BCB After Darkish: A alternative between two Flushing favorites

Welcome again to BCB After Darkish: the groovin’ get-together for evening owls, early risers, new dad and mom and Cubs followers overseas. Glad you can be a part of us on this chilly night. I hope you’ve had a nice weekend. There’s no cowl cost tonight and the costume code is informal. We’ve nonetheless obtained a number of tables obtainable. Deliver your personal beverage

BCB After Darkish is the place so that you can speak baseball, music, films, or the rest it’s worthwhile to get off your chest, so long as it’s throughout the guidelines of the location. The late-nighters are inspired to get the occasion began, however everybody else is invited to affix in as you get up the following morning and into the afternoon.

Final week I requested you what you thought Cubs pitcher Keegan Thompson’s role for the 2023 season can be. By an amazing margin of 81 p.c to 19 p.c, you suppose Thompson will get most of his innings out of the bullpen subsequent 12 months.

Right here’s the half the place I discuss jazz and films. You’re free to skip forward to the baseball query on the finish. You received’t damage my emotions.

Right here’s a fast jazz efficiency from Seattle Public Radio’s KNKX, which I’ve featured right here earlier than. Right here’s pianist Monty Alexander, bassist John Clayton and drummer Jeff Hamilton taking part in “Mojo” in 2013.

I’m unsure I’m going to do a movie essay this week. I watched a few movies over the weekend, however I didn’t have the time to write down them up for right now. Heck, one movie, director Jean Cocteau’s Orpheus, I simply completed watching an hour in the past. I’ve plenty of vacation planning to do that week as properly and if I caught to my common schedule, a film essay would run on Wednesday evening/Thursday morning, which is Thanksgiving eve/morning. I don’t actually really feel like writing up a giant piece after which having it run on a low-traffic day round right here. I do know my viewers isn’t enormous, however I do admire it if no less than somebody reads what I write.

However I’ll attempt to preserve the film dialogue going. Tonight’s query is about Chicago films. What are your favorites, and even your least favorites? What movies captured the character of this nice metropolis the perfect?

Once I was a child, I used to be advised that Chicago was the American film capital earlier than they moved out to Los Angeles due to the climate. That’s probably not true. Common was positioned in Chicago, however Paramount was out of New York, Warner Brothers had been from Pittsburgh, what ultimately turned Fox was out of New Jersey, the “Mayer” a part of MGM got here from Massachusetts, and so on. And the studios didn’t transfer to LA due to the climate a lot as they had been making an attempt to keep away from legal professionals for Thomas Edison who had been making an attempt to implement his patents on movie processing and gear. (The West Coast was a protracted methods away from Edison’s legal professionals and authorities regulators.) The promise of low cost land was a giant incentive as properly, identical to for ballparks right now.

After the studios moved west, you can argue that Chicago obtained a uncooked deal within the film trade with a concentrate on gangster movies. Sure, all of us get pleasure from a great gangster movie, however when that’s the one picture that individuals get of your metropolis, it tends to provide a nasty impression. I’m reminded of the road in Jacques Demy’s 1961 movie Lola, the place the French lady explains to her mom that she spent the afternoon with an American sailor from Chicago. Her mom shoots again “They don’t have sailors in Chicago. Solely gangsters.” Yeah, that’s what folks considered Chicago.

(To be truthful to the mother, at 13, that lady in Lola was waaay too younger to be hanging out with American sailors.)

The eighties appeared to alter issues. The 2 films that I most affiliate with Chicago are The Blues Brothers and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I wrote about 1981’s Thief a number of weeks in the past after which there’s 1987’s The Untouchables. (OK, one other gangster movie.) There’s the entire John Hughes oeuvre, which I’ve actual blended emotions about.

Going into the twenty first Century. Excessive Constancy and Judas and the Black Messiah are robust Chicago movies. (Though a fast on-line examine tells me that Judas was shot in Cleveland. Boo!)

Oh, after which there’s Chicago. That one’s simply odd. After all, most musicals are. Additionally shot in Toronto.

So inform me us about your favourite or least favourite Chicago films. Or simply ones that you simply suppose we must always find out about.

Welcome again to everybody who skips the jazz and films.

Many of the Sizzling Range speak for the time being revolves round free agent signings. Al has been doing a collection of items on potential Cubs signings and I’m not going to attempt to duplicate what he’s doing there.

However I can take his work in a distinct course. There are three Mets beginning pitchers obtainable as free brokers. One in every of them, Jacob deGrom, is in a category by himself and received’t be mentioned right here. However the different two, right-handers Taijuan Walker and Chris Bassitt, are remarkably comparable of their manufacturing over the previous two seasons.

Whereas each Bassitt and Walker have had injury-plagued careers earlier than 2020, each of them have been principally wholesome over the previous three seasons. And their manufacturing (though not their pitching repertoire) has been comparable as properly. Each gamers made their solely All-Star groups in 2021. In 2022, Bassitt completed with a line of 15-9 with a 3.42 ERA. He struck out 8.3 per 9 and walked 2.4. Walker, however, went 12-5 with a 3.49 ERA in 2022. He struck out 7.6 and walked 2.6 per 9. Each pitchers allowed 0.9 dwelling runs per 9 in 2022.

The 2 pitchers additionally had the identical protection behind them, so you may’t credit score one for enjoying on a greater group. Their fielding impartial pitching (FIP) for 2022 was 3.66 for Bassitt and three.65 for Walker. That’s as shut because it will get.

There’s one large distinction. Walker is 30 and Bassitt is 34. Nonetheless, pitchers don’t fairly observe the identical ageing curve as place gamers and Bassitt has fewer innings on his arm than Walker does.

Regardless of that, there’s all kinds of opinions on the 2 pitchers. In Keith Law’s preview of the Top 50 free agents (The Athletic sub. req.), he ranked Walker because the Twelfth-best free agent and Bassitt because the twenty fourth. Then again, over at Fangraphs, Ben Clemens ranks Bassitt because the 14th-best free agent and Walker because the twenty second.

This additionally results in a distinction in what the 2 evaluators suppose every pitcher will get. Clemens estimates that Bassitt will snag a contract within the three-year, $51 million vary. Then again, Regulation predicts two years and $24 to $28 million for Bassitt. That’s a giant distinction. You won’t need Bassitt at three and $51m, however you may love him at two and $24 million.

For Walker, each analysts predict that he’ll get no less than three years and $42 million, however Regulation thinks that some group might simply supply Walker 4 years. Clemens, however, thinks Walker ought to think about a one-year deal that might permit him to return on the free agent market subsequent season for a potentially-bigger payday. Once more, which may make a distinction in your opinion. It undoubtedly makes a distinction to Jed Hoyer.

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

Right here’s Al’s take on Bassitt and his take on Walker. I don’t essentially agree with Al’s opinions. I don’t essentially disagree both.

So tonight’s query is, contemplating the 2 Mets pitchers and what they’ll doubtless get in a contract supply, which one would you slightly have? I’m not going to let you choose “each,” however I’ll give a “neither” possibility. What the gamers are going to get is sort of as much as you since there’s plenty of disagreement on their respective values. However you may clarify your reasoning and the contracts within the feedback.

So Bassitt, Walker or neither?

Thanks a lot for stopping by. Don’t neglect to tip the waitstaff. Please keep heat on the market. Get dwelling safely. In case you want us to name a trip for you, tell us. And be a part of us once more tomorrow evening for an additional version of BCB After Darkish.