BCB After Dark: two Flushing favorites Chicago Cubs

Welcome again to BCB After Dark: the cool get-together for night time owls, early risers, new mother and father and far more Boys followers overseas. Nice that you might be a part of this cool night. I hope you had a nice weekend. There isn’t any entry charge tonight and the gown code is informal. We nonetheless have a couple of tables out there. Bring your personal drink

BCB after darkish is the place to speak about baseball, music, motion pictures, or anything it is advisable to get free so long as it conforms to the positioning’s guidelines. The revelers are inspired to get the celebration began, however everybody else is invited to hitch in if you get up the next morning and afternoon.

Last week I requested you what you suppose the function of Cubs pitcher Keegan Thompson could be for the 2023 season. By a shocking 81 % to 19 % lead, you suppose Thompson will get most of his innings from the bullpen subsequent yr.

Here’s the half the place I discuss jazz and films. Feel free to skip to the baseball query on the finish. You will not harm my emotions.

Here’s a quick jazz efficiency by Seattle Public Radio’s KNKX that I featured earlier right here. Here pianist Monty Alexander, bassist John Clayton and drummer Jeff Hamilton carry out “Mojo” in 2013.

I’m unsure if I’ll be doing a movie essay this week. I watched a couple of motion pictures over the weekend however did not have time to put in writing them down for right now. Damn it, a movie by director Jean Cocteau Orpheus, I simply completed watching an hour in the past. I even have a whole lot of trip planning to do that week and if I caught to my common schedule a movie essay could be on Wednesday night time/Thursday morning which is Thanksgiving eve/morning. I actually do not feel like writing an enormous play after which working it right here on a day with little site visitors. I do know my viewers is not enormous, however I respect it if at the very least somebody learn what i write.

But I’ll attempt to maintain the movie dialogue going. Today’s query is about Chicago motion pictures. What are your favorites, and even your least favorites? Which movies greatest captured the character of this nice metropolis?

When I used to be a child, I used to be instructed Chicago was America’s movie capital earlier than they moved to Los Angeles for the climate. That’s not likely true. Universal was primarily based in Chicago, however Paramount got here from New York, Warner Brothers from Pittsburgh, which finally grew to become Fox, from New Jersey, the “Mayer” a part of MGM got here from Massachusetts, and so forth. And the studios did not transfer due to that Wetters to LA, simply as they had been attempting to evade the attorneys of Thomas Edison, who was attempting to implement his patents on movie processing and tools. (The West Coast was a far cry from Edison’s attorneys and state regulators.) The promise of low-cost land was additionally an enormous draw, simply as it’s for baseball stadiums right now.

After the studios moved west, one might argue that Chicago obtained a foul deal within the gangster-focused movie trade. Yes, all of us like a great gangster film, but when that is the one picture folks get of your city, it leaves a foul impression. This jogs my memory of the road in Jacques Demy’s 1961 movie Lola, the place the French girl explains to her mom that she spent the afternoon with an American sailor from Chicago. Her mom shoots again, “They haven’t any sailors in Chicago. Just gangsters.” Yes, that is what folks considered Chicago.

(To be truthful to the mom, the lady is there at 13 Lola was far too younger to hang around with American sailors.)

The eighties appeared to alter issues. The two movies that I affiliate most with Chicago are The Blues Brothers and Ferris turns blue. I wrote about 1981 Thief a couple of weeks in the past after which there’s 1987 The Untouchables. (Okay, one other gangster movie.) There’s your complete John Hughes oeuvre that I’ve very blended emotions about.

Departure into the twenty first century. Hi-Fi and Judas and the Black Messiah are robust Chicago motion pictures. (Although a fast on-line test tells me so Judas was shot in Cleveland. boo!)

Oh, after which there’s Chicago. That’s simply bizarre. Of course, most are musicals. Also filmed in Toronto.

So inform us about your favourite or least favourite Chicago motion pictures. Or simply ones you suppose we should always find out about.

Welcome again to everybody who skips jazz and films.

Most of the Hot Stove discussions proper now revolve round free agent signings. Al has written a variety of articles about potential Cubs signings and I can’t try to repeat what he does there.

But I can steer his work in one other path. There are three Mets beginning pitchers out there as free brokers. One of them, Jacob deGrom, is in a category by himself and won’t be mentioned right here. But the opposite two, right-handers Taijuan Walker and Chris Bassitt, are remarkably comparable of their manufacturing over the previous two seasons.

While each Bassitt and Walker had injury-plagued careers previous to 2020, each have been principally wholesome for the previous three seasons. And their manufacturing (though not their pitching repertoire) was comparable too. Both gamers made their solely All-Star groups in 2021. In 2022, Bassitt completed on a 15-9 line with a 3.42 ERA. He batted 8.3 from 9 and walked 2.4. Walker, alternatively, went 12-5 in 2022 with a 3.49 ERA. He batted 7.6 and went 2.6 for the 9. Both pitchers allowed 0.9 homers per 9 in 2022.

The two pitchers additionally had the identical protection behind them, so neither might be credited for taking part in on a greater crew. Her Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) for 2022 was 3.66 for Bassitt and three.65 for Walker. That’s as shut because it will get.

There is one huge distinction. Walker is 30 and Bassitt is 34. Still, pitchers do not observe fairly the identical growing old curve as place gamers, and Bassitt has fewer innings on his arm than Walker.

Nevertheless, there are very totally different opinions concerning the two pitchers. In Keith Law’s Top 50 Free Agents Preview (the athlete sub. req.), he ranked Walker because the twelfth greatest free agent and Bassitt as twenty fourth. On the opposite hand at fangraphsBen Clemens ranks Bassitt because the 14th greatest free agent and Walker as twenty second.

This additionally creates a distinction in what the two evaluators imagine every pitcher will get. Clemens estimates Bassitt can be on a three-year deal price $51 million. On the opposite hand, Law is predicting two years and $24-$28 million for Bassitt. That’s an enormous distinction. You won’t need Bassitt at three and $51 million, however you may love him at two and $24 million.

For Walker, each analysts predict he’ll get at the very least three years and $42 million, however Law thinks a crew might simply supply Walker 4 years. Clemens, alternatively, thinks Walker ought to think about a one-year deal that might enable him to return to the free-agent marketplace for a probably larger payday subsequent season. You suppose that might make a distinction too. For Jed Hoyer, it positively makes a distinction.

It ought to be famous that Bassitt acquired a qualifying supply and Walker didn’t.

Here’s Al’s tackle Bassitt and his tackle Walker. I do not essentially agree with Al’s opinion. I do not essentially disagree both.

So right now’s query is, given the two Mets pitchers and what they’re more likely to get in a contract supply, which might you fairly have? I will not can help you choose “both”, however I’ll give a “neither” possibility. What gamers get is considerably as much as you as there’s a whole lot of disagreement over their respective stats. But you’ll be able to clarify your reasoning and the contracts within the feedback.

So Bassitt, Walker or neither?

Thanks to your go to. Don’t neglect to tip the waiter. Please keep heat on the market. Get dwelling safely. If you want us to name a trip for you, tell us. And be part of us once more tomorrow night time for one more version of BCB after darkish.