It’s been a while since I’ve had to throw out a movie question for discussion. But the tournament is over and I’ve run out of films to write about this evening. I have seen one indie film since we met here last (and it’s less than ten years old!) but I’m really not prepared to write about it intelligently tonight. I’ll say it was pretty good though. Despite being an indie, it featured an Academy Award winner (albeit before she won but she was already famous), a five-time nominee and two one-time Oscar nominees.

So building off what I wrote about Walk on the Wild Side last week, tell us a movie that you disliked despite featuring some actors that you really like? I watched Walk on the Wild Side because Barbara Stanwyck was in it (despite being fifth-billed) and Stanwyck is a top-five actress of all time in my book. (Did you know Stanwyck and her first husband were reportedly the inspiration for the original A Star is Born? By the way, her first husband, Frank Fay, was a really awful person. He was a huge Vaudeville star at one point and is now thankfully forgotten.)

Oh, I got off track there. Stanwyck is older (mid-fifties) in Walk on the Wild Side and is clearly just going through the motions of a bad movie. Neither Jane Fonda nor Laurence Harvey, who had much bigger parts in this movie, are among my favorite actors of all time, but both have been in films that I very much enjoyed and turned in performances that I thought were excellent. Klute and The Manchurian Candidate to name just one for each of them. They’re good actors in a bad movie.

So have you ever watched a movie that you thought you’d like with an actor you enjoy that you just didn’t? I actually have an example of a film I really enjoyed but I could tell the people in the audience with me did not. I found the 2006 film Stranger than Fiction, starring Will Ferrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, Queen Latifah and Emma Thompson, to be a very clever and enjoyable offbeat rom-com. I mean, if you looked at the credits past Will Ferrell, what else would you expect? But I was in a theater with a bunch of young men who were expecting Old School or Anchorman and I can tell you they were not happy. So I’ll allow you to throw out a film for discussion that you just didn’t like because it wasn’t what you were expecting or it just wasn’t your style, even if you might grudgingly admit that others might find it better.

That’s me with Field of Dreams. I’d read the book and I was looking forward to seeing it. I certainly liked Kevin Costner in The Untouchables and Bull Durham. It got mostly good reviews. But after renting the VHS tape (remember those?) and watching it, I wondered why everyone was saying how good it was. I still think it’s terrible. But I guess I can see some aspects of Field of Dreams that would appeal to other people.

So what movies did you expect to like with actors that you liked that you just didn’t like?

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

It seems like the Cubs are committed to putting Christopher Morel at third base, at least to start the season. They really don’t have a lot of other choices. Nick Madrigal, who certainly surprised me last year by being pretty solid defensively at third base, looks to me like he’s going to start the season on the injured list. On top of that, he doesn’t hit much anyway.

The other choices to play third base are Patrick Wisdom, Miles Mastrobuoni and David Bote. I think we talked about Bote enough last time—the general consensus is that he stays in Iowa. Wisdom gives the Cubs light-tower power and not a whole lot else. Plus, he’s probably going to be in a platoon at first base with Michael Busch. Mastrobuoni can handle third base defensively, but he’s not much of a hitter.

As much as I, the minor league guy, would like to see Matt Shaw or BJ Murray get a shot, I realize that’s probably not the best decision either for the Cubs or the prospects. Maybe later in the season, but not in April.

So that leaves us with Morel. Obviously Morel has tremendous power. He’s hit 42 home runs in just 220 career games. He doesn’t hit many cheapies, either.

Morel certainly strikes out more than you would like, but his 31 percent K-rate isn’t terrible for a power hitter. You’d like to see more walks and a higher OBP, but again, last year’s .313 OBP isn’t terrible. It’s not good, but it’s not bad for someone with that much power.

So the issue becomes, can Morel handle third base? On some plays in Spring Training, he looks terrific. On others, he looks terrible. The biggest problem is his arm. The arm is certainly strong enough to play third base, but sometimes his mechanics on a throw get all messed up. His arm slot drops and then neither he nor anyone at first base has any idea where the ball is going. Ironically, I think Morel does better on the hard plays and worse on ones that he has more time to think. But I admit that I haven’t watched a lot of Spring Training games this season and the last time I saw Morel play a significant number of games at third base was 2021 and he was in the minors.

Manager Craig Counsell says that he’s not worried about Morel’s errors this spring, saying that “you learn from mistakes.” I guess we’ll find out quickly if he meant that or whether he was just trying to keep Morel’s confidence up.

More on Morel’s defense comes from Sahadev Sharma in The Athletic earlier this month. (sub. req.)

So how many games will Christopher Morel play at third base this year? Do you think that this experiment will be a failure and Morel will get moved to another position (or DH) quickly? Or do you think it will be a success and he’ll play there all year? Somewhere in between?