With Morales and Breslow both out, we know a few things. One: Andrew Miller will see a lot of playing time early on as the lone lefty. I’d also say those of you buying into Jon Heyman’s “Cut Aceves to teach him a lesson” argument will be disappointed. The bullpen is supposed to be a place of strength for the club, so cutting into its depth is not going to be an option.
via Franklin Morales out indefinitely – Ted’s Army: The Voice of Red Sox fans.
I took a look through SoxProspects’ draft history page to try to spot some trends in the Sox’ high draft picks. Last year, the team’s only draft under Ben Cherington, four of its top five picks — including all three first rounders — were out of college, and four out of five were pitchers. In the last three years, the team kept up its college-first focus, with eight of 10 first rounders being collegiate players, although the team took more chances on high schoolers in the second and third rounds.
John Farrell is sucked into the Allen Webster hype, too
Thoughts on the prospect’s strong spring and rising profile with Sox fans, over at Ted’s Army.
After last year’s much-publicized ouster of Dan Harmon as head writer of NBC’s Community, its fan base had a nearly universal reaction: This isn’t good.
The preparation was underway. Gone would be the aggressively quirky show about a bunch of community college misfits and their psyches of various levels of maturation. Replacing that would be something that resembled According to Jim: laugh tracks and pies in the face and stale characters.
And it’s fair that that was the assumption. NBC has been a disaster in making television outside of a handful of critically acclaimed shows that were guided by forces of personality (Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, and Tracy Morgan at 30 Rock, and Amy Poehler, Michael Schur, and a strong, deep cast at Parks and Recreation being the two most obvious examples). So replacing a figure like Dan Harmon — and read the Grantland piece if you haven’t; he’s everything he’s cracked up to be — with a pair of generic Hollywood screenwriters, regardless of who they were, seemed hopeless from the start.
Which brings us to season four of Community, which seems to have underwhelmed. I say “seem” for two reasons: 1) I won’t pretend to have read all assessments of it, nor to have talked to a significant enough base of its watchers and 2) I’m starting to wonder how much of Community’s lackluster season has more to do with us than it does with them.
There’s one story arc that is undeniably predictable in terms of sitcom plots, and that is of course Troy and Britta’s relationship. Specifically, the “We have to hide/downplay it to not upset our friends” angle, which only seems unique because they mostly hide from Abed, who is one of the more unique characters I’ve seen on TV. It’s hard to imagine this relationship playing out under Harmon’s oversight — he flew in the face of that sort of development earlier in the series when he revealed that will-they-or-won’t-they Jeff and Britta had been sleeping together for months, and then moved on from it.
Beyond that, though, I wonder. As I’ve watched each episode, I find myself being a little bored, or scoffing at a joke that seems too obvious, or even one that is filmed in a different way. If a camera is too close on Alison Brie’s face as she delivers something that should be an aside, I find myself thinking “Way to be subtle, guys.”
The problem is, of course, that I’m not watching the show in a vacuum. I’m watching the show with the knowledge that Harmon is gone, and is replaced by “Hollywood insiders,” and that the show isn’t the same. So is the show really not the same, or am I just inferring what I want to infer so I can maintain some odd idol worship of Harmon, who I (like most Community viewers) have no relationship to or thoughts about outside of the show? Maybe Alison Brie always got close-ups on her jokes, maybe the Dean’s monologues were always so similar, and maybe I just gave them too much credit because I was sucked into the Internet’s powerful Community hype machine.
It’s impossible to separate the show from its perception, and as a result I fear the show is somewhat doomed. It was already getting inconsequential ratings, and if other loyal viewers feel the way I do (I know Andy Greenwald does) the well is poisoned. It’s hard to imagine it regaining the love it once received regardless of how it continues, and of course as time passes more and more plot lines are used up.
I still enjoy watching it overall, as I’m sure many fans do, and will watch every episode until it’s over. The Dean is still insane, Joel McHale is still a great anchor, the return of Chang is promising, and Alison Brie is still remarkably easy on the eyes (and obviously funny too). I just worry that there’s nothing they can do to make it like it was, and that’s not even their fault.
Thoughts on the lineup without him (not good), plus a look at what Cal Ripken had to say about Xander Bogaerts, at Ted’s Army.
Just another day of being Satanic for Alfredo Aceves
Thoughts on Alfredo Aceves’ temper flaring at the WBC, David Ortiz’ multiple MRIs (oh boy), and whether Jackie Bradley Jr. should be Ortiz’ replacement should he start the year on the DL.
(He shouldn’t.)
The Internet is littered with blog posts explaining what people plan to do with their blogs, or apologizing for not posting. I’m about to add to that trash.
I originally started this blog as a way to keep track of the things I had written or was writing. At the time I was blogging for a Red Sox site (Ted’s Army) and a Celtics site (Red’s Army) and figured it would be a good idea to have a place to collect all the stuff I had written, plus any links to other sites to which I had contributed.
Now I spend my (non-work) time online strictly with Ted’s Army, and this blog essentially turned into me linking to those posts mostly to create an easy way to generate tweets without having to deal with bit.ly.
I’ll be trying to sprinkle in a few other things on here, and hey, maybe if you’re lucky they won’t be about sports. I’ll also be experimenting with a few different designs and making other tweaks, so if you happen upon me very often, be ready for that.
I leave you with Jeff Tweedy telling a funny/gross story before playing a sweet song.
Former prospect Westmoreland retires from baseball
Sad to see someone so young struck down by illness, but his statement sounds relatively composed. The 22-year old is moving on to a life outside baseball.
Sox prospect arrested on reckless driving
Bad news for Drake Britton, who was nearly 70 mph over the speed limit while drunk.
And I also complain about the overuse of the phrase “lights out,” which is important.
Scott Priest 