It’s Wednesday evening here at BCB After Dark: the coolest spot for night owls, early risers, new parents and Cubs fans abroad. We’re so glad you decided to stop by. Come on in out of the cold. There’s no cover charge this evening. We still have a few tables available. The hostess can lead you to your table. 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 night I asked you about infielder/left fielder Miguel Andujar, who was linked to the Cubs in at least one report. I was pretty skeptical about signing him (even though I think he’s a solid player) because I didn’t see the fit. The majority of you agreed, as 68 percent of you were against the idea.
Here’s the part with the music and the movies. The second round of the BCB Winter Science Fiction Classic is coming to a close. But as always, you’re free to skip ahead to the baseball stuff at the end. We’re OK with that.
For those of you who like showtunes, tonight we have vocalist Jordan Fisher performing “Pure Imagination” from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Emmet Cohen is on piano. Peter Martin plays keyboards, Tivon Pennicott is on tenor sax, Yasushi Nakamura is the bassist and Joe Farnsworth is on drums.
(Fun fact: My wife hates that movie. She hated it as a child and she hates it today. Her well-meaning sister gave her a blu-ray copy of it for Christmas one year and she had to pretend that she liked it.)
This is a brand new video released just yesterday.
You voted in the BCB Winter Science Fiction Classic and there are a lot of Star Trek fans among my readers. I guess there are a lot of Star Trek fans among people who write here as well. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan advanced over the number-one seed, Blade Runner. As I had written, Blade Runner is the one film that gets mentioned most often as the best science fiction film of all time if you don’t pick 2001: A Space Odyssey. But you like Kirk, Spock, McCoy and especially Ricardo Montalban as Khan.
Tonight we are going to the final quadrant of our tourney, the “modern” bracket, to finish out the second round. Number-two seed Brazil (1985) goes up against Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991).
2. Brazil. (1985) Directed by Terry Gilliam. Starring Jonathan Pryce, Robert De Niro and Katherine Helmond.
Here’s what I wrote last time about Brazil.
3. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). Directed by James Cameron. Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton and Robert Patrick.
Here’s what I wrote last time about Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Both films are terrifying in their own way. Brazil scares me with its portrait of a totalitarian world where the rich live lives of pointless conspicuous consumption. The rest of us live in a world desensitized to the capricious violence and cruelty of the state and that the only way to survive is to remain as anonymous as possible.
While I’m not worried about time-traveling killer robots, I sure as heck am worried about the artificial intelligence future that created the nightmare future of Terminator 2.
So now it’s time to vote.
You have until Monday to vote. Coming up on Monday is the final matchup of the second round, where The Matrix takes on Back to the Future.
Welcome back to everyone who skips the music and movies.
Earlier this week I asked you if you thought the Cubs should improve their pitching depth by signing Zac Gallen. I suppose it’s not quite right to say that Gallen would “improve depth” because he’d probably be one of the better pitchers in the rotation. But it would mean that other pitchers would move down the pecking order and provide more depth.
One pitcher on the free agent market who would improve the Cubs’ depth but has gotten very little attention for some reason is right-hander Chris Bassitt. Bassitt has been as solid of a pitcher over the past five years that you could ask for. He just finished a three-year, $63 million deal with the Blue Jays where he made over 30 starts every year and pitched over 170 innings every year. He posted a Fangraphs WAR of between 2.3 and 2.6 in all three seasons with the Blue Jays. In fact, according to Fangraphs, Bassitt has had a WAR above two in every season since 2019, not counting the shortened 2020 season. But he pitched well in 2020 too.
I haven’t heard the Cubs connected to Bassitt at all, but I have heard people arguing that Bassitt is a better pitcher than Zac Gallen. He did indeed have a better 2025 season than Gallen, although we’ve been over that 2025 may be an outlier bad year for Gallen. Bassitt also is a more extreme ground ball pitcher, which plays in to the Cubs strong infield defense. He probably would also cost a lot less than Gallen.
I’ll add that Bassitt pitched very well in the postseason last year for the Blue Jays as well.
So why is Gallen so much more highly regarded that Bassitt? For one, age is a huge factor. Bassitt is heading into his age 37 season whereas Gallen is going into his age 30 season. As he ages, Bassitt’s fastball velocity is dropping. He only averaged 91.4 miles per hour on his fastball last season, which is down from 92.7 the year before and definitely down from the 94 mph or so he threw when he was young.
Bassitt also struggles with left-handed pitching a lot more than Gallen does. While their overall results are similar, Bassitt is the type of pitcher you might want to skip against a lefty-heavy lineup. However, since the Cubs have several good left-handers, that might not be as big of a problem for the Cubs.
Bassitt also has some experience pitching out of the pen, so if he’s not one of the top five or six starters on the Cubs, he could become a long man in the bullpen.
So basically, Bassitt would serve as an upgrade on Colin Rea, if you think he’s better than Colin Rea.
Bassitt’s age actually plays in well for the Cubs in that he’s probably not going to get more than a one-year deal at this point. I’m proposing a one-year, $17 million deal for Chris Bassitt? If you were running the Cubs, would you make that offer?
Thank you for stopping by tonight and all week. We really appreciate your patronage. Please get home safely. Stay warm out there. Recycle any cans and bottles. Tip your waitstaff. And join us again next week for more BCB After Dark.
