5 Ways to Improve the MLB Draft

The Rule 4 Major League Baseball draft is coming up in about a month (June 9).  Unlike the NBA and NFL drafts which are surrounded by so much hoopla, the MLB draft is a relatively lowkey affair.  It wasn’t televised live until 2007.  I would absolutely like to see the draft made into a bigger deal, though I understand that it simply can’t be as important an event as the NBA and NFL drafts, where players can often make a large impact the first year after signing.  But here are some ideas that I think would improve the draft for the purpose of increased entertainment, strategy, and fairer player signing bonuses for lower selections.

No graduation requirement/age limit

It doesn’t make sense to me that players in places like the Dominican Republic or Venezuela can accept contracts at whatever age, such as Michel Ynoa who signed a multi-million dollar contract at age 16. Why should a player have to graduate from high school in order to get a job playing baseball?

I’m also tempted to say that the draft should apply to more than to just the United States and Canada, but I recognize that there are important differences in the way that US players are developed versus the way that Dominican talent is developed.  I would imagine that if the draft applied to international players, teams would have less incentive to develop baseball academies and contributing to the athletes’ communities.

Reduce the number of rounds

Currently, the draft runs 50 rounds (or until all teams pass), which is a comically long time.  For sake of comparison, the NBA and NFL drafts last two and seven rounds respectively.  The amateur draft used to be even longer, essentially lasting until everyone got sick of it and went home.  Future first-ballot Hall of Famer Mike Piazza was famously picked in the 62nd round.  If Mel Kiper did baseball, his mock draft board would need one of those sweet sliding ladders that large libraries use.  You could probably cut the draft to 25 or 20 rounds.  Let the players after that become free agents and sign where they want.  That would give them at least a little leverage in negotiations or allow them to sign close to their hometown or something.  It’s extremely unlikely that any one guy is going to make it to the big leagues, so the least you could do is let him work where he wants.  Keep in mind that players in these later rounds only get a couple thousand dollar signing bonuses and aren’t paid that well when playing in the minors.

Get rid of compensatory draft picks

Compensatory picks have almost the opposite effect of what they are supposed to be for.  Instead of compensating small-market teams who lose big-name players to free agency, it is rewarding the big-market teams who are signing these stars and later letting them go.  They can afford to risk offering arbitration (a necessary step in order to get compensatory picks) whereas teams with more limited budgets can’t do this.  Another side-effect (perhaps intentionally on the owners’ parts), is that teams aren’t willing to sign a Type-A or Type-B player for as much as they normally would because they would have to give up a draft pick.  We saw that this past offseason with Juan Cruz and Orlando Cabrera.

Allow trading of picks

This is a no-brainer.  I don’t see how anyone could be opposed to this.  It makes draft day more fun and it allows teams to be more flexible with the kinds of deals they make.

Implement hard-slotting for salaries for the first 5 rounds

This is probably my most controversial suggestion.  Some, such as Keith Law, have argued strongly against this, saying that hard-slotting and indeed the entire draft’s purpose is to drive down player signing bonuses and salaries by limiting player leverage.  But as a fan, I want to be entertained and, frankly, seeing teams pass up superior players in exchange for players with better “signability” is not entertaining.  I really don’t want to limit prospect’s salaries like this, as only a few of them will have long big league careers and I have no desire to see the owner’s pocket the extra cash, so I would suggest a very generous bonus slotting system whose values were proportional to the average Major League salary.  The top talents, like Stephen Strasburg, probably wouldn’t receive as much as they otherwise would, but some lesser players could potentially receive more money.  This would prevent ugly situations like the Nationals’ Aaron Crow debacle, the mess that was Pedro Alvarez’s contract negotiation, and more unfortunate outcomes like that of Matt Harrington, who was drafted five times but never signed a contract.  Anyway, the current slotting suggestions from the commissioner’s office are a joke and the only teams that follow them are the teams that are willing to draft poorly.

Arbitrary song of the day: Shakespear’s Sister – Black Sky (Dub Extravaganza part 2)

Duck

AFLAC!

Duck (Nic Bettauer, 2005) is a simple little film starring Philip Baker Hall, one of my favorite actors.  As someone whose face seems worn and weary by time, Hall is a perfect fit as a lonely widower who has one of the saddest back-stories you’ll hear.  The premise is rather basic: Hall as Arthur Pratt is lonely to the point of suicide until he comes upon a new friend, a duckling who he names Joe.

Arthur speaks to Joe like a crazy lady speaks to the child she kidnapped.  He talks almost non-stop to Joe with overly descriptive language of what he is doing – pretty redundant and a bit inane.  It probably would have been better served without any, which would have given it a more striking effect.  Joe is a unrelenting quacker, too, meaning that our two main characters both talk a lot, even though one really doesn’t understand the other.  Gradually we learn how the world the two live in is being torn apart.  Arthur is broke and getting evicted from his apartment; the ponds that Joe would call home are being drained to make way for malls by construction workers so evil they probably burn down FernGully in their spare time.  In this dystopian future of 2009 in which Duck takes place, we learn that Jeb Bush has become president, trash is now strewn everywhere, and the average dickishness quotient among the general population has become exceedingly high.

Joe grows up rapidly, giving us some nebulous sense of time passing.  Over this time, the duo head west from Los Angeles to the ocean encountering various people who they help or get helped by.  This includes a suicidal French Stewart (!), who is probably the easiest to help suicidal person ever.  The encounters are vignette-like, fleeting as quickly as they arrive.  My favorite was their visit at a nail parlor with an Asian pedicurist who gives Joe a bath.  She’s played by actress Amy Hill, who you’ll almost certainly recognize from something.  The scene is expressed with simple character-building dialog that’s the film’s strong point.  Of course, it’s entirely possible that this was just longest Aflac commercial ever.

Arbitrary song of the day: The Offspring – Pay the Man

Sit Down, Shut Up pilot

This past Sunday, Fox premiered its new animated series Sit Down, Shut Shut Up.  Born in Australia and reinterpreted through Arrested Development creator Mitchell Hurwitz, the series has arrived with little fanfare but a quality timeslot.  I’m not sure if Fox is trying to kill it yet or not.

Sit Down, Shut Up is surprisingly visually striking, utilizing animation over top of set photographs.  It’s really interesting, but not distracting.  This type of animation gives the frames greater detail with little additional effort (I assume we can expect to see the same backdrops reused).  There are little jokes caught in the background, such as what teachers should if a student is choking (hint: drag him off school grounds).

The cast is extremely overqualified.  We have Arrested Development alums Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, and Henry Winkler along with current/former SNL members Will Forte, Cheri Oteri, and Kenan Thompson* as well as voice acting mainstay Tom Kenny**.  The characters are cast as you would expect them: Jason Bateman plays a nice guy who is in love with someone but can’t tell her, Will Arnett plays an over-the-top obnoxious jock, Henry Winkler a sad-sack teacher with a penchant for pornography, and Kenan Thompson is a large black woman.

Character design was done by Mo Willems, who did the character design for Sheep in the Big City, a short-lived but favorite cartoon of mine.  Like Sheep, Sit Down delivers plenty of fourth wall-breaking laughs and clever quips.  This show doesn’t have infinite potential, but I think it’ll be solid.  I’m really hoping this series is given a fair chance by Fox, but unfortunately, I wouldn’t surprised if it ends up with only a Clone High-like run.

*I love that Kenan Thompson started on All That in the Good Burger sketches and ended up on SNL.  I feel kind of bad for Kel though.

**That Tom Kenny and Jill Talley are the couple in the “Tonight, Tonight” video is one my favorite bits of Smashing Pumpkins trivia.

Arbitrary song of the day: Hot Chip – Ready for the Floor

Nick Warren – GU35: Lima

Nick Warren has been associated with the Global Underground series for over a decade.  GU35, his eighth release in the iconic DJ series is unlike any of his previous albums.  This is, of course, has been true for each of his mixes since I started listening to him via an imported copy of his Brazil compilation about ten years ago.  It’s the reason why he’s been able to maintain his relevance in the ever-changing dance music landscape.  His previous compilation, GU30 – Paris, explored more of Warren’s alternative moody side, with tracks like Cates & Dpl – “Living in a” (a favorite of mine which still doesn’t seem to have been released anywhere in full form).  Disc 1 immediately puts that in the past.

After a dreamy intro, Warren establishes the clean, almost sterile, template that wil be used for the next 70 minutes.  Each of the tracks is deliberate, yet direct.  They share a common “sound”, as tracks from good mix albums often do.  Tunes like Kruse & Nürnberg’s “An Why E” and Ormatie’s “Twisted Turns” bring forward a pulsating bassline over a crisp rhythm section, where you can’t help but hear each percussive element.  The melodies are simple and repetitive, but all seem to work over a background sweeping synthetic swooshes.  There’s just enough variation to keep it interesting while holding onto an extremely unified vibe.

During my first listen through, I was struck as I heard the intro to “Surface”.  I apparently hadn’t noticed the Michael Burns/Panoptic name on the back of the case (limited edition wide box, of course).  “Surface” was never a favorite of mine*, but on an album full of unfamiliar tracks, you can’t help but feel a little bit of happy recognition.  I’m a little curious as to why Nick Warren chose this track in particular, considering it was released over five years ago and is one of the more distinctive tracks on the entire compilation.

*I was always a fan of Michael Burns’ work done under the Blue Haze moniker, such as “Absorb” and his remix of Echofalls’ “Shiver”.  Dave Preston and Habersham also did a might fine job of remixing the Blue Haze track “A Time to Reflect” with their “Dirtydoodoofunk Straight Outta Strongbadia Mix” (its actual name!).  That particular remix uses a clip from the “Techno” sbemail (well, technically from the Strong Bad Sings album).  However, the North EP is still his best work.

My first reaction was to call the second disc more experimental, but I think that’s inaccurate.  It’s much more electro, which may have been experimental five years ago, but now electro is a pretty standard direction to take a progressive house mix.  The low-fi, electro edge becomes apparent somewhere between Etiket – “Revelation” and Yvel & Tristan – “Panama”, which sounds like it could be off the Border Community label.  We’re even treated to a little bit of fun in this otherwise serious set of sounds with “Castillian”, a Spanish guitar-influenced track that’s gone even faster than it came.

Towards the final half-disc of GU35 we get into some harsh bass grooves with tracks like “Siberian Transit” and Robert Babicz’s remix of Warren’s own Way Out West track “Spaceman”.  Perhaps its my late 90s/early 00s dramatic progressive trance side, but I like my epic compilations to have a bit of an ending than GU35, which seems to just fade out with the breathy “Bosworth”.  But, maybe doing things a little bit differently disrupts what Warren was trying to do here.  Rather than providing a creative mish-mash of genres like he did with disc 1 of GU24: Reykjavik, he seems to want to create an incredibly even and well-polished set of respectable electronic dance music.  And I think it’s difficult to argue that he didn’t.

Arbitrary song of the day: Silversun Pickups – Lazy Eye

The best 18 Adult Swim shows – Part 5: 6-4

This is taking me many months apparently…

6. Home Movies

From the people who brought you Dr. Katz, you’ve got Home Movies.  It features a lot of the improvisational feeling of the Dr. Katz segments with H. Jon Benjamin and Jonathan Katz. The main character, Brendon, is a kid movie director partially based on the actor who plays him, Brendon Small (who also co-created the series). Like Dr. Katz, it uses the techniques of retroscripting and, originally at least, Squigglevision. After the first season, they switched over to normal animation techniques (Adobe Flash I believe), which was just fine with me. Squigglevision is freaky…

Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Laaaaaaaaw

5. Robot Chicken

Robot Chicken is probably the most popular original Adult Swim program. The sheer number of celebrities who have appeared on Robot Chicken is staggering, especially for a semi-obscure cable show shown after midnight. The Star Wars episode is must-see and includes what is probably my favorite Robot Chicken sketch, which features Emperor Palpatine speaking to Darth Vader over the phone after the Battle of Yavin. I think everyone who has watched Robot Chicken since the beginning felt a little pride when the show was given a shout-out on Family Guy’s Star Wars special.

4. Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law

There’s so much to love about this series, whether it is the poking fun at Hanna-Barbera characters, over-the-top theme song, or Stephen Colbert as insane, eye-patch wearing boss Phil Ken Sebben. Despite all the bizarre sight gags and non sequiturs, the most strange thing about the series may be that there was a video game based on the show for the Wii.

Radio Places

No matter what city you live in, there are always corners you’ve never explored.  Maybe you’ve heard of them, but don’t even know where they are on a map.  Maybe they have a car dealership or mall there.  Maybe you have a friend who once went to an Olive Garden there.  These are radio places.

Also, I'm pretty sure no one has ever actually been inside one of these.

Why are they called radio places?  The primary reason behind this is that you hear about these places an inordinate amount on the radio.  There could be annoying commercials for an “automile” in that area or mentions of a festival there which will feature an appearance from a former local sports hero who played back when the team was good.  People on call-in shows will often be from one of these places.  Multiple traffic light delays are reported daily from this place, making you wonder why anyone is there in the first place.*  And for some reason, schools in these districts are always the first and sometimes only schools that will close on days when it snows.

* No one has ever heard a traffic report that was relevant to their driving route.  I don’t know how they do this.  Maybe they always just report about traffic in the same (possibly fictional) place.  On a related note, I am never driving near the Doubletree Hotel.

Your interaction with this small city/township/locality consists entirely of hearing about it on the radio and possibly passing the exit for it on the highway about 30 minutes from where you live.  Do not visit it, you will get lost somewhere between the Bed Bath & Beyond and the Big Lots.

A couple of my radio places:

• Mentor, OH
• Bedford, OH
• Parma, OH
• Castle Shannon, PA
• All of Beaver County, PA

What are some of yours?

Arbitrary song of the day: The Orb – Pomme Fritz

Forgotten Songs

Over on Keith Law’s The dish, he has an enjoyable post up where he describes “Forgotten songs“:

…songs I really like and never stopped liking but that, for one reason or another, were never huge hits in their times and have since been gathering dust on the music world’s shelves… [nothing] too obscure – I think everything here received radio airplay in the U.S.

This is a fun idea, similar to one I had before but was too lazy to write up at the time.  Among Klaw’s songs, the only one I remember hearing is Lo Fidelity Allstars’ “Battleflag”, which is one of those songs to me that you don’t know anything about, but you’ve heard a million times.  Included on the list is the song “Fun For Me” by Moloko, which will now almost certainly be on my next mix CD.  The video isn’t anything groundbreaking, but singer Róisín Murphy brings the over-the-top sass perfectly.  There seem to be a lot of these scruffy/dorky male producer and gorgeous female singer pop-electronic duos (Moloko, Miss Kittin and The Hacker, Lamb, and let’s say Ladytron is essentially made up of two of these).

As far as my own list…

Supergrass – Pumping on Your Stereo

I had completely forgotten about this song until a couple months ago when I happened across the video on Youtube.  I think I had searched for it before some years ago, but I don’t think a search for “music video with muppety things and its awesome” turned up many results.

Fastball – The Way

I remember this from back when I used to watch VH1 after coming home from school.  Amazingly, Fastball is still making music, with another album coming in April.  Other songs I particularly associate with this period of time are from a couple of Shawns: Shawn Colvin (“Sunny Came Home“) and Shawn Mullins (“Lullaby“).

The Orb – Little Fluffy Clouds

This is very not forgotten by me, but most people would probably know it as that song that was on a VW Beetle back when those cars started to become trendy again.  The Orb has always had terrible videos that should have no interest to anyone this side of an LSD trip, but the song is one of the most catchy pieces of 90s electronic music.

Mr. Oizo – Flat Beat

“Flat Beat” apparently got to #1 in the UK, but I’d be surprised if anyone stateside remembers this track.  Really, the only reason I know it is because it was in MTV’s alternative videos playlist for a couple weeks.  The album it’s from, Analog Worms Attack, has grown on me more and more over the years.  The unfiltered, dirty, analog squelches mixed with bits of tongue-in-cheek humor are class.

New Radicals – You Get What You Give

Everyone around my age knows this song and will remember it, even though they haven’t heard it for years.  It’s not really surprising that everyone has forgotten this song considering the band only wrote one album.  Frontman Gregg Alexander kind of looks like Billy Corgan, only if Corgan was tall and dressed like a douchebag.  Not that I’m blaming Alexander, as I’m pretty sure everyone dressed like that in the late 90s.

The Breeders – Cannonball

I honestly know almost nothing about The Breeders or how I originally heard this song, but aren’t these supposed to be forgotten songs after all?

Are any of these songs not forgotten at all?  Clearly I didn’t forget about them, but maybe other people didn’t either.  Let me know!

Also of note is Paul Shirley’s most recent column for ESPN about The Prodigy’s most recent album.  He’s a good writer and has respectable musical tastes, especially for an athlete – his love of Kings of Leon not withstanding.

EDIT (3/19):

Guster – Fa Fa

“Fa Fa” could be the most forgotten song on my list, since I completely forgot about it until coming across it today on Youtube.  And I even own the CD.  By no means is this a lyrical masterpiece, but lets go ahead and add it for purposes of nostalgia even if nothing else.  When I first saw this video, I thought the guitarist in the cowboy hat looked like a jackass.  This has not changed.

Arbitrary song of the day: Underworld – Mmm… Skyscraper I Love You

Notes on the ESPN

Today’s ESPN headlines seemed more negative/depressing than usual.  Let’s break down the 10 headlines on TWWL’s front page from today:

3 criminal acts
3 NFL player/team disputes
1 injury
1 disappointment
2 neutral

Anyway, ombudsman Le Anne Schreiber wrote her last column for ESPN where she talks about sports fans’ frustration with over-coverage of big names like Brett Favre, Terrell Owens, and Alex Rodriguez. I’d like to add to her commentary that ESPN should get rid of ridiculous stuff like “Titletown” and “Who’s Now?”, which quickly became a parody of itself.  And, please, show more game action on SportsCenter and fewer on-site reports and post-game sound bites.  I really don’t care if Pedro Gomez is knitting a scarf in Roger Clemens’ breakfast nook, just show me some damn hockey highlights.

Arbitrary song of the day: Luke Vibert – Breakbeat Metal Music

25 Albums

I’m sure everyone has been tagged in one of those “25 Albums” (or 20 possibly albums) notes on Facebook that have some corny stuff about music that moved you, energized you, or wanted to make you experience life or whatever.  Anyway, my 25 are the ones that were most formative in terms of my musical preferences over the past 10 years or so.  I figured I may as well cross-post it, so here we go in alphabetical order:

Aphex Twin – Richard D. James Album
Boards of Canada – Music Has the Right to Children
Brian Eno – Ambient 4: On Land
Deeper Shades of Hooj Vol. 3 (mixed by Red Jerry)
Editors – The Back Room
Global Communication – 76:14
LCD Soundsystem – Sound of Silver
Miles Davis – Kind of Blue
Mindless Self Indulgence – Frankenstein Girls May Seem Strangely Sexy
Moby – Play
Mr. Oizo – Analog Worms Attack
The National – Boxer
Nine Inch Nails – The Fragile
The Orb – Orbus Terrarum
Paul van Dyk – Seven Ways
Plaid – Not For Threes
The Prodigy – Music for the Jilted Generation
Rammstein – Sehnsucht
Rob Zombie – Hellbilly Deluxe
Sasha & John Digweed – Northern Exposure
The Smashing Pumpkins – The Aeroplane Flies High
The Smashing Pumpkins – Adore
Soul Coughing – Ruby Vroom
Tool – Undertow
Ulrich Schnauss – Far Away Trains Passing By

Arbitrary song of the day: Godspeed You Black Emperor! – The Dead Flag Blues

Pens trade for Bill Guerin

Last year, the Penguins traded a small boat of assets to the Thrashers in exchange for Marian Hossa.  I criticized the trade at the time, saying that they were giving up way more than they should.  This year, the Pens have acquired Bill Guerin from the Islanders.  Guerin is nowhere near the calibur of Hossa, but he adds a much needed winger to the Penguins lineup.  I love that the Penguins only give up a conditional draft pick, which can range from a 5th (a pretty useless pick) to a 3rd (meh) rounder if they make it to the second round of the playoffs.  There’s almost no downside to this deal with a good amount of upside.  He’s not a huge upgrade over Miroslav Satan, but for so little, he’s definitely worth a look.

Arbitrary song of the day: Aceyalone with RJD2 – A Beautiful Mine