Vic Sage

i won the office pool. 19/24 (89 points in weighted scoring) i missed the 3 editing categories. I knew they'd go together, either to BABY DRIVER or DUNKIRK. I voted BABY DRIVER, which was voting my heart. DOH! You always vote for the war movie in editing categories. And i missed the 2 shorts categories, doc and live action. Nothing to be done about that; Foreign film, Best Doc and the shorts categories are always something of a crap shoot.

Fman99 wrote: Curious to know, from those who have seen them, which of the "Best Picture" movies are worth watching, as Fwife wants to see some of them. I am drawn to "The Post" and "Dunkirk" based on them being based on history, but don't know much about the others. Recommendations? *“Call Me by Your Name” - didn't see it; don't want to *“Darkest Hour” - Its a great performance, but a slow, "inside politics" perspective of the events from Churchill's becoming PM through the Dunkirk rescue. Feels like Masterpiece Theater. [**1/2] *“Dunkirk” - this is the quietest war epic you'll see. You follow 3 story lines that all converge at Dunkirk; minimal dialogue, with moments of great intensity, its like a big-budget art film. I loved it. [***1/2] *“Get Out” - fun horror/social satire. Well done and entertaining. [***] *“Lady Bird” - mother/daughter coming of age story. Great perfs and script, but the girl's character is so annoying, i could see why some would hate it. I found it moving and insightful [***] *“Phantom Thread” - didn't see it; don't want to *“The Post” - didn't see it; i'm planning to *“The Shape of Water” - My favorite non-superhero movie of the year. Del Toro's heartbreaking, gorgeous fairy tale about love is like Beauty & the Beast, if the beast didn't change and Belle was fine with that and fucked him anyway. great perfs all around. [****] *“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” - really good story about a mother's grief, with best perfs of the year. McDonagh's script has some interesting reversals, some great dialogue, and a hopeful denouement. [***1/2]

i had no problem with the accents. I wasn't even aware of them after a while.

the beating goes on... Mets RH reliever Anthony Swarzak left Tuesday's game against the Astros in the top of the third inning due to an apparent injury. Swarzak ran to cover first base on a grounder to first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, but was unable to catch what was an on-target toss from Gonzalez that would have ended the inning. Swarzak was then visited by the trainer and departed the game.

Nymr83 wrote: Edgy MD wrote: The good news is that Tim Tebow is on the "extras" list for today's game. that's a relief. we might need him if the mascot goes down with an arm injury and we need someone to throw t-shirts to the crowd between innings! HAH! good one...

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Heavy fastball with downward break, tight/sharp slider... I'm going out on a limb: Tyler comes thisclose to coming north in April, then joins us in May after a Robles/Montero demotion... and he goes FlameBoy on the NL. He posts a mid-2 ERA, Ks a LOT of dudes, and is our breakout of the year, 'pen-wise. i'm feeling it. I just get a good vibe off of The Basher.

so Flores is batting leadoff and Nimmo 6th? wtf?

i don't mind the change; i just think that, with all the exceptions to it, and without any enforcement mechanism, it's pointless. Nor does it get to the heart of the issue. If you want to increase the pace of play, the single difference from previous eras isn't stepping out of the box, or mound visits for strategy, or pitchers going for a stroll between pitches, or even long commercial breaks. Nor is it desensitization to increased violence in the media or a breakdown of moral authority. It's the consequence of player specialization. It's the unintended consequence of managing a game with more information at your disposal. Its the "3 reliever" innings and "6 pitcher" games, the "pinch-hitter for the pinch-hitter" ABs. Its also about the increased offense from smaller parks, bigger players and juiced balls. The more offense, the longer the game. The more personnel changes, the longer the game. They won't be able to get the genie back in the bottle without some structural changes, but there are things they could do without changing the rules of the game at all. It would involve raising the mound, pushing back the fences, and/or deadening the balls to get offense back in balance, and it would require the reduction of the "active" roster size (e.g., 20 players selected to "dress" for each game [including no more than 5 relievers], while still carrying 25+ on the ML roster). Either that, or require any reliever to face at least 3 batters and any PHer must actually get an AB. This way, the roster would have to carry fewer specialists and more generalists. LOOGYies and ROOGYies would go bye-bye, requiring relievers to face RHBs and LHBs, and starters would have to pitch deeper into games. Then, if you want to throw in limits on mound visits and shorter commercial breaks, that's gravy. You wouldn't even need a pitch clock, just umpires willing to keep the game moving by handing out strikes and balls to pitchers and hitters if they're causing undo delay. Games would be 2 hours (2.5 hours, max). You know, make it baseball again. But offense sells tickets and i think the roster size flexibility would be expensive to negotiate with the MLBPA, so none of that will happen. But the pace of play is not really going to get dealt with in any meaningful way until they do.

i haven't heard how they'll use Wheeler in ST, but it does seem that there really is no open competition for slots... guys can pitch themselves out of a starting slot during ST, but they're coming in with preconceived roles. This is what i expected. They signed Vargas to start behind Syndy and deGrom, and Callaway was brought in to fix the other guys, with 2 of Harvey, Matz and Wheeler filling out the rotation. Since Wheeler has the least amount of success as a starter, with greatest track record of injury, he would seem the odd man out at the outset. Could he pitch his way back into the rotation? I guess, but i think one of the other guys will have to pitch their way out, too. And Callaway has said it will be based on "approach", not "production". So he's looking for guys who'll be aggressive in the zone. That's not Wheeler. That was never Wheeler. Could Wheeler become Wade Davis? I suppose. He's got great stuff (he's always had great stuff), but his control issues continue to hinder him. Davis had similar problems as a starter, but not as pronounced as Wheeler.

dgwphotography wrote: I thoroughly enjoyed Black Panther, but it had better theme music when it was pink. agreed. Mancini over Lamar!

well, you know, you have to change with the times. Just like new baseball uniform designs, panthers sell better when they're black, not pink (unless it's breast cancer awareness day or mother's day).

Centerfield wrote: JD Martinez to Boston. 5 years, $110. Front loaded, so he makes $25 per for the first 2 years. Opt outs after years 2 and 3. Very reasonable contract. Should have been all over this. Well, offering that deal to him would have meant not pursuing Bruce. Which is fine, but then Bruce signs elsewhere and, when Martinez signs up for that deal with Boston, we're left with... what... Dyson? So, we'd have to have paid substantially more than that to get Martinez away from an AL playoff team like BoSox, where he can win and DH.

i like Flores' chances in the OF. No, he's not going to get to much, but he doesn't get to much in the IF either. I think he could grow into a Lou Piniella-type that catches whatever he gets to and throws the ball in quickly and accurately to the right base, while giving us an xtra bat against LHPs. He could give Cespedes or Bruce a rest once in a while, or at least be usable out there in a double-switch. I have more faith in him than Reyes, frankly, in that Jose shows very poor defensive instincts (as indicated by how poor his defense became once he lost a step.)

bmfc1 wrote: Their characters became more focused, hurt more as their needs were ignored, and I felt their pain. Ah. Ok. I was too put off to feel much of anything beyond boredom. But mileage varies.

Did you see it yet?

Surprisingly good mockumentary about the rise and fall of infamous Olympic skater Tonya Harding, from Tonya's perspective. Satiric, but tragic too, with great performances by all, particularly Margot Robbie as Tonya and Allison Janney as Tonya's monstrous mother. The editing is amazing, as it makes it seem like Robbie is actually skating like an Olympic champ.

bmfc1 wrote: The 1st hour I wondered what the hell I was watching. I even asked my son if it was a documentary. By the end I was captivated and still can't help thinking of these people and what they represent in America. They are ignored, not counted, under the radar, and putting them in the shadow of Disney World was brilliant. One of my favorite movies of the year. so what happened after the 1st hour changed your mind? what happened in the remaining [crossout]3 hours[/crossout] 51 minutes was different from the [crossout]3 hours[/crossout] 1 hour that preceded it? Those people were living, ignored, in the kitschy shadow of Disney during that 1st hour too, so what changed for you? Did the unrelenting tedium and sadness just wear you down so you confused ennui with profundity? Seriously, i need to know.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Well, we can hope for R.A. Dickey 2012, can't we? did Vargas learn a knuckleball?

Edgy MD wrote: I think I've had enough of trying to force a .220s-hitting, former-Yankee-heart-of-the-order batter into the leadoff spot, but if they want to experiment with him in that role exclusively against lefties, I won't light myself on fire or anything. Here's to Lagares coming on strong and making the righthanded part of the role his own. Even if he hits for more power this year, i don't see how changing the plane of Lagares' swing will make him a more selective hitter with a good enough OB% to bat leadoff. It might increase his power, so he could hit in Frazier's spot and Frazier could hit leadoff. But i don't think it matters, ultimately. Most pitchers are RHPs. Nimmo should bat leadoff and play CF against RHPs. On the few days where they face a LH starter, Lagares or Frazier or even Rosario or Cabrera could hit there... it won't matter after April anyway, when Conforto returns in May. As for April, with 26 games scheduled for the first month, a cursory glance at the teams and their projected rotations show: StL (4 games, 0 LHPs), Phil (3 games, 0 LH), Wash (6 games, 1 LHP), Mia (3 games, 2-3 LHPs), Milw (3 games, 1 LHP), SD (3 games, 2 LHP) and ATL (4 games, 1-2 LHP). So we could see maybe 9 games started by a LHP at most, and as few as 1. We're likely to see around 5. So for 5 games, we can have Lagares or Frazier bat leadoff and it won't matter very much over the course of the season, as long as Nimmo's .370 OB% is starting the other 20+ games.

Edgy MD wrote: The Mets started last season seemingly in excellent position, with seven guys primed for the rotation, but instead ended up using 12, of whom 1 1/3 were healthy and effective enough to pitch contender-quality baseball, maybe 1 1/2, if you distinguish Montero's occasional runs of goodness in there and give him 1/6 of a point. Firing on five cylinders is always elusive, but I understand why they want to prime nine guys this year instead of seven, and if somehow injuries don't make the decisions for them, two end up in the minors and two in the bullpen. The main problem is that this cuts against the manager's expressed wish that he have a couple of bullpen backenders with options. all true, but my problem is which 9 guys. They've chosen Vargas over other options in the market, eliminating Cobb and Lynn (for example). so instead of getting a 3rd starter, we'll have Harvey or Matz getting the 3rd slot in the rotation by default, instead of having them compete for the the 4th and 5th, and we've spent our last $$ to fill in the back end or end up in the pen. That's disappointing. It's not tragic, and i'm not upset about it, but it is what it is.

Manfred doesn't name any names, but ya think he might have had some specific person in mind when he said this at a presser yesterday concerning teh remaining still-unsigned FAs?: “Drawing lines in the sand based on a perception that your market value is something different than what the market is telling you your value is, that doesn’t make a lot of sense, ... It is a fact that markets dictate value. Values are not dictated by big, thick, three-ring binders and rhetoric about who’s better than whom. They’re dictated by markets. That’s the system we negotiated.” markets don't dictate value. Even in a market economy, they dictate price. Price is an objective standard, but "value" is a subjective determination. One player might actually be more valuable than another, in terms of winning for example, to one team but not as much to another, and they won't get as great a price because they have value to fewer buyers. e.g., see "Moneyball", and other examples of market inefficiencies. A market may determine that one movie makes a billion dollars and another movie, a better movie of greater value, ends up losing money. Value doesn't necessarily = price, particularly if parties are not equally situated when negotiating price.

We need an adequate 5th OFer/defensive replacement/LH pinch-hitter to sit at the end of the bench, probably never playing and earning ML minimum until Conforto returns and he gets cut. DenDekker fits that very specific need.

Nymr83 wrote: Options have a funny way of making roster decisions. Montero likely the long man just to avoid exposing him. Sorry Lugo/Gsellman i agree with that, but its a mistake. Montero sucks. Lugo has had good production coming out of the pen, and games you lose in April count just as much as those in October.

Montero is out of options; he'd have to clear waivers to go down. As we go into ST, i think it's: 1) Syndy 2) deGrom 3) Harvey (if healthy) 4) Matz (if healthy) 5) _____? ...with Wheeler, Vargas, Lugo, Gsellman, Montero, Flexen and Oswalt (in that order) dueling it out for the 5th slot. The runner-up goes in the pen. Everybody else goes down (or, in Montero's case, goes through waivers). I think we'll end up with Vargas & Wheeler, in either order, but i wouldn't be shocked if Lugo and/or Gsellman forced their way into the discussion. Is it possible that Harvey and/or Matz could pitch themselves out of the OD rotation? Yeah, but that will depend on their health and mechanics, not production in ST. I think our new manager and pitching coach were brought in specifically to fix those guys, not to bury them based on ST innings, so there's going to have to be some severe issues for them not to be in the rotation right out of the gate. In other words, its their slots to lose. I don't think its an open competition.

Or he could sign with Seattle, which could get a sponsorship deal with the Space Needle, renaming the stadium after it... that way, you could have a Panik in Needle Park.