→ January 24, 2019
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Klawchat 1/24/19.

My latest board game review for Paste covers Forbidden Sky, a new cooperative title from Matt Leacock (Pandemic, Forbidden Island) with a great STEM component to game play.

A reminder: the Top 100 prospect package begins its rollout on ESPN.com on Monday, January 28th.

Keith Law: At least we left before we had to go. Klawchat.

addoeh: Over/under? Combined, Harper and Machado’s deals end up being worth $500 million.
Keith Law: I’ll still take the over. I think the potential boost, in ticket sales and in wins, from adding one of those players will convince an owner to blink before we get to March. It’s the middle and lower tiers who will bear the brunt of the teams’ parsimony.

Nook: Is Bellinger still young enough to make significant strides offensively, or do you think 2018 was a realistic showing of who he is?
Keith Law: He’s still 23 so age isn’t a concern, but the way he swings leaves him vulnerable to a couple of pitching plans and he has to show he can adjust and shorten up if he wants to be more than he’s already been.

Adriane: Could you see the Reds selling off most of these new acquisitions at the deadline if the first half is a disappointment?
Keith Law: Yes, or even next winter in the case of Gray if he has a good year but the team still finishes in 4th place.

Kimmy: Dennis Santana: 4th-starter ceiling?
Keith Law: More likely reliever for me. I feel like if he starts he’d be more than that, but the odds are he’s a reliever.

Devon: Do you see the current collusion in the FA market as a cyclical problem that disappears after a few offseasons?
Keith Law: If it’s collusion, it’s not cyclical. One or the other.

Ave Maria: Is there a pitcher in the Dodgers system you’re particularly high on at the moment?
Keith Law: Several. You’ll see a couple of those names Monday-Wednesday.

Genesis B: Not that you care, but do you think Jeter has tainted his legacy somewhat since his group took over the Marlins?
Keith Law: I don’t care, but I can still comment. And yes, I think so.

barbeach: KLaw: Thanks as always for the chat. Question: Who is worse at his job: Trump or Giuliani? It’s close, but I have to go with Rudy.
Keith Law: Giuliani. He makes Lionel Hutz (RIP) look like Clarence Darrow.

Guest: Thoughts on the Mariano induction? Does this mean unanimous elections are going to be more common?
Keith Law: I believe they will be and fans will attach undue meaning to it. If your player gets in with 75.00%, that should be good enough.

Chris : The Markakis and Pomeranz deals are great for ATL and SFG. Agree?
Keith Law: They’re fine. They’re not bad. Great … would require a lot more than I think either player will provide.

Guest: What are the odds that the Mets traded Kelenic at his highest peak value? I’m sure the Rangers wish they traded Profar.
Keith Law: Low. Kelenic was too impressive this summer to think he’s peaked.

Helena: Is the long reliever cemented as a thing of the past, or could the Brewers’ and Red Sox postseason strategies revive it?
Keith Law: On the contrary, it’s already been revived, and I’m hearing more scouts describe pitchers as multi-inning relievers rather than just going with the binary starter/reliever framework.

Chris : Any buy-low FA starters you’d take over others? Wade Miley and Doug Fister seem like innings eaters in the right environment.
Keith Law: Miley for sure, best of that group. Fister, no.

Esteban: Who are a couple of names that weren’t on the top 100 or ‘Just Missed’ list that you wouldn’t be surprised–even expect– to make a big leap?
Keith Law: I’m not revealing any names on the list today. You’ll see them Monday through Wednesday and I will chat either Wednesday or Thursday.

addoeh: So our billionaire Commerce Secretary had his “Let them eat cake!” moment by saying furloughed Federal employees should get loans to cover the fact they aren’t getting paychecks. Of course, loans themselves have a real cost and some Federal employees may only be able to get predatory loans. Can he really be that out of touch?
Keith Law: Yes, he definitely is, as is Lara Trump, as are so many of the people responsible for the Trump Shutdown who appear unaware of the consequences for so many federal workers and for so many people who voted for Trump.

Leonardo: While it’s nice that Rivera was named on 100% of the HOF ballots it makes me wonder why 23 people didn’t vote for Willie Mays and 9 passed on Hank Aaron. I feel they were much better players (even in a different era). Any theories/ideas?
Keith Law: Lack of accountability. Misguided notions of “not on the first ballot.” General stupidity.

Mark: Hi Klaw,
If for some reason Tatis isn’t called up (injury, poor production, etc.) is Urias good enough defensively to play a full season at SS and be at least league average?
Keith Law: I think he’d be a 45 defender in the majors at short. I’m fine with him playing there for two months while Tatis tears up triple-A.

Mark: Keith,
Did you read the story in the SD Union-Tribune about the Padres’ owners “opening their books”? If so, did you find any of the information notable or was it just spin? Fowler, et all, come off looking like novices, like they didn’t know Moores was leaving a ton of debt or that just because you acquire some MLB players for one season in 2015 it doesn’t automatically mean you’re going to make a $50 million profit.
Keith Law: It did not paint the owners in a particularly good light.

Lafayette: If Andrew Friedman phoned you in a panic, desperate to find out how to put a World Series champion on the field, what would you tell him (after “Read ‘Smart Baseball”) ?
Keith Law: Live by launch angle, die by launch angle.

Fuzzy Dunlop: Snit saying they are leaning toward Inciarte leading off. 2 weeks max before they swtich Acuna there, right?
Keith Law: Yeah, that’s the wrong choice.

Kip: Arenado or Machado?
Keith Law: Machado.

Trevor: The D-backs have announced they’re switching their field surface from grass to turf next year and the Rangers may install it in their new stadium. Are you a purist and prefer the natural surface or ¯\_(?)_/¯ about it? Does it affect the grading of defensive skills in anyway?
Keith Law: Doesn’t affect the grading. Prefer grass from the aesthetic perspective but it’s still baseball on good turf.

Mike: Klaw, thanks for the chat. Who do we see first in MLB, a lefty catcher or lefty middle infielder. I read where Mets prospect Carlos Cortes learned how to throw with right hand so he can still play the infield. That’s crazy,
Keith Law: How could a lefty thrower play short or second?

Marshall MN: KLaw, I was just perusing the Baseball Prospectus Top 100, just curious do you ever look at those lists? Not necessarily as a check on your work but just to see how other writers/analysts rank prospects?
Keith Law: I look at BA’s (came out yesterday), MLB’s (comes out Saturday), and Fangraphs’ (comes out after the Super Bowl, date TBD). Those are the only lists I find credible, and I believe that is the industry sentiment. Jonathan Mayo and I generally compare our lists once they’re published, too. It’s fun to see what we heard that lined up and what we heard that widely differed.

Alex: As an author, how do you feel about people who can afford to buy your book, or any book, borrowing from the library instead? Is it a material drain on earnings? As background, my wife and I are trying to reduce our “new” purchases, but I don’t want to hurt authors.
Keith Law: Read my book however you like. I use the library myself. I buy new and used books. I buy ebooks when I see they’re on sale. read 104 books last year – that’s a lot of money if I buy them all new.

Kody: Dodgers sign Pollock for 4-5 years depending on who you believe. Doesn’t even a 10 year deal for Harper taking him through about the same age as Pollock’s deal make more sense? Nobody is concerned about Harper’s 26-31 seasons, right?
Keith Law: Well it’s not the same annual cost, not close.

Marshall MN: KLaw is it too early to put in a preemptive “you hate my team” complaint prior to the release of your Top 100 list next week?
Keith Law: Never too early.

David Stearns: I am high on my guy Hirua, how much of his minor league hit prowess translates, and do we have a 2B for the next 10 years who is at the top f his game?
Keith Law: He’s a solid player, very very likely to hit enough to be a regular. Star potential is limited.

Matt: There had to be a handful of writers that didn’t want to vote Rivera but were also worried they’d be the *only* one that didn’t vote for him right?
Keith Law: I never considered omitting him, but it occurred to me that doing so could make me the only one, and then I’d have to go into hiding.

Sack: When do you expect Harper and Machado to sign?
Keith Law: In February.

Mike: When a prospect returns bonus money, as Murray in theory might, how does that actually work? Presumably he’s spent some of it, so does the team give him time to repay? And what about taxes–he presumably paid a huge tax bill in the year he got his big bonus…can he claim a huge refund in the year he gives it back?
Keith Law: If Murray has to return the money it means he just got a much larger check from the NFL. He’ll be fine.

B Mand: Do you think the current Red Sox bullpen is as big of a weakness as most make it out to be? With the year to year fluctuation of relief pitchers, I’m fine with them saving their money for in-season trades if they end up needing help.
Keith Law: Same. And I wouldn’t overpay for Kimbrel just to try to patch it.

J: With another mystifying off-season for the Rockies coming to a close, what do you see them doing with McMahon and Rodgers, at least in 2019? And, Twins’ handling of outfield prospects aside, has a top prospect been more oddly dealt with than McMahon in recent years?
Keith Law: I feel like Rodgers is blocked for the moment, although I’m not a big Hampson fan (it’s 30 power) and Rodgers might bash enough in Albuquerque (huge hitter’s park) to force the issue by June. Their reluctance to let McMahon play regularly is befuddling. High pick, touted by the team, athletic, still has growth left. Play him.

Aaron C.: Has the *official* official schedule for the daily(?) prospects postings been released or is that still in the hands of your benevolent editor?
Keith Law: I mentioned it at the top of this post.

Ryan: Keith – do you think the removal of one year of team control – or even a change in the number of years of arbitration rights a team holds over a player – could help the stagnant free agency period and/or help to re-establish the player middle class. As is, I see the league devolving into a split between the well paid superstars and the entry level/roughly minimum wage players. In fairness, baseball isn’t the only sport going this route, but it certainly feels as wrong as the shrinking middle class in America. Thank you
Keith Law: I think the best solution would be to boost the minimum salary to $1 million or more. But that has some unintended consequences too.

Tom: Al Avila said today he doesn’t foresee the Tigers spending again until 2021, and that that’s the soonest they can compete. Does 2021 seem like a realistic goal for them in terms of being relevant?
Keith Law: I probably would have said 2022. The system has improved but still has a ways to go.

Mike: Thoughts on Dodgers trading away Puig (and friends) and replacing him with older and injury prone AJ Pollock?
Keith Law: Puig was a free agent after the year, so your question is leading, omitting a critical detail – and Pollock may be older but he’s a better all-around player right now.

Shane: Have you heard any whispers about what type of punishment the Dodgers face for their international issues and if that is playing a hand in their offseason moves?
Keith Law: I haven’t heard a word about it nor have I asked. Not really my department.

Anthony: Would you support a rule that shrinks MiLB option years from 3 to 1? It seems teams cycle through pre-arb guys with options while eschewing mid-level free agents, and this could open up opportunities for players blocked in their current orgs by spurring trades or waiver claims (albeit with maybe some adverse effects on player development)?
Keith Law: I feel like owners would absolutely lose their shit over that. They love their control.

Zirinsky: Hi Keith. What should MLB and the union consider implementing: earlier free agency, scrapping amateur bonus limits…what else?
Keith Law: I like the idea of earlier free agency because it’s pro-player, but really, would it change teams’ refusal to spend? I don’t see why.

BE: With the slow moving FA market, would it make sense for a team in a winnable division to load up on bargain deals and try to steal one?
Keith Law: I think you just subtweeted the Twins and White Sox.

Jason: Is Pollock better than Joc Pederson over the next two years?
Keith Law: Yes.

Zac: After next year, do you think your HOF ballot won’t have 10 names on it?
Keith Law: If I had to fill it out right now, I’d have 9.

Kwame: I know this is kind of a cheesy question but how did it feel to cast a Hall of Fame ballot?
Keith Law: Good. An honor and a privilege, but also an obligation to take it seriously. And yet there are still people unhappy with me. ?

Bort: Bryce Harper to the Blue Jays. Wouldn’t that be fun?
Keith Law: Yes. Can’t imagine Rogers doing that.

Andrew: Where do you see Kuechel landing? Would be a great fit for Colorado and give them one of the better rotations in the NL.
Keith Law: Great fit for every team, no?

Jerry: If Kyle Tucker tears it up in the spring again is he still headed to AAA to start the season? Is there a trade market for Josh Reddick?
Keith Law: They don’t really have a DH, so there is a job for Tucker if he earns it.

Andrew: I don’t get the uproar RE: the Gillette commercial. Aren’t they just saying don’t raise your kid to be an ass?
Keith Law: Yes. The uproar felt almost manufactured. Or maybe men are just little porcelain dolls who shatter if you look at them funny.

Boa : Angels are mystery Harper/Machado suitor right? Do over from Pujols/Hamilton disasters?
Keith Law: That would be fun. And then they probably do make the playoffs.

Alex: Saw your Instagram post about ottolenghi’s newest cookbook. Food looks good! But I’m also reading reviews that the recipes for an average home cook might actually take longer than 30mins to prepare? What’s been your experience?
Keith Law: The shallow-fried potatoes I made last night required about 10-15 minutes of prep and then cooked for 35. So that’s not a 30 minute recipe. I think the book’s beauty is that nothing is hard – you don’t need huge skills for anything, so if you do have some skills, you can prep quickly. My main complaint so far is that his quantities of herbs are hilariously high. 1/2 cup of thyme? I’d spend all fucking day trimming leaves to get that.

Bob: Time to give up on Hunter Harvey?
Keith Law: Why? Not sure I understand the desire fans have to give up on players.

Lilith: Sammy Siani or Mike Siani? Who has better tools and who would you say ends up being the better prospect?
Keith Law: I haven’t scouted Sammy yet, but he’s local so I certainly will. Mike could really run and I think he can hit, but some doofus hitting guru decided to try to improve his launch angle and suddenly he was Mr. Popup.

Zach: Should the Reds be commending for trying to win (unlike half the league) and holding onto their top prospects, or criticized for giving up mid-level pieces to improve a team that still probably won’t make the playoffs?
Keith Law: Thrilled to see a team try to win, but I don’t think they’ve gotten good value for their prospects.

Traino: Biggest Oscar lock?
Keith Law: Roma for Best Foreign Language Film.

ergo08: Hi Keith, listening to Jade Bird right now! Thanks for all your great content including that hidden gem. She rocks. Is there such a thing as how a swing transitions from aluminum to wood? Or, does that not really matter? Also, Twenty one pilots – yea or nay? Thanks!!
Keith Law: There can be a difference for some hitters, depending on the swing path and the hitter’s hand/wrist strength. I hate Twentyone pilots with the fire of a billion suns.

Beetlejuice: Seems like Gray has a good chance of outperforming 4 yrs @ $38M. Did he sell himself too short or does he have serious questions on being a league avg pitcher going forwards?
Keith Law: He also has a good chance of getting hurt, or underperforming. I don’t blame him one bit.

Jordan: With Justin Dunn gone, which pitcher has the most upside in the Mets system? I am torn between Szapucki and Woods-Richardson.
Keith Law: SWR – started throwing harder once he stopped playing shortstop too.

CH: Mariano Rivera is a HoFer for sure, but has anyone else’s worst career moments ever been more overlooked and whitewashed than his? (Luis Gonzalez/Game 7 2001 WS, Dave Roberts/Game 5 2004 ALCS, Sandy Alomar/Game 4 ALDS 1997).
Keith Law: I’m having a hard time seeing the Gonzalez or Roberts moments as some terrible events we’d have to work to gloss over. Didn’t Gonzalez just chop one weakly up the middle?

Patrick: If there was no 10 max, how many people would have gotten your vote for HOF?
Keith Law: I said 14 in my column, IIRC.

Jackie: Jeter is the only “gimmie” on next year’s HOF ballot. Do you think Curt Schilling, the highest vote total among the non-elected, goes in as well? Perhaps the only American who needs to stay away from Twitter more than Trump …
Keith Law: I believe Jeter gets in, still think Walker can make a big move (with some sabermetrics support), and wonder if the changing electorate will hurt Schilling, who seemed from Ryan Thibodeaux’s work to get far more of his support from white, male writers than other candidates.

Justin R: Is next year finally going to be Max Kepler’s breakout?
Keith Law: I dreamed last night that Kepler was in the middle of a breakout season. Not even joking.

Justin R: What is stopping AOC from running for President and daring the Supreme Court to stop her? Absurd that her age disqualifies her but a racist reality show host in his 70s (with obvious signs of significant cognitive decline) can run.
Keith Law: On what grounds? The age requirement is in the Constitution. You can’t claim it’s unconstitutional.

Justin R: Can just one reporter ask Trump why we have to be nice to the little Covington bigots after what he did to the Central Park Five?
Keith Law: I think we both know the answer to that. White privilege is a hell of a drug.

Johnny: Is Eloy as ready as many are saying? What kind of an impact do you think he can make this season?
Keith Law: He was ready last summer.

Sean: Do you believe that Halladay would’ve been a first-ballot HOF regardless of his tragic passing?
Keith Law: I wouldn’t have been surprised at all if he’d fallen short, somewhere in the 60-65% range, and gotten in on year 2. His career wasn’t very long by HoF standards, and voters have been very hard on starting pitchers the last ten years.

Erik: Please tell me neither Green Book nor BR will win best
Keith Law: I’m betting on Roma. If you wanted to place an actual bet, since Roma is something like -1100, I’d go with the Favourite, which got Director and Screenplay nods. But Roma getting those two plus surprise nominations for two actresses says to me it might run the table.

Tom: Thoughts on Darwinzon Hernandez? Is his most likely future as a high-leverage reliever, or does he overcome his control issues and remain a starter?
Keith Law: Starter upside, long way to go to get there.

JIm: Keith, did you ever read any of Jasper FForde’s other books? I just finished the first book of his Nursery Crimes Division duology. A bit less compelling than the Thursday Next, but not bad at all.
Keith Law: I’ve read everything he’s written, and I preordered Early Riser already.

Larry: Hey Keith, I know you don’t like commenting on other lists, but Baseball America had Geraldo Perdomo ahead of Kristian Robinson in the Dbacks system. What do you think of Perdomo’s potential, and do you think he may be a better prospect than Robinson? Thank you!
Keith Law: I’ll just say I have Robinson a good bit higher than Perdomo.

Quicky the Fast: The Rangers appear committed to Gallo and Mazara in the outfield corners this year, which means no role for Willie Calhoun if Shin-Soo Choo is the DH. At this point, should Texas simply release Choo, or is there value in keeping him around?
Keith Law: Choo was worth 2.8 rWAR last year – releasing him now would be bonkers. At least see if he’s still capable of producing.

Taylor: Hey Keith, have you heard of a metal band called Nevermore? I just heard of them this week and they really kick ass!
Keith Law: Yes, but they’re defunct. That was Tim Calvert’s band after Forbidden, but he died last April.

Jackie: One thing about the Mariano 100% election — he was the unquestioned Best Player Ever at his position. There’s universal agreement that he’s the #1 closer of all time. When was the last time we had such a player on the ballot? Junior Griffey was a better ball player, but he wasn’t the best outfielder ever. That’s why I wouldn’t be surprised if Jeter isn’t a 100% vote next year — great player, but someone will say, “Yeah, but he was no Honus Wagner.”
Keith Law: And it shouldn’t matter. He gets a plaque regardless of his vote total.

Justin R: What was the worst movie you saw in 2018?
Keith Law: The Wife. Execrable, predictable, insulting claptrap.

Victor: Could you see Judge being a passage center fielder despite his size, a-la Bellinger?
Keith Law: No.

Aaron C.: Was it last year when an illness during “prospects writing season” hampered you? Do you feel it impacted the final product w/r/t phone calls, writing length, analysis that wouldn’t hamstring a healthy Klaw? (FWIW, that’s not a dig. I always love your sh t, sir.)
Keith Law: Three years ago. Worst illness I’ve had as an adult. It cost me some phone call time, but we also pushed the whole package back a week because I physically couldn’t work.

Jackie: For the record, I’m a huge Red Sox fan, and I’m OK with it if you hate our farm system. Looking pretty barren …
Keith Law: It’s weak, but not barren – they were as riddled with injuries as any system I can think of. Their recent drafts have been solid, and they have some big-time international FA prospects on the way. They could go 25 to 10 (I don’t have that finalized, this is just a general idea) in a year.

San Cristóbal D.R: Surprise no Yankees make BA top 100 list?
Keith Law: I’m not surprised, although I have more than zero.

Beetlejuice: To win the most games, you’re given the choice of taking 5 #3 starters or a #1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Regulation season win total only considered. What are your thoughts?
Keith Law: the 1-2-3-4-5.

John : Any advice for furloughed government worker who isn’t getting paid ? How can I not be so angry at the president for a stinking wall?
Keith Law: You should be angry, and then do something about it, but first take care of yourself and your family. It’s fortunate that so many charities and businesses are trying to help – it just shouldn’t be necessary.

Sean: My guess is Harper and Machado both announce on Super Bowl Sunday. Isn’t that what A-Rod did a while back?
Keith Law: As a fan of polite trolling, I would endorse this wholeheartedly.

Matt: Can a player be removed from the Hall of Fame? Let’s say a member was convicted of murder for example.
Keith Law: Nope. Although you raise an interesting question: What if we have an OJ Simpson situation, a player on the ballot who is absolutely worthy on baseball grounds but who commits a crime that is beyond the pale? There are at least two players on the ballot now who were accused of domestic abuse (Bonds, during his career, by his wife Sun; Andruw, after his career, by his wife), and one accused of statutory rape (Clemens, who denied it). I know of one other who has an accusation that wasn’t public. I’m sure there are more. are there some crimes we can’t overlook? Does the character clause cover things after one’s career? I have no good answers.

Kyle Tucker : Do I replace Josh Reddick in June ?
Keith Law: Springer, Reddick, Brantley, Tucker, three outfield spots + DH.

Anuj: Is Ruiz and J. Gray for Realmuto too much, fair, or too little?
Keith Law: Too much, and the Dodgers are not trading for a terrible framing catcher.

Kevin : Are there any underrated minor-league prospects that come up and make an impact this summer ?
Keith Law: I’ll have a ranking of the top 20 prospects for 2019 impact up at the end of next week. As for “underrated,” if I think they’ll have an impact in 2019, then I won’t underrate them.

Justin R: Now that Edgar Martinez is (finally) in, does David Ortiz go in on the first ballot?
Keith Law: Yes.

JIm: Am I the only one who has the feeling that Trump came out of the SOTU fight looking like the more mature adult?
Keith Law: (looks around) Yep, you are indeed the only one.

Jake: Have you every played Diplomacy? If so, what did you think?
Keith Law: Yes. After the second time I killed someone for betraying me, I thought I should take a break.

Leandro: Heard you on BBTN today saying you think Helton is Hall-worthy at some point. Feel the same way about Larry Walker?
Keith Law: My ballot was public.

Jim: Keith – Do you think the sale of Fox (or part of Fox) to Disney will impact the regional sport channels and the next contracts some of the teams might get? I know the Fox interest in some, like YES, are already being discussed as available.
Keith Law: Disney wasn’t allowed to retain the RSNs (Fox Sports Paducah, etc.) by the Justice Department.

EC: Is there something that you wish readers of your prospect write ups would do or know? Like not assume gaps between ranks are uniform? Understanding positional value and scarcity? Taking a bit of time to understand how your methodology differs from other lists before coming at you? Reading the introduction?
Keith Law: Read the intro and calm down.

Todd: Shouldnt all Hall of Fame inductees have to get 100%? It should be a group of immortal players who no dibt are qualified
Keith Law: You must be fun at parties.

Patrick: going off what Mike said previously, in your opinion how come we’ve never seen a lefty catcher or why do you think it’s not taught more at a younger age?
Keith Law: If you can throw that well and you’re left-handed someone is putting you on a mound. There’s also the old belief that a LH catcher would be at a disadvantage throwing with more batters batting RH.

Chris: Brad Brach for 1/$3M is a steal. 2019 is the year of the market correction.
Keith Law: He was worth less than a win last year and relievers are volatile. It’s not like he should be getting $10 million.

Greg: Did you see all the awful Jays fans coming out of the woodwork to berate Halladay’s family for “clearly going against his wishes” to go into the hall has a Blue Jay? As if they somehow knew better than his wife, just based on one interview he gave. Just gross. Do you think it’s possible that his wife got some insight from Doc in non-interview form? Just maybe?
Keith Law: Yep. That Philly Inquirer column was worse. Someone wrote that he knew better than Halladay’s widow, and ignored Halladay’s own statements in 2016, and then at least one editor saw that and thought, “yeah, this is definitely a well-considered opinion and not something that will embarrass our entire newspaper.”

Kacey: Thoughts on AOC? Personally I’m in love. The type of politician I’ve always wanted.
Keith Law: I’m just enjoying the conservative obsession with her and how frequently she dunks on them on social media. That doesn’t make her a good or bad Congressperson, but it is very entertaining.

Todd: Yanks still have a good to really good farm system?
Keith Law: No, with trades and graduations it has declined, although they have this cluster of Latin American kids, all 19 and under, who have big potential with low probabilities.

Harrison: Do you see Nick Castellanos being dealt this offseason? If so, what type of return do you think he could bring in? Any chance at a Top 100 prospect?
Keith Law: They have no reason to keep him at this point, but should wait for a good offer – one top 100 guy, two guys who are close.

John: What’s the difference between this shutdown and the Obama shutdown besides political opinions on how much should go to the border wall? House republicans caved to Obama back then, are republicans wrong to expect the same from house democrats here?
Keith Law: I mean, what’s the difference between World War II and the Korean War besides the extermination of 6 million Jews?

Greg: Remember all those people saying Pelosi should step aside? Can you imagine anyone else handing Trump his lunch like that? You know he’s terrified of her when his nickname for her is… “Nancy.”
Keith Law: Trevor Noah made that joke. He calls a murderous dictator Rocket Man and calls Pelosi by her given name.

John: What do you think Jahmai Jones ends up as?
Keith Law: Solid average second baseman. Still have some hope for more – he hasn’t hit like I expected yet.

Ryan: I know this isnt a huge issue in the grand scheme of things but how do you feel about Halladay not going into the HOF without a Jays cap? I understand that was what his family decided but do you think players or their families should have input into this decision or should it be left up to the Hall entirely? Seems wrong that he isn’t going in as a Jay.
Keith Law: There’s no way I’m going against a widow’s wishes.

Ben Jammin: Do you think Dom Smith has some decent upside left? I think most any of the non-contending teams should be interested, as he can’t really be all that expensive.
Keith Law: Yes, and yes.

El Guapo: Thoughts on Julio Urias’ outlook? Is it 100% a health question going forward? The stuff looked to be back last fall but sample is so small… can he still be a no. 2 if everything works out? Or is that a pipe dream.
Keith Law: Uncharted waters. I know people keep asking me this, but we have so little history of pitchers having this surgery and returning that there isn’t a good answer.

drew: Keith, I’m missing your FA evaluations…how come they stopped after the first couple weeks of free agency? Can we expect them back?
Keith Law: Kind of busy writing up the prospect stuff.
Keith Law: I did write up the Gray trade though.

Jeff: Keith – I understand that the Reds only acquired 1 year of Gray from NYY, but it seems to me that they essentially agreed to a package and made it contingent upon Gray agreeing to an extension. Otherwise, they were just going to back out altogether. There was no “here’s what we’ll give you if he signs; here’s what we’ll give you if he doesn’t.” Is that more understandable/justifiable to you, or is it a distinction without a difference?
Keith Law: If they were willing to trade for his one year with the extension, then they should have been willing to trade for the one year without it.

Tyler: I am glad I do not have a vote. Your ballot was one of the better ones for sure. I would have left Rivera off and felt really bad about it. I had him between 8th and 13th on this ballot and knowing full well he was getting in would have used it on someone else. As bad as I feel for McGriff he is going to get in soon. Out of all the players who did not get 5% is there any who you wish you still had a chance to vote for?
Keith Law: Ever? Lou Whitaker.

Aaron G: The Gonzalez hit in the 2001 WS was a humpback liner that if Torre had played the IF at double play depth Jeter would have caught.
Keith Law: Right? I mean, yes, Rivera gave up the batted ball, but it’s not like it was crushed.

Marshall MN: KLaw are you going on a vacation now that your Top 100 work is wrapping up?
Keith Law: I will take a few days off in early February. Not sure if I’ll go somewhere or just chill at home.

cnp: You read 104 books last year…nice. I only hit 60 so just making my way through last years Top Books™. If you haven’t read it, I thoroughly suggest Washington Black. Thought it was beautiful
Keith Law: Thank you, I will seek it out. Best new books I read were Lincoln in the Bardo, Exit West, From a Low and Quiet Sea, Sabrina, Killers of the Flower Moon, and Why We Sleep.

Ron: Keith – the hot take bait question these days seems to be, “is it immoral for our society to have billionaires?”. How would you answer that?
Keith Law: I wouldn’t; I’m not that concerned with morality in economics. I’ll take a system that feels ‘immoral’ if it means the economy is growing and the greatest possible number of people are getting all of their basic needs met.

Kacey: What’s the theory on gaining support for the HOF? Either you think someone is worthy or you don’t.
Keith Law: The crowded ballot and time to reconsider their qualifications.

Drew: Did you listen to any exceptional audiobooks last year that you’d recommend?
Keith Law: Killers of the Flower Moon.

Joe: Keith, knowing that you have finite time, would you ever see a movie that just looks good to you even if it got poor reviews?
Keith Law: Yes.

Jackie: Do you ever look at your posts to see how many clicks/responses they get? And does that affect what you later post, i.e., “Well, no one cared about my ‘Police Academy 9’ review, so I guess I won’t review any more Steve Guttenberg movies at Meadow Party.” Or are you … indifferent to the volume of response to your posts?
Keith Law: Sort of. I stopped doing music posts beyond the monthly playlists because people didn’t click much on album reviews or leave comments. But I review a lot of books or obscure movies that don’t get clicks, and I don’t mind that. The Top Chef reviews did pretty well, on the other hand, but took 3-4 hours (including time to watch), and I just can’t afford that.

Jeries: Can Nick Madrigal be a 4 WAR player if he hits zero home runs?
Keith Law: I think he’ll hit 5-8, and probably never see 4 WAR.

Thomas: Triston Casas should start the season in ….
Keith Law: I’d be fine sending him to Greenville.

Bob Pollard: Would you consider the Cardinals’ system “ridiculously prospect-rich”?
Keith Law: No, but it’s in the middle.

KillMonger: Thanks to you, I read Sabrina and absolutely loved it – powerful storytelling. On a random note – have you read Pale Fire? I’m on a Nabokov kick and I’m finishing up Pnin right now. His prose is HOF-level.
Keith Law: I did read Pale Fire and found it kind of annoying/frustrating. Too ‘inside baseball’ for me.

Querant: Is there any practical difference between getting an invite to major league training, and not getting an invite, for a player on a minor league deal? Do they get a larger stipend if they are invited to major league camp, better housing, etc.? Or is it just a matter of which clubhouse they go to each morning?
Keith Law: Better per diems and of course a chance to play in major league games, which means a chance to make the team or catch the attention of other teams.

Brent: Do you think Luis Gonzalez from CWS is an under the radar prospect worth keeping an eye on? Put up good numbers, though I think he’s old for his level, but does he have the potential to be a “prospect”?
Keith Law: He is a prospect. Wasn’t he just a second round pick?

Jake: As someone who is well to the right of you politically (but probably on the same page on baseball), can I apologize that my party nominated this moron and still stand behind him as he fucks everything up?
Keith Law: Yes, but if lots of people like you just move temporarily to the left, we can go back to our normal level of fucked-up as opposed to the current level of holy fucking shit we fucked this up.

Ian: You mean soon to be Academy Award Winning “The Wife”. Such a weird Oscar year.
Keith Law: I’m not sure. Colman could take it.

Todd: No cloud of PEDs on Ortiz’s ballot?
Keith Law: We remember what we choose to remember, and forget what it is convenient to forget.

Doug: Looking forward to your list next week. Also, I am glad the Dominican Series is over and Tatis won’t be able to break a finger just in case you keep him at #1.
Keith Law: He’s still #1 – that’s not news, since he was there in July.

el Guapo: On Tatis, obviously you are very high on him. Is it nitpicking to point out that he struck out at a 28% clip last year and that number didn’t come down even when he went on a tear (babip reliant)? Or is it just a 19 year old playing at a very advanced AA level and I need to get used to the fact that Ks are part of modern baseball. It’s worth noting for others (not sure I have seen you do this) making the Machado comp that Manny only K’ed at a 19% clip in AA at a similar age.
Keith Law: 28% isn’t that high today and he was, as you said, 19, exceptionally young for that level. And he’s a shortstop.

Drew: Are you planning to vote in the Democratic Primary? If so, will you take electability concerns into account, or are you going to vote for whomever you think would make do the job best if they win in the general?
Keith Law: Delaware’s primary is pretty late – April 26th in 2016 – so it may not matter at all.

Corey: Still thinking that the quickest way to end the shutdown is a mass TSA/air traffic controller sick-out. Not a strike as that’s illegal but if the global transportation system shuts down, gives the Traitor Turtle an out. This is purely about his ’20 re-election b/c of how tightly the KY GOP supports Dump.
Keith Law: I’d imagine many wealthy people who have supported the GOP on tax policies and the massive rollback of environmental and labor protections will be very unhappy if their flights are cancelled or delayed.

C: Is kikuchi a prospect or a veteran? How should a prospect be defined by a ranking service? Mlb experience or should age/professional (non minor league) experience effect if they are ranked in prospect rankings?
Keith Law: He played in a major league. He’s not a prospect. I do not rank NPB or KBO veterans.

Kurt: Are the Nats better this year than last? I’m not doing the, “better without Harper” thing…but if you had to guess, this roster will win more than 82 games, right?
Keith Law: Yes, they’re better. If they re-sign Harper after all, they’re the favorites in the East.

Jerry: Assuming no catastrophes (Bregman, Correa career-ending injuries, etc) how long do you think the Astros window of contention is open for?
Keith Law: I’d say another 4-5 years. The system is still above the median for me.

Justin R: How do you motivate yourself to write? I have outlined and planned novels for years but when it comes time to actually write a chapter, I freeze up.
Keith Law: Write something else first. Anything. A journal, a blog post, a letter to nobody. Then don’t stop – move right into writing your chapters.

John: I don’t know if you’ve read this, but I keep telling everyone. In the past election only 5% of americans voted for Trump or Hillary in the primaries. 5% of people decided the two people that could be our next president. VOTE IN PRIMARIES.
Keith Law: I hadn’t but it doesn’t surprise me. The Iowa Caucuses are the dumbest thing in our country’s dumb politics.

Kyle KS: What’s the reason behind the general lack of support for Rolen? Better hitter and defender than Vizquel but nowhere near the votes.
Keith Law: There’s a weird mythology around Vizquel from people who watched him and think they saw a much better defender than they actually saw.

Jim: How do you possibly deny that you are a leftist?
Keith Law: People call me a “leftist” because I think science is real, all people deserve equal treatment under the law, and we should base policies on evidence. Well slap my knee and call me Karl.
Keith Law: Thank you all for reading this week. The prospect package does indeed begin on Monday with the “just missed” list. I’ll chat next week to take your questions on the top 100, and then the farm rankings and org reports go up the following week. Thanks again and enjoy your weekends.

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→ January 24, 2019
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Cold War.

Pawel Pawlikowski won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2015 for his movie Ida, and returned this year with the critically acclaimed Cold War, distributed by amazon studios, which just earned three Oscar nominations this week for Best Foreign Language Film, Best Cinematography, and, in one of the biggest surprises of the nominations, Best Director. The taut 85-minute, black-and-white drama sets a doomed romance against the backdrop of the Cold War itself, with its two main characters moving back and forth across the Iron Curtain as the political climate tears them apart and their animal magnetism pulls them back together.

Based heavily on the story of Pawlikowski’s own parents, who were musicians in Poland after World War II and split up multiple times before Pawe? was born, Cold War stars Joanna Kulig as Zula and Tomasz Kot as Wiktor, who first meet when Wiktor helps put together a music ensemble to play and honor traditional Polish folk music under the Communist government. Zula has singing talent but lies about her background and experience to con her way into the group, and Wiktor feels an immediate attraction to her that she recognizes and exploits to secure her place at the makeshift academy. This eventually explodes into a passionate affair that leads Wiktor to plan for their defection while their company tours Berlin, only to have Zula choose to stay behind at the last moment, setting in motion a series of meetings and partings over the next fifteen years between Paris, Yugoslavia, and Warsaw, with Zula becoming a jazz singer, Wiktor ending up a political prisoner, and the two absorbing increasing costs to leave each other and come together again.

The pain of parting may be nothing to the joy of meeting again, but Zula and Wiktor are unable to maintain that joy for very long, and begin to tear each other apart – especially Wiktor, who seems to often treat Zula like a prize to be won, or an object to be possessed, as opposed to an independent woman with her own agency. Kulig and Kot have absurd on-screen chemistry that allows Pawlikowski to show virtually nothing while making the desperate passion between the two characters palpable: There’s one love scene where the camera and the actors pause, and we only see Zula’s face, and in the span of under ten seconds the viewer can feel the intensity of this relationship while still understanding that it can never end well.

The decision to shoot the film in black and white appears to have resonated with Academy voters, as both this and Roma landed cinematography nods; Pawlikowski said that color didn’t work when they tried it, as he wanted to replicate the gray bleakness of Poland in the aftermath of the war and the communist takeover. It gives the Polish scenes that depressing air, although it works against the portions of the movie in the nightclubs and salons and ateliers of Paris, where the sense of life is muted … or perhaps that was Pawlikowski’s point, that Zula and Wiktor, as products of the war and the communist regime, can’t fully appreciate or embrace the artistic and personal freedom of the west after their experiences?

Kulig smolders as Zula, moving deftly from ingenue to partner to free spirit to an independent woman who can be petulant and indignant as Wiktor begins to treat her worse the more they’re together. Kot, looking like a slightly older, more rakish Michael Fassbender, drifts more abruptly from dark remove to desperation, as Wiktor’s ability to take Zula for granted once she’s there is completely mystifying, while his single-minded focus on finding her when they’re apart is palpable and easier to understand.

Cold War is short – it’s less than half the length of fellow nominee Never Look Away, which clocks in at 188 minutes – and it zips along once Zula enters the picture, sometimes a little too quickly for some of the tension between the two characters to develop naturally. The film’s ending is problematic, although the last line and shot are both beautiful, in a way I can’t discuss without a huge spoiler; I’ll just say I don’t think it’s adequately set up by the 80 minutes that come before. That puts it behind my big 3 of foreign films from 2018 (Burning, Roma, Shoplifters), but the first 95% of this movie is so good and such a gripping depiction of the familiar story of star-crossed lovers that it’s still a success and worth seeking out.

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→ January 20, 2019
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The Guilty.

The Danish film The Guilty earned one of the nine spots on the shortlist for this year’s Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, with an English-language remake coming at some point with Jake Gyllenhaal in the lead role. That Oscar category is loaded enough this year that I’d be surprised if it landed one of the five nominations, but The Guilty is a tremendous thriller, one that grabs you by the throat early on and never lets go, while also providing an insightful character study into the only significant person to appear on screen. It’s available to rent right now on amazon or Vudu for $7.

Asger Holm is a police officer who’s been accused of an unspecified violation on the job, the details of which appear much later in the story, and demoted to desk duty where he takes 112 (the Danish equivalent of 911) calls and doesn’t seem to take the job very seriously. After a few relatively minor calls, including one from a man who was robbed by a sex worker and doesn’t want to admit that that’s what happened, Asger takes a call from a woman, Iben, who manages to communicate that she’s been kidnapped by someone she knows and is being taken somewhere outside of Copenhagen in a moving car. She pretends she’s talking to her daughter, Mathilde, who is now home alone with her baby brother Oliver, while Asger navigates a conversation to try to get details on where Iben is – and then later gets a call from Mathilde as well. The film never leaves the call center and Asger is in every shot, just moving between two rooms, as he tries to figure out who took Iben and where she’s going, raging against his powerlessness in the situation while eventually confronting his own misdeeds that put him on desk duty in the first place.

The Guilty clocks in at just 85 minutes, and there’s no fat on this story: there’s the main plotline around Iben’s kidnapping and the subplot around Asger’s demotion and a court hearing the following day that will determine his fate and that involves his partner Rashid. The Iben thread twists and turns multiple times, with the tension ratcheted up by dropped calls, her kidnapper asking to speak to her daughter, and eventually Asger getting the kidnapper on the phone. Asger’s own frustrations, both over this case and over his career and personal life as well, boil over into his calls, especially as he feels like the dispatchers he calls aren’t taking the incident seriously enough – and again, he finds himself powerless to do what he’d ordinarily do if he were out in the field, but has been emasculated by his suspension from that role and can only work through others. Eventually, he makes a mistake, as any human would, and has to face the consequences in real-time as the kidnapping is still in progress.

Asger’s character is the only one of any significance to the viewer – Iben is there, on the phone, but we only see of her what Asger hears, and while he learns more about her as the story progresses, it remains superficial throughout. He seems unsympathetic at the start, sneering through his headset at the people who call for help because they’re stupid or did something while drunk, but his interest in Iben, and willingness to break rules and potentially endanger his own career for her shows depth to his character and makes him more sympathetic … but there are still layers beneath that one that will add to our understanding. He’s the hero, but a flawed one, and is flawed in a realistic, human way that informs his words and actions to form a coherent, three-dimensional rendering. Without that depiction, and the strong, restrained performance by Jakob Cedergren, the film simply would not work.

The Guilty has been highly acclaimed in Europe, earning Bodil Prize (the Danish Oscars) nominations for best film, best director, and best actor for Cedergren. I’m guessing, having seen three of the other eight nominees and read reviews and background information on the others, that this film won’t make the final five; Roma and Burning feel like locks, Cold War and Shoplifters bring incredible reviews and accolades from elsewhere, Capernaum is highly topical, and Never Look Away comes from the director of the Oscar-winning The Lives of Others. Of the four shortlisted films I’ve seen, though, it’s the easiest to recommend by far, because it’s the most straightforward and the most purely entertaining: this is a smart, concise thriller that sets out one goal and puts everything in its script towards achieving it. Because it’s so lean, the narrative never flags, and director/co-writer Gustav Möller instead conveys Asger’s frustration by only letting us see Asger and through the use of long pauses in most of the phone conversations. The story here is solid, boosted by a couple of twists, but it’s the way Möller tells the story and Cedergren portrays it that makes The Guilty such a great watch, even if you can sort of figure out where this is headed. I wouldn’t put it above the three other foreign films I’ve seen from the shortlist, but it’s easily the most accessible of the four, and does so without sacrificing its integrity or insulting the viewer’s intelligence to do so.

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→ January 19, 2019
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Stick to baseball, 1/19/19.

Nothing new from me this week, between prospect writing and a trip to NYC the last two days to attend a MEL magazine event. The prospect rankings will start to run on ESPN.com on January 28th and will roll out over two weeks.

And now, the links…

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→ January 18, 2019
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An Unkindness of Ghosts.

Rivers Solomon’s debut novel An Unkindness of Ghosts bears a blatant stylistic similarity to the writing of N.K. Jemisin in her Broken Earth trilogy, from prose to characterization to both writers use of old-time religions in futuristic settings. And both writers put young women right at the heart of their respective stories, with Solomon giving us Aster, a young adult on a ‘generation ship’ that has, over centuries of drifting in space to an unknown and possibly nonexistent destination, devolved into a caste system by ship deck that incorporates skin color into its stratification, resulting in something that looks a good bit like American slavery.

Aster is a self-made scientist and doctor’s helper, often working with the Surgeon General, Theo, as well as tending plants in her botanarium, even though she’s a low-decker on the ship Matilda. That vessel has been in space at least 300 years, and thoughts of its Golden Land destination are more remote and have become tied up in a sort of doomsday religion that most of the ship practices – or, perhaps, that the upper-deck castes use to control those on the lower decks. Aster is neurodivergent, although Solomon never identifies her difference in any specific way, and for reasons that are only somewhat revealed by the end of the book, she’s marked for especially cruel treatment by the Lieutenant, a sadistic leader who is poised to take control if the Sovereign in charge dies. (You can guess whether that comes to pass.) Lune, Aster’s mother, took her own life the day Aster was born, but left behind cryptic clues in a series of notebooks that Aster and her bunk mate Giselle start to decipher when they realize its code may contain clues about the ship, as well as a potential way off of it.

There is, as we say on Twitter, a lot to unpack here, as Solomon has written a tight 350-page novel that incorporates race, religion, class, sex/gender, sexual harassment and assault, how people (mostly men) use and retain power, and a healthy dose of science fiction. There are women in the upper castes, but every authority figure we see is male. Women and girls on lower decks have darker skin, and are also used, to put it bluntly, for breeding, so the ship will have an ongoing supply of workers. Officials and guards have the tacit authority to rape or abuse women as they please, and it’s implied they do so with boys as well. One scene where Aster mouths off (with justification) to an upper-class twit woman lays bare the societal strictures that hold the barriers between upper and lower decks in place, backed by the force of the guard.

Unlike so many science fiction authors, good and bad, Solomon doesn’t spend a ton of time building the world in An Unkindness of Ghosts, giving the readers just what they need to understand what’s happening in the story, or where the characters might be in the architecture of the ship, but nothing extraneous. (Somehow there is meat on the ship, quite a bit of it, and I’m not sure how that one would work unless it’s supposed to be lab-grown.) The result is that the characters are extraordinarily well-developed for the genre – Aster, Theo, even Giselle and the caretaker known as Ainy or Melusine, whose importance grows as the book progresses. Solomon also defies many plot conventions by, again to be blunt, having smart characters still make stupid mistakes, especially Aster, who often acts without foresight because of her youth or how her brain works. She’s the hero, without question, but she’s flawed in a different way than your typical flawed hero. She’s flawed because she was born that way, and her successes come both in spite of that and often because of it, because she makes the best out of who she is, and can thus do things neurotypical people probably couldn’t. All of this, and other aspects of her character including some unspoken history of abuse and her unusual connection to Theo, make her one of the most interesting protagonists I’ve come across in a long time.

Solomon can get caught up in some clumsy prose, another similarity to Jemisin’s writing, such as when they start trying to describe the physics of space travel in their universe, especially the discovery Lune made that changes everything for Aster and her comrades, or in the description of Baby, the ship’s main power source. Yet they also display facility with creating language, giving each deck its own dialect, much the way slaves in different parts of the South would blend their native tongues with English and create new patois, such as the Gulla dialect still spoken today off the coast of South Carolina. The culture and economy of Matilda feel impossibly rich for a book this short; even when I wasn’t gripped by the plot, I was enveloped in Solomon’s world. The book starts slow, but stay with it; the last hundred pages are a barnburner and the ending is satisfying without becoming sentimental or obvious.

Next up: Still reading Camus’ The Plague.

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→ January 17, 2019
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Milkman.

Anna Burns became the first Northern Irish writer to win the Man Booker Prize when her third novel, Milkman, took the honor in 2018. It’s an experimental novel, atypical for Booker winners, that reads like a more accessible Faulkner, and combines a story of the Troubles with the staunchly feminist narrative of its 18-year-old narrator for a result that is unlike anything I’ve read before.

Characters in Milkman go without names, including the narrator, a young woman who walks around with her head in a book and is literally and figuratively oblivious to the internecine warfare occurring around her, as well as the titular milkman – well, both milkmen. The milkman of the title isn’t actually a milkman, but rides around in a white van as if he were one. He’s in his 40s, associated with a local paramilitary group, and stalks the narrator while ensuring that everyone in their tightknit, gossip-ridden community knows that she is his, to the point where others, including her own mother, assume that she’s indeed having an affair with this dangerous, older man. There’s also a real milkman, whose role becomes apparent as the novel progresses; ‘maybe boyfriend,’ whom the narrator has been seeing for a year, who’s obsessed with cars, and whose life may be endangered by not-really Milkman; Tablets girl, who runs around poisoning people, including her own sister and eventually the narrator, but everyone seems to just take it as part of life; the boy the narrator calls Somebody McSomebody, who also tries to threaten the narrator into becoming his girl, which ends rather poorly for him in one of the novel’s few scenes of actual violence; and far more.

Burns layers a story of personal terror inside a story of the societal terror that affected Northern Ireland for decades. The narrator’s life is turned upside down by this unwanted attention from a man she barely even knows, but whose reputation in the community is enough to scare her and to convince everyone else she’s submitted to him willingly (even though she never submits to him at all). When the Milkman stalks her, he also inducts her, against her will, into a theater of the absurd that mirrors reality from that time and place, where violence split Catholics and Protestants, where any official authority was seen as essentially Ours or Theirs, where an act that shouldn’t merit a second thought, like going to the hospital, would be fraught with political and social implications. She’s suddenly seen to have taken sides, and even finds herself the unwitting beneficiary of the fear others have of the paramilitaries, which further underlines for her how potent the impact of this one man’s attentions towards her are.

Burns also surrounds her narrator with families who’ve been hurt by the violence in the community, directly or indirectly, including the one mother who, by the end of the novel, seems to have lost her husband and every one of her children to direct violence, related accidents, or suicide. The narrator’s father is dead when the novel opens, while her mother is a tragicomic figure who is convinced her daughter is a sinner, who believes every rumor she hears about her daughter (some from ‘first brother-in-law,’ who is both a gossip-monger and a creep), and who goes into hysterics over every bit of innuendo, which the narrator never wants to even acknowledge because it merely prolongs the agony.

Milkman is still quite funny and even hopeful in parts among the litter of tragedies and the ever-present specter of the stalker, although we do learn at the start of the novel that he’ll die before it’s over. The narrator’s third brother-in-law, while a peculiar man himself, takes on a protector role over his young sister-in-law, as does Real Milkman, whose interest in her is a side effect of his romantic interest in her mother. There are also signs of intelligent life amidst the gossips and harridans, including the “issue women,” a group of seven residents who embrace feminism when one hears of it in town and starts up a local women’s group in the backyard shed of one of the members (because her husband wouldn’t allow it in the house).

Of course, this is all set against the ever-present backdrop of the Troubles and you don’t need to know much at all about that conflict to appreciate Burns’ depiction of the effects of the sectarian violence on this particular neighborhood. Burns draws and redraws the picture of this time and place with swirling, inventive prose, in paragraphs that go on for days, often putting unlikely vocabulary in the mouths of her characters – esoteric or archaic words, or even words she’s just made up – to provide further much to the narrative. It’s not as difficult as Faulkner or Proust, but shows the influence of those early 20th century writers at the same time, both in a technical aspect and in how Burns uses her experimental sentence structure and vocabulary to contribute the reader’s sense of unease.

I’ve only read a few of the contenders for this year’s Booker but can at least understand why this novel won. It also feels like the third straight year where the prize has gone to a novel that does something different, as opposed to the prize’s history of going to literary works that still adhere to the traditional form and intentions of the novel. I could imagine this novel seeming abstruse to readers outside of the UK, given its setting during the Troubles, but that’s merely the backdrop for a rich, textured story that is as relevant today (with its #MeToo similarities) as it would be to a reader of that time and place.

Next up: A little light reading, Albert Camus’ The Plague.

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→ January 15, 2019
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Bohemian Rhapsody.

Bohemian Rhapsody is just not a good movie, no matter what the Hollywood Foreign Press wants to tell you, and it’s hardly a surprise given the movie’s tortuous route to the screen, with multiple writers, a director dismissed from the project due to harassment allegations, and the three living members of Queen holding veto power over portions of the script. The film tries to tell the story of the band Queen and the story of Freddie Mercury, either of which would have filled an entire two hours on its own, and then somehow devolves into the (inaccurate) story of how the band ended up staging the best show at Live Aid, which, had they committed to it from the start, would have been a better movie than this pablum.

Queen were worldwide rock stars for more than fifteen years, from when Freddie Mercury, who was born Farrokh Bulsara to Parsi parents in Zanzibar, joined the band in 1971 until his death from AIDS-related pneumonia in 1991. Mercury was a flamboyant personality who dressed in androgynous fashion and had an electric stage presence as well as a potent voice with a four-octave range, and was the subject of longstanding rumors about his sexual orientation (at a time of rampant homophobia) and, later, about his health (when fear of AIDS was a polite form of homophobia). He had a difficult and, by some accounts, unhappy personal life, with his twenty-year friendship with Mary Austin, to whom he was once engaged, one of the few highlights, with him calling her his “only friend” in a 1985 documentary.

Bohemian Rhapsody glosses over most of the important stuff and tells a sanitized linear story that is light on the facts but avoids painting any of the three surviving band members in any sort of negative light, and presents a two-dimensional portrait of Mercury that makes him by turns pathetic and bland. You can find plenty of breakdowns of the film’s loose relationship with the truth, but that’s hardly its biggest flaw. This is a bunch of well-shot concert scenes stitched together by snippets of dull back story, most of which shows the band making music (not really great cinema, gents) or the three musicians getting mad at Freddy for being late. Much of the first 110 minutes seems to be prologue for the Live Aid scene, which the film attempts to re-create shot for shot, and which is undoubtedly the best part of the film – indeed, had they just shown me those 20 minutes, and skipped everything that came before, I would have been far more satisfied with the experience. (Also, there was popcorn.)

Much of the writing in Bohemian Rhapsody is just plain lazy. The band didn’t break up before Live Aid, but the script has them do so to raise the stakes for the show as a reunion and give us a rather silly scene in their lawyer’s office. There’s a Wayne’s World reference that is groan-worthy and lazy AF, and of course it features Mike Myers in a bit of stunt-casting as a record executive who never existed. There are speeches and soliloquys galore, most of which I have to assume never happened because they’re so ridiculous. There’s a Rasputin-like character Paul, who was a real person, but is exaggerated to be the bad guy who drives the wedge between Freddie and the band and is dispensed with once his role as the villain is done. (He’s played by Allen Leach, so the whole time I’m thinking, that’s Branson with a porn stache.)

The movie’s worst sin is how it straightwashes so much of Mercury’s sexuality and, eventually, how he was sick for the last five years of his life and died of AIDS-related pneumonia. The movie shows him telling his bandmates “I’ve got it,” referring to the disease, before Live Aid, but all accounts have him unaware he was sick until at least a full year later, and he didn’t tell the other members of Queen until 1989. It depicts Mary Austin as his only female lover, which isn’t accurate, and then has her largely out of his life between the end of their engagement and the run-up to Live Aid, which also isn’t accurate – she worked for his private music publishing company. (Apparently the scene where he confesses he thinks he’s bisexual and she responds by saying she thinks he’s gay is accurate, at least according to Austin.) Mercury came off in many interviews as unhappy, and exploring why – perhaps as the gay son of a Zoroastrian couple, whom he never told about his orientation, who was self-conscious about his appearance and ethnicity as well, he had issues with identity and self-acceptance. The film just doesn’t bother with this material.

Rami Malek won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama for this performance, which is a good effort but ultimately, like so much in the film, an extended impersonation because the character is so underdeveloped. Still, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voters love impersonations too – they gave Gary Oldman the same fucking award last year for doing nothing more than donning a fat suit and mumbling his way through Darkest Hour — and it wouldn’t surprise me to see Malek get the same here, although if he defeats Bradley Cooper, Christian Bale, and Ethan Hawke it would be a damn shame, to say nothing of Stephan James or Joaquin Phoenix, neither of whom is likely to even get a nomination. As for Best Picture, I suppose anything is possible, but even considering the Academy’s disdain for foreign films in that category, I could give you two dozen better American films from 2018 without much effort. Giving this a nod over First Man, which is right behind it on Gold Derby’s odds page, would be criminal. It’s barely worth your time if you love Queen’s music, and you have to sit through so much nonsense to get to that stuff I wouldn’t even suggest you waste the gas money.

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→ January 14, 2019
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Hearts Beat Loud.

Nick Offerman is one of the few celebrities I follow on Twitter, and any movie or TV show becomes much more interesting to me if I find out he’s one of the stars. After seeing the trailer for last summer’s Hearts Beat Loud a few times, with Offerman playing one of the two leads and a father-daughter story around the hook of indie music, I couldn’t have been more jazzed to see it. I finally caught it this weekend, now that it’s streaming on Hulu, and it’s cute and kind of sweet and, to my surprise and chagrin, kind of boring.

Offerman plays Frank Fisher, a widowed father and former musician who runs an independent record store (as in vinyl) in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood, and lives with his teenaged daughter Sam (Kiersey Clemons), who is a few weeks away from heading across the country to UCLA to study pre-med. The store is failing, in part because the landlord (Toni Collette) has raised the rent beyond what Frank can afford, and there’s added financial pressure from Frank’s mother Marianne (Blythe Danner), who is experiencing some cognitive decline but still lives on her own. In one of Frank and Sam’s regular jam sessions (“jam sesh,” as Frank calls it to annoy his daughter), they write and record a song called “Hearts Beat Loud” that Frank likes enough to upload on to Spotify, where it has a little success and attracts interest from a local agent, which spurs a minor conflict between Frank, who wants to pursue it, and Sam, who thinks it’s a fantasy and by then is days away from heading to school.

The film has modest ambitions and modestly hits them, which works by keeping the story realistic but also means the stakes in the story are consistently low. The story is more slice-of-life than traditional narrative; the film ends when the store closes – so I suppose there was a chance they’d have the song save the store somehow – and Sam heads off to school, which does give a poignant moment when she breaks off her budding relationship with girlfriend Rose (Sasha Lane, great as always). Frank is a bit of a screw-up, which works in some ways – he’s not great with money, he drinks a little too much – but not in others – we get the Dawson’s Creek shtick where the kids are smarter than the adults.

Perhaps the most glaring flaw in the film is the lack of development or insight into Frank’s relationship with Sam, which would appear to be the heart (no pun intended) of the story. There are hints of Frank’s reluctance to let Sam leave New York for school, but no exploration of how he accepts that this is what she wants to do and that it’s right for her – the script skips right over that part, moving from a feel-good moment where the two play a mini-concert the night the store closes to a point after she’s already left. The backstory of Sam’s mother could give some insight into his hope that the band, which Frank titles We’re Not a Band after Sam gives that non-answer to his request for a suggested name, becomes a way to keep Sam both home and closer to him, but it’s scant and disappears from the narrative partway through. There’s a sideswipe at amazon, a fun cameo from a popular indie musician, a bunch of dumb weed jokes, and some nods to Brooklyn hipster culture, all in service of a goal I couldn’t identify.

Offerman is understated here, not in the Ron Swanson way but more in a way that underutilizes his comic gifts; there’s an early scene where he’s playing the cool dad trying too hard to annoy his daughter that was both very familiar (I’ve done almost the same thing and gotten the same reaction from my daughter) and a better use of his talents. He’s apparently quite a good guitar player, but that’s not a draw – there’s one scene where he uses a Boss Loop Station pedal to write and record a riff that they later work into a song, but the scene seems to go on forever, because watching someone write music is, unfortunately, not good cinema. Clemons is a breakout star, though, and has quite a singing voice. Collette and Ted Danson, Frank’s stoner bar owner friend, don’t have nearly enough to do. I wanted to like Hearts Beat Loud for so many reasons, but the total is so much less than the sum of its parts.

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→ January 13, 2019
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Vice.

For pure entertainment value, Vice is one of the half-dozen best movies of 2018. It’s funny, fast-paced, and packed with good performances from great actors, some of whom are disguised sufficiently to make you spend a good chunk of the movie asking yourself, “where do I know them from?” It’s also a movie that I think has the potential to sway a lot of viewers who remain ambivalent about the legacy of the Bush/Cheney administration, or simply prefer not to think about it, since so much of what the movie shows did in fact happen, and the consequences of that administration’s policies have been disastrous in so many spheres of modern life around the world.

That doesn’t make it a good movie, however, and Vice is, in fact, not a good movie. Vice is a farce masquerading as a satire; it is a polemic masquerading as political commentary. It is as subtle as a sledgehammer to the forehead. Its quick pace may be a feature rather than a bug, but it makes the movie feel unfocused and superficial, aided in the former by writer-director Adam McKay’s decision to jump back and forth in time between scenes from 9/11 and Cheney’s early years in Wyoming. (There is one truly brilliant part of this, however, around the 43 minute mark, that I won’t spoil, but it is one of the funniest bits in the movie.) There is so much for the viewer to unpack in this movie, but McKay barely gives us time to open the boxes, let alone sort through their contents, and this becomes most problematic of all if you take a moment – probably after the film ends, because you barely have any time during the movie to think – to ponder Dick Cheney’s motivations for just about anything he did in life. Vice has no answers for us.

Cheney, for the handful of you who might not know much of his history, started his political career as an intern in Congress, hitched his wagon to Donald Rumsfeld’s, and moved into the executive branch, eventually becoming Chief of Staff under Gerald Ford at age 34. When Jimmy Carter defeated Ford in 1976, Cheney changed direction, running for Wyoming’s lone congressional seat and winning in 1978, holding the seat for a decade before becoming Secretary of Defense under President George H.W. Bush. After an interlude as CEO of Halliburton during the Clinton years, Cheney returned to public office as George W. Bush’s running mate, becoming Vice President for eight years, during which he pursued unprecedented power for the executive branch as a whole and himself in particular, power that led the United States into the fiasco that was the war in Iraq, warrant-less surveillance, widespread torture of so-called “enemy combatants,” and more.

Vice focuses on how Cheney got to that point in his career, and what he did with the power he obtained. Cheney, played by Welsh actor Christian Bale, is first seen as a drunken screw-up who is lifted out of his own mess by his wife Lynne (Amy Adams, doing Amy Adams things). Lynne is ambitious but held back by the misogynistic political culture of the 1960s, so she wants her husband to succeed and ascend as her proxy, and throughout the film she is by his side at nearly every moment, and when she’s not, she’s there in spirit pushing him on. Cheney’s ambition may be organic, but it seems more like his wife’s making in this retelling.

That leads, after a lot of prologue, to the pivotal scene shown in the trailer, where he negotiates with then-candidate George W. Bush (Sam Rockwell, doing a spot-on impersonation) to take on the VP role but to redefine it to gain control over a wide swath of the executive branch, including defense and energy. Bush accedes, and Cheney, aided by his attorney David Addington (Don McManus) and aide Scooter Libby (Justin Kirk), sets out to consolidate power under a philosophy called the Unitary Executive Theory that sounds a lot like the divine right of kings – if the President does it, it must be legal. (I can think of one President who would very much like this philosophy to be valid right now.) This leads to the war in Iraq, which this film presents as both a question of settling a score from Operation Desert Storm and a way to enrich Cheney as well as his friends at Halliburton and Big Oil, at a cost of maybe 750,000 lives.

McKay seems so excited to tell this story that he can barely get the words out of the characters’ mouths fast enough before each scene change, never letting the material breathe or, as a result, letting the audience consider what Cheney’s motives might be. Instead, the film dazzles us with quick cuts, loud bangs, and some incredible impersonations and likenesses. Steve Carell does some very fine work as Donald Rumsfeld, and Eddie Marsan (Mr. Norrell!) does that same as his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz. Lisa Gay Hamilton gets Condoleeza Rice just right.

The film is also stuffed with gimmicks, with the 43-minute one the funniest, but leans way too heavily on this kind of bombast to work as a coherent film. The Alfred Molina and Jesse Plemons gambits are both interesting on their own, but do not work in the context of the movie. In fact, the Molina scene might be the movie’s best sequence, but does not fit in the broader narrative; it feels more like a brilliant sketch from a comedy show that understands the power of brevity. The scene where Dick and Lynne Cheney begin speaking to each other in Shakespearean dialogue – I thought it might be from one of the two Richard tragedies, given Cheney’s name, but it’s not – doesn’t work in the least. McKay is trying to tell a story, but fantasy sequences in a movie that otherwise strives for realism, such as with costume and makeup, only work against the broader purpose.

There’s also material in here that is pretty questionable. The script very strongly implies that Lynne Cheney’s father murdered her mother, which doesn’t seem to be confirmed or even seriously suspected. The first Iraq War is barely mentioned at all, even though explaining the second one almost certainly requires it – especially the neoconservative faction who supported the second invasion without Cheney’s financial ties to companies that would benefit. The script frequently implies that losing a Cabinet-level position is a massive career setback, even though such people could waltz into six-figure speaking fees or lucrative jobs on television or as lobbyists or at think tanks. But no inaccuracy is as glaring as the film’s stark implication that the Bush Administration invaded Iraq in 2003 because the American public wanted them to do so. Yes, tensions were still high after 9/11, and people did indeed want someone to bomb – which we did, with results that are complicated, in Afghanistan. The idea that Cheney and his focus groups (including the feckless Frank Luntz, who gets lampooned appropriately as a soulless pollster) helped market the war to maximize support, which then justified the war itself, is not just inaccurate, but distasteful. The on-screen text at the end of the movie says that over 600,000 Iraqis died as a result of our invasion. Don’t put that on the American people, even if they did want the invasion. That’s on Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, and even Colin Powell – who weirdly gets a pass here – and everyone other cheerleader in Washington who signed off on the effort.

Bale won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy for his portrayal of Cheney, a hard to believe transformation if you saw his appearance and heard his voice at the awards, and he’s worthy of at least a nomination for the Oscar for the same. Adams should get a nod for Best Supporting Actress, and I could see Rockwell or Carell getting a node for Best Supporting Actor, although I could probably rattle off five more deserving names (Ali, Driver, Chalamet, Grant, Elliott, Kaluuya, Jordan … that’s seven). I thought Allison Pill was excellent in a smaller role as Mary Cheney, Dick and Lynne’s daughter who comes out as a teenager and serves as a plot point throughout the movie. And Vice seems at least even money to get a Best Picture nod, even though it’s not in my top ten or, in my opinion, worthy of the nomination.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t see it; Vice is a complicated movie to discuss, as the length of this review probably shows. There’s a lot to recommend about it, from the many jokes and gags that do land, to the serious and important point it makes about the dangers of concentrating power in too few hands. The script mentions climate change in passing maybe twice, in part to say that Cheney backburnered any talk of doing something about it at the federal level, and then shows a scene of people golfing in front of a massive forest fire at the end. That’s a big deal, and worthy of exploration, but that barely gets two minutes out of the film. You’ll leave angry, but if you leave understanding anything more about the man at the heart of the story, you’ve gotten more out of Vice than I did.

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→ January 12, 2019
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Stick to baseball, 1/12/19.

No ESPN+ content this week, as I’m working on the prospect rankings and saving those extra bullets in the hope that someone like Bryce Harper or Manny Machado will eventually sign. I did hold a Klawchat on Thursday.

My latest review for Paste covers the deduction board game Cryptid, one of my top ten games of 2018, in which each player gets one clue, and you need to deduce all other players’ clues to identify the one hex on the variable board where the Creature is hiding for that specific board and set of clues. It’s quite fun, like a board game with a puzzle at its heart.

And now, the links…

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