2018 Baseball Preview: American League East

With baseball peeking above the horizon, Ski-U-Blog gives its second annual season preview series. Rather than one massive post for each league, there will be a post per division.

With the Senior Circuit out of the way, we turn our attention to the American League, beginning with the East.

2018 Baseball Preview: National League West

With baseball peeking above the horizon, Ski-U-Blog gives its second annual season preview series. Rather than one massive post for each league, there will be a post per division.

Today, we close the book on the National League with a look at the West.

2018 Baseball Preview: National League Central

With baseball peeking above the horizon, Ski-U-Blog gives its second annual season preview series. Rather than one massive post for each league, there will be a post per division.

We continue with the NL Central, featuring three teams with realistic playoff aspirations.

2018 Baseball Preview: National League East

With baseball peeking above the horizon, Ski-U-Blog gives its second annual season preview series. Rather than one massive post for each league, there will be a post per division.

Today, we begin with the National League East.

Who Is Today's Otto Vélez?

Otto Vélez's major league career began in 1973 with the New York Yankees. The Yankees signed Vélez as a 19-year-old out of Puerto Rico in 1969, advancing through the system resembling what we call today a three-true-outcomes hitter, striking out more than most other batters but making up for it with above-average power and exceptional plate discipline. In his last full year at AAA, Vélez averaged almost a walk per game as part of a .269/.450/.562 season. The corner outfielder never fully clicked in the Bronx, however, and he never consistently saw the field until he was selected by the Toronto Blue Jays late in the 1976 expansion draft.

The 52 Albums I Listened to in 2017, Part III: 10-1

Below are the best 10 albums I listened to in 2017. If you want the other 42, they can be found here (with proper context) and here. Let's get right to it.

The 52 Albums I Listened to in 2017, Part II: 31-11

I listened to 52 albums in 2017's 52 weeks. In my previous post, I explained everything and began my rankings and reviews of them. Here are numbers 31 through 11. From here on out, I include my two favorite songs from each album.

The 52 Albums I Listened to in 2017, Part I: 52-32

In April, two of my friends constructed, with much assistance from the internet, a list of 365 albums they were going to listen to in as many days. Many, but not all, were considered classics. Some were just albums they wanted to cross off their personal lists. With a few exceptions though, neither of them had heard any albums on the list before, so the whole thing was meant to be an exercise in music self-education. For each album they listened to, they provided ratings, their favorite songs, and brief reviews, which were contained in a lengthy Google spreadsheet.

They asked if I wanted in on this. I told them I had no intention of doing the whole 365, but I agreed to pick those on the list that interested me or that I heard were essentials.

The idea worked longer than you might expect, with one friend filling almost all his cells in the spreadsheet into early August and the other giving his ratings and reviews here and there, but when school started, it became harder to keep up with the list, and the thing just kind of faded away.

However, I kept selectively participating, and on my own, I started listening to other albums I'd heard or read about, or which otherwise got my attention.

I don't pretend to know exactly how many albums I tend to average in a year, but by late November, I started to think that I had to have listened to more than whatever that average was. I created my own spreadsheet where I listed and ranked all the albums I had listened to since the beginning of 2017, and, noticing I was not far away from 50, decided to make that my new goal. When, with a couple weeks left, I reached 50, I got the idea to add on a couple more.

So, I can say that in 2017, I listened to 52 albums in 52 weeks. (Hardly 365 in 365 days, but it's something.) Beginning below, I ranked and reviewed each of those 52 albums. Some I actively sought out, and some I happened to be in the room and heard.

I've divided them into three groups: the top 10; and then the top and bottom halves of the rest. Here is the bottom half, numbers 52 through 32.