+ Pretty cool feature for TBC PREMIUM that I want to share with you.

Let's say you want to look at all Draft Picks from Slot #2. The initial view will list all player with bio attributes, draft info and some career info. But with PREMIUM, you'll see slot value + bonus value. You can filter the table. You'll see a player's current roster status, organization and current level.

AND...you can also change the view to "MLB Stats View" or "Minor Stats View". And then sort the stats and filter them and see the best picks per slot! It works on several draft views. Team Draft Class, picks by round, picks by year. Its also available in the Draft Research Application.

+ Indy League Coaching staffs were added this year. Added 2025 today. I try to add at least Managers each year but took the plunge and added full on-field coaching staffs, or what was listed, or what I could find. I'm still in the processing of finalizing all 2025 Indy Stats so this info will trickle onto the site in coming days.

+ Fixed an issue with the 2025 leaderboard shading. The script decided it wanted players with 3 at bats and a .667 batting average to be considered batting champion so I had to put an end to that insanity. Should be qualified players on % stats now.

> I worked from a car mechanic's waiting room today. It is tire season in Quebec. All cars must have winter tires between December 1st and March 15th. Its not a bad law. But it means mayhem each changeover season. I had my appointment today and the guy at the desk walked with me to my car and physically checked the tires with his finger before deciding whether to sell me new tires. I'm a cynic. I'm on the defensive in these situations. I don't like being upsold. That's why I don't do it. I help the customer, not try to convince him he needs more for my own benefit. I promote my services but when interacting with The Cube, I stay true to what you need, never any pressure. Long story short, my tires (thank God!!) were fine.

It happens at the oil change places. They bring out the dirty filters, likely placing leaves in there for dramatic effect. Maybe dipping it into a nearby playground sandbox. I don't know. What can you say? They have the filter in front of you. It looks dirty right? It looks like its been through a 162-game season on gimpy knees. I came for an oil change but sure, here's $60 more for 2 filters.

I don't like pressure to buy and its a problem. At the Baseball Hall of Fame, they tried to upsell me when I paid to enter. Tried to sell me a book for my coffee table. Or a subscription to something. He made friends with me first. He made reference to his visits to Canada. And yet all I could think was he was trying to upsell me. With my wife, my daughter and her boyfriend all behind me, I said no. It felt impossible for me to say yes. And I felt horrible for it. This is the Hall of Fame after all? For my sport! I loved the Hall of Fame. Why couldn't I help support them? What kind of person am I?

But yeah, I worked at the mechanic's today. Hot-spotting on my phone. I brought out the laptop and entered data while relaxing in his comfortable waiting room with leather chairs that looked like car seats taken directly out of a luxury car.

+ Continued working on the TBC+ metric. Its now available for D1 players since 2002. Creating the metric requires a high% of stats for a particular league/conference and TBC has (close-to) full D1 stats for these years. Applying the metric to other college divisions will be more challenging but that's up next.

The next step will be to put an asterisk for players with a low sample size of data. But I like how the metric gives you an idea of a player's best statistical seasons at a single glance.

+ A note about player batting grids. The light green shading is for when a player led the league in a particular stat. Light blue means top 10.

+ Small fix to the Minor League stats section. 3 views weren't working properly and have been fixed. (1) Fielding Stats. (2) Coaching Staffs (3) Prospects

+ Don't forget about TBC PREMIUM. If you visit the site often, its a much better research experience. Its only $2/month. ($24). Pretty excellent value.

> I went for my first run today in a while. I have had a cough since my cruise. The last time I ran was actually on the cruise, on the top deck. There's a running track. Since I am impulsive and, many times, unable to make sensible decisions, I declared on day 2, in the morning, that I was going to run. It was hot. It was a sea day. The pool was packed. It was a very bad decision. It was a very terrible running experience. Here are the 6 errors I made on that day:

Error #1: I went down to the cabin on floor 3 to get ready. My wife still at the pool. After changing into my smelly running clothes already wound up tightly in a bag, I put on my armband, my airpods and I energetically left the cabin towards the elevators...no wait...lets do the stairs. From floor 3 to floor 16 is a long way on a cruise ship. Each floor has 2 flights. Going down is easy. But going up is actually tiring. And by floor 9, I was tired and worried I would ruin my run. So I shifted to the elevator and cursed (possibly out loud) that impulsive part of my brain.

Error #2: You're on a cruise. You're eating a lot and drinking a lot (at least I am). I was not physically in great shape to run that day. Especially after a buffet breakfast 2 hours earlier. I was also on Liquid IV, trying to re-hydrate myself for the run. Its clear to me at this point, as I walk up to the track to start, already a little out of breath, that the impulsive part of my brain didn't give a s**t about me. It was always about the novelty of it.

Error #3: So I'm running now and I'm on top of a cruise ship in the ocean. There's wind. My hat is blowing off at certain parts of the track. I flip the hat around.

Error #4: Not done yet. There's a long uphill from deck 15 to deck 16. Its actually tough when you just finished taking one of almost everything at the buffet. After lap 3, I start alternating. Run a lap. Walk a lap.

Error #5: Although I don't mind running in hot weather, today, given errors #1-4 above, I'm feeling it. I'm sweating a lot. But I'm not going to give up.

Error #6: So its bad enough i have chosen the hottest part of the day, but the rules of the track seem to be only a small suggestion to most cruisers. People are standing in the middle of the track having conversations. Crossing whenever they feel like it. Walking 3 abreast, blocking my path. People walk the wrong way. The worst part is when people walk side by side around a blind corner and you think you're good and then you turn the corner and your face is inches from a slippery old man with too much sunscreen and back hair.

I don't regret the run. In fact, my watch said that I ran/walked 8.7 miles. (more like 2 but am I going to argue with Apple?) I'm glad I did it. In the end, it was my only run. We had a couple of great sunset walks on the track before supper though and it was very romantic.

I'll run on the next cruise. I'll go at 5pm. or 8am. I'll take the elevator. I'll sunscreen my bald head and leave the hat in the cabin. I'm no rookie. I'm a veteran now.

+ TBC+ is active in player batting grids. Its a good way to get a quick view of a player's offensive value for a given season. Its at the left of the stats columns and with a dark green background. It can give you a very quick evaluation of a player's value per season.

The stat is aggregated by season/league. A player qualifies to have a value if he has 14% of the highest Plate Appearance value for the league. I will be putting an asterisk next to those between 14% and 28% to indicate smaller sample size.

The stat is based on an adjusted wOBA using static 2025 coefficients. I'll work at improving this down the line but for now, there is no park adjustment. Additionally, it is not pure wOBA. It includes a stolen base success factor. This can either add points or remove points from a player's overall value. The highest adjustment I saw was for minor leaguers with a steal per game adding 14 points to their TBC+ value.

TBC+ has been applied to Pro teams so far and will be added to college over the coming days. I'll think about career values and other possible enhancements as well. The metric will also soon be applied to stat pages.

It is available to all users.

+ There are currently 23,689 card scans in the TBC Cards database. Honestly, I don't even know why. Its an itch I just needed to scratch.

+ There are 409 listings in the TBC Baseball Card Store. I add a few cards every day and I am hoping to get that number in the thousands. This is a great way to support TBC and get something back in return. Latest card added? A Spencer Jones Panini Prizm pre-rookie card.

+ High School names for unlinked schools now appear on player pages. What does this mean? I track most US/Canadian schools with an ID#. But for players with an international high school, the data is stored as a value, not a number. So you'll now see some international players with an unlinked high school displayed.

+ Also fixed (sorta) the College Logo on school pages which was appearing in the shape of a baseball card. But I also see some other issues so will jump on that today.

> I'm working on going through discomfort instead of around it or retreating. Difficult tasks. Difficult feelings. Whatever. I am certain the general population already understand this but its something I have struggled with most of my lifes. I pitch around most hitters. Sometimes I just give them first base. Mostly, I just take myself out of the game. I'll intentionally walk Andres Gimenez with the bases empty in a 1-run game to get to George Springer and then I'll leave Springer for someone else. I'll go to the dugout and avoid my teammates who will likely be glaring at me...confused. I'll go directly to the clubhouse. I'll clumsily grab my things. I'll drop my keys. Reach back and fumble at picking them up because my legs are still going. I'll turn off the clubhouse radio where the broadcasters are still discussing the walk. I'll drive my car to the hotel. I'll go to my room. I'll close the door. I'll double-bolt it. I'll go right to bed and dream of anything but baseball.

Dramatic. That's me. But its ADHD. Its avoiding the difficult. Its avoiding the unpleasant. Sometimes its avoiding the boring. And sometimes, you won't believe this, sometimes its just avoiding to avoid. For no reason. Just...because. Because your brain has created an imaginary (large) obstacle.

And so I'm trying to pitch to Gimenez, knowing that he could get a hit. I could walk him or worse, I could hit him. And he could get mad at me. I know at this point in my development, I am not likely to strike him out. But I'm teaching myself, slowly, with difficulty, that its not about the result of the Gimenez at bat. Its about the fact that I am there, on the mound, throwing the pitches. Being present. The experience. Storing that in my databank so I can look back and say to myself with confidence that I did that. I did not back down. I may give up a triple to Andres Gimenez. But I can say I was there on that mound and I that I threw a 92mph 4-seam fastball that was arguably a good pitch that was maybe slightly more towards the middle of the plate than I would have liked and Gimenez smoked it to the right field corner. And then I may face Springer who, to my astonishment, swings at the first pitch and hits one-hopper back to me (Did I get Springer out???). Maybe my body takes over and I run halfway to Nick Kurtz at first and I underhand the ball and head back to the dugout where my teammates high-five my effort. It was messy. It was uncomfortable. But I did it.

+ TBC PREMIUM subscribers get access to Scouting Grades on player pages. I just added 2025 for Top 30 prospects. The ratings are not from TBC. They're from Baseball America and MLB Pipeline. Traditional 20-80 grades for tools like speed and power or fastball and slider. 5+ tools listed for each of batting/pitching. I chose to not make it available to the masses and instead will direct you to the sites who do the work.

+ TBC+ is a new metric coming soon to batting grids. Its based on wOBA (not park adjusted) and is my entry into trying to provide a season summary metric for each player. I'll be providing this metric across all stats on the site. So MLB, Minor Leagues, Indy Leagues, all College Conferences. The testing will occur on the TBC PREMIUM site before being rolled out to all users. The metric is currently visible on PREMIUM player pages for pro leagues. Its indexed to 100. 100 is average. TBC+ is also modified to include player speed based on steals (or CS). I'll defer to BR and Fan Graphs for more accurate numbers but this is a good way to get "an idea" of a player's performance compared to the league average, for all levels.

+ Also added Today's MLB Birthdays to the front page. As always, you can see ALL birthdays in the Birthday section.

> I'm in the 5th or 6th inning of my life and I still have no idea how to fold a fitted sheet.

> Bought some cards yesterday. Made a pilgrimage to a new card store an hour away. Bought another blaster of 2025 Topps Heritage (got nothing of $ value) and an on-sale blaster of 2024 Panini Prizm. (got nothing of $ value)

But I did get 2 Expos parallels to add to my collection. Vladdy Sr and Pedro. There are some nice cards in the Panini set. The cards are thicker and although they don't have the MLB license, the quality of the card is strong.

I sell most of my 2025 Topps Heritage cards on eBay. If you collect, definitely go check out the listings and find any cards you need.

+ Colleges and Universities have begun to list their 2026 rosters and so TBC has begun the process of adding new players along with their biography attributes in addition to adding colleges to existing players. This is a long process. The priority is D1. Rosters can change from now until spring. Its unlikely that I'll get through all 1500-1600 schools.

+ I'm adding College Athletics Hall of Fame information (slowly) to the players notes section. Player Notes is no a priority compared to other datasets but I try to move this forward daily.

+ I'm amazed that the TBC X/Twitter account is at 9974 followers and is approaching 10k.

> I'm an atypical person. I'm a peculiar person. I am governed by dopamine rather than logic. I work hard. But I need to work a specific way. I am unable to prioritize the most important tasks from highest importance to lowest. I am unable to work all day on difficult tasks. I am unable to sustain work on the same task for too long. I have mentioned it before and it is a secondary topic of this blog. I am ADHD. I am atypical. I am neurodivergent. All suspected. But there is no reason to believe otherwise. Whether you believe in ADHD or have any opinion on the subject is irrelevant. If this is the case you likely don't have it. You don't experience the world like me. And that's okay. I don't care. I am becoming okay with that. There is something special about my gifts even it means I can't hold a proper conversation with another human being or have moods that overtake me the moment I even think of a person making a negative comment towards me. I have Rejection Sensitivity. I have suspected CPTSD. I am a beautiful well-adjusted mess.

The daily task list for TBC is diverse and designed specifically for my brain. It is a merger of challenging, numbing and mundane tasks. It is a cocktail. I am a task-list mixologist.

As I have started to learn about myself, the peculiarities and why I am governed the way I am by this brain ... I have realized that my task list had become a session in numbing. In other words, I was using work to calm myself. To regulate myself. I averted challenge. I procrastinated administration. It was not aligning with my goals of growth. Of taking up space in the Baseball world. Of making this my life.

But i didn't shock the system. I recalibrated. I re-aimed. I slowly, each day, changed the course. Slowly introducing growth tasks. Slowly removing numbing tasks that weren't going anywhere. Prioritizing TBC Insider, de-prioritizing high school rosters. Prioritizing Professional Services and de-prioritizing inane data elements that were focused on the numbing process of retrieval rather than its overall value to the site. I know it sounds strange my neuro-typical friend. But if you had my brain, and maybe some of you do, you'd understand.

And I also realized that its not only the tasks themselves, its where you do them. Where you do the work. The same desk every day doesn't work. Although my basement office is the safest place, it gets stale. And so I go to Starbucks twice a week. I rotate between 3 of them. I worked on my recent vacation. At the indoor pool. I wrote an article from the cafe. The outdoor pool facing the ocean. I worked in my cruise cabin, on the bed, while watching Fever Pitch. I worked at the Airport. The hotel. I worked on the airplane with free WiFi. I'll work anywhere.

I work in the car on the way to see my daughter at College. I work in the hotel. I bring my laptop to the hotel breakfast area at nights just because there are people who are there but who won't talk to me.

At home, I work at the kitchen table, on the couch while we watch Ted Lasso or Cruise videos or College Softball. In the marriage bed while we watch Love is Blind.

I'm not a 9-to-5 guy. I'm not a routine kind of guy. I need novelty. I need change. I need people around me but they need to not talk to me. I need vibe. I need music. I need things to look at. I'm peculiar. I'm strange. But not really. I'm just me.

+ If you collect Baseball Cards, please check out the TBC Baseball Card Store.

There are currently 322 individual cards listed in the store and I add several cards per day. 591 cards sold in 2025. Though it isn't a for-profit yet, someday I anticipate it being a side gig with profit. For now, its to unite the cards I don't want with the collectors who want them. And to learn about the hobby. How to buy, how to sell. All of that. I bought a lightbox this week to improve photos. I bought some 2025 Panini Prizm. I got 2 parallel Expos cards. A blue Guerrero Sr and a green Pedro. The green Pedro might be listed. The Blue Guerrero is going into the collection.

I collected cards when I was young. First in the 80s and then after a short break, I started back up in the late 80s and 90s Junk Wax era. Several years later, as we drove our daughter back and forth to the US to her college, I noticed that Walmart had sports cards. After a few visits where I would hover but not buy, my wife suggested that if its something that I wanted to buy again, that I should. "If it makes you happy, do it" she would say. It took 3 or 4 more visits. And then I started to buy. Topps at first. I bought a few 2022. I bought a lot of 2023. And then I bought everything. The price of cards in the US, even with the lofty USD/CAD exchange rate of 1.4, was still cheaper (like US gasoline!). A $24.99 blaster of Topps costs $50 in Canada. Not to mention the selection at Target vs any Walmart in Canada. Not even close. Although recently I did discover L'Imaginaire.

I am sure most of you do not collect. But there is something about opening a pack of cards that will never get old. Especially the modern sets. In the 80s or 90s, there were few inserts. I remember the 1988 Donruss set had some bonus cards but just about every pack of cards in the 2020s contains a parallel, an insert or a serial numbered card. Some contain more than 1! Its a lottery in every pack and its a win-win because there will almost be a card of a player you love! Almost, not always.

And honestly, when you hit, and I risk being tagged as a gambler or an addict here, but when you hit, and you get that Red Serial Numbered Skenes, or the Home Field Advantage De La Cruz or the serial numbered McGongle or a /25 Reggie Jackson. It just makes your day. You know the risks. You know that most packs will be lame. Adequate at best. But when you hit... Just try it. Buy a blaster. Rip it. Comp it. Get hooked.

+ Congratulations to the 2025 Los Angeeles Dodgers for their 2nd straight World Series Championship. How Yamamoto was able to pitch the day after he started defied modern pitching logic. But he held the Jays and the Dodgers prevailed in an incredible Game 7. Rojas, Pages, Muncy, Smith and Kim to end it.

+ As a Canadian, I honestly tried to root for the Jays, and by the end of the game, I was rooting for them. They made it easy to root for them. But truthfully, I was enjoying baseball at its best.

+ As luck would have it, we spent Game 7 at a nephew's birthday party in a non-sports, let alone baseball, family. I told Mrs. Cube that I was going to bring the iPad. Halfway to the destination, she asked me if I had the iPad. I did not have the iPad. I threw an expletive into the air.

When we arrived at the birthday party. The 20-year old birthday boy asked me if I was watching the World Series because he said he was...I looked at him sideways..."Yes" he said. We'll put it on at 8. I staggered backwards. I grabbed onto the couch arm. "I love you" I might have said to him.

So after the mingling, the small-talk, the Chinese food order-in buffet, the way-too-much halloween candy and the 2005 Spotify playlist, my sister-in-law mirrored the game from her phone. And I sat there, answering baseball questions from an array of people, in my glory, in a version of heaven. Not only did I get to watch Game 7, but i got to watch it with non baseball fans who were suddenly getting invested in the sport I love.

We left in the 6th with purpose. Making sure to be home for the end of the game. We got through the Yesavage innings and pulling into the driveway, we turned the car off to a Guerrero-Gimenez 3-6-3 double play.

We quicky fed the cats their supper and stayed on audio as we tried to gain video access through Sportsnet but for some cruel reason, our Internet was wonky. Sportsnet refused me on 2 computers and an iPad. And now the audio was fading...whhhhhhhaaaatttttt.

Finally, we gain access and we set up laptop #2 and we buckle up for the last 4 innings. My wife asking me several times to turn the game off because, in her own words..."I can't...."

I text my daughter, currently dressed as Katniss Everdeen for her Halloweek, and she's watching with her teammates. "This is more stressful than the 2022 Canada Games silver medal (softball) game you played." (Not really)

When Rojas homered, we were silent. When Rojas threw home, we were silent. When Pages knocked over Kike, we were silent. When Guerrero flipped to Dominguez, we cheered. When Gimenez threw home, we cheered. When Kirk got hit, we cheered. When Smith hit it out to left, we were silent. And when Kim stepped on 2nd and fired to 1st, we sat and watched as the Dodgers spilled out onto the field. And we felt what Toronto felt, actually, an entire country felt. And we, like them, sat silent.

And after a few minutes, we closed the laptop and turned off the lights. And we both admitted to each other the next morning that we had to do some box breathing to calm our nervous systems down enough to sleep.