Frayed Knot

From John Sickels: "... slumping in June is New York Mets outfield prospect Cory Vaughn, hitting .163/.241/.245 with four walks and 11 strikeouts in 49 at-bats for Low-A Savannah. He'd been hot early, hitting .303/.413/.434 in April and .356/.496/.510 in May, so his overall season line of .297/.419/.428 is still solid despite the slump. His strikeout rate is a touch higher than ideal with 55 whiffs in 229 at-bats, but he's also drawn 35 walks. The son of former major league outfielder Greg Vaughn, Cory has excellent tools but his erratic college performance at San Diego State dropped him to the fourth round in the 2010 draft. He has an especially sharp platoon split (1.066 OPS against lefties, .777 against right-handers), and has also been much more effective on the road (.946) than at home (.756). Even at this point of the season, the sample sizes with these splits aren't necessarily meaningful. Scouts were pleased with the improvements he made to his swing after signing last year, and while his isolated power is down in the Sally League, but I remain pretty optimistic about his chances."

The Queen Mum and my maternal grandmother were essentially the same person. You're just going to have to trust me on this one.

Kevin Goldstein at BP puts Familia in his Monday Morning rundown Jeurys Familia, RHP, Mets (Double-A Binghamton) -- Few pitchers in baseball have done more for their stock this year than Familia, who entered the year as a big arm with plenty to figure out, and is suddenly among the best pitching prospects in the system. After putting up a 5.58 ERA in the Florida State League last year despite mid-90s heat, many projected Familia as a reliever, but that's no longer the case, as after putting up a 1.49 ERA in six starts back at St. Lucie, he's showing no signs of slowing down at Double-A, firing seven shutout innings on Sunday while allowing just three hits and striking out six. His stuff hasn't taken a step forward (not that it needed to), but his control has improved by leaps and bounds; after walking 74 over 121 innings last year, he's handed out just 11 complementary pizzas in 50 1/3. This season is critical in terms of defining his future role; six weeks in, he not only looks like a sure-fire starter, but an above-average one at that.

So I was liking the three separate set-ups and all, and then when they all came together .... what exactly? He does a reading for the kid even though he doesn't want to because he feels sorry for him standing outside all that time; then he meets the woman because he sees?/imagines? a future with her (seems like he acquired a new set of power suddenly) on account of I guess that he can tell her something about what she experienced or maybe that he liked the first chapter or two of her book he picked up just hours earlier? And for her I guess that letter he jotted down on the fly to her must have had a helluva punch. Better set-up than pay-off.

Edgy DC wrote: Didn't make much sense to me. I don't know what happens to me, but a lot of times in sci-fi/fantasy, we get to the climax, and I have no idea what's going on. I mean I know who the good guy and the bad guy are but I don't understand what they're doing and why. I was like that on whichever one of the Batman movies I saw (the Heath Ledger one - I have no idea what it was called).

Although the two were often confused. Industrialist Armand Hammer (the actor's great-grandfather) owned/ran a number of companies most notably Occidental Petroleum. Many assumed, incorrectly, that Arm & Hammer was the one he started with but that company actually pre-dated him by many years leading to speculation that maybe he was named after the company rather than the other way around.

A BA Q&A doesn't rate Cohoon's ceiling all that high, but likes his fast start anyway. We may be witnessing the best three starts of LHP Mark Cohoon's season � 19 innings, 20 strikeouts, three walks � but that's nothing to be ashamed of. Like Mets big league RHP Dillon Gee, Cohoon's best pitch is "control." That plus control will keep him alive as a No. 5 starter candidate, but the Mets will take that from their 2008 12th-round selection.

Holt gets hisself on this week's edition of BA's 'Hot List' - as #8 Team: Double-A Binghamton (Eastern) Age: 24 Why He's Here: 0-0, 1.29, 2 GS, 13 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 11 SO, 3 BB, 19/4 G/F The Scoop: In his third try at Double-A, Holt isn't out of the woods yet. But he's off and running after allowing two runs through three starts. He flashed good stuff last year, but a combination of injuries, mechanical issues and lack of focus produced dreadful results (3-14, 8.34, 2.00 WHIP, 7.5 walks per nine innings). Through the early going this season, Holt is throwing his pitches for strikes, getting swings and misses, inducing grounders and generally living up to his No. 3 starter potential.

Yeah, I think I liked it better than Station Agent. Similar kind of stuff (while at the same time quite different), but I guess I found this one a bit more real.

Written and directed by Thomas McCarthy, a working actor who, when not acting, wrote and directed 'The Station Agent' and also the Paul Giamatti wrestling movie in current release, 'Win Win'. Like 'TSA', 'The Visitor' also revolves around seemingly mis-matched people getting grouped together by chance and various factors in their lives. Richard Jenkins is a weary and widowed college professor who, when he needs to go to NYC to present a paper at a conference, returns to the apartment he's held onto presumably from the time he was married but hasn't been in for quite some time, only to discover it's been occupied for several months (rented out by a scammer) to a Syrian musician and his Senegalese girlfriend. After his initial impulse to throw the squatters out, he winds up inviting them to stay until they can find a new place. Slowly at first, but increasingly as times goes on, the lives of the lonely widower and the two recent immigrants begin to intertwine.

The thing about Campbell is that he was actually a talented guy. Good singer, real good guitar player, and a knack - at least early in his career when he hooked up with Jimmy Webb - for picking good songs. I think his biggest problem is that he came along at the exact wrong time; clean-cut country boys were definitely on the outs in the late '60s leaving him without a market and marginalized by the 'hip-ness' police (even Webb was somewhat cast aside at this point also as I guess abstract lyrical metaphors were only OK if written while on wild drug trips). So getting into acting probably seemed like a good fit for him (like it did for John Denver later on) and probably looked like a good idea to the movie studio too -- 'Hey, we need to cast a decent-looking southern boy who isn't so big that he'll be a threat to the aging Duke for a movie which takes place in the Arkansas/Texas/Oklahoma area (Campbell is from Arkansas) ... how 'bout that singer with that cute smile I've seen on TV variety specials?!' Later on, caught between not really being an actor and still having little market for his core music he tried to capitalize (and again foreshadowing Denver) on that 'golly gee-whiz' image and started making some really bad choices of songs -- see: Cowboy, Rhinestone

Vic Sage wrote: metirish wrote: Not being a prick here but I heard Bridges say on the radio yesterday that they made a movie from the book and didn't remake Wayne's movie, apparently that was a big distinction for Bridges and the Coen's. yes, i remember hearing them say that, too. but the book is utterly unknown to me (and, i think, is relatively obscure to most) and the film is quite familiar to me. If there was a radical difference in the narrative or characters, i would've necessarily have called it a remake of the book, to point out the differences in the films. but i found the movies quite similar... in narrative, if not in tone and quality. Yeah, this. I too was led to believe that there were going to be greater differences in the story-line but, aside from chopping off the somewhat hokey intro from the old version and adding a wrap-up scene onto the end, there was virtually none at all. The update is a bit grittier, a bit less cartoonish, and I'm going to go out on a limb here and pronounce Matt Damon to be better at portraying a gun-toting Texas Ranger than Glen Campbell.

If he's on the opening day roster in 2013 I'd say things are going well - so it's possible we could see him at CF in late 2012. Starting the season at high-A he could be in AA before this season is out and spend next between AA & AAA. IIRC he did NOT sign a major league deal so there's no reason to bring him up before he's really ready.

Baseball America put out a list of their top-30 prospects for the Mets and where each is starting the season. Some (Hi Lucas Duda) may already be having their mail forwarded to a new location. NAMERANKTEAMDoB1Jenrry MejiaBuffalo10/11/892Wilmer FloresSt. Lucie08/06/913Cesar PuelloSt. Lucie04/01/914Matt HarveySt. Lucie03/27/895Kirk NieuwenhuisBuffalo08/07/876Reese HavensBinghamton10/20/867Lucas DudaNYM02/03/868Fernando MartinezBuffalo10/10/889Aderlin RodriguezSavannah11/18/9110Brad HoltBinghamton10/13/8611Juan UrbinaGCL05/31/9312Robert CarsonBinghamton01/23/8913Jeurys FamiliaSt. Lucie10/10/8914Darrell CecilianiSavannah06/22/9015Cory VaughnSavannah05/01/8916Dillon GeeBuffalo04/28/8617Erik GoeddelSavannah12/20/8818Steve MatzGCL05/29/9119Zach LutzBuffalo06/03/8620Robbie ShieldsSavannah12/07/8721Brad EmausNYM03/28/8622Mark CohoonBinghamton09/15/8723Matt den DekkerSt. Lucie08/10/8724Armando RodriguezSt. Lucie01/28/8825Jordany ValdespinBinghamton12/23/8726Jefry MarteSt. Lucie06/21/9127Kyle AllenSt. Lucie02/12/9028Manny AlvarezBuffalo12/18/8529Blake ForsytheSavannah07/31/8930Pedro BeatoNYM10/27/86

I always found: Melanie Griffith = Actress to be a big enough stretch.

Brief write-up from BP today: Every team has a guy like Jeurys Familia: young and athletic, with excellent size and stuff, yet the results just aren't there. Familia is repeating the Florida State League after putting up a 5.58 ERA there last year, but at this rate, his return engagement won't last long. Sitting at 90-97 mph with his fastball and showing a much-improved power breaking ball, Familia faced the minimum 21 batters in his seven innings on Friday, allowing just one hit and striking out seven. Six-foot-three and long-armed, the 21-year-old Dominican has a history of control problems and still needs to improve his changeup to avoid a trip to the bullpen, but with 2010 first-round pick Matt Harvey and top prospect Jenrry Mejia both impressing in their season debuts, the Mets suddenly have a trio of power arms to make many organizations jealous.

Director of, among others, 'Twelve Angry Men', 'Network', 'Serpico' and 'Dog Day Afternoon'

I was intrigued enough by this flick to seek out and read the book that was the source. That's fairly unusual for me, first because I'm not much of a fiction reader but also if I'm going to read a book and see the movie I usually do so in that order. Can't think of a recent time when it's been movie first. Anyway, the book of the same name by Daniel Woodrell is a short little read (can knock it off in a few days) but the movie holds fairly true to the source. Aside from the usual caveat about how the book can flesh out the characters more fully, Ree's younger siblings are both boys in the book* and the character of her best friend is a bit more prominent. But mostly it's the same story and much of the dialog and great lines are ripped straight from the written page. The author turns out to be someone who both grew up and still lives in the Ozark Mountain region near the Missouri/Arkansas border, lending some authenticity to LWFS's idea about how people like this and the world they inhabit really exist. He's a guy who joined the marines the day he turned 17 before eventually getting a college degree in his late 20s and later attending writer's workshops in preparation for a literary career. * there was some note in the credits which indicated that the actor who played the little sister was a local, someone who lived at or near where the film was shot - that was possibly the reason for the change from two younger brothers to one brother and one sister.

"It's that damn stuck-up MTV girl!!"

The worry about him and SS is mostly about his quickness, specifically about the fact that he has none. Added years + weight will only made that situation worse.

Sitting at home sick today I found 'Dirty Harry' while channel surfing and watched it for the first time in like a thousand years.

Most think it'll eventually be either 1B or a corner OF spot. No one believes he has the quickness for anywhere in the middle of the field and even 3B seems to be doubtful. That said I don't think there's a need to decide on his life-long position in the immediate future. Of course some of this 'info' probably is just feeding on itself; so many hear it that they simply repeat it as if that's their first-hand opinion too. The question I would have liked to see DePo asked was whether Flores is as god-awful foot-slow as is rumored. It strikes me as odd that a thin-ish teenager would be talked about like he's practically an honorary Molina brother but that's what I keep reading.

A Liverpool teen named John tries to define who he is while navigating the gulf between the emotionally distant and strict aunt who raised him and his loving but flighty mother who couldn't. And out of that he forms this band ... Sidenotes: - Most of you are probably up on at least the basics of this tale, although some of the (apparently accurate) details of the back story were new to me. The movie is based at least partly on a book by one of John's half-sisters, one of three daughters his mother had via two relationships during separations from, and following the split with, John's father. - The now twenty year-old lead actor took up a relationship with the film's director and the two are now engaged and parents of a newborn. She is a divorced 44 y/o mother of two.

I'm not quite as negative here as Vic, although am at least in the same zip code with his 'what's the point?' angle. The fact that it's an unusual family getting past a crisis (or maybe not) doesn't make it a better flick IMO - particularly when the crisis barely made sense in the first place. Good performances only take it so far.

'Teardrop' was one hard-ass mutha-fucka ... but at the same time I don't know that his future is going to be all that long.