Cubs BCB After Dark: What would you give up for Adrián Morejón?

It’s another week here at BCB After Dark: the hippest hangout for night owls, early risers, new parents and Cubs fans abraod. Come on in out of the heat. There’s no cover charge. We promise not to trade you. We still have a few tables available. The hostess will seat you now. Bring your own beverage.

BCB After Dark is the place for you to talk baseball, music, movies, or anything else you need to get off your chest, as long as it is within the rules of the site. The late-nighters are encouraged to get the party started, but everyone else is invited to join in as you wake up the next morning and into the afternoon.

Last week I asked you which Angels’ starter you’d rather the Cubs trade for: José Soriano or Reid Detmers? The vote was reasonably close, but a clear majority of 56 percent of you said you’d rather the Cubs acquire Soriano.

Here’s the part where we listen to jazz and talk movies. You’re free to skip ahead if you want. Or you’re free to read whatever parts you want. It’s your call.

Tonight I’m just not going to play around. Here’s some classic John Coltrane playing “Impressions” with his quartet: McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass and Elvin Jones on drums.

The one film I saw over the weekend was director Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. I’m not sure I have anything to say about it that hasn’t been said better elsewhere, but I thought tonight I would try to open things up for discussion on what is surely the biggest movie of the year and early favorite for all the Academy Awards.

First, I did not see the film in 70mm IMAX. The nearest 70mm IMAX theater to me was two-and-a-half hours away and I just wasn’t going to make that kind of an effort. I know that was the format that Nolan shot the film for and it’s certainly the format where it looks the best. I think it’s certainly questionable that you make a film designed to be shown in a format that only about 26 theaters in the US can handle. But even Nolan would say that you should just watch the movie and not obsess over the format.

I did see it in laser IMAX and it looked great. The panoramic overhead shots of the Mediterranean Sea were gorgeous. The shots from the ships as you saw the waves crash over the sailors are fantastic. In a world where Nolan mostly turns the Greek gods into the forces of nature, the format makes the humans look small compared to the power of the gods, even if their physical manifestations remain off-screen. Except Athena, and even that Nolan leaves open to interpretation.

But I’m sure that the film looks great in any format. I’ve read some claim that if you can’t get the 70mm IMAX, the second-best option is Dolby Cinema. (That would have only been a two-hour drive for me.) The sound quality of the film is huge and will probably make a bigger impact on your enjoyment of the movie than a minor decrease in picture quality. But the point is to see the film in the best theater you can find and not worry about some other showing having a slightly-better experience.

I watched the film with my wife who was a classics major as an undergraduate, so she clearly knows The Odyssey better than I do. She’s read the poem in ancient Greek, although that was a long time ago. I will defer to her on the quality of the translation to film. But she loved the movie and was untroubled by many of the criticisms of the film by some fans of the original work. The modern language didn’t bother her. She admitted that the “Nobody” pun just doesn’t work in translation and that Nolan was wise to leave it out. The changing of Odysseus from a hubristic trickster to a tortured anti-hero was something that she agreed needed to be made for the film to resonate with modern audiences. (Plus, she’s more into Latin literature than Greek and the Romans thought Odysseus was an out-and-out villain.) She also picked up on a lot of details that I didn’t, but I’ll leave those to you for you to discover on your own. Or not.

I found Nolan’s decision to tie the events of the Odyssey to the late Bronze Age collapse to be ingenious. Now the lines where people say “Our Bronze Age is coming to an end” are cringeworthy and indeed, the dialogue is the weakest part of the film. But while some would say that choice was ahistorical, I would argue that by Homer’s time, this story was around 400 years old and everyone knew that this “age of heroes” they were singing about was going to come to an end to be replaced by the “Greek Dark Ages” that they were only emerging from at the time of the composition. While Penelope wouldn’t say our current age is collapsing, Homer definitely would.

As far as the cast goes, I thought everyone did a great job. Matt Damon is a different kind of Odysseus and many have said he’s more of a soldier with PTSD than the guy in the poem, but every generation re-invents their heroes for a new era. That was true in the times of the ancients as well as modern times. Tom Holland has made a career out of turning his youthful looks into playing characters ten years younger than he is. But he’s believable as Telemachus. John Leguizamo steals some scenes as the blind, loyal Eumaeus.

It’s often been said that Nolan doesn’t write women characters well and certainly the women in the film aren’t as compelling as the men. But Samantha Morton is terrific as Circe and certainly Anne Hathaway manages to give some fire to Penelope.

To address the controversy, if you’re someone upset by the casting of Lupita Nyong’o and Elliot Page, just don’t watch the movie. It’s your loss, because Page in particular is terrific as Sinon. After having seen him, I can’t imagine anyone else in the role. From the box office numbers, it’s clear that the “controversy” is a bunch of far-right and terminally online characters whose fame and income derive from stirring up hatred and whose voices are constantly amplified by the richest man in the world. In any case, the “controversial” actors have less than ten minutes of screen time between them.

In some ways, The Odyssey is a follow-up to Nolan’s Oppenheimer: both are the stories of men who created world-altering events and then lived to regret it for decades to come. The other thematic point of The Odyssey is that societies collapse when people no longer feel bound to follow the rules. The film constantly goes on about the violations of “Zeus’s Law” and how there are consequences to either not following it or abusing it. Here, Nolan is arguing that what keeps us away from barbarism is a shared acceptance that we all need to follow the letter and the spirit of the rules, even if we don’t like the outcomes. The spirit is more important than the letter if they come into conflict. You can read into that what you will about the current state of the world.

So the bottom line is that you should go watch The Odyssey. It’s an old-fashioned movie epic with fantastic imagery, incredible sound and a plot that has stood the test of time. It’s also a surprisingly timely film. It’s also a heck of a lot of fun. If you don’t like The Odyssey, you probably don’t like movies.

Welcome back to everyone who skips the music and the movies.

The Cubs are unquestionably trying to land a starting pitcher before the Trade Deadline a week from today, but the Cubs could certainly add a reliever to the pen. The Padres are one of those teams on the fence between buying and selling. At the moment, San Diego is at exactly .500, 53-53, and just a game and a half out of the final playoff spot. But the problem is that there are four teams ahead of them at the moment just to get that final playoff spot.

I think it’s fair to say that how the Padres do this week against the Rockies and Giants will determine whether they buy or sell. It’s also possible that they’re one of those teams that does both, dealing from a position of strength and trying to fill in some other weaknesses.

It’s clear that the Padres biggest strength right now is their bullpen. They have Mason Miller, who is the best reliever on the planet. He’s probably the best relief pitcher since Eric Gagné’s heyday and maybe even since the prime of Mariano Rivera. I tried to come up with a scenario where the Cubs could make a trade for Miller that the Padres might reasonably accept and I couldn’t do it. The best I could come up with was Ben Brown, Josiah Hartshorn and Jefferson Rojas, and even then I think San Diego says no, if only because Brown is hurt.

So the Padres may hang on to Miller. But Miller’s setup man, left-hander Adrián Morejón, is a quality 27-year-old pitcher who would be a closer for most other clubs. Morejón was an All-Star last year and while his ERA has dropped off this year (2.08 to 3.20), the underlying numbers are just as good or even better than last year. Morejón’s strikeout rate actually increased this year from 24.5 percent to 27.4. His walk rate is up slightly from 5.9% to 6.1, but that’s just a rounding error. If you look at expected ERA rather than his actual ERA, Morejón is even better this year than last. His fastball has even increased to an average of 99 miles per hour over last year’s average of 97. His slider velo is up too.

Morejón would instantly become the Cubs closer until the end of the year and through the playoffs.

He wouldn’t be the closer for anytime after that because Morejón is a free agent at the end of the season. That’s a bad thing because he would be a pure rental. But it’s a good thing in that it would keep his price down. No one gives up a top 100 prospect anymore for a rental reliever. But he’s not going to be cheap.

I don’t think the Cubs can acquire Morejón without giving up a top-ten prospect. They might have to toss in a lesser prospect from farther down the system, but that’s not really something the Cubs should worry about. It’s the headliner that I’m thinking about.

The Padres need help everywhere except the bullpen. Kane Kepley isn’t a great fit for the Padres because they already have Jackson Merrill in center field, but that’s the quality of prospect the Padres would want back in return. Owen Ayers might be another possibility, but the Padres have their catcher of the future in Ethan Salas in Double-A. Jaxon Wiggins might interest San Diego, especially if the Padres think he can stick in the rotation. Even if he can’t, he could be a reliever to replace Morejón in the pen.

I’m going to throw out Ethan Conrad as another possibility of a player the Padres might take for Morejón. The Cubs’ 2025 first-round pick has struggled with injuries, but he’s healthy now.

So would you deal any of those players for Adrian Morejón? Or would you rather just pass? I will remind you of the dangers of prospect-hugging and how most traded prospects don’t pan out. (Baseball America sub. req.) I think we’re all familiar with Pete Crow-Armstrong and Yordan Alvarez, but most traded prospects are more like Alexander Canario than those two.

Remember, a “none of the above” answer probably means the Cubs move on to a different pitcher.

Thank you for stopping by tonight. Stay cool out there. Get home safely. Don’t forget any personal items. Recycle any cans and bottles. Tip your waitstaff. And join us again tomorrow night for more BCB After Dark.