→ March 9, 2024
→ By

Stick to baseball, 03/09/24.

For subscribers to the Athletic, I published a ranking of the top 30 prospects for this year’s MLB Draft, after which my #1 guy, Charlie Condon, hit two more homers for Georgia. I also posted a draft scouting notebook, covering Braden Montgomery, Brody Brecht, Anthony Silva, and P.J. Morlando. And I held a Klawchat to take your draft questions.

Over at Paste, I reviewed the cooperative game Stranger Things: Upside Down, a way better tie-in title than the Stranger Things game published in 2022. It’s by Rob Daviau, the co-founder of Restoration Games and inventor of the legacy game concept.

I’m working on getting back to weekly editions of my free email newsletter. This last one was about my trip to Texas and the way Republican candidates there are weaponizing hate against one of the most vulnerable minorities in the U.S. to try to earn a few more votes. Please clap.

And now, the links…

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
→ March 7, 2024
→ By

Klawchat 3/7/24.

My ranking of the top 30 prospects for this year’s MLB draft is now up for subscribers to The Athletic.

Keith Law: A little bit better than I used to be. Klawchat.

Bob Pollard: Do you think the Giants will have Harrison on an innings limit, or does that not even matter since barely any starter pitches even 180 innings anymore?
Keith Law: My guess is it will happen organically – he’s not likely to work very deep into games anyway because he’ll run some higher pitch counts with a lot of strikeouts and walks.

John: Keith, if you were Cleveland, as the top of the draft looks right now. Would you take the one of the top 3-5 players who was willing to sign for the least amount or do you think there is enough of a talent difference to set your sights on one guy.
Keith Law: I would probably shop a deal to 2-3 players, but you still want to figure out who the #1 guy is and maybe you offer him a deal for more than your #2 guy. I don’t think this is the year you go full slot at 1.

Eric: Have you read any Dan Jones history books? I’m reading “Powers and Thrones” about the middle ages, and it is absolutely fantastic. Makes reading about what could be VERY dense subject matter very approachable.
Keith Law: the Da Vinci Code guy? I have not. I read that and woof, I was out.

Eric: Eury Perez: Future Cy Young winner?
Keith Law: Has the potential, but hasn’t had the track record of durability yet.

Marcos: Love your work Keith, you’re the primary reason that I maintain an Athletic subscription. Quick question about James Wood, I know that he has a decent amount to prove with his respect to making contact consistently at the higher levels of the sport, but to my eye, he looks like one of the 10 most gifted players in baseball at any level. Do you view him as having a De La Cruz type of ceiling, and if he puts it all together, do you think he’s an MVP caliber type at the next level?
Keith Law: The power-speed-defense are all elite, but I think he’s going to swing and miss enough to keep him from becoming an MVP-type player. He’s got a huge strike zone and struggled last year with fastballs up in the zone and sliders down in or below it. It’s hard for guys that big to cover that much territory – Judge is the great exception.

Paul: Brady House looks about as toolsy as they get, do you see All star level upside with him?
Keith Law: I disagree – he’s not very toolsy at all. He’s not a runner, he’s not a great defender, and he’s not all twitched up. What he does do, however, is hit the ball extremely hard, and I believe he has more feel to hit than he’s gotten credit for.

Mike: AJ puk apparently stretching out as a starter, think he can be a solid mid rotation SP?
Keith Law: I do not. He hasn’t stayed healthy for a full year since college.

Mike: Think Jared Jones breaks camp w pitt? Also, are you concerned with how hard he throws despite not being a massive guy?
Keith Law: I don’t, and I’m not.

Dr. Bob: Excited to see that a Caldwell made the list. Maybe I can follow his career and find out if we’re related. What’s that? He’s only 5-5 1/2? Never mind. We’re not related to the Arkansas Caldwells anyway.
Keith Law: Pretty funny that he’s listed at 5’8″. He was measured at East Coast Pro last year. Just own it, Slade. Join us on team Fun-Sized.

Nick: If Justin Crawford lifts the ball more this year and shows plus raw power, is he in the top-5 prospect conversation next year?
Keith Law: I’d rather say he’ll be much higher next year if he does that.
Keith Law: Top 5 depends on what happens with a whole host of other players, too.

Wallace: Robert Hassell physically looks stronger during this camp, do you maintain any hope that he can become an above average regular?
Keith Law: I’m more concerned with his contact quality and his swing decisions than how he looks.

Jon: Cleveland’s failed attempts to develop a young RH bat date back to the Matt LaPorta trade.  In a draft that could be underwhelming, would it make sense to skew towards Condon given his profile and potential for a quick rise to Cleveland?
Keith Law: No, I’d just go for the best player on the best deal. I happen to think Condon’s the best player, but I wouldn’t say Cleveland should like him more for any specific reason … that’s how you end up passing on a better player.

Jack: Jeff Passan had some incredibly glowing things to say about Cole Ragans and his Spring Training performance, noting an evaluator likened him to a “left handed DeGrom” – is there real #1 starter potential with him?
Keith Law: I would have said #2, but I’m a big fan – I had him on my breakouts article last March. He’s legit.

Eric: My 5 year old started t-ball this season. He loves playing, and I want him to get more interested in baseball as a whole. What would be a good entry point, other than YouTube highlight videos?
Keith Law: Isn’t the best answer just watching more games? Maybe going to some minor league or college games near you, or watching archived games on MLB.tv, something to accommodate what I assume is an early bed time. I think baseball is a sport you learn to like through experience – one great play or moment probably doesn’t convert a kid.

Jeff: How much of a make or break year do you think this is for Henry Davis with the chance to be the everyday catcher?  The RF experiment last year was not great and some scouts wondered if he could stick behind the plate.  If he struggles is his bat good enough to be an everyday DH?
Keith Law: I think he can catch, but I also think he has to show it this year. He’s going to get a long look. Right field wasn’t good, unsurprising since he had maybe 20 games of experience there total, but his value in the draft was that he was a catcher who could hit (and really, really throw).

Andy: This looks to be one of the worst drafts in recent history for true superstar players. Is the depth beyond the top 30 (or 100) good or is this just a year where you draft for a decent floor and look for ceiling elsewhere?
Keith Law: Nah, it’s just not a great draft. The HS position player crop is way down from last year and below the norm, so I expect a lot of good-not-great college players will get pushed into the first.

Turner: Thank you for the chat! I’m no longer on twitter or X and that’s how I used to know about your chats. I just checked your blog on a whim for today. What is the best way to find out about your chats in the future? Understanding that you don’t schedule them far in advance.
Keith Law: I post them on Threads, BlueSky, Spoutible, and Facebook. I’ll see about a more regular schedule once I have a better sense of my travel for the spring.

Van: For the 2024 draft, is a top tier starting to come together? Who’s pulling ahead so far?
Keith Law: I just posted a ranking this morning.

Andy: How many times have you added a K to Mike Sirota’s name?
Keith Law: It’s when I say it. I want to call him Sirotka or just si-RAHT-uh.

Tyler: Hi Keith, 2 unrelated questions for you: 1) Would you say this is a good year to the number 2 pick? Asking as a Reds fan. And, 2) Do you believe that developing plate discipline is something that can be done? Just curious because I’ve seen conflicting opinions on this but limited data.
Keith Law: It’s not a good year to pick high. I think some players can develop plate discipline, like we’ve seen with Austin Riley or Adolis Garcia, but for the majority of players it’s a lot of wishful thinking.
Keith Law: You always have to try if you’re in player development. It’s just much easier said than done. Oh, stop swinging at sliders out of the zone? Well, sure, everyone is supposed to know that, but few can execute.

JG: All else being equal, if it comes down to extending either Bregman or Tucker, the easy answer is Tucker, isn’t it?
Keith Law: Yes, because of age.

Cooperberg: Can spring training breakouts – like what James Wood has done so far – mean anything or is it all wait and see until the real games start?
Keith Law: Absolutely nothing. Pitchers are working on stuff. Managers aren’t trying to win. You might face a big leaguer in the first at bat and an A-ball guy in the third at bat.

Eric: Why is the name Jackson such a precursor to being a top prospect nowadays?
Keith Law: Because it was a very popular boy’s name in the mid-2000s.

Thomas: Who do you have more confidence in moving forward – Matt Manning or Casey Mize?
Keith Law: Mize.

Jerry: Hey huge fan been following since ESPN. Now subscribe with the athletic because of you. But getting to prospects. First question is Vanderbilt baseball any good this year? Don’t see anyone on your top 30 which is weird for them or they just underclass guys and will be on board next year?
Keith Law: They might be a good college team, but they do not have much in the way of 2024 draft prospects. Vastine might be a third rounder, Holton the same if he’s healthy, although he’s off to a rough start.

RAWagman: Hey Keith. Thank for the chats, as always. Which teams’ offseason maneuvering was most befuddling to you? I’m a Blue Jays fan, and theirs was equal parts disappointing and head-scratching, but which teams, if any, were even more so?
Keith Law: I didn’t get the Reds adding Jeimer Candelario rather than starting pitching depth. I’m also not sure what the Angels’ direction is – it feels like they’re no better off than they were last year.

Andy: At what age do you (as a scout) start hearing about high schoolers? Obviously, if it’s a Bryce Harper type, you hear about it earlier, but do you hear much about the top sophomores (2026 draft available) now? College players we can see as first years and follow them and see their adjustments, does the same thing happen with high schoolers in the scouting world?
Keith Law: I usually don’t hear much about HS players until they’re juniors.

Heather: The Red Sox spent decades as a big market team.  Now that they’ve decided to be Tampa North instead, ownership is trying to sell the fans on, “Just wait until Marcelo Mayer, Roman Anthony, and Kyle Teel are on the team in 2026 … then we’ll spend!”  Are they really that good?   We’re just going to ignore for the moment that none of them is a pitcher.
Keith Law: I think those three are all very good to elite prospects. I think your notes about their lack of pitching in the system and ownership’s sudden decision to treat the team like a cash cow are both well-considered.

Colton: I found your newsletter on trans stuff in Texas to be lacking. You say that gender ideology is harmless, despite the fact that the elimination of female-only spaces creates a danger to females in prison, for instance. Children are being sterilized (pause for a moment and think of the implications of the phrase “puberty blocker”). The very concept of a “gender identity” is an extreme belief in and of itself.
Keith Law: So I deleted the last half of this message because it descended into further anti-trans bullshit. You don’t even understand the difference between sterilization, a permanent procedure with a long history in this country of use against people suspected of mental illness and racial minorities, and puberty blockers, safe and temporary medical treatment that comes under the care of a doctor. You also are at least 70 years behind on gender identity, and that’s just in the west, as gender identity has history going back thousands of years in non-white European cultures. You’re barely even masking your hatred of trans people behind inaccurate rhetoric.

CVD: With the changes to service time- should James Wood make the opening day roster to increase chances of ROY liklihood?  Or is he not ready so keep him down for another year of control?
Keith Law: oh HELL no. He was in double A for less than half of 2023 and struggled with contact there.

Gordon: Hi Keith! If you could cover any other sport what would it be and why?
Keith Law: No.

Jakey: Why so few HS prospects? Is it the Covid effect or something else?
Keith Law: Just a down year. It’s just random.

Jackie: Who’s winning the ROY awards?
Keith Law: I’ll do predictions the last week of ST. Depends a lot on who makes OD rosters.

SJ: It looks like Quinn Priester’s velocity is up a few MPH this spring. What’s your outlook on him at this point?
Keith Law: I don’t buy those spikes until the pitchers are working a little deeper into games. Higher velo in 1-2 innings may translate into higher velo in 5-7, but it might be a guy airing it out to win a roster spot.

Aaron G: Jackson Holliday – June/July callup? Or full season at AAA?
Keith Law: If they have a spot, he’ll be up in June or July. I could also see them having no room for him.
Keith Law: Well, I guess that’s not quite right – he’s going to be better than almost anyone he replaces except Gunnar. But they may not dislodge an incumbent unless Holliday is laying waste to AAA pitching.

Tracy: Here in Chicago we have an owner who’s got his hand out (again!) looking for taxpayer dollars to fund a new stadium, even though he already has one. Jerry Reinsdorf has single-handedly ruined the White Sox franchise, refusing to spend enough money to elevate the organization so it can be consistently competitive in the 21st century. Fans here are mostly outraged by his brazenness. This is also happening elsewhere. Owners are once again asking for money that solely benefits them. Do you think there is a growing national outrage from fans and taxpayers, saying they will no longer support publicly-financed stadiums?
Keith Law: I don’t think so, because these proposals keep passing and legislators who support them keep their jobs. It’s not even party-specific. The entire Tennessee legislature should be dissolved for the money they keep handing sports teams (and MLB will come with its hand out soon enough).

Steve: I see your first question was from Bob Pollard. He’ll probably have 20 more ready by the time this chat is done.
Keith Law: I understood that reference.

Jakey: James Outman has become a good player on a top team. I know “don’t scout the stat line” but in HS he barely hit .300 and in college he was at .249. How does a scout see a player like that and know they have a chance to be a big league regular?
Keith Law: Big bet on athleticism + that focusing just on baseball would help him. Great move for a later pick.

Kyle: Hi Keith – Thanks for the update this AM.. Twins are interesting with picks at 21 and 33. With the lack of prep talent, could you see them buying 2 college arms with those picks (Santucci, Yesavage, Brecht, etc) and then spreading $ on prep later?
Keith Law: Why not?

Eric: Re: Dan Jones – no, not da vinci. That’s Dan Brown. Dan Jones is a legit historian
Keith Law: You’re right, brain cramp here. Obviously I have never heard of Dan Jones, although that may be my failure.

Jakey: How long do you think the Morel at 3b experiment lasts?
Keith Law: He’s really not good there. I imagine less than half a season.

Mike: I just dont see how brody brect can be so high when he walks so many.
Keith Law: It’s primarily a bet that he’s so athletic and so inexperienced (having played football as well) that he’ll continue to improve his control and command with more reps and pro coaching. His delivery is fine – it’s certainly not why he walked so many guys last year – but he throws so hard and his arm is so fast that he hasn’t really learned to manage it. If he walks nearly 20% of batters again this year, he’ll drop to the end of the first round or out of it. He has walked fewer guys the last two outings, and I think being a full-time baseball player is going to yield some short-term improvement.

Zirinsky: Hi Keith. Obviously pitching metrics/labs are much more advanced than hitting metrics at this stage (at least in terms of allowing players to “improve”). Is this simply due to how different pitching/hitting are OR is there some potential advancement coming that will allow hitters to catch up in this space?
Keith Law: I think many hitting labs/coaches focus too much on single metrics of power or contact quality, like EV or launch angle, when there’s often a more fundamental problem at play like pitch or ball/strike recognition. There are certainly teams and coaches that work on the latter, but there seems to be more approaches at work here than there are for pitchers.

Kevin: Thoughts on the Bello extension? Upside of a potential #2?
Keith Law: Love him and yes.

Ryan: You’re a fan of power metal, right? Have you ever heard of Unleash the Archers? Big fan. The singer’s voice is incredible.
Keith Law: I would say yes … old-school thrash will never get old for me. I was listening to some Power Trip the other day and I love the music, although the late singer’s voice was too abrasive for me and too forward in the mix. (I can deal with some pretty abrasive vocals when they’re mixed lower, behind the guitars.)

AK: Hey Keith, just picked up Wingspan and have no idea wtf is going on. Any good advice/tutorials out there to get started?
Ollie: Ryne Nelson has looked really good so far this spring. I’m guessing he’ll win the fifth starter job. Any thoughts on his performance or improved slider?
Keith Law: Spring performance doesn’t mean anything and if his slider is different this year I haven’t seen/heard it. I’ve been a big Nelson fan, though.

Zirinsky: Keith: When is it useful to start looking at results from veteran pitchers in ST? And obviously it’s possible that the answer is “never.”
Keith Law: I just don’t, unless, say, a guy suddenly is walking batters at twice the rate, or has lost his fastball. Something really drastic.

PhillyJake: I’m finally reading Smart Baseball.  Just finished the OPS chapter last night.  I was blown away by the difference of a .400 OBP and .400SLG guy vs. a .300 OPB and .500SLG guy. Thanks for the enlightenment!
Keith Law: Glad you enjoyed it!

Michael: Thanks for doing these chats, Keith! I’ll be in Seattle for the first time in a few weeks. Any restaurant recommendations?
Keith Law: Yes, I was there in July for the Futures Game. https://meadowparty.com/blog/2023/07/15/seattle-eats/

Chris: Have you seen “Anatomy of a Fall” yet? Curious what you think.
Keith Law: Not yet. I think we’re going to end up seeing just 7/10 BP nominees before the Oscars, although eventually we’ll get them all.

JR: At what point are Snell and Montgomery at risk for missing start of the season if they haven’t signed? Or are we there already? Seems like an offensive player could be ready in a few days, but a pitcher would need more reps against live batting to get ready.
Keith Law: Yes. I’d say we’re at that point now.

Jacob: Of the two Cal guys, Rodney Green Jr. and Caleb Lomavita, who would you draft first and who do you think gets drafted first?
Keith Law: Only one is on the top 30 today…

Gregory: Telling little boys that they might actually be girls trapped in a boy’s body is, definitionally, grooming.
Keith Law: This is such a fundamental misunderstanding that it makes me despair of the state of our education system. Nobody is “telling” anyone they’re trans, or queer, or anything else. That’s not how any of this works!

James: It seems like Chourio is going to make the opening day roster. What would be your predicted slash line for him over 500-600 PA?
Keith Law: .270/.310/.425. Kind of seeing a slow build, maybe a rough start in April/May, some adjustment period, and a strong finish.

Mike: None prospect question….but the Twins sure are betting a lot on a healthy Paddock and Descalfini after losing Gray. Is this really going to work (in the post season if they get there)?
Keith Law: Paddack has never thrown 150 innings in a professional season, and he’s only made 20 starts in a season twice (2019 and 2021). Banking on him as a starter is irrational.

Eric: the founding fathers would be amazed that two near-octogenarians would be running for president one day. but hey, let’s go crazy
Keith Law: I mean, they would not recognize much of anything in our society, from guns to racial justice to who’s allowed to vote and own land and so on. Also, imagine handing one of them a smartphone.

Jakey: I found your newsletter on trans stuff in TX to be spot on
Keith Law: Thank you. Leave trans kids alone.

JR: Strong agree with your Killers of the Flower Moon movie review. Loved the book, almost passed on the movie when I saw it was 3.5 hours. Gave it a try and stopped after a slow 30 minutes.

I miss the days when all major movies were released in theaters and had to be a tight 90-120 minutes, with only the occasional special film getting 2.5+ hours. Netflix, Apple, etc., appear to not reign in directors as much and give them blank checks and limited oversight. So the movies ramble on forever.
Keith Law: I’m fine with 3-hour movies if they earn it. Scorsese needed to trim some of the first two hours, in particular. The scene where Mollie’s mother dies stands out as one that, while beautiful on its own, does not progress the story or the development of any core character.

Eric: James Wood >>>>>>>> James Woods
Keith Law: Low bar, but yes.

Luis: Hi Keith, not a question but rather just to thank you for the content and send my condolences for the loss of your  cat to you and your family
Keith Law: Thank you. We actually just adopted two rescued kittens yesterday – neither my wife nor I has been cat-less in over a decade, and with so many kittens needing homes we decided not to wait. Pictures coming soon!

Caleb: Think we can expect a ‘leap’ from Jordan Walker in 2024, or am I thinking a year too early?
Keith Law: He might be on the breakouts list this year.

David: You planning any trips to Winston-Salem this year to check out Wake Forest players before the draft?
Keith Law: At least once, I think.

Robert: Have you ever had to put a pet down? We just put our 15 year old dog down, and my family is asking for another dog, but I don’t see if/when I’ll ever be ready for another. He was such a good boy.
Keith Law: I just did that last month, and wrote about it in the newsletter. I’ve had to put four cats down myself – as in, I was the one at the vet making the call. It never, ever gets easier.

Ken from Entertainment 720: Hey Keith.  My wife is a die hard O’s fan but isnt a fan of Westburg.  I happen to be a fan of his.  If i say he from ages 26-32 can be a .275 hitter with a 785-815 OPS with 40 doubles and 15-20 home runs.  How wrong am I?  He feels like Robby Thompson 2.0 (old Giant’s second baseman).
Keith Law: Yeah I’m with you. I see a regular for someone.

Andy: We all know the playoffs are a crapshoot, but the last time a Central team made the World Series, it was Cubs-Cleveland. It isn’t like those teams are making huge splashed this winter either. People always complain about “East Coast bias”, but at the early evening timeslot, there just isn’t anything appealing about most of the Central teams.
Keith Law: The two Centrals are by far the lowest-populated divisions, right? Chicago’s the only large city in either Central, and one of the Chicago teams acts like they play in Peoria.

Eric: Nick Senzel had a decent rookie yr, and of course a 1st round pedigree, but hasnt really hit since then.   Any chance he can be a late bloomer?
Keith Law: Never give up on a guy with that background but he’s had a lot of injury issues & more.

Robert: All the people who love to say things like Babe Ruth is the best ever, I’d love to see Babe Ruth’s reaction if Shohei time traveled to play in the majors with him
Keith Law: He’d probably respond with a racial slur.

Dan: Who will you have your eyes on on the Cape this summer?
Keith Law: I have absolutely no idea who’s playing on the Cape this summer.

Robert: that anti-trans guy sounds like such a … snowflake
Keith Law: They’re incredibly soft.

Dee: Another hammy for Madrigal. He’s just never going to play 140 games right?
Keith Law: I think he could play 140 games at some point but won’t hit enough for it to matter. Where are all the White Sox fans mad I left him off my top 100?

Todd Boss: Opening Quote: “Live Wire,” by Motley Crue?
Keith Law: Still their best song.

Dave: Keith, with Bellinger and Busch getting the lion share of work at CF and 1b respectively, should a young Armstrong get more seasoning and force the issue down the road if he rakes in AAA, or is his defense alone accretive to afford a shuffling of those three between CF/1B/DH (include Morel and 3B in that rotation ?)
Keith Law: I’d start PCA in AAA with the mandate to maximize contact and get out of this pull orientation. There will be opportunities for him at some point this year, even if it’s just like you suggest, with Busch moving to DH and Belli at 1b.

Ernesto: Do you feel like we are witnessing the beginning of the end of American democracy? It sure feels like it with extremists getting elected and the supreme courts playing calvinball with their decisions. The fact an insurrectionist is even allowed to run for office says a lot. Unless there is a total wipeout this election cycle I dont like our chances.
Keith Law: I do. I am especially dismayed at how much of the media, including mainstream, national media outlets, seem unaware that they are bothsidesing a contest that is very much uneven in its import and consequences.

Jason: Brooks Lee has looked great in spring training. any chance he makes the opening day roster? move Julien to 1st and slide Lee to 2nd?
Keith Law: Also would be very foolish.

Dr. Bob: RE: Owners asking for handouts. The only time I remember the fans helping sinking potential deals for a team were the mid-1990s Rams. Georgia had run that team so far into the ground that when the move to STL was announced, most fan reaction was, “Can we help you pack?” Even thought they’re bad deals for the taxpayers, fans always support them.
Keith Law: Fans are vocal. Opponents aren’t. If you live in a state or county about to subsidize some billionaire’s playground, you need to make your voice heard.

Jason: Best placement of the flag in Stratego?  “Traditionally” people surround with bombs near the back row.   Any thought to a random spot?
Keith Law: I actually haven’t played it in ~35 years.

Guest: Is JD Davis a reasonable upgrade for the Cubs?
Keith Law: I don’t think so.

Todd Boss: A blogger in the Washington Nationals blogosphere made a pretty cogent argument that the Nationals should be treated as a small market team, just as the Baltimore Orioles are, based on MASN RSN revenue. They received less RSN money than Seattle, Arizona, and Pittsburgh, but those teams all get comp draft picks for being “small markets.”  This also cost them the #1 pick this year, when they had to forfeit their lottery win.  Is this fair?
Keith Law: It’s a reasonable argument but I don’t know what their other revenues look like.

Dee: Sharing The Gender Dysphoria Bible, seems we have some folks who need to read it.

https://genderdysphoria.fyi/en
Keith Law: Bookmarking, thank you.

Tom: That Anthony Rendon doesn’t consider his job to be the most important thing in his life doesn’t concern me. I presume most people feel this way about their jobs and heck, I imagine more than a few pro athletes aren’t actually playing their favorite sport. What concerns me is Rendon isn’t particularly good at his job and hasn’t been for a while, and it’s yet another example of why the Angels are in this endless abyss they show few signs of climbing out any time soon.
Keith Law: Right. You don’t have to love your job to be good at it! But you do have to put in the work.

Justin: What continues to boggle the mind is how people can look at an incredibly vulnerable population (1 in 4 attempt suicide) and decide, “Yes, I want to make life harder for them.” No real question, it’s just infuriating.
Keith Law: It is infuriating, and makes me particularly disdainful of the people and the niche groups promulgating this mentality.

Chris: Keith, have you had a chance to play The Fox Experiment from Elizabeth Hargrave yet? My family didn’t enjoy it quite as much as Wingspan, but found quite a bit of humor in being able to name the foxes.
Keith Law: It’s on the shelf but still unplayed.

Matt: How does Altuve have so much power? I get why Judge has power. He’s huge. But Altuve is a Smurf.
Keith Law: Height don’t measure power, either. Altuve is shorter than I am, but he’s about twice as wide.

Queer: Trans adults would like to be left alone too
Keith Law: Yes to this too. The assault on trans rights is both inhumane and a threat to everyone’s rights.

Salty: Does Jared Jones give off any Sixto vibes?  Body seems similar, stuff maybe a little different, and I’ve never seen him pitch.  Is he a viable SP or more back-end/relief with two strong pitches currently.
Keith Law: Stronger/better athlete. I will say Sixto blowing out as badly as he did was a surprise, because I have seen very few guys throw 100 that easily.

Matt: If you were Jed Hoyer how would you be approaching this season?
Keith Law: Gleefully?

Matt: Have you ever written or talked publicly about your divorce? And or the role mental health played? As somone with a spouse with mental health challenges i’d love to learn from others experience.
Keith Law: No, because I don’t feel like it’s really my story to tell – there’s another person involved, and her side would differ from mine, while even telling my side would likely compromise her privacy.

Jason: Found it interesting that Angel Martinez was left of your Guardians top 20 .. Reports of a swing adjustment and now hes racking in ST.. Any thoughts ??
Keith Law: He was #11.

Rado: Have you had a chance to experience The Sphere? I’ve never been the biggest U2 fan but i can tell you….its worth it.
Keith Law: Having seen it on TV, I don’t think I’d like it. At best it’s sensory overload. At worst it might give me a migraine.
Keith Law: (cue Gang of Four)

JT: Last year, Salas was a huge story during ST on The Athletic. Is there anyone showcasing themselves similarly this year?
Keith Law: Minor leaguers haven’t started games yet.

Frank: Did Scott Boras overplay his hand this offseason?
Keith Law: I don’t think so. We’ll see what Montgomery ends up with, but Boras’s history with taking free agents deep into the offseason (and beyond) has usually vindicated him. And Bellinger’s free agent case was as odd as it gets – guy gets non-tendered one winter, is an MVP candidate a year later. Who did that last – Jose Bautista?

Jason: Did you see the “We are the World” documentary, and if so what did you think?
Keith Law: It was excellent. So much I didn’t know, even though I was alive and old enough to be aware of much of it, and also such a blast to see who was considered enough of a star to be included. Plus the odd interplay of, say, Bob Dylan and Cyndi Lauper hanging out.

Brett: Have Julien and Wallner shown enough that they can be trusted as regulars?
Keith Law: I don’t think so. Both look like platoon players, especially Wallner.

Dave: Have you ever considered selling t-shirts that say, “I Hate Your Favorite Team” – if not for personal profit (nothing wrong with that, btw) then for your favorite charity?
Keith Law: Not a bad idea. I’ll get on this.
Keith Law: That’s all for this week – thanks for reading and for the support. It’s on all of us to stand up for the rights of our least powerful or most vulnerable neighbors. Stay safe.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With:
→ March 4, 2024
→ By

All of Us Strangers.

A reclusive writer in London starts a fling with a young man in his apartment complex, after which he takes a trip to visit his childhood home, where he finds his parents – who died twenty or thirty years earlier – just as they were right before they died, apparently alive and very happy to see him. It’s a bizarre and immediately compelling premise, with the superb Andrew Scott in the leading role. Alas, All of Us Strangers squanders all of these gifts by completely flubbing the ending in the most trite and predictable fashion. (It’s streaming now on Hulu, or available to buy on amazon.)

Scott plays Adam, a screenwriter who lives alone, without a partner or even many (or any) friends, but when he spots Harry (Paul Mescal) outside, the two have instant chemistry, although Adam is as reticent as Harry is forward and it takes several encounters before the two even go as far as a kiss. Their first conversation seems to free up Adam to write more, and he decides to take a train to the neighborhood where he grew up so he can see his childhood home, which should be sitting empty. Instead, he sees his parents, who died in a car accident when he was twelve, apparently alive and well, as they were just before the died, although they seem unfazed by the fact that he’s an adult and if anything is older than they are. He returns to see them several times, gradually revealing more about his life, including a scene where he comes out to his mother and she reacts as if it’s still 1990 or so. He also begins to see Harry more frequently, but when he tries to bring Harry to see his parents, the house is dark and abandoned, and Harry is clearly perturbed at his friend’s erratic behavior.

For nearly all of this film’s run time, it exists on another plane, where you can accept the unreality of what’s happening because it’s simple and self-contained and gives us little glimpses into Adam’s character. The film is about him, and his growth, or at times his regression, is the heart of the film. Each of his interactions with his parents, played by a frumpy Claire Foy and a mustachioed Jamie Bell, reveals a little more about his personality and why he’s become the person he is, for better and for worse. The character development is strong enough to justify the premise, but the script still needs to find a way to resolve the question of what’s actually happening with Adam’s parents, and unfortunately it does so in as unsatisfying a manner as it could have, undoing much of the remainder of the film in the process as well.

Scott is the film’s saving grace, although his performance has gone largely overlooked in awards season here and in the UK beyond one nomination for him at the Golden Globes. The film was even nominated for six BAFTAs, winning none, but Scott didn’t even get a nod for Best Actor. It’s an understated performance in a quiet role, which may have hurt him with critics and voters, but without him this film is dead on arrival. Mescal is fine as Harry, although the character itself is a little one-note, with Mescal giving him enough charm and pathos to let the viewer overlook how fortuitous his appearance in Adam’s life seems to be.

With twenty minutes or so left, I thought All of Us Strangers would end up among my top five films of 2023, between Scott’s performance and the way it establishes such a clear vibe from the start. I’m struggling to think of a film that unraveled so badly in the way it concluded, though. There’s failing to stick a landing, and there’s missing the mat entirely.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , ,
→ March 3, 2024
→ By

Killers of the Flower Moon (film).

David Grann’s Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI is one of the best nonfiction books I’ve ever read, a true story that works as a thriller, an important part of American history, and a document of racism and injustice that continues to echo today. Like most fans of the book and/or Grann’s work, I was thrilled to hear Martin Scorsese was adapting it for the screen…

…and then I saw the movie was three and a half hours long.

It is a very good movie, but it just didn’t need to be this long, and it works in more detail than the core narrative actually needed. It’s become a trend with Scorsese to create these overlong films that bog down in minor details that sap the energy of the main plot, which in this case detracts from what might otherwise have been the best movie of the year if anyone had said to him that he needed to edit this down to a reasonable length. (It’s streaming on Apple TV+.)

The Osage Nation were once the dominant civilization in the central plains of North America, but in the 1870s, the U.S. government exiled them to a desolate part of what is now northern Oklahoma, a move that backfired on the white colonizers when it turned out that the new Osage lands sat on a large oil field. This made the Osage people quite rich on paper, giving them headrights to a share of the proceeds from the nation’s oil revenues, although a 1921 federal law said that the Osage couldn’t access the cash directly without approval of white guardians until they were ruled “competent.” A series of murders of Osage tribe members in the 1920s, ignored by local authorities, led the tribe to beg the nascent Bureau of Investigations to look into the cases, which uncovered a conspiracy to kill the Osage for their headrights and indeed birthed the modern FBI.

The Osage woman at the center of the case that brought the Bureau into Oklahoma was Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone), who married a white carpetbagger named Ernest Burkhardt (Leonardo DiCaprio). Mollie’s two sisters, brother-in-law, and cousin were all murdered at the behest of Ernest’s uncle, William King Hale (Robert Deniro), while Ernest and King nearly killed Mollie by poisoning the insulin injections she needed for her diabetes before the Bureau arrived, led by Thomas White (Jesse Plemons), and solved the case, saving Mollie and sending her husband and uncle-in-law to prison.

The story here is so rich and compelling, especially in Grann’s rendition, that it would be hard to make a bad movie out of it; even when the film drags a little in pace, it’s still interesting because of the wide cast of characters and the sense of creeping doom that dominates the first two hours. All three leads are superb, with Gladstone especially strong, and Deniro looking the most invested in a part he’s been in forever. There’s no mystery as to who’s behind the killings, so any tension is from wondering how long they’ll get away with it, and, if you’re unfamiliar with the story, how many people will die before anyone takes the Osage – who are well aware these deaths are not accidental, as ruled by the coroner – seriously.

That makes the film’s bloat far harder to understand, because it just bogs things down and introduces a broad array of characters, nearly all drawn from real life and many played quite well by famous musicians, that the film doesn’t need. Keeping everyone straight in this movie requires a cheat sheet, and there’s a real imbalance to who’s getting that extra screen time – it’s the villains, all white men, while the Osage get far less screen time and have far fewer named characters on their side; the story unfurls from a neutral perspective, rather than from Mollie’s or that of the Osage in general. The real conspiracy was indeed this broad, involving cousins and criminals alike, yet for the sake of telling the story in a reasonable amount of time, Scorsese should have trimmed some of the names or at least kept a few more of them off screen.

The crimes themselves take up about two-thirds of the film, which does allow for the complex (to put it mildly) relationship between Mollie and Ernest, who had two kids together, to develop on screen, although the script may go too far in casting Ernest as a feckless pawn of his uncle rather than someone aware he was committing murder and poisoning his own wife. By the time the Bureau shows up, it is a welcome shot of energy in a film that had gotten stuck in its own mire, and Plemons livens things up even in an understated performance. The last hour, where the killers are brought to justice, zips by compared to the slow build that came before, with the main tension around whether Ernest will choose to stand by his uncle or confess to his crimes and, on some level, side with his wife. Even so, we get some overblown scenes like Brendan Fraser’s defense attorney bloviating in the courthouse with Ernest on the stand, a perfectly fine scene in its own right but not one that pushes the story forward. There are just so many bits here that could have been cut to make this movie two and a half hours, and in that case, it might have challenged for Best Picture, but instead we get an Apple TV+ movie that feels like it was trying to be a limited series instead.

Killers of the Flower Moon earned ten nominations, including the obligatory Best Director and Best Picture nods for Scorsese; this is the seventh film of his last nine to get him a Director nomination, although it seems far more of a recognition of his name than his work here. Gladstone is the overwhelming favorite to win Best Actress, which may be the only major award it wins; if it wins another, I’d guess Robbie Robertson might win for Best Original Score, as the score is strong, adding to many scenes without ever overwhelming the action or dialogue, and the fact that he died before the film was released will likely win him some additional votes. DiCaprio did not get a Best Actor nomination, even though he at least was better than one nominee in Bradley Cooper.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,
→ March 2, 2024
→ By

Stick to baseball, 3/2/24.

Nothing new this week at the Athletic, but I’ll have two draft-related pieces coming up next week.

At Paste, I reviewed Dragonkeepers, a new family-level game that I found really disappointing, with the wrong mixture of complexity and randomness.

I’ll have a new newsletter out in the next day or two, but you can sign up here – it’s free and always includes links to everything I write.

And now, the links…

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
→ March 1, 2024
→ By

Music update, February 2024.

Hey, not too bad for a month of just 29 days, although I think the quantity of songs on a playlist has more to do with how many Fridays a month has than how many days. I’m posting this on March 1st, which is a strong album release day (Liam Gallagher & John Squire, Everything Everything, Kaiser Chiefs, Ministry, Sheer Mag, Yard Act), leading into what looks like a very promising spring of new LPs from some great artists. As always, if you can’t see the Spotify widget below, you can click here.

Kacey Musgraves – Deeper Well. I’m pretty sure this is the first song by Musgraves I’ve ever put on a playlist. It’s just gorgeous, with a hint of darkness in the lyrics to contrast to the lovely guitarwork and harmonies in the chorus.

Khruangbin – May Ninth. A La Sala, their first proper LP since 2020’s Mordechai, comes out on April 5th, and it seems like it may be a return to their all-instrumental style from their prior work.

Parsnip – The Light. Parsnip is an Australian quartet who released an album in 2019 called When the Tree Bears Fruit, but this was the first track I’d heard by them. It’s jangly, catchy indie-pop with some smart-ass lyrics, loosely descended from a lot of the Britpop stuff I was all about in my 20s. It’s from their upcoming album Behold, due out April 26th, their first new music of any sort since 2020.

Kaiser Chiefs – Beautiful Girl. Kaiser Chiefs’ Easy Eighth Album comes out on March 1st, their first LP since 2019, but even with production from Nike Rodgers, this is the only single I’ve heard of five worth listening to. It’s fantastic, though. Lead singer Ricky Wilson wrote a short, interesting retrospective on their sudden rise to fame and the vicissitudes of their career for The Guardian this past week.

Pond – Neon River. More weird psychedelic rock from down under. Stay with it through the lugubrious intro for the muscular, acid-tinged riffs in the chorus.

Elbow – Lovers’ Leap. Elbow came along at the wrong time for me, after Madchester and Britpop, two genres I still come back to all the time, but before I got back into current music again around 2007, thanks in no small part to the Arctic Monkeys’ debut album. I’ve checked in on them here and there, such as when they won the Mercury Prize for The Seldom Seen Kid, but their music has just drifted right on by me. That’s by way of explanation of why this is the first Elbow track to ever appear on one of my playlists: it’s not just that I think it’s good, but I think it’s very different. Frontman Guy Garvey promised the upcoming LP, Audio Vertigo, will be “groove-based,” and this song definitely qualifies.

Yard Act feat. Katy Pearson and David Thewlis – When the Laughter Stops. More post-punk goodness from Yard Act, with an appearance from Thewlis reading the “sound and fury” monologue from Hamlet. Their second album, Where’s My Utopia?, is out today, March 1st.

English Teacher – R&B. There’s a slow start here but it picks up the pace partway through to sound more like other English Teacher tracks, with their modern take on post-punk; their debut full-length This Could Be Texas comes out on April 12th.

Omni – Compliment. I seem to be very late to the Omni party, as the Atlanta post-punks have received critical acclaim for at least their last three albums now, including the just-released Souvenir, which has this track as the closer.

Squid – Fugue (Bin Song). I’m not always on Squid’s wavelength, but they’re one of the most innovative bands out there right now, especially in their punk-adjacent space, playing with time signatures and working outside of traditional keys. It’s a bit like black midi with less pretense.

Les Savy Fav – Legendary Tippers. I didn’t think LSF were still a going concern, but they’re about to release their first new album in 14 years, Oui, in May. They’ve dropped two singles so far; this one sounds similar to the sound they

Kid Kapichi – Get Down. Kid Kapichi have always reminded me of a harder-edged version of Arctic Monkeys, leaning more into punk than Alex Turner & company do, but here they go back a few decades with talk-sung lyrics telling a story before the hook in the chorus.

Cast – The Rain That Falls. So I sort of knew Cast were still around, but maybe I’d forgotten? I loved Cast in the 1990s – “Sandstorm,” “Alright,” “Beat Mama,” “Finetime” – as they emerged from the ashes of The La’s, whose Brian Wilson-esque frontman Lee Mavers refused to release any new music after their debut album. Cast’s latest LP Love Is the Call is a mixed bag, at best, but this is the best track on the album and you can hear their earlier Britpoppy sound poking through.

Everything Everything – The End of the Contender. These British art-rockers’ latest album, Mountainhead, drops on March 1st, featuring this song, “Cold Reactor,” and “The Mad Stone.” Those three singles all have the EE sound, but they’ve also felt more restrained, without the sort of controlled chaos of Arc or A Fever Dream.

Love Fame Tragedy – It’s Ok To Be Shallow. The second single this winter from Matthew Murphy’s side project, after December’s “Don’t You Want To Sleep With Someone Normal,” with both sounding … a lot like the Wombats. I don’t think Murphy can write any other way, but fortunately I love most of what he writes, so we’re all good.

Ride – Last Frontier. Ride & Slowdive both making comebacks in the late teens ahead of, or perhaps encouraging, the new peak of shoegaze is a welcome development, given that I liked both bands in their original heydays but definitely did not fully appreciate either.

Brittany Howard – Prove It To You. What Now turned out to be a bit of a disappointment after the title track, the lead single from the record, was so good I named it my #1 track of 2023. I was hoping for more funk, but instead the album bounces all over the place, with a lot of house/electronica and a number of almost dirge-like tracks. Nothing lived up to the first single but this is the second-best song on the LP.

Little Simz – Mood Swings. Little Simz released a surprise EP, Drop 7, with seven tracks and a total run time of just 14:49; it is, as you’d expect, the seventh in a series of EPs that exist in parallel to her more traditional tracks on her albums. It’s weird, in a good way, although it reminds me I need to listen to No Thank You, her December 2022 album, again, as it came out in a dead time for new albums.

Paul Weller – Soul Wandering. Sixty-five and still rocking, Weller, the former leader of The Jam and The Style Council, is back with this soul-influenced track that has some powerful guitar work (I get a little early Tom Cochrane from it) before the Motown-esque backing vocalists come in for the chorus. His latest solo album, 66, will come out on May 24th, one day before his 66th birthday.

Waxahatchee – Bored. I can’t believe it’s been four years since Saint Cloud, Waxahatchee’s breakout album, came out, but I guess a fair amount has happened since then. This track is the second from her upcoming album Tiger Blood, due out March 24th, and both songs seem to lean more into her alt.country side than the roots rock style of the last album.

The Mysterines – Stray. Lia Metcalfe and company will release their second album, Afraid of Tomorrows, on June 7th. This lead single is more snarling than most of the tracks on their 2022 debut, Reeling, but not quite as fast-paced as their earliest singles, which remains my favorite version of the band. The song’s video definitely leans into Metcalfe’s looks and star power.

Slow Fiction – Apollo. An indie-rock group from Brooklyn – bet you haven’t heard of that before! – Slow Fiction put out an EP last year, followed by this one-off single, which does a tremendous job of building up energy and tension through the bridge and chorus, only releasing it in the final ten seconds or so of the track.

Screaming Females – Swallow the World. The Females announced their breakup in December, but they’ve now released their 2022 EP Clover, previously only available to buy at shows, on streaming sites and on bandcamp.

MAQUINA. – denial. I know very little about this band other than that they’re Portuguese, but this is very Ministry, with a little Death in Vegas thrown in.

Alcest – L’Envol. This French metal band pioneered the awkwardly-named subgenre of “blackgaze,” melding black metal elements with shoegaze, which was later taken over by the American band Deafheaven on their far less interesting album Sunbather. Anyway, Alcest has been putting out some of the best metal albums in the world in the last decade, and their first new LP in five years, Les Chants de l’aurore, will be out in June.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , ,
→ February 29, 2024
→ By

Maestro.

Leonard Bernstein lived a long and interesting life, earning his place in the pantheon of American music. It’s hard to believe Maestro couldmake him and his life so utterly boring. (It’s streaming exclusively on Netflix.)

Directed and co-written by Bradley Cooper, Maestro is a formulaic biopic that often seems afraid to truly engage with its subject (played by Cooper) or his wife, Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan). The film begins with Bernstein at age 25, thrust into the lead conductor role one night at the New York Philharmonic when the guest conductor is unable to go on, a jumbled mess of a scene that foreshadows the movie’s chronic problems with pacing and tempo. Bernstein is in a relationship with the clarinet player David Oppenheim (Matt Bomer), but soon afterwards meets Felicia at a cocktail party, pursuing and marrying her, although he was gay and had a series of affairs with men throughout their marriage. His career progresses in the background, with nods here and there to his series of successful endeavors (and no mention of his big flop, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, which became his last Broadway musical), while his marriage teeters and he and Felicia separate, briefly, before reuniting because he conducted a great performance in 1973. And then she gets cancer and dies.

Maestro isn’t even bad, or so-bad-it’s-good, but dull. Bernstein was fascinating as a person and a composer, yet the film does neither side of him justice. He wrote the music and score for West Side Story, scored On the Waterfront, and wrote three symphonies and numerous other orchestral and chamber pieces, which you’d barely glean from this film. There’s relatively little of his music, certainly not his most famous pieces, in the movie, yet the script focuses for an eternity on that one 1973 performance, where he conducted the London Symphony Orchestra at Ely Cathedral – a show that, in the film, led Felicia to forgive his infidelities, which seems to be a bit of Hollywood nonsense. If you knew nothing of Bernstein before watching Maestro, you would likely leave the film believing he was a conductor and not a composer, or at best a minor composer of lesser-known works.

His relationship with Felicia is supposed to be the heart of the film, but it’s in cardiac arrest; it’s a series of interactions, but few if any are illuminating, and there is zero chemistry of any sort between the two of them, which matters given how much the film wants us to believe that, despite his homosexuality, he both cared for and needed Felicia. It’s as if the two characters barely inhabit the same universe, exacerbated by both actors’ attempts to mimic the accents and intonations of the people they’re portraying, which makes Mulligan sound like she’s in a Julian Fellowes period piece. The drive for verisimilitude in biopics has some clear drawbacks, from the distractions of Cooper’s makeup and voice mimicry to the sense that these two characters aren’t even from the same era.

Nothing sinks Maestro as much as how boring the story is, though. There are certainly several ways to treat a protagonist who’s a philanderer, and struggling with his sexual identity in a time of entrenched discrimination and bigotry, yet is also an icon in his field and was recognized as a genius in his own time. Maestro seems unwilling to engage with the darker side of Bernstein’s character – that, even if Felicia accepted him as who he was and what he was doing, he seemed to be using her as cover and as an emotional support. There’s a bigger question of whether a relationship like this can even work, or be equitable, but the script never comes close to exploring it. I’m mystified by the wide acclaim for the film, but there’s always one major Oscar-nominated film that I just don’t get.

Speaking of which, Maestro was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Original Screenplay; needless to say, I don’t think it should win any of them, with multiple better choices in each category. Greta Lee (Past Lives) should have had Mulligan’s nod, and Leonardo DiCaprio (Killers of the Flower Moon) or Andrew Scott (All of Us Strangers) would have been a better choice than Cooper. The one race to watch here would be Best Makeup and Hairstyling, given the controversy over Cooper’s use of a prosthetic nose to better resemble Bernstein, a choice that the composer’s children have publicly supported. I don’t believe there’s a clear favorite in that category, since Barbie was snubbed, while Variety and Indiewire have both tabbed Maestro as the likely winner. I haven’t seen three of the five nominees yet, so I’ll defer any opinion on this.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , ,
→ February 27, 2024
→ By

Stay True.

Winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critic Circle award for memoir or autobiography, Hua Hsu’s Stay True begins as a coming-of-age story about growing up as a first-generation American, trying to fit in with other kids through culture and counter-culture. Hsu eventually found a strong friend group at UC Berkeley, doing normal college kid things and seeing the world as full of endless possibilities, until one of his closest friends is murdered in a random carjacking, a senseless crime that destroys so many lives and leaves Hsu in an uncertain world of grief. It’s brief yet Hsu writes so clearly and specifically that each scene feels real – and so do the emotions that come from it.

Hsu was born to Taiwanese parents who emigrated to the United States to flee the repressive government in Taipei in the 1960s and 1970s, then grew up in California as an outsider to multiple groups – he wasn’t white, yet he wasn’t a high achiever like many of the other Asian-American students he saw. He eventually gravitates to music as a way to be cool, particularly towards indie music, even starting his own zine in high school to try to get free CDs from record labels, adopting a cooler-than-thou attitude to people who listened to mainstream artists like Pearl Jam or the Dave Matthews Band, or even latecomers to Nirvana. When he graduates from high school and attends Berkeley, he meets Ken Ishida, who in many ways is all the things Hsu wants to be – effortless, charismatic, handsome, just naturally cool without trying. The two don’t exactly become fast friends; their friendship grows over time, and evolves around and through their differences rather than in spite of them. Theirs was, in Hsu’s telling, the sort of friendship that you are lucky to find a few times in your life, one that lasts for decades even as others drift apart or become nothing more than Facebook friendships.

Of course, Ken is the murder victim here, which I don’t think is spoiling anything if you’ve read any reviews or anything else about the book. It was as pointless as stupid as it gets; his killers bought a bunch of stuff with his credit cards and went to their house, with his car still on their lawn. They were caught almost immediately, and the guy who actually shot him is still in prison in California; his girlfriend, an accomplice in the crime, was just released last year. His murder was enough to shock Hsu and their whole friend group, but Hua takes it even harder because of how their last interaction went, and his guilt that perhaps Ken would still be alive if he’d said or done something different in that situation.

Hsu’s writing is delicate and evocative all at once; he eschews the big twist or shocking moment, and lets the characters – of which he is one – tell the story, with his wry observations often providing humor or some needed context. So much of Stay True asks how to measure a life, to borrow a phrase; when someone close to us dies, how do we remember them, truly remember them as they were, rather than the version we hold in our memories, which may be colored by our emotions or wishes. It becomes tangible to Hsu when he has to deliver the eulogy at Ken’s funeral, where he speaks more honestly than you might expect for the ceremony, while much of what comes afterwards, in the final third of the book, is Hsu trying to make sense less of what happened and more of how to go on. He writes letters to his late friend, sees his figurative ghost when a certain song plays or when it’s time for a cigarette. His relationship with his girlfriend stalls. He reacts as many people would in the face of such a tragedy; few could describe it in such lucid, honest terms.

I did read a review of Stay True that referred to the book as “unsentimental,” which I think depends on how you define the term. Sentimental literature and art is maudlin, weepy, turgid; Stay True is none of those. It is, however, a sad story, told plainly but with tenderness at its core. Hua Hsu lost his best friend, without warning, and without the emotional tools to cope. He’s written a beautiful tribute that speaks to the grief we all must face in some way, while also delving into the details of his life and Ken’s that made both of their stories unique.

Next up: Wise Gals: The Spies Who Built the CIA and Changed the Future of Espionage, by Nathalia Holt.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,
→ February 26, 2024
→ By

Stardew Valley.

My daughter loves the video game Stardew Valley, even though, according to her, there’s no actual end or final goal; you just keep playing to accomplish tasks and get more gold or other rewards, without a destination. I find that idea maddening. Whether a game is competitive or cooperative, there has to be a way to win. Otherwise, it’s not a game – it’s work.

The tabletop version of Stardew Valley does have a way to win, although it’s pretty hard to pull off. It’s a cooperative game for up to 4 players, with a solo mode, where you play through four seasons, planting and harvesting crops, rearing animals, fishing, exploring the mine, and making friends with villagers, all to try to achieve four objective cards and renovate the six rooms in the community center by making the appropriate donations. You get 16 turns apiece, and just two brief actions per turn, so you have to be ruthlessly efficient, contrary to the laid-back approach of the video game version. If you achieve all ten goals before you reach the end of winter, you win; otherwise, you lose.


Each season has four cards within it, telling you what to do on the board before players take their turns, and then a cleanup card at the end of the season that reminds you to change out that season’s forage tokens for the next one’s and to choose an additional professional skill card for their chosen profession (farmer, fisherman, forager, miner). At the start of the players’ turn, they may sell goods from their inventory for gold or swap them with each other, and then each player places their pawn on any location on the board, either taking two actions at that spot, or taking one action and moving to an adjacent location to take a second action. The benefit of the latter choice is that the player may take a face-down foraging token from the board, which gives some reward – basic goods like stone or wood, foraged plants that can be gifted or sold, or fancier items like artifacts or minerals that can be sold or donated to the museum for hearts.

The main ways to gain resources and money are growing crops, animal husbandry, mining, and fishing. Planting crops requires buying seeds at the town center, watering them (or praying for rain), and then harvesting them automatically when they have been watered enough times to match the water symbol on the tile. Rearing animals requires building a barn or coop first, and then moving to the farm to collect eggs, milk, wool, or feathers. Any player can fish by going to the river, lake, or ocean, then rolling three dice and assigning them to any of the five fishing tokens in the display, taking the fish that the dice match. The mine has 12 levels, and each has its own map and monster; you roll two dice and gain the reward (or penalty) shown at the intersection of their two values on the map card’s 3×3 grid, which can include the power to move down another level. Lower levels have better rewards, and one of the potential end-game objectives is to reach level 12.

You also need goods to gift to villagers you befriend, another action you take in the town. You draw the top card from the villager deck and give them any gift, as long as it’s not identified on the right side of the card as something they hate. If it’s an item they love, you get two hearts; if not, you get one. If you give them a gift in their birthday season, you get an extra heart. Hearts have many functions in Stardew Valley, but the most important one is to reveal the required donations for the community center’s six rooms.

Each player starts the game with one of the four professions and a basic tool which can be upgraded multiple times with copper ore. After each season, every player takes two Profession Upgrade cards and chooses one to keep, replacing one of the two they already have if necessary. These make your actions more powerful and/or allow you to re-roll or redo some unfavorable actions, commensurate with leveling up in a role-playing game.

There are way too many components in Stardew Valley, and it could have been a much simpler box if they weren’t trying so hard to replicate the video game. It’s cute that there are new crops for each season (except winter), but that’s hardly necessary, nor are all of the types of ore and geodes. You can upgrade crops and animal products to “quality” versions, which are worth all of 1 extra gold coin when you sell them, hardly worth the effort. There are twelve card decks, and that’s counting the four profession upgrade card decks as one. There are two bags of tiles, one of a billion kinds of fish (and trash), one of artifacts and minerals. I count 286 separate tiles, plus the various gold and heart tokens. It’s design overkill, and nearly all of these could have been condensed or simplified.

The fact that the bundles are hidden at the start of the game is just a nuisance, as some of them have to be completed before autumn or the pieces you need will no longer be available – there’s a way to swap them out, but that’s an extra step for no good reason, and the rulebook doesn’t actually tell you that these requirements are time-sensitive. The game is hard enough to complete as it is, but if you don’t reveal those cards early – and you wouldn’t know this unless you read the separate strategy tips insert or read some online suggetsions – you can end up unable to complete the game. There’s also some forced resource scarcity here that isn’t easy to overcome, particularly stone, which you need to go down further in the mine, and there’s no way to buy or trade for it.

The game’s box suggests it will take 45 minutes per player, which was true for us, and I imagine would make the game unbearable for four players (that’s three hours, if you don’t want to do the math). It does feel like a game that will go faster the more you play it, once you have some sense of what actions are more useful given the goals for the game and your chosen profession(s). I do like Stardew Valley for what it is, although if they’d streamlined all the components and some of the rules – maybe making one fishing site, cutting down some of the event cards and item types, and using far fewer goods – I might have loved it.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: ,
→ February 25, 2024
→ By

Oppenheimer.

Oppenheimer is an achievement. It’s a biopic, a deep character study, a thriller, a heist movie, and a Shakespearean tragedy (well, except the title character doesn’t die at the end), wrapped up into a three-hour movie that never lets up its pace. It’s incredible that a major studio bankrolled this and gave it such a long theatrical release, given its subject and its three-hour run time, but I hope its runaway success encourages studios to take more risks on prestige films like it. (It’s streaming now on Peacock, or rentable on amazon, iTunes, etc.)

Based on the biography American Prometheus (which I have not read), Oppenheimer tells the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), the physicist who led the United States’s effort to develop a nuclear weapon, known as the Manhattan Project. It’s framed by the events that came after the war, when Oppenheimer became an advocate for international control of the very weapons he helped to develop, leading to a sham hearing that led to the revocation of his security clearance and a subsequent public hearing that led to the downfall of his chief antagonist, Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey, Jr.). The movie itself runs from the 1920s, when Oppenheimer was still a student, meeting Niels Bohr (Kenneth Branagh) and studying under Max Born (mentioned but not depicted), through his time as a professor at Berkeley, his tenure in Los Alamos leading the Manhattan Project, and the post-war attacks on his reputation. The movie focuses on his professional efforts, but his personal life, including his marriage to the biologist Katherine (Emily Blunt) and his affair with the psychologist Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh), although the movie drags when the focus shifts away from the thriller at the heart of the film.

Writer and director Christopher Nolan packed Oppenheimer with dialogue, so there are very few moments of silence in the film, and any time the movie is focused on the professional arc, it flies. (If I were a more pandering sort, I might say it moves at the speed of light, but I’ll leave those jokes to the least common depunimator.) The script underscores just how massive the undertaking and how unlikely the assembled team of physicists and other scientists was. It’s easy to let hindsight make the development of the first atomic bomb seem like an inevitability, but it was a gigantic effort that required the participation of scientists from across the west, including some refugees from the Nazi regime, and coordination across multiple agencies and university laboratories. The physics behind nuclear fission was only discovered in 1938, and the plants refining the plutonium needed for the bombs didn’t even come online until 1943 and 1944. We know how the story ends, but the movie puts you into the action enough that you can feel the tension and the uncertainty among the scientists – who knew what was at stake, but had no idea if they’d succeed or when.

Oppenheimer’s marriage and infidelity make up the film’s secondary plot, and while it’s an important part of his story and is intertwined enough with his professional life – including his pre-war flirtation with the Communist Party – that it has to be in the film, but there’s so little development of Katherine’s or Jane’s characters that neither role amounts to much beyond one good scene apiece. There’s not enough screen time for either of them, since neither was involved in Los Alamos, and the result is that two Academy Award-nominated actresses are little more than props – which makes Blunt’s nomination for Best Supporting Actress more than a little surprising.

The two best performances are, unsurprisingly, the two that earned Oscar nods – Murphy for Best Actor and Downey Jr. for Best Supporting Actor. Murphy has worked with Nolan before in Inception and Dunkirk, and he gives a superb performance here as the title character, depicting the scientist as a sort of aloof genius whose determination and focus allowed him to lead the project to completion, while also showing his confusion at how his actions affect people around him, including his wife and his mistress. Downey’s career resurgence has been fun to watch, although if you’re old enough to remember his earliest work as part of the so-called “Brat Pack,” you probably saw how talented he was; I remember his supporting performance in the 1995 adaptation of Richard III, which was the first serious role I’d seen of his, and how compelling he was in every scene, often overshadowing other more accomplished actors. Downey isn’t known for dialing it down, but that’s what he does here, to great effect, so that Strauss comes across as an intense, ruthless, yet very professional politician, someone who often acts in his own self-interest but never out of emotion. As much as the movie puts Oppenheimer at its center, Strauss has his own story arc within the movie where Oppenheimer is often just a bit player, giving Downey the chance to be the lead actor in this film-within-a-film. Two outstanding performances in a gripping, wide-reaching story would put just about any film near the top of my annual rankings.

Oppenheimer was nominated for 13 Oscars this year, and I’d guess it’s going to win a slew of them, including Best Picture, Best Actor (for Murphy), Best Supporting Actor (for Downey, Jr.), and Best Director, although I haven’t finished all of the nominees in any of those categories yet and can’t offer an opinion on whether it’s deserving. Of the films I’ve seen from 2023 so far, though, it is the best, just ahead of Past Lives, which is a tighter and far more affecting film, but without as much ambition or as wide a scope. It did not receive a nomination for Best Visual Effects, however, despite the stunning scene where the first atomic test takes place in Los Alamos; perhaps that’s not enough compared to the other nominees, none of which I’ve seen.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,