→ February 20, 2020
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Klawchat 2/20/20.

My top 100 prospects ranking goes up on Monday, 2/24, at The Athletic.

Keith Law: Somebody holds the key. Klawchat.

Jabroni: Are we going to get another 100+ prospect ranking this year?
Keith Law: I just answered that at the top of the post.

michael: Hi KLaw – if the giants wanted to look at another will wilson / cosart type of transaction – would trading either belt, samardzija, or johnny cueto (with us paying down a significant amount of the salary) bring any useful prospects back?
Keith Law: I doubt the pitchers would. Maybe Belt but his history of injuries might scare teams off.

a.j.: how would you sort out the detroit tigers infield prospects? who plays where?
Keith Law: I’m trying to figure out what there is to sort out there.

Moe Mentum: Barring injury, Scott Kingery will be in the Phillies’ Opening Day lineup. Care to guess which position he’ll be playing?
Keith Law: If he’s not playing second base, the Phillies have made a mistake.

Sammy Sosa: Should later state voters voter for their personal favorite or, if different, their favorite with a realistic chance at winning the nomination? A contested convention terrifies me for a number of reasons.
Keith Law: I’ll vote for my preferred candidate even if it doesn’t matter by that point here in Delaware.

barbeach: Ordered the new book–looking forward to digging in when it’s ready!  If you were the Yankees, what would you do about Miguel Andujar?
Keith Law: Probably bring him back as a DH and see if you can ease him into a position over time.

Henry: If you’re Manfred, what would you do to contain this Astros mess?
Keith Law: There’s no containing it now. The mistake was trying to downplay it from the start by giving players immunity from suspensions.

Wait, what?: Any inside info on the Theo/Maddon thing? Seems like the more Joe talks the worse he looks (in LAA eyes too.)
Keith Law: I have no idea. Not my department, nor is it something I’d ask about.

Salty: Tim Anderson – does he have the ability to maintain a high BABIP to help lift his AVG to the .280-.300 range, or was last year a total fluke, and he’s likely to head back towards the mid-.200’s going forward?
Keith Law: I think he’ll always be a high BABIP and low BB% guy but is talented enough in other ways to make it work.

Kyle KS: In thinking about Jose Berrios and his arbitration hearing, it’s obvious the team values a relatively small amount of money over the relationship with the player.  My question is how do the players view this?  Is it just part of the business or do they feel slighted?
Keith Law: Part of the business. There’s no evidence that, say, players treated well in pre-arb contracts or in arbitration later give teams discounts.

Mike G: Digging into Lux – I see a couple of golden nuggets in his (I, know SSS) MLB debut that I love – like his 20.9% o-swing & 52.9% hard-hit rate. Then when I compare that and look over his MiLB numbers – I get a Bregman offensive-vibe; plate discipline, sneaky power/speed, and strong hit tool. I know that’s a lofty comp + SSS, but is that the type of player he may grow into over his career? It’s a very neat skillset he possesses, and I’d love to hear your insight. Thanks
Keith Law: I would never draw conclusions like that from a tiny sample of September at bats. There is no way to distinguish the noise in there from the signal.

Gene: Keith, I am a bit of a traditionalist and am at a complete loss for what Manfred hopes to achieve by further diluting the post season with an extra tier of games with sites chosen in a BS game show format. Is the further erosion of the game’s dignity worth a few more shekels?
Keith Law: The owners want the extra cash. Manfred works for the owners. We are all deluding ourselves if we think Manfred will act in the best interests of the game when it is his literal job to act out the interests of the owners.

Epsthoyer: Who has the better chance to make the jump into your top 20, Brennen Davis, Miguel Amaya, Braylin Marquez or Christopher Morel?  Didn’t include Hoerner on this list as I‘m assuming he wont qualify.
Keith Law: For 2021? I’d be surprised if any of them made my overall top 20.

Tom: What do you think of Bryant leading off? Seems like a reasonable decision, as he is a good baserunner (not really steals, but first to third, etc.) Couldn’t be worse than Heyward!
Keith Law: Fine with me.

Jabroni: Your guy Cole Wilcox looked awfully good last weekend.
Keith Law: I’ll see him pitch on Saturday.

James: Royals competitive (above .500) again in 2023? Doesn’t feel like there is a lot coming through the minor league pipeline. The new owner could change that with some FA’s, but I’m not holding my breath.
Keith Law: Pitching will be there, offense will need outside help.

Querulous Quincy: The Rangers are looking at Nick Solak in CF this spring.  What are the odds he can be good enough defensively out there to be a realistic regular CF option for Texas in 2020?
Keith Law: I give that zero chance. I don’t think Solak really has a position, and if he does I don’t think it’s CF.

xxx(yyy): any new recipes that you have made recently that are added to your rotation?
Keith Law: Yes, this lentils & greens on fried bread recipe is the best new thing we’ve made (my girlfriend made it first and we loved it so much we made it again about a week later) in months.

Carter: What woould a plausible Braves package for Arenado include?
Keith Law: One of their top starter prospects/young major league starters, one of their catching prospects, Waters, and a lottery ticket.

Rob: Riley Pint: any reason for hope, or is an MLB cup of coffee even too much to ask for at this point?
Keith Law: The odds are we don’t see him in the majors.

Dylan: What went wrong for white sox prospects at Birmingham? Rutherford, Adolfo, Basabe, Gonzalez, sub .700 ops, Gavin sheets sub .800? Was it a product of the environment (coaching as well, Omar visquel?) or is it indicative of who these prospects really are?
Keith Law: Basabe and Adolfo were hurt. Sheets and Rutherford just aren’t very good.

Darin: If you were commissioner, how would you try to manage the player response to the Astro’s scandal?
Keith Law: Well, I can tell you I wouldn’t be confrontational with reporters. An open approach, admitting that the options before him each had problems, and a full reckoning was likely impossible without cooperation from players that was not forthcoming, would help matters.

Dylan: top prospects list coming out soon?
Keith Law: I feel like I answered that at the top of the post.

Alex: Do you see Mitch Keller as a high 3s ERA guy and sustaining the K rate?
Keith Law: Not without a viable pitch for LHB. Or even to keep RHB from waiting out the breaking ball to sit on the FB.

Jon: How many Astros players make the all star game? Will any players/coaches vote for any of them?
Keith Law: At least one, because that’s the rule.

Kelly: Forgive me if you’ve said previously – do you think the 2017 World Series title should be vacated, and what is the primary reason why?
Keith Law: No. Revising history is absurd. The Astros won; you can’t unwrite that. And frankly I think people who whine about vacating titles are just being crybabies.

DW: Keith, what’s your take on JD Davis? Is he a legitimate masher or BABIP lucky? Should he be a DH? or do you think he can hack it anywhere in the field?
Keith Law: BABIP spike. Could play first base but the Mets have two better options there.

Ben: What was your main takeaway from last night’s debate?
Keith Law: My main takeaway from last night’s debate is that I didn’t watch it.

EL: Where does calling the trophy a “piece of metal” rank in all time baseball commissioner gaffes?
Keith Law: Not that high, because Selig was commish for a long time.

Mark: I am subscribing to the athletic just because of you
Keith Law: I appreciate that. You’re about to get a lot of words for your money.

Mark: Pecota has the Mets winning the NL East this year with 88 wins. Buying it?
Keith Law: No.

Eric: If you were gm of a club ans found about a clearly illegal sign stealing scheme what would you do
Keith Law: I’d report it to my owner first, and then to the league. I suppose there’s a risk the owner says not to report, but I would feel obligated to do so, even at the cost of my job.
Keith Law: I also recognize that 1) most people wouldn’t do that and 2) it is easy for me to say this when I am not actually in that position.

Jeff T: Does Jonathan Stiever have mid-rotation upside?
Keith Law: You’ll see in the team reports.

Mike: Do you learn new songs by ear or specific website to find the chords ?
Keith Law: Either. Depends on the song and how patient I am.

XBL: XBL similar what XFL done with NFL,- Xtreme baseball league, its time for new league? how much start up cost to make new league because Manfred’s incompetence as commissioner of MLB and no punishment from players? XBL – stereoid and stealing signs  are allowed. Hitting 500 feet homeruns= scoring 3 points instead 1.  You should be Commissioner XBL Keith? thoughts?
Keith Law: No, thank you.

UH: Thoughts on Balazovic?  What is ceiling?
Keith Law: You’ll see the answer to that in the top 100.

xxx(yyy): about how long do you typically spend “on the ground” in Spring Training? Are you looking for anything particular?
Keith Law: Not too much time. I find it’s not that productive for me until the minor league games start.

Will: Keith, will you be doing less MLB Draft coverage now at the Athletic?
Keith Law: No, it’ll be the same.

Bob: I think Luis Urias will be a .320 hitter, is that a reasonable projection?
Keith Law: No, that’s not a reasonable projection for any hitter, really. Do you know offhand how many guys hit .320 last year?
Keith Law: I’ll answer that in a minute.

Ben: Franklin Perez is supposedly healthy and looking pretty good early this spring. Even when he was healthy with HOU, he really never had thrown nearly as many innings as you would think for a pitcher AA. With that in mind, and his last two years of lost time, what does a successful, healthy 2020 look like for Franklin Perez?
Keith Law: I’ll believe that when I see it.

Adam: Hey Keith. Did you watch the Academy Awards?? If so, any thoughts on the winners or anything else that you found entertaining or lame about the show.
Keith Law: I did. Thrilled that Parasite won, and that the audience reacted so positively to it. Thought Wiig/Rudolph were the best presenters, the Martin/Rock duologue went on too long but had its moments, the Cats bit was really funny (if a bit mean), the Janelle Monae number’s honoring films that weren’t nominated was clever, Zellweger’s speech was cringeworthy, and the fact that people of color are apparently allowed to be the show’s entertainment but not to win the awards is appalling.

Mike: Does the 2020 Draft still shape up as a “Top 4” or is it too soon to day that?  Asking as a Blue Jays (#5) fan.
Keith Law: Not a “top 4” draft. That’s a false dichotomy.

HH: How much movement is there between college coaches to the minor leagues? You’ve identified programs that almost always improve players (go Vandy!) – do teams ever throw a bunch of cash at such a staff to develop their guys in the low minors?
Keith Law: It’s happening more now than it has in my career, for the better, I think.

Kevin: Shouldn’t teams like the Red Sox or other big market teams try to “buy” prospects by taking back bad contracts? Seems like a no-brainer to me
Keith Law: The Giants did this.

Lee: What kind of ceiling does Alex Verdugo have?  A lot of Sox fans are pretty down on the Betts deal but seems to me that Verdugo could be pretty valuable over the next 5 years.
Keith Law: I think what you saw from him in 2019 over a full season – assuming his back injury is resolved – is about right.

AndrewB: Hey Keith, I appreciate all that you do to keep shining a light on players accused of/guilty of DV and not allowing the deeds to fade into the background, as happens far too often. My question is: What’s an appropriate punishment for such crimes? We all know that outright banning for life will never happen, so what’s a next-best option that will feel in any way satisfactory as we watch awful people make millions upon millions of dollars and be feted with adulation?
Keith Law: Domestic violence suspensions shouldn’t be about feeling satisfactory, although I think they often are aimed at that end. They should be about prevention, preferably done in tandem with evidence-based education programs for (in MLB’s case) the athletes themselves.

Aaron G: Jack Leiter…I know it was just one start but whoa. Possible 1st round in 2022?
Keith Law: He was a first-round talent last year if he would have signed. Nothing has changed.

Steve: There have been talks of Tatis moving to CF if they get Lindor.  Would that be wise? Even if they don’t get Lindor, is Tatis a SS long term?
Keith Law: No. Tatis is a SS. Wastes his talent to move him.

Todd: better chance at making the Yankees rotation? Garcia or Schmidt?
Keith Law: Schmidt is probably the safer bet even though Garcia is closer to the majors.

Dylan: Ed Howard is a local kid, part of the white sox intercity program (ACE), could they look to take him at 11?
Keith Law: Maybe, but the fact that he’s local should have absolutely no bearing on their choice. You don’t get extra points for winning with local players.

Colin: Help me understand why you say saves don’t matter. The best pitcher in the bullpen will be getting the save, so obviously you can use it to show who the best relievers are. What am I missing?
Keith Law: “The best pitcher in the bullpen will be getting the save” is a false statement. I assume you’re trolling.

Matt: Evan White has a bit of a confusing profile for a 1B, but seemed to start hitting the ball with some authority last year. Do you see him as a guy who could ever hit 30 HRs, or is he just never going to hit for that much power?
Keith Law: I would bet the under on that. I think 20 homers with a solid OBP and ++ defense.

HH: Since rule changes are in the air: what’s one rule in baseball (on the field) you’d like to change, and how?
Keith Law: Aside from the automatic strike zone? I’d like to see an end to hitters who lean over the plate getting first base when HBP.

Evan H.: Do you see 2020 lhp Dax Fulton still going in the 1st round despite TJ surgery?
Keith Law: No.

Todd: The arrogance of the Astros players, Correa and Altuve especially, is really embarassing. They both seem so out of touch with what happended or just truly dont care.
Keith Law: They don’t feel remorse. There is no guilt there, and trying to shame them isn’t going to work.

Tbang: Is there any shot for Florial or is he just not good
Keith Law: I have never thought he was good enough to make my top 100. (And I got pilloried for it by Yankee fans two years ago.)

Marc: Do you think Cole Tucker can be the Pirates answer at SS, and would you move Kevin Newman to 2B?
Keith Law: Other way around.

Matt: I’d be curious to get your thoughts on Jose Urquidy. While the ceiling may not be high, he seems like a SP3/4 type already, and that’s what you dream a lot of your pitching prospects become. Despite that, I don’t get the sense that he’s viewed as a top 100 prospect. Do you think he is worthy?
Keith Law: I won’t answer the top 100 part now but I agree he’s a fourth or fifth starter right now. He might be a five-and-dive type but isn’t that what fifth starters are?

John: One of the arguments I’ve seen for the proposed playoff format is that it holds fans’ interest later into the season because they have a chance at a playoff spot. I don’t buy that basic premise. Teams maintain fan interest by being good and fun to watch. A boring, mediocre 80 win team that backs into the 7th playoff spot isn’t any more fun to watch than an 80 win team that misses the playoffs.
Keith Law: I agree. Someone – Sheehan? Calcaterra? – pointed out that this format would have put 79 win teams in the playoffs in the last few years. Hard pass, thanks.

John: Is anything exciting happening at The Athletic on Monday 2/24?
Keith Law: Nothing. I’m taking the day off.

Michael: Fact or fiction.  Most teams are cheating in some way similar to the Astros and Red Sox?
Keith Law: Most, no. Many, yes.
Keith Law: I have heard, without real confirmation, that at least six teams were caught doing something. One of those teams … let’s just say I believe it, but would require evidence to say it, if that makes sense.

Gary: Thanks for chatting Keith. I’m curious about your thoughts on college players and if you think there is a maturity they gain vs HS kids who come out and seem to stumble or have less success. Do you see a large benefit for kids to go to college instead of turning pro?
Keith Law: I do not. For some kids, yes, but for most, no.

Uli Jon: Am I an insular left coaster or does that lukewarm piece of toast that was on the stage last night have any chance of beating Trump? Yes, the money helps but at a certain point he has to open his mouth and that seems…not so good.
Keith Law: I did see the clip of Warren eviscerating Bloomberg on the NDAs, and, well, bye, Mike, you DINO.

Jim: Does Carter Kieboom have enough thump to be an asset at 3b?
Keith Law: If he ends up a regular or more at 3b, it’ll be by hitting .300+ with lots of doubles, but not with big HR power. He’s just not that kind of hitter.

Tbang: Do you think Manfred does anything else about the astros or do you think he rides it out
Keith Law: What more can he do? I think his hands were partly tied by the owners, and he tangled them up completely by handing out immunity to players.

Michael: No snark. When the Betts trade happened there were at least seven Athletic articles on it.  At ESPN you were often the only one. Do you get worried about being lost in the noise over there?
Keith Law: Nope, i can see stats on my articles and y’all are still reading (for which I thank you).

Will: Sneak peak for next week?  Has Sixto Sanchez moved significantly since your MidSeasob Top 50?  Up?  Down?  I cant get a good read on his projection.  Thanks
Keith Law: You will see the answer next week.

Tommie from Nebraska: Hey keith, when does your next top 100 come out? Thanks.
Keith Law: 2021.

Dark Johnny: Will Michael Baumann be in the O’s rotation by 2021-22?
Keith Law: Reliever for me.

Lee: After the last 3 years, how can it be that there’s a good chance that Donald Trump will be re-elected?  Even if you’re a conservative that likes the policies he’s put into place, why would you be accepting of a complete immoral lunatic in charge of our nuclear arsenal.  Has 50% of our country lost their minds?
Keith Law: Only takes about 30-35% of the electorate to re-elect him. I think there’s a realistic chance of it, in part because of the Democrats’ general incompetence as a party, and in part because a lot of Americans secretly agree with an Administration that pushes racist, Islamophobic, anti-science, anti-environment, anti-LGBT, and anti-woman policies.

Greg: Huff not getting an invite to the Giants 10 year celebration- Good thing, or great thing?
Keith Law: Right thing. Also, you get no points if you correctly predicted that gun-masturbating ding-dong would bring up the First Amendment in his response.

Dick Diver: Considering your upcoming labor focus with the Athletic, how do you feel about opiod testing for players? I am not sure if you have commented before, but while we do want to prevent use and tragedy, it seems a bit nanny state-ish no?
Keith Law: Yes. I don’t think players should be tested for drugs of abuse unless they have a prior incident.

Todd: Thoughts on Yankees lower farm arms Yoendrys Gomez and Alexander Vizcaino? Is TJ Sikkema a legit lefty reliver prospect?
Keith Law: They’ll be in the Yankees’ report. I’ll tell you now, since I said this previously, Sikkema is a starter prospect.

xxx(yyy): The odds that Jeff Lunhow has a GM job again are: 0% – 1% – 2% to 25% – 25% to 50% – 50% to 75% – 75% to 100%?
Keith Law: Zero.

Henry: I know each team operates differently but do most GM’s have to get approval from their owners to make trades or get free agents even when they’re operating under a standard operating budget?
Keith Law: Yes.

John: Long term Plesac or Civale?
Keith Law: Plesac. I like both.

Idaho Nuke: What do you think an appropriate punishment for Astros players should be?
Keith Law: Any player at the center of the scheme should get the same suspension Hinch and Luhnow got, if not more.
Keith Law: They were just there when it happened; no one has accused either of them of contributing to the scheme. So why do they get lengthy suspensions but the players who actually did this shit get off scot free?

Eric: Finally got to play Wingspan for the first time recently and loved it.  Thanks for your great review of it last year.  I just purchased the European expansion and was wondering if you’ve played that one yet?
Keith Law: I haven’t, mostly because I feel like the original has so much replay value.

Alex: Just got an airfryer.  Do you have one?  Any good recipies to share?
Keith Law: I don’t. When I fry food I use oil, because that’s what it means to fry something.

Greg: Give that MLB still has its anti-trust exemption and given that the MLB commissioner is now basically a cudgel for the owners and has not been a “steward of the game” since Faye Vincent… Should there be some kind of special case where a non-owner/congressional body picks or vets any new MLB commissioner?
Keith Law: How does that work? MLB is a private business. Do you want the government picking the CEOs of other private businesses?

Pei: What do you think of the Altuve walk-off strange behavior controversy? Seems to me that the evidence of any buzzer stuff is flimsy at best but it is apparent to me that he probably wanted to hide something (that isn’t a tattoo)
Keith Law: Not a fan of conspiracy theories.

Josh in DC: Do you think it could EVER be plausible for fans — facing a situation like Boston’s fans in this off-season — to organize a boycott, however minor, that would get an owner’s attention? 40,000 unsold tickets, with $100 of spending per fan, is $4 million in lost revenues.
Keith Law: No, it’ll never happen. I’m not sure the typical owner would even notice $4 million in lost revenues.

Altuve’s Lower Back Tattoo: Of Noelvi Marte, Orelvis Martinez and Erick Pena, who’s the best player 2023 and beyond
Keith Law: One is on my top 100.

Kretin: How bad is the injury to JT Ginn?
Keith Law: We have no idea yet, but 1) it was a high-effort delivery in HS and 2) this is another example of why HS pitchers drafted high should take the money.
Keith Law: I don’t even think Mississippi State misused him – it’s just that pitchers get hurt, even when handled carefully, even if their mechanics are (supposedly) “clean.”

Keith too: You ever watch WWE, UFC or Boxing?
Keith Law: LOL.

Rocker: 1) Austin Martin
2 Spencer Torkelson
3 Nick Gonzales
4 Emerson Hancock   This my rankings in baseball draft 2020? which one has highest upside?
Keith Law: Gonzales isn’t in that group if we’re talking upside. Martin definitely has the most upside of the group, and he’d be 1 on my draft board right now, but that doesn’t necessarily make him the best player.

Vincent Adultman: Do you think Eziquiel Duran can stay at 2B? If he can’t, can he move to third?
Keith Law: He can stay at 2b.

Dark Johnny: Any chance Frankie Montas breaks out to be a frontline starter?
Keith Law: Never saw him as a starter.

Don D: Keith, I’d love to hear your take on Jordan Walker, I’ve seen some HUGE comparisons but others have him pegged as a mid-1st. What do you think of him?
Keith Law: Have not seen him yet but I do not hear mid-first on him at all.

Dark Johnny: Can you be a good MLB starter without a viable changeup in the arsenal?
Keith Law: IMO, no. Changeup or splitter.

Eric: Would you vote for Bernie Sanders against Donald Trump in November?
Keith Law: Yes.

UU: Do you ever wonder if these chats are like a few100 people just using different names?
Keith Law: I can see it’s not, but even so, that would be fine.

Lane: Do you always read the intro?
Keith Law: I do. I may not read the middle, though.

Deke: If you’re Texas, what are you doing with center field this season?
Keith Law: Probably passing a law to eliminate abortion rights.
Keith Law: Oh, did you mean the Rangers?

addoeh: What are your Girl Scout cookie rankings?  For me, 1. Samoas 2. Tagalongs  3. Thin Mints (especially frozen).
Keith Law: Samoas and Tagalongs are 1-2 and that’s it. I don’t eat any of the others. I can eat an entire sleeve of Thin Mints and feel like I didn’t eat anything, which I think is really weird.

Bill: Will you be doing an extra (or just early) chat on Monday? I believe that’s when you top 100 prospect rankings comes out.
Keith Law: Not Monday but some time next week. I will still be finishing the NL West org reports Monday and also I have some life stuff to deal with that I’ve been putting off to finish the prospect rankings.

Jay: Klaw, I get the sense that “socialism” is going to be the scare word of 2020 and despite the average American not understanding what it means, it will cost Bernie the election. I much prefer Warren but I don’t see her winning the nomination. How do you feel?
Keith Law: It’s been a scare word since the 1980s, most Americans do not know what it means, and I don’t know if even Bernie is an actual socialist. The fact that so many Americans glom on to “socialist” as a pejorative term for Democratic candidates is a huge indictment of public education in this country.

Matt: Fwiw, I’ve really dug the European Wingspan expansion. It adds a bunch of cards that increase interaction between the players, which is maybe my one (minor) complaint with the original.
Keith Law: Good to know – thank you.

Rob Manfred: Even if I suspended some of the players, I would lose each and every case with the arbritrator, true or false ?
Keith Law: Mass suspensions would probably have to be negotiated with the union ahead of the announcement. In that case, there wouldn’t be arbitration.

John: If Kumar Rocker was eligible to be drafted in the upcoming draft, would he be in consideration for the top pick?
Keith Law: No.

Ken: In all of these article concerning the Mets and their potential sale of the team it just seems to be reported as fact the the Mets lose $50m annually. 1) This is B.S. right? 2) Why do reporters go along with it so easily?
Keith Law: 1) Right. 2) Because it’s easy. Same reason so many writers uncritically quoted that bought-and-paid-for marketing report that claimed Miller Park generated over $2 billion for the city of Milwaukee, which is pure bullshit.

Guest: ATTENTION EVERYONE:  Don’t let the 2/24 Top 100 Release (on the Athletic) overshadow the 4/21 Book Release (where ever books are sold)
Keith Law: Good point, thank you.

Caleb: Do we ever get to a point where strikeouts go down and average goes back up?  Or has that ship sailed?
Keith Law: Sure. Raise the bottom of the strike zone.

Jeff: Will you be publishing the “usual” supplements to your top 100? Breakthrough players, top ten by org, etc.
Keith Law: Yes, just missed list + org reports (20+ players per) for all 30 teams.

Jason: When you complete your top-100 lists, how often are you surprised at where players end up compared to where you thought they would be at the beginning?
Keith Law: Never surprised, but it does change a lot.

Sam: Shed Long, good enough to be an everyday 2B?
Keith Law: No. Poor defender.

BrittanyMars: Why are circle-changes and palmballs rare/going extinct?
Keith Law: Circle-changes are going extinct? I don’t think that’s true.

Ken: Is there anyone you wouldn’t vote for over Trump? If the Dems actually managed to nominate someone more vile than Trump would you just sit that one out or actually vote for the lesser of two evil? I assume you’d just go 3rd party at that point.
Keith Law: Probably would sit that one out.

Sammy Sosa: Last night Bernie — who isn’t even a socialist — was called a communist by Bloomberg and Mayor Pete talked up Denmark as the best place for the American dream. Do these people even listen to themselves?
Keith Law: No, they don’t. Or they do, but they don’t care, as long as the comments land.

Jay: Is O’Neil Cruz the most unique prospect you’ve covered? Is he the Pirate MiLBer with the highest ceiling AND lowest floor?
Keith Law: He’s up there – he would be the biggest shortstop in MLB history. Only Joel Guzman has been that height or taller and played shortstop, and of course he was terrible (at short, and in general).

Alex: Thanks for the San Diego restaurant picks a few chats ago (I went to Rovino and Mission).   Is it too early to evaluate at the Mike Elias” player development in the minors so far (pitching seems to have gotten better; hard to say with hitters)
Keith Law: Yes, just one year so far.

Bob: You are absolutely correct about Thin Mints!!
Keith Law: Thank you. Thin Mints are only good when crushed and swirled into ice cream.

Michael: Bloomberg funded Toomey in 2016 and GOP house candidates in 2018.  What is he doing here?
Keith Law: Hence, DINO.

Idaho Nuke: Why does Bernie keep mentioning Denmark when they are capitalist?
Keith Law: “Capitalism with a strong social safety net” doesn’t have a great ring to it, but that’s what Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands offer, and it is the kind of economy in which I want to live. Free enterprise can still exist and thrive in such an environment, but people who are less fortunate, who are born with disabilities, who fall ill, etc. would still be protected. There but for the grace of God, people.
Keith Law: OK, I have to get back to writing. Thank you all for stopping by for the chat. If you haven’t heard, my top 100 prospects will appear on Monday, February 24th, at the Athletic, for subscribers only. Enjoy your weekends!

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Stick to baseball, 2/15/20.

My only new content this week at the Athletic was a breakdown of the final Mookie Betts trade, as I continue to work on the prospect rankings, which will run the week of February 24th. I’ll be working through the weekend to stay on schedule for that release date.

I do have a new game review up at Paste, covering Genius Games’ new title Ecosystem, a card-drafting, tableau-building game that moves very quickly but has intricate interactions among the cards you place. The deck has cards for two habitats and nine different species of animals, birds, fish, and insects, and where and how you place those cards in your 4×5 grid affects your ultimate scoring.

My second book, The Inside Game: Bad Calls, Strange Moves, and What Baseball Behavior Teaches Us About Ourselves, is due out on April 21st from Harper Collins, and you can pre-order it now via their site or wherever fine books are sold. Also, check out my free email newsletter, which I say I’ll write more often than I actually write it.

I’ve also got at least five signings scheduled at independent bookstores already, with two announced on the stores’ pages: April 24th at Politics & Prose in DC and April 25th at Midtown Scholar in Harrisburg.

And now, the links…

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→ February 11, 2020
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Ford v. Ferrari.

Ford v. Ferrari is a love letter to testosterone, and to boys playing with cars and getting mad at other boys who don’t want to let them play with their cars the way they want to play with those cars. It gets lazy in key places, with an antagonist who could have been written by a 10-year-old, played in an uncomfortably simpering manner throughout the film. It’s also kind of fun, if you want to dial back your brain for a few hours without turning it off completely, thanks in large part to the outstanding camera work that puts you right on the track in each of the film’s racing scenes. It just became available to rent via amazon and iTunes this morning.

Based on the outline of a true story, Ford v. Ferrari tracks two men, Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) and Ken Miles (Christian Bale), who find themselves recruited by the Ford Motor Company to build a race car capable of beating Ferrari at the 24 Hours of Le Mans race. Ford executive Lee Iacocca (Jon Bernthal) pitches this idea to Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts) as a way to change the company’s image, and sells the scion on the plan to go out and find the best people to build that car and race under the Ford name. They run into opposition from the ambitious sycophant Leo Beebe (Josh Lucas), who tries repeatedly to take control of the project or stymie it any way he can, but ultimately the Shelby/Miles duo do make that car and race it at Le Mans in 1966.

There’s so much wrong with this movie on a fundamental level, but that really wasn’t enough to stop me from enjoying just about all of it. Ford v. Ferrari is just fun. We caught it in a theater, so the sound and visuals of the races were very effective at putting us right on the track with Miles, whether it’s on various test tracks as they try to build the car or the actual races at Daytona and Le Mans when they do get out there. The three screenwriters punch up the race scenes with drama on and off the tracks, including decisions on how far to push Ford’s new GT engines (7000 rpm is pitched from the opening scene as a critical threshold) and disagreements between Shelby and Beebe on how to handle each race. There’s a fair amount of time between races in the script, from more internal drama to conversations about how best to build the car or handle the heavy wear on the brakes during a 24-hour race, but the scenes are generally short to keep the nearly 150-minute movie from flagging. For a movie of its length, it hums along without too much interruption … and have I mentioned how thrilling the race scenes are? I don’t even like car racing of any sort, but the sounds during the race sequences are so well done, which I suppose explains why Donald Sylvester won the Academy Award for Best Sound Editing for this film.

However, there’s a lot wrong under the hood here, starting with the portrayal of Beebe, a real person who did make the controversial decision to have the three Ford cars cross the finish line very close to each other (not simultaneously, as shown in the film) in 1966, a decision he long defended as borne of safety concerns rather than a photo op. (A friend of Beebe’s defended his legacy in this 2016 post, which has some details relevant to this film as well.) Beebe is the most one-dimensional, disposable antagonist you could conceive for the good ol’ boy Shelby and the English rebel Miles, and Lucas plays Beebe with an over-the-top, effeminate manner that contrasts poorly with all of the very masculine men who are just trying to build a better race car, gosh dang it. When Beebe isn’t sucking up to Ford II – and the very talented Letts is rather wasted in that role – he’s scheming to overthrow the project, or trying to pull one over on Shelby, who responds with frat-boy trickery to win the day.

There’s also one named female character in the entire film, Miles’ wife Mollie, whose name I had to look up just now because she’s not that significant in the story itself. Played by Caitriona Balfe, Mollie is there to alternately support and argue with Ken, to worry a lot while he’s racing, to get mad over unpaid bills, and to wear sundresses. I’m not all about the Bechdel test, but whoa boy, does Ford v. Ferrari flunk that.

The film was nominated for Best Picture, which feels like a stretch to me – it’s an extremely enjoyable movie, but I’d have a hard time thinking of it as ‘great’ in the Best Picture sense. Its other nominations were all easier to understand – Sound Editing, for which It won; Sound Mixing, and Film Editing. It didn’t get a screenplay nod, and director James Mangold wasn’t nominated. Neither lead actor was nominated either, although Bale is excellent as Miles and would have been more deserving of a Supporting Actor nod than Anthony Hopkins. If it wasn’t good enough to get screenplay, directing, or acting nominations, what is the probability that it was one of the nine best movies of the year? Give that spot to The Farewell, or Knives Out, or any of several foreign films nominated, and let Ford v. Ferrari be what it is: a much smarter than normal action film/buddy movie with some truly thrilling car-racing scenes.

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→ February 9, 2020
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Oscar picks for 2020.

With the Oscars coming up tonight, I’ve put together this post with some loose predictions, my own picks for each award, and, most importantly, links to every one of these films I’ve reviewed. I’ve seen all of the Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay nominees, but missed a few others due to my schedule, my job change, and especially getting sick around the holidays, so I’m only at about 29 films for the calendar year 2019 so far, with maybe a half-dozen others I want to see as they hit streaming. Once I get those, I’ll do an actual ranking, but I know I’m missing a couple of critical titles for now.

Best Picture

1917
Ford v. Ferrari
The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit
Joker
Little Women
Marriage Story
Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood
Parasite

Who will win: 1917

Who should win: Parasite

I hope I’m wrong about 1917; it’s fine, but nothing more, and I would much rather see Parasite, Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood, or Little Women (which has zero shot) take this honor. I am just guessing that voters will see 1917 as an achievement, or as a filmmaker’s film, with its one-shot gimmick (which is almost certain to get Roger Deakins his second Best Cinematography win) and attempt to imitate real time.

Snubs: I saw fewer movies outside of the nominees this year, so I missed Uncut Gems, but of films I did see, Knives Out, The Farewell, and Pain & Glory were all better than Jojo Rabbit and Joker.

Best Director


1917 (Sam Mendes)
The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)
Joker (Todd Phillips)
Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)
Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

Who will win: Mendes

Who should win: Bong

Snubs: Greta Gerwig getting passed over for Little Women in favor of Phillips was the worst snub in any category this year.

Best Actor

Antonio Banderas, Pain & Glory
Leonardo DiCaprio, Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood
Adam Driver, Marriage Story
Joaquin Phoenix, Joker
Jonathan Pryce, The Two Popes

Who will win: Phoenix

Who should win: Banderas

I would pick at least three of the other four nominees – Banderas, DiCaprio, or Pryce – over Phoenix, but the award has been presumed to be his for months now.

Snubs: Kang-Ho Song for Parasite, although I think it would be unprecedented for two actors in non-English-speaking roles to get nominated in the same year.

Best Actress

Cynthia Erivo, Harriet
Scarlett Johansson, Marriage Story
Saoirse Ronan, Little Women
Charlize Theron, Bombshell
Renée Zellweger, Judy

Who will win: Zellweger

Who should win: Zellweger

I still haven’t seen Harriet or Bombshell, but of the three nominees I’ve seen, Zellweger is my pick. She completely becomes Judy Garland, and as much as I’m skeptical of performances where the actor just plays a real person, she’s really that good.

Snubs: I don’t have any for this category, especially since I’ve only seen 3/5. I thought Awkwafina was good in The Farewell but wouldn’t take her over Ronan, Zellweger, or Johansson.

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

Tom Hanks, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
Anthony Hopkins, The Two Popes
Al Pacino, The Irishman
Joe Pesci, The Irishman
Brad Pitt, Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood

Who will win: Pitt

Who should win: Pesci

I have no objection to Pitt winning; he’d be my second choice behind Pesci. I still haven’t seen A Beautiful Day, unfortunately.

Snubs: Christian Bale gave the best and most pivotal performance in Ford v. Ferrari; I would have nominated him over Pacino or Hopkins.

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

Kathy Bates, Richard Jewell
Laura Dern, Marriage Story
Scarlett Johansson, Jojo Rabbit
Florence Pugh, Little Women
Margot Robbie, Bombshell

Who will win: Dern

Who should win: Pugh

This is likely to be my biggest disagreement of the night; Pugh was amazing, and brought something new to an old and familiar character. Dern was good, but the role wasn’t all that complex, and she was better in Little Women than she was in Marriage Story. I haven’t seen Bombshell, and I will not give Richard Jewell any of my money given its defamatory treatment of a real journalist who is no longer alive to defend herself.

Snubs: I thought there was enough momentum for Jennifer Lopez to get a nod for Hustlers. I would have picked her over Johansson, at least.

Best International Feature Film

Corpus Christi (Poland)
Honeyland (North Macedonia)
Les Misérables (France)
Pain & Glory (Spain)
Parasite (South Korea)

Who will win: Parasite

Who should win: Parasite

The lock of the night. I will see Les Misérables, probably when it hits Amazon Prime in a few weeks or months; I saw the shortlisted Atlantique, but wouldn’t take it over the other four nominees. Honeyland was visually interesting, but I wouldn’t vote for it here or over American Factory for Best Documentary Feature. I also would especially like to see The Traitor, Italy’s submission for the award this year, and just learned that the UK’s submission, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, is on Netflix.

Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay

The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit
Joker
Little Women
The Two Popes

Who will win: Little Women

Who should win: Little Women

This is the token award they’ll give Gerwig after snubbing her for Best Director. I assume it also comes with a pat on the head.

Best Writing, Original Screenplay

Knives Out
Marriage Story
1917
Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood
Parasite

Who will win: Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood

Who should win: Parasite

I loved Knives Out, but I can’t push for that over Parasite or Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.

Snubs: Pedro Almodóvar should have gotten a nod for Pain & Glory over 1917, the script for which is the film’s biggest weakness.

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→ February 8, 2020
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Stick to baseball, 2/8/20.

The Mookie Betts trade might be falling apart as I write this, but I did break down the reported three-team deal on Wednesday morning. I’ll update that as needed when the trade becomes final. Schedule conflicts prevented me from chatting but I did do a Periscope on Friday. My prospect rankings will run on The Athletic the week of February 24th.

My second book, The Inside Game: Bad Calls, Strange Moves, and What Baseball Behavior Teaches Us About Ourselves, is due out on April 21st from Harper Collins, and you can pre-order it now via their site or wherever fine books are sold. Also, check out my free email newsletter, which I say I’ll write more often than I actually write it.

And now, the links…

  • “Pro-Trump forces are poised to wage what could be the most extensive disinformation campaign in U.S. history,” according to this article by the Atlantic‘s McKay Coppins, who details the methods operatives use to fool people, especially via social media, into believing fabrications are the truth and the truth is merely fake news.
  • Evenflo, one of the major manufacturers of child car safety seats, lied when marketing its “Big Kid” booster seats despite data showing kids in those seats could be injured or killed in side-impact crashes, according to this investigative report from ProPublica.
  • Developing countries with valuable internet top-level domains, such as .tv (Tuvalu), .ly (Libya), or .nu (Niue), have often missed out on the profits from those names, which instead flowed to programmers or entrepreneurs in the U.S. or western Europe.
  • US Bank came under (well-deserved) attack last week after news spread that they had fired an employee for giving a stranded customer $20 on Christmas Eve so he could get home, and fired her supervisor as well. They’ve said they offered to re-hire both women, although the first of the two says she still hasn’t received a formal offer or any apology for the way the company defamed her publicly.
  • “Attention residue” reduces our productivity and happiness. One proposed solution is to carve out GLYIO (Get Your Life In Order) times during which you handle administrative tasks, or work out, or do other things that are bothering you because they’re always on your mind or your to-do list.
  • The Facebook group Stop Mandatory Vaccinations, which has 178,000 members, urged a mother who reported that her unvaccinated four-year-old son had the flu not to give him TamiFlu. He died four days later. Facebook is a dumpster fire of anti-vaccine bullshit and other conspiracy theories, and they simply do not care about the real-world consequences of their choice to shield this content.
  • Facebook also doesn’t do anything to stop anti-vaxxers from flooding pro-vaccine advocates, such as pediatrician Nicole Baldwin (whose pro-vax TikTok video went viral in mid-January), with threats and hate comments. That’s why Shots Heard Round the World was formed to help pro-vaccine advocates fight back against these armies of ignorance.
  • Miami, Florida, is the most vulnerable coastal city in the world as sea levels rise, yet Miami voters chose a Republican mayor, and the state has two Republican Senators and a Republican Governor – even though the GOP’s official stances on climate change range from opposing regulations on fossil fuels to outright climate denial.
  • I reviewed Matthew Walker’s book Why We Sleep a few years ago and praised it; I listened to the audio version and it seemed to be well-sourced and backed by evidence. Now there are claims that Walker manipulated the data in the book, and his responses so far have not come close to addressing the criticisms.
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→ February 7, 2020
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Music update, January 2020.

I’ve been adding songs to this playlist for nearly two months now – since I wrapped up my top 100 songs of 2019 list – which, of course, led me to procrastinate writing and posting it, since it was getting long. I’ve trimmed it to a manageable level, and it’s more metal-heavy than most of my playlists, although those songs are (as usual) all at the end. You can listen to the Spotify playlist here if you can’t see the widget below.

The Naked and Famous – Sunseeker. One side of a single with “Bury Us,” the New Zealand group’s first new music since 2018, and their first since founding keyboardist Aaron Short (now of The Space Above) left the band.

Ten Fé – Heaven Sent Me. Ten Fé are absurdly prolific; they’ve released two albums in the last two calendar years, then put out another two-track single with this and “Candidate” right before Christmas.

Pure Reason Revolution – Silent Genesis. I’ve included the edited version of this track, which runs over 10 minutes on the prog-rock duo’s upcoming album Eupnea, their first since they reformed in 2019 after an eight-year hiatus.

Tame Impala – Lost in Yesterday. Kevin Parker’s fourth studio album, The Slow Rush, comes out on Valentine’s Day, featuring this rather poppy track and all the singles Parker released last year, including “Borderline.”

The Districts – Cheap Regrets. The Districts’ songs to date have mostly been garage rock tracks, but this has an undeniable electronic dance influence that makes it the most interesting thing they’ve put out so far.

Working Men’s Club – Teeth. This Manchester trio released this first single since they signed with a record label back in November, and it marks a turn towards darker new wave sounds akin to Joy Division or Sisters of Mercy.

of Montreal – Polyaneurism. I haven’t liked much of what I’ve heard from of Montreal’s latest album, UR FUN, but this song is a bouncy, faintly ridiculous indie-pop track, even with Kevin Barnes’ weirdly annoying vocals.

Grimes – 4ÆM. I think we’re just going to have to see what c, formerly known as Claire Boucher, has in store for us on Miss Anthropocene, due out in two weeks; the five singles she’s released so far have been a mixed bag.

Sløtface – Tap the pack. These Norwegian punk-popsters just released their second album, Sorry for the Late Reply, full of more energetic bangers with clever lyrics.

Khruangbin with Leon Bridges – C-side. This collaboration is one of four tracks featuring the Texas avant-garde trio and singer Bridges on the Texas Sun EP, released today.

Artificial Pleasure – Into the Unknown (Pt. Two). I had to move this away from the Working Men’s Club track because they mine such similar darkwave territory.

HUMANIST feat. Dave Gahan – Shock Collar. Yep, that is indeed Depeche Mode frontman Gahan on Rob Marshall’s HUMANIST project.

The Amazons – Howlin. Introducing … The Amazons is a new 12-track record with B-sides, acoustic versions, and three previously unreleased tracks, including this one, which would have fit well on their last album Future Dust.

Thematic – Dirt and Chains. Progressive metal in a digestible song length! How novel. Their new album, Skyrunner, occasionally devolves into full-throated extreme-metal screaming, but when they avoid that the music is pretty compelling.

Toundra – I. Akt (edit). I’mprettymuch all in on anything this Madrid instrumental/progressive metal act releases, even when the songs are eight minutes long.

British Lion – The Burning. British Lion is the side project of Iron Maiden bassist and primary songwriter Steve Harris, and this song is a definite throwback to Maiden’s heyday musically, although it’ll never really sound like Maiden without Bruce Dickinson or a facsimile thereof.

Demons & Wizards – Diabolic. Another side project, this one with members of Iced Earth and Blind Guardian, with a name taken from a Uriah Heep song. It’s also eight minutes long, but there’s some great vintage ’80s guitar riffing once you get through the slow open.

Carcass – Under the Scalpel Blade. The greatest melodic death metal band ever is back, with their first new music in seven years, although this lead single isn’t as precise as 2013’s Surgical Steel and sounds a bit more like pre-Heartwork Carcass.

Testament – Night of the Witch. The Pete Best of 1980s thrash bands, Testament is still going with their own blend of vintage speed metal and elements of more contemporary extreme metal; I’m just here for the riffing.

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→ February 6, 2020
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The Nickel Boys.

Colson Whitehead won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for his last novel, The Underground Railroad, which re-imagined that escape network as an actual subterranean train system that helped slaves leave the South before the Civil War. His follow-up, The Nickel Boys, stays in the world of the mundane, drawing on the true story of a violent ‘reform school’ in the South to tell yet another dazzling, compelling story about race and the experience of people of color in the United States, and how white elites have continued to suppress the black populations in the South long after the Civil War was over.

The Nickel Boys takes place largely in the panhandle of Florida, near Tallahassee, at a fictional reform school for juveniles called the Nickel Academy, where white and black boys are separated into different houses, and the treatment is brutal and dehumanizing. It’s based on the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, which operated for over 100 years and at one point was the largest institution of its type in the country. The school closed in 2011 after a massive state investigation into charges of abuse, and a year later Erin Kimmerle, a forensic anthropologist from the University of South Florida, used ground-penetrating radar to find mass graves of on the site. They’ve found an estimated 80 corpses already, with exhumations ongoing. (The State of Florida officially apologized to the surviving boys in 2017, and as of September of 2019, after two-plus years of delays, work finally began on building memorials to the boys who died at Dozier and its satellite campus.)

Whitehead draws on survivors’ accounts to create the Nickel Academy, building his narrative around a boy named Elwood, arrested for being a passenger in a car that may have been stolen, ruining his hopes of bettering himself by continuing his education. Elwood has a strong moral compass, one that sometimes works against him because he speaks up when the world thinks he shouldn’t. Once imprisoned at Nickel, he meets Turner, another young African-American inmate who matches Elwood’s idealistic view of the world with an equally powerful cynicism, and a sense of self-preservation that he tries to impart to Elwood to keep the latter boy from meeting the fate of others who’ve ‘disappeared’ in the middle of the night.

Life at Nickel is about what you’d expect for black boys at a reform school run by whites in the 1950s and 1960s. They’re barely fed, because the administrators skim off the food sent for the black kids (less so when it’s for the white boys across the property) and sell it to local restaurants; they do the same with other supplies, like those for the boys’ education. They’re beaten in a building called the White House – the same as the name of the actual building that still stands on the Dozier property where illicit beatings took place – and many are sexually assaulted by guards. Boys who try to escape or otherwise draw the ire of the administration are taken from their beds in the middle of the night and tortured to death, after which their families – if they have any – are told that the boys ran away. There’s a nominal system for earning your way to release if you follow the rules and don’t push back, although in Whitehead’s depiction it’s hard to see many boys running this gauntlet successfully, given the venality of the administrators and bloodthirst of the guards.

The narrative itself revolves around Elwood and Turner, and Elwood’s own hopes that he’ll earn his way out – although the guards take him to the White House once – and tell the world about what’s going on at Nickel. Whitehead could have made this story even more brutal than it was, but instead he gives the reader just enough to depict the inhumanity of the school without dwelling on lurid details. This is a story of two boys, of two different ways of facing their incarceration and subjugation, and of a society that didn’t care at all about a few more dead black boys. Nothing Whitehead can write here is as damning to Florida, and to the American South, as what actually happened at Dozier and how long it has taken the state to even acknowledge the crimes committed against children of color at the school, but the way he depicts these two boys, especially the depth of Elwood’s character and the tragedy of his backstory, make The Nickel Boys an immersive and compelling read even though you know that any page could bring a scene of unbearable violence. I have no means or justification for predicting the Pulitzer winners, but if Whitehead wins for the second time in four years I won’t be the least bit surprised.

Next up: Julia Phillips’ Disappearing Earth.

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→ February 3, 2020
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Jojo Rabbit.

Jojo Rabbit won the People’s Choice award at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, a rather significant honor given that the previous year’s winner was the dreadful Green Book … which ended up winning the Academy Award for Best Picture. Jojo is nominated for the latter honor, although there doesn’t seem to be much sentiment that it’ll win, which is a marginal improvement; it’s a lot better than Green Book, but it’s a really uneven film that seems unable to decide whether it’s a comedy and ends up with too many jokes that don’t quite land.

Based on a book by Christine Leunens called Caging Skies, Jojo Rabbit takes place late in World War II andfollows the title character, a a ten-year-old Hitler Youth member who has become a true believer to the point that his imaginary friend is Adolf Hitler (Taika Waititi, who directed and wrote the screenplay). Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis) lives with his mother (Scarlett Johansson); his sister has just died of influenza, and his father is gone, presumably fighting at the front. After injuring himself while training with the Hitler Youth, Jojo ends up doing menial tasks around town and spending more time at home, which leads him to discover that his mother has been hiding a Jewish girl, Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie). The two embark on an entertaining dialogue where he starts out spouting the anti-Semitic nonsense he’s been taught by the Nazi regime, while she taunts him to try to keep him from saying anything about her presence, even to his mother; over time, of course, his prejudices break down and the two form a friendship that is tested by outside events.

Satire has a point, while farce exists just to send up its target. Jojo Rabbit doesn’t work as satire, but it’s moderately successful as farce. The targets here are the Nazis, and their adherents; Jojo is indoctrinated by the adults and older kids around him, never questioning what he’s told, even though his own mother tries to undermine their messages of hate and aggression. Waititi has made them largely ridiculous, from his own performance as Hitler to Sam Rockwell’s one-eyed Nazi Captain to Stephen Merchant’s Gestapo officer to Alfie Allen’s dimwitted officer, which is amusing but doesn’t really get us anywhere in the end. The Nazis weren’t objects of comedy, and the film spends more time showing them being absurd or stupid than it does showing them doing the horrible things they actually did. To be effective as a film, it either needed a stronger theme, or to be consistently funny; Jojo Rabbit lacks the former, and it’s only inconsistent at the latter. There are some laugh-out-loud moments, but it’s more a series of jokes that make you chuckle along with some that just don’t work, which makes the tonal shifts to the film’s few extremely serious moments even harder to absorb. (The posters that make this look like a screwball comedy don’t do the film any favors either.)

By far, the funniest character in the film is Jojo’s best friend Yorki, played by Archie Yates, who my daughter pointed out is a dead ringer for Russell in Up. He gets the best lines, he has the film’s best visual gag, and his delivery and affect are consistently hilarious. Merchant probably does more to strike the right balance between comedy and satire than anyone else in the film, with Waititi making him appear even more ridiculous with camera shots from low enough that Merchant appears to be about eight feet tall (he’s 6’7″). Rebel Wilson has a side role that she clearly relishes but that is just the same gag repeated over and over, funny just because she’s so absurdly enthusiastic about it. Most disappointing, however, is Waititi himself, who is surprisingly unfunny in the caricature of the imaginary Hitler; he’s kind of doing Viago again, with a sort of German-adjacent accent, and most of the jokes seem to revolve about how dumb he is, or around Waititi moving his arms and legs in a silly manner.

Scarlett Johansson earned one of her two Oscar nominations this year for her role as Jojo’s mother, and she is quite good, although I could make an argument that Thomasin McKenzie’s role and performance are ultimately more important to the film as a whole. (She also appears in the upcoming film adaptation of the Booker-winning novel The True History of the Kelly Gang with George MacKay of 1917 and Russell Crowe.) Johansson is charming, but the character is a bit one-note, while McKenzie has to explore a much wider range of emotions, and Jojo Rabbit couldn’t work without her. That the film works at all, and ends up a solid-average watch overall, is as much a credit to her performance as Elsa as anything else. There’s just no way I’d support this for Best Picture, given what else is nominated.

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→ February 1, 2020
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Stick to baseball, 2/1/20.

I had two posts for Athletic subscribers this week, one on whether the Reds have done enough to contend in the NL Central, and one on the Starling Marte trade. I held a Klawchat on Thursday, and a Periscope chat, my first since I started getting sick at Thanksgiving (after taking prednisone for just four days!) and had a cough for most of the next six weeks. My prospect rankings will run on The Athletic the week of February 24th.

Over at Paste, I reviewed Hadara, a civ-building, card-drafting game that made my top ten games of 2019. I keep comparing it to 7 Wonders because of the similarities in themes and card selection, but it’s more in the “try this if you like 7 Wonders” vein than a “this is too similar” one.

My second book, The Inside Game: Bad Calls, Strange Moves, and What Baseball Behavior Teaches Us About Ourselves, is due out on April 21st from Harper Collins, and you can pre-order it now via their site or wherever fine books are sold. Also, check out my free email newsletter, which I’ll get back to again this upcoming week in between writing words about prospects.

And now, the links…

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→ January 31, 2020
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Pain and Glory.

Antonio Banderas landed one of the five nominations for Best Actor this year for his role as Salvador in Pain and Glory (Dolor y Gloria), the latest film from Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar (All About My Mother). It’s a command performance from Banderas, who gets his first Oscar nomination at age 59, one that would get my vote (if I had one) in his category for the range and depth he shows in bringing this complex, sad character to life in a story that meanders like the memories it’s trying to depict. (You can rent it on amazon and iTunes.)

Salvador Mallo is a once-famous Spanish director who is now in professional and physical decline, wracked by joint and back pain and hobbled by various other ailments (some of which may not be real), all of which leaves him feeling like he’s unable to work, and if he can’t make movies, he doesn’t see any point to living. He’s thrust into the past when a local cinema restores and airs his film of 30 years earlier, Sabor (Flavor), whose star, Alberto, played the lead character so differently than Salvador intended that the two haven’t spoken since. The two meet again, tentatively, and Alberto shares some heroin with Salvador, who tries it on a whim but becomes hooked, and while he gets high we see more flashbacks to his childhood with his mother (Penélope Cruz, who doesn’t seem to age) in a cave house in rural Spain. While there, Salvador meets Eduardo, an illiterate but kind local laborer, whom he teaches to read, write, and do basic math; and fights with his mother, who wants to send him to a seminary to continue his education so he doesn’t end up ‘like his father.’

The two tracks, in the present day and in the world of Salvador’s memories, both move forward in linear fashion, but the latter jumps around enough to resemble the way our memories actually work. Almodóvar then combines the two timelines when Alberto discovers an unpublished treatment Salvador wrote called “Addiction,” that tells the true story of Salvador’s affair with a man who was also addicted to heroin, an affair that ended because he couldn’t kick the habit; Salvador confesses he doesn’t even know if his former lover is still alive. When Alberto convinces Salvador to let him stage the play, you can probably guess what happens, and how that kind of closure helps Salvador finally take some small steps to help himself, and to let his incredibly devoted friend and assistant Zulema help him.

Most of the summaries I’ve seen of Pain and Glory have focused on Salvador’s infirmities, describing it as a meditation on aging and mortality. While those themes are clearly present, the movie, and Banderas’ performance, are both far more hopeful than you’d expect from such a description, while also trying to explore how our past experiences and our memories of them can shape our lives for years or decades afterwards. Salvador flashes back to various scenes because of how much they’ve influenced his later life, especially in how his relationship with his mother, right up to her death, has affected and haunted him well into adulthood. Confronting those memories is a crucial step in his recovery not just from his temporary addiction but from the depression that has taken over his entire life, threatening his career and possibly more.

Salvador is not exactly Almodóvar, but there is a lot of the director in the character, and Banderas does a marvelous job bringing that character to life with the kind of depth and rounded edges that he needs to have to engender enough empathy and interest from the audience. Some of the key points about Salvador, including his physical pain, come across in ways that feel organic without overwhelming the character or the story – he’s in pain, and that often leads to him choosing not to do things, but he is not inert on the screen because Banderas renders him in three dimensions, especially finding small ways to show that there’s some energy left in the old man even if his back or his legs aren’t willing. It could have been a monument to self-pity, but Banderas avoids that trap and instead gives one of the best performances of the year.

Almodóvar still makes some quirky choices that don’t entirely work; the sequence near the start of the film where Salvador runs through all of his maladies with the help of some animation feels incongruous and took me right out of the movie just as we were getting started. There was no way this was going to beat out Parasite for Best International Feature Film (for which both are nominated), but some of those small decisions are enough to keep it from coming close to the South Korean hit in my own estimation. Cruz is excellent in small doses as Salvador’s mother while he was still a child, but she could have used some more screen time to further develop both her character and her relationship with Salvador, and those scenes suffer a bit because Banderas isn’t there. His performance is so strong – he’s not going to win, as his character obviously isn’t crazy enough to beat out Joaquin Phoenix – that it elevates Pain and Glory from something maudlin into an elegiac lament that still gives its main character reasons to hope and to live, right up to the film’s glorious final shot.

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