Uncategorized — Page 95

→ November 4, 2018
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 11/4/18.

For ESPN+ subscribers, I ranked the top 50 free agents this offseason. I also held a Klawchat on Wednesday, before a brief vacation to Disneyworld to help my parents celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary.

I’ve been better about sending out my free email newsletter, which isn’t to say the content is better, just that I’m sending it more often.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: The Washington Post has a long investigation by writer Radley Balko into the rot inside the Little Rock, Arkansas, Police Department that led to an incompetent, racist cop shooting an unarmed 15-year-old black kid, lying about it, and escaping conviction in two trials. The cop in question, Terry Hastings, was hired over the objections of another officer, who pointed out that Hastings had attended a Ku Klux Klan meeting – normally a disqualifying event, but Hastings’ father was also on the LRPD force.
This Atlantic longread by a writer whose grandfather was ostracized for a failed attempt to solve a major physics problem also delves into deeper questions of what drives geniuses and how orthodox institutions treat apostasy.
A Harvard researcher has a new theory of mitochondrial function and evolution that may help lead to new treatments for diseases of mitochondrial dysfunction, including many fatal muscular diseases.
Stalwart indie bookstore The Strand is unionized, making it a bit unusual in the bookstore world, but the store’s very wealthy owners have fought modest pay raises and benefits increases. The Strand is a wonderful store with knowledgeable employees and an enormous selection of new, used, and rare books, but this column says much of its revenue comes from renting out its space rather than the sale of books.
The Washington Monthly has a longread accusing writer Salena Zito, whose pieces cover Trump voters out in rural America, of fabricating quotes and stories and manipulating quotes, as well as other journalistic sins, even as her conservative employers look the other way. She has taught at least one seminar at Harvard’s Kennedy School, but the school hasn’t responded to my request for comment yet.
Was Friends homophobic, ahead of its time, or both? This essay on LitHub argues both sides of it, and explains why the show was too cautious on LGBT issues even as it gently expanded the boundaries of what was shown on network television.
Facebook ignored warnings about Russian interference in Ukraine via troll farms, part of the company’s general unwillingness to look at information warfare outside the U.S. that could have tipped the company off to what Russia did here in 2016.
The white man who shot up a Tallahassee yoga studio, killing two women, was an ‘incel’ who had twice been charged with assaulting women as well as a history of posting misogynistic and homophobic content online. He was still able to buy an AR-15.
President Trump barely works at all, high irony after years of the right criticizing Obama, by all accounts a workaholic, if he dared to take an afternoon to play golf.
The self-immolation of white nationalist Twitter troll Jacob Wohl to smear Robert Mueller is lovingly detailed by The Cut.
Many western billionaires have invested in ‘doomsday’ properties in New Zealand, arguing that its isolation makes it ideal in case of a global pandemic, war, or other apocalypse. They don’t all sound terribly sane to me.
CRISPR gene editing has been long on promise but light on results so far, but a new research effort found it might help treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
Transgender neurobiologist Ben Barres died last year of cancer; his autobiography just came out and Nature has a very positive review.
The Supreme Court refused to block a lawsuit demanding that the US government act on climate change. You know my views on the subject, but do we have a constitutional right to a clean environment?
Fourteen teachers at a Middleton, Idaho, elementary school are on paid administrative leave after wearing racist Halloween costumes, as well as dressing up as the border wall with the MAGA slogan on it. I don’t have much hope under this administration, but it seems like a federal civil rights violation took place here.
A pediatrician in California rails against bogus vaccine exemption letters written by doctors who rely on genetic quackery. There is no such thing as a genetic predisposition to vaccine injury. Doctors who claim they have found these cases in children are merely profiteering and should lose their licenses to practice medicine.
The Daily Beast writes that vaccine denial is now a Republican epidemic. Voting for science increasingly means voting Democrat./
ThinkProgress talked to experts who explained that the claims about Bitcoin’s future energy consumption are bogus.
Ethiopia now has a female President, its first in the country’s history. The position is ceremonial, but she is still the sole female head of state in Africa right now, and her selection is more evidence that Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who set up a cabinet where half the posts were filled by women, is a great progressive hope for a country that has lived under tyrants since World War II.
The President sputtered out a false claim that he could revoke birthright citizenship by … I don’t know, tweeting about it, which is ironic since his Florida property does big business with Russians who want to give birth on U.S. soil to secure American citizenship.
Haaretz details Trump’s lengthy history of using anti-Semitic rhetoric and tropes to stir up his base, and how that contributed to last weekend’s massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue.
Jewish leaders there told Trump he wasn’t welcome in their city until he disavowed white nationalism. He showed up anyway, and of course has blamed the deaths of eleven Jews in the shooting on the lack of armed guards at the temple.
The Atlantic‘s Adam Serwer points out that the inane story of the migrant caravan contributed to the shooting, part of yet another bullshit campaign from the GOP (“but her emails”), this time with anti-Semitic underpinning and violent consequences. As Serwer points out, this caravan is a threat to exactly nobody, and is still weeks away from reaching our border – if it even gets that far.
One other reason the caravan story is codswallop? There aren’t enough people in Central America to matter to U.S. immigration numbers.
Indiana Law Professor Ian Samuel writes in the Guardian that Republicans are close to an invincible grip on power, even as a clear minority party, thanks to vote-rigging, voter suppression, and some favorable SCOTUS rulings. The money quote: “For the first time, a president who lost the popular vote had a supreme court nominee confirmed by senators who received fewer votes – nearly 22 million fewer – than the senators that voted against him.”
Need another reason to vote blue on Tuesday? Global warming is more advanced than we thought, as the oceans have absorbed far more heat than we realized. The oceans absorb that heat, and carbon dioxide, and become more acidic, which leads to the deaths of coral reefs, and that in turn ripples up the food chain and threatens human diets.
The Arizona Board of Education rejected outgoing Superintendent Diane Douglas’ plan to push creationism in public schools, which was just going to lose in court anyway, but what a waste of everyone’s time.
Proof that evolution is real is right before us in antibiotic resistance, which British Chief Medical Officer Dame Sally Davies said last week threatens to take us back to the dark ages.
In a bit of good news, residents of Southampton, England, formed a human chain to help a small community book store relocate, with 250 volunteers passing the 2000 books person to person from the old location to the new one.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: anti-semitism, arizona, arkansas, biology, bookstores, climate change, evolution, frauds, idaho, links, longreads, physics, racism, science, social media, stick to baseball, the swamp, tv, vaccines

→ November 3, 2018
→ By keith

A Star Is Born.

The latest iteration of A Star Is Born, the third remake in the 81 years since the original premiered, manages to craft a clever, well-executed film beneath its enormous budget and the star power of the two leads. It dispenses with much of the schlock and sentiment of most mass-market dramas – and of the original film – but keeps the essential framework of the story, layering it with humor and well thought-out dialogue. For about two hours, it might be the best movie of the year, although the failure to set up the film’s climactic moment detracts from much of what came before.

Bradley Cooper co-wrote the new script and directed the film while also starring as a roots-rock artist Jackson Mayne, who is selling out stadiums and can’t go in public without people trying to surreptitiously take his picture. He’s also an alcoholic and drug addict, which we see in the opening scenes of the film, and which leads him to stop in a bar somewhere outside New York City – a drag bar where their former waitress Ally, played by Lady Gaga, sings every Friday night. She performs “La Vie en Rose,” and Mayne is utterly smitten by her voice, her personality, and her looks. She confesses to him that she wants to be a singer but she’s been told by every record executive that she’s not attractive enough to be a commercially successful artist. Of course, if you know the story at all, you know that he disagrees, takes her under his wing, and turns her into a star, all while the two have a fairy-tale sort of romance that can’t possibly last given his self-destructive tendencies.

The story has been told before, although the original script, co-written by Dorothy Parker, revolved around a young actress discovered while working as a waitress at a Hollywood studio party by a famous actor already on the decline due to his drinking. The new version of A Star Is Born works hard to provide complexity to both of its main characters, including an extensive back story to Mayne to try to explain why he continues to abuse a panoply of substances; the story’s focus on those two characters to the almost total exclusion of anyone else makes it an unusually dense, smart script for a major studio release, and gives the two leads tremendous material for performances that both seem like locks for Oscar nominations.

Cooper has more to work with here, as he’s the primary character, has that more detailed character history, and has written in much more complexity to Jackson than he gave Ally. But Lady Gaga’s performance was even more revelatory, both because she has virtually no acting experience in film and very little in TV, and because she conveys so much of her character’s emotional vulnerability beyond reciting dialogue. If they gave out awards for the best use of an actor’s hands to show you a character’s emotional state, she’d be the overwhelming favorite. The two together have undeniable, immediate chemistry, and the story just of the first night they met is a perfect meet-cute anecdote that, of course, can’t last in the long term. (My only quibble with Lady Gaga is that she’s too pretty for the whole “you’re not pretty enough to be a rock star” gambit.)

For two hours, this machine hits cruise control and rolls along at 70 mph without so much as hitting a pebble in the road. The pacing is remarkably smooth, the dialogue smart and believable, and the inverse paths of the two characters’ careers handled intelligently and credibly. But the ending to this movie, which is very similar to those of previous versions, is rushed to the point that the last big plot event isn’t earned by the story that comes before it. That kind of plot device, even borrowed, needs more justification than it received here, and the way it’s written trivializes the choice that character makes. The script spends more time on the mechanics leading up to that moment – the practical steps the character takes – than on his emotional state and explaining how he came to such a drastic decision.

I’m going to predict, even though it’s early in the season, that A Star Is Born ends up with the most Oscar nominations, with at least nine, including Best Picture Director, Actor, Actress, Song, Cinematography, and some sound awards, while Sam Elliott could grab a nod for Best Supporting Actor in a small but pivotal role as Jackson’s brother and a critical member of his touring team. The concert scenes are incredibly well staged and shot, giving you a sense of the grandeur (and, to me, the anxiety potential) of performing in front of ten or twenty thousand people, yet much of the movie is filmed close – you are often right there with the characters, even when they’re talking to each other, in a way that works to heighten the intensity of arguments and breakdowns throughout the story. The sound in those concert scenes is superb as well, along with the way the film uses sound to bring the recurring bouts of tinnitus that Mayne experiences home to the viewer. It’s not the best film of the year, but it might be the biggest winner come awards season.

–

I’m going to reveal the big climactic event in the movie, since it’s worth a separate discussion. It is slightly different from the analogous moment in the three previous iterations of the movie, although in all four U.S. versions of this movie, the Mayne character dies, twice by drowning himself in the ocean, and this time by his own hand but via another method. I understand that in the real world, people do commit suicide for what might seem to an outsider a totally insufficient reason, and they also commit suicide with little to no warning. I’m holding this movie, and others, to a somewhat higher standard: If you’re going to have a character do this, I need to buy it. This time, I didn’t.

In the 1934 original, Norman Mayne’s decision to drown himself comes after a steep decline that was already underway at the start of the film. He’s a successful actor but a known drunk, he’s sozzled when he meets his ingenue Esther, and his career fortunes drop consistently throughout the film, until, near, the end, he’s a has-been and a public laughingstock. When he realizes that he’s destroying Esther’s career, he decides to take his own life. It’s not ‘right,’ of course, but the script spends more than enough time explaining how Norman got to that point.

The new version really doesn’t do that, and I think at least some of the problem comes in the writers’ choices to focus more on Ally’s rise than on Jackson’s fall. Ally gets a lot of screen time after Jackson has made her a star, including a new if unfinished arc about her choice to pursue a more commercial direction than Jackson intended for her career, one where she might be sacrificing some of her artistic integrity to sell more records. The cost of that additional story is that we get less detail to Jackson’s slide; there’s one enormous scene where he embarrasses her at the Grammy Awards (just as Norman Mayne did to Esther at the Oscars), but what follows from there doesn’t really lead to suicide. It’s the point where the film just stops being a great story and starts to rush to connect the remaining dots, so that the last 15-20 minutes don’t live up to everything that’s come before – and it all does so in a way that makes suicide seem like an entirely impetuous, selfish act, instead of the desperate decision of someone suffering from mental illness or great physical pain.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2018 best actor nominees, 2018 best picture nominees, 2018 movies, movies, musicals, remakes

→ October 31, 2018
→ By keith

Music update, October 2018.

Huge month for new tracks – thirty strong this time around, ranging from indie rock to dance to metal to two tracks that are somewhere in the country/folk range. As always, if you can’t see the playlist below you can access the Spotify playlist here.

Joy Williams – Canary. The former member of the Civil Wars has a new album, Front Porch, due out early next year, with this the A-side of a new single (with “The Trouble With Wanting” the B-side), featuring a strong melody and her always amazing voice.

HAERTS – Fighter. Now a duo, HAERTS released their long-awaited second album, New Compassion, on October 5th to very little fanfare or attention, but it’s almost as good as their debut – the sound is similar but it doesn’t quite have the standout tracks of their self-titled first album.

Hatchie – Adored. One of two songs on this playlist from Adult Swim’s series of singles is the latest from Aussie singer-songwriter Hatchie, who continues to occupy this ethereal space that recalls early Lush and the Cranberries.

Radkey – Rock & Roll Homeschool. I’ve been waiting for this trio to put out another rocker like this since 2013’s “Cat and Mouse.” More of this, please.

Drenge – Autonomy. The title track from this duo’s new four-song EP that also features the song “Outside,” which appeared on my September playlist. I assume there’s another album coming soon, since their last came out in 2015.

The Struts – Fire (Part 1). A guilty pleasure of mine, although I recently told a friend I thought the Struts were just the Discount Arctic Monkeys. This is the best song on their latest album, which tends too much to the bombastic side of alternative pop for me.

Khruangbin – Maria También. If this sounds familiar, it’s the opening music to the Crimetown podcast series. Khruangbin avoid labels for their music but it’s definitely some sort of indie rock/funk with influences from various world music genres.

Port Noir – Old Fashioned. I don’t know what to make of this song, which veers a little close to rap-metal for me, but the chorus is tremendous and I love the dark tone of the music throughout the track.

Speedy Ortiz – DTMFA. The other Adult Swim single on this list is probably 95% of typical Speedy Ortiz but that’s still good enough for me.

Django Django – Sand Dunes. Django Django put out an album, Marble Skies, back in January, but they’ve since released a six-track EP of songs recorded before (or maybe during?) those sessions, including this mid-tempo track that really would have fit quite well on the longer album.

Ian Brown – First World Problems. New single from the Stone Roses’ lead singer, not his best but definitely featuring his typically snarky lyrics.

Ten Fé – Won’t Happen. The lead single from the soft-rock band’s upcoming sophomore album, Future Perfect, Present Tense (due out in March), is more of the same as their first album provided – and that’s good.

Swervedriver – Mary Winter. Swervedriver returned in 2015 with their first album in 17 years – the same hiatus that Ride and Slowdive took, in fact – but it was unremarkable without any strong hooks or remotely memorable songs. This new single has that certain something, and I think it’s their best song since the title track from their last pre-breakup album 99th Dream.

The London Suede – As One. I didn’t love The Blue Hour, their latest album, because it was overrun with dirge-like tracks, but this wildly dramatic song is one of the few standouts for me.

Maisie Peters – Details. I have no idea why this 18-year-old British singer/songwriter hasn’t become a global star. Her voice is adorable, her lyrics clever, her melodies catchy.

Keuning – Restless Legs. That’s Dave Keuning, founding guitarist of the Killers, with his first solo track. He’s announced his first solo album, Prismism, will come out next year.

Arkells – Hand Me Downs. Arkells, like the Struts, are a bit too pop-oriented for me overall but occasionally hit enough of a melodic high point for me to overlook the commercial production. “Relentless” is the best track on the new album; this would be my second-favorite.

The Beths – You Wouldn’t Like Me. New Zealand quartet The Beths dropped their first full-length album, Future Me Hates Me, in August, featuring this very ’90s punk-inflected power pop single.

Christine and the Queens – 5 dollars. The French singer/songwriter Héloïse Letissier has received universal praise for her latest album, Chris, which is certainly one of the smartest and most inventive pop records of the year. If there’s a US hit single to be had here, this is it.

White Lies – Believe It. Much better than anything off White Lies’ last album, comparable to my favorite track from them, 2013’s “There Goes Our Love Again.”

Hinds – British Mind. I’ll include anything this Spanish quartet releases, obviously. I don’t think any band sounds like they’re having as much fun as these four women do.

Allie X – Little Things. Allie X had posted an older song called “Sculpture,” which was on this playlist earlier in the month but has since disappeared from Spotify and isn’t on the EP she just released last week, Super Sunset. That does include this track; “Science,” one of my favorite songs from the summer, and the solid “Girl of the Year,” which I just find a little hard to listen to because of the chorus.

Longwave – Stay With Me. I was totally unfamiliar with Longwave, who put out four albums between 1999 and 2008, until hearing this song, which appears to be their first new single since they reunited, but this song has a great ’80s new wave vibe at its core, like the best work of White Lies.

TVAM – Porsche Majeure. TVAM’s album Psychic Data is probably going to end up on my top albums of the year list, featuring multiple strong mostly-instrumental tracks like this one, with Joe Oxley creating swirling electronic hooks that evoke all manner of emotions – this track feels especially menacing to me.

Greta Van Fleet – Lover, Leaver. Everyone compares Greta Van Fleet to Led Zeppelin, but I think the better comp is Kingdom Come – it’s derivative rather than paying homage, still occasionally catchy or interesting enough to merit further listens (as on this song or “When the Curtain Falls”), but on the whole it’s nothing we haven’t heard a hundred times before.

Cloud Nothings – Another Way Of Life. I’d grown a bit tired of Cloud Nothings’ sound, which never seemed to evolve, but this closer to the band’s short new album (35 minutes, with one track accounting for almost a third of that) seems to point to at least some small change in their style.

Toundra – Cobra. Instrumental, progressive metal from Madrid, musically similar to early Opeth but without vocals.

Haken – Puzzle Box. I’ve known of Haken for years but never put them on a playlist before this track, which I think gives us the prog metal band’s strongest melody to date.

High On Fire – Spewn From The Earth. You kind of know what to expect from High on Fire at this point, I think.

Behemoth – Bartzabel. I’ve always thought of Behemoth as a bit of a joke – the music was fine, but they so thoroughly covered themselves in the juvenile trappings of black metal that they verged on self-parody … but I have to admit this song is quite good if you can get past the death growls.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2018 music, alternative, country music, death metal, electronic music, indie, metal, Music, progressive metal

→ October 31, 2018
→ By keith

Klawchat 10/31/18.

Keith Law: Every time just like the last. Klawchat.

Dean: Mr. President, everyone in this room is now dumber from having listened to you. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
Keith Law: Just going to suggest that one way to stop a President who thinks he can change the Constitution on a whim is to vote for the opposition party on Tuesday.

DaveAlden53: How is Jahmai Jones doing at second base? Is his bat a better fit for that position?
Keith Law: He was fine there when I saw him in the AFL but never sufficiently challenged. The bat would obviously play better there than in LF/RF, since he wasn’t going to play center in that organization.

DaveAlden53: The Brewers added Tyrone Taylor to their 40-man roster. Can he play a role with the big club in 2019?
Keith Law: Extra outfielder? He really hasn’t performed – a .321 OBP in Colorado Springs as a 24-year-old is not going to cut it.

Tom: Let’s say it was physically and financially possible to change all ballparks so that they played identically to each other. Would you be in favor of doing this?
Keith Law: No, I love the fact that we have unique playing fields & dimensions – it sets us apart from other sports.

JT: You’ve long been an advocate of going to an experienced manager while still being a fresh face with new ideas: are you happy with the Blue Jays’ selection of Montoya?
Keith Law: Absolutely – heard nothing but great things from his colleagues in Tampa Bay and he has a great resume.

Hal: What candy are you handing out for Halloween?
Keith Law: Nothing special – we just get some generic mixed stuff from Target, definitely Reese’s cups in there, because I will eat the leftovers. I didn’t dress up this year for the first time in a while because my daughter is just generally less into the holiday this year.

Andy: Serious question, if the Mets decide to trade DeGrom or Syndergaard to jumpstart a rebuild, would the new GM sign off on it?
Hal: Kimbrel looked vulnerable at times during the playoffs and during the season his Ks were down and BB way up. If you were Boston would you let him walk? What would you offer him?
Keith Law: I would let Kimbrel walk, yes.
Keith Law: Mets GM: who knows – anything involving those guys feels like a conflict of interest. If you’re another GM and BVW calls to offer to trade you one of those guys, don’t you wonder if he has information on them that you don’t have that might discourage you from accepting any offer?

Wally: Initial thoughts on the Trevor Rosenthal signing ?
Keith Law: I can’t offer thoughts on a deal without any contract terms.

Andy: What is pache’s future value in your eyes?
Keith Law: He’s at least 10+ runs a year in centerfielder, maybe 15-20, with plus raw power and, at the moment, a low OBP. That still makes him an above-average regular, but the ceiling is limited by the lack of patience at the plate, and he did seem occasionally overmatched at the plate in the AFL.

Ozzie’s helmet: Is there a way to prevent that Ozzie Albies becomes Rougned Odor?
Keith Law: Sure, but he has to be a part of that process too.

Jordan: Do you think the Mets have the pieces to go after JT Realmuto this winter? And if they do, what would they have to offer for the Marlins to seriously consider accepting the deal?
Keith Law: I think other teams would be able to top the Mets’ best offer – but I also think it would be a terrible idea for the Mets to trade prospects for Realmuto.

Joules: How reluctant do you think the Marlins would be to move JTR within the division?
Keith Law: The correct answer would be “zero.” That mentality is stupid, and outdated, and hurts no one but your own team.

Brian: There has been a lot of glowing post-season wrap up stuff on Spencer Howard. What have you heard about him?
Keith Law: I’ve seen him. Lot of average stuff. Was way too old/experienced for low-A this year.

HOTLANTA: Do you think an offer of Pache, Gohara, and Allard would be enough to land Realmuto?
Keith Law: Probably, if Anthopoulos has lost his damn mind.

Jordan: Obviously we need to see results before seriously judging, but what are your thoughts on the Mets hiring Van Wagenen as their new GM?
Keith Law: I said this yesterday on the BBTN podcast: I know BVW a little, but not enough to know what kind of GM he will be, but I will say that the Mets’ process here has been a farce. The owner’s son hired his buddy, and it’s a guy with zero experience anywhere in a front office – never scouted, never worked in player development, never worked in analytics, never worked as an AGM under in that area working on contracts. I literally have more relevant experience than BVW does, and I do not believe I am qualified to jump in and be a GM. Yet they chose him over one of the best and most qualified GM candidates in the game, Chaim Bloom; and they covered their bases by interviewing two persons of color, one a woman, and then booting them both after the first round. Sometimes a flawed process produces a good result, but that doesn’t absolve the owners here for the flaws.

Fish: Is the Orioles’ hiring of a President/GM going to be a circus again, or is there any indication that there’s been a positive change there?
Keith Law: Nobody knows what’s going on. I generally don’t chase those rumors anyway, but I’m surprised I’ve heard basically nothing on Baltimore.

Zihuatanejo: From a talent/development standpoint, are either of Smith or Ruiz ready to suit up for the Dodgers in 2018?
Keith Law: Smith probably is. Ruiz is not.

Adam Trask: Your brand is built in part on letting people into to your personal life and political views. Why would you react negatively when a follower asks what you’re doing in the offseason or about your eating habits?
Keith Law: I wouldn’t. I think you totally missed the joke.

David: Since the Padres forced him out of position by signing Hosmer, trading Myers seems logical—but how much of his contract would they have to eat to do so (and get something useful back in return)?
Keith Law: He’s not a $20 million/year player, which is what he’s getting paid in 2020-22; he might be worth 60% of that, even if he’s returned to first base (he’s a better fielder there, but the positional value is also lower). So that’s my very rough, outside guess – they’d probably have to offer to pay 1/3 to 2/5 of it.

TP: Favorite MLB and MiLB cities for food?
Keith Law: Woof, that’s a long list for MLB. For the minors, though, Nashville is the obvious standout. Louisville is also pretty close; Raleigh-Durham, if we count that as one destination, is up there. I haven’t spent enough time in Austin but its reputation would put it in the same class.

Nick: Do you really see the Yankees staying out of the Harper/Machado sweepstakes?
Keith Law: No.

Mike: Have you seen Nate Pearson since he returned? Any thoughts on him?
Keith Law: Yes, please see my second AFL post for a full report.

Jeff D.: Should the Dodgers be VERY worried about the investigation into their Cuban signees and the laws that may have been broken? MLB penalties, actual DOJ penalties or arrests?
Keith Law: Better question for a lawyer. I’m not qualified to answer and haven’t even asked anyone in the game about the story (why would they tell me anything?).

CJC: Why wouldn’t the Yankees just play Gleyber at short next year while Didi rehabs? Who would you have play 2nd?
Keith Law: That is exactly what I would do. Gleyber can play short. You can find a second baseman to fill in for a bit. Maybe it’s Tyler Wade.

Stephen: What would a fair extension look like for the Dodgers and Kershaw, given what he means to the franchise, their place on the marginal win curve, and his declining velocity? Add two years and 70mm to current deal? Or is that just too high even for them?
Keith Law: Oh god no – that’s WAY too much. He’s not a $30 million a year guy any more.

Mike: It seems like teams are getting better and better at scouting amateur players. Is it still necessary to have as many levels in the minor leagues as we currently do?
Keith Law: I don’t see the connection there – we need the lower levels for the raw high school kids and Latin American free agents who sign as teenagers.

Ian: Any thoughts on what the Rockies should do in 2019? Go all in, trade Arenado, or muddle through with strange choices and over the hill vets (clearly the likely outcome)
Keith Law: They can compete again for sure, but would need to make some hard internal decisions (like accepting that playing Desmond hurts the club, or that paying for relievers isn’t working). I think they’re a potential playoff team as currently constructed, helped by Arizona likely taking a step back and the Giants almost certainly starting to rebuild.

Pat: Carter Kieboom ready to be opening day roster for Nats?
Keith Law: No.

Jesse B: If you had to guess, educated of course, which of these three will have the best pro career, Lucius Fox, Jazz Chisholm, and Andres Gimenez?
Keith Law: Ranked best to worst: Chisholm, Fox, Gimenez.

Bort: Thoughts on Mejia for next season? Does he get 400 at bats?
Keith Law: He should play a full season – there is no good reason why he wouldn’t.

Mac: Do you think Spencer Adams has a legit shot to earn a spot in the White Sox rotation out of spring training?
Keith Law: No, nor should he. He has marginal stuff and struck out only 11% of batters he faced in AAA.

Nate: Does Hudson have a shot at making the Cardinals rotation, or is he destined to be a career reliever?
Keith Law: I think reliever is most likely the outcome for him, but they could certainly try him again as a starter.

Kyle: After AFL is over, do you pay any attention to the other winter leagues (Mexico, ABL, etc)? Is there a MiLB level that those leagues are equivalent to?
Keith Law: There isn’t, not for AFL either, because the range of player calibers top to bottom is much wider in those offseason leagues than it is in a typical minor league. I don’t really pay attention to the winter leagues after the AFL but will occasionally get scouting reports on players who looked substantially different there.

Logan: Will Kolby Allard improve enough from a command and secondaries standpoint to actually be a 4th/5th starter on a solid team?
Keith Law: He is a 5th starter for me now. He’d need more velocity or life on the fastball to be much more than that.

Nate: Know it’s early, but what kind of upside does Jenista possess?
Keith Law: I don’t see what position he can play for an NL team. He might be an everyday DH, but that’s not an option with Atlanta.

Gabe: You don’t think Kimbrel will get the QO? Seems to make sense to keep the team together one more year while they still have Sale and before J.D. can opt out.
Keith Law: They might offer it, but I wouldn’t. The trend lines on him are largely pointing down and the history of one-inning relievers is that their peaks are short and end abruptly.

Chester: Are Happ, Contreras, Schwarber all flops?
Keith Law: No. You could wait a minute.

Radiohix: Did you get a look at Darwinson Hernandez? what do we got here?
Keith Law: He’s also in the AFL post to which I linked earlier.

Rich: Starting to play light strategy board games with my young son. Did your daughter’s logic, critical thinking, or general math ability improve by playing those types of games?
Keith Law: Who knows? She enjoyed them, I enjoyed playing with her, and it didn’t involve staring at a screen. That’s a win for me.

Mac: What’s your take on the launch angle revolution? Do you think it’s here to stay or do you think baseball will revert back to: little guys put the ball in play and big guys swing for the fences?
Keith Law: It’s here to stay at least in part, but haven’t we always known that guys with flatter swings produced less power, and guys who swing too far uphill tended to swing and miss too much and also fail to produce the power they might physically possess? Now we just have the data to fine-tune it. The one thing I think might change is that we might see teams like the Dodgers become more discriminating in whose swings they alter – that there are just some players who become worse off by trying to optimize their launch angles for power because they become sufficiently worse hitters for contact.

Larry: Is Peter Alonso’s defense now passable like Ricciardi says?
Keith Law: It was bad in the AFL. His hands are fine, but he’s pretty big and not agile. His bat would play well at DH, but again, not an option.

Junior: Are you impressed with what Billy Eppler has done with the organization?
Keith Law: Yes, overall I think he’s done a great job to date, especially with the mandate to try to win now.

Ben: Why would the Mets hire a GM with no front-office experience?
Keith Law: Because Jeff liked him.

Joe: Interesting that each side thinks that it’s ok to change the constitution for one thing but not for the other when it comes to gun control/immigration. The argument on each side is even the same – that it was not the framers intent when they originally passed the law. I would prefer they follow the constitution in both ways. Both sides are arguing out of both sides of their mouth.
Keith Law: Well, I guess talking out of both sides of your mouth is better than talking out of your ass, Joe.

Eric: who do you think has a better career, Touki Toussaint or Shane Bieber and why?
Keith Law: Give me Touki. Better stuff, better athlete, still a year younger too.

Drake: How much of an improvement do you think we see in Devers next year?
Keith Law: I believe he will end up a star. That might be 2019, it might be 2020, but I firmly believe it’s coming.

Tony: Is Yu Chang anything other than a spare infielder? Or, put differently, in an organization other than Cleveland could he be a starter?
Keith Law: Maybe a starter in some orgs. I think he’s kind of a fringe regular.

Clayton: Kershaw’s less than stellar performance in the post season is mostly just SSS noise, right?
Keith Law: That is just noise, and better competition. What is not noise is a full year of pitching at 90-91 with less power to the slider too.

Justin: Did you get a look at Andy Young (STL) when you were at the AZ Fall League? Does he have a future as a big league UTIL guy?
Keith Law: I did and yes, if not a little more.

Chris Verdugo : Do you think the era of Donald Trump is going to motivate future Americans to become more aware and concerned about politics in general, and if so do you think the Republicans are just waiting for their demise as voters become younger and younger and side with more progressive policies?
Keith Law: I think it has alerted more people, probably on both sides if not in equal numbers, to the importance of getting involved and voting.

Patrick: Thanks again for the chats, Keith!
Do you ever read/review your daughter’s reading choices? As my son gets older, I struggle with how much to direct (approve?) his choices.
Keith Law: Yes, I do, but she also has yet to ask to read something I wouldn’t approve.

Tom: Have you read Salt Fat Acid Heat or seen the Netflix show? If so, what do you think of them?
Keith Law: I own the book but haven’t read it yet.

Patrick: Keith, your thoughts on Fox WS announcers? Would viewers be better served by PBP person that regularly works games?
Keith Law: I muted them the whole way through.

Andrew: In 2010 my friends and I went to Pitt for a Mets/pirates series. One game was rained out early and we walked around downtown Pitt. A woman saw us in Mets gear and struck up a conversation. She was from LI too and invited us to Squirrel Hill pray at a synagogue. We said we weren’t Jewish and she said it didn’t matter we were welcome anyway. I’ve always remembered the exchange and how kind and welcoming the woman was. I am really at a loss as to what happened this weekend
Keith Law: I am too. I am not Jewish, but lived very near that synagogue and interacted very often with members of the Jewish community in Squirrel Hill for two years, and never felt anything less than welcome even though I was an interloper twice over (I was a grad student, and obviously not a permanent Pittsburgh resident). The normalization of white nationalism the last three years has encouraged domestic terrorists.

Rich: I don’t know whether Kim Ng would be a good GM or not. I hope she gets a GM job sometime soon and thrives. Do you think teams interview her as a token candidate with no intention of hiring her? Seems like she has interviewed countless times and never gotten serious consideration.
Keith Law: I believe she has been used repeatedly to satisfy MLB’s unwritten Rooney rule.

Hyce Brarper: A Marlins beat writer claimed the price for JT hasn’t gone down, would still insist on Acuña. He has to be kidding, right?
Keith Law: He may not have been kidding but that ain’t happening.
Keith Law: Also, the price for any player goes down as he approaches free agency. Take an econ class, dude.

Jake: Have you seen Brusdar Graterol in person? Ace potential?
Keith Law: I have not. I’ve talked to multiple scouts about him, and the consensus was more high-end closer potential than starter potential, at least right now.

Jake: Kohl Stewart hasn’t seemed to live up to his potential so far, but his ground ball rate kept him around the majors… Do you think he ever develops further into a quality starter?
Keith Law: I don’t think so, unfortunately. I was way too high on him as an amateur/young prospect. His stuff regressed.

Patrick: If Burnes and Woodruff make Brewers rotation, do you see Counsell/Stearns letting them throw deeper into games than this year’s crop of starters? I guess I’m asking, “bullpenning” conditional on starters, or do you think an ongoing team philosophy?
Keith Law: I believe their bullpenning plan, like Tampa’s, revolved around the actual personnel on the pitching staff.

Bailey: How come you don’t care about all the food that is wasted on Top Chef?
Keith Law: Begging the question. And this has come up before: the food is not wasted.

CJC: Thoughts on Corbin at $20mm per year?
Keith Law: Sign me up for that.

Lilith: Really random question, but could you ever see a team installing a differently colored field like Boise State does in college football? Would it be breaking any rules? … I mean, Loria had to have thought of it, right?
Keith Law: I actually don’t know if there’s a rule against it, but I bet MLB would step in very quickly to quash it.

ScottyD in Downingtown: Is June 2020 a reasonable ETA for Brendan McKay to arrive in Tampa?
Keith Law: He’s ready to pitch in the majors now. That’s a long time to hold him down.

Nate: Any chance the Yankees non-tender Didi?
Keith Law: I would say no chance.

Andy: Have you ever gotten into symphonic metal, like Nightwish? It’s much less guitar driven than black metal, but better vocals, while still being instrumentally interesting.
Keith Law: Not them specifically but I pretty much like any kind of progressive or experimental metal if it’s focused on musicianship rather than speed or merely being ‘heavy.’

Kevin : Season’s over. Lets talk HoF. I know he is no longer eligible, but if he was would you vote Dwight Evans into Cooperstown?
Keith Law: Yes, I would.

Aaron G: In response to Joe re: gun laws. It says “well regulated militia” right in the text. Literal interpretation: go join a militia (currently similar to the National Guard) if you want to own a damned weapon of war.
Keith Law: Also, I haven’t heard anyone who matters suggesting that, say, the President could unilaterally revoke the Second Amendment. I’d like to see fairly strict laws on who can own guns, but I would stand between any President and an attempt to rewrite part the Constitution without going through the actual process for amending it.

Garrett: AA has already tried to pump the brakes on expectations that the Braves are going to spend big, but I look at that as just talk. But given how their farm system is balanced at the moment, aren’t they the ideal team to go for Harper? Teams are never 1 player away, but this signing would be as close too that scenario as I could imagine.
Keith Law: Do you think Liberty would authorize him to spend big like that? I rather doubt that myself. I think he’ll be allowed to make big moves, but I can’t imagine he gets to spend like that on one player.

Ira: What is your solution for illegal immigration and how to deal with current illegal residents?
Keith Law: “Solution” implies a problem. Immigration is a net positive for economies; we want immigrants to come here to contribute to our economy as workers and consumers, and should create paths for them to do so in ways that encourage them to come and work as soon as they arrive. The idea that immigration is itself a problem is both deeply ignorant of the history of our country, including our economic and cultural dependence on immigrants, and a longstanding method of creating a common enemy to use fear to drive the shrinking white majority in the country to the polls. The Hidden Brain has recently had two excellent podcasts on this topic within the last three weeks.

Brent : Did you get a chance to see CWS’s Burdi in the AFL? Any insight to how he’s look after TJ? Thanks.
Keith Law: I did not but Eric Longenhagen did and said he looked like he did pre-TJ (which is good).

Jennyfer: Nobody serious on the left is calling for the 2nd amendment to be thrown out. We’re calling for common sense restrictions. The nut in Pittsburgh was a “good guy with a gun” until he wasn’t because he did everything legally.
Keith Law: That’s been under-reported, too – the weapons he used were all purchased legally.

donn: thoughts on smoltz in the booth? Looks like we have a huge issue in sports these days with older commentators complaining nonstop about the way basketball/baseball are these days and how the game isn’t the same as it was 20/30/40 years ago. Smoltz, wilbon, and many others spend all their time complaining rather then adjusting and embracing. It becomes very annoying to listen to. Is there a solution?
Keith Law: The solution is to put different people in the booth – and you know what? sometimes that means a booth with no former MLB players in it. It can be a bonus, but it shouldn’t be a requirement.

Jay: Will Durbin Feltman be in the majors for most of ’19?
Keith Law: I think that has to be the plan; you don’t draft a college reliever that high unless you think he’s close to MLB ready.

Zihuatanejo: I’m sure you’ve already answered this question this season, but — what kind of prospect (if any) was Max Muncy prior to this year? Was this kind of breakout foreseeable at all?
Keith Law: No, it wasn’t. He didn’t have game power because his swing didn’t create it. Unless you knew he’d changed his swing and that it would be this effective, I don’t see how you could have distinguished him from a few dozen other low-power corner bats like him.

Adam: Is Tatis one of those players that will be called up 2 weeks after the season starts or due to his recent injury do you see him debuting later in the season, say September call up range?
Keith Law: I’m guessing he comes up more in June or so. He did miss a lot of at bats.

JT: Will any of Dalton Pompey, Devon Travis, or Anthony Alford ever establish themselves as a solid regular?
Keith Law: At this point I would say Alford might, the others probably won’t. Alford hasn’t lived up to my expectations for him but I hold out some hope because he is so inexperienced for his age.

RSO: Did you happen to see Brodie Van Wagenen’s interview with Mike Francesa? It was cringe worthy.
Keith Law: I only saw the Metsmerized summary. I was glad to see him say that the Mets have drafted well, which they have, although I don’t know if he mentioned that those three college arms he liked were all CAA clients (all good picks anyway … CAA reps a lot of very good prospects in every draft).
Keith Law: Again, my criticisms are not directed at BVW. He’s a bit of a blank to all of us on the outside. It’s the process that leads to his hiring over obviously qualified candidates from within the industry that I am criticizing.

Mike: The Yankees probably don’t bring back Robertson or britton. Who do you see them targeting for bullpen help?
Keith Law: Why not bring one or both back?

J: This somewhat anticipates top 100 and team rankings, but I’m wondering where you stand on Corey Ray and Lucas Erceg now, and if either has any 2019 MLB legs.
Keith Law: As much as I like Corey Ray, I have a hard time believing the 2018 power spike is meaningful when 1) scouts kept telling me he was selling out for that power and 2) he still punched out 30% of the time. There is still some hope for him and Erceg (who also had back trouble in March and then got hit in the helmet by a pitch in April), but neither has developed anywhere near as I expected. I think this has generally been an issue with Milwaukee – their best hitting prospects have stalled or regressed. Trent Grisham looked like a non-prospect to me in the AFL.

Beau: Do you think Austin Allen can be a starting MLB catcher?
Keith Law: I do not. Solid backup.

Craig: If the A’s sign Lowrie, as Rosenthal said they want to, what could Barreto fetch in a trade?
Keith Law: Barreto’s value is at an all-time low, I think.

Jacob Wohl: I’m in trouble am I not?
Keith Law: It sure looks that way. Given the hate and misinformation you’ve spewed, I’m okay with that.

Frank: Any chance the Cubs try to trade for Whit Merrifield and play Baez at SS fule time?
Keith Law: If I’m a Cubs fan that is the last thing I want them to do (the trade part – I’m good with putting Baez at SS full time). Pick up Hamels’ option, re-sign Chavez, and go hard for Machado or Harper.

Mike: I’m 40 yrs old, and thinking of learning guitar. Is it a long road to learn ?
Keith Law: I started when I was a little kid, then picked it up more seriously when I was 13. Not sure what would be involved to learn it now – but you should do it anyway. It’s fun, and it’s very good for your brain to learn a new skill like that.
Keith Law: Also, chicks dig it.

Eric: Just wanted to say thanks for you not “sticking to baseball”.
Keith Law: You’re welcome. I don’t plan to stick to baseball now or ever again.
Keith Law: That’s all for this week’s chat but I do have a few notes before I skip out. My ranking of the top 50 free agents this winter will go up Friday, but I’ll be on a brief vacation to help my parents celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary, so I will be scarce on social media through Sunday. (That also likely means the stick to baseball post will be postponed.) The next chat will be Thursday, and I’ll probably do another Periscope chat next week too. Also, one addition to a question I was asked last week in chat and yesterday on the Periscope: Another movie I’m really looking forward to is The Favourite. I saw the trailer yesterday before A Star Is Born and I am all in.
Keith Law: Thanks as always for showing up and asking so many questions. Have a safe and fun Halloween!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: klawchat

→ October 30, 2018
→ By keith

Let the Sunshine In.

Let the Sunshine In (available to rent on amazon and iTunes) is a star turn for Juliette Binoche, a thinly plotted wisp of a movie that works entirely because of Binoche’s performance as a middle-aged woman looking for something in her love life but unable to find it – perhaps because she doesn’t know what it is she wants. It’s a sort of cringe comedy for adults, full of awkward interactions in and out of the bedroom, punctuated by emotional scenes of Binoche lamenting her unhappiness and questioning the decisions she’s made, while she’s surrounded by some generally awful men.

Binoche plays Isabelle, an artist and single mother who, at the start of the movie, is experiencing but definitely not enjoying sex with a rather unattractive banker named Vincent, who quickly reveals himself to be something of a pig – and is also quite married and full of himself. Isabelle says she’s in love with him, although her actions would imply otherwise. Between watching Vincent treating a bartender like he’s something less than human and hearing Vincent say he will never leave his wife, Isabelle decides to break it off and venture out on her own, which leads to a couple of doomed affairs with brooding artist types and a lot of conversations about her misadventures and melancholy.

It’s unfair to say nothing happens in Let the Sunshine In (the actual title of which, Un Beau Soleil Intérieur, is better translated as “a beautiful sun within”), but what does happen is usually inconsequential. Isabelle seems unable to distinguish physical intimacy from genuine emotional affection, a confusion of which men around here seem more than happy to take advantage – I was reminded of the opening couplet from the Shelter song “Here We Go,” about a guy using love for sex while the girl is using sex for love. Nearly all of the men Isabelle encounters are creeps of varying levels of aggressiveness, and when the one possible ‘nice guy’ in the film kisses her but doesn’t want to rush right into sex, she feels rejected. There’s no destination here, or even any real growth; the film ends with Isabelle’s visit to a psychic (and, obviously, a fraud) played by Gérard Depardieu, with his bad advice and her questions continuing through most of the closing credits.

With the wrong actress as Isabelle, this would have been unwatchable; even though there are a few sex scenes and a few other big moments, the script is powered entirely by dialogue, nearly all of which involves the main character. Binoche delivers an Oscar-caliber performance here, owning the screen every time she’s on it, conveying a mix of strength and vulnerability, the understanding that she’s still attractive (can confirm) but the awareness that she’s aging and that her ‘window’ to find that perfect mate might be closing. The character is locked in a sort of arrested development when it comes to romance, thinking of love and sex as a young adult might, even though Isabelle is somewhere in middle age (never specified, although Binoche was 52 when this was filmed). She still dresses young, and that sex-for-love confusion dictates nearly all of her behavior with men, exacerbated by the fact that pretty much all of the men in this movie are terrible to her.

But is there a point to all of this? It’s not quite #CancelMen territory, although all the men in this movie who get more than a few minutes on screen are either out to get laid or to find someone to mother them (or, in at least one case, both). Isabelle herself has plenty of points in the film that could cause her to reevaluate her decisions in dating, yet she continues forward on the same path, so she just repeats her mistakes, right down to the decision to go to a clairvoyant (whom we see is a phony in one of the few scenes that doesn’t include Binoche). I’d watch Binoche work in almost any movie, and Isabelle is a suitably three-dimensional character, just one deserving of a more complex story.

(Random trivia: Director Claire Denis’ first film was called Chocolat, but it’s not the same film as the Oscar-nominated film of that name that starred Binoche and earned the latter a Best Supporting Actress nod.)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2018 movies, french films, movies

→ October 29, 2018
→ By keith

Moth Smoke.

Mohsin Hamid came to my attention last winter due to the praise lavished on his most recent novel, Exit West, which was a finalist for the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, a book I enjoyed and appreciated on several levels. Shortly after I read it, I found a copy of his first novel, 2000’s Moth Smoke, on one of my prowls through used book stores; it’s not as weighty or immediately relevant as Exit West but still showcases his intelligent yet brisk prose as well as his strong sense of characterization.

Moth Smoke tells the story of Darashikoh, known as Daru, an intelligent but shiftless young Pakistani man whose academic promise was short-circuited by his family’s lack of money and status, leading him to a series of dead-end jobs – one of which he loses at the start of his narrative – and a life of drug addiction. The novel begins with a brief passage telling us that Daru is on trial for killing someone, a framing story that we’ll receive in dribs and drabs in interstitial passages between the chapters where Daru narrates his life story. His jealousy of his friend Aurangzeb, known as Ozi, eventually leads him to an affair with Ozi’s wife Mumtaz – all three of their names coming from the Mughal Empire, which covered most of modern-day India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan – with the expected tragic consequences, and some unexpected ones as well.

If Moth Smoke is unfocused at times, as is common in first novels, it’s a function of Hamid’s ambition to lampoon so many parts of Pakistani society of the time period: the feckless youth of wealthy and corrupt oligarchs, the amoral subculture of ‘entrepreneurs’ trying to make a living without the benefit of patrons in the government, the way electricity and gas are wielded as weapons to keep the poor in poverty, widespread drug use among those who might publicly preach the abstinence prescribed by their faith, and so on. Lurking in the background of the novel is the cold war between Pakistan and India, as the former tried to catch up to the latter in testing nuclear weapons, which the Pakistani government under Nawaz Sharif achieved in 1998. Hamid appears to be drawing a parallel between Daru, who is trying to keep up with his wealthier and more successful friend Ozi but only manages to sink himself deeper into trouble, and the country where he lives. Daru may achieve temporary victories, but it’s clear he’s going to end up with less money, in worse health, and without any morals he might have once possessed.

The real Dara Shikoh lived in the 1600s, the eldest son of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan and the Emperor’s second wife Mumtaz, and was heir to the throne until his younger brother Prince Muhiuddin killed him, later taking the name Aurangzeb when he became emperor. The characters Daru and Ozi in Moth Smoke aren’t brothers, but are close friends from childhood, Daru fatherless and boosted by Ozi’s father and other relatives, who drift apart when Ozi’s privilege takes him to school in the United States while Daru must remain home in Pakistan. When Ozi returns, with a new wife in tow and lucrative career waiting for him, a rivalry emerges between the two men because their fortunes have diverged so much in the interim. They’re the same age – just as the modern nations of India and Pakistan, achieving independence one day apart during Partition, are – and could be natural allies, but their relationship is instead marked by bitter and often petty rivalry. Hamid borrows other character names from this period in Pakistani history – Daru’s servant is named Manucci, the name of the Italian traveler and writer whose records provide much of what we know of that time period; Daru’s previous girlfriend, Nadira, shares her name with the real Dara Shikoh’s only wife, perhaps a way for Hamid to signal that his Daru has never gotten over the broken affair with Nadira – although some of this seems like mere allusion rather than metaphor.

The title of Moth Smoke appears during the story when Daru watches a moth dance around a flame and eventually dive into it, after which all that is left is smoke. He is, of course, the moth in the novel, aware on some level that he’s going to burn himself up but still unable to stop himself from taking the actions that will lead him there, which in turn seems to be an indictment of Pakistani culture and the country’s government, often run by its military, which pursued self-destructive policies like nuclear armament that provided the people with a temporary high but ultimately left the entire subcontinent worse off. It’s simplistic compared to Exit West, a book of indignation that works through a compelling story of self-destruction like Appointment in Samarra or any of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novels, and accessible even without knowledge of the history or contemporary state of Pakistan that underlies it.

Next up: Nearly done with Ben Rhodes’ The World As It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: debut novels, pakistani literature

→ October 27, 2018
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 10/27/18.

My most recent piece for ESPN+ subscribers wrapped up my Arizona Fall League stint, looking at 25 players from 13 organizations. I also had a free piece on ESPN with food, coffee, beer, and travel tips for Boston and Los Angeles leading into the World Series. I held a Klawchat on Thursday.

My latest board game review for Paste looks at Nyctophobia, a one-versus-many game where most players play with blackout glasses. Only the villain can see the board; everyone else must play by touch and by talking to their teammates.

If, like Dave Gahan, you just can’t get enough, you can sign up for my free email newsletter, with more of my writing, appearing whenever the muse moves me.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: This 2013 essay by Adam Cayton-Holland on his sister’s suicide, his own grief, and trying to heal was the best piece I read this week.
Dinosaurs took over the world thanks to a massive climate change event that ended the Triassic period; within that period came the Carnian Pluvial Episode, a smaller climate catastrophe that opened the door for dinosaurs to rule, likely caused the eruption of oceanic volcanoes that pushed carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and acidified the oceans … which should sound familiar.
GoodFundies looks at the history of media reports of the Wilpons’ meddling in baseball operations in a very, very long post that briefly mentions my comments on the Jeurys Familia trade fiasco. Shorter version: They’ve meddled so often, and so much to the team’s detriment, that you can see why so many candidates appear to have declined to interview.
In the wake of multiple revelations about Donald Trump’s businesses and his inheritance from his father, the New Yorker asks if fraud is simply embedded in Trump’s business model. It’s a feature, not a bug.
Why are some folks so threatened by transgender people? Because that threatens their beliefs that there are only two genders, while perhaps undermining the prejudiced person’s sense of self as a man or woman, according to some recent research on the subject.
The United States is withdrawing from the International Coffee Agreement, continuing this Administration’s policies of anti-globalization and protectionism, which will hurt American consumers and international coffee producers (including farmers who depend on export markets for their livelihoods).
The former Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions wrote a piece titled I Respected Scott Walker. Then I Worked for Him. in the Atlantic. It’s as damning as you’d expect: Walker pushed policies that would hurt middle and lower class Wisconsinites because he thought it would play well with the national party.
South Carolina is asking the Administration to allow ‘faith-based’ foster care agencies to discriminate against Jewish or other non-Christian parents who wish to foster children. This is theocracy in motion, in a state where more than 20% of residents identify as something other than Christian.
Alt-right trolls are very mad online over posters in New York City that are actually satirical street art, not official city posters. The artist in question, Winston Tseng, appears to have deleted his entire Internet presence in the last 48 hours – his Twitter account is gone, his Instagram is locked, his website has vanished.
Voting machines in Texas are changing some voters’ choices, either making their Senate choices blank or in some cases switching their vote from Beto O’Rourke (D) to Ted Cruz (R). The state agency overseeing the election has said it’s aware of the problem and is powerless to fix it.
ProPublica has reported on voter intimidation in Texas during early voting, such as “a partisan poll watcher looking over voter’s shoulders as they cast their ballots and questioning voters on their politics.” (That person was eventually removed from the property by police.) The ACLU has a guide on what to do if you face voter intimidation at the polls.
Meanwhile, in Georgia, Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp, the leader of the state’s attempt to subvert democracy, took off his hood this week when he said he was concerned about Georgians exercising their right to vote. In DeKalb County, nearly 5000 requests for absentee ballots were “lost” by county officials, according to a complaint by the local Democratic Party branch. Meanwhile, a local investigation found that Kemp owes over $800,000 in loans to a bank he helped create, but won’t answer any questions about the loans, such as the terms of the agreement.
Iowa Republican Steve King went full white nationalist in an interview with a far-right Austrian outlet, talking about his belief in the “Great Replacement,” where immigrants from Latin American and Asian countries will ‘replace’ white Americans (or Europeans) in their – “their” – home countries.
An Idaho-based white supremacist group is making racist robocalls to support Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis, whose opponent, Andrew Gillum (D), is African-American.
And then there’s North Dakota, which is working like hell to disenfranchise Native American voters, as New York Times reporter Maggie Astor explains in this unrolled Twitter thread.
There’s been a lot of news and opinion about vaccine deniers this week. Endocrinologist Lubna Mirza writes that fear and misinformation drive non-vaccinators, and says that spreading such nonsense is “irresponsible, to say the least.” In Texas, a Republican backed by anti-vaccine nuts is running for House District 114; she’s also dropped some racist dog-whistles along the way, so if you live there, vote for John Turner, her Democratic challenger. The Republican candidate for Governor in Connecticut was caught on video saying of vaccinations that “We shouldn’t be dumping a lot of drugs into kids for no reason,” which is wrong on at least three points (vaccines aren’t drugs; they’re not being dumped; there’s a very good reason, preventing debilitating and often fatal diseases). That’s why Dr. David Gorski, also known as “Orac,” writes that the Republican Party has become the anti-vaccine party: Not all vaccine deniers are Republicans, but the Party has chosen to pander to anti-vaxxers on local, state, and national levels.
Physicist and prominent atheist writer Lawrence Krauss stands accused of multiple instances of sexual harassment and has agreed to resign at the end of the academic year. He’s denying the claims, although I find his rebuttal weak and that he fails to understand why what he’s accused of doing was wrong.
Microplastics are so pervasive in our environment that they’re showing up in our excrement.
Seattle’s minimum wage law has helped many workers but may have hindered new entrants to the labor market, according to a second study by the same authors whose paper a year ago implied that the law hurt workers on the whole. As with many economic policies, there are winners and losers, and the crux will be whether there are more of the former and if that outweighs the societal costs paid by the latter.
A Guardian essay asks if reading is really helpful for depression. I am fortunate in that, while I’ve felt the black dog on my shoulder, I have never been so depressed that I felt unable or unwilling to read.
Hawai’i got a bit smaller this week as a hurricane washed tiny East Island off the map, a potential disaster for sea turtles that nested on the 11-acre island.
The white man who killed two black people in a Louisville Kroger’s has a schizoaffective disorder and had previously lost his right to own firearms due to previous violent incidents.
A city commissioner in Lakeland, Florida, who shot and killed a shoplifter in his store, has been charged with murder after his ‘stand your ground’ claim was rejected. That’s nice to hear, but if ‘stand your ground’ convinced the killer to pull the trigger, then the problem with the law remains.
Starling Games, the publishers of Everdell, have a new Kickstarter up for Anomaly, the second game from designer Thomas Dagenais-Lespérance.
Finally, the Tweet of the Week:

FOUNDING FATHER: we must always have an electoral college and 2 senators per state

ME: ok but what if 40 million people live in california

FOUNDING FATHER (spits out tea prepared by a slave): there’s HOW many people in WHAT

— Ben Rosen (@ben_rosen) October 22, 2018

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: baseball, climate change, coffee, Economics, environment, florida, guns, links, mental health, mental illness, metoo, north dakota, racism, stick to baseball, texas, vaccines, voter suppression, wisconsin

→ October 26, 2018
→ By keith

Disobedience.

Sebastián Lelio directed 2017’s A Fantastic Woman (Una mujer fantástica), which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film this spring and was one of my top five films of last year. His follow-up, Disobedience (available free on amazon prime), is his first English-language movie, but continues the theme of focusing on people who are and feel marginalized by their communities, in this case looking at two gay women who have taken different paths since their sexuality was uncovered by the Orthodox Jewish community where they lived. It’s based on the 2006 novel by Naomi Alderman, who later won the Women’s Prize for Fiction for The Power.

Ronit (Rachel Weisz) has returned to the community from exile upon learning that her father, Rav Krushka (Anton Lesser), has died, but it’s clear from her arrival at her childhood friend Dovid’s (Alessandro Nivola) house that she is an outcast. She’s also surprised to see that her other close friend from childhood, Esti (Rachel McAdams), has married Dovid in the interim, and that no one even tried to contact her to tell her of the wedding. Dovid invites Ronit to stay in their guest room, to the chagrin of the more conservative members of the community, and the film slowly reveals the history between the two women – that they had some kind of affair as teenagers, and were discovered by the Rav, which led to Ronit’s hegira to New York, but also led the Rav to push Esti to marry Dovid. The two women find their attraction to each other hasn’t dimmed, but as the flame is rekindled, the inevitable consequences ensue, and Esti and Dovid both find themselves facing difficult choices between the constraints of their insular community and the exercise of the free will that the Rav himself discussed in his final sermon.

Where A Fantastic Woman was dramatic and brisk, moving the lead character from one crisis to the next, Disobedience is subtle and measured, relying on words far more than actions to advance the plot. Esti is the real heart of the film, because she chose to stay when Ronit left, and is now facing the same emotional conflict a second time – but now has the obligations of marriage as well as the understanding of an adult. The script emphasizes the lack of agency for women in such a community, which could just as easily apply to strict Muslim or fundamentalist Christian communities, even before we consider the taboos of homosexuality in such religions. Ronit’s life in New York is defined solely by her career as a photographer; there is no mention of friends or lovers, except when she confesses to Esti that she hasn’t been with another woman since their liaison ended, so while there’s an implication that Ronit is happy because she fled, there’s also a void where the information surrounding someone’s life would be. Yet if Esti has friends, we don’t really see them either; her role is the devoted wife of the presumed heir to the Rav’s place as leader of the congregation, but there is no definition to her independent of that.

The film is anchored by three very strong performances, McAdams’ in particular, as Esti has the central struggle in the film – deciding whether to even give in to her feelings, and then, since she does (in the movie’s one truly intense scene of action rather than dialogue), coping with the consequences and the choices she must make in the wake of those. You could diagram the film’s story as one where the troika’s friendship has devolved to the point that Esti is now pulled equally by one friend on each side – Ronit on the side of freedom, Dovid on the side of tradition or family or obligation. Nivola’s accent is utterly convincing; the American-born actor’s grandmother was a Jewish refugee who fled Germany in the 1930s, but he also studied Hebrew to be able to recite many of the lines in the film and the accuracy of the accent helps establish his character’s hidebound nature. When the denouement arrives, Dovid has as much to do with it as Esti does, with the film’s themes of agency and free will returning after the late Rav’s speech introduced them in the opening scenes. The ending might be a little too pat, making the next steps that come after the big decisions seem easier than they would certainly be, but the path that these characters take from Ronit’s arrival until that moment is a journey to appreciate.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2018 movies, adaptations, lgbt films, movies

→ October 25, 2018
→ By keith

Klawchat 10/25/18.

My latest game review for Paste covers Nyctophobia, a one-versus-many game where the ‘many’ players all wear blackout glasses and must play by touching the board and talking to their teammates.

Keith Law: Like a slow divorce … it’s Klawchat.

Joe: Keith, how bad does the Gausman trade look now the Orioles are very unlikely to be able to sign a top international player with the money they acquired?
Keith Law: As bad as it looked at the time they made the deal. They mishandled Gausman for years, and he’s already looked a little better since they traded him.

Nick: Matt Strahm – your thoughts? Starter? Long RP?
Keith Law: I still think he can start.

addoeh: Top Chef is in Kentucky this season, so expect plenty of bourbon and maybe a burgoo. I know you said you were out last year due to time, but will you come back this season even without the recaps?
Keith Law: I think so, although it’ll depend on how much time I find I have during prospect season + the glut of movies I’m already finding myself facing. It seems like we’re in for an extraordinary three months of very good movies coming out.

Aaron: Absolutely stunned that the reds didn’t choose a retread for their manager position (please don’t be Ausmus, please don’t be Ausmus.) What was his rep as a minor league coach?
Keith Law: Bell has a great reputation from when he managed and his work in player development. I know Giants people had nothing but great things to say about him. I don’t know how he’ll be as a tactical manager, or how well he’ll work with analytics, but I like that he has a lot of relevant experience.

John: Dear Dave Dombrowski, I’m sorry about all the things I said about you when you acquired Eovaldi instead of a bullpen arm. Sincerely, Johnny from Burger King
Keith Law: Turned out Eovaldi was both a floor wax and a bullpen arm!

Rob: Did you get to see Taylor Trammel while in Arizona?
Keith Law: Yep. I saw every position player who played other than a few taxi squad guys (they only play two days a week) and guys who were hurt (Luis Robert, of course).

John: Assuming that the DEA story has been fully debunked, does it make sense that no one ever picked up Hanley Ramirez for the league minimum?
Keith Law: He really has no position; it’s hard to find a spot for a guy like that, basically impossible in the NL.

Bill: I am opening a bookstore/cafe in Worcester, MA soon. Besides good brew, what sorts of things do you enjoy in such places (besides Smart Baseball!)?
Keith Law: The appeal of indie bookstores for me is the curation of the collection. You’re not selling all books, and really, if people want the latest James Patterson tripe, they can get that anywhere. I like to walk into a small bookstore and see that someone has taken the time to choose which books to sell and which books to highlight. Staffers who can talk books with me and help me discover new titles are always a bonus too. Also, donuts.

James: As a Royals fan, when should I realistically expect them to compete again? 2021?
Keith Law: That seems too soon given the state of the system.

Sam: Thoughts on Brodie Van Wagenen being a finalist for the Mets GM job? Do you feel the same way about GM jobs that you do manager jobs with respect to needing some level of experience?
Keith Law: In this case, I do. I don’t think hiring an agent who’s never worked in baseball ops to run the entire baseball ops department makes a lot of sense. The entire Mets GM search process seems badly flawed to me.

wearingwhitesoxinboston: Thoughts on the Baldelli hire? Like Cora and Roberts, he was an average player with bench coaching but no managerial experience. Is this a copy-cat move by the Twins or was he the best option? I am skeptical.
Keith Law: Cora had managerial experience.

Ron: Thoughts o n the Baldelli hire? Sounds analytical, young, has coaching and instructing experience and worked in the front office. Bad hire, good hire or “Meh”? But hasn’t managed.
Keith Law: I discussed this on the BBTN podcast this morning – I know Rocco well, and think very highly of him. He’s very bright and curious. He’s more than just open to new ideas and will work well with the stats guys. I believe he’ll be a good developmental manager. But as you said, he hasn’t managed, and that’s a negative regardless of who the candidate is. I hope he finds someone for his staff who has plenty of in-game experience and can help him learn that part of the game quickly; the track record of no-experience managers is poor.

Moe Mentum: Who starts at 1b for the Phillies on Opening Day 2019 – Santana, Hoskins, or other?
Keith Law: If it’s Hoskins, who’d be the ideal candidate in a vacuum, where does Santana play?

ScottyG: I keep hearing the Cardinals might trade Carlos Martinez this winter – I don’t get it……I know that everybody is available, but what would it take for you to deal him?
Keith Law: I don’t understand trading him now, coming off his worst year, where he didn’t stay healthy and ended up in the bullpen.

Hank: What kind of contribution do you see Eloy JIminez having next season? Is he on the level of Acuna and Soto (and potentially Vlad Jr)?
Keith Law: I think he’s a great prospect but is not on the level of those other three names.

Coarsegold: Thoughts on Manny Ramirez Hall of Fame credentials? B.S. Steroid nonsense aside.
Keith Law: He did test positive for PEDs/masking agents twice, so I’m not sure that’s just “B.S.” His case rests entirely on what you think of his defensive value; his bat clearly belongs. I don’t think he’ll be in my top ten this winter.

barbeach: Thanks for doing this chat. Is there anything that better reflects the Mets incredible dysfunction than the fact they apparently are seriously considering hiring an agent–an agent who reps some of their stars to boot–with no front office experience to run the organization?
Keith Law: Like I said above, it’s clearly a bad process. I get the strong sense they simply wanted to hire Melvin all along – perhaps because Bud Selig recommended him – and the rest was a charade.

Ben: Any chance Price opts out?
Keith Law: With known damage in his elbow? I don’t think so.

Aaron C.: The narrative seems to be that the A’s future is bright…but, is it? Relief pitching effectiveness is notoriously fluid from year-to-year. Question marks at C, 2B and OF. Regression from some A’s in your 2018 top ten team prospects list. And, not one identifiable starting pitcher for 2019 – outside of MAYBE unproven Jesus Luzardo. Weird for a 97-win team, no?
Keith Law: I agree – their system is just middle of the road, and the major league team benefited from a lot of performances that won’t be repeated, plus the likely departure of Lowrie’s production.

Danny: Hey Keith, you’ve previously mentioned that you are not as high on Brandon Nimmo as others because he is ineffective (I don’t remember your exact word choice) vs. lefties (I agreed with you). Though, someone pointed out to me that he actually posted a 112 wRC+ against LHP in 150 PAs this season. Does this change anything for you?
Keith Law: No, because that is a tiny sample, and he still punched out in 1/3 of those PA.

John: With the another team hiring a manager with no managing experience, what do minor league managers need to do to get noticed? Or are most MiLB managers just happy to be still in the game?
Keith Law: I’d really like to know what teams tell minor league managers when they’re hired or re-signed, knowing the old career path there has been largely destroyed.

Nate: Are there any political or social issues on which you take a Conservative position?
Keith Law: That term has no meaning in the abstract. “Conservative” is always relative to the rest of the populace at a specific time.

Dave: Trump is blaming the media for the pipe bombs, not himself, the GOP or anyone in his administration. At this point, does ANYTHING he says surprise you anymore?
Keith Law: No. Watching the same MAGA chuds who pushed pizzagate decry the #MAGABomber hashtag was unbefuckinglievable, though.

Brian: In your Fall League write ups you did not mention anything regarding Royals players participating. A case of nothing new to report or just not performing well enough to elicit a comment?
Keith Law: Khalil Lee didn’t look very good, and otherwise they didn’t send much in the way of prospects, since Matias was hurt, and their other top prospects are all still 19 years old or were just drafted.

Ben: Roberts says he plans to use Urias as a SP next year. Is this feasible to you?
Keith Law: That’s a question for the team doctor and training staff. I can only look at the history of pitchers who’ve had that surgery, which is very poor, but know no specifics on the state of his shoulder.

Nate: Assuming M. Andujar has to move off 3b, is 1b or LF better suited to him?
Keith Law: Probably first base, or right field, although the latter is occupied.

Salty: Heading out to AFL next week – did you stop at any new spots last week that you’d recommend?
Keith Law: Roland’s Market is open now – I went there Labor Day weekend and it was excellent. Glai Baan in Phoenix, serving Thai street food and lots of booze, was also tremendous. Copper & Cotton in south Tempe was solid but perhaps too out of the way for AFL visitors.

Mike: I really like Eppler as GM. He groomed and then hand picked Ausmus. Am I too hopeful?
Keith Law: That seemed like a weird hire to me, since Ausmus was literally 12 months removed from a managerial gig where he seemed to take no input from anyone analytical.

Seath: No question. Just wanted to say we went to Flour yesterday after visiting the MFA (they have a Winnie-the-Pooh exhibit right now) . Up until then only had their pastries. Can confirm their sandwiches are delicious and their bread is amazing!
Keith Law: awesome. flour is one of the places I miss most up in Boston.

Pistol Pete: Hey Keith, thoughts on the Greta Van Fleet album? Thoughts on Pitchfork (high on their horse) giving it a 1.6 review?
Keith Law: I wouldn’t say I loved it – I feel like they’re a lot more Kingdom Come than Led Zeppelin – but a 1.6 is way harsher than I would have gone.

Bobby Bradley’s 40-time: Read your review for The Mind and bought it immediately. About to try it out tonight. Any tips to getting through all the levels?
Keith Law: Not really – it’s about learning to play with your partners, understanding everyone’s rhythms. Don’t forget those throwing stars, which are very valuable.

Oscar: Tell me again why we’re all supposed to just be okay with that obvious pine tar/grease stain on Kimbrel’s hat that he touches before every pitch . . . ?
Keith Law: Because every pitcher seems to do it. Price touched the bill of his cap repeatedly last night. I have no idea if there’s a substance there, but no one batted an eye.

Joe: Non-baseball Q: what is your preferred coffee making vessel? We got about four different ones for our wedding, and I’m seeing positives and negatives from all of them.
Keith Law: I use a V60 for pour-over (drip) and then I own an espresso machine. I’ve never used an Aeropress, which is very trendy now.

Pat: In case you needed a laugh today, the Orioles announced this morning that they signed Kelvin LaRoche. They also announced on August 20th that they signed Kelvin LaRoche.
Keith Law: My favorite part of this is that they signed a shortstop named Machado. Just not that one.

Gabe: Any really good iOs app games lately? I don’t have time for actual board games in my life but do have some downtime with my devices at times.
Keith Law: Last new one I tried and liked was Istanbul. I did try the new Onitama app but the AI player was too easy.

ditcow: I noticed Dave Roberts’ mismanagement of his roster is owed less to stats and more to a habit of always matching lefties and righties. Do you find his moves in alignment with the front office?
Keith Law: I doubt the front office is really a fan of his in-game management.

Jesse B: I just assumed when Archer got out of the AL East he would flourish, but he struggled. Do you think that was just an adjustment period and he’ll be a lot better next year, or is the best behind him?
Keith Law: Still hold out hope for him, but there are some clear adjustments he’ll need to make.

Joel: I am embarrassed to say I missed last week’s klaw chat. Like a lot. Do the Braves gain much by trying to go after a big pitcher in FA? Seems like letting the younger kids pitch would allow them to spend a lot more money elsewhere
Keith Law: Yeah, and this year’s FA pitching class is slim; unless they’re signing a Corbin there’s a good chance anyone they sign is worse than the best in-house alternative.

Alec: Can we get the caravan to settle in your state? Care to take some of them in? Your party white state could use the diversity after all.
Keith Law: Actually, troll, Delaware has the 6th-highest percentage of residents who are African-American, and our white non-Latino percentage is well below the median. So fuck off.

Mac: Lots of Corbin Carroll love out there. Does he have the ceiling to be a top half of the 1st round guy?
Keith Law: Little early for that. He’s a day one guy, but beyond that let’s see how he looks in the spring.

Jesse: How has Gerson Bautista looked at AFL?
Keith Law: Just another middle reliever.

Mr. Redlegs: I know positional versatility is a positive, but moving Senzel everywhere but 3rd is a bit worrisome, no? Seems better to move Suarez back to short and platoon Gennett/Peraza rather than hope Senzel can play center.
Keith Law: I’ve argued this for a while now. Moving Senzel after he worked his ass off to be an average to above-average defender at third, and given his bat, is nuts.

Este: So creationism is “fantasy”, yet the THEORY of evolution is 100 percent fact…lol
Keith Law: Imagine finding this chat but not knowing what the word “theory” means in science. It boggles.

JJ: Thoughts on Counsell’s managerial performance in the playoffs? I was pleasantly surprised especially given his lack of managerial experience prior to getting the Brewers job.
Keith Law: I was impressed too – he was nimble in-game, seemed appropriately aggressive with his bullpen (given the weak starters), chased platoon advantages in high-leverage spots. Nice job.

Guest: Is Manny Machado and everyday SS. Per Baseball Reference he had a -1.2 dWAR with Baltimore and and a 1.2 dWAR with the Dodgers. Is it just positioning and if so, what the hell is wrong with Baltimore?
Keith Law: I don’t think so. That’s some small sample size stuff there, and I don’t think he’s really an Andrelton-level defender at short like the Dodgers figure would imply. He’s also really freaking large for a shortstop. Arm would play anywhere and I think his hands are fine, but covering all that ground that we still expect shortstops to cover is probably a bit much. Plus, he’s a 70 or 80 defender at third.

Rick Sanchez: Reds SP Luis Castillo killed it in the second half after an abysmal first half. What do you project for him long-term?
Keith Law: His second half was largely buoyed by an unsustainably low BABIP. He’s a back-end starter who’d probably be more effective in relief given his lack of a decent third pitch.

Jesse: Any of the lesser known mets in AFL showing well?
Keith Law: Nope, bad showing for the Mets guys, but they didn’t send a ton either.

Taco Tuesday: Charles Leblanc has been mentioned as a possible sleeper prospect for the Rangers — decent bat and the ability to play multiple positions in the infield. Did you see anything from him in Arizona that would suggest he could be a major leaguer at some point?
Keith Law: No – he was really bad in the field, too.

Matt: After finding out Schilling wasnt invited to Game 2, I took a gander at his Twitter account. Umm…he thinks the recent mail bombs are a liberal conspiracy to get people to vote. I mean what the actual fuck?
Keith Law: Yeah, I can’t think of a reason anyone could imagine skipping that guy.

Almir Lima Jr.: Hi Keith, greetings from Brazil! What do you read from this Mets GM search? After this brief statement by Chaim Bloom, it appears that Melvin is going to get the job. Is this just sad or is there any reason to believe that Melvin is the right man right now?
Keith Law: Tudo bem! I saw Bloom’s statement and it sounds like what I said above about the process was probably accurate.

Bill: Nico Hoerner is only player from the 2018 draft in the AFL. He was hurt mid-season so he needs at bats. How is he holding up against upper level competition?
Keith Law: Smart player but didn’t make much hard contact and he’s smaller than I thought. I think maybe a high-average/high OBP second baseman?

Adam: All this talk about pitchers throwing harder/more breaking balls as an excuse for passed balls and wild pitches this post season seems to ignore the fact that the playoff teams struggling the most with this either have catching as their weak spot or offensive minded catchers in general. Shouldn’t a strong defensive catcher be more of a commodity around the trade deadline (like RP’s) for reasons like this?
Keith Law: Also, good framers tend to have more passed balls/WP, per … Harry Pavlidis, I think, told me that on Twitter?

Jordan: Considering that he will be 20 next July, would it be a bad 2019 for Kelenic if he wasn’t in High-A by the end of season?
Keith Law: No, it wouldn’t be bad, but I think he’ll get there.

Rob: Now that the Orioles lost out on the Mesa brothers how do you expect them to spend all that international bonus money they traded for?
Keith Law: They signed a few guys today – that’s what the LaRoche/Machado joke was about.

Jesse: How much of a GM job is Baseball ops and how much is it business stuff?
Keith Law: It’s all baseball ops, if you count contracts for players as baseball ops (I do). The only non-baseball responsibilities a GM would have would be on the public relations side, such as talking to corporate sponsors at an offseason event or something.

JR: In a tweet this morning you indicated that the most reasonable criticism of Melvin is that even he admitted the game has passed him by and analytics have changed a bunch in the past 5 years. Do you think the game passed Alderson by while he was still the GM? I know at one time he was seen as being at the forefront of analytics, but it felt like the past few years he was stuck on cruise control while others passed him by.
Keith Law: They weren’t very analytically-minded the last few years, especially when managing the major-league club (much more so in the draft), despite having a real analytics department. I have to assume that came from Sandy.

RyanW: Anything new to report on Cole Tucker after your time in the AFL? Seems like he lacked hard contact this year in AA, is there anymore strength coming is he a 40 raw power type who needs to get to all of his hit tool to be an average regular at SS?
Keith Law: Good athlete who still could grow into a little power, but he’s also very inconsistent at short, especially when throwing.
Keith Law: As in, maybe he doesn’t stay there.

Brian: If Schoop doesn’t rebound from whatever funk plagued him with the Brewers, is Keston Hiura ready to man 2B in 2019? It seems like his bat should be fine, but what about defense?
Keith Law: I think his defense will be adequate, good enough to stay there. I wish I’d seen him hit anything hard last week – it was one groundball after another.

Zac: On a scale of 1-10 how surprised are you that Ausmus got another managing job
Keith Law: Maybe a 2. I figured he’d get it. He went to Dartmouth, he likely interviews well, teams do like to re-hire guys who’ve managed in the majors. O AN HE SEXY.

Andrew: Any books/apps/websites you recommend for meditation?
Keith Law: Fully Present (book) is my go-to.

John Farrell: Isn’t Roberts taking heat for lineup decisions being made by Friedman ?
Keith Law: That’s not how it works … that’s not how any of this works.

Jake: Does Royce Lewis stick at SS long term?
Keith Law: My gut is still no. I got mixed reports from scouts who saw him this year.

Kyle: Is there scientific evidence and support for the dangers of fracking or is it mostly hypothetical at this point?
Keith Law: You can find several papers on this if you search journal papers – on fracking causing earthquakes, for example, or how repeated fracking can contaminate groundwater.

Brian: Hey Keith, love your work. Just wanted to know if you had heard any new industry buzz the Giants next GM. Thanks!
Keith Law: The two names I’ve heard were Jason McLeod of the Cubs and Amiel Sawdaye of the Dbacks, both of whom have roots with the Red Sox, but I have no idea who else is in the process.

Nick: Why do some people think enjoying baseball and liking analytics is mutually exclusive? I enjoy baseball MORE because of the plethora of information available. More data also means my team wins more, which is literally the best thing.
Keith Law: I like to learn things about topics that interest me. I doubt I’m the only one.

Samantha: Any chance Heyward opts out?
Keith Law: Highly doubt it.

Jesse B: Angels still have 3 years and $78 million left on Pujols contract, let that soak in. Assuming Ohtani is going to have to DH next year, what do you do with Pujols at this point? He’s 48, I mean 38, is he just an pinch hitter for 3 years, or do youjust eat the $78 mill and move on?
Keith Law: I would release Pujols. He’s a zero at the plate, he already hit the 3000 hit mark, and he is just burning a roster spot at this point.

Brett: O/U 10 starts for Forrest Whitley in 2019?
Keith Law: In the majors? Over.

Dr. Bob: I think the Dodgers are going to have the most difficult decision of the offseason if Kershaw opts out. A guy moving on the wrong side of 30 who had missed time with injury the last three years and whose velocity has dipped. He will want more than the $30 million and two years left on the contract.
Keith Law: I think you offer to tack on another year or two at a lower salary and see if that solves the problem. He’s not getting 4 and $120 million in this market.

RJS: Follow up on Manny-HOF question. Is he a guy who’d hypothetically be 11th on your list this year, but maybe 9th on your ballot next year after some elections/ballot clearing? Would you vote for the top 10 regardless given the backlog or would you only vote for 7-8 potentially in a given year?
Keith Law: I’ll always vote for the top ten. I don’t like the idea of trying to game the ballot, not least because it’s a good way to outsmart yourself.

Sticky Wicky: The Astros supposedly stealing signs — how much of this is grousing over a really good team, as compared to Houston pushing the envelope on spying compared to the rest of the league?
Keith Law: I’ve heard other rumors about them stealing signs beyond that guy in the camera well. We’ll see if any of those rumors end up confirmed anywhere. I don’t think they’re the only team trying such stuff, though.

Erik: Hey Keith, I just finished “When We Were Orphans” by Kazuo Ishiguro. I couldn’t find your review of it on this site (unless I missed it?). What did you think and how do you think it compares to some of his other works?
Keith Law: I think it’s the only book of his I didn’t review (but I did read it), just because it was kind of meh. Not great, not bad like Unconsoled.

Blake: Random question: Do you like/watch bill maher?
Keith Law: No, and thus no.

Jon: Keith, thoughts on Yusei Kikuchi please? Thank you in advance if answered.
Keith Law: He’ll be on my top 50 free agents post when that goes up after the World Series (assuming he is coming over, which all indications I’ve heard are that he will).

Chris: Keith, I know you favor guys who have actually managed before being hired for MLB mgr gigs, but would managing in the minors be somewhat overvalued since that seems to involve a lot of pursuing organizational development goals for the players and not strict in game tactics/strategy and the like? I admittedly speak from ignorance and am not trying to be a wiseass.
Keith Law: No, I still think that’s valuable – having to set lineups, handle in-game changes, consider tactics, still try to win while also considering usage restrictions, etc.

Jerry: Astros need a catcher in 2019. Marlins are open for business (supposedly). Should the Astros be willing to deal Tucker or Whitley to get the deal done? Any chance the Marlins would be willing to take some combination of Bukauskus, Alvarez, Corbin Martin instead?
Keith Law: I’d consider putting Tucker into that deal, but no way I trade Whitley for Realmuto. The other guys are all distinctly second-tier.

PhillyJake: Re: Archer – he did make the changes. His numbers over his last 30 innings were good. The difference? He stopped shaking off Cervelli.
Keith Law: It’s such a small sample that I don’t want to read too much into it yet.

Nick: Have you seen Arquimedes Gamboa in the AFL? Thoughts?
Keith Law: Yes, borderline non-prospect.

Nate: Besides guacamole, any recommendations for using avocado?
Keith Law: Makes a great salsa for topping fish, pork, even grilled chicken. I’m told it makes a good ice cream but I’ll pass on that.

Andy: Adalberto Mondesi? Real?
Keith Law: He is a real person, yes.

Bob W.: Jim Kaat recently decried the general practice of wheeler-dealer moves at the trade deadlines, using the “rooting for laundry” epithet to describe a team that’s been cobbled together by the GM. Realistically, though, isn’t this the only way small market teams like the Twins, Brewers, Royals, etc. can compete for the postseason?
Keith Law: Yes, and that has existed in baseball since Kaat was playing. I enjoyed Jim’s work for years when he moved into the booth. Watching him turn into this Luddite curmudgeon – he’s attacked me, and my book, specifically, to be completely up front here – has disappointed me in a personal way.

Josh in DC: I’ve been enjoying your book, but there’s one aspect (thus far) that troubles me. You highlight the flaws in the old stats, and make a case for the better ones. But what hasn’t come across (to me) is arguments within the analytical community. There seems to be such consensus (Jack Morris: bad; Scott Rolen: good). Where do you find yourself disagreeing with other analytically minded peers?
Keith Law: Lots of issues. I’ve long argued that Fangraphs’ attempts to put dollar values on players as multiples of their WAR is absurd, since the value of a marginal win will vary by team by year. I think framing numbers are volatile enough that I’d regress them substantially rather than merely adding them to a player’s defensive runs saved. (Framing is real, BTW. I’m not arguing it’s bogus.) I also am probably out of step with the common thinking on delaying prospects to manipulate service time and stave off super two or free agency.

Thomas: You’re on your A game with the trolls today (when aren’t you?) Please keep it coming, it’s making my miserable day much brighter!!!
Keith Law: The great thing about trolls is that they’re not very bright as a species.

William: Just saw Robyn Hitchcock in Chicago! What’s the ethical thing for the Cubs to do with Addison Russell at this point?
Keith Law: Probably trade him for nothing. They don’t need him anyway.

Frank: Has judge exceeded your expectations? I know you mentioned the power would be there, but didn’t expect him to hold a high bb%?
Keith Law: Oh yeah, he would’ve been a top 10 prospect if I’d thought he’d become this kind of hitter.

Jon: Don’t forget your free taco Keith
Keith Law: seriously? are we just not doing phrasing any more?

Tyler: College pitching crop looks weak this year. Any guys currently under the radar that you think could jump into day one conversation?
Keith Law: It’s the worst college pitching crop, for this point in the calendar, that I can remember.

Nick: There was a report yesterday that Harper wants at least 10 years/$350m. Over/under? I say over.
Keith Law: Hm. I’m torn here. I would have said over $300 million, but $350 million makes me pause. I’ll guess under.

John Jacob Astor: New indie book stores are great but if you want a magical experience look at great used bookshops
Keith Law: I do. Many of my favorite indie stores sell new and used (like Changing Hands in Phoenix & Tempe).

Dr. Bob: But Ausmus said that he thinks he needs to try some of these new-fangled stat thingies. Doesn’t that make it all okay?
Keith Law: With all thy getting, get understanding, Brad.

Andy: Whit Merrifield is…*exactly* the sort of guy you have to trade, right? Like, the dictionary definition of same?
Keith Law: Yes, like, yesterday.

Joe: Any thoughts on what to expect from Margot going forward? Anything positive this season? Lots of Padre fans seem down on him but he’s still young.
Keith Law: I’m still expecting an above-average regular. Very young, can play the hell out of CF, needs more strength.

Nuggets & Mac ‘n Cheese: You seem to be raising a healthy, curious eater. Any tips for someone with 3-year-old twins who don’t want to eat anything but waffles and PB&J?
Keith Law: Exposure. My daughter was welcome to try anything I ate, anywhere we went, and I took her to a lot of different restaurants when she was as young as 4-5. She didn’t love vegetables and still doesn’t, but she’ll eat a lot of other things (the child loves mushrooms, so mushrooms we will eat, and often) and she will truly try anything at this point.

VVM: There have been varying opinions on VIctor Victor Mesa. Have seen Almora, Robles and Trammell comps. Would love to hear your 2 cents, thanks!
Keith Law: Below all three of those guys. I hear a lot of “extra outfielder” from scouts.

BG: Any plans to post any of your recipes? I was able to impress my then girlfriend (and now wife!) with your roasted red pepper pesto way back in ’08.
Keith Law: I wing it so often at this point that I’d have to slow down and think about what I’m making to turn it into a recipe. I often just buy ingredients and roll with it.

Jared: As a Brewer fan, it was painfully frustrating to listen to the national media. Why do they not even try to understand analytics or explain them to the common fans?
Keith Law: Mute button is your friend.

Jordan: What have you thought of Amed Rosario’s defense at SS so far? Should Mets try Gimenez there when he comes up and move Rosario to 3B or CF?
Keith Law: I think Rosario is fine at short and will end up plus. Gimenez is a great defensive shortstop with no impact with the bat.

Matt: Corbin Burnes has fallen into that prospect coverage no man’s land where he’s no longer rookie eligible, but also isn’t in his long-term future role. I know you were a fan of his last, and his stuff looked electric when I watched him in the playoffs. Do you think he can still be a SP2?
Keith Law: I 100% do. Brewers could have a pretty good rotation next year with Chacin, Burnes, Woodruff, Anderson.

Gob: Yordan Alvarez is “second-tier”?
Keith Law: Yes. Or third-tier.

Andy: On the Mondesi response – it’s your chat, do what you want, but I was trying to introduce a question without being pandering or you-hate-my-team-baiting. I really am curious to see if (and how) your perspective on him has changed now that he appears to have translated some tools to performance. If he can’t develop a feel for pitching, obviously there’s a hard cap on his upside, but this year was still welcome as a fan.
Keith Law: I needed more from you to answer it – I truly didn’t know what you were asking. He has tools, as you said – real speed, good bat-to-ball skill, hard contact (although I’m still very skeptical of the power, which may just be the MLB ball). But he walks once per solstice, and his approach was stunted by lost time and an organizational decision to have him work on bunting more and thus working the count less. It’s going to take a lot of work on his part to gain some semblance of strike zone knowledge to be more than a better Escobar.

AGirlHasNoName: I live in a country that sends military to stop poor people, where my leader incites violence against the media, calls women he paid to have sex horseface, and draws big crowds of sycophants on the weekly. What brand of whiskey helps most to forget?
Keith Law: Feels like something Irish would be appropriate. Pull up a chair, I’ll pour you two fingers of Teeling.

Joe: Hi Keith. Padres Twitter has been driven by two storylines this fall; trading prospect depth for A TOR arm, and deciding who to keep between Hunter Renfroe and Franmil Reyes. Personally I think they should hold onto depthbefore trading anybody, and I don’t buy into Renfroe or Reyes as future pieces. What say you?
Keith Law: I agree with you on both.

Ian: Franklin Barreto strikes out a lot, but so did Matt Chapman. What’s the difference between the two? And if you’re the A’s do you keep Lowrie or hand the job to Barreto?
Keith Law: Chapman has real power and is an elite defender. Barreto doesn’t have much power and isn’t an elite defender.

Matt: Judd Fabian and Corey Acton are graduating in December of their senior year in high school to enroll early at Florida so they can play college ball. Do you see more kids doing that in the future?
Keith Law: I hate when players do this and have always discouraged players or parents when I’m asked my opinion on this.

John: I just want to say Thank you for calling out those who try to employ “whataboutism” as a rhetorical device. Life’s too short to suffer these people’s “arguments.”
Keith Law: It’s become increasingly popular these days too.

AES: Re: Machado, can we agree he seems to be a dirty player, but whatever he does between the lines is about 8 tiers better than those who hurt people outside them?
Keith Law: Eh, I’m not sure I love that comparison. He’s done some shady stuff on the field this postseason. He’s also ultracompetitive, which is something you do want as a GM or manager.
Keith Law: OK, that’s all for this week’s chat. Thank you all so much for your questions, as always. If I chat next week, it’ll be Wednesday rather than Thursday, so please keep an eye out for an announcement. Enjoy the last weekend of regular baseball for 2018!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: klawchat

→ October 24, 2018
→ By keith

The Cooking Gene.

Michael W. Twitty’s memoir The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South won the James Beard Foundation’s Book of the Year Award this spring, as well as a separate award for Writing. Combining Twitty’s own search for his genealogical and culinary roots with a long exploration of how the enslavement and forced migration of millions of Africans defined what we now think of as the cuisines of the United States, the Caribbean, and much of South America, The Cooking Gene wanders around the globe in prose and subject in a quest for meaning and identity through food.

Twitty is a fascinating character in his own book: born in Washington D.C. in 1977, Twitty is African-American, gay, and a convert to Judaism, and thanks to DNA testing and genealogical research, he can trace his ancestry back to white ancestors in the 1800s. He’s an advocate for black culinary history in this country, leading the “Southern Discomfort Tour” and giving a TED talk on the extent to which African foodways informed and defined American cooking, notably southern cuisine, but have been ignored or underrepresented in discussions of our culinary history. He has spoken, cooked, and served at plantations in the South that formerly housed slaves, and his knowledge of culinary history is largely the result of his own autodidactic nature. He began the project that eventually became The Cooking Gene in 2011, publishing the book in 2017 (via an imprint of HarperCollins, the same publishing house that produced Smart Baseball) to great acclaim.

The narrative in The Cooking Gene is nonlinear of necessity, something Twitty acknowledges in the closing section, which meant that for me it took a while to get wrapped up in any aspect of the story, but once he gets rolling on his own ancestry the book starts to resemble a more cohesive work – even though his heritage is anything but cohesive. Twitty traces his roots back to many places, including presumed white ancestor named Bellamy whose plantation he visits, to various tribes of west Africa including the Akan people of Ghana and Mende people of Sierra Leone, and to … Ireland, of all places, which apparently got him some amusing reactions when he visited and told locals why he was there.

Every trip branches out into multiple anecdotes, just as every new DNA test he takes – there’s one, AfricanAncestry.com, that provides more specific information on African DNA lineages – also leads to new digressions and stories. There’s a lot of slave history in The Cooking Gene, much of it physically brutal, but also much of it putting the lie to the myths of the benevolent slaveholders who sent their cooks to learn French cooking in Paris, but treated them just as badly when they returned, often using the education merely as a way to increase the resale value of their ‘property.’

The broader point of this book, however, is that all cuisines we think of as distinctly American or Caribbean derive heavily from west African cooking traditions, to the point where Twitty flatly accuses many white chefs, writers, and culinary historians of a form of appropriation. Even our words for many ingredients, like okra (from ??k??r??, an Igbo word, spoken in southeastern Nigeria), trace their etymologies back along the slave trade routes from the American South and Caribbean to western Africa, where such foods and the antecedents of dishes like gumbo go back for centuries. Beans and rice, whether the Creole red beans version or the Brazilian feijão or the hoppin’ john of the Carolinas, originate in west Africa. Fried chicken, considered a staple Southern food with Scottish origins, also has roots in west Africa, where the meat was heavily seasoned and fried in palm oil. Yams, peanuts (groundnuts), and watermelon all originated in different parts of Africa, and are also now considered part of the traditional cuisine of the American South. Twitty also offers the rare example of a culinary tradition traveling the other way, from the Americans to Africa, as nixtamalization, the process of treating corn (maize) with a strong alkaline solution to remove fungal toxins while increasing the nutritional value of the product.

Twitty connects his search for his genealogical roots with his exploration of his culinary roots by combining them into a single if meandering narrative around identity – that both types of roots were, in effect, stolen from black Americans when they were captured in Africa and brought against their will to the Americas. Thus, by reclaiming the culinary and gustatory heritage of black Americans, Twitty believes he and others can continue to rebuild their cultural and ethnic identities in a country that still attempts to marginalize and disenfranchise people of color.

I listened to the audiobook version of The Cooking Gene, read by Twitty himself, which was probably not the best decision. Twitty has an endearing, folksy delivery, but pauses constantly at strange points in sentences, even breaking up phrases where no breaks belong, which I found endlessly distracting. It’s not an occasional thing – he regularly does this, as if he’s turning to the next page – and I think I’d recommend the physical or ebook formats instead.

Next up: Ben Rhodes’ memoir of his years in the Obama White House, The World As It Is.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: african cuisine, african-american history, james beard award, non-fiction, southern cooking

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