I mostly avoided the Midterm Election Night doom-scroll last night. After 2000— Er, after 2004— Ummm, after 2016? Nope, after 2020, never again.
At least Minnesota went fully blue.
We started Peripheral instead. Three eps in. Pretty good so far.
What a red wave though…
After that, I watched the 1946 George Marshall entry into the film noir canon, The Blue Dahlia, starring Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, Hugh Beaumont, and William Bendix. While Lake definitely purrs her way through the film, the star is inarguably the Raymond Chandler screenplay, which netted him his second Oscar nomination (the first for adapting Double Indemnity with Billy Wilder from the James M. Cain novel). It really gets humming around minute 27, once Lake enters the picture. John Houseman apparently told of Chandler’s screenplay not having an ending, which upon being prodded, Chandler said he could only bring to a conclusion if shit-faced, so Houseman agreed to providing him with a full complement of round-the-clock secretaries and drivers. The plot definitely feels like it gets a little muddled, but there’s not denying the dialogue sings. Strong rec, even if Alan Ladd is decidedly Alan Ladd (read: the performance is as flat as he almost always was).
The Blue Dahlia is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel (sub req’d).
Quick baseball hits:
David Lesky put out his Top 15 Royals Prospects as we fully dive into the baseball offseason. While I’d disagree a bit with the contention that the Royals’ farm system isn’t as down as it seems, I don’t see much to disagree with in the rankings. I mean obviously Farm Nuts will have their granular complaints like How could you only have Beck Way #12?!?!11? but the nature of these lists ultimately comes down to personal preference.
My bigger takeaway is Jesus Fucking Christ, how far has Asa Lacy fallen upon reaching an org that CANNOT develop pitching? The #4 overall pick of the draft three years ago stopped being able to throw strikes. I mean his BB% is extremely NSFW. He walked more than one batter PER INNING, while pitching in the complex and AA this past year. Not just more walks than strikeouts—which he also did—but a positively disgusting 42 walks to go with 35 Ks in 28 innings. Turning a top 100 prospect into THAT is really stunning.
The pitcher development system in place needs to be razed, and I still do not see the points on JJ Piccollo’s cirriculum vitae that tell us he’d know what good pitcher dev looks like. Matt Quatraro might be a good managerial hire—let’s just say I exercise caution universally with the Royals at this point—but he’s not going to be involved in pitcher dev, which is the #1 problem afflicting this organization and has been since I started writing about it over a decade ago.
Edwin Diaz sure got paid a lot.
Star closer Edwin Díaz and the New York Mets are in agreement on a five-year, $102 million contract, pending physical, sources familiar with the deal tell ESPN. There’s an opt-out and a full no-trade clause, plus a sixth-year option. The best closer in baseball stays in New York.I am all for players getting paid. They should get every last cent they can, and Steve Cohen clearly gives zero fucks about the Competitive Balance Tax, so bully for everyone. And to be clear, every owner could do what Cohen is doing. They choose not to.
Still, it’s a reliever. And it’s a reliever who was VERY bad in 2019. Yes, he’s had three great seasons since then, and the vagaries of the volatility in small sample sizes clearly seemed to be rearing its head there, but New York isn’t exactly a forgiving market, and Mets fans are perpetually waiting for the other shoe to drop, so now that he’s holding the largest contract ever given out to a reliever, expect at least a dozen hospitalizations per Diaz blown save.
At least they’ve got “Narco” to air trumpet along to.
Holding my breath for a both sides to exercise a mutual option somewhere this offseason.
Floating Points released a new single today, which can be purchased along with three other singles released earlier this year over at his Bandcamp page. Digital version of the de facto EP is only $5.