Cubs BCB After Dark: Would you pay the price for MacKenzie Gore?

Welcome back to BCB After Dark: the grooviest spot for night owls, early risers, new parents and Cubs fans abroad. We’re so glad to see you. Come on in out of the cold. We’ve got a fire going in here. There’s no cover charge. There are still a few tables available. 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 if the Cubs should have matched or exceeded the Phillies’ offer for Brad Keller. Keller got two years and $22 million from the Phillies, and you were pretty evenly divided about that. Fifty-two percent of you thought the Cubs should match it and 48 percent said the Cubs were wise to pass.

Here’s the part with the jazz and the movies. We’re getting towards the end of the first round of the BCB Winter Science Fiction Classic. But you’re free to skip that if you want. You won’t hurt my feelings.

I’m going all out and giving you two jazz Christmas songs tonight. The first is a quiet, meditative version of “A Child is Born” by the Thad Jones & Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra. This is from 1970.

And for something a little more more modern, here’s Gregory Porter and Jacob Collier performing “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.” This was on the BBC on New Year’s Eve, 2018.

You voted in the BCB Winter Science Fiction Classic and once again, you disappointed me by voting for Terminator 2: Judgment Day over one of my favorite films of all-time, Repo Man. Still, the fact that Repo Man got a lot of support against one of the biggest box office smashes of all-time warms my heart and I also have to admit, T2 is a very well-made and entertaining film that isn’t completely mindless. So I’m not mad at you. Just disappointed.

Tonight we have our number two-seeded film Brazil (1985) going up against the Japanese animation classic The Ghost in the Shell (1995). But before we do that, I do have an announcement to make. The next matchup would normally come on Wednesday, but that’s Christmas Eve. Please spend the evening with your family and if you can’t do that, spend the day taking care of yourself and others less fortunate. So that I can spend the evening with my family, there isn’t going to be an After Dark on Wednesday. Few of you would show up anyway.

In any case, it works out because one of the films in our next matchup, The Matrix, is airing on the Vice Channel on Christmas morning. So if you haven’t seen that film in a while (and I haven’t), you can watch it Christmas morning and then be all ready for the next vote. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like Gattaca, the other film in the final matchup of the first round, will be playing anywhere in the next week.

2. Brazil. (1985) Directed by Terry Gilliam. Starring Jonathan Pryce, Robert De Niro and Katherine Helmond.

Famously originally titled 1984 1/2 until a film version of George Orwell’s classic came out the year before, Brazil is a dystopian science fiction comedy that revolves around one of director Terry Gilliam’s (and his fellow Monty Python performers) favorite punching bags, the insanity of bureaucracy. The film was intended to be an amalgamation of Orwell’s novel (which Gilliam admitted he’d actually never read) and the Federico Fellini’s classic film 8 1/2. What remains is both a wacky satire of modern life and a chilling portrait of the banality of evil. 

While ostensibly set in the future, the world of Brazil is more what the people of the 1920s and ’30s thought the future would be like than the people of the eighties. The buildings are cramped, angular and lacking color. Hundreds of people slave away at desks in crowded offices doing meaningless paperwork, although they do watch old television shows when the boss isn’t looking. There are weird angles and tubes, both big and small, going everywhere. Basically, the traditional Terry Gilliam grotesque look of many of his films. 

One of those minor functionaries is Sam Lowry (Pryce), who toils away at a meaningless job. Despite his very rich and powerful mother Ida (Helmond) pulling strings, he repeatedly turns down promotions. Meanwhile, he dreams of being a winged knight saving a beautiful maiden from various terrors. His dreams while he sleeps are his escape for the nightmare of his time awake. 

Meanwhile, a minor paperwork error at a government ministry causes a man named Archibald Buttle (Brian Miller) to be arrested, tortured and killed instead of terrorist Archibald “Harry” Tuttle (De Niro). Sam gets assigned to straighten out this mess. While doing this, he catches a glimpse of Buttle’s neighbor Jill (Kim Greist), who is fighting for justice for Buttle and just happens to also be the woman in his dreams. This sends Sam on a dangerous quest where he accepts promotion to get information on Jill and save the day for her and Buttle’s family, presumably winning her love. 

On his way up the bureaucratic ladder, Sam meets up with an old friend, Jack (Michael Palin). Jack is a family man and career-striver. His job entails torturing people for information. His cruelty takes on an absurdist tone. Jack babysits his daughter who plays with dolls as he tortures someone in the other part of the room. His secretary records every part of the tortured “confessions,” including their “Arrggh!, Oww! Ouch!” screams. Like many of the Nazi functionaries, Jack seems like a normal, if slightly annoying man who just happens to commit horrific atrocities. Also like the Nazis, Jack and his “Information Retrieval” ministry documents every single monstrous act as if they were counting paper clips. 

There’s also a storyline about Harry Tuttle, who serves as a Errol Flynn-style dashing revolutionary and HVAC repairman. In fact, his main problem with this totalitarian state seems to be the paperwork required to fix a furnace or air conditioner. So he swings into peoples homes on a zip line, completes their home repairs and sneaks out the back. That makes him the mortal enemy of Spoor (Bob Hoskins), who is a government repairman who does stuff by the book. 

There there’s the rich and powerful mother Ida, who is constantly getting disfigured by increasingly absurd cosmetic surgery. 

So Brazil is an absurdist take on a totalitarian state. The title comes from the 1939 hit song “Brazil,” which serves as a leitmotif throughout the film. It represents Sam’s dream of another world beyond the nightmare world he was living in. 

In the famous battle over its release, Universal hated the movie and insisted that it be re-edited to lighten the tone and give it a happy ending. Behind Gilliam’s back, the studio re-edited the film to do just that and there are copies of that version floating around. The “Love Conquers All” version was a half an hour shorter and was the version that was shown on television later on. 

But Gilliam took out a full page ad in Variety demanding that his version be released as is. He also showed it to the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, which awarded it “Best Picture,” “Best Director” and “Best Screenplay” for 1985. This pressure campaign eventually forced Universal to release the picture with only a few minor edits, which Gilliam agreed to. 

Since then, Brazil has been considered to be one of the greatest science fiction films ever made. It’s also one of the most insightful portraits of the absurd inhumanity of totalitarianism. 

Here’s the original trailer for Brazil.

7. Ghost in the Shell (1995). Directed by Mamoru Oshii. 

The Japanese anime entry into our tournament is a classic in the cyberpunk genre. It’s influence was wide and reportedly the Wachowskis sold “The Matrix” by saying “We want to do that [Ghost in the Shell] but real.” It’s also reportedly an influence on James Cameron’s Avatar series of films. And like Blade Runner, it combines elements of noir alongside its techno-future vision. 

Set in the far-flung future of 2029, Ghost in the Shell revolves around Major Motoko Kusanagi, a special forces agent of the public safety agency, She’s also a cyborg with a completely cybernetic body and an a computer-augmented brain. In fact, most of the “people” in her department are like that. There is also a very philosophical division between one’s body (the “shell”) and their brain/consciousness, also called “the Ghost.” So the “Ghost in the Shell” is the human consciousness inside of a physical body. 

Kusanagi and her partner Batou are assigned to protect a foreign dignitary. The dignitary is being chased by a notorious hacker known as the “Puppet Master,” with puppets being shells without ghosts. The plot of the movie is basically Kusanagi and Batou chasing down the “Puppet Master,” if he or she really even exists.

Meanwhile, Kusanagi begins to question how much of her own existence is real. With a completely synthetic body and an augmented brain, she doesn’t know whether the memories that she has of her life are real or were simply implanted into her brain. There’s also the “Ship of Theseus” question hanging over the whole film. If, over time, you replace every single part of a person, are they still the same person in the end?

Ghost in the Shell alternates between some terrific action sequences and some long, very talky philosophical discussions about artificial intelligence and what qualifies us as human. Some will be quite turned off by the long talky parts, but this is basically an action film and there’s plenty of of that.

Many have noticed the way Ghost in the Shell disrupts gender norms. Kusanagi is a kick-ass female hero in a world dominated by male leaders. Additionally, the “Puppet Master” speaks in a male voice, but incongruously puts his “ghost” in a female “shell” at one point. This ties into the film’s whole point of what makes someone who they are. 

What makes Ghost in the Shell stand out more than anything is its revolutionary animation techniques and the musical soundtrack. The animation is a combination of traditional cel animation and computer-aided graphics. The entire thing is a trip.

The soundtrack by Kenji Kawai is an amalgam of classical Japanese music and electronica. Its otherworldly feel adds to the beauty of the whole film. Then there is the closing credits song by The Passengers, which is U2 plus Brian Eno. 

There’s also a Ghost in the Shell 2.0 version that was released in 2009 with updated animation. To be fair and to keep it in the “20th Century” category, I re-watched the original. But if you want to watch the 2.0 version, that’s fine with me. Just don’t watch the live-action version with Scarlett Johansson.

Ghost in the Shell is certainly a bit complicated and talky, but it’s also a gorgeous looking action film that went a long ways towards mainstreaming Japanese animation to worldwide audiences. It’s also a prescient look at our on-line future and the way that we live our lives in the virtual world these days. 

Here’s the trailer for the 4K IMAX re-release of Ghost in the Shell. This is in Japanese with subtitles, unfortunately, but this trailer is so much superior to the English-dubbed trailer. I should have mentioned that there are both Japanese and dubbed English language versions of the film. With animation, I really don’t think it makes much difference most of the time which version you watch. There are exceptions and anime purists undoubtedly scoff at me, but watching Ghost in the Shell in English is perfectly fine with me in a way that watching a dubbed live-action foreign film is less desirable. There are, again, exceptions, but this isn’t one of them.

So now it’s time to vote.

Brazil was on TCM a few weeks ago. I hope you were able to catch it. Otherwise it’s available for rent. Ghost in the Shell is available (both original and 2.0) on Amazon Prime, although it’s leaving at the end of the month. So watch it now. It’s also on the Criterion Channel, in both Japanese and English versions, as well as both the original and 2.o versions.

As I said, up next after the Christmas break is The Matrix (1999) and Gattaca (1997). Watch The Matrix on the Vice Channel Christmas morning (or record it and watch it later) if you, like me, haven’t seen it in a while.

Welcome back to everyone who skips the music and movies.

As we wait for the Cubs to do something significant over the winter, we all know that the Cubs want to add at least one more starting pitcher this winter. It seems like we’v been through all the available free agents, but if the Cubs fail to land one of them, the other route they can go is through the trade market.

The Cubs have been connected to Nationals left-hander MacKenzie Gore for a while. They reportedly tried to acquire him at the trade deadline last July, but the asking price was too high for the Cubs’ front office. Now they’ve been connected to him again.

It’s easy to see why the Cubs would be interested in Gore. He’s got a mid-90s fastball and a plus slider, as well as a solid cutter, curve and change. He’s averaged 154 innings a year over the past three years and has averaged 10.1 strikeouts per nine innings. He walked 9.4 percent of his batters last year which is a little high but certainly in the acceptable range for someone who strikes out that many batters. Gore was also an All-Star last season and put up an fWAR of 2.9.

So if you look underneath the hood of Gore’s rather mediocre “traditional” stats, he looks pretty good. Those traditional stats, 5-15 record with a 4.17 ERA last year, indicate that Gore is more of a mid-to-back of the rotation starter. The underlying numbers indicate that he could be more of a number-two starter. People certainly thought that when he was a prospect, as Gore was one of the primary pieces that the Padres sent to Washington in the Juan Soto trade.

Gore is also under team control for the next two season. So trading for Gore would not prevent the Cubs from signing a big free agent hitter.

Unfortunately, the Orioles recent trade for Shane Baz indicates that the price of cost-controlled starters with multiple years of control is high. Baz is another pitcher who has elite stuff but has never put together an elite season. Some of that is because he had Tommy John surgery in 2022 and missed all of 2023 and part of 2024. Last year Baz posted an ERA of 4.87 over 166.1 innings, but some of that was because he pitched his home games in a Spring Training park last year. His ERA on the road was a more respectable 3.86.

In exchange for Baz, the Rays got four prospects in a very deep Orioles system and a competitive balance draft pick. One was catcher Caden Bodine, a first-round compensation pick just last year. So was outfielder Slater De Brun, who was one of four first-round picks the Birds had last year. Right-hander Michael Forret was a top-ten prospect in the Orioles system with mid-starter potential. Finally, outfielder Austin Overn was a third-round pick in 2024 and is more of a lottery ticket-type player.

So that’s a lot of Baz. There weren’t any Top 100 prospects included in the deal, but there were several very good ones with potential and a draft pick.

So any deal that the Cubs make for Gore would have to approach what the Orioles gave up for Baz. Gore has one fewer year of control, but he’s arguably a slightly-better pitcher. Or at least he’s got a better track record.

In a recent Marquee podcast, Lance Brozdowzki asked The Athletic baseball writer Keith Law about what would be a fair package for the Cubs to put together for Gore. Here was his answer.

So that’s the Cubs’ top pitching prospect Jaxon Wiggins, infielder Jefferson Rojas and a lesser prospect. Maybe a lottery ticket like Ronny Cruz.

To be clear, that’s a lot. That’s also the going rate for starting pitchers with multiple years of control. From the Cubs point of view, Wiggins is someone who has elite stuff but who has struggled with health and control that might prevent him from ever being an elite starter. Or even a starter at all. Of course, the risk is that Wiggins ends up becoming a better pitcher than Gore ever was. That’s not a very likely result, but it’s not a longshot either.

Rojas is a bat-first middle infielder who, at 20 years old, has always performed well despite being young for his level, at least until he got a cup of coffee with Double-A Knoxville this year. His fringe-average defense and average power mean he’s likely more of a solid regular in the majors than a star, but he is athletic enough to outperform his projections. And even if he doesn’t, having a solid major league hitter under team control for six years is pretty valuable.

Yes, that seems like a lot, but as Law said, he’s not even sure that’s enough to get the Nationals to bite. He thinks it’s a reasonable offer, but that some other team could swoop in and offer more. In addition, Law said in the podcast he likes the Cubs minor league system and considers it in the top half of all systems. But he also says its very position player heavy and he feels like the Nationals would demand at least one pitcher in return. Law feels that the only pitcher the Cubs have that is worth much in trade is Wiggins. So in his estimation, no Wiggins, no deal.

So would you roll the dice and make this deal for Mackenzie Gore?

Thanks for stopping by tonight. Please get home safely. Let us know if you need us to get you a ride. We can get your coat for you. Recycle any cans and bottles. Tip your waitstaff. And join us again tomorrow evening for more BCB After Dark.