My First Year Writing Padlet by Jack Cohen

Circle of influence

jackcohen25 — 2025-09-22 15:25:29 UTC

My biggest circle of influence is my sports fandom and me being a brother. I am very big on family and will do anything for them and I love my sports teams very much. My have the least expertise in my job because I have only been working for two years. Over the years, there has been a huge change in influence for analytics especially for my sports teams. I started looking into baseball analytics when I was a freshman in high school and it has only gone up since.

Claim Rankings

jackcohen25 — 2025-09-22 15:38:13 UTC

Students should get free bus passes:

Students pay tuition
Public transportation reduces traffic
It helps the environment
Riding the Bus is fun

This is my strongest reason because students who pay tuition would also have to pay for transportation which leads to school being more costly.

Classes should start later in the morning:

Students would be more focused
Teenagers naturally wake up late
Teachers are also tired in the morning
Cafeterias could sell more breakfast

This is my strongest reason because there are many articles on how school starting later can correlate with improved well-being and mental health from students.

Everyone should learn how to cook:

Cooking is healthier than eating out
Cooking saves money
Cooking can impress your friends
Cooking shows are popular

This is my strongest claim because cooking is healthier because it helps you control the ingredients and what you want to work with.

Reading fiction improves critical thinking:

Fiction helps people imagine perspectives
It builds empathy
Fiction builds vocabulary
Some novels are boring

This is my strongest claim because reading activates a part of the brain that helps imagine it as a real social setting.

Voting should be mandatory:

Democracy works better with more participation
It would make elections fairer
Other countries have mandatory voting
Some people don't care about politics

This is my strongest argument because there were many interviews on how society can make democracy better and that more participation was a very big answer.

Homework should be reduced:

Students get stressed from too much work
Students are too busy with jobs and activities
Teachers take too much time grading
Extra practice improves learning

This is my strongest argument because the California Learning Resource Network reported that 74% of students are stressed out more from homework than the actual grades themselves.

Social Media does more harm than good:

It creates anxiety and comparison
It spreads misinformation
People waste time scrolling
It's a good way to connect with friends

I chose anxiety as my first option because there are numerous studies and articles done about how social media can lead to anxiety.

Video games should be considered a sport:

They require strategy and skill
They practice for hours
Gaming competitions draw huge crowds
They don't involve any physical activity

This is my strongest claim because video games can improve reaction times and overall strategic thinking.

College students should take art class:

Art classes reduce stress
Creativity is useful in any career
Art encourages problem solving skills
Some people don't like art

This is my strongest claim because more creativity can reduce your stress.

Emotion Object Collage

jackcohen25 — 2025-09-22 15:58:14 UTC

The first three photos indirectly capture hope due to the large quantity of hot and bright colors in each photo.

The middle three photos indirectly capture fear because it depicts cities with darker colors in the sky such as black, red, and grey.

The last three photos indirectly capture hope because all of the photos incorporate a lot of green in each of them.

Draft of poster

jackcohen25 — 2025-09-29 15:46:08 UTC

Final draft of poster

jackcohen25 — 2025-09-29 15:48:00 UTC

I really only made one change to the poster because I thought the red color on the text made it more eye popping.

Walking Research

jackcohen25 — 2025-10-19 21:47:22 UTC

For my walking project I decided to walk on campus. The campus was very peaceful at the time because people had been away at home for the weekend. Everyone at the time of the walk is allowed on campus. I saw mostly students, but I also did see parents because it was parents' weekend. There were huge differences from where the residence halls are at to where all of the academic halls are at.

Example that of Humans of NY interview

jackcohen25 — 2025-10-30 15:17:19 UTC

I was thinking about interviewing my macroeconomics professor as my Humans of NY.

What led you to this profession?

What about teaching do you like the most?

What did you do in your first profession?

What about this topic stands out to you the most?

What is the thing that you like the most about campus?

Why can it be hard sometimes to traverse around the campus?

What St. John's sports do you watch?

What is your favorite building to teach in? Why?

What makes your topic so unique?

How much longer do you plan on teaching?

Humans of Campus Interview Part 1

jackcohen25 — 2025-11-06 16:00:21 UTC

Humans of Campus Interview Part 2

jackcohen25 — 2025-11-06 16:02:22 UTC

Humans of Campus Interview Part 3

jackcohen25 — 2025-11-07 15:51:05 UTC

I met my suitemate two months ago on move in day. At first glance he was just a regular man from New York that just went to St. John's because he got the most money. "I love that there's a lot of things to do here. If we're bored, we can just jump on the F-train, go to Manhattan, see what's going on". "I went to a catholic high school, so going to a catholic university was a no-brainer." Other factors also include proximity he loved that he was close to his home. He also draws inspiration from the ever-popular Rick Pitino. "He's a hometown kid.... he's italian.... it's nice to see another Italian leading the way he does". He wants to get as many connections out of St. John's to be able to get a job as quick as possible. "This area for what I want to do is great". He has huge aspirations in life, "I want to work in professional sports". Sports in his life came from playing and watching his whole life. Everywhere he went, sports would follow.

Research Artifact Project: MLB Cap pt. 1

jackcohen25 — 2025-12-01 17:02:38 UTC

Baseball is known as America’s pastime yet it is actually thriving. MLB is currently the 2nd most popular sport in America along with having strongholds in popularity in Japan, Canada, and many other Latin American countries. This World Series was the most watched since 1991. The peak viewership in the US was at 14 million, with an average viewership of 51 million for game 7 of the World Series. It is not controversial to say that baseball is in a very good place, but it is also not controversial to say that baseball is at a crossroads going down a potentially very dark path. In December of 2021, the contractual collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between the MLB owners and players association expired without a resolution of a new one. This created a lockout where players and members of organizations could not fraternize with each other until a new CBA was agreed upon. This lockout was mainly about the in-game rules about baseball rather than the business rules of the game, this lasted 99 days with it being resolved. However, immediately after there were rumblings that another lockout would happen in December of 2026, when the next CBA expires. The main problem with this potential lockout? Money and payrolls. The talk of a cap has been around since the strike of 1994 which had caused a major shift in power between the MLBPA and MLB owners. The MLB owners (small market owners specifically) believe that there is too much parity in terms of teams making the playoffs every year. They believe teams like the Yankees or Dodgers have too much of an advantage and think that a cap would instill a competitive balance among Major League Baseball. However, they could not be more wrong. MLB is the only league among the 4 major sports in North America, football, hockey, baseball, and basketball, to not have a salary cap. Yet, MLB has the least amount of parity among all of the sports. This year was the first time a team has won back-to-back World Series since the New York Yankees three peated from 1998 to 2000. They had gone 23 whole years without a repeat champion which is substantiationally longer than the NBA, NHL, and NFL. MLB does not need a salary cap at all, in fact the thing that is needed more is a salary floor to instill that small market owners try to win games instead of pocketing money.

The use of money has been a main problem that has exponentially increased the past four years even before the expiration of the CBA in 2021. Weeks before this, free agency was at an all time high due to fear of a lockout, which ended up having players signing a lot more earlier than they usually do. Usually in a regular free agency, it takes a full month for marquee free agents to sign to their teams. But because of this people were signing during Thanksgiving instead of mid December. One of them was future Hall of Famer Max Scherzer, and the most prized pitcher on the market, who had signed with the New York Mets for 3 years and 130 million dollars. This contract sparked skepticism about big markets and its ability to blow mid tier and small markets out of the water with future acquiring star players on the free market. This trend went on for a while (and is still going on), in 2022 the Yankees were the biggest winners, re-signing the biggest free agent that year in Aaron Judge for 9 years and 360 million dollars. In 2023, the Los Angeles Dodgers showed their spending might by signing the best athlete to ever touch a diamond in Shohei Ohtani for 10 years 700 million dollars (this contract sparks up a whole other discussion in deferrals). In 2024, the New York Mets once again spent their money on perhaps the most coveted free agent we have ever seen for many factors in Juan Soto. This ended up being a record breaking contract for a whopping 15 years and 765 million dollars that can end up being over 800 million. What about this and next year? Well for this year, Kyle Tucker is the most expensive free agent at a market value of 10 years and 400 million dollars. His potential suitors? Well it’s the New York Yankees, Toronto Blue Jays, Philadelphia Phillies, and the Los Angeles Dodgers. In 2026, it is back to back CY Young winner, Tarik Skubal. His market value is currently at 8 years and 300 million dollars with his potential suitors being the Detroit Tigers, New York Yankees, New York Mets, and Los Angeles Dodgers. There is a huge correlation between marquee free agents going to big market teams as every team mentioned in this paragraph aside from the Detroit Tigers are a big market team.

It’s not to say that everything that is wrong with free agency is completely on big market teams always getting marquee free agents. Big market teams will always have a leg up on small to mid market teams, it’s always what it has been and will be. But, small market teams are a huge problem with the current discrepancy between the owners and players on a potential cap. That’s because small market teams refuse to spend money on their own team and just pocket it for profit. Small markets get a lot of their money from revenue sharing (a system to give small market teams a competitive balance) but instead of using it on acquiring players the owners just keep the money for themselves. For example, the Pittsburgh Pirates are an egregious example of what’s wrong with small markets, they receive around 40 million dollars per year in revenue sharing yet they haven’t given out a multi-year deal to a free agent since 2016 to Ivan Nova. While there have been recent reports of the Pirates and their willingness to spend this offseason, this has only been because of a threat of the MLBPA filing for a grievance due to their vast past of not being willing to spend a lick on anyone. They are also one of the worst teams in terms of using the revenue they’ve made from the past year. In 2024, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ revenue was at 326 million dollars, but their payroll was only at 112 million dollars. They had only used 34.5% of their revenue on their payroll which ranks 27th (4th worst) among all MLB teams. The worst part? The percentage decreased from 2023-2024, the Pirates revenue was 309 million dollars and their 2024 payroll of 120 million dollars. They used 38.8% of their revenue on payroll which was 26th (5th worst) among all teams. This has happened all while having a generational talent in Paul Skenes making a league minimum of $875,000 counted for their payroll. There are also many teams refusing to pay their players, the now Las Vegas Athletics would go through countless rebuilds because they had refused to pay their core players. The Miami Marlins have only made the playoffs 4 times in their franchise because of the lack of investment in development and paying players. Despite being one of the best analytical teams in the league, the Tampa Bay Rays have never gotten over the championship hump due to a huge lack of spending.

Because of these factors, there is constant tension past years between the players and owners among a potential salary cap. The salary cap has caused an all but determined future lockout on December 2nd, 2026 which will almost certainly last longer than the previous lockout in 2022. The commissioner believes that there are problems with the current landscape of payrolls. In an interview with CNBC at the MLB All Star Game he said “Sports sell competition”, “Our markets are really concerned about the issue of competitive balance”. The commissioner’s comments reflect the thoughts of the MLB owners and the owners are very keen on adding a cap for the future. Meanwhile the players are very keen on keeping the current situation that they already have with revenue sharing and penalties on payroll thresholds. This came to a head when commissioner Manfred was meeting with teams over the course of the season. In late July, he met with the Phillies to talk about the potential cap and everything about baseball. This had ended very poorly, with a verbal altercation between the commissioner and superstar first baseman Bryce Harper who told Manfred to “get the **** out of our clubhouse”. Manfred was also giving it back to Harper saying that, “no, I won’t get the **** out”. The situation became very hostile until the right fielder defused the situation by asking more questions to Manfred. In an interview with MLBPA deputy executive director, Tim Meyer, told that the ideas of lockouts are from the owners and not the players. “They’re making money, franchise value is going up. So there’s no reason why it has to happen. We will be there whenever the other side is ready to negotiate, and we will be there with creativity, and we will be there doing everything we can to try and avoid that. That is really the best I can say.”

Research Artifact Project: MLB Cap pt. 2

jackcohen25 — 2025-12-01 17:04:40 UTC

This potential lockout will not be a short lockout. Speculation is that this will be very difficult discussions similar to the strike of 1994 which lasted 232 games and caused a cancellation of the world series. This was the first time that has happened since the 1904 season. Expect long, grueling negotiations between the players and owners. In his verbal altercation with Rob Manfred, Bryce Harper said this “players are not scared to miss 162 games”. Nick Castellanos also had this to say about the potential lockout and cap “Rob seems to be in a pretty desperate place on how important it is to get this salary cap because he's floating the word 'lockout' two years in advance of our collective bargaining agreement [expiration]”. MLBPA leader, Tony Clark was very adamantly against the potential cap, “A salary cap, historically, has limited contract guarantees associated," Clark said. "Literally, [it] pits one player against another, and [that] is often what we share with players as the definitive noncompetitive system. It doesn't reward excellence. It undermines it from an organizational standpoint. That's why this is not about competitive balance. It's not about a fair versus not. This is institutionalized collusion. That's what a salary cap is.”

The MLB lockout situation is tricky and will take a long time before the CBA is resolved. There are many factors as to why the owners believe there should be a salary cap, mainly the ultra spending of the Mets and Dodgers, or the largest gap between payrolls in MLB history (Dodgers with 400 million and Marlins with just 86 million). The players however believe that the lack of spending from teams such as the Pirates, Rockies, Twins, Marlins, Cardinals, etc. are what is wrong with the economic problem in the MLB. Those small market teams are still making a lot of money through revenue sharing and franchise value going up despite pocketing the money and spending very little. These factors have come to a head even though the CBA won’t expire for a year to this day (December 1st). Verbal altercations between superstar Bryce Harper and Commissioner Rob Manfred over the summer along with MLBPA leader Tony Clark calling a potential salary cap “institutionalized collusion”. But a potential cap would be a huge mistake and wouldn’t be in the league's best interest. There are more examples of the extremist saving rather than the extremist spending. Only around 3-4 teams in the MLB spend like rabid dogs while there are around 10 teams that would rather field a bad team than to spend money on players. Salary caps are unnecessary ways for the owners to make more money off of profits, attendance, viewership, etc. This however will make a future lockout more grueling and could potentially lead to missing games which hasn’t happened since 1994-1995 when the players went on strike.

MLA citations:

Gabe Lacques. “Who Watched World Series Game 7? Nearly Half of Canada and More than 25 Million in USA.” USA TODAY, 2017, www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2025/11/03/world-series-game-7-ratings-dodgers-blue-jays/87073004007/. Accessed 1 Dec. 2025.

Spotrac. “Tarik Skubal | MLB Contracts & Salaries | Spotrac.com.” Spotrac.com, 2024, www.spotrac.com/mlb/player/market-value/_/id/26337/tarik-skubal. Accessed 1 Dec. 2025.

Spotrac. “Kyle Tucker | MLB Contracts & Salaries | Spotrac.com.” Spotrac.com, 2024, www.spotrac.com/mlb/player/market-value/_/id/17620/kyle-tucker. Accessed 1 Dec. 2025.

X (Formerly Twitter), 2025, x.com/dead_baseball/status/1978892640373366988. Accessed 1 Dec. 2025.

X (Formerly Twitter), 2025, x.com/Brooks_Gate/status/1813226032066884039. Accessed 1 Dec. 2025.

“73K Views · 308 Reactions | MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred Talks about the Potential of a Salary Cap in Major League Baseball on the Latest Episode of the CNBC Sport Videocast with Alex Sherman. | CNBC.” Facebook.com, 2022, www.facebook.com/cnbc/videos/cnbc-sport-mlb-commissioner-says-sunday-media-rights-could-go-to-nbc-apple-or-ba/1081787300585212/. Accessed 1 Dec. 2025.

Passan, Jeff. “Sources: Phillies’ Bryce Harper Cussed out Rob Manfred in Meeting - ESPN.” ESPN.com, ESPN, 28 July 2025, www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/45842533/sources-phillies-bryce-harper-tells-mlb-boss-get-clubhouse.

Nightengale, Bob. “1994 Strike Most Embarrassing Moment in MLB History.” USA TODAY, USAToday, 11 Aug. 2014, www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2014/08/11/1994-mlb-strike/13912279/.

Gonzalez, Alden, et al. “What You Need to Know about MLB’s Looming Labor Battle - ESPN.” ESPN.com, ESPN, Dec. 2025, www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/47108752/mlb-labor-battle-cba-salary-cap-owners-players-union-mlbpa-faq-manfred. Accessed 1 Dec. 2025.

Castillo, Jorge. “MLBPA Opposed to Installing Salary Cap after CBA Ends in ’26 - ESPN.” ESPN.com, ESPN, 15 July 2025, www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/45747008/mlbpa-opposed-installing-salary-cap-cba-ends-26.

Passan, Jeff. “MLB Labor: How Fight over Salary Cap Will Shape Negotiations - ESPN.” ESPN.com, ESPN, 18 Sept. 2025, www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/46294140/mlb-labor-negotiations-salary-cap-baseball-talks-2027-season-lockout.

Wilytics. “Why MLB Will NEVER Have a Salary Cap.” YouTube, 19 Nov. 2024, www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVBHaYj7LqQ.

Mayday! (Trevor May Baseball). “Why Free Agency Is Allowing the Dodgers to “Ruin” Baseball, Explained.” YouTube, 22 Oct. 2025, www.youtube.com/watch?v=moBY6aUoesY. Accessed 1 Dec. 2025.

“Pittsburgh Pirates Revenue Sources: A Complete Breakdown.” It’s Topical, 2023, itstopical.com/blog/pittsburgh-pirates-revenue-sources-breakdown. Accessed 1 Dec. 2025.

Floyd, Griffin. “Inside the Myth of Small-Market Suffering: A Look at the Pirates’ Revenue Sharing and Profits.” Pittsburgh Baseball Now, 12 Dec. 2022, pittsburghbaseballnow.com/inside-the-myth-of-small-market-suffering-a-look-at-the-pirates-revenue-sharing-and-profits/#google_vignette.

You're Here Map

jackcohen25 — 2025-12-15 16:14:48 UTC

For my you’re here map I decided to make a monopoly board on my reflection on what I was as a student during my first semester as a student at St. John’s University. As the semester started I was very paranoid about finding my class along with being on time. But as time went on I felt a lot more comfortable with what I was doing in class and how I handled class. As mid terms went along I felt a worry about whether or not I was going to fail them so I studied really hard to the point of burnout. Once mid terms were over I felt a sense of familiarity on what I had to do to get good grades. I got a little too familiar with what I wanted to do and it ended up with me actually missing an assignment (unfortunately it was in this class). It made me realize that I cannot make this mistake again or else I won’t be returning next semester.