Roster Moves Amidst It All
To worry about pointlessness in the future implies a future at all
They’re saying five years and $130 million for Ranger Suarez. I love the guy but that’s silly money. I think the Phillies will ultimately look back on this and we’ll feel like we parted with him at the right time. Coupled with the 40 million the Sox are paying Bregman now and you wonderif it’s going to even get the Sox to third in the AL East.
40 million Euros for Conor Gallagher from Atleti, too. Hearing a five year, maybe five-and-a-half for him, and it’d put him up immediately among the clubs’ highest earners. Might even be the top earner now.
Still a lot of smoke around the Bichette deal for the Phillies, too. Seems like it has to happen. At this point, spend the money. It’s not my money, right? That’s the modern game. Especially if we’re letting JT walk and if we can include Bohm in a trade package, that slots him right into that infield.
Then there are all the other clips and headlines.
About a year and a half ago, or maybe a little more, I decided I would be one of those people who leaves his phone in another room when he goes to bed. I got one of those fancy alarm clocks that connects to your phone through an app, and you can wind down to the sound of piano, sleep to the sound of more white, brown, green and purple noise than I even knew existed, and wake up with a slow burn “sunrise” that is much more pleasant than your phone chirping at you in your dark bedroom.
I have never slept better. My circadian rhythm has never been more on beat. And as someone who frequently has to get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I was worried what I’d do with myself once I undoubtedly got back to my bed bored as hell and unable to fall back to sleep.
The answer is I’d just fall back asleep.
I wake up in the morning and I forget my phone exists for a while honestly. I remember what it was like in the Before Times when I’d wake up and just sort of stare into space for a few minutes. Maybe I’d think about what I have to do that day, maybe I’d try to make sense of whatever dream I’d just had, searching for meaning or any connection to reality. It’s a nice way to wake up.
And then I go downstairs and I see my phone sitting on the counter and I remember all of the things I want to know about immediately.
Did Tottenham fire manager Thomas Frank? No, but in doing so I saw that Real Madrid fired Xabi Alonso. What a mess. I look to see if the Sixers won, or at least got away without any fresh injuries during a game that I didn’t stay up late enough to watch. I look to see if there were any late-night tweets from MLB insiders like Matt Gelb or Jon Heyman about the Phillies’ free agency moves.
And inevitably, while I look for all of this on social media platforms like Twitter and Reddit, I’m sucked back into the reality that I had managed to escape while I slept to artificial highway sounds and woke up to artificial sunlight, and then comfortably drifted in half-consciousness preparing to start my day.
Oh, right.
It being January and all, I’m a little more aware of where I can make improvements in my life. One is being more intentional with my phone—not an original idea. Less mindless scrolling, less multitasking that induces anxiety, more meaningful conversations with friends and loved ones rather than quick hits of memes and jokes.
It’s not new or novel to say that our phones are damaging. Being too clued in often feels like a burden, and we’re more clued in than we’ve ever been in human history. When doomscrolling covers both the real world on fire around you and the sports world, it feels acceptable to choose what is the “lesser of two evils” there—the very therapy-brained mindset of giving yourself space to check out and allowing yourself the junk food. The world is scary! Be kind to yourself and go deep on possible teams Ja Morant might land if the Grizzlies do trade.
Anxiety loves a distraction.
In a world where dopamine hits come less naturally, the rush of your team signing a new player works pretty nicely. But is obsessing over one thing in favor of another any more noble or acceptable right now? Is there any righteous distraction?
I think about the John K. Samson song “Fantasy Baseball at the End of the World,” which came out in June 2020 and now almost feels quaint to refer to that time as the end of the world. Samson, a Canadian, does quite a nice job succinctly putting how it felt in the moment to feel cooped up and helpless and angry. Samson ends his with a call to action to take to the streets and organize and mobilize, even if he’s just telling himself that that’s what he should be doing.
Right now it’s especially easy to feel hopeless, whether that’s as a sports fan or as an American. As a Philadelphian and adopted son of Tottenham Hotspur, hopelessness and nihilism come naturally. And for every self-flagellation over burying my head in the sand and choosing the nonsense over the extremely televised horrors, there’s a beacon of cliche light in there somewhere. To have the idea of thinking about the future at all implies there will be one.
Is there any honor in a distraction right now? Is there any permissible argument for self-care in the form of ignoring existential threats to an increasingly large collection of people in favor of considering where Tarik Skubal could end up? On the other hand: Is there any value in identifying the behavior as cowardly, too? Yes, probably. Objectively, yes. The answer is yes. I can also appreciate the optimism in being upset about the future of your favorite sports team seemingly disappearing in front of your eyes.
And I oscillate between the news and the news of sports and I receive very different sorts of “Breaking News” emails and become so buzzed off of it that ultimately I do nothing and think of nothing and consider consequences of neither world until I’m tired enough to go to bed. And I set my phone on the charger on the kitchen counter and I go upstairs to bed—early enough that the wheels of the news-making apparatuses still turn. And as I close my eyes I’ll run an inventory of my day—what did I do well, what could I do a little better with tomorrow? Inevitably, when I get to my faults, I’ll say I got a little too distracted on my phone and ended the day feeling overstimulated and jumpy, and I’ll say tomorrow I’ll be on my phone less, zeroing in on my job and real-life accomplishments like sweeping the floor and going to the grocery store. And I will start all over again the next day.
But in the back of my mind, I’ll think about how I’d love if we could get to the end of a five-and-a-half-year deal—-even bankrupt and miles from World Series contention or Champions League qualification or NBA Finals in stadiums full of fans booing so hard that the ground shakes—because it means there’s a future where we can still worry about pointless things.
And as I type this, Bichette has signed with the Mets. And the cycle of hopelessness begins anew.
Today’s Snakes and Sparklers musical guest is Joyce Manor.
Hello! You probably noticed I haven’t done this in a while. I’ve been pretty busy with other work (read: paid work), so I thought I’d throw some links on here.
While we’re on the topic of baseball, here’s the feature I did on The Starting Line and their new album Eternal Youth. I got to hang out with the guys at a Phillies game (which they won) and wax poetic about baseball and aging gracefully in punk rock.
I caught up with Philly emo legends Algernon Cadwallader about their comeback and nostalgia
I profiled The Dirty Nil ahead of their new album The Lash
I profiled White Reaper ahead of their latest album, Only Slightly Empty
I talked to Ian from Militarie Gun about cults, religion, addiction and recovery in relation to their new album God Save the Gun
I wrote about the WTF with Marc Maron podcast finale, bowing out while the industry he helped create booms around him and setting the tone for other future ‘finales’ as podcasts gain cultural steam
I also wrote about 20 of the best podcasts of 2026 for Esquire