Team news

[Beyond the Box Score] Trade Retrospective: Cubs take advantage of the Diamondbacks selling low on Miguel Montero - Upgrading Castillo to Montero was a no-brainer for the price the Cubs paid in talent. They did have to take on the three years and $40 million left on his contract, but who cares? It’s just money, and the Ricketts have plenty of it. This is a move you make when you value winning over money. Conversely, the Diamondbacks should have offered to eat the money in return for better talent. Mejía and Godley projected as just back end starters, though neither had a high probability of reaching the majors. Neither of these two players ranked in the Dbacks’ top ten prospects that winter. This move also left the the team with a hole at catcher, so one would have thought that the Cubs would have included Castillo in the trade, but they did not.

[KMEG[ Matt Koch: Cherokee, Japan and everything in-between - From 2016-2019, Koch bounced up and down the Diamondbacks system but the one date he'll never forget is the day of his Major League Debut. "It was the 11th inning of a game was my first big league appearance in extra innings," Koch stated. "All I could think about was don't give up the run and mess up the game for the rest of the guys." Koch saw the bulk of his time spike during the 2018 season and that year he became a record holder for the Diamondbacks. "I think it was the first Diamondback in to pitch against three Cy Young Winners," Koch said. "It was Max Scherzer, Clayton Kershaw, and Justin Verlander. They didn't help my batting average. I couldn't get a hit off of them."

[CantonRep] Andrew Chafin doing his part for Richville Park after storm damage - The idea to bring Chafin’s machinery to the park was pitched by Cole Tilton, his brother-in-law and best friend. “Obviously I’m not working right now,” Chafin said. “After we saw all the damage and all the trees that were down, we were thinking of something we could do to help give back to the community. We want to help clean things up so that when this whole pandemic is over, people have a place to go and get their kids out. We just want to create a better environment.” Chafin spent Friday morning running a tractor backhoe to remove tree damage.

[YourValley] Chase Field to host blood drive April 28-30 - Fans must make an appointment online in advance, walk-ins will not be accepted. To schedule an appointment time, potential donors visit www.redcrossblood.org and use the keyword ONETEAM to find the Chase Field donation location. Jason Benedict, Red Cross regional donor services executive, said in a prepared statement, “Having the ability to use Chase Field as a blood donation site gives the Red Cross the ability to practice safe social distancing and see a large number of donors in one location.”

And, elsewhere...

[ESPN] There will be MLB in 2020. It's just a matter of when, where and how - The MLB season should have turned one month old Sunday. Rather than lament that, let's instead fill the emptiness with a discussion about when the season will start. Yes, will. This optimism is guarded and cautious and laden with caveats. It exists in a reality twisted by the coronavirus -- one that acknowledges what seems possible today may not necessarily be tomorrow. There are a million questions. Consider what follows an attempt to answer 20 of the most pertinent.

[CBSSports] 10 rule changes MLB could test during the shortened 2020 season - Baseball is steeped in tradition, more so than any other sport and perhaps even to its detriment at times, and MLB would have a chance to step outside its comfort zone this year. If something works, it could be considered for the long-term. If not, scrap it and move on. Here are 10 ways MLB (and the MLBPA, since the players would need to sign off as well) could experiment and treat the 2020 season as a testing lab.

[FOX[ MLB official thought Manfred would nix Hernández for Series - He was announced to work the 2017 All-Star Game shortly after he sued. He worked the League Championship Series in 2016 and Division Series in 2018 and 2019. During the 2018 playoffs, he was reversed in three of four video reviews when he worked first base in Game 3 between Boston and the New York Yankees. Depositions revealed Hernández was fined for trying to get a baseball for a colleague who called Homer Bailey’s no-hitter. Marsh, a former crew chief, testified he was suspended for three days for a similar offense.

Killer Sofa (2019)

Rating: C

Dir: Bernie Rao
Star: Piimio Mei, Nathalie Morris, Jim Baltaxe, Jed Brophy

According to Google, the definition of a sofa is, “a long upholstered seat with a back and arms, for two or more people.” The murderous piece of furniture in this show is clearly not a sofa, being only capable of accommodating one person. A more accurate title would be Killer Armchair, or Killer Recliner. This kind of titular misrepresentation is entirely unacceptable, and I would like a refund. What? I didn’t pay for this? Free with Amazon Prime, you say? Our son’s account? Well, never mind then. Please carry on. [In the film’s defense, it was also originally called My Lover, My Lazy Boy. I would not be surprised to hear a cease-and-desist letter from a certain furniture manufacturer was involved in the change…]

This is a great concept, and the sofa itself is quite glorious. There should be an Oscar for its performance: probably in the “Best Back-Supporting Actor” category, hohoho. With the simple use of things like buttons and creases, the makers manage to turn it into a genuine personality, even if it’s doing no more than sitting in a living room, looking ominous. And when it starts stalking people, using its springs as lethal weapons… We enter an entirely new level of wonderful loopiness, which I don’t think I’ve seen since The Mangler, the film based on a Stephen King story about a possessed washing machine.

The problem is everything else. The rest of the cast are blandly forgettable, and the plot doesn’t make sense. Yes, I went there. A film about a psychotic not-a-sofa “doesn’t make sense.” Because it comes up with a rational explanation at the end for its depradations, and frankly, they would have been far better off sticking with demonic possession or whatever. I just wish they’d gone with the simpler story outlined in the IMDb synopsis: A killer reclining chair becomes enchanted by a girl and starts committing crimes of passion. That has an almost poignant feel to it.

Instead, there is a back-story about a pair of husband-and-wife witches who poisoned people with oleander tea, from one of whom the heroine, Francesca (Mei) is descended, causing her to become a perpetual psycho magnet when it comes to boyfriends. One of them, Frederico Olson, has just turned up dead. Well, his feet have – unattached to the rest of his body. Which is why the police, led by Inspector Bob Gravy (Brophy) are looking into the case. There’s also a defrocked Rabbi (Baltaxe), or whatever the Jew-appropriate term is, who gains occult knowledge through YouTube videos, and is convinced this is an entity called a “Dybbuk”. This is actually a thing in Jewish folklore.

Yeah, they shouldn’t have bothered. Just give us scenes of well-upholstered slaughter and that’s all we need. Anything else just gets in the way – let’s face it, no-one is ever going to watch a film with this title for the performances, so they shouldn’t have bothered. Sadly, I have to put away my intended pull-quote, and instead will be going with, “Sofa, not so good”…