerizing,” or, “im unironically invested in this” or:
Praise be to the marbles for bestowing upon us their wisdom and generosity once more.
The marbles see all. The marbles know all.
The marbles will set us free.
Yes folks, that’s right: it’s marbles.
For the second year in a row, valued reddit user trollinacage has begun simlating the upcoming season with simulations of marbles going through an obstacle course. Each marble is labeled with a team’s logo, and whichever one reaches the end first is the loser, and that team finishes in the lowest possible place. So, in the above example, the Guardians were the team to be eliminated. Because the Twins (fifth place) and Tigers (fourth place) had already been first out in previous editions of the marble race, the Guardians are predicted to finish in third place.
Is this scientific? Absolutely, yes. Accurate? Undeniably. A perfect way to gauge the tenor of the upcoming season? Beyond a shadow of a doubt.
It’s also, strangely, exciting. I know, I know, I wouldn’t believe me either. But just check out the tension at the end of Day 7. For second after agonizing second, the Reds are teetering on the edge of elimination. It’s all on the line! The breaks keep going their way, but you know it can’t last forever. Then the Orioles show up, and then the Angels. The Reds have hope, if they can just stall a little longer. And then the Rays! Maybe the Reds will get lucky, and live to see another day. Just maybe, if they can hold out…
And then the Royals get packed into the same small space with the Reds, Orioles, and Rays. One of them, you know, is bound to sneak through. And, alas for our intrepid heroes from the Queen City, they draw the short straw. After more than a minute of being in peril, the peril finally comes for the Cincinnati Reds. They fall through the finish line, and the supertext reads:
24th: Reds
70-92
4th Place NLC
It is gloriously stupid content, and also an absolute delight. It is exactly the sort of thing the offseason is for. We will shitpost, and be aggressively dumb, and not care that our season preview is purely random. We will toast the successes — last year, the marbles were within two wins of the win totals of the Giants, Cubs, and Blue Jays, and within one of the White Sox — and ignore the failures — the Dodgers won 100 games last year and not 77, weirdly.
We get to treat these things like they matter, because the truth is, for the 3 to 5 minutes that you’re watching them, they do. The Giants have already been eliminated, but when I watch their marble race, I’m still rooting for them to avoid their fate. I care, just like I do about the real team. I celebrate them stalling and seeing another team pass them, and I mourn when the Giants overtake them to seal their fate. And then, when it’s over, it very suddenly doesn’t matter anymore. Because it never did.
It is the experience of watching sports, in miniature. It’s the thrill of competition without having to assign any pesky moral virtues or judgments to the winners and losers. You can simply root for a thing, watch it play out, falsely believe in its larger significance, and then be done. It’s totally meaningless and utterly delightful. I recommend it.
Wait, shit, I should have said that this is something I’m thankful for! Aw, damn. Really screwed up the theme. I’m bad at synergy.
Maestro: Precisely!
(My brother the doger fan and I dreamed up a baseball game using dice, and would fill out lineups and roll the dice for 9 innings. HUGE scores! Big fun!!)