Saturday's Indians news and notes: Kipnis takes it off

1

Indians links:

As featured in the photo above, Jason Kipnis sported a beard for the final weeks of the season, but that beard is gone now. What you see from Kipnis there is almost identical to my own shaving routine, whenever I cut down from a beard. You've got to take advantage of that opportunity to experiment.

MLB.com Jonathan Mayo says Francisco Lindor "has the skills, leadership ability to build a team around" and is the best shortstop prospect in baseball. Seriously, Tribe fans, read this take on the team's #1 prospect, it'll brighten your day.

Not really an Indians link, but multiple sources report LGFT Matt Williams is going to be hired as manager of the Washington Nationals.

2

World Series links:

Game 3 is tonight from St. Louis. It'll be Joe Kelly for the Cardinals vs. Jake Peavy for the Red Sox, and David Ortizwill be playing first base, which he did for a total of 29 innings all season. I think it's a smart move, given his bat. Dave Cameron at FanGraphs says Cardinals skipper Mike Matheny has done a poor job of dealing with Ortiz so far.

Grant Brisbee works hard to find some things to like about this year's World Series participants.

Leigh Montville at Sports on Earth is happy for the same reason I am, a 1-1 split of the first two games means there's a better chance of this series going 6 or 7 games. He asks that the good people of St. Louis send it back to Boston to be completed there.

3

Rawlings has announced the Gold Glove Award finalists. To no one's surprise, there are no Indians involved. Yan Gomes has a solid case, based on merit, but given that he only played roughly half the season and had no prior reputation to fall back on, there was little chance he'd get the nod. The Orioles lead all teams with six nominees, while the Dodgers are tops in the NL with five.

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Stop what you're doing (which I guess is reading this) and watch this video:

Winner.

5

Bluejay Banter has a fun map of the United States and Canada redistricted into 30 new states, each based upon which MLB stadium is closest. The Indians end with the 25th largest territory, while the Mariners have the largest territory (almost twice the size of the next team's), and the Mets have the smallest.

6

I've now caught up to the present in ranking my favorite movies from each era, but I have a hard time ranking movies I've only just seen, so this installment will cover only three years.

Top Movies, 2010-2012:

6) Zero Dark Thirty - I understand that it played loose with at least a few of the facts, but I found it riveting, and historical accuracy wasn't my main interest in seeing it anyway. Jessica Chastain is great in it.

5) Winter's Bone - I've become a big, big Jennifer Lawrence fan since seeing this one when it came out. She gives an incredible performance, as does John Hawkes, in a little-seen movie that everyone should see.

4) The Descendants - Now that I'm finished with the eras, maybe I'll move on to my favorites for particular actors. This is one of my favorites with Clooney, I think it portrays loss and grief, in all their complicated messiness, very well.

3) Toy Story 3 - I think this trilogy is the crowning achievement of animated cinema, for its wonderful combination of rich characters and impressive visuals. This was a worthy conclusion to the story.

2) Moonrise Kingdom - If you've been paying attention to these lists, you already know I'm a big Wes Anderson fan. This one, more than any of his other works, seems to bring out the detractors, but that's okay, I'll manage.

1) Inception - Most of my favorite movies are relatively small, but in some ways, that may cause me to like the big ones that work for me even more, since so few of them seem to really work. I thought about this one for days, which I always think is a good sign for a movie.

How about you, what are your favorites from recent years? What did I totally blow it by overlooking?