Cup of Coffee: March 18, 2024

Good morning!

Today we have the latest on Gerrit Cole and Blake Snell. One Cardinal agreed to a key contract extension and another Cardinal decided to engage in some misguided baseball class war. The Pirates signed a couple of guys, one of whom is a jerk and the other of whom sounds like a nice guy. A guy who could’ve been a star but squandered it is still plugging away down in Mexico, a guy who was unexpectedly released last week signed this past weekend, and a solid if unspectacular big league veteran has hung ‘em up.

In Other Stuff the worst AI “innovation” to come down the pike so far is making news. An iceberg has a chance to do the funniest thing ever in a couple of years. They keep making the same movies yet I still (mostly) keep watching them. And, finally, we have some royal news. No, it’s not about Princess Kate. It’s much, much bigger. At least assuming reality is as creative as my imagination is.

 The Daily Briefing

Before we get into newsy items, allow me to note that Joey Votto hit a homer on the first pitch he saw as a member of the Toronto Blue Jays yesterday. It was off of Zack Wheeler. It just barely scraped the wall and required an umpire meeting to confirm it was out, but it was still a longball. I still have to be convinced that Votto can be an everyday or near-everyday player at age 40, but that was certainly nice to see.

OK, on with the news.

The latest on Gerrit Cole

There is some clarity regarding the health of Yankees ace Gerrit Cole. His latest exam, with elbow guru Dr. Neal ElAttrache, shows nerve irritation and edema in his throwing elbow. This is further evidence that he is not dealing with a torn UCL which is, obviously, good news.

Still, the Yankees will be without Cole for some time. The club said over the weekend that he won't throw for three to four weeks. After that he’ll basically need a spring training-length ramp-up before he can pitch. Aaron Boone added that if the team experiences any sort of roster crunch in the early going they would place Cole on the 60-day injured list retroactive to Opening Day to relieve it. If they do that Cole would be unable to return before May 28, which suggests that the club doesn’t think he’ll be back before then anyway.

Cole is entering the fifth season of a $324 million, nine-year contract that pays him $36 million annually. He has the right to opt out after this season and become a free agent, but given how the year is beginning the odds of that happening seem a lot lower now than they might’ve been just a few weeks ago.

The latest on Blake Snell

On Friday free agent starter Blake Snell threw four simulated innings in front of scouts from a handful of teams. With the caveats that (a) I understand the pros and cons of Blake Snell’s free agent case; and (b) I understand that such showcases are nothing new and serve a purpose, it still sorta blows my mind that a reigning Cy Young winner is still unemployed this close to Opening Day and is, essentially, doing tryouts. This offseason’s hot stove has sucked, man.

It seems, however, that Snell’s time out of work is about to end, as Ken Rosenthal and Chandler Rome of The Athletic are reporting that the Astros "are engaged in a serious pursuit" of Snell. They were one of the clubs at his little showcase on Friday. There were likewise reports last summer that Houston wanted to trade for him for the stretch run, though that ended up not happening. It would seem that the Astros are just waiting out Snell and are hoping to get him just before Opening Day on the relative cheap.

And they could certainly use him. They are opening the season without Justin Verlander, who has had shoulder issues and is thus behind in his spring program. They’re also short Luis García, who is still recovering from Tommy John surgery and Lance McCullers Jr. who had flexor tendon surgery last summer. It’s also worth noting that José Urquidy left his last spring start with elbow discomfort and will undergo tests back in Houston, so yeah.

It’s crazy that Snell is doing tryouts in mid-March. But it’s also crazy that, at this point, he may be underrated and might be gotten for, again, relative cheap.

Cardinals, Oli Marmol agree to a contract extension

The St. Louis Cardinals announced on Friday that they have agreed to a two-year contract extension with manager Oli Marmol. Marmol is entering the final year of his previous deal. The new contract will cover the 2025-26 seasons.

Marmol’s Redbirds went 93-69 and won the division in his debut season but last year the club finished in last place with a record of 71-91. That last place finish, plus some public spats with players, made many think that Marmol would be managing for his job in the early going in 2024, but GM John Mozeliak and owner Bill DeWitt both said they had confidence in Marmol and didn’t want a slow start to the season — which both of them, weirdly, seemed to imply that they expect to happen — to lead to calls for Marmol’s firing.

Marmol has never been in any other organization. He was drafted by the Cards as an amateur, played a few years for them in the minors before moving on to coaching, and then climbed the minor league ladder until he was named Mike Shildt’s replacement following the 2021 season. The brain trust no doubt likes him and values continuity, so he’ll be in the job for a while.

Miles Mikolas slams the Dodgers for playing “checkbook baseball”

The Cardinals, as an organization, seem to get involved in weird baseball culture wars more than most. Now at least one of their players apparently wants that to continue. That’d be pitcher Miles Mikolas who, when asked about the club’s season-opening opponent, the Los Angeles Dodgers, offered up some us-versus-them red meat:

“We’re not exactly a low payroll team, but you got the Dodgers playing checkbook baseball. We’re going to be the hardest working group of Midwestern farmers we can be . . . it would be great to stick it to the Dodgers.”

I’m sure that quote was met well by a lot of non-Dodgers fans who don’t like the fact that the team committed something like a billion bucks to Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and other players. And that’s the case even if that’s a misleading figure given the amount of deferred money involved and everything. The details usually don’t matter. It’s simply a fact of life that a lot of fans love to slam the big spenders and believe — no doubt thanks to decades of owner, commissioner, and media-led propaganda about players allegedly making too much money — that there is greater virtue in lower payrolls than higher ones.

Still, it’s not like the St. Louis Cardinals of all clubs have ever been some plucky poor sister of Major League Baseball, so this makes me roll my eyes to no small degree. And I can’t help but wonder what the MLBPA folks and other players think about a prominent guy like Mikolas giving enthusiastic voice to the owners’ belief about high payrolls being bad for the game. I mean, the term “checkbook baseball” is a term you can imagine Rob Manfred or some pro-owner columnist coining in the middle of tense labor negotiations.

Pirates sign Michael A. Taylor

The Pittsburgh Pirates have signed centerfielder Michael A. Taylor to a one-year, $4 million contract.

Taylor spent his first seven seasons with Washington, played for Kansas City in 2021 and 2022, and then appeared in 129 games last season with Minnesota. He has long been an elite defender, but his career line of .239/.294/.389 (83 OPS+) definitely provides a drag on any team’s offense.

Pittsburgh seems to think it’s set at center field with Jack Suwinski, who they moved to center from the corner last year. Taylor is a better defender than him so maybe they’re rethinking that. Or maybe they want Taylor to play some right field for the club and serve as a backup/late-inning defensive replacement for Suwinski and the other outfielders. That kind of thing is probably the best use of his talents at this point, frankly.

Pirates sign Domingo Germán

The Pittsburgh Pirates have also signed Domingo Germán to a minor league deal with an invite to what’s left of big league spring training. He’ll make $1.25 million if he makes the club. There’s also a 2025 club option with a base value of $2.25 million and some performance bonuses in the deal.

Germán was placed on outright waivers by the Yankees following a six-year run with the club that featured some highs but more lows, including an 81-game suspension pursuant to the league’s domestic violence policy after he struck his girlfriend at a party attended by teammates. He also received a suspension in 2023 for using foreign substances during a game. In late June of last year he pitched a perfect game against the Athletics, but his season ended a month later when he was placed on leave in order to seek treatment for alcohol abuse. That came after he reportedly got into a confrontation with teammates in the clubhouse in early August during which he flipped over furniture and was, generally speaking, a giant ass. So yeah, more than a mixed bag.

Earlier this offseason the Pirates signed Aroldis Chapman who, like Germán, has run afoul of the league’s domestic violence policy. Maybe the Pirates believe that abusers are the new inefficiency. I dunno. All I know is that it’s gonna be hard to root for the Pirates in a lot of games this year.

Speaking of players with troubled histories . . .

. . . Yasiel Puig has signed with Aguila de Veracruz of the Mexican League. He previously played for them in 2021. He has also played in the KBO and the Dominican and Venezuelan Winter Leagues in recent years.

Puig has generally played quite well in those international stints but no major league club has shown the slightest bit of interest in him since Atlanta agreed to sign him in 2020 and then backed out following Puig testing positive for COVID. His last job in the bigs came in 2019 when he was basically a league average hitter while splitting time between Cincinnati and Cleveland.

Puig’s exile, however, has less to to do with his batting line than it does with (a) multiple sexual assault allegations being lodged against him in recent years; and (b) allegations that he lied to federal investigators who were investigating an illegal gambling organization, which has led to criminal proceedings against Puig. And before all of that he had a well-documented reputation for being difficult to coach and for being difficult in the clubhouse. Which is something that you can get away with if you’re raking, but not when you stop raking and certainly not when more serious off-the-field stuff goes down.

When Puig first came up with the Dodgers he was one of the most talented young players I’d seen in years. The way he absolutely squandered that talent is a damn shame.

J.D. Davis signs with the Athletics

Last week the Giants raised eyebrows when they released third baseman J.D. Davis. The eyebrows were raised less about the cut itself — the club had gone out and signed Matt Chapman, making Davis somewhat redundant — as opposed to the timing.

The Giants had gone through arbitration with Davis last winter and he was awarded a $6.9 million deal. By cutting him when they did, the Giants took advantage of a seldom-used rule which keeps arbitration-awarded salaries from being guaranteed prior to Opening Day, costing Davis most of that $6.9 million. Many believe that the Giants acted in bad faith with Davis throughout the process, refusing to settle with him and forcing him into an arbitration hearing specifically so that they could cut him later and not pay him in the event they could sign Chapman or someone else, which they eventually did.

Davis did not remain unemployed for long. On Friday he agreed to a one-year contract with the Oakland Athletics. Davis will reportedly earn $2.5 million and can make an additional $1 million in performance bonuses. Between that and the $1.1 million in termination pay the Giants owe Davis, he’ll make between $3.6 and $4.6 million this year. That’s a drop from what a panel of arbitrators thought he was worth, but it’s better than nothing.

Kole Calhoun hangs ‘em up

Veteran outfielder Kole Calhoun announced his retirement Friday night via Instagram.

Calhoun, 36, was selected by the Los Angeles Angels in the 2010 MLB draft and played in the bigs for them from 2012 through 2019. He then suited up for the Diamondbacks in 2020 and 2021, played for the Rangers in 2022, and for the Cleveland Guardians last year. He was a free agent this past offseason but with no apparent interest in his services he is choosing to get on with the rest of his life.

In all, Calhoun played in 1,239 career games, hitting .242/.315/.417 (101 OPS+) with 179 homers and 582 RBI over 12 seasons. He won a Gold Glove in 2015, which is not something I would’ve been able to remember had you asked me before I started writing this item. His outfield assist totals were pretty decent there for a while, though, so I suspect that that, more than range and flash, had a lot to do with it.

Anyway: happy trails to Mr. Calhoun. Who is, for now anyway, the only player in baseball history named “Kole.”  

Other Stuff

I didn’t intend this, but today’s Other Stuff items are all about rehashes/remakes/fakery and other inauthentic creations. Well, that and an item about the royal family, which is itself basically fake, so we’ll allow it. Either way, all of that seems to sum up where we are as a society in 2021 A.D.

The worst AI product yet

Rolling Stone reports on a company called Suno AI, which aims to create AI-generated music. Whole songs with instrumentation and lyrics and the whole damn deal.

The article kicks off with the description of a song produced by Suno, created via the text prompt: "solo acoustic Mississippi Delta blues about a sad AI." The song which it created — which you can listen to here — is superficially similar to a Delta blues song, though of course it’s literally about a conscious AI entity “trapped in this machine.” A gimmick, obviously, even if it, broadly speaking, sounds like a song a genuine human being could’ve written and performed.  

Of course it’s also absolutely fucking offensive. But don’t rely on me to explain why that is when there are far more authoritative voices who can speak to that:

I send the song off to Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid, who's been outspoken about the perils and possibilities of AI music. He notes his "wonder, shock, horror" at the song's "disturbing verisimilitude." "The long-running dystopian ideal of separating difficult, messy, undesirable, and despised humanity from its creative output is at hand," he writes, pointing out the problematic nature of an AI singing the blues, "an African American idiom, deeply tied to historical human trauma, and enslavement."

It’s hard to imagine anything more offensive than some Ivy League/Silicon Valley douchebags creating an AI engine that purports to sing the blues. But there is plenty of offense to be found in the endeavor short of the crass appropriation of the African-American experience. People will inevitably ask that same engine to create love songs despite never feeling love. Songs about loss or grief without ever feeling loss or grief. Punk songs without ever feeling rebelliousness or disaffection. Balls-out rockers without ever feeling exhilaration or the need for release. Yeah, there are bad examples of songs in those and all other genres already — cynical, formulaic product put out by record labels to make a buck — but even that stuff is conceived by and performed by human beings. There is at least a shred of something organic and honest about them which is wholly nonexistent here.

That’s not the concern of these ghouls, however. Almost the entire article consists of the founders of this company offering cloudspeak about all of the wonderful things AI-generated music will bring — “a world of wildly democratized music making” for example — but they just want to make a buck. They want to create a product which eliminates the artist and the need to pay them for their creative work. The same as AI-generated art and writing which, no matter what the folks at OpenAI and its competitors like to tell you, is all about cost savings for those companies and persons who pay human beings who create art and writing.

I’m particularly interested in how they think this will all work.

Neither you nor I are likely to cast aside our David Bowie or Taylor Swift records or to ditch our carefully curated Apple or Spotify playlists to actively listen to this synthetic stuff. But there’s a huge market for passive music, for lack of a better term, out there. I’m thinking of the background/mood music you hear in restaurants, lounges, gyms, retail stores and places like that. Music in TV, radio, and web-based advertising. Scores for movies, TV, animation, and video games. Whatever the use case, all of that music is either commissioned and paid for directly or is paid for via licenses with companies like ASCAP which, while underpaying artists in many instances, still pays them. I have no doubt that Suno AI’s business plans includes a lot more stuff about bypassing for-hire composition and music licensing than it does about trying to get some AI creation to sell albums or get radio play.

Which means that this sort of product will hit everyday working musicians hardest. Just as AI writing does not threaten Colleen Hoover all that much but is killing journalists and people who write commercial, advertising, and promotional copy. Just as AI art does not threaten Gerhard Richter, yet risks the livelihoods of commercial artists and illustrators. This is all about serving anyone who relies upon human creativity to make money but who wants to eliminate the costs of human creation.

I want no part of it. And I want no part of anyone who wants a part of it. I don’t care if that makes me sound old or resistant to progress. I just have a very different definition of “progress” than these awful people do. At the very least mine involves human beings where theirs does not. With the exception of the human beings in the investor class, that is.

An iceberg has the chance to do the funniest thing ever

Back in 2014 the Australian billionaire Clive Palmer announced plans to build an exact replica of the Titanic called Titanic II. It was to serve as the centerpiece for his planned “Blue Star Line” cruise company. Titanic II did not happen then, but he re-launched the project in 2018. It did not happen then either. I’m as shocked as you are that something named Titanic seemed destined for failure.

But last week Palmer dusted off the plans for a third time and announced that, yeah, this time he’s really doing it! He aims for his new, no doubt unsinkable Titanic II to set sail in 2027. You can see the press release info, mockups and all of that kind of thing here.

As for why anyone should believe him now after two false starts, Palmer said “I’ve got more money now.” Which, OK, fair. He also said “It’s a lot more fun to do the Titanic than it is to sit at home and count my money . . . All you need to be happy, I’ve found in my life, is to have someone that loves you, somewhere to sleep at night and enough for a good meal. Beyond that, the rest is an illusion – it’s like playing golf.” Which are additional statements with which I take no issue. I know we’re not supposed to like billionaires, but based on this alone I sorta like the cut of Palmer’s jib. I’ll never tell any of you if I become a billionaire because I don’t want your judgment, but there will be signs and most of those signs involve grand, stupid follies like this. Seriously: I can think of no greater accomplishment than if, after I die, there is some structure or endeavor out there that is known to posterity as “Calcaterra’s Folly.”

Not that the world really needs this. Especially given that, due to it being a replica, it will be smallish by today’s cruise ship standards. And efforts at authenticity aside, it will likely not have a steerage section for impoverished immigrants. All of which means that Titanic II will no doubt be a niche luxury deal for rich people as opposed to something superfans of Leo and Kate’s movie might be able to take advantage of as a bucket list item.

There are worse things to spend a billion dollars on, I am sure of it. But humanity isn’t exactly crying out for yet another metaphor for late 19th century/early 21st century Gilded Age economics or the hubris of the super rich. All I can say is that they should be sure to watch out for the icebergs and, in this case, the karma.

Time is a flat circle

Saw this on the Internets yesterday:

I saw both “Ghostbusters” and “Dune” in the theater back in 1984. In 2021 I watched the “Dune” remake on HBO Max or whatever it was streaming on and I saw “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” on an airplane because I couldn’t figure out what else to watch. Last week I saw “Dune Part II” at the theater. I have no plans to see the new “Ghostbusters” movie coming out unless it gets absolutely stellar reviews from reviewers I trust. I am not holding my breath.

I am not a fan of the fact that the film industry is so fixated on the exploitation of existing IP as opposed to coming up with new stories and new worlds to explore, but I suppose I play into it a fair amount by going back and seeing reimagined or warmed over versions of old things. There’s a limit to it, though, and quality should be the limiting factor. The new “Dune” movies were good. The 2021 “Ghostbusters” movie sucked and based on that and the trailers I’ve seen, I assume the new one will blow chunks, so I won’t be wallowing in that franchise like I may in some others.

The recycling of old IP doesn’t necessarily foreclose quality, but it tends to eschew it at a pretty high rate. Makes me wish they’d, you know, cut it out.

Big news comin’!

The royals: a beat I just can’t quit for reasons I can’t even begin to explain but which is probably tied up in the fact that I’m not watching any serialized drama at the moment and all of us have to scratch that soapy itch from time to time.

Anyway:

At the outset I will acknowledge that this comes from what appears to be a questionable content factory. Based on the archive, this “Wells Oster” person posts like 15 stories about the royals a day, all of which seem sort of interchangeable. I’ll grant that I did the same thing for more than a decade at HardballTalk, but there’s more baseball news than royal news, so I stand by what I did. The point here is that I am aware that “The News International” is not exactly a paradigm of journalistic integrity. But let’s move on.

I’m sure a lot of people believe this imminent royal announcement involves either the whereabouts of Princess Kate (she’s totally dead) or the health of King Charles (he’s totally dying), but my sources indicate that it’s something bigger.

I’m hearing that they found a direct descendent of Edgar Ætheling, who had a stronger claim to the throne in 1066 than either Harold Godwinson or William of Normandy, but who was wrongfully passed over. Historically such a discovery and subsequent claim would lead to a civil war, but in light of the diminished state of the House of Windsor, an agreement has been reached by which Charles III will abdicate, he and his heirs will go into exile in the duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha whence they came, and the House of Wessex will be restored.

The new king, Jason Ætheling, whose family has gone by “Johnson” for the past 978 years whist they’ve bided their time and protected themselves from royal vendettas, will take over as soon as he can get some time away from work. He’s the daytime shift supervisor at a Sainsbury’s in Stoke-on-Trent. And not even the nice Sainsbury’s Superstore up near Hanley. He works at the dodgier Sainsbury’s On-the-Go down on Longton Hall Road. Either way, he wants to hedge his bets until the paperwork comes though.

But the moment King Jason I can get hold of the store manager to ask for some PTO, he’s totally gonna ascend to the throne and there will be oatcakes for all! You heard it here first.

Have a great day everyone.

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