As anyone who pays attention to the dueling statistics of Baseball Reference and FanGraphs knows, a big part of evaluation in baseball is the concept of a replacement level player, the hypothetical average minor leaguer against whom all other players can be measured. At this point in the season, teams generally amass a stockpile of guys, most of whom profile as replacement level players, in the form of non-roster invitees. These are either players signed to minor league deals trying to earn a roster spot with their play in Arizona and Florida or top prospects getting their first action playing with big leaguers.
Teams have been sporadically announcing their list of NRI's and I've been more than sporadically keeping track of these announcements. I specifically noticed that the Yankees announced which 26 players they're inviting to spring training because last year New York brought a whopping 43 players to camp, more than would fit on a single page of a standard Excel spreadsheet. Of course, there are still two weeks until pitchers and catchers report to spring training for them to hand out more invitations to new signees or members of their organization, but for now, here is a much more manageable list of this year's invitees with some accompanying information.
Let's start with the far left-hand column, noting rankings on MLB.com's list of 100 prospects. Note that there's only one: outfielder Mason Williams (not to be confused with the composer responsible for the soft 70's pop tune Classical Gas). He didn't put up great offensive numbers mostly for the class A advanced Tampa Yankees in the Florida State League, but according to MLB's Bernie Pleskoff, his defense is his best tool currently. It's a lock that Williams won't make the big league roster out of spring training at age 22, both because he still needs some minor league seasoning and because New York's outfield is chock full of more experienced and more expensive options.
Moving to the right, a green highlight in the Position column denotes whether the player was a rookie in 2013, while a yellow highlight in the names column represents a player signed during the off-season. Obviously only a handful of players on this list saw big league action last year (as is normally the case), which is why I included minor league stats as well. Of the 2013 major leaguers, the most interesting might be Scott Sizemore (pictured above), not just because he played for the A's, but because of what's going on with New York's third base situation given Alex Rodriguez's suspension. If the former Detroit prospect can stay healthy (his two games in 2013 constituted his only action since 2011), he could pick up a bunch of playing time as new infield additions Kelly Johnson and Brendan Ryan have only 45 games at 3B between them.
Honestly, looking at this list, I'm finding it not that impressive. The highest offensive output came from catcher/infielder Peter O'Brien, and he played in a couple of pretty low levels of the minors. None of these pitchers will likely compete for a rotation spot, as only one of them (Bruce Billings, signed away from the Oakland organization) was a full time starter last year. It's just nice to grab onto anything remotely interesting that's happening in the baseball world in the dark winter months.
In other news, both active players named ChadTracy signed minor league contracts today. Isn't that something?
I can't believe it's been almost two months since my last activity on this blog, but anyone who's checked out my YouTube page recently should have a good idea of what I've been up to during that time. That's right, my Movie Scores Power Hour is now online and ready to view! Unlike my previous effort - chronicling some of the best moments in Batman: The Animated Series - this one needs only the audio to fulfill its function. The video portion, while not entirely necessary, includes provides useful information about each minute-long clip - title, year, director and composer of the movie from which it was taken, along with a piece of key art (i.e. a poster) and a screenshot or two. Below is the full video for your viewing / listening enjoyment:
Rather than go through clip by clip, as I did in my multipart companion to the Batman: TAS Power Hour, I'll just give some overall thoughts and bits of clarifying information that will hopefully make the experience more enjoyable (and thus drive up views). First, here's a leaderboard of composers who appear on the list more than once. Please keep in mind that while I think I got a great deal of the most iconic scores in film history, this was by no means meant to be an objective "best of" list - there's no such thing as a creative work that's completely separate from its creator, and my personal preferences often and proudly come to the fore throughout this hour.
John Williams - 11
Hans Zimmer - 4
Howard Shore - 4
Bernard Herrmann - 3
Jerry Goldsmith - 3
Nino Rota - 3
Elmer Bernstein - 2
Ennio Morricone - 2
James Horner - 2
Randy Edelman - 2
That's right, a whopping ELEVEN (this one goes to 11) clips from the modern day master of film music John Williams. And what's more, six of those eleven are paired with director Steven Spielberg. (No wonder two of those pairings show up in the top 10.) Fittingly, Mr. Williams is represented in the leadoff track, the opening title from the original Star Wars, for a long time my favorite movie and still my favorite film score (when taken over over the whole trilogy). My second favorite score appears all throughout this power hour as the cue to drink / introduce the next clip. I'm a sucker for a good leitmotif, and the different themes that Howard Shore crafted for the Lord of the Rings trilogy perfectly set the tone for a deep fantasy universe. In fact, three of his four appearances in this power hour are Middle Earth related, which happen to mark the halfway point.
Before we reach that milestone, however, we hear all four entries from Hans Zimmer, a composer who is as prolific as he is bombastic. The placement of Zimmer's contributions highlights the "block" structure around which I formatted this power hour. We hear from him first in the "superhero block" where his collaboration with James Newton Howard on The Dark Knight is contrasted directly with Danny Elfman's seminal theme from 1989's Batman. (The relatively short block is finished off by the Superman theme by, who else, John Williams.) Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard (the power hour's only female contributor) then start off the "epic/war movie block" with Gladiator. This block goes in chronological order going by subject matter, featuring the Roman Empire, 13th century Scotland, the American Civil War, World War I, and three entries from World War II. This block segues flawlessly into the "music you've heard in every trailer ever" block, starting with Zimmer's unforgettable Crimson Tide theme followed by Randy Edelman's ubiquitous Dragonheart (see if you don't have an "oh, THAT one!" reaction halfway through, and ending with Clint Mansell's haunting orchestral anthem (played by the Kronos Quartet, yes like the winter storm) for Requiem for a Dream. (Remember the trailer for Two Towers? Are you getting the LotR theme?)
I haven't seen Hans Zimmer's score for Inception (his second collaboration with Christopher Nolan on this power hour) show up in any trailers yet; even though it definitely has the proper triumphant epic tense feel, it might just be too recognizable on its own. As we head towards the halfway point, I tried to stick with the triumphant theme, grouping a couple of inspiring sports movies (the third sports-related film, the unmistakable and used-everywhere Chariots of Fire, earned a spot in the top 10) with a couple of inspiring John Williams scores based on space (including the second track from a Star Wars film). The halfway point is marked by repeats, as we see the second appearance of The Godfather - the haunting opening waltz is easily a top 10 track, but the melodious love theme is a distinct motif that also merits consideration. (Andy Williams's version also serves as a warning not to attempt to transform movie scores into pop ballads by adding lyrics. Don't listen unless you want your impressions of this great piece of music forever shaken...)
After the aforementioned trip to Middle Earth (with a detour to Hogwarts, making it a true "fantasy block"), we get the "Hitchcock block" made up of two of the three collaborations between the master of suspense and composer Bernard Herrmann that are featured in this power hour. The first of the three - the revolutionary staccato strings from Psycho - occurs in the top 10 as it's just too genre-defining to relegate to the second half. A bit of trivia that I have to mention every time I talk about Psycho (and stop me if you've heard this before) is that Hitchcock originally wanted the shower scene to play without any music at all. But that was before Herrmann showed the director what he was cooking up.
Next, the "western block" segues into the "Italian block" - one of the two Sergio Leone-directed / Ennio Morricone-scored "spaghetti westerns" in the hour appears here, the other (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) absolutely merited top 10 honors. Then we're back into scary movie land, where John Williams also makes an appearance with the driving strings of Jaws, followed by the score John Carpenter wrote for his own movie Halloween, and Jerry Goldsmith's extensively researched inversion of a high mass for The Omen. I actually lost some sleep over editing this clip, not because I was anxious about getting it just right, but because it would get in my head and I would be too scared to drift off.
Now a few clips from here is where I made the only glaring mistake in play order that I would like to have back. I got into some noir with Chinatown (also Jerry Goldsmith) and The Third Man (same lead actors as Citizen Kane, but with a much more fun musical theme), it would make perfect sense to go right to another dark story like On the Waterfront before starting to inject some fun as we head into the final 10, but instead I broke the tension with the jaunty Adventures of Robin Hood (which, at 1938, is the oldest film on the list, beating Gone With the Wind by one year). But like the weavers of Persian rugs who purposely included an imperfection because no one should be perfect but Allah, so I will graciously endure my error.
After a track from Titanic gets us back in the excited and hopeful mood (the addition of that movie was the biggest note I received from my fiancee / executive producer upon screening the first cut for her), we enter the final stretch by getting into some more groovy tracks from the 60's (The Pink Panther), 70's (Enter the Dragon, written by Mission: Impossible! composer Lalo Schiffrin), and 80's (Ghostbusters, which I know is not technically part of the score, but if it's in the movie, it's fair game [cf. the next track MORTAL KOMBAT]). In the final five is the only track from the 2013 movie season, Pacific Rim, which I included because, although I haven't heard many of the Oscar-nominated scores, I can't imagine any of them being more fun than Ramin Djawadi's (Game of Thrones, anyone?) heroic rock anthem.
A double dose of John Williams ends the hour, including the third track from the Star Wars series and the second track from Jurassic Park. Some might question the inclusion of two tracks from the same movie when so many great scores and composers went unrepresented (an unfortunate side effect when working in a 60-song format). But first of all, it's a distinct musical theme, and second of all, I've spent hours of his life waiting in line at Universal Studios listening to this particular riff on repeat, and I couldn't think of a better backdrop for a roll of credits of any kind.
So there you have it: a few words to supplement a few of my favorite movie scores of all time, arranged in a fun and interesting way. Watch it a few times and then tell all your friends! Enjoy!!!
