→ February 1, 2008
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Farm systems, ranked, sorta.

So everyone’s asking me for a ranking of farm systems. This just a very rough cut, and if anything, I’m overvaluing my top 100 as an input to this, so take it for what it’s worth.

1. Tampa Bay
2. Texas
3. Boston
4. Cincinnati
5. NY Yankees
6. LA Dodgers
7. Chicago Cubs
8. Atlanta
9. San Francisco
10. Oakland
11. Seattle
12. Baltimore
13. Colorado
14. Florida
15. LA Angels
16. St. Louis
17. Milwaukee
18. San Diego
19. Washington
20. Arizona
21. Cleveland
22. Minnesota
23. Toronto
24. Pittsburgh
25. Detroit
26. Kansas City
27. Philadelphia
28. NY Mets
29. Houston
30. Chicago White Sox

The top two teams have insane prospect depth, and Boston isn’t far behind, especially if you believe in some of the guys in Lowell this year. The Reds really run four deep plus Mesoraco, and that’s about it, but what a front four. Atlanta impressed me when I looked at their system – they dealt a lot of ability in the Teixeira deal, and yet they still have a strong system deep in pitching. Keep an eye on Jeff Locke as a sleeper for ’08. San Francisco is a bit of a fetish of mine, as they have almost no talent in full-season ball, but I loved their draft this year, and I’ll roll the dice on a power bat like Villalona.

Seattle doesn’t get enough credit for their fantastic work internationally. They’ve consistently done well in Venezuela, they’re active all over the Pacific Rim, and former Toronto scouting director Bob Engle – who drafted Halladay and Carpenter – has done a really solid job in western Europe that I think is going to give the M’s a strategic advantage over there for several years.

The Angels and Cards are two teams I can’t get excited about. Wood and Adenhart both disappointed a bit this year, and they’ve lost so many high picks while doing diddly-squat in Latin America that their system is thin. The Cards have a ton of guys I project as extra players – fourth outfielders, utility infielders, middle relievers – and I’m not sure how to value that appropriately. The Nats are sort of the Giants Lite, in that their best players are all in short-season ball, and I like the Giants’ crop better.

I may have more to say on Cleveland in a day or two, but I ranted about them in chat yesterday:

John (Chi): Two questions: When you were in Toronto, did you ever read any Robertson Davies? If not, I really suggest Fifth Business. Second, your rankings seem to suggest the Indians farm cupboard is pretty bare? What’re your thoughts on their system?

Keith Law: It is pretty bare. I know it’s all chic to say that they’re the new “model franchise,” but their drafts have kind of sucked for a long time now, and their farm system has not been all that productive outside of prospects they acquired in trade. That speaks well to a pro scouting process, but I don’t know that that alone is a recipe for long-term success.

Seriously, look at Cleveland’s draft going back to 1998, the Sabathia draft. They haven’t kind of sucked; they have SUCKED. The 2007 division winner was built on several great Latin American finds, and a few ripoff trades in Colon, Hafner, and Eduardo Perez. That covers almost every major contributor except Betancourt, who was signed out of Japan as a free agent, and Sabathia, who was Cleveland’s last great draft pick. Since then, their next-best pick was Jeremy Guthrie, who did nothing for Cleveland before a nice rookie year in ’07 for Baltimore.

Minnesota would have been bottom three prior to the trade. Toronto has some promise in short-season ball, and of course I’m a big Snider fan. Detroit at least gets a pass for emptying their farm system to get two great big leaguers in Renteria and Cabrera, and the same goes for the Mets and Santana. The Astros and White Sox have drafted unbelievably poorly over the last few years – you could flip those two in the rankings and I wouldn’t argue, as both organizations deserve the ignominy of being called the worst farm system in the game.

There’s one consistent thing about the clubs in the bottom nine if we ignore the Tigers and Mets, who got to the bottom nine by trading their prospects: The other seven clubs have gotten nothing from Latin America in ages. The Twins, Pirates, Royals, Blue Jays, and White Sox in particular have done a horrid job in Latin America. The Astros had a great run in Venezuela that has cooled off a bit, and the Phillies might be bouncing back a bit there but haven’t had anyone come out of Latin America in ages. It’s really hard to have a top-flight farm system if you pretend the world stops south of Puerto Rico.

Filed Under: Sports Tagged With:
→ February 1, 2008
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Drunk Jays Fans.

I love these guys, because they make me seem a lot funnier than I really am.

Filed Under: Chat, Sports Tagged With:
→ January 31, 2008
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Chat addendum

I AM WRITING THIS FROM MY BLACKBERRY!

Some notes/errata from today’s chat…

•I wrote a doubly misleading comment on Antonelli. One, he played 3b at Wake Forest – I confirmed this with his agent. Two, more importantly, I implied that I had seen him at Wake. I did not – I have never seen him swing a metal bat, and only saw him on the Cape as an amateur.
•more to come as I think of things…

Filed Under: Chat Tagged With:
→ January 31, 2008
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Watchmen.

I can not offer any comment on whether or not Alan Moore’s Watchmen is, as so many critics and readers say, the greatest graphic novel ever written.

I can, however, say that as novels, graphic or otherwise, go, it sucks.

Watchmen is a thinly drawn (hah!) paranoid agenda-driven short story, made novel-length by the inclusion of pretty pictures, which, by the way, take the place of the descriptive prose that makes the written novel an art form. There is no character development. The plot is linear, with characters’ stories provided for background, but they neither show changes in any of the characters nor are they remotely interesting as subplots. The story rests on a base of anachronisms, both historical ones (the Soviet Union was already in the throes of an irreversible economic collapse when the book was written) and political ones (nuclear power is mentioned in passing as a major environmental threat). And the whole thing was just beyond boring.

Even when the book got a little interesting in the final two chapters, Moore screwed up his writing. You’re telling me that of the four people in the room in Antarctica in the final chapter, not one of them realizes that the artificial peace is strictly temporary, or at least argues that it is? The smartest man in the world thinks war is over, forever, unless the event that triggers the peace is repeated at unpredictable intervals? If he’s the smartest man in the world, we really are a race of orangutans with safety razors.

I always felt that the TIME book critics added Watchmen to their top 100 novels list as a token entry, as if they felt the need to put one graphic novel on there to head off criticism that they had ignored this burgeoning genre, but reading the book confirmed my suspicions. And really, this was a more deserving entry than Cry the Beloved Country, Brave New World, or Tender is the Night, just to name three works of actual literature? Or, if we’re into tokenism, how about a token novel written by an African (A Grain of Wheat), a token mystery (Murder on the Orient Express), or a token comedy (something by Wodehouse, perhaps).

There is simply no comparison to the thematic and textural depth provided by a traditional novel and the superficial treatment inherent in the graphic form. And, since everyone seems to think that Watchmen is the genre’s peak, I think I can safely ignore graphic novels from here on out.

Filed Under: Literature, TIME 100 Tagged With: , ,
→ January 31, 2008
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The Mailbag of Malcontent, Vol. 4 (plus chat today).

Chat today at 1 pm.

Two emails today:

(228) keith law sucks! 2008-01-30 12:33:00.0
not my favorite.

I’m crushed, personally.

(232) Ben (Mankato) 2008-01-30 19:52:00.0
Just FYI, the concept of Insider sucks. ESPN needs to stop charging to read articles, stop choking the TV channels with college basketball/football, and start caring about hockey. That along with all the pop-ups on this damn site disgust me enough to leave in favor of mlb.com, nhl.com, etc etc. Have a nice life.

I understand why people don’t like Insider – not many sites charge for content, and in the mainstream sports world, I think ESPN is the only one – but I’m not sure why Ben thinks I have any influence whatsoever on any of the things that are pissing him off. I just works here.

Filed Under: Chat Tagged With: ,
→ January 30, 2008
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Santana.

Feel free to post your comments/questions below regarding the Santana deal, since my ESPN column’s Conversation has been, um, overrun.

Meanwhile, my ESPN mailbag has been filling up. Three people wrote to say that Walter Johnson is the best pitcher in franchise history – technically true, but I don’t see that as a practical way of looking at the question, and I wasn’t using “franchise” in a business sense, but in a city/nickname sense. Several others wrote to say that Roberto Clemente was the best Rule 5 pick ever; he has Santana on career value, but Santana was the best pitcher in the American League for about a four-year stretch, and that peak crushes Clemente. One guy wrote in to argue both points and screwed up his own email address.

EDIT: One other point worth mentioning on the Rule 5 draft. In Clemente’s day, acquiring a player via the Rule 5 draft meant acquiring him for life, since there was no free agency and the reserve clause was treated as a perpetually renewing form of indentured servitude. Now, of course, if you acquire a player via the Rule 5, you only get his rights until he earns enough service time to become a free agent. So the return Clemente gave the Pirates will never be matched because the system doesn’t allow it. Adjusting for that context, the Santana pick is clearly the better return.

And then there’s this from a Twins fan:

(217) Paddy Boston 2008-01-30 07:43:00.0
Jack Morris, Jack Morris, Jack Morris. Johan Santana is not the best pitcher in Twins history.

Oooh-kay.

Filed Under: Sports Tagged With: ,
→ January 29, 2008
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ESPN Radio tonight, 9 pm (plus AllNight).

I’ll be on ESPN Radio (the national feed) at 9 pm tonight to discuss the Santana deal. My writeup should be on the site shortly thereafter.

UPDATE: I also recorded a bit with Jason Smith for AllNight, although I’m not sure what time it will air. It’s often available next day as a podcast.

Filed Under: Appearances
→ January 28, 2008
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The Mailbag of Malcontent, Vol. 3.

Sweet!

(214) keith law’s arch enemy 2008-01-28 14:49:00.0
keith law is biased comments are really annoying. I dont understand how you still have a job, I guess its because ESPN is east coast biased. You have no eye for talent or you have no idea what you’re talking about half of the time.

Best part? I haven’t written anything for the site in ten days, making this critic slow AND stupid!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: ,
→ January 27, 2008
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Mercury in fish.

The New York Times ran a scare piece earlier this week about high mercury levels in bluefin tuna found in NYC restaurants, focusing on sushi joints. Mercury in seafood is a significant environmental issue, no doubt, but TIME has an interesting interview with Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, assistant professor of medicine and epidemiology at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health, who argues that the health benefits of eating the fish noted for higher levels of mercury outweigh the risk (to adults) of mercury exposure. He also says that varying the fish in your diet limits your risk of negative effects from mercury, and points out that the studies on cardiovascular damage from mercury have not produced consistent results. The best news: Eat all the salmon you want, as it’s high in omega-3 fatty acids and low in mercury. That’s my favorite type of sushi, so I’ll place a double order the next time I’m out for raw fish.

Filed Under: Food Tagged With: , ,
→ January 26, 2008
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The Simpsons Movie.

I was cautiously excited to see The Simpsons Movie. I was a dedicated Simpsons watcher for most of the ’90s, but lost the habit some time during B-school as the show started to feel repetitive and the laughs became fewer. I hoped the movie would be a return to that style, since they’d have to pull out all the stops for the first feature film, right?

Didn’t happen.

I understand I’m in the minority on this one, but I didn’t find the movie to be all that funny. Early Simpsons episodes were packed with jokes, and often had a strong bit of social commentary. The movie felt like it had the same number of jokes – funny ones, that is – and degree of social commentary that you’d find in a 22-minute episode, spread out over 78 minutes. (I know the listed run time is 87 minutes, but that includes the credits, which had a few Easter eggs … but still, they’re credits. They don’t freaking count in the run time.) The humor was inconsistent, so I laughed hard a handful of times, although I had only one moment where I had to pause it (Ralph Wiggum’s sole line in the film), but it wasn’t as relentless as it should have been, and too much of what was funny was easy physical comedy – easy because you can draw a cartoon character hitting himself in the eye with the claw end of a hammer, but good luck getting an actor to do that on film.

The social commentary was just as disappointing as the humor. The target is the current Administration, but the line is dated – Cheney’s running the show, the government is incompetent, Halliburton, etc. In 2002 or 2003, it would have been funny. Now, we’ve heard these jokes for years, and they’re stale. And some of them are so incredibly forced that it’s painful to watch. When a government robot overhears Lisa saying that they’re fugitives, the scene cuts to a giant NSA room of agents listening in on private conversations. The agent listening to the Simpsons’ conversation jumps up and shouts, “The government actually found someone we’re looking for! YEAH, BABY, YEAH!” There was a good joke in there somewhere, but that wasn’t it. Besides, the government found Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and dropped a bomb on his head while this movie was in production; I’d say that counts as finding someone they were looking for.

The bar for animated movies now is quite high. Pixar has churned out one brilliant movie after another based on strong writing, but the plot of this film was thin (of course, the show’s the same way) and the snarking missed its mark. The first two Shrek movies were dense with jokes (“Catnip.” “That’s … not mine.”) in a way that The Simpsons Movie wasn’t. And the fact that two of the funniest bits in this movie were in the commercial – the Spider-pig segment, and the ten-thousand-tough-guys rant – didn’t help matters either. If this is one of the funniest movies of 2007, we have let our standards for funny slip, because there just wasn’t enough of the funny in The Simpsons Movie, and there wasn’t enough of the other stuff to balance it out.

Filed Under: DVDs Tagged With: , ,