Uncategorized — Page 118

→ April 1, 2018
→ By keith

The Wound.

The Oscars’ process for determining nominees for the Best Foreign Language Film is a little strange, and I don’t think it’s very widely understood – I only came across it within the last few years because I decided to see as many of the nominated films as I could. Any country can submit one film released in its market between October 1st and the following September 30th (so twelve months) in the year leading up to the awards; for the 2017 Academy Awards, a record 92 countries submitted films. The rules mean that a country with a long history of producing critically-acclaimed films, like France, or a country with a huge population and a large native film industry, like India, gets to submit the same number of films as Iceland, which was the smallest country (by population, 348,000) to submit a film this year. Last year, the South Korean film The Handmaiden, among the most critically acclaimed movies of the year, wasn’t even its own country’s nominee. This year, Loveless nearly lost out on a nomination because of political objections to its content.

The Academy changed their process about a decade ago to release a shortlist of nine films before they announce the final list of five nominees, which gives another little boost of publicity to four more films that would otherwise be shut out. This year’s shortlist included Félicité, the first-ever submission by Senegal; In the Fade, from Germany, which won the Golden Globe in the same category; Foxtrot, from Israel, which is just getting a U.S. theatrical release now; and The Wound, from South Africa, which is available now on Netflix. With dialogue primarily in the Bantu language Xhosa, with occasional Afrikaans and English, this 88-minute film feels like a thematic cousin to Moonlight, looking at a closeted gay man in South Africa as he tries to hide his identity from a traditional culture that sees homosexuals as less than men.

Based on a 2009 novel by the South African author Thando Mgqolozana, The Wound tells the story of Xolani, known to his friends as X, a quiet, lonely worker in a South African warehouse who is asked by a family friend to come serve as the ‘caregiver’ to the man’s son in the amaXhosa circumcision ritual known as ulwaluko, which marks the passage of young men, called initiates, into full manhood. The ritual takes place over several weeks on ‘the mountain,’ where X meets his old friend and secret paramour Vija, who has a wife and family at home. X’s charge, Kwanda, is seen as ‘soft’ (I think that’s code for gay) and pampered both by his father and by the other initiates, who also suspect that he’s gay, but while he’s not ‘out’ in the western sense, he’s certainly less willing to wear the mask that X does and fights back against the bullying of the other boys. Kwanda quickly grasps what X and Vija are up to, and that X is far more emotionally invested in the relationship than Vija is, eventually pushing X in a student-teaches-the-teacher twist to demand more for himself, if not with Vija then with someone else. The wound of the film’s title refers, of course, to the wounds of circumcision – treated in ghoulish fashion with traditional ‘herbs’ and techniques rather than modern medicine – and what X presumably has carried inside him his entire life as a gay amaXhosa man whose family and culture would view him as a degenerate and less than a man if they knew his orientation.

The South African film ratings board caved to public pressure and gave the film an X18 rating, akin to labeling it pornography, even though there’s nothing explicit in the film and any sex scenes are shown either in silhouette or at a distance. This only reinforces the story’s point, that the tyranny of these traditions actually serves to dehumanize men who are born gay into a world that won’t accept them. Kwanda has a dryly humorous rant towards the end of the film about how the ritual just shows how men are obsessed with their own genitalia – not long after one of the other initiates is showing off his “Mercedes-Benz” circumcision, which, fortunately, is not pictured – and serves as a sly, figurative criticism of the importance placed on a traditional ceremony focused on one physical manifestation of manhood that tells us nothing about the man within.

→ April 1, 2018
→ By keith

Raleigh and Durham eats, 2018 edition.

Downtown Raleigh has seen a huge renaissance over the last few years, especially in the area where Ashley Christensen’s main restaurants are. Now just one block over on Blount Street are two of the best new restaurants in the Triangle, according to Eater, in Mofu Shoppe and Bharvana Brewery.

Mofu Shoppe grew out of the Pho Nomenal Dumplings food truck whose owners won season 6 of something called the Great Food Truck Race and invested their winnings in their first brick and mortar location, with their signature pork and chive dumplings on the menu. I went with small plates so I could try more things at every place I tried for dinner this week, which here included those dumplings, crispy Brussels sprouts with sweet sriracha sauce and bacon, and the pork belly rice bowl. The dumplings are superb, pleasantly chewy, with the right amount of filling and very even flavors of chive and garlic. The Brussels sprouts were my favorite, even though they’re about a grade spicier than I would typically eat; the bacon lardons are thickly sliced and stand up to the sprouts well, but I didn’t care for the crème fraîche served underneath, which was too tangy, like sour cream. The pork belly rice bowl is a great concept, although I ended up liking it less than I expected. The idea seems to be to take the flavors of German potato salad and put them into a dish similar to bibimbap, so you get rice, a poached egg, pork belly, and a slaw with a mustardy vinaigrette. The dressing on the slaw overwhelmed the other flavors in the dish, unfortunately. For dessert, I went with the Vietnamese coffee mousse, which is just what it sounds like; imagine the texture of softly whipped cream and the flavor of good coffee ice cream.

Just across the street is Bhavana Brewery, a combination brewery, restaurant, book store, and flower/home decor store. (That’s not an April Fool’s Day joke.) The owners also run a Laotian restaurant next door and this menu is heavily East Asian-influenced, although it doesn’t adhere to any particular tradition from that continent. Again going with small plates, I took my server’s suggestions and ordered the steamed soup dumplings (xiao long bao), the vegetable gyoza, the seafood dumplings in mushroom sauce, and the duck egg rolls (that was my one pick among the four). The soup dumplings were the best dish, filled with a mixture of crab and pork meat, with a good balance of broth, meat, and dough, with the crab balancing out what could have been a fairly heavy filling had it been only pork. The vegetable dumplings were my least favorite, with a grassy note and a flat flavor that needed some heat and probably more salt/umami to boost it. The server did recommend the scallion pancake with bone marrow, but that sounded way too heavy for me. They do indeed brew their own beers, with a wide and rotating selection, but unfortunately their limited book selection did not include Smart Baseball.

The Lakewood is the new restaurant from the chef-owner of Scratch Bakery, which closed its downtown Durham location about a month ago and reopened in the space adjacent to this new restaurant just off Chapel Hill Road a little west of downtown. The Lakewood has a straightforward menu of small plates and sides that are more vegetable/seafood-focused and a half-dozen meat-centric main plates, plus, of course, fantastic desserts. I stuck with small plates once more and went with the roasted cauliflower with salsa verde, the parsnip pierogis with radishes, and the shrimp toast, the last of which was the star of the meal, coming drenched in a slightly sweet soy-sesame sauce. The cauliflower was a bit of a miss, as it was unevenly seasoned and underdone in the center of some of the florets; I probably should have caved to my baser instincts and ordered the Brussels sprouts with bacon jam instead. I chose the weirdest dessert on the menu, a rice tart with roasted carrot sorbet, which came in a traditional French tart crust with a thick custard in it that had some broken rice grains and was not terribly sweet, since the sweetness came from that carrot sorbet. That was the best thing on the plate, with a deep, earthy sweetness and a gorgeous deep orange color.

Jubala Coffee in Raleigh serves Counter Culture Coffee with multiple single-origin options, even offering two for espresso drinks in addition to the regular blend. They also offer sweet biscuits with various options, including egg and bacon or sausage sandwiches, with the eggs cooked to order; I prefer biscuits without that sweetness, but the texture of these was still excellent and the over medium egg was cooked perfectly. On the Durham side of the triangle, Cocoa Cinnamon, a recommendation from a co-worker of mine, roasts its own coffee (under the 4th Dimension label) and offers a couple of pour-over options, as well as churros at their Lakewood location, although I went to a different shop and didn’t think churros for breakfast was the most sensible plan.

I did hit two places I’ve been before: Durham’s Nanataco, which has never failed me yet and had one of my favorite special meat options, hog jowl, as a monthly feature; and Raleigh’s Beasley’s for fried chicken.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: coffee, dim sum, dumplings, durham, north carolina, raleigh

→ March 31, 2018
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 3/31/18.

Three new Insider pieces since last week: My annual season predictions post, a Grapefruit League scouting roundup (including Phils, Tigers, O’s, Rays, Pirates, and Atlanta prospects), and a draft blog post on three possible first rounders. No chat this past week, as I’m in North Carolina for the NHSI and am headed over to East Carolina today to see the two big bats for Wichita State.

Smart Baseball is now out in paperback, just in time to put one in every Easter basket you hand out this year.

And now, the links…

Vox’s Ezra Klein dissects the insidious racism behind Sam Harris and Charles Murray’s claims that there are actual, inborn IQ differences between races. (There almost certainly aren’t.) Harris, perhaps more widely known for his atheist writings and advocacy, responded by throwing a tantrum where he revealed private emails between him and Klein that revealed Harris himself to be by turns intransigent and an expert goalpost-mover.
The Guardian’s long read of the week is by a woman suing over her “dream” internship with the publication Monocle for unpaid wages.
The Atlantic, an intellectual literary magazine with a progressive tradition that dates back well over 100 years, hired alt-right troll Kevin Williamson, who proposed hanging all women who’d had abortions and referred to a black kid as 3/5 of a person when he wasn’t referring to the kid’s “primate gestures.”
A Stoneman-Douglas student writes in the NY Times that her efforts to be kind to mass murderer Nicholas Cruz did nothing to prevent him from shooting up the school.
The Washington Post reports that the maker of Peeps is trying to end its pension, leading to a protracted fight with its union and an ongoing lawsuit.
Senator James Lankford (R) of Oklahoma spoke to NPR of continuing effort by Russian troll farms to sow dissent online in the U.S., often by weighing in on both sides of hot-button issues.
Indiana’s Republican government appears to wish to emulate other states to its south, first with the anti-LGBT bill of a few years ago and now with a new bill that stigmatizes any woman who’s had an abortion and later reports any physical or psychological problems related to it.
The plastic residues from take-out food containers are polluting the world’s waterways, as these single-use items don’t biodegrade, but instead break down into smaller and smaller particles of plastic.
More from the Washington Post – I subscribe, and I would recommend it to anyone interested in good journalism and current events – on how studies of the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum give researchers more evidence to fuel projections of the damage climate change will do to the earth.
Two great baseball articles this week, both connected to Nats players and authored by the Washington Post’s Chelsea Janes. The first is a superb profile of Bryce Harper as the young superstar begins his walk year before free agency. The second profiles Eireann Dolan and her husband Sean Doolittle, calling them baseball’s most ‘woke’ couple.
Former New York Giants player Corey Widmer withdrew his name from Montana Football Hall of Fame consideration because of the sport’s link to concussions and CTE.
Two-time Top Chef alum Mike Isabella is facing multiple sexual harassment accusations.
Staring at tiny screens is ruining our eyes — and perhaps also making us pay less attention than ever to the world around us.
Facebook’s ad-tracking scandal isn’t just limited to that site; Most online publishing relies on the technology, even the outlets who are busy writing about Facebook’s privacy ‘problem.’
Cancer researchers discovered lung tumors with rudimentary digestive tracts, which probably isn’t as terrifying as it sounds but would make a good starting point for a sci-fi/horror film.
Florida’s legislature just can’t stop making public education there worse, such as allowing creationism into classrooms and, now, through state lawmakers ignoring conflicts of interest in pushing school choice laws. The swamp you want to drain may be in Tallahassee.
My friend Kelly Swails, an author of fantasy and YA fiction, wrote about changing her lifelong baseball rooting interest as a result of love, life, and being in the right ballpark at the right time.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: baseball, climate change, environment, links, privacy, stick to baseball, top chef

→ March 31, 2018
→ By keith

Loveless.

Loveless was one of the five nominees for the most recent Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the latest film from Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev (The Return, Leviathan), after it won the Jury Prize at Cannes and earned a nomination for Best Film at the European Film Awards, where it lost to The Square. It is a grim, intense, misanthropic film that expresses the director’s extreme discontent at the decline in his home country’s society under Vladimir Putin, and despite how painful the film can be to watch, it’s also one of the best films I’ve seen from 2017.

Loveless skips the prologue, so when the film opens, the couple Zhenya and Boris are already divorcing and at each others’ throats, trying to sell their condo and dispose of their unwanted 12-year-old son Alexey (also called Aloysha within the movie). An early, harrowing scene shows the two insulting each other while trying to avoid taking responsibility or custody of their son, whom Zhenya wants to just ship off to boarding school; unbeknownst to them, Alexey is hiding in the next room, caught in a silent scream as he cries and hears how neither of his parents wants anything to do with him. Both have already moved on to new relationships, Boris with an attractive and very pregnant young blonde named Marsha, Zhenya with a slightly older but very fit and successful man named Anton, and the first 40% or so of the film shows them happily adjusting to their new lives and having lots of sex.

The film’s tone turns abruptly when Zhenya calls Boris to say that Alexey’s school called and that he hasn’t been seen in school for two days. Both parents were so busy screwing their new partners that neither noticed he was missing. The remainder of the film follows the search for Alexey, from disinterested police to the volunteer crew that helps find missing people to the virulent acrimony between the two parents, neither of whom seems all that broken up over their son’s disappearance.

The story takes place against a backdrop of a literally and figuratively cold Moscow, full of abandoned and decaying buildings, denuded forests in midwinter, and people who can barely bother to care about anything but themselves. Boris’ employer is a fundamentalist Christian who requires his employees to be married with kids, and he fears losing his job if his divorce is discovered; Zhenya owns a beauty salon where her employees all seem to have similar stories of faithless ex-husbands. When the investigating police officer and then the head of the search-and-rescue force both come to talk to the parents, the two reveal that they know little about their son’s life, struggling to identify any more than one friend or to say what his interests might be. Characters often disengage with the people around them by mindlessly scrolling social media sites – none more so than Zhenya, who can’t even pay attention to Anton, the man she supposedly loves, for a full dinner.

Zvyagintsev’s disaffection at the state of his country extends beyond the mere callousness of its citizens to the manipulative autocracy established by Vladimir Putin. (There was even a political campaign against this film before the Russian board chose to submit it as the country’s nominee this year.) We hear radio and TV news broadcasts that decry fake news while also disseminating heavily one-sided reports on the country’s invasion of eastern Ukraine and the Crimea. The state is useless to its citizens; the police can barely be bothered to look into the disappearance of a 12-year-old boy, and the officer dismisses the parents’ half-hearted concerns by discussing the stats on runaways and suggesting that the kid is probably just hanging out at the mall.

The long shots of empty buildings, bare forests, and peeling trees give the movie a dystopian feel, as if we’re in the Eurasia of 1984, even though there’s nothing overtly dystopian about the plot. Zvyagintsev keeps the overt political references to a minimum until the very end of the film – which, mild spoiler, there isn’t going to be a happy ending to this story – instead depicting the individuals in the story as selfish to the point of sociopathy, including the two parents and Zhenya’s lunatic, paranoid mother, who seems to loathe her own daughter and thinks that this is all a scam to try to con her out of her house or whatever meager possessions she might still own. The question that lingers over the story, unstated but strongly implied, is what kind of state might lead its citizens to such savage ideas even when their material needs are met.

The two lead actors, Aleksey Rozin (Boris … why is it always Boris) and Maryana Spivak (Zhenya), are superb, but Matvey Novikov steals the few scenes he has as Alyosha/Aleksey, even though it’s his first credited role. Alexey Fateev also shines as Ivan, the head of the volunteer force, the only truly ‘good’ character in the film, bringing a convincing blend of command and empathy to his role, which involves leading the search and dealing with these two feckless parents who didn’t even notice their kid was missing for two days.

A Fantastic Woman won the Oscar over Loveless, and the Chilean film is a more entertaining movie with a more important message and a command performance from Daniela Vega, a trans woman playing a trans woman, to power it. That’s a movie I could recommend to just about anybody. Loveless is, in a way, like a great Russian novel of the peak period in that country’s literature: It’s brilliant, searing, overwhelming, and yet bleak and incisive enough that many viewers would likely rather turn away than fight through to the mirthless finish.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2017 best foreign language film nominees, 2017 movies, movies, russian films

→ March 30, 2018
→ By keith

Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

I’m a bit late to the Star Wars party, but I finally watched The Last Jedi (now available to rent/buy on amazon or iTunes) on Thursday evening, which I believe makes me the last person in the United States to see this movie. I have seen The Force Awakens and would agree with what I think is the consensus that this movie is better than that one was; if TFA was the greatest hits album, TLJ is the album after that where the band tries to recapture the sound of its best output, and intermittently succeeds.

I imagine most of you have seen this already, so here’s a briefer than usual plot summary. The movie picks up right at the end of TFA; Kylo Ren is still Mad in Space, Rey is still with Luke Skywalker on the island planet, Finn is still boring, Leia still kicks ass, and the Rebels are still lucky to exist given the firepower and numbers the First Order brings to the fight. After a Pyrhhic victory to open the film, the Rebels find themselves chased even through lightspeed travel, which we’re told is impossible (the tracking through lightspeed, not the lightspeed part, which is actually impossible), and must thus find a way to disable the First Order’s tracking capability so they can escape to a safe hiding spot to regroup. Meanwhile, Rey wants to grow up to be a Jedi and find out who her parents were, and Poe Dameron still has problems with authority and is a poor judge of what constitutes acceptable losses in battle.

The women absolutely carry this film, and I don’t think that’s entirely by design. Daisy Ridley stole the first film in this trilogy as Rey, apparently to the surprise of the studio, and she remains a riveting, central figure in this film. Kelly Marie Tran debuts as Rose, another character like Rey – it’s hard to imagine these films without them – and just underscores the point that casting more women even in roles that studios would historically have handed to men adds something, rather than just avoiding negative PR. Creating female characters who are tough and resourceful, who can fight but who also think well on their feet, isn’t any harder than creating male characters who are or do these things, and it’s no less credible. If anything, The Last Jedi gives Rose short shrift by dropping her into the film without much character development, but it’s possible she’ll play a larger role in the next installment, too. Carrie Fisher’s final turn as Leia may come across as even more powerful because we lost her before the movie was even released, but the increased role the writers of these last two films gave her character has also helped put them above The Phantom Menace trilogy. Laura Dern also appears as Admiral Hodor … er, Holdo, another Resistance leader who takes over when Leia ends up in a coma, and while Holdo’s plan is kind of terrible, Dern, a generally tremendous actress in any role, does a superb job of threading the needle between stern by-the-book authority to contrast with Poe and presenting herself as a thoughtful, strong leader willing to do whatever it takes to keep the Rebels alive.

This was also the funniest Star Wars movie by a wide margin, with some dopey physical comedy (that still made me laugh because inside I am just a 12-year-old boy who laughs when people in movies fall down), a good bit more sarcasm than I’m used to from these films, and an utterly brilliant nod to the now ancient Star Wars parody short “Hardware Wars.” Johnson is absolutely playing with viewers’ expectations throughout the film, and where TFA gave viewers the answers they wanted, The Last Jedi goes in the other direction, setting up an obvious answer and then responding to it with sarcasm or a twist. Given the reverence afforded to this saga, a little nose-tweaking here is warranted and does help avoid the self-seriousness that permeated both TFA and especially The Phantom Menace.

The Force Awakens was a perfectly cromulent film – entertaining, but nothing new beyond the special effects. We got our cantina scene, our flying through narrow passages battle scene, our light saber fights, Jedi mind tricks, a Kessel Run joke, and too many other allusions to the original trilogy. It worked, but it felt too much like a nostalgia play, and perhaps a plea to forget the intervening trilogy of films. The Last Jedi is less derivative of the series, but now we’re devolving into this pattern of “let’s put the heroes in extreme jeopardy, kill off a bunch of redshirts, and save the characters with names” over and over in the films, and that becomes a bit tiresome. It invokes adrenaline fatigue and tends to come at the expense of story and/or character development. There’s a real lost opportunity here when Rey is with Luke Skywalker and, in theory, learning about the Jedi religion and traditions; the biggest revelation she gets about her character comes not from Luke, but from Kylo “my parents didn’t love me enough” Ren.

And that’s the other aspect of both of these new films I haven’t really bought. I’m all for changing up the archetype of a villain in space epics, but “goth kid” isn’t all that compelling, and Driver’s mopey delivery comes across as depressed, not depraved. This script does a better job than its predecessor in explaining Ren’s backstory, and how the son of Han and Leia could become the most dangerous person in the known universe, so I’m holding out hope we’ll get more of his character development in the third film. This film was replete with plots and subplots and probably more named characters than it could really handle in 150 or so minutes, but there were still arcs that could have used more exploration.

They also could have cut Finn’s story substantially to make room for further depth in the narratives around Rey or Kylo. I know Finn is a popular character and John Boyega is likable, but I don’t think he has any charisma at all in this role – certainly not next to Oscar Isaak’s Poe, who is drawn with some very sharp lines but that at least let Isaak tear up the proverbial fucking dance floor. I’m still unclear on what Finn’s role in the greater story arc of these two new movies is, and the side plot where he and Rose go off to the gambling planet to find a master codebreaker (master … breaker?), played in fine scene-chewing fashion by Benicio del Toro, is the weakest part of the film by 12 parsecs.

This movie looks incredible, as you’d expect given the studios behind it and the money invested in it, but Rian Johnson has also clearly given consideration to how he can use things like color or establishing shots to contribute to the feel of the story. There’s a lot of red in the film, including Supreme Leader Snoke’s henchpersons and the tracks left in the salt on the rebels’ disused hiding planet. (I know we’re supposed to think ‘blood,’ but it kept making me think of Australia’s Simpson Desert, where iron oxide in the sand turns the entire landscape a deep red.) There’s also a lot of moving water in the film, including some stunning waterfall shots, designed to give you the sense of descent and to feel several characters fighting the current, especially Rey as she resists the dark aspects of the Force within her and the pull of Kylo’s own darkness. Such small, subtle additions to a script that often feels bombastic and certainly doesn’t shy away from huge battle sequences or grand gestures by its characters may be lost on viewers caught up in the extensive plot, but they do help set the tone and, I think, establish a more complex worldview than any of the preceding films offered.

At 153 minutes, The Last Jedi is probably both too long and too short; Johnson had enough thematic material to go three-plus hours, but the repetitive nature of some of the plot details wore on me by the end, and there really isn’t much doubt who’s going to live to see the end of the film and who’s not, so the question becomes “how will Johnson write them out of trouble this time,” rather than the more intense question of “who’s going to survive?” Unfortunately, Johnson isn’t involved in the as-yet untitled Episode IX, which will be written and directed by JJ Abrams and Chris Terrio, which I don’t interpret as a positive sign given some of their recent projects (The Cloverfield Paradox, Batman vs. Superman) and the wealth of material bequeathed upon them by The Last Jedi. With principal photography set to begin in just four months, it’s probably vain to hope that they’ll get another voice in the room to help give these arcs the resolution they might deserve.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2017 movies, movies, science fiction, star wars

→ March 29, 2018
→ By keith

The Origins of Totalitarianism.

I spent my first year in college as a Government major, with some vague idea of studying law and/or working in politics after graduation, but abandoned the major completely by the middle of my sophomore year because the reading absolutely killed me. I like to read – I would hope that was evident to regulars here – but the kind of writing we were assigned in those classes was just dreadful. There was a book by Samuel Huntington (The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order) that ended any interest I might have had in the subject because it was such an arduous, opaque read, and I eventually switched to a joint sociology/economics major, which got me into more of my comfort zone of a blend of math and theory.

Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism reminded me tremendously of Huntington and John Stuart Mill and other books I was assigned in Gov 1040 but never actually finished, both in prose style and in tone. I understand that this book is considered extremely influential and an important work in our comprehension of how movements like the Nazi Party arise and even gain a modicum of popular support. The arguments herein, however, are almost exclusively assertions, with anecdotal evidence or no evidence at all, and the circumlocutory writing style meant that even though I retain a lot of what I read in most cases, I found I wasn’t even retaining what I read here from one page to the next.

Arendt’s main thrust here is that totalitarian governments, which she distinguishes from mere autocracies, arise when their leaders follow a rough playbook that sets up specific groups as enemies of the state, rallies disaffected followers against those groups, and often makes their supports into unwitting advocates of their own eventual oppression. Such governments then retain power by eliminating the possibility of what Arendt refers to as human spontaneity through an Orwellian system of truth-denial and unpredictable favoritism that puts subjects on ever-shifting ground, preventing them from mounting any effective system of dissent or resistance.

At least, I think that’s what she was arguing, but she used a lot of extraneous words to get there – and some of what she described in the early going, where she addresses the history of the so-called “Jewish question,” sounded a lot like victim blaming. She certainly says the Jews of Europe did not adequately understand how they were being used by European elites or how their connections to unpopular leaders like the Hapsburgs thus put them in the crosshairs of populist movements that aimed at overthrowing the monarchical or despotic status quo. She also seems to credit the same movements with their willingness to employ efficient methods of killing for its surprise value – no one expected anything like the Nazis’ system of killing masses of people, based itself on a process of dehumanization of entire classes of the population.

Whether I fully grasped the arguments Arendt makes in this book – and I freely acknowledge I probably did not – but much of what she does assert seems apposite to our present-day political situation, including the way in which Trump supporters, including his sycophants in the media, have repeatedly handwaved away his distortions of fact or his apparent collusion with a hostile foreign power. I’ll close, therefore, with this selection of quotes from The Origins of Totalitarianism that could just as easily have been written today about our current environment.

In the United States, social antisemitism may one day become the very dangerous nucleus for a political movement.

Politically speaking, tribal nationalism always insists that its own people is surrounded by “a world of enemies,” “one against all,” that a fundamental difference exists between this people and all others. It claims its people to be unique, individual, incompatible with all others, and denies theoretically the very possibility of a common mankind long before it is used to destroy the humanity of man.

The rank and file is not disturbed in the least when it becomes obvious that their policy serves foreign-policy interests of another and even hostile power.

(The Nazis) impressed the population as being very different from the “idle talkers” of other parties.

The mob really believed that truth was whatever respectable society had hypocritically passed over, or covered up with corruption.

Hitler circulated millions of copies of his book in which he stated that to be successful, a lie must be enormous.

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (I.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (I.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: non-fiction, philosophy, politics

→ March 26, 2018
→ By keith

The Beak of the Finch.

Winner of the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction, Jonathan Weiner’s The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time should have ended most of the inane arguments still coming from creationists and other science deniers about the accuracy of the theory of evolution. Weiner tells the story of the Grants, a married couple of biologists who spent 20 years studying Galapagos finches – the same species that Darwin spotted on his voyage with the Beagle and that helped him develop his first theory of adaptation via natural selection – and observed natural selection and evolution in action. This remarkable study, which also showed how species evolve in response to changes in their environment and to other species in their ecosystems, was a landmark effort to both verify Darwin’s original claims and strengthen them in a way that, again, should have put an end to this utter stupidity that still infects so much of our society, even creeping into public science education in the south and Midwest.

The finches are actually a set of species across the different islands of the Galapagos, with the Grants studying those on Daphne Major, an uninhabited island in the archipelago that has multiple species of finch existing alongside each other because they occupy different ecological niches. Over the two decades they studied these species, massive changes in weather patterns (in part caused by El Niño and La Niña) led to years of total drought and years of historically high rainfall, with various species on the island responding to these fluctuations in the environment in ways that affected both population growth and characteristics. The beaks of the book’s title refer to the Grants’ focus on beak dimensions, which showed that the finches’ beaks would change in response to those environmental changes. In times of drought, for example, the supply of certain seeds that specific finch species relied on for their sustenance might become more scarce, and there would be a response within a few generations (or even one) favoring birds with longer or stronger beaks that gave them access to new supplies of food. Many Galapagos finches crack open seed cases to get to the edible portions within, so if those seeds are rarer in a given year, the birds with stronger beaks can crack open more cases and get to more food, given them a tangible advantage in the rather ruthless world of natural selection.

Weiner focuses on the Grants’ project and discoveries throughout the book, but intersperses it with other anecdotes and with notes from Darwin’s travels and his two major works on the subject, On the Origin of Species and The Descent of Man. He incorporates the discovery of DNA and how that has accelerated our ability to study and understand evolutionary changes. He goes into the famous example of the white English moth that found itself at a severe disadvantage in the polluted world of the early Industrial Revolution, and how a single gene that determined wing color led to a shift in the moth’s population from mostly white to mostly black (to match the soot covering trees near Manchester and London) – and back again after England finally took steps to clean up its air. This one example is especially instructive in our ongoing experience of climate change, which Weiner refers to throughout as global warming (the preferred term at the time), and opens up a discussion about “artificial selection,” from how we’re screwing up the global ecosystem to antibiotic resistance to the futility of pesticide-driven agriculture (with the targeted pests evolving resistance very rapidly to each new chemical we dump on our crops).

Although Weiner doesn’t stake out a clear position on theism, the tone of the book, especially the final third, goes beyond mere anti-creationism into an outright rejection of any supernatural role in the processes of natural selection and evolution. While that may be appropriate for most of the book, as such processes as the development of the human eye (the argument about the hypothetical watchmaker) can be explained through Darwinian evolution, Weiner does overstep when he discusses the rise of human consciousness, handwaving it away as perhaps just a simple change in neurons or a single genetic mutation that led to the very thing that makes us us. (Which isn’t to say we’re that different from chimpanzees, with whom we still share 99% of our genes. Perhaps David Brin was on to something with his “neo-chimps” in the Uplift series after all.)

The most common rejoinder I encounter online when I mention that evolution is real is that we can’t actually see evolution and therefore it’s “only a theory.” The latter misunderstands the scientific definition of theory, but the former is just not true: We do see evolution, we have seen it, and we’ve seen dramatic shifts in species’ characteristics in ordinary time. Some speciation may occur in geological time, but the evolution of new species of monocellular organisms can happen in days (again, if you don’t believe in evolution, keep taking penicillin for that staph infection), and natural selection in vertebrates can take place rapidly enough for us to see it happen. If The Beak of the Finch were required reading in every high school biology class, perhaps we’d have fewer people – the book cites a survey from the 1990s that claims half of Americans don’t accept evolution – still denying science here in 2018.

Next up: David Grann’s Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, among the favorites to win the Pulitzer for Non-Fiction this year.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: evolution, highly recommended, non-fiction, pulitzer prize, science

→ March 24, 2018
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 3/24/18.

My column identifying some potential breakout players for 2018 is up for Insiders. I also held a Klawchat on Thursday.

Over at Paste, I reviewed Reiner Knizia’s Sakura, a light, quick-playing game where players all chase the lead ’emperor’ token, but where you can move your opponents as well and try to push them into the emperor, costing them points and sending them to the back of the queue.

Smart Baseball is out in paperback! U.S. Residents can enter a sweepstakes from HarperCollins to win a copy of the book and a phone call with me.

And now, the links…

Former Utah State basketball player Jalen Moore explains in an essay on the Players’ Tribune why he walked away from the NBA to deal with what sounds like crippling panic disorder.
Writing for the New Yorker, Andrew Marantz went inside to see how Reddit is coping with trolls, abuse, and harassment while also considering the need to allow users to express themselves (or else they might not have a business). My personal experiences on Reddit have been largely negative, so while I have an account there, I rarely even open the site.
The Guardian looks at “joint enterprise” laws in the U.K., which led to eleven people earning jail sentences for one murder, even though only one of the eleven actually participated in the killing. The piece argues that the laws’ application particularly targets young black men.
Mari Uyehara writes for GQ about the ‘free speech’ grifters decrying so-called “PC culture” on campuses.
This longread on a snake-oil saleswoman pushing fermented cabbage juice belongs in an April Fool’s joke post.
Here’s an easy tip on how to turn off “platform sharing” on Facebook, now that we all have some evidence that Facebook never bothered to protect users’ data from illicit use.
Brian Wansink, the Cornell food “scientist” who has been repeatedly accused of p-hacking and otherwise manipulating data to produce misleading reports and headlines, appears to have fraudulently accused Joy of Cooking of promoting unhealthy eating.
FEMA ignored requests for fuel from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands after Hurricanes Irma and Maria, so thousands of tons of food went to waste for lack of refrigeration.
The New York Times sent travel writers to five islands devastated by the pair of hurricanes to see how their tourism industries have rebounded, if at all. Most hotels and restaurants have yet to reopen on St. John, St. Martin, and other islands that were hit by both storms.
The newest nominee to lead the Centers for Disease Control is a virologist with a long track record of research into HIV and AIDS … and accusations of scientific misconduct as well as support for abstinence-only sex education, writes Ed Yong for the Atlantic. Robert Redfield also has virtually no public health experience, unprecedented for a CDC director.
The San Luis Obispo Tribune investigates the death in police custody of a schizophrenic man who was restrained, tortured, and who then died while officers watched. An FBI investigation appears to be ongoing.
Will Leitch looks back at baseball’s “tepid” offseason for New York and asks if we’re leaded for labor strife after 2021.
Former Congressman Joe Walsh, now a conservative talk radio host/provocateur, has become one of Trump’s most vocal critics from the hard right. Walsh has defended the Mueller investigation, argued against selling the 2017 tax bill to voters (saying it won’t have any impact for most people), and criticized Trump’s attacks on the press.
Pennsylvania Republicans are trying to impeach the state’s Supreme Court in retaliation for the latter’s ruling against the GOP’s gerrymandering the state’s Congressional districts. I feel like PA residents should send diapers to these clowns’ offices. Pennsylvania had repeatedly shown up in analyses of the most gerrymandered states, as the Republican Party there split up the heavily Democratic southeastern portion of the state to tilt those seats to themselves.
Michigan State Senator and now Republican gubernatorial candidate Patrick Corbeck is a pseudoscience-spouting loon, a creationist anti-vaxxer who is now touting baseless conspiracy theories about electromagnetic radiation.
Harvard Professor Jorge Dominguez, accused by ten women of sexual harassment who also say the school knew about Dominguez’s transgressions and did little or nothing, is retiring, although the investigation continues. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
An Alabama sheriff *legally* siphoned off $750,000 in public money meant to feed prisoners in his jurisdiction and used it to buy a beach house – and then he retaliated against the source behind a local newspaper’s investigation. Maybe this is just me, but I think any locale where this is legal and supported would qualify as a “shithole.”
I’ve criticized Arizona’s government many times for its general lack of urgency on issues related to the environment, including water usage and climate change, but the state’s utility regulatory commission did something very good, demanding that utility APS stop new natural gas projects and boost renewable energy sources. The commission, which comprises five Republicans, has long been a mere rubber-stamp group for the companies it regulates. The state is now in a drought that has been going on since 1996.
France is experiencing an uptick in measles again, yet more damage wrought by Andrew Wakefield’s debunked, fraudulent paper and the various idiots who still think vaccines cause autism. France made MMR vaccination for infants mandatory as of January 1st, so let’s hope that puts an end to this outbreak.
The House passed “right to try” legislation this week, even though it’s not going to help anyone and may just spread false hope while reducing patient access to these drugs through existing, more realistic programs.
The open-access journal Scientific Reports, published by the same group behind Nature, finally retracted a paper nearly two years after they learned parts of it were plagiarized — and after a dozen of its board members resigned in protest that it wasn’t retracted a year ago.
Biohacking is bullshit and probably dangerous too.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker lost a lawsuit over his refusal to call special elections to fill vacated legislature seats in his state, a policy that would have left some residents without representation in at least one body for over a year.
Georgia Republicans are pushing a bill to restrict voting hours in heavily Democratic Atlanta. I assume next they’ll introduce literacy tests and a poll tax.
Opponents of abortion rights like to claim that the procedure is dangerous so they can pass laws that require doctors who provide abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital or even to perform the procedures at hospitals or surgical centers. Five states require doctors to contradict known science and tell women there’s a link between breast cancer and abortions. (There isn’t, in case that wasn’t clear.) A new study finds that abortion in the United States is safe, which underscores that these laws are about religion, not about protecting women.
I just discovered that Elena Ferrante, the pseudonymous Italian author behind the bestselling Neapolitan Quartet, writes a weekly column for the Guardian. Her latest entry argues that everything in women’s lives has been “codified by male needs.”
No, there was not a Ku Klux Klan rally at the 1924 Democratic Convention. That didn’t stop people from spreading the lie on social media – or Breitbart from repeating it.
Gateway Pundit, another far-right blog – with White House press credentials – repeated a different lie, this one libeling the Democratic Sheriff Scott Israel of Broward County after the Parkland massacre.
If you own a VR device like Oculus Rift, you can now play the board game Catan on the platform. I tried a beta version back in November and it was novel, but still the same game.
Please enjoy this delightful Miyazaki-inspired tourism ad for the lovely state of Oregon:

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: anxiety, arizona, baseball, guns, harvard, links, longreads, pseudoscience, stick to baseball, vaccines

→ March 22, 2018
→ By keith

Speaker for the Dead.

My annual post predicting breakout players for the upcoming season is up for Insiders.

I read – more precisely, listened to – Orson Scott Card’s Hugo-winning novel Ender’s Game back in 2006, before this blog existed, and somehow have only referred to it once in all of the posts on science fiction I’ve had on the site since then. I thought it was fine, certainly entertaining, with an ending that felt tacked-on (because it was), a good young adult sci-fi novel that followed a fairly typical storyline of “outcast kid saves humanity” but that ended somewhere unsupported by the story that came before. I just read the book’s sequel, Speaker for the Dead, which won the Hugo the following year and takes that tacked-on ending and blows it up into a full-length novel in its own right. It holds together much better than its predecessor, and this time around Card manages to create a few more well-rounded characters, but Ender has become a little bit insufferable, Card’s admirable philosophy comes across in ham-handed style, and if anything this book feels even more like it’s written for a teenaged audience.

Ender, born Andrew Wiggin, has become the Speaker for the Dead after defeating the “buggers” in a war that he learned never needed to take place at all. He now travels through portions of space inhabited by humans delivering funeral orations that attempt to sum up each deceased person’s life in full, rather than, say, delivering the sort of encomia we expect when someone dies but that fail to do the subject justice. Because of the relativistic effects of faster-than-light travel, however, he arrives at planets years or even decades after his services have been requested, which allows much of the action of Speaker for the Dead to take place in his absence.

In this book, humanity has encountered another sentient species, called “piggies” due to their porcine facial appearance, on the Portuguese Catholic-controlled planet of Lusitania. The human scientists on the planet observe the piggies, more formally called pequeninos, and operate under fairly strict rules on non-interference, including avoiding exposing the piggies to any human technology so they don’t accelerate the latter species’ evolution in any artificial way. A plague wiped out much of the earliest human settlement, and Novinha, the daughter of the two scientists who found a cure but still died of the disease, calls for Ender to Speak for the scientist who raised her but was killed by the piggies in some sort of religious ritual after he discovered the secret of the plague’s place in the planet’s ecosystem. By the time Ender arrives, however, twenty more years have passed, Novinha’s former lover (the dead scientist’s son) has also died in a similar ritual, while her son and her former lover’s daughter have fallen in love while also studying the piggies. Ender walks into this quagmire just as the all-powerful “Congress” prepares to sanction the humans on Lusitania for illegally sharing technology with the piggies.

Speaker for the Dead swept the big three sci-fi awards (Hugo, Nebula, Locus) in 1987, beating out, among others, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and William Gibson’s Count Zero (the sequel to Neuromancer; my only review of a Gibson novel is of the third book in the trilogy, Mona Lisa Overdrive), which I can only assume from this vantage point was in response to its popularity. Card is offering a sort of pop philosophy in this book about tolerance and understanding – at odds with his longstanding opposition to gay rights – of other cultures and religious traditions, one that is admirable even if he does beat you over the head with that particular hammer. Ender was a regular if precocious kid in the first novel, going through the same kind of boarding-school experience that would later show up in Harry Potter and the Magicians series, but here he’s like a new Dalai Lama with a bit of an ego. (I suppose when multiple planets know your name and you’ve founded a new religion, you probably get a bit of a big head about it all.)

The big advantage of this book compared to Ender’s Game is that Card seems to have learned how to create compelling characters, even complex, difficult ones. Novinha is fascinating, even if there was a note about her that sounded off key to me, but one that involves something everyone has a hard time understanding – why women stay in abusive relationships. The kid scientists all have distinct personalities as well, even if they don’t get the page time of the adults, and there’s at least an attempt to distinguish the various named pequenino characters even though they cycle in and out of the story rather quickly.

There’s some graphic violence in this book – the ritual mentioned above would never make it to a theater if someone filmed this story – that is truly at odds with the overall tone. Card writes like he’s talking to a teenager, and as if his characters are all stuck in teenage modes of expression. Nicknaming the alien species “buggers” and “piggies” comes across as puerile. He also has a simple idea of atonement or redemption, one that I don’t think fits with the events that come before those moments, as if doing the right thing today wipes out all the wrong things you did before. I wish life worked that way, but it doesn’t.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: american literature, hugo award, locus award, nebula award, science fiction

→ March 21, 2018
→ By keith

Klawchat 3/21/18.

Starting at 1 pm ET.

My latest board game review at Paste Magazine covers Sakura, a new game from Reiner Knizia with a high screw-your-opponents aspect to it. I also joined Joe Posnanski and Michael Schur on the Poscast this week to talk season preview and hot fruit but mostly hot fruit.

Keith Law: When expectations make no sense … Klawchat.

Aaron Gershoff: Thank you for not sticking to baseball – one dimensional people suck. How many execs ask you for your advice on players? Obviously you have contacts all over baseball, just wondering if it goes both ways.
Keith Law: I talk to execs & scouts often about players and we share opinions in both directions. Whether that counts as ‘advice’ is kind of up to you. I’d rather not be any more specific.

Jeremy: Can you help sort out the Braves SP stable of SP Folty, Newcomb, Wisler, Gohara, Sims, Allard, Soroka, Wright & Touki? Thanks Klaw!
Keith Law: I have a feeling the natural attrition of starters will sort it out before I do. I think Wright is the top guy in that list, with the highest probability of remaining a starter, and Sims or Wisler at the bottom. Gohara, Soroka, and Allard are all on that starter/reliever bubble.

Sean: Keith, at this point how high can you see Connor Scott rising in the draft? Is the top 10 possible, a la Austin Beck?
Keith Law: At this point, no. That’s not to say it can’t happen come June, but I haven’t heard anything like that on Scott. By this time last year Beck was already getting that sort of hype.

Max: Hi Keith. Why Willy Adames is so high ranked in prospect lists? Is it the sum of the parts? Because I can’t see a single tool that stands out.
Keith Law: Doesn’t have to have a standout tool to be an above-average regular. He’s also hit well for his age at every level, including AAA, and projects to play somewhere on the dirt.

Moe Mentum: Is there anything you *don’t* like about being an Ivy League graduate? Maybe things like loftier expectations, presumed snobbishness, or something else that a prospective student might not consider?
Keith Law: My academic experience there wasn’t great; classes are large, and you’re taught more by grad students than by professors, so while I can say, for example, I took a class from Martin Feldstein (one-time head of the CEA under Reagan), it’s not like I ever got with 100 meters of the guy. It’s also probably not an ideal environment for a student with untreated anxiety, which I was. Being a graduate, however, is mostly upside. I get the occasional asshat who thinks any time I mention my alma mater I’m bragging, but that’s the internet for you.

Patrick: Good afternoon Keith! Which spring training locale is better suited for you to scout, AZ or FLA?
Keith Law: Arizona all day every day. One hotel for the entire month. Florida for me is often a new hotel each night. And Arizona has better food, better weather, and better roads. This may flip when Arizona runs out of water in three to five years, though.

Sean: Keith, Have we reached a point where the only way we’ll see a HS RHP taken 1-1 is if that player agrees to discount his value significantly enough to mitigate his risk profile?
Keith Law: What you will need is a prep RHP who checks all the boxes but has little/no interest in college or a commitment to a strong program. The biggest obstacle for recent top prep right-handers has been perceived price tags.

Deke: Would you consider your minor league scouting of Eric Hosmer to be a hit or a miss? He is a bona fide major leaguer with legitimate skill, but this feels at least multiple steps below what you and others envisioned for him.
Keith Law: Probably neither; he’s had stretches where he’s played like everyone expected, and longer stretches where he hasn’t.

George: Torres to AAA isn’t completely unreasonable, right?
Keith Law: I thought all along this was the right move. I am less enamored with demoting Andujar in favor of major leaguers who are marginally better.

Camden: How would you describe MacKenzie Gore’s ceiling?
Keith Law: Number one starter.

EJ: Obviously the spring is a tiny sample size, but if you were the Angels would you start Ohtani in AAA or in the bigs?
Keith Law: Don’t care about spring stats, as you know. If he’s not able to figure out this delivery issue – I wrote he’s not repeating it and getting to his release point – before Opening Day, I might leave him in extended spring training to get some one-on-one work in controlled situations. I think sending him to Salt Lake is kind of a bad idea all around, other than that the Buzz’s ownership would be ecstatic.

ScottyD in Snowy Malvern, PA: The Blue Jays – Are they trying to contend in 2018 or just holding the fort until the new kids are ready in 2019 like Guerrero Jr., Bichette, Gurriel, Alford et al.?
Keith Law: I can’t see them contending this year; they’d need exceptional health across the board plus several breakout years. I think they’re holding the fort, as you say, for Vlad Jr. and Bichette. I don’t think Gurriel belongs in that last sentence, though.

WhiteSoxAndy: Will Michael Kopech be up this year or will he spend the entire year in the minors?
Keith Law: My guess is he debuts after the All-Star Break.

Seth: I’m happy that Alex Cobb got market value, considering all the players who had to take much less than they deserve. But what in the world are the Orioles doing? Did they have their heads in a ditch and miss the memo on “collusion”?
Keith Law: I liked the deal. As long as he’s healthy, that’s a contract with trade value. He’ll give them some innings they need – their rotation is bad, potentially awful – and there’s still some performance upside here. I don’t love them giving up a pick, but otherwise I think it’s fair value for a good pitcher who should get better.

Andrew: Outside of Acuna, which of the Braves’ prospects has impressed most in Spring Training?
Keith Law: I’ll be in Atlanta camp Sunday and/or Monday.

Mike: How will Anthopolous impact Atlanta’s draft tendencies, if at all? With Bridges still being there, will they still lean towards upside, high school players, or does Anthopolous have a different reputation?
Keith Law: That was Anthopoulos’ preference in Toronto – they aimed high, went for the best player available, took some calculated gambles. I don’t expect a huge shift; if there’s a change, it might be that they’re less likely to take someone like Kyle Muller, who was more stuff and size at age 18 than athleticism or potential upside in command/refinement.

Travis: What are your thoughts on Greyson Jenista?
Keith Law: Weather permitting I will see him in about ten days. I hear he and Bohm are potential end of the first round guys, maybe a little better as college bats always run up the board on draft day.

Greg: Any recent draft buzz inside the top 10? Guys moving up or down?
Keith Law: Too early for that.

Mr. Nerdstrom: If you had to guess, which of the 30 bench coaches in MLB is most likely to land a managing gig in the next couple of seasons?
Keith Law: I doubt I could name even 3 current bench coaches in the majors.

Greg: Thinking about Atlanta’s international limitations, is there anywhere they can shift that money that would make sense and still benefit the organization?
Keith Law: Only if there’s an unrestricted international free agent out there. I guess if Yusei Kikuchi is posted next winter, he’d be a candidate.

Slick Rick Hahn: Giolito looking promising, Fulmer… not so much. Who’s spring means more to you, Giolito’s improvement or Fulmer’s complete lack of command?
Keith Law: Giolito’s stuff improvement means more than his results. I’ve said since he was a sophomore that I don’t believe Fulmer can start. Nothing here has changed.

Preston: What are reasonable expectations for Tyler Chatwood this year? I don’t want the only expectation to be simply “better than Lackey,” but that’s where I am right now. And he’ll at least surpass that.
Keith Law: 150-160 innings of a 4ish ERA and 2 WAR. I know teams that lean heavily on Statcast info believe he has upside based on that, but I think he has other question marks, like control or lack of an effective change, that remain.

Dan: Do college coaches hide player birthdays from prospective teams (or at least not make them publicly available) for guys who are potential draft eligible sophs? Or is there too much coverage now for this info to be effectively hidden?
Keith Law: You can’t hide that info. Even if they tried, the players’ advisers would get it out there.

Boris: breakout players article coming soon?
Keith Law: I believe I answered that with the opening quote.

BRIAN: If you were the Yankee brass, would you consider moving Sanchez from behind the plate? No DH at bats are really available. His bat is probably the best on the team. His catching is “average” at best. Wouldnt the team be better off with him playing 150 games rather than 120 and being beaten up?
Keith Law: If they find a better option, yes, I would, for the reason you cite at the end – an extra 120 or so PA plus reduced injury risk. However, I’d like to see Greg Bird show he can play a remotely capable 1B before giving Sanchez the DH spot.

Alex: What’s the last thing you cooked sous vide?
Keith Law: Duck, I think. Been a few weeks since I busted that out with all my travel and dealing with this weather nonsense. I’ve pushed back three trips now due to weather – two snowstorms here, and one rainout in Georgia.

JP: If the Red Sox come to a roster crunch when Pedroia comes off the DL, would you rather trade/DFA: Leon, Swihart, Vasquez, or Holt? I’d vote Holt, if only because Sale supposedly likes having Leon catch for him.
Keith Law: Probably Holt. Nice bench player, will definitely be claimed if they just waive him, but now I’m punting on Swihart.

Mike: Sean Newcomb looking good this spring with limiting his walks/balls thrown. I can’t help but thinking he could break out this season. What should my realistic expectations be?
Keith Law: Realistic expectations would require ignoring his spring training stats and expecting his control to be where it was last year. (One anecdote in favor of my argument about ST stats: Newcomb’s best start of the spring, on 3/12, came against a Phillies lineup with Adam Rosales at 1b, Pedro Florimon in LF, and Jesmuel Valentin at 3b.)

Ben: Did you get to see Jesus Lazardo in AZ? Is it unreasonable to think that Lazardo could surpass AJ Puk as a prospect by the end of this season? Thanks.
Keith Law: I didn’t see him, but no, I don’t think that’s reasonable to think. Puk is the #2 LH prospect in baseball, and he’s been continuously improving since he signed.

Ryan: I’m a Mets fan who’s interested in seeing how Dom and Rosario develop. Putting aside the issues the team must have with the latter, what do you think fair projections are for both if they are given a chance to play regularly?
Keith Law: The team seems to have weird issues with both, but I would guess Rosario would hit .270-280 with low walk & strikeout rates and maybe 8-10 homers, adding value on defense; while Smith would be more .280/.340/.420 sort of range. I looked at ZiPS for Smith, and Dan has him .272/.324/.430 with 20 HR in 156 g. That seems very reasonable to me too.

HugoZ: To stop the service time games, how about making 90 days on the 25-man anytime during a season be the definition of a “year” of service time?
Keith Law: I believe if you do that you’ll see a lot of guys with 89 days of service each year. Wherever you set the bar, you will see teams respond to it in kind.

Jr: Do teams monitor what other teams are doing in player development?
Keith Law: Yes but player development is much more opaque than scouting (to other teams or to us).

Adam B: If Nick Senzel plays full time at SS or 2B how much does his value increase? Do you think he can handle playing SS?
Keith Law: I think he’ll be well below average at short and it might offset the entire positional gain.

Chris: Tyler Wade could be the Yankees opening day 2nd baseman! That was less of a question than a statement. He reminds me a lot of Brett Gardner, is that a fair comp?
Keith Law: I don’t see that. I like Wade, but he’s not similar to Gardner.

Zach: Keith: long-time reader, first time ask-er. Can Nick Senzel handle the switch to 2B defensively? I assume if so, then this raises his profile as his bat plays up there.
Keith Law: The positional adjustment for 2b isn’t much different, if at all, than that for 3b, I think, so while I believe he’ll be able to handle 2b, it probably doesn’t change his value right now.

Mike B: This may need too detailed an answer for a chat, but I had a question about the overall effect of “tanking.” While tanking may be the best option for a team that cant compete, can we reach the point where too many teams see tanking as the best option and it begins to turn off fans? The optimal course of action for a team, may hurt the league as a whole if too many teams see that as the best option. Do you think we are close to that point?
Keith Law: No, but I think we are reaching the point where the media have convinced a lot of fans that tanking is more prevalent in baseball than it actually is.

Johnny B. Savage: Griffin Canning was reportedly sitting 94-96 yesterday in a three inning stint. *IF* this is true, could be go from a 4/5 to a 3/4 in the future?
Keith Law: No, because I doubt he can hold that velocity as a starter and stay healthy, given what teams disliked about his medicals before the draft.

Jr: I think state funded elections (no outside contributions), and drawing districts with a bipartisan panel to represent districts fairly would fix most of the problems in this country – right or wrong?
Keith Law: Who funds those elections? (I mean, taxpayers do, but they won’t like it.) And who decides how much each candidate gets?

Adam B: Would you move Suarez back to SS and keep Senzel playing 3rd?
Keith Law: Yes, but that ship appears to have sailed.

Dan410: On a scale of 1 to Trump, how stupid is Liriano starting instead of Daniel Norris?
Keith Law: I’m OK with starting Norris in the bullpen for now, but he should end the year with 20+ starts.

Darrell: Is Jordan Hicks projected to be a starter?
Keith Law: He has the potential to be a very good starter. He could also never find enough command for that.

Chloe: What are your thoughts on the WBC? I love it but it seems like a number of participants had crummy years afterward. When else could it be played that might have less of a negative impact? A week off for the All-Star break and a quick tournament?
Keith Law: I would much prefer that All-Star Break WBC schedule to the current one, which is also too spread out. I do like the event for global marketing; the US audience doesn’t care, but they also don’t matter as much because baseball is already popular here.

Rob: What are your thoughts on FIREPOWER? I never would have guessed that a bunch of guys nearing 70 could put out a metal album that good from beginning to end.
Keith Law: Oh, God, no, I thought it was incredibly disappointing. After that lead single it’s just so tame.

ScottyD in Snowy Malvern, PA: Concerning Houston’s OF uberprospect Kyle Tucker – is a mid-2018 ETA too early?
Keith Law: No, I think on merit he’d probably make the club right now, so late June is about right.

John: Thanks for the chat Keith! Joey Lucchesi and Eric Lauer have both put up solid numbers this spring, do you see either progressing past a 4/5 starter ceiling, or are their numbers due to the level of competition faced in ST?
Keith Law: Probably both back-end starters, yes. Again, ST stats are not useful.

BRIAN: Thanks for the chats! They are the highlight of my week. Boring “salary” question. My understanding is the salary cap amount is the AAV of the total contract. So why wouldnt a team (Yankees/Dodgers/Sox) up against the cap sign a player (example of Moustakis earlier this off season) for 5 years – $32million – with $20m first season and 3 miliion in years 2-5… with an opt out after year one. The salary cap hit is only 6 million this year (with the rest put over to the following year following the inevitable opt out — and after a year of getting “under” the cap)? Is this not allowed??
Keith Law: No, I believe that is not allowed. And probably a good way to get fined, too.

DR: Matt Olson’s ratio of HR to doubles (24:2 in the bigs) has to normalize, right? Is he more or less a Chris/Khris Davis clone (guy that hits many homers, low average, with the occasional high contact season where he’s an all star)?
Keith Law: I don’t think that high contact season is in there. Has years where he’s an average regular, and years where he’s not. Chris Davis is a fair comp, but Olson is less athletic and won’t add value on defense.

Sally fan: Any minor league teams that you are looking forward to seeing this upcoming season? Based on presumed rosters, of course
Keith Law: I won’t look at that until camp breaks, sorry. No point in guessing now.

Marlon Bundo: Am I crazy for thinking Soroka can develop into 1/2? How do you account for maturity when evaluating a pitcher like him who is maximizing his stuff at an early age?
Keith Law: Crazy, no, but I disagree. If he’s that mature right now, then you’re saying he has less growth potential.

Mountain Man: Read an interview that the Nats are starting Kieboom and Soto back in Hagerstown to start the season. That seems a little conservative to me…they should be up in Potomac rather quickly, right?
Keith Law: Potomac’s field is kind of terrible. They skipped Harper over that level entirely because the outfield conditions were so poor.

Zach: What does Blake Rutherford have to do to get himself back on the prospect/top 100 radar? Is it as simple as….hit?
Keith Law: Not just hit, but have the ball actually go somewhere when he hits.

Sean: Mitch Haniger or Mex Kepler: who has the bigger year offensively?
Keith Law: One of them is in my breakouts column. I hope I picked the right one.

Ryan: What would you have done differently if you were Alderson this offseason? Not everything, but are there a couple of different avenues you would have explored/
Keith Law: Certainly would not have signed Gonzalez for anything. If they wanted another starter, they should have signed Lynn rather than Vargas, given what those two guys signed for.

Evan: Is a .360 OBP with 20 HR unattainable for Jeimer Candelario? Does putting him in the two hole make sense for Detroit?
Keith Law: I’m taking the under on that OBP.

Dan410: Do you think Flaherty was ready to break camp in the rotation? Or does he need some more seasoning in Triple-A?
Keith Law: I’m fine with the demotion, but also think he can be a fine fifth starter right now.

Chris: It looks like Marco Gonzales is finally getting back from TJ. What kind of starter do you think he can be for the Mariners?
Keith Law: The last I’d heard on him his stuff was still down this spring.

JK: You often point out that small sample sizes don’t change your perspective on a player. Some of the June draftees shot up the rankings with a small sample post signing (Adell, Hiura). What’s the difference?
Keith Law: There is no difference. The change in ranking has little to nothing to do with performances. After they sign, they’re seen by new sets of scouts and executives, and more information (e.g., Hiura didn’t need/have TJ) becomes available.

Brad: What do you think of Dipoto’s approach of dealing high-ceiling, younger minor league players for higher-floor, closer to MLB-ready players?
Keith Law: Wouldn’t be my personal approach.

The Bilmo: I always prefer to see the film before reading the book. I do’t have to compare the film to the production in my head. You?
Keith Law: Other way around. Book first. Book is nearly always better anyway.

Matt: Hey Keith. What are your thoughts on Keibert Ruiz what does he project for longterm?
Keith Law: If he stays at C, he’s a potential star. Fair chance he hits his way off the position or isn’t good enough back there to be a regular. I feel pretty confident he’s a regular somewhere.

Rhys: As of this moment, in what order would you rank Mize/McClanahan/Rollison/Singer?
Keith Law: Mize, McClanahan, Rolison, several other college starters, Singer.
Keith Law: The Singer thing confuses the hell out of me.

Thaddeus: I’ve heard you mention your favorite thing in the Anova is chicken thighs at 4-5 hours if I remember correctly. What do you use as the temp? And what do you do after? Hard sear in a cast iron or a grill or something else?
Keith Law: 165 for 5 hours, chill, hard sear in a carbon steel or cast iron skillet. If you chill them, the juices in the bag will congeal and you can easily peel that off to form the base for a sauce.

Guy: Any good solo game recommendations?
Keith Law: Friday. Onirim. Pretty much any coop game, like Pandemic. I’ve played Agricola’s solo mode on the app; I think all of Rosenberg’s games offer a solo option (and Fields of Arle is really a solo game), but the setup is a bit long for playing by yourself.

steve: Looks like the Sox are going to carry Swihart on the opening day roster, but not use him at catcher. He appears headed for utility role but has never played infield and limited time in OF. How do you see this working out?
Keith Law: I’m hoping he just gets regular ABs and hits again like he did before he was first called up.

Larry: I heard the Tigers are interviewing HS players to see if they will sign at 1-1 for a steep discount. Do you think that is a wise strategy for this draft?
Keith Law: They are exploring options, but hardly committed in any way to doing this. The Dbacks did the same, and even offered steep discounts to a few players (Garrett Whitley was one), but ended up taking one of the consensus top players.

Richard: Will we ever see pitchers like Greg Maddux return? The ones who relied on control, changing speeds. Instead of simply trying to blow away hitters and blowing out arms along the way.
Keith Law: They’re not gone. Kyle Hendricks is certainly in that mold – strike thrower who gets groundballs – as is Keuchel. Neither throws hard, both live on the bottom of the zone.

Chris: Can Nimmo play a league average defensive CF? Or is he just bad out there?
Keith Law: Average, maybe. I doubt more.

Avery: Is this year the year for Addison Russell? Or is becoming this is who he is? I know he’s only 24 but he has a career .312 OBP in the bigs….I would have more likely guessed that to be his BA.
Keith Law: Shoulder injury last year; not sure if that was all or part of his decline, or not at all, but I think you have to consider the possibility it restricted him.

Lark11: Given the organization’s historical difficulty in developing impact starting pitching, shouldn’t the Reds be overhauling how it scouts and develops pitchers? Do you view Hunter Greene as having increased injury/development risk because he was drafted by the Reds?
Keith Law: I do not, and I don’t think they’ve had chronic issues with scouting and developing pitchers in recent years.

Scherzer’s Blue Eye: O’s Fans: With Cobb, we have a good rotation now!
Reality is?
Keith Law: With Cobb, you have two good starters now.

Chris Mays: Do you have a take on Acuña being sent down? It seems to me that if there was truly nothing wrong with it, then AA could tell the truth about why he was sent down.
Keith Law: You can’t send down a player to manipulate service time. The player & union will file a grievance, they’ll win, and he’ll get the service time anyway. So you have to lie. They did the right thing for the team and the wrong thing for the sport. He’ll be back in mid-April.

wade: how old do you think pujols is?
Keith Law: I think he’s older than he claims to be. It would fit the last few years of his career, certainly.

Stephanie: Do you see Mateo becoming a 15HR/30 steals CF by 2019?
Keith Law: 15 HR might be high; 30 steals is almost certainly low.

Peeeeete: How would you predict the Cubs starters to finish in WAR? Q-Darvish-Lester-Hendricks-Chatwood?
Keith Law: Q, Yu, Hendricks, Lester, Chatwood.

Seany: Follow up on Ohtani- there was probably a behind closed doors agreement that he wouldn’t be sent to AAA & would DH. Let’s say he flops at hitting and they go back on their word and decide to abandon it… Does Ohtani have the option to return to NPB even though the Ham fighters were paid $20mm for him?
Keith Law: I suppose he could just walk away, but that’s not going to happen. My guess, entirely my own speculation, is that they’ll let him fail at DH and hope he realizes he needs to pitch full-time.

Dan410: Agree or disagree with the Rangers’ decision to keep Profar strictly in the infield? Thought it was weird since LF is the job that’s totally wide open. (I also like how Profar>Odor has not even been a discussion)
Keith Law: I hadn’t seen or heard that; I thought the plan was for him to be a bench player who gets ABs wherever. I love the kid but he has to produce now to earn regular playing time. If he has a solid April and looks like he did pre-injury or even right when he came back, they can always give him time in LF.

Andrew: Outside of Tatis, which of the Padres’ prospects has impressed most in Spring Training?
Keith Law: I had two lengthy posts on their prospects last week.

Poor Man Quisenberry: Have you seen Nander de Sedas from Montverde Academy HS. What are your thoughts on him?
Keith Law: True story: I was supposed to see him today, about five minutes from now. Instead I am in my kitchen watching snow come down at about an inch an hour, waiting to fire up the snowblower.

Matt S: Hey Keith what are your thoughts on Blaze Jordan and when do you as a scout start to turn your attention to him?
Keith Law: Christ. I had to look this up – he’s 15? A 2021 kid? Call me in two years.

RSO: Do you think acquiring Drury and Walker makes Andujar and Torres more expendable in a deal for say, Chris Archer, Michael Fulmer or another top flight starter?
Keith Law: That may be their plan, but I don’t think so, especially not for Torres.

SPG: You ever been to Venice, Rome, or Paris? Wife & I are going for the first time next month and are in dire need of restaurant recommendations.
Keith Law: I have, but nearly 20 years ago.

mike sixel: Nick Gordon….future second basemam? SS in MN this year, in about 4-6 weeks? SS in the future? Traded?
Keith Law: I believe he can play SS, but they seem to view him internally as a 2b.

Kevin S.: With all the talk about how pitiful minor league salaries are, could a team *choose* to pay them more than the current scale? A draftee or a IFA might be willing to take a smaller bonus if he knew he would be making $40,000/year instead of $8,000/year.
Keith Law: I don’t know if anything prohibits spending more on non-40 man salaries – we had some negotiating room with them back when I was with the Jays and did a few of those phone calls, boy, was that ever fun – but if you promised it before the draft to a player you’d violate the rules. Atlanta was accused of doing this with Drew Waters, allegedly offering him a car in exchange for taking less in his bonus. (The car, if it was ever promised, never materialized.)

RSO: RAB boldly predicted that Aaron Hicks could have a 7+WAR. Crazy or realistic?
Keith Law: That seems high but I’m also a longtime believer in his ability and a 5 WAR season seems entirely reasonable if he can just stay healthy.

Ryan: if nimmo can stay healthy, is he capable of putting up good numbers?
Keith Law: He can be very useful vs RHP.

Chris: Have you noticed any players getting draft helium yet this early in the season?
Keith Law: Grayson Rodriguez in Texas is a big name right now, mid-90s FB from a prep RHP. Noah Naylor was juuust outside my top 30 a month ago, but I think if the draft were today he’d go top 20. Gunnar Hoglund has cleaned up his delivery somewhat so he’s not so cross-body and he’s somewhere in day one at least. Still a lot of HS kids who haven’t started playing yet, though.

Chris: If (big if…) Hunter Harvey can stay healthy, what do you see as a logical outcome? Number 2 starter?
Keith Law: Yes, but he’s yet to have one calendar year in pro ball without an injury.

mike sixel: Would you consider giving up baseball if they succeed in getting Congress to pass a law allowing them to continue screwing over minor league players? What would ownership have to do to get you to stop watching, or decrease?
Keith Law: Giving up, no. I’ll just continue to advocate for players.

Brad: Is there any concern with sous vide and plastic safety (BPA/phthalates/etc.)?
Keith Law: No, because I’m not a chemophobe.

Aaron, Texas: KLAW, just started watching The Wire, and Season 2 was a slight drag. Was that the worst season?
Keith Law: I think S5 was the worst, as it felt very rushed.

Tom from Newark, DE: Keith, will the Blue Rocks have anyone that’ll make it worth me making the 10 minute drive up I-95 to see?
Keith Law: I assume Khalil Lee will be here, at least, although I don’t know that for sure. He’d be worth it – arguably their #1 prospect. Viloria should get here at some point too.

Dave: Do the Yankees seem to be a little overhyped coming into the season? Not that they won’t be good, but aside from Bird is there any regular you’d take even-money being better than last year, health issues excepted?
Keith Law: I talked about this with Joe and Mike on the Poscast that went up today – you can paint a realistic scenario that has them worse than last year, without stretching your logic at all. The rotation seems very volatile to me, in health and performance, and I believe Mike pointed out that nobody important got hurt last year.

MJ: What kind of line do you think Colin Moran could put up this year? Do you believe the swing changes he made in the minors last year will allow him to hit 25-30 HRs in the majors?
Keith Law: I think he’s a 20 HR guy with a regular baseball. With this juiced ball, everyone’s a 30 HR guy.

Josh: Hi Keith, Curious if you ever talk to players you’re scouting, majors or otherwise, when you go on your scouting trips…or if you’d even be allowed. Thanks!
Keith Law: I am allowed but prefer to talk to them afterwards if need be. They don’t really even need to know I’m there. Having 40 or 50 scouts there is pressure enough.

Andrew: I’m probably going to get killed for this by you and your fellow readers but weed isn’t harmless. Weed is what triggered my friend’s manic episode (already had been diagnosed with Bipolar disorder)and why I can’t never know what it’s like to smoke it as I also have bipolar disorder.
Keith Law: Marijuana can trigger short-term psychosis in some people … but it’s still harmless for the majority of folks.

Luis Castillo: Based on Fangraphs pitch values, it seems like I found a third pitch in my slider, no?
Keith Law: No.

Larry: What is the difference between Ohtani and Acuna? Both players could theoretically be held down for extra service time. Shouldn’t Acuna be ticked about the manipulation for his clock and the assumption that Ohtani will not face the same issue?
Keith Law: The Angels are trying to win this year and Ohtani would, in theory, be part of that.

Kak: Is Sheldon neuse the real deal for the As?
Keith Law: I think he’s a very good player, not a shortstop at all, maybe a great 2b/3b/lf type, chance for a regular. Good feel to hit, very good instincts, makes up for limited tools.

Jimmy : Astros farm system top 5?
Keith Law: No. I ranked systems back in January and they were 13th.

Chris: How nuts are the Os for paying (above?) full freight on Cobb on March 20th?
Keith Law: I do not believe they paid at or above full freight.

Kak: What are your thoughts on piscotty this season?
Keith Law: I’m rooting for him. I do think last year was an outlier and that he’ll hit for more average this year; the park switch hurts his power, but I believe everything else will improve.

Chuck: If you’re the A’s, do you bring up Puk in April or May?
Keith Law: I’d rather have him in the big leagues on April 20th than in the PCL.

Corey: tanking isn’t as prevalent as the media makes it seem but how many teams in your estimation are pursuing a tank or tank-adjacent strategy this season ?
Keith Law: Are the Padres tanking if they signed Hosmer to that silly deal? The Phillies with Arrieta? The Marlins, yes, for sure. I don’t think the Rays are tanking, per se, but if you want to argue they’re tank-adjacent I’ll concede the point. The Tigers are way out. The A’s, probably. That’s 4-6 teams. It’s not 10.

James: Draft – could you see MLB go to a draft lottery to try to lessen the advantage of all out tanking?
Keith Law: I could see that, but I don’t believe it’ll solve the issue. Paying minor leaguers and 0-2 players more would do so.

TK: My wife and I are about to strat playing SeaFall with some friends. I can’t remember: did you ever do a full review of it?
Keith Law: I did not. Really liked the concept, but didn’t finish the full play, and I know there was concern that whoever got the lead early would end up winning.

Slick Rick Hahn: Anything new on Lou Rob? I know you were the “low guy” on him when the Sox signed him, just wondering if your opinion has changed at all. Obviously, being hurt now can’t help.
Keith Law: I was supposed to see him two days after he got hurt. I’ll go see him when he’s in Kannapolis or wherever they start him.

Jonathan: Is Shane McClanahan the current favorite for top pick in this year’s draft?
Keith Law: No. I don’t think there’s a favorite, certainly nobody with more than a 40% chance. Mize probably has the best odds of anyone, but that still doesn’t make him the favorite, IMO.

Sean: If Potomac’s field is so bad, why play there?
Keith Law: They’ve been trying to get a new stadium in NoVA for a few years.

Andrew T: If you were GM of Marlins would you have handled situation differently?
Keith Law: That was an ownership call – dump salary, take less in return.

mets homer: realistic expectations on Marcos Molina? Was a top tier prospect before TJ…. still a rotation piece in the future?
Keith Law: Was not a top tier prospect before, and is probably a reliever.

Jared: As a Brewer fan, I love what Stearns has done so far. I also like the Cain and Yelich acquisitions. With that said, doesn’t it seem that the Brewers’ roster is poorly constructed this year?
Keith Law: I think they need another starter from outside the org.

JR: Did you ever get around to watching Man in High Castle on Amazon? I recently read and really enjoyed the book and tried to give the show a go. I made it one episode. Snooze fest. Was bummed because I thought a show expanding on that world had so much potential.
Keith Law: Same. One episode, never went back. Great look and setting, but whoa boy, was that slow.

John: Klaw: any thoughts on this guy Jordan Peterson? Several of my buddies are into him now, but I’ve read he’s big with the alt-right so I’m hesitant to even spend any time listening to him.
Keith Law: Yeah, he’s trash, and probably dangerous.

mike sixel: 7 wonders app is great, and the AI are strong.
Keith Law: Agreed. Just bought the Leaders in-app expansion yesterday.

Matt: Did you hear what’s going in PA? The GOP is so pissed the SC won’t allow gerrymandering so they are going to impeach 4 of the 5 liberal judges.
Keith Law: Yep. I’m not a PA resident, but I would be beyond furious to see this. The legislators gerrymandered the heck out of the state to gain control, and now are claiming that the justices are the ones subverting the will of the voters.

Paul at the Library: Is Winker still likely to overperform Nimmo this year, even with Nimmo seemingly having a job and the Reds currently flirting with a four man outfield?
Keith Law: On a rate basis, yes.

Kyle : Rodon – his career over?
Keith Law: That’s rather dramatic.

Ken: Saw you liked Frank Turner. Big fan myself. Favorite song?
Keith Law: Recovery.

Ray: Spent a few days in Tempe last weekend. Do you ever eat ballpark food out there? There’s a Some Burros tent in the outfield with great carne asada tacos. Best ballpark food I’ve had in awhile, not that ballpark food is that good in general.
Keith Law: I avoid ballpark food whenever possible.

Rob: Do you have a mystery novel to recommend
Keith Law: I’m a fan of Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, & Rex Stout.

Danny from Boston: Bigger upside Kyle Tucker or Willie Calhoun?
Keith Law: Really? Tucker.

JJ: Is Tommy Pham a one-hit wonder, or a late bloomer?
Keith Law: Late bloomer. Had to get healthy and get a solution for his eye condition.

Jack: I get why you wouldn’t scout Blaze Jordan now, but is it valuable for MLB teams to start tracking kids who are freshmen and sophomores?
Keith Law: I don’t think so. I think it’s a waste of resources.

Daniel: Hosmer told fangraphs he’s looked into launch angle and worked JD Martinez’ offseason hitting coach. Assuming he makes the conscious effort, does joining the fly ball revolution give Hosmer a better chance of repeating his 4 WAR season going forward?
Keith Law: Sure. But a lot of players have tried this without getting better results, and I don’t think anyone has figured out which players can pull it off and which ones can’t. FWIW, Hosmer did show plus power as an amateur.

Buck: Don’t you think the Angels sent an army of investigators to the DR to try and uncover any evidence that Pujols is older than he claims? I’d be doing everything possible to claim his albatross contract was based on a lie and get it cancelled in court.
Keith Law: No, I don’t think they did that, nor would they likely be able to do so since they had no problem accepting his age – which was also accepted by the US government when he became a citizen in 2007 – when they signed the deal.

RSO: Re the weed comment: basically any substance can be harmful to people with certain conditions. Water can be harmful to someone who is hyponatremic.
Keith Law: Exactly. Weed is not like cocaine or meth. Marijuana should be decriminalized.

Jake: DO NOT CONGRATULATE
Keith Law: every time I saw that yesterday I kept thinking “DONNA MARTIN GRADUATES” and realized 2/3 of my readers wouldn’t get the joke.
Keith Law: That’s all for this week and there will not be a chat next week due to travel (unless there is another nor’easter … no thanks, i’ve had enough already). Thank you as always for reading and for all of your questions. Check out my book Smart Baseball, now out in paperback with a new afterword for 2018!

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