→ November 29, 2018
→ By

Klawchat 11/29/18.

My latest board game review for Paste looks at Welcome To, a twist on roll-and-write games that can play any number of players – up to 100, even.

Keith Law: No time for nothing, no Patek Philippe. Just Klawchat.

Joe Cleveland: Mets are crazy, right? Getting Cano giving up players like Kelenic or Dunn seems very dumb unless they get another valuable and controllable player like Haniger.
Keith Law: Hey, any time you can trade your #1 and #2 prospects for a 36-year-old second baseman with a bad contract and a volatile commodity like a one-inning closer, you just have to do it.

Adam: I guess Joe Simpsons comments didnt slide by unnoticed
Keith Law: Fox Sports is claiming his comments had nothing to do with the decision to get him largely off TV, which I find hard to believe. But worse is Simpson’s comments (from the AJC): “I have a very strong protective instinct on the game and its customs and history and traditions, so my comments were only intended as a defensive mechanism of the game.” That is not any sort of apology, or even a remote acknowledgement of the tacit (or less than tacit) racism of his comments. It’s an old white man who doesn’t even know that the customs, history, and tradition of baseball include excluding players of color, then allowing them to play while treating them vastly differently than white players. Whatever the reasons, I’m glad Fox chose to turn this page.

Patrick: Keith, with your front office experience, what do you think the Brewers should do this off-season, esp about SP? Go with the young players? Or push for a Bumgarner type (star SP available for a short time)?
Keith Law: Burnes and Woodruff join the rotation, and they’re both good. I wouldn’t view a top-end starter as a priority. Bulk innings, perhaps, but I wouldn’t go spend prospects.

Patrick: Thanks again for all these chats Keith.
Do you have a favorite holiday/seasonal recipe?
Keith Law: Not really. My daughter and I will make some cookies, like the Italian flag (tri-color, rainbow, seven-layer … they have lots of names) cookies made from almond paste, chocolate, and raspberry & apricot jams.

Ryan: Hi Klaw, Thoughts on the rumored Cano/Diaz to Mets trade? I’m confused why the Mets would include Gimenez.
Keith Law: Gimenez isn’t in the class of Dunn or Kelenic. He’s a solid prospect but doesn’t have that kind of upside.

Dave: Thanks for the chat. Does Brian McCann have enough left to be the Braves’ primary catcher in 2019?
Keith Law: No, nor did they sign him to do that.

Jeff: Currently waiting in line at Little Miss BBQ. Got here at 830. Second in line (opens at 11). Good move or GREAT MOVE?
Keith Law: Great move. Get the brisket.

Mike: Have to run to a meeting, so I’ll take your answer off the air. The (purely hypothetical) return of Medina and JoJo Romero for MadBum is fair, right? I get the feeling in the Bay Area that fans won’t be happy with any return given their sentimental attachment to Bum.
Keith Law: Honestly, I’m not sure if I like that for the Phillies, just because Bumgarner isn’t what he used to be, and I feel like you might get something better if you package Romero (whom I really like) and Medina (more stuff than performance) in another deal.

section 34: I can’t decide between two Orioles questions:
1) What’s a reasonable timeline for the O’s to return to contention?
2) If you were in charge, would you DFA Chris Davis, or take some other action?
Keith Law: I think it’s 4-5 years, and I would DFA him. At least get the 40-man spot back.

Dave: Hi, Keith! Thanks for all of your baseball writing! This is non-baseball, though: With the closing of Cocina Lolo, what do you do for quality Mexican food in your area now? Asking for a Delaware friend.
Keith Law: Honest answer: I don’t. I just get my fix on the road now.

Michael Conforto: Would you ever do science and politics chats or writing? Your takes are more well thought out than most political journalists, and watching you torch anti-vaxxers on Twitter is extremely entertaining.
Keith Law: Thank you. I would if there were a serious professional opportunity to do so. Doing it just on my own probably brings more downside than reward.

DH: Does Peter Alonso have the bat to be an above average DH if he were in the AL? Can he hit 30 hr? And does he give all of that value back if he plays at 1st?
Keith Law: Yes, yes, and not all of it, just some.

Jake Albrecht: Do you abandon books if they’re not working for you? I’m slogging through War and Peace and I thought I successfully left it behind but every time I want to quit I feel guilty about it.
Keith Law: I do, usually early on. If I hit page 100 I’m probably finishing it. I got through War & Peace without too much trouble. Les Miserables is the novel of that length I’d advise everyone to skip.

Kasvot Vaxt: How many wins would this Cano / Diaz deal add to the Mets next year?
Keith Law: I’ll say 5-6. Which makes them … a fourth place team.

Jared: How would you rank the Brewers three young pitchers — Peralta, Burnes, Woodruff — going forward?
Keith Law: Burnes well over Woodruff, who’s then over Peralta.

Matt: Hey KLaw, Mark Bowman reported that acquiring Kluber would likely cost the Braves Kyle Wright, Touki, and Pache. Would you make that trade if you ran the Braves?
Keith Law: No way. Especially with some very small signs that Kluber may be declining relative to his peak. You’re paying for three years and it’s likely none of them is 7-WAR Kluber.

Marshall MN: I don’t disagree with your opinion on the ability of Royce Lewis to stick at SS, but if he can’t cut it there at what level would you expect to see the Twins move him to a different position? At AA?
Keith Law: That’s probably right.

Kacey: Did you know that a witch hunt involves guilty pleas from the President’s personal attorney, campaign manager, deputy campaign manager, foreign policy adviser and national security adviser? When will this witch hunt end???
Keith Law: The great part of the joke is that the witch hunt keeps finding more witches.

Dave: Keith, any thoughts on who the Orioles will replace Gary Rajsich with as their scouting director?
Keith Law: I have no idea.

Ciscoskid: Does the market of available 1B options make Brandon Belt a negative value asset?
Keith Law: No, but it certainly limits his return to the point that it likely makes more sense to keep him.

Bobby Bradley’s 40-time: What on earth is the Mets FO doing? Actively searching for Syndergaard trade partners, but deGrom is off limits. Also pushing for an old, $120M 1B and a young RP?
Keith Law: We’re just pretending that the Mets’ GM didn’t represent that old 2b (who might be a 1b) and negotiate that deal, right? There’s nothing weird about that?

matt klentak: isnt the opportunity cost for Diaz too high? I mean, you can get Familia and Miller or some duo like that for ~60M, which probably is less than two top 100 prospects + an MLB player for Diaz
Keith Law: Yes, and also, relievers don’t last. Look at the four-year deals just ending – Miller, Kimbrel, Robertson. None paid off well. The first two are clearly less than they were at the start. And I would feel very comfortable betting that Diaz’s 3.5 WAR last year ends up his career high.

Tom C: Yesterday my work was giving out flu shots (I already had mine). Some people around me were debating whether to get one because they didn’t want to get sick from the shot. Me: You know what makes you even sicker? Them: What? Me: The ACTUAL flu. Them: (Blank Stares). Some went and got the shot.
Keith Law: Excellent answer. Also, you can’t get the flu from the flu shot, because the virus in it is attenuated (weakened so it can’t cause the flu).

Adam: What does Francisco Mejia’s stock look like right now? Is it an exaggeration to say that he’s not a Top 5 prospect in the Padres system?
Keith Law: Yes, that’s an absurd statement. Of course he’s top 5 there.

Matt: Thoughts on a couple of Rays rookies from 2018, Joey Wendle and Jake Bauers? Do you believe in Wendle’s big second half, and are you buying Bauers as a bounceback guy despite his struggles last year?
Keith Law: Don’t believe in Wendle at all. Bauers is better than what he showed. Probably never a 20 homer guy, but can hit for a lot more average than that. Think he’s a solid-average regular at 1b.

Steve from PHL: Keith, what is your prediction as to what the Phillies do this offseason- signings, trades, etc? Thanks!
Keith Law: I really don’t do predictions like that. I leave that stuff and the rumormongering to others. I’ll just react as appropriate when there’s real news like a signing.

Paul: Of course if the Mets are stupid enough to trade Kelenic or Dunn then the other moves are irrelevant. However – what were your thoughts on Mets hiring Baird?
Keith Law: That’s the one move there I’ve really liked. I know Allard a little – enough that I know not to shake his hand again, because last time he broke two of my metacarpal bones – but more importantly the people I know well who’ve worked for and with him absolutely rave about him as a baseball guy and a person to work for.

Jon: With the Mets saying they want to “contend” in 2019 and the absurd rumors about trading all their top prospects for Cano and a closer, why do I get the feeling this will be a half baked offseason that drains the cupboards and in a year or two, they’re back in the same spot, only with a terrible farm system?
Keith Law: This feels a bit like the first Preller year in San Diego, when ownership seemed to want him to go all out to try to win, and they traded away a lot of value (especially Trea Turner) while acquiring bad contracts that eventually hamstrung them. The difference is that Preller was able to do a 180 and, with the help of the old international rules, turn their depleted farm system into the game’s best in short order.

JP: Settle a baseball argument: when talking about years of Team Control, is that referring to the Pre-Arbitration years only, or all the years until the player becomes a FA (PreArb+Arb)?
Keith Law: Years until free agency.

Andrew: Given the light return for Paxton, would the Giants be better off holding onto him and taking the comp pick after the season?
Keith Law: Your given is not a given.

Anthony: Hi Keith, thoughts on Andruw Jones and his HoF case?
Keith Law: So I have a vote this year, for the first time, and I have checked off nine names so far. I think I know who my tenth will be, but I’m mulling it over for a few days before I fill out the last one and mail it. I’ll do a column for ESPN+ later this month about it.

Marshall MN: You know what’s crazy, we are only 2 months away from your annual top prospect list, wow does time fly. Are you already hard at work on the top 100?
Keith Law: I am indeed. I’ve spent about 15 hours on the phone since Monday morning, maybe a little more, and have another call at 2 pm sharp.
Keith Law: I do a lot of calls first before I write anything at all.

JR: Does your daughter have a phone? If so, at what age did you get her one? If not, at what age would you feel comfortable? I thought I could hold out until 12/13, but my 10 year old son is already angling for one and many kids younger than him already have one.
Keith Law: She does. It has been really valuable for her to have it to text or call us, and more than once her bus has had a substitute/temporary driver so she’s used the maps to help the driver navigate (which, yes, that’s a whole different set of issues).

Gavin: Is Keston the real deal? He gives me Joe Panik vibes with his lack of power.
Keith Law: Totally dissimilar players, although I don’t think Hiura is a huge power guy. He makes harder contact than Panik.

Jake: Have you ever had BBQ in KC? Thoughts? Q39, Joe’s, Jack stack>>
Keith Law: KC Joes was my favorite. Slappy’s was very good too. Jack Stack is a different experience … BBQ is more of a casual thing, so in a sit-down setting it seems a little weird to me.

Mitch: Do you take much stock in Dominican Winter ball performances? Small sample size, but Heliot Ramos is doing much better than in Augusta. Not sure if that’s growth or he’s facing worse competition.
Keith Law: Ramos is Puerto Rican and is playing in the Puerto Rican Winter League, not the Dominican. I don’t put any stock in numbers from those leagues, though; the level of competition varies far too much even from game to game. I think it’s a positive experience for players, since they get more reps in real game settings.

Andy: It seems like the Braves are valuing higher dollar and shorter year span with contracts. Do you see becoming more common with all teams and move away from the 8 to 10 year deals in the future?
Keith Law: No, because the dynamics of the market will always encourage teams to give that one extra year to land the player.

Chris: Thoughts on Lewis Brinson? That Yelich trade is looking all-time bad right now for Marlins.
Keith Law: Still see upside there. Also, I wouldn’t judge a prospect deal after just one year.

Kyle: Do you think Bryan Reynolds can stick in center field?
Keith Law: I do not.

Mac: We were having a discussion about the most overrated tools and I said arm strength for a catcher. What’s yours?
Keith Law: Velocity. Without any other variables, it’s not all that telling once you’ve hit the major-league minimum (you can’t throw 84 as a RHP and be a major league starter).

AJ: Hi Keith, could you weigh in on a friendly office argument? I told a co-worker I’d rather take Eugenio Suarez (at current deal) over Machado at 8/200 and was called insane. It just seems to be a better use of $, and not even for small market teams only. Am I in fact insane?
Keith Law: Insane is awfully harsh. I just disagree with you.

Jason: Did Reggie Lawson become a prospect this season? Seems like his secondaries improved
Keith Law: He was one before, but he took a nice step forward.

Tony: How can we take strong legislative action on climate change when 1) the Republican base firmly believes scientists are lying, and 2) it’s very hard to take decisive control of the Senate from Republicans, given their demographic advantage in having that same Republican base dominate lots of small rural states?
Keith Law: It would be nice if House Democrats tried a more aggressive tactic of actually pushing bills and forcing the Senate to reject them, but also, the Dems have not done enough to make climate change’s effects a real campaign issue in states like Florida that are going to get seriously fucked by rising seas, more/stronger hurricanes, red tide, etc.

Brian: Do you think Wil Crowe could become a No. 3 starter, or is he more of a high probability 4/5 starter?
Keith Law: I would say virtually no chance he’s a 3.

Chris: Contrarian thought that I think you’d agree with from being in previous chats: Mets would be smart to flip Alonso for relief pitching now at possible peak of his value and roll w Smith at 1B. Thoughts?
Keith Law: Depends on the pitching, but yes, I do agree with that. Have to recognize Alonso has real value to AL clubs, though – I’m not saying you just give him away.

Mike: Love your baseball writing and opinions, as well as your takes on games, food, movies, music and books. I’m curious if baseball wasn’t your primary career, and you could spin any of those (or politics, science, etc) into a new full time writing job, which would you choose?
Keith Law: I’d probably be happy doing any of those. I just love to write.

KeithLawCommenter: Will you dabble in giving out baseball picks for betting? Or ever consider Action Network like Rovell?
Keith Law: No, and heck no.

Larry: What have you heard about Monte Harrison’s adjusted swing? Still hope there?
Keith Law: Saw him in AFL. Not sure what was “adjusted.”

Anthony: Just out of curiosity: what happens to a HOF vote if a qualified writer works for a team? If you took a job as scouting director tomorrow, I assume you’d forfeit your ballot, but if you reenter the public sphere after say, 3 years, do you get it back immediately or have to wait another decade?
Keith Law: No, I’d keep the ballot for ten years.

Dave: Should the Astros trade Tucker+ for Realmuto or sign Ramos or Grandal in FA?
Keith Law: I’d go the free agent route. Tucker may have struggled in his ten minutes in the majors but I think he’s a star.

Sam: What are your thoughts on Trevor Bauer. I’m 99% sure he’s an unbearable human being making a decent point about the arbitration process.
Keith Law: Bauer’s right about a lot of things – he made good arguments about foreign substances on the ball after the initial griping about Houston. He’s just wrong about climate change and immigration and a bunch of other stuff. But I wouldn’t dismiss his views on everything just because he gets a few things wrong.

SC: I am Mets fan but not a fan of Cano but trying to see the big picture– as long as they don’t give up an A-1 prospect and get Diaz and maybe another prospect they’ve improved the team. Then maybe they trade Thor to the Pads for some stud prospects, including Hedges, and fortify up the middle. Can you see that as the play here?
Keith Law: The rumors I’ve seen have them giving up their top two prospects. That’s duh-umb.

TomBruno23: Cardinals need to upgrade the bullpen. For fun, here’s a list of multi-year deals given out by the team to relievers since winning the 2011 World Series: Randy Choate, Seunghwan Oh, Jonathan Broxton, Brett Cecil, Luke Gregerson. I think that’s the full list.
Keith Law: Yeah, maybe change that up a little. They have so many pitching prospects in/near the majors you’d think they could fill out a bullpen internally.

David: Thanks for all that you do, KLaw. Baseball is a better follow because of you.
Keith Law: Thank you. I try to keep it entertaining & informative, and to not be an unbearable human being making decent points.

Mike: Does the Law household open the majority of gifts on x-mas eve, or day?
Keith Law: Christmas morning.

Anthony: Is Swanson going to hit? If not, should they move him for a corner outfield bat and give Camargo or Ozzie SS?
Keith Law: I think he’s going to hit. I’m a bit less confident than I was a year ago.

Zac: Does Daz Cameron make his debut this year and do you think the jump he made last year is sustainable?
Keith Law: Late 2019, and yes.

Adam: Love your game recommmendations. Thank you. Have you every played Coloretto? Simple card game that can be played with kids down to 8 or younger, but also interesting for adults. A nice palette cleanser at a games night.
Keith Law: I have – maybe a bit too light for me? But a cute game. I believe that came first and then the designer turned it into Zooloretto, which won the Spiel des Jahres.

Billy Eppler: Think Arte will let me buy out pujols contract?
Keith Law: He’s another guy who should be DFA’d to get back the 40-man spot. He’s no longer worth it. Whether the owner accepts this is another matter.

Evan: The general feeling among Cubs fans based on last season’s results and comments from Theo is that the cubs need to make serious changes. However, the team won 95 games despite a lost season from Kris Bryant and a underperforming offense. Do you think the level of concern is warranted or we are overreacting to an early playoff exit and a red hot Brewers team in the last month of the season?
Keith Law: I don’t think they need to make serious changes. They changed hitting coaches, which was probably needed. They retained Hamels, which was smart. I thought they should keep Chavez, whom Texas signed rather inexpensively. But they were one win away from leading the league, and if they had hit at all in the last two months of the season they would have won the division.

Danny: If the Brewers non-tender Schoop, should the Yankees go after him to play 2b and move Gleyber to SS? Schoop was worth 3.8 fWAR 2 years ago but just 0.5 fWAR last year
Keith Law: I would think Schoop would get a lot of interest as a free agent for that reason. His approach, never great, cratered last year, but there’s no reason to think he can’t regain what he was prior to 2018 – he’s not old and he’s not hurt.

Bob in Houston: Would you say Josh James is the #3 prospect in the Astros organization?
Keith Law: He’s in their top 5. I would prefer not to commit to a more specific answer now, while I’m still working on the rankings.

Ben: Surprised by Donaldson taking 1 yr deal? Next year’s 3B market is strong with Arenado & Rendon, which will hurt JD. I figured he’d try to get the best he can now.
Keith Law: Always a chance one of those guys signs an extension, and Donaldson will likely do much better next winter if he’s healthy this year.

Marshall MN: If you were the Twins would you look at transitioning borderline starting level pitchers like Gonsalves and Kohl Stewart into relievers? Any additional ceiling for those guys out of the pen?
Keith Law: Stewart yes, Gonsalves no because I think he can start.

JJ: Who would you rather play at 3rd for the next 5 years: Andujar or Devers
Keith Law: Devers.

Liam: How many innings do you think Touki pitches in MLB next year, and what kind of performance would you expect from him? Mid-rotation arm with flashes of a #1?
Keith Law: Your prediction sounds right to me. I think he makes 20 starts.

Rob: Will you be at Pax Unplugged at all this weekend? Anything you’re particularly interested in seeing?
Keith Law: I will be there all weekend. I have some appointments with publishers to see a few new titles, but I think I got glimpses of most of them at Gen Con. There are one or two I know about that might not be public yet but that sound intriguing. I’m hoping to just play more games this year too – at Gen Con I was basically just going to meetings and speaking on panels all day each day.

JJ: Are you writing a ‘Players I Was Wrong About’ article this offseason? Any obvious standouts?
Keith Law: I wrote it in September, as usual.

AGirlHasNoName: Are the Cubs going to non-tender Russell tomorrow, or am I just hopefully reading the Torreyes trade tea leaves?
Keith Law: I would non-tender him, but I don’t know their plans, and I don’t think Torreyes has anything to do with the decision.

Roberto: I have a preschool daughter who enjoys Jaipur but has trouble with other games like Splendor. Are there any other games you can think of that are as simple to pick up as Jaipur?
Keith Law: Lost Cities was the first game like that I introduced to my daughter. She liked Carcassonne when she was four, at least on the app, but at that age she played it more like a puzzle than a real game (and we didn’t keep score with her).

Jack: Would a package of Sean Murphy, Dustin Fowler, and Sheldon Neuse get Syndergaard to Oakland?
Keith Law: No.

Greg: Rumor mill has the Pirates open to trading Cervelli. Do you think Elias Diaz is an every day catcher? Do you think his 2 WAR in 82 games is legit? Thanks!
Keith Law: I think Diaz is a soft regular, probably not a 4 WAR guy but very likely a 2-2.5 WAR guy.

Dr. Bob: I don’t believe that the average Republican lawmaker doesn’t believe scientists down in their hearts. I think they just don’t want to hurt current economic growth and are just trying to push the problem down the road when they will be gone.
Keith Law: Very likely. Or they take money from entities that produce lots of CO2 or methane and figure they’ll be long dead when the earth is hotter.

Harrisburg Hal: It’s time to get rid of our Henckels knife set my wife and I received as a wedding gift 17 years ago. Would you buy separate components or get another knife set? I think you’ve recommended some Victorinox and Wustof knives in the past. Still a good place to start looking? I think I’d like to pick up a couple options to get a feel for weight/material.
Keith Law: Yes, and just do selected knives. A set will give you lots of knives you won’t use.

JG: Do the Twins have any top 10 prospects on your list? Top 20?
Keith Law: I’ll just say I think their system is loaded.

TJ: Klaw, ever had anything from Zingerman’s in Ann Arbor, MI? Great sandwiches, and my wife is going crazy baking stuff out of their cookbook I bought her. Also, and Tigers prospects that we can hope to see in Detroit this season?
Keith Law: Yes, went there ten years ago, really liked it. I think you’ll see Daz, Burrows, and Manning at some point.
Keith Law: Maybe Rogers but he’s not that good a prospect.

Buck Thompsonville: do any front offices use RBI or W’s for evaluation in any capacity anymore?
Keith Law: No. Just broadcasters.

Cthomp: I know you really like Dom Smith. However after what we’ve seen, I have a hard time seeing future impact with his bat. Can you maybe help me see what you see? Sometimes it just doesn’t pan out and I wonder if your confidence in him has dropped at all.
Keith Law: Smith is 23 and has had less than a full season’s worth of major-league at bats.

Betsy: What do you see in Willy Adames moving forward? Does he stick at SS and will his hit/power continue to improve?
Keith Law: Don’t think he’s a SS. Very much think his batting average will improve.

kgbos: Based on your board game list I picked up Ticket to Ride for family Thanksgiving. All of us were playing for the first time but I won every time (small sample size) to the point others lost interest. Do we need to find another game or do I need to sit out in the near future so they can get more accustomed to the game and strategy?
Keith Law: Might depend on how you played – the 1910 expansion isn’t expensive and introduces some better route cards that may balance the game out, again depending on why you won.

Todd: Higher ceiling, Everson Pereira or Estevan Florial?
Keith Law: Probably Florial, but his flaws are bigger.

Daniel: Hi Keith, always enjoy reading your work and as a scientist, I greatly appreciate your continued push against anything anti-science.
Keith Law: With the popular media often unwilling or ill-equipped to do so, those of us with platforms have some obligation to speak out on issues where the science is clear and the opposing view is just bullshit.

Daniel: Oops! Meant to send the following question with my previous statement: as a Reds fan, should I be cautiously optimistic about the team? I think the Bell hiring (and his staff) was really well thought out and he brings a diverse set of experiences to the table.
Keith Law: I like everything I’ve heard about Bell. Pretty good offseason for managerial hirings, I think.

Trevor: You can take Beltre over Chipper, I just don’t agree with it. Does WAR factor in playoff games?
Keith Law: No, it doesn’t, nor should it since players don’t get to play in the same number of games. Remember that the question was where the players ranked AS THIRD BASEMEN. Beltre played 761 more games at third than Jones did, and was substantially better on defense. You can disagree, but you have to come correct.

JJ: If MLB expands, those 2 cities should be: ________
Keith Law: If MLB expands, they should put part of the expansion fees into building stadiums in the new markets. Portland, OR, and Austin have long been the two best answers to that question, but I’d bet neither electorate would support public funding for a stadium.

Adam Trask: Barring any major trades and given that their young talent pans out, when do you see the Padres being a contender?
Keith Law: As soon as 2020.

DH: Can Luis Robert be a 20/20 guy? Is he still 2 years away?
Keith Law: I’m telling you, this player does not exist.

Byron Buxton: Tell me how to fix me.
Keith Law: What’s broken? Buxton wasn’t healthy last year.

kbrown: The A’s aren’t at all likely to replicate 97 wins again next year, but with the other AL West teams in rebuild or hurt (LAA) could you see the A’s repeating as a WC team with 90+ wins?
Keith Law: I would bet against this.

SC: Keith– quick follow-up– Mets said they might trade one of Kelenic, Dunn or Giminez, but not two. Seems like you would rank Giminez last in that group. Would that make a Cano trade (i.e., Cano-Diaz for Bruce, Giminez and filler) more palatable to you?
Keith Law: Yes, that wouldn’t bother me. Then it becomes a question of whether the Mets are right to pursue wins in 2019 at all.

Germolene: Did Jamie Moyer even pump it up to 84?
Keith Law: Jamie Moyer was left-handed, and probably still is.

Mike: What level of prospect(s) could the M’s get in return for Hanniger?
Keith Law: I think he’s their most valuable trade asset. Everyday player with huge production and five years (I think) of control remaining. That’s where you ask for the four-prospect, two of whom are top 100 at least, sort of return

Al: Seigler and Breaux both stick at catcher? Either project as a “guy”? Thanks.
Keith Law: Seigler is a catcher, Breaux is not.

Sam: I have a son that just turned 3. I saw that you said you played Jaipur with your daughter at 4. When did you introduce games to her and what were they? (Sorry if you’ve answered this a million times)
Keith Law: At 4. She’d see us playing games at the table or on our iPods at the time and want to try them. She liked the Carcassonne app because it was a matching game to her and I think she liked the clicking sound she’d get with a correct move. Lost Cities was pretty straightforward – to play that at all, you just have to know your numbers 1 through 10, and then the adult can guide the child through the one big decision (to play a card or hold on).

Jake Lawson: Does Clint Frazier have a future in the Bronx, or would a trade is best avenue to playing time? He still has some pretty good upside, doesn’t he?
Keith Law: He has some upside, not a star, can’t see any role for him in the Bronx.

Nat: Keith, do you have advice for someone who never really had anxiety until the past couple of years? Seems to be worse the past few months and can’t see a counselor until next year either. Any tips?
Keith Law: Try some meditation – simple breathing meditations, sometimes called ‘awareness of breath’ – and talk to your PCP about whether a low dose of medication, like an SSRI, might help.

Todd: Were you high on Brien Taylor as a prospect way back in the 90s?
Keith Law: Brien Taylor is only 18 months older than I am.

Mick: Beautifully named Italian Reds infielder Leonardo Seminati appears to be a clone of Alex Liddi. Hopefully he’s in the bigs much longer.
Keith Law: As do I. Perhaps then I’ll finally get that long-awaited scouting trip to Italy.
Keith Law: Thank you all for the questions this week. I’m planning to chat again next Thursday, and then skip the following week for the winter meetings. I’m back to the phones now to work on the prospect rankings. Have a great weekend and if you are at PAX Unplugged here in Philly, please say hi if you spot me.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With:
→ November 29, 2018
→ By

Holding On: The Troubled Life of Billy Kerr.

Holding On: The Troubled Life of Billy Kerr has the best theme – well, the most interesting theme, at least – of any board game I’ve seen this year. It’s a cooperative title where players work together to try to keep the titular patient alive while listening to his deathbed ramblings and trying to assemble his story from the memories you gain. The story aspect is just plain impressive – it’s a serious concept that could go really wrong in the guise of a game, but the writing is solid and does a good job of bringing the sense of partial memories to life. The game around it, however, doesn’t live up to the premise.

The game lets two to four players (although there’s no reason this couldn’t be a solo game) work together as ‘nurses’ in the ward where Billy Kerr is housed, and comes with ten scenarios that are each played over the course of a round of days, represented by the Patient deck of cards. On each round, players draw three Patient cards representing the morning, afternoon, and night shifts, and will choose to give medical care or palliative care for each. If they choose medical care, they expend Care tokens, which are the game’s main resource and not easy to come by, to either stop Billy’s condition from deteriorating, or, if he’s stable, improve his condition. (His condition is marked by a track, with his starting spot at 28; if he reaches 0, you lose.) If they choose palliative care, they may gain care tokens or acquire random partial memory cards, which come in five timelines.

On some cards, players may then expend one care token to Inquire, essentially asking Billy more about any specific timeline to try to get a clear memory. They then draw cards randomly from the clear memory card deck until they get one matching the chosen timeline; if that drawn card matches a partial memory card they’ve already drawn and placed on the table, they keep that clear memory card. Scenario objectives may require players to finish with a certain number of clear memories before the day ends (exhausting the Patient deck) or Billy dies, or to find ten specific clear memories, or to keep Billy’s spirits up with positive memories rather than negative ones.

Each patient card requires one to three staffers, which can be player tokens or neutral assistants, so in some rounds there will be more required staffers than available pawns. Players start the base game with two single-use “on-call” assistants, but otherwise have to ask nurses to pull double shifts, which gives them “stress,” little cardboard rings that go around the player pawns. If a player gets three stress, they must go ‘on leave’ and skip the next round, thus further straining the players’ resources. Thus the game becomes an ongoing resource optimization problem: When to spend care tokens to get more cards, when to choose to let Billy’s health meter slip to gain more tokens or partial memories, whether to choose tokens or partial memories while providing palliative care, and when to send a player or assistant on leave before it’s mandatory.

The main problem with the game is the way players acquire clues and how they can satisfy objectives. There’s too much randomness involved in the process of converting partial memories into clear ones – if you draw a clear memory card before you have the associated partial memory card, you can’t keep it, and the partial memory cards you get are completely random. When going to the clear memory deck via Inquiry or another method, you can choose the timeline from which you’ll draw cards – the idea is you’re prompting Billy with questions about that set of memories – but whether you get one that matches a memory you already have is entirely random.

Holding On board and pieces

The rest of the game is very well designed because it’s tightly balanced: this is a hard game to win, as it should be. You have to choose well throughout a game, or just get incredibly lucky with patient cards, to even have a chance to meet any objective, which is a requirement for any cooperative game to work. The decisions around when to use care tokens and when to forego the chance to gain memories so you can acquire more tokens are reminiscent of the cure-versus-treat decisions at the heart of Pandemic, and the patient deck always seems to be just the right length to make you go down to the wire. I just wish the storyline were better tied into the mechanics in a way that gave players more control over those random clear memory card draws. The only way around that now is to burn more care tokens and keep drawing cards, but you’ll need those tokens if you don’t want to kill the patient on your watch. It’s such a great theme and clever, novel concept that I still think this game deserves a wider audience, but if you get it, consider some house rules to avoid the frustration of losses due entirely to randomness.

Filed Under: Uncategorized
→ November 28, 2018
→ By

Green Book.

Green Book might have been a great movie in different hands. Based on the true story of a friendship between African-American pianist Don Shirley and the Bronx-born driver Anthony “Tony Lip” Vallelonga, the movie makes some dubious choices on perspective and sharpens almost every character to such a fine point that the result feels as nuanced as an after-school special. The National Board of Review just named Green Book its best film of 2018, which is entirely fitting for a body that gave the same honor to The Post last year: They favor popular, well-acted films that talk down to the audience with positive, timely messages and avoid answering or even addressing the toughest questions around their topics.

There’s a long prologue centered on Vallelonga (Viggo Mortensen), a bouncer at the Copa Cabana, showing his boisterous family, pugnacious style at work, and gluttonous appetite, all of which is just character development of a sort before the meat of the movie begins. Shirley (Mahershala Ali, likely to get an Oscar nomination) is looking for a driver and, although he doesn’t use the term, bodyguard to take him on a tour of the Midwest and then American south, which, in 1962, was still highly segregated and thus dangerous for African-Americans traveling there. Tony and the men in his family are all typically racist of the Italian-Americans of the time – the word mulignan, a disgusting Italian-American racial slur, comes up often in the film – but, of course, Tony and Shirley grow to understand each other, becoming friends, even teaming up on a duet of “Ebony and Ivory” in the closing scene. (I may be remembering that last part wrong.)

The film is directed by Peter Farrelly, known for directing gross-out comedies with his brother, and you can see his hand all over the finished product – not in a good way. The film is slapsticky at times and grabs far too many cheap laughs around things like Tony spitting out food he doesn’t like or other peccadillos of personal hygiene. But the biggest mistake is that the script, co-written by Tony’s son, Nick, tells us a story about racism from the perspective of white people. This is not a story about race in America. There’s virtually nothing here about what it’s like to travel while black (a phrase Tony uses in the film), or simply to be black in a white man’s world, or, in Shirley’s case, to be a black man trying to succeed in a career that requires him to, in a sense, suppress his blackness. Beyond the true story of the friendship these two men developed, one that lasted fifty years beyond the time depicted here until their deaths in 2013, this is a movie about a white guy realizing what racism means at a tangible level. When Shirley says he wants Tony to drive him into the Deep South, Tony says there’s going to be trouble, but is still shocked when he sees the visceral effects of the casual racism that characterized the everyday South. (Which is not to say that racism is gone today; it’s merely hiding behind nice furniture.)

The film also plays fast and loose with too many details of the story and history, starting with condensing what was a real-life tour of nearly 18 months into a two-month whirlwind tour that ended on Christmas Eve, punctuating the film with a feel-good resolution that never happened. Shirley’s surviving relatives, including a brother mentioned in the film and a niece, say the depiction of him as estranged from his family and the black community is false, as is the idea that he had never even had fried chicken, which makes for a brief running gag in the film. There are also minor details that get in the way of the core story, such as Tony discussing Aretha as a household name in 1962 (she was only 20 and had yet to become any kind of star) to try to show Don as out of touch with popular culture.

The way the film depicts Italian-Americans is about half right – and the half it gets right is probably the important part. Italian-Americans, at least those in New York, were tight-knit, family-oriented, insular, and definitely racist and even xenophobic, not just due to outright racism – cultural prejudice in Italy was more north versus south, rather than based on skin color – but because of typical othering, the way one class that faces prejudice might find another group on which they can look down. Mortensen and the actors who portray his family members all boast an embellished bada-bing Brooklyn Italian accent, even though they’re supposed to be from the Bronx. Some of the older characters in the film speak Sicilian – I heard travagliari, the Sicilian word for work, rather than the Italian lavorare – but Mortensen speaks standard Italian with a very clean accent when he switches languages. Linda Cardellini plays Tony’s wife, Dolores, but has nothing to do except look pretty, and her accent is even more exaggerated than Mortensen’s. We do fold our pizza to eat it, because we’re not savages, just not the way Tony does in the film.

Ali’s a lock for a Best Supporting Actor nomination, and might win the award for the second time (the first was for Moonlight). He’s wonderful, because he always is, and I think he does his best to soften the depiction of Shirley as an overly fastidious, isolated person, so that the character comes across more as a person of color trying to navigate a very narrow path through a white world. Mortensen really loses himself well in Tony Lip, but without the subtlety of Ali’s performance; he might still get a nomination now that the furor over him using the n-word in a discussion about the film seems to have died down. Had the film done better at the box office, perhaps it would be a lock for a Best Picture nomination, and it still might get one, but there are going to be at least ten more worthy movies out there in what looks like a crowded year.

Finally, I didn’t like the film, but I don’t want to mislead anyone into thinking this is a terrible film. It’s a bad film compared to what I usually watch, but I don’t watch many really awful films. I skim off the top, because I’m not a professional critic and see only what I want – typically films critics have loved or that are nominated for something major. It had a CinemaScore of A+ last time I looked, and it is absolutely a crowd-pleaser sort of film, and smarter than most films that try to hit those emotional notes. I personally found it sentimental, predictable, and even schlocky at times, and I was bothered by aspects of the film that I think won’t bother most people. Your mileage – and the film has a lot of mileage in it – may vary.

If you want another perspective, Monique Judge reviewed the film for The Root, and within her review there’s a letter from Harry Belafonte praising the film, urging audiences to go see it. He feels it’s accurate to the time and place, since he performed himself across the country in that period, and that “there are many perspectives from which to tell the same story and all can be true.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,
→ November 26, 2018
→ By

Arkham Horror.

Fantasy Flight Games just released the third edition of its popular Arkham Horror cooperative game this fall to positive reviews, the first new version of the game since the 2005 edition, with somewhat streamlined rules and four scenarios to play in the base game. I had no experience with the previous versions – the original is from 1987, but Fantasy Flight’s 2005 version is considered a major improvement – but played this version a few times and found it easy to get into once you get past the daunting setup. It’s a co-operative game you can also play in solo mode, and follows the typical format of Lovecraft-themed games where you can die or go insane, but that’s not the losing condition in this edition. The balance here is solid and the format allows you to throw up a lot of defenses to try to give yourselves time to solve the mystery, but if you don’t do so in time, allowing too many horror tokens to pile up, you can still lose the entire game.

Arkham Horror is a Cthulhu game, so you’re going to play investigators trying to find and eliminate Lovecraftian monsters before they kill you or drive you insane, but in this game you can just replace a dead or insane investigator with a new one, losing any extra cards or bonuses you’d accumulated. The board has a different setup for each scenario, with five neighborhood tiles, each comprising three districts, and streets connecting them. Scenario cards tell you where to generate new monsters, place clue tokens, or potentially roll for benefits as you move your investigators around the board. Each scenario has you trying to rack up enough clue tokens to trigger the next phase, eventually winning the game by completing some final task – often beating a more difficult monster spawned after you’ve hit the final clue threshold.

The clues themselves are just tokens, not actual clues; you’re not solving a puzzle or mystery here, but accumulating those tokens while you also try to add cards to boost your investigators. Each investigator has a unique profile of health and sanity points, and gets a specific number of dice for each of the game’s five types of tests, which are measured by dice rolls; you roll that number of dice, and if you get at least one 5 or 6 among all your rolls, it’s considered a success. Investigators can add cards that give them items, spells, and even allies who add more benefits and can absorb some types of damage to spare your main character.

Game turns are simple, although you’ll take so many turns that an entire game will probably run two hours or more. You get two actions, including moving your investigator, attacking an enemy, warding off horror tokens (if too many accumulate, bad shit happens), starting an Encounter in your space to draw a neighborhood card, fleeing from a monster, and so on. You’ll spend most of the game moving to new spaces to either defeat a monster or try to draw a clue, since each game phase is triggered by gathering some set number of clues that lets you flip a scenario card to see the next step, or occasionally to go clear out some horror tokens from a space before they cause negative effects specific to that scenario.

Arkham Horror

Setup takes a while, primarily because each of the base-game scenarios has a unique board, tokens, and monsters, the last of which must be separated out from the complete set and shuffled into a game-specific monster deck. Once you’re rolling (pun intended), though, the game can move along as quickly as the players want to play it; game length is then a function of the storyline and the number of things you have to achieve or collect to get to the next stage. Turns themselves don’t take that long, and combat can be resolved with a couple of dice rolls. (One of the best benefits you can get in the game, from items or allies or spells, is the ability to reroll one or more dice.) If there’s a downside to Arkham Horror beyond its length, it’s that the clues aren’t anything more than green discs – you’re not actually putting together a story or solving any sort of mystery, just collecting good things and avoiding bad things. There is narrative text throughout each scenario, both on neighborhood cards and on the scenario cards that dictate the flow and rules of that specific session, but it’s all window dressing – you don’t need to know or follow any of that story to play the game.

I haven’t played the previous editions of Arkham Horror or the related game Eldritch Horror, but from what I’ve read, this third edition of AH borrows much of the mechanics of Eldritch Horror, and has streamlined this game’s design to reduce some of the randomness – investigator characters start with specific items/spells, the ‘mythos’ tokens at the end of each player turn are a bit easier to predict and plan around – while also giving players four scenarios out of the box instead of one. Those all sound like upgrades to me, at least.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , ,
→ November 24, 2018
→ By

Stick to baseball, 11/24/18.

My one ESPN+ post this week covered the James Paxton trade, which included one of my favorite pitching prospects in the minors, lefty Justus Sheffield. I didn’t hold a chat this week due to the holiday.

You don’t have to sign up for my free email newsletter, but you’re missing out on lots of words.

And now, the links…

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
→ November 23, 2018
→ By

Terra Incognita.

I’m a huge Connie Willis fan, and have been since I first encountered To Say Nothing of The Dog a few years ago, enough so that I chose that book for my guest appearance on the Hugos There podcast a couple of months back. I’ve read all of her Hugo-winning novels (four books for three awards) and two more of her novels, but hadn’t tried any of her short(er) fiction until I stumbled on Terra Incognita, a collection of three of her novellas, in the Strand back in August. The collection includes “Remake,” which was sold as a standalone novel when it was published and sits on the blurry line between short novel and novella, as well as “D.A.” and “Uncharted Territory.” Two of them are great, and the third feels like filler.

“Remake” is the star of the show, so to speak, and features some of the imagination and prescience found in much great science fiction back to Jules Verne. Willis envisions a world where studios no longer make movies; they use computer algorithms to digitally update old movies, inserting different actors into others’ roles, and then fighting over the legal rights to every actor’s likeness on celluloid. They can change plots and endings, all automagically, and even go back and erase all traces of alcohol or tobacco to satisfy the Temperance League. Into this world comes a young woman who just wants to dance in the pictures, and who captures the attention of a programmer responsible for those digital edits, including the aforementioned temperance nonsense. He tries to talk her out of it, saying she won’t even find a dance teacher let alone movie roles, but then something strange happens and he’s convinced he’s found her likeness in the background of some classic films. Did she find another way in? Was it time travel?

That story was worth the price of the book, even though it’s a bit more ridiculous than even Willis’ lighter fare (Crosstalk and Bellwether), as the central mystery of the story is so clever and there’s no way you won’t start rooting for the girl to make it. The half-hearted romantic tension between those two is sort of a red herring, and there’s some frippery involving the third character, Hedda (also spelled Heada), that takes us away from the main story, but the central plot is strong and I loved dancing along with Willis through the golden age of musicals. She got the CGI part of her future right, but she shouldn’t have bet against musicals coming back into vogue – everything comes back into fashion eventually.

“D.A.” is the shortest of the three entries in this volume, and felt to me like a taunt directed against Ender’s Game, which is much beloved and very male-centric, even though author Orson Scott Card tries to walk back the toxic masculinity with the short story that is tacked on to the novel’s end. (The story came before the novel, but that’s a discussion for another day.) A young woman in cadet school finds herself drafted for duty on the space station … but she didn’t even apply for the spot. She’s brought to the base against her wishes, albeit not quite against her will, and spends all her available time trying to find out what went wrong in the selection process, with the help of an earthside friend with some convenient hacking skills. I could see the vague outlines of the ending coming, but I still enjoyed the journey.

“Uncharted Territory” was the one story that never clicked with me, although there’s one comic element that is funny in a very Connie Willis sort of way. Three humans and one non-human are charting the terrain on an unpopulated planet that likely holds some substantial mineral resources, and must deal with harsh conditions while also coping with the interpersonal relations of that sort of mission … including some strange attractions among them. The characters just don’t gel here at all; Willis rarely has trouble giving her characters unique profiles and three-dimensional personas even in just a handful of pages, but these characters, human and otherwise, just don’t come together. The one non-human’s habit is a good running gag, and there’s a little comic material in the fact that the two species can’t seem to distinguish biological sex in the other species, just not enough of that to salvage the story.

Next up: Still Graham Swift’s novel Last Orders, winner of the Man Booker Prize.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,
→ November 22, 2018
→ By

Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont.

I had no idea there was a British author named Elizabeth Taylor, apparently of some repute in the UK, until I saw the name pop up on the Guardian‘s list of the top 100 novels ever written about ten years ago, and even then knew little about her beyond the Wikipedia entry. I imagine her chagrin at having a world-famous actress (and one who provoked many tabloid headlines) share her name, although perhaps it also pulled some readers toward her books when browsing store shelves. Regardless, she did make that top 100 with her wry comic novel Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, a sweet but unsentimental look at a widow’s move into a long-term hotel that attracted a number of retirees, forming the early equivalent of today’s over-55 communities, and the odd friendship she strikes up with a local writer. (It was adapted into a movie in 2005, but I’ve never seen it and hadn’t heard of it till now.)

Taylor rather deftly creates two parallel narratives around her protagonist and then spins them together to evoke comedy from the intersection. Mrs. Palfrey moves into the Claremont at the beginning of the novel and meets the cast of eccentrics – the busybodies, the would-be lothario, the lonesome, the creep – who populate it. Since the residents are all on the older side, that group will change over the course of the novel, naturally, and the tenor of life in the building (especially in the dining room, the center of most activity) will also shift slightly with each alteration in its makeup. One day, while walking to pick up a library book for another resident, Mrs. Palfrey slips and falls outside the home of Ludo Myers, a would-be writer who spends his days at Harrod’s trying to work on a novel, and who runs out to help her. The two strike up an immediate friendship, as Mrs. Palfrey just appreciates the young Ludo’s kindness while he sees in her a potential muse for his fiction, that drifts into comic territory when she introduces him to her new neighbors at the Claremont as her grandson, Desmond, who really exists but has yet to bother to visit her. (I’m sure you can guess what happens later in the book.)

Mrs. Palfrey was the last of Taylor’s novels published during her lifetime, written when she was into her 50s, and perhaps a look forward at life in old age for a generation that was living longer and more likely to have many years after their children were grown. (She was married and had one child, but unfortunately Taylor died just four years after this book was published at age 63.) One common theme among the denizens of the Claremont is that they’ve largely been forgotten by people in their lives from outside of the Claremont: Adult children don’t show up often, if at all, nor are there many visits or even phone calls from the outside world. And when someone departs from the facility for what we might now call assisted living, the residents seem eager to forget her.

The intersection of her relationship with Ludo, which is somewhat maternal but with the awkwardness of a flirtation, and the way she tries to keep up appearances at the Claremont is the essence of the book’s humor – of course Desmond will show up, and hilarity will ensue. But Ludo also sees Mrs. Palfrey and her mates at the hotel as fodder for the novel he’s been long stymied in writing, a fact of which she’s ignorant, so the question arises for the reader if his affection for her is real or merely functional. The other residents of the Claremont are all stock characters skillfully deployed by Taylor for purposes of humor or pathos, both of a distinctly British variety – there’s little to make you laugh out loud, but much of the book is just witty, and it nicely balances out the obviously grim tone the book takes when one of its elderly characters dies.

This was Taylor’s most critically-acclaimed work, making the Man Booker Prize shortlist in its year, and appeared twice on top 100 lists in the Guardian – the one I use, and another that only included novels published in English (assembled by the same writer, twelve years apart). It’s a brisk, entertaining read, probably worth a more serious meditation on its thoughts on growing old and growing apart from the people who were close to us … but some topics are, perhaps, best left alone when one is in the throes of a good chuckle.

Next up: I’m many reviews behind at the moment, but I’m currently reading Graham Swift’s novel Last Orders.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,
→ November 21, 2018
→ By

Indian Summer app.

Game designer Uwe Rosenberg has managed to make a reputation for himself with two very distinct genres of board games – very complex, low-randomness games of worker placement and resource collection, often with rulebooks running twenty pages long; and light puzzle games that ask you to fill out your personal board with Tetris-like pieces while achieving certain side goals. I’m not a huge fan of the former, other than his original Agricola, but I like the latter quite a bit, including the first one, the two-player Patchwork. He’s followed that up with the “puzzle trilogy” of Cottage Garden, Indian Summer, and this year’s Spring Meadow. The first two now have app versions – I presume the third is in development – and, since I have the physical version of Cottage Garden, I decided to start with the app version of Indian Summer (android • iOS), and report that it’s pretty good across the board.

The basic move in Indian Summer is to place one of five tiles in your personal queue on to your 8×9 board, which is divided into six segments. The tiles can cover three, four, or five spaces at once, and every tile has a single ‘hole’ in it that allows anything printed on the board to peek through after you’ve placed the tile. When you place tiles to cover an entire segment (12 spaces), you then gain any treasures that appear through the holes in those tiles – berries, nuts, mushrooms, and feathers, each of which grants you some special ability. When one player fills out his/her entire board, that becomes the final round, after which players will get one more chance to play their nuts (#phrasing) before the scoring. You get one point for every space covered, up to 72, and then one bonus point for every nut you have left over.

The treasures are the key to the game, of course. Playing a feather lets you place an additional tile on the same turn. Playing a mushroom lets you place the first tiles in the queues of any two opponents. Playing a nut lets you place a squirrel tile, covering a single space, anywhere on the board. Playing a berry lets you refill your queue from the main supply before the automatic refill that occurs when your queue is empty. You can also trade up that chain at a 2:1 ratio, such as two berries for one nut, or down at a 1:1 ratio, such as one feather for one mushroom.

If you create certain three- or four-hole patterns with the tiles you place, you can place a bonus animal tile that matches that pattern and then score the treasures a second time. Since every board has just one feather on it, this is the obvious way to score a second feather – place tiles in a way that the feather is visible and part of a pattern matching an animal tile. There are even four animal tiles that come with a treasure of their own, one of each type, of course.

The app has run extremely well for me so far and provided sufficient challenge with the AI players to keep me playing. The tutorial could be better – it’s goofy, but didn’t make all the rules clear, especially not with the animal tiles – but I figured out the rules with some trial and error as well as one check in the online rulebook. The colors are fantastic, and using the app to move and rotate or flip pieces is intuitive. You can also easily click to see opponents’ boards, but the app is smart enough to give you a tiny thumbnail so you can see at a glance how close each opponent is to covering all 72 spaces.

The AI skill levels seem to vary by the amount of time the app gives itself to decide on its next move; the hard AI players can easily take ten seconds to decide on a move, which is weird but actually reassuring in a way, as (I assume) the AI player is running through a huge list of potential moves before settling on one. I can beat the hard AI players about half the time, but the main challenge is finishing the board first because the AI players clearly favor that goal, with adding animal tiles their second criterion. It’s easy to get the shaft because an AI player filled out its board and triggered end-game, especially if you were the first player to go, since then you don’t get to place any other pieces beyond the one-space squirrels. I’ve noticed more than one instance where an AI player could have ended the game (I think) but chose not to do so, which seemed suboptimal when it happened – not for me, though, as I appreciated the extra turn.

The app has a great undo function that rolls everything back to the start of your turn, which is great for trying different scenarios out to see what has the best outcome. It seems to follow strict and not entirely necessary rules about using those optional actions; for example, if you’ve played a berry to add tiles to your track, you can’t then decide to play a feather to place two tiles on this turn, which doesn’t make much sense to me. That also means you can’t place a tile, play a berry, then place another tile.

I think I still prefer Patchwork as a game for its simplicity and the pure two-player experience – Indian Summer plays two to four – but this is very solid, and it’s a bit simpler than Cottage Garden too. My lone complaint with the game, rather than the app, is that the scoring is so tight that it does feel like the winner is often determined by the randomness of the draws, both what board you get and what tiles appear when. Since you can’t win if you don’t fill out your board, it’s a bit of a race as well. I’ll keep playing this one but I don’t think it’ll replace Patchwork for me any time soon. It does mean I need to pick up Cottage Garden’s app, though.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , ,
→ November 20, 2018
→ By

Widows.

Steve McQueen’s new film Widows, his first since his Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave in 2013, is an adaptation of a 1980s British TV series of the same name, a series McQueen says he wanted to adapt for some time. He’s maintained much of the framework of the series’ six-episode first season, which spawned a second season (Widows 2: Electric Boogaloo) and later a sequel series, but added some new elements and rewritten the resolution completely. It’s a dense, layered, frenetic heist film that packs a ton of backstory into the first two-thirds of the film – too much, really – before a tremendous finish worthy of the genre.

Harry Rawlings (Liam Neeson) is the leader of a four-man crew that we see trying to escape from a robbery at the start of the film, only to have them die in a police shootout and explosion, which leaves their four wives as the widows of the film’s title. Veronica Rawlings (Viola Davis, who’s going to get an Oscar nomination for this) finds out that Harry stole from would-be city alderman Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry), who wants his $2 million back and gives her a month to find it any way she can. Harry left behind a notebook with details on his next job, with a potential $5 million prize, so Veronica decides to contact the other widows – whom she’s never met – to assemble a crew and pull off the heist themselves so she can pay off Jamal and set the widows up financially.

The effort by the widows to become a team and pull off this heist is the main plot in the film, but there’s so much more layered on top of it that many scenes end too quickly, so the tension doesn’t always build enough and we don’t always get enough exposition on the characters. Jamal is running against Jack Mulligan (Colin Farrell), who’s trying to win the seat long held by his father (Robert Duvall as a pretty obvious Trump surrogate), but it turns out that Jack has a connection to Harry, and also ends up with other connections to the widows. Alice (Elizabeth Debicki), another of the widows, was abused by her husband and by her mother (Jacki Weaver, underutilized here), and ends up trying to be a high-end escort to make ends meet, but really comes into her own by working with these other women and taking care of herself for the first time. The third widow in the crew, Melinda (Michelle Rodriguez), is the least interesting character by far, with the most cursory backstory, a role that certainly does the actress playing it no favors and ultimately ends up overshadowed by the other members of the group, including the woman they bring on as the driver, Belle (Cynthia Erivo).

There is a lot of extra material in this movie, which feels at least like McQueen might have tried to pack in all the backstories from the TV series into one two-hour film. There’s a strand around Veronica’s son, deceased before the movie begins, that has no relevance to anything else in the movie and feels like it’s been tacked on to make a political point (a valid one, but not germane to this film). The political campaign is overstuffed for a subplot, and includes its own threads that never get resolved – the black preacher whose support is with the white candidate gives us a dynamic sermon and then seems to serve no other purpose in the film. Jamal’s story is vague – possibly by design – and his arc has no real ending. The salon is where we first meet Belle, but nothing else about the salon is interesting; it reappears later in another scene that tries to make a political point, this one less effective than the one about Veronica’s son. Even Frumpy Carrie Coon is just a prop here, which is a waste of a terrific (and beautiful) actress.
The real strength of Widows isn’t its story, but its cast, which looks like someone drafted a fantasy team of actors in a league with only four players. Davis is excellent, as she always is, although I think her character doesn’t become three-dimensional enough until the film is well underway. Erivo doesn’t even arrive until halfway through but she is an immediate force, with an epic scene when Belle first meets Veronica. Debicki – who towers over the other women, even though her character starts as a shrinking violet with no strength to defend herself – has the strongest arc of the women in the crew and delivers an outstanding performance to make that character growth credible, discovering that she’s capable of doing more than she imagined while also learning to stand up for herself. (Her character’s scenes as an escort, with a very short-looking and oddly coiffed Lukas “The Pin” Haas, give the film its best side quest.) Daniel Kaluuya plays Jamal’s brother and is utterly terrifying as a sociopathic killer. Farrell’s role could easily have been a caricature of a crooked Chicago political scion, but he turns on the Farrell charm – not to mention a passable Chicago accent – and gives the character some emotional depth and enough different faces to avoid that trap.

There’s a pervasive sense in Widows that McQueen is telling the story of women pushed into bad situations by the men they trusted, then finding their own power and agency in the wake of the botched heist, only to have even more men threaten them, push them around, or just ignore them. We can see Alice develop that sense of confidence and empowerment explicitly, like when she asks Melinda for the building plans and manages to figure out where the target is (with one convenient little coincidence). Belle hustles to make money to support her daughter, but is held back by a lack of economic opportunity or a reliable support structure. Veronica had the strongest career prior to their husbands’ deaths, but is also pushed into unexplored territory, the extent of which isn’t clear until the final scene of the film.

Where McQueen goes astray is in piling so much other thematic material on top of this. There’s a statement about politics, how so many of the people who want to represent us offer both good and bad sides, that issues are frequently not as clearcut as we’d like … and then there’s Tom Mulligan speaking like President Trump about minorities and immigrants. There’s a subplot about white police shooting unarmed black citizens that has nothing to do with the rest of the story – and much of the content here that touches on issues of race just doesn’t work, even as it sits alongside discussions of gender that do. Economic inequality pops up. All of these are themes worth covering, but the total puts a weight on Widows that no two-hour film that is also busy telling a ripping heist story could support.

There is far too much good in Widows for all of these quibbles to bring the film down too far; it’s still a lot of fun and very sharp, never talking down to the audience except for the police brutality thread, and with some details in the heist sequence itself that aren’t properly resolved. There’s a ton to unpack from this movie, and five performances that are at least worthy of consideration for awards – Davis seems like a lock for a Best Actress nomination, while Debicki, Erivo, Kaluuya, and Farrell are each outstanding in supporting roles. If you can hang with all the prologue and the terse editing, the payoff here is enormous.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,
→ November 19, 2018
→ By

Burning.

Burning, Korea’s submission for this year’s Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, is based loosely on a 1992 short story by Haruki Murakami called “Barn Burning.” It takes that very brief framework and builds a dreamlike, post-noir feature film, running nearly two and a half hours, that entraps viewers in its layered mysteries early and then increases the tension like a vice as it approaches its shocking resolution. (The Murakami story appears in The Elephant Vanishes, and is also in the online archives of the New Yorker.)

Lee Jong-su* is an unemployed, would-be writer who bumps into an old classmate, Shin Hae-mi, whom he doesn’t recognize because she’s had plastic surgery. She spots him, and makes it clear that she has some interest in him, eventually bringing him back to her tiny apartment and sleeping with him. She also asks him to feed and clean up after her cat while she takes a two-week trip to Africa, which he agrees to do even though it’s a long drive from his father’s farm in the country. When Jong-su goes to pick Hae-mi up on her return, she’s with a new guy, Ben, who is rich, condescending, and possibly her boyfriend. Jong-su seems resigned to the loss of Hae-mi to Ben, but those two keep inviting him out with them, stringing him along, until one day Ben confesses to Jong-su that he has a hobby of burning greenhouses, burning one every two months or so because it’s the ‘right pace’ for him. Later that night, Jong-su makes a cutting remark to Hae-mi, after which she vanishes, leaving Jong-su to try to figure out what’s going on. From there, the story turns darker as Jong-su follows – or stalks – Ben in search of the girl.

* Korean names are written with the family name first; I’ve held to that convention in this review.

At one point in the film, Ben says to Hae-mi, “it’s a metaphor,” after which she asks what a metaphor is, and Ben says Jong-su should answer, since he’s a writer. This entire film is a metaphor wrapped around a set of smaller metaphors. There’s a strong subtext of the pervasive nature of class distinctions in Korean society, and how the upper class may view the lower classes as not just inferior but expendable. Ben represents the idle, entitled rich, while Jong-su and Hae-mi both come from the lower classes. Jong-su lives on a farm while his father is in jail for assaulting a government official, and has very little spare cash; his estranged mother reappears at one point, complaining of how rich Koreans treat her in her menial job and saying how she needs money, which Jong-su promises to provide despite lacking means. Hae-mi, we learn, is broke, with outstanding debts she can’t pay, working just occasionally as a model/dancer outside shops that hire girls like her to try to drum up business. Ben drives a Porsche, lives in a gorgeous apartment, thinks nothing of spending money on food or drink, and appears to have little regard for people he views as beneath him, as do the friends of his who appear in the film – totally ignoring Jong-su while he’s at their parties while treating Hae-mi and Ben’s next girlfriend as if they’re some sort of entertainment, not actual people.

Throughout the film are smaller metaphors, not least of them the actual burning and references to it. There are cigarettes everywhere (and the occasional joint), fires in the background of shots, the burning color of the sun at sunset, and hints of the world burning around our characters with Donald Trump appearing on a TV lying about immigration and with North Korean propaganda audible outside Jong-su’s house. Birds make several appearances; there’s a postcard drawing of a bird in Hae-mi’s apartment, but it’s gone after she vanishes. Hae-mi tells a story about a well that might also have been a metaphor, but discussing its implications would reveal too much.

The main criticism of Murakami’s writing has long been that he doesn’t write compelling women, and the woman in “Barn Burning” is nothing but a prop, so the screenwriters here had a blank canvas … and didn’t do a ton with it. Hae-mi, played by Jeon Jong-seo in her first film role (where she really reminds me of Lily James), is a Boolean character – she has two modes, the flirtatious and perhaps overly sexual coquette as well as the stark depressive who seems to lack a will to live. All her edges are extremely sharp, while Jong-su in particular is drawn with far more nuance to just about every aspect of his character. Jeon does what she can with a character that verges on the ridiculous, at times appearing more like the object of male fantasy than like a fully realized woman, but the writing limits what she can do.

The two male leads deliver outstanding performances. Yoo Ah-in plays Jong-su as a sort of slack-jawed stoner – seriously, his mouth is constantly open – whose expressions and slow reactions would imply that he’s not very bright, but there’s more intelligence beneath the surface here, and Yoo gives him some emotional depth that I wasn’t expecting given how the film first introduces the character. Stephen Yeun is totally magnetic as Ben, smarmy and confident and charismatic, the character Jong-su wants to dislike but can’t quite come around to doing so because Yeun gives him that extra layer of amiability on top of what appears to be a rather unpleasant core.

The original story has Jong-su’s character comparing Ben’s to Jay Gatsby, a line that also appears in the film, while William Faulkner comes up twice during the movie as well. (I had a book with me to read while I waited for the film to start, and in a pure coincidence, it was Faulkner’s The Unvanquished.) The Faulkner connection is fascinating as his writing was frequently opaque, full of symbol and metaphor, and covered themes like racial prejudice and the moral decay that can accompany rising financial status. Ben’s skin is substantially lighter than those of the other main characters, as are his friends’, and the question of his morality and motivations, and even how he acquired such wealth, hangs over the last half of the film.

Murakami’s story doesn’t make the ending clear, but the film makes it much more evident what’s happening with these characters – at least, I think it does, although director Lee Chang-dong ensures that we never get explicit proof that our suspicions are correct. There’s sufficient misdirection here to keep viewers thinking about this film for days afterwards, as I have been. It’s well-written, extremely well-acted, features some stunning and memorable shots, and is just tortuous enough to keep you off balance right through the final scene. It’s one of the best films I’ve seen so far this year.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,