It’s another week here at BCB After Dark: The most fun gathering of night owls, early birds, new parents and Cubs fans abroad. Come in and sit with us for a while. You are always welcome here. The show will begin shortly. The hostess will seat you now. There is no cover charge, but there is a two-drink minimum. Bring your own drink.
BCB after dark It’s the place to talk about baseball, music, movies, or anything else you need to get off your chest, as long as it’s within the site’s rules. Night owls are encouraged to start the party, but everyone else is invited to join in when they wake up the next morning and into the evening.
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Last week I asked you if you thought it was a good idea for managers (or coaches) to have access to PitchCom to facilitate dugout pitching. It seems that most of you were against the idea or didn’t have an opinion, as 46 percent said you were against it and 18 percent didn’t have an opinion. The other 36 percent thought it would be fine.
Here’s the part where we listen to music and talk about movies. But you are free to move forward if you want. You won’t hurt my feelings.
Here’s a (rare?) video of saxophonist Hank Mobley on Danish television in 1968. Mobley is joined by an all-star backing group consisting of Kenny Drew on piano, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen (NHØP) on bass, and Albert “Tootie” Heath.
You voted in the BCB Winter Sci-Fi Classic end between 2001: A Space Odyssey and Terminator 2: Judgment Day and 2001: A Space Odyssey He is your champion! That’s no real surprise. It was the number one seed coming into the tournament and is undoubtedly the most acclaimed science fiction film of all time, ranking as the number six film of all time (in any genre) in recent editions. BFI Sight and Sound critics survey. The film has its critics: Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky (from Solaris and stalker fame) was not particularly liked, but most critics and academics see it as a film that changed the way we think about what a film can be.
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As I said in my original essay about the film, 2001 is the first film that truly captures the pure fear from outer space and perhaps no film since then has even come close to it. It’s also a film that leaves you with a lot of questions at the end, even if director Stanley Kubrick was more than happy to explain it when asked. It came out at a time when the “New Hollywood” movement, freed from the restrictions of the Production Code, really pushed the boundaries of what film could be. And fortunately, there was an audience for this kind of new expression in 1968.
So here is the final box with everything completed.
Organizing the sci-fi tournament was more difficult than our previous tournaments. On the one hand, this time he was willing to cover the entire 20th century, while the Film noir was limited to 1941 to 1959, the Western tournament was limited to 1939 to 1972, and the Hitchcock tournament was limited to Hitchcock’s career, which spanned from the 1920s to 1976. Second, there is always some disagreement about what is considered science fiction. Genres are always difficult to pin down, but science fiction is a very broad category that has changed a lot since 1902. a trip to the moon to 1999 The matrix. Thank goodness I didn’t include 21st century movies in the tournament or I would have gone crazy trying to figure out what counted.
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I just want to thank everyone who participated and voted. Special thanks to those of you who continued to comment in the discussions. What really makes it worth it is the way we share the way we interact with the movies. This is how I learn new things. Even those of you I didn’t agree with (heck, maybe especially those I didn’t agree with) taught me to look at movies in different ways.
But you’re still all wrong back to the future. It’s very regular. Like Huey Lewis and the news. AND Repository man and Brazil I should have done better. Then there should be stalkerbut it’s my fault for facing it sword hunter in the first round. I also saw The Incredible Shrinking Man for the first time for this tournament, and it turns out that I loved it. So that was a good moment for me.
Welcome back to all those who skip music and movies.
The Cubs signed Michael Conforto to a minor league contract today and that’s just another indicator that the Cubs consider their biggest question in spring training to be who will be the fourth outfielder. The Cubs already had non-roster invitees Chas McCormick and Dylan Carlson, as well as prospect Kevin Alcántara and waiver back Justin Dean, in camp. Prospect Brett Bateman is also in camp as a non-roster invitee, but he is not considered a serious candidate to claim the fourth outfield spot, at least not after spring training. Maybe in August.
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So tonight I’m going to ask you which of the non-roster invitees is most likely to contribute to the Cubs this season. Not necessarily immediately after spring training, but throughout the season.
The model here is Mike Tauchman, whom the Cubs signed to a minor league contract with an invitation to Spring Training in 2023. Tauchman did not make the Opening Day roster, but accepted an assignment to Triple-A Iowa and was called up to the majors in May. Of course, Tauchman was an important player on both the 2023 and 2024 Cubs.
Two pitchers in recent years were NRIs and ended up making significant contributions to the team were Mark Leiter Jr. in 2021 and Brad Keller last season. It’s easier to make the roster as a reliever than as an outfielder. If anything, other relievers are more likely to get injured than other outfielders.
So let’s quickly review the three NRIs. We’re going to overlook Dean as he’s on the 40-man roster and likely has a fine for Iowa. He could certainly see some time in the majors if he does well there and there’s an injury in the majors. But he has options and the Cubs won’t have to make a decision on him in March. We’re not going to count Kevin Alcantara, because he’s a top prospect and is in the Cubs’ long-term plans right now. They hope he will be more than a fourth outfielder. The same goes for Brett Bateman, although he is not as highly regarded as Alcantara.
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The first candidate is Dylan Carlson. Once upon a time, 2021 to be exact, Carlson was a top 20 prospect in baseball and was expected to be a star for the Cardinals. His 2021 rookie season was pretty good. He hit .266 with 18 home runs and a .343 on-base percentage. Carlson finished third in Rookie of the Year voting. He didn’t set the world on fire in his rookie year, but he was promising enough that stardom could easily be predicted for him in the future.
That didn’t happen. Instead, Carlson suffered a series of injuries that reduced his playing time and power. Most notably, he suffered a shoulder injury after colliding with Jordan Walker in spring training in 2024 and never seemed to be himself since. Last year with the Orioles, Carlson hit just .203/.273/.336 with six home runs in 83 games. Hamstring and oblique injuries have also cost him enough speed that he is no longer an acceptable center fielder except in emergencies.
The silver lining for Carlson is that he’s still 27 years old, and if he ever gets healthy, that big-time prospect that used to be there is probably still there somewhere.
Al covered Conforto pretty well today. Just last year, the Dodgers thought enough of Conforto to give him a one-year, $17 million contract. That was coming off a two-year, $36 million contract with the Giants. And as Al wrote, Conforto was a pretty good outfielder for the Mets from 2015 to 2021. But he missed the entire 2022 season with a shoulder injury and hasn’t really been good since, although he was solid enough for the Giants in 2024 that the Dodgers took a chance on him with that one-year deal.
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The other disadvantage for Conforto is that he will turn 33 on March 1. He also has not played center field since 2019.
Finally, there is Chas McCormick, who has spent his entire career with the Astros so far. He made his major league debut with Houston in 2021, shortly before his 26th birthday. From 2021 to 2023, McCormick was an excellent fourth outfielder. He played over 100 games in all three seasons and hit 50 home runs in those three years combined. McCormick had a 117 OPS+ in those three seasons and was a solid defender at all three outfield positions.
McCormick then suffered a hamstring injury early in 2024 and hasn’t been well since. He hit a poor .210/.279/.290 last season and put up nearly identical numbers in 2024. McCormick will also turn 31 in April, so his decline could be related to both age and injuries.
The silver lining for McCormick is that he remains a solid defender at all three outfield positions. Unlike Carlson and Conforto, McCormick still has minor league options, so they could send him to Iowa to start the season. However, most of these minor league deals with an invite to spring training contracts have an opt-out clause in which a player can leave the organization if he is not on the major league (or 40-man) roster by a certain date. Therefore, McCormick may not have as much flexibility as it might initially appear.
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Evidently none of these gardeners are free from defects. If they were, they wouldn’t have signed a minor league contract. The teams would be fighting for his signature. But these three players were very good once and not long ago. Which do you think is most likely to be good again in 2025?
Thanks for stopping by tonight. Please arrive home safely. If you braved the snow to get here, be very careful. We want you to be healthy enough to visit us again. Recycle cans and bottles. Tip your waiters. And join us again tomorrow for more BCB after dark.