For years, opponents of Major League Baseball’s draft who believed it stifled the true value of players have hypothesized about ways to avoid its constraints. Nineteen-year-old Carter Stewart is ready to test the viability of an alternative — and travel more than 7,500 miles from his Florida home to do it.
Stewart is in agreement on a six-year contract worth more than $7 million with the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks of Japan’s Pacific League, sources familiar with the deal told ESPN. Stewart was the No. 8 overall pick in last year’s MLB draft but didn’t sign after the Atlanta Braves, who believed he was injured, offered him a signing bonus well under the $4.98 million slot value of the pick — around $2 million. Stewart went to junior college instead and was expected to go early in the second round of this year’s draft — and receive an offer of less than $2 million.
A consummate coach on the field, the 12-year veteran sits down with The MMQB’s Andy Benoit to break down tape, talk about joining the Rams and explain why he won’t spill the beans about his former team’s coverages.
… By talking less and questioning more, I have compelled my children to listen, think and solve problems on their own. Through some trial and error, both as a mom and as an academic and life coach for teens and college students with ADHD, I hit on the right questions.
… Running is a unique individual sport because it’s actually marbled with elements of teamwork. There are cross-country teams, relay squads, and track meets that are collectively scored. Many runners who are finished with their school days go on to join running groups, ranging from elite teams to local clubs. Yet you don’t need anyone else to run—some runners thrive on hammering their miles in solitude. There’s also the added complexity of competing against your own teammates in an every-runner-for-herself, starkly objective measure on the race course.
Why do we stick together, and what is the balance between sharing the work and going it alone that can help us thrive on race day?
… Drawing on two decades of educating youth sports stakeholders on injury prevention and talking to thousands of parents — from mothers of Professional and Olympic athletes to fathers of 8-year-olds in their first year playing tackle football — I shared with the country’s leading sports medicine physicians and researchers during my 15-minute, TED-style talk the concerns parents have been expressing to me about ESS and offered some thoughts on what I thought might be done to reverse what many view as a dangerous trend.
Parents are Worried and Trapped
What I am hearing from parents about early sports specialization is that they are feeling worried and trapped.
… OUTSIDE: What was the biggest surprise to you in researching and reporting Range?
DAVID EPSTEIN: The single most surprising study in the book, to me, was conducted at the U.S. Air Force Academy: The study found that teachers who are the best at helping students do well in their own class today systematically undermine the development of those same students tomorrow, who go on to underperform in future classes. That’s a deeply counterintuitive finding, but it’s also a theme in the book—that behavior which causes the best performance in the short-run can damage development in the long-run.
… Kitting kids out with fitness trackers and encouraging them to view fitness through stats, data, numbers and targets is setting them up to see life as an endless competition. There is a commendable aspect to what fitness trackers are out to achieve. I’m all for encouraging people to move. They have served as great motivational tools for many people who find themselves in an exercise slump. But when they start to market that to kids, it gets a little dicey. Whoever was in charge of the children’s edition decided to not include calories burned or body fat percentages as a measurable.
“The present study aimed to assess if changes in speed and stroke parameters, as measured by an inertial sensor during a maximal effort swimming test, could provide an effective detection of anaerobic capacity in elite swimmers…”
“…The wearable inertial sensor could represent a feasible solution to evaluate strokes parameters allowing a timely follow-up of variations in swimming biomechanics along the course of the test and the identification of differences in biomechanical strategy between swimmers. This analysis is of interest for swimmers and coaches to characterise swimmer’s technique weakness/strength, and to plan individual race pacing strategy.”
Since the first Fitbit came on the market in 2008, wearable fitness trackers have been promising to help motivate us to get healthier and stay active. But for many people, especially those living in low-income neighborhoods, getting fit is more complicated than simply knowing how many steps you’ve taken.
Being active is more difficult in low-income neighborhoods, says Andrea Grimes Parker, an assistant professor at Northeastern, who designs technology to help vulnerable and marginalized populations overcome barriers to living a healthy life. Typically, these areas have fewer parks or sidewalk spaces where it is safe for children to play. Adults working long work hours or physically taxing jobs may struggle to find the time or energy to be active. Fitbits aren’t helping to solve these problems.
… By the time the unique fiber advance was unveiled last summer, members of Advanced Functional Fabrics of America (AFFOA), a not-for-profit near MIT, had already developed ways to increase the throughput and overall reliability of the process. And, staff at Inman Mills in South Carolina had established a method to weave the advanced fibers using a conventional, industrial manufacturing-scale loom to create fabrics that can use light to both broadcast and receive information.
Today, less than a year after the technology was first introduced to the world, around a quarter of a million semiconducting devices have been embedded in fibers using the patented technology, and companies like New Balance, VF, Bose, and 3M are seeking ways to use the technology in their products.
Discover magazine, The Crux blog, Anna Groves from
You probably already had a feeling you should skip the vending machine for an afternoon snack. But it turns out ultra-processed foods are even worse than we already thought.
A new study, out in Cell Metabolism, shows these foods cause weight gain even when they don’t have more fat, sugar, or carbohydrates than their healthier counterparts. There’s something about the processing itself that causes people to eat more before they feel full. On the flip side, switching to a whole food diet — even with no calorie restriction — can lead to measurable weight loss in just two weeks, the researchers found.
… Exercise Scientist and Coach at the University of Houston, Steve Magness, refers to this as “bro science,” or reasoning made by those who give out health advice but don’t have evidence to back up their claims. Rather than trying to dismantle each claim, Magness looks at the psychological phenomena that lead smart people to fall for diet trends.
“We only know our personal experience and don’t step back to look at other’s experiences,” says Magness, “We’re all familiar with the basics of how nutrition impacts our bodies and it’s simple to grasp onto. Because it’s so simple to grasp onto, we overestimate our knowledge. If we pick up a diet book, read a couple of articles, or listen to a podcast, all of a sudden our confidence on what we know about a diet is through the roof—but what we actually know is pretty minimal.”
Rising disposable incomes of people across developing economies are likely to allow for an increased adoption of customized wellness and nutrition programs in the next few years. Companies operating in the market are expected to adopt advanced technologies and machine learning solutions to better understand the nutrition needs of their target consumers.
As a practitioner, my goal is to get people excited about how data relates to them: to engage their curiosity, and for them to feel inspired, rather than overwhelmed by it. Design is the best means we have for making information useful—not just presenting it visually, but giving people ways to work and think with it. To this end, there are four central themes that we’re looking at when we talk about data and design.
And in the tropiest of design tropes (tropiest might not be a word), I’m gonna do this with a framework of four words that all start with the same letter.
… The game of hockey continues to morph and evolve at a frantic pace. Ten years ago, rolling out a D corps with three skaters under 6-feet would largely be an act of folly. And yet, here are the Bruins are — with Torey Krug, Matt Grzelcyk and Connor Clifton all playing a key role in Boston’s playoff run.
And now more than ever, coaching staffs are relying more and more on raw data and cold, hard analytics to help formulate decisions made to positively impact the product on the ice.