It’s Wednesday night here at BCB After Dark: the hippest after-party for night owls, early risers, new parents and Cubs fans abroad. Come on in and sit with us for a while. We’re so glad you decided to
stop by. The dress code is casual. We can check your coat for you. We still have a few tables available. Let us know if you need anything. 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.
The Blue Jays took a 3-2 lead in the World Series with a 6-1 win over the Dodgers. Toronto rookie Trey Yesavage was savage, as he struck out 12 and allowed just one run (on a Kiké Hernandez home run) over seven innings. Davis Schneider and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. homered on two of the first three pitches of the game and the Blue Jays never trailed after that.
Last night I asked you whether Matt Shaw was the answer at third base or whether the Cubs should look elsewhere for help. A big majority of 64 percent think the Cubs should stick with Shaw. Another 26 percent think the Cubs should sign a big-name third baseman like Alex Bregman or Eugenio Suárez.
Here’s the part where we listen to music and talk movies. You’re free to skip that if you want. You won’t hurt my feelings.
Every year, in the final After Dark before Halloween, I play “Halloween Spooks” by the jazz vocal group of Lambert, Hendricks and Ross. So tonight is time for “Halloween Spooks.” This is from 1959.
The BCB Winter Science Fiction Classic will start on Monday. I’ve decided to start at the beginning and work my way forward, so our first contest will be a 4/5 matchup in the “Classic” bracket between Forbidden Planet (1954) and The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957). Forbidden Planet appears to be available for free through Hoopla with a library card, or you can rent it. I think there may be a copy or two floating around on the internet. You can rent The Incredible Shrinking Man or there’s a copy of it at the Internet Archive. It’s also on some horror streaming service called Darkroom.
Both of those films are really good. This is a hard first call.
I wanted to discuss at least one horror film before we left the month of October. You know that I’m a fan of the Universal Monster movies of the 1930s and 1940s. Certainly most of you are familiar with Frankenstein and Dracula. I hope most of you have seen the best of them all, The Bride of Frankenstein. The Mummy is very good too, even if the plot is pretty much cribbed from Dracula. The Wolf Man came later in 1941, but it’s still well-loved and rightfully so.
But one that I think gets overlooked and belongs in the same category as those movies is 1933’s The Invisible Man, starring Claude Rains, Gloria Stuart and William Harrington and directed by James Whale, who was the brilliant director behind Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein. The movie is loosely adapted from the H.G. Wells novel of the same name.
The premise of the film is that Dr. Jack Griffin (Rains) has developed a formula that can turn a man invisible. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have an antidote to said invisibility. Also unfortunately, the formula contains chemicals that can turn men into violent lunatics.
Griffin initially checks himself into an out-of-the-way country inn, wrapped in bandages and heavy coats so that he can be seen—and so that no one can tell he’s invisible. There he goes about terrorizing the locals with his mad rants, including the innkeeper’s wife played by the always magnificent Una O’Connor. But until he can come up with a cure, Griffin decides to use his invisibility to go on a crime spree, killing anyone who gets in his way. He also has a bad case of megalomania, believing that his invisibility formula has the potential for world domination. He enlists a colleague, Dr. Arthur Kemp (Harrington), to be his assistant in his crime spree. He doesn’t give Kemp any choice in the matter, saying he’ll kill him if he doesn’t help him or should he goes to the police.
Meanwhile, Stuart plays Flora, the love of Griffin’s life who is distraught over the disappearance of her love. She and her father, Dr. Cranley (Henry Travers), begin a quest to find Griffin, not knowing that he’s become the archfiend known as the Invisible Man.
Claude Rains was one of the greatest actors of Old Hollywood, especially excelling as a major supporting character. I’m sure you know and love several films Rains starred in. The Invisible Man was his screen debut and he’s absolutely fantastic in the role, even though his face actually only appears once. Rains gives Griffin all the over-the-top craziness needed to pull off an invisible murderous madman. He’s both menacing and gives Griffin just the right amount of pathos for us to sympathize with his plight, even if we know he’s gone stark raving mad.
If you’re familiar with Stuart, you probably know her from her Academy Award-nominated performance in Titanic and the “It’s been 84 years” meme. She doesn’t really get much to do here in The Invisible Man other than worry about Griffin. She’s fine with what she’s given. Still, it’s nice to see what the actress from Titanic looked like when she was young—and it wasn’t Kate Winslet.
Of course two Irish actors, O’Connor and Forrester Harvey are in minor parts as the inkeeping couple are just delightful. Watching them freak out over Rains’ Griffin is a large part of the fun.
It’s hard today in the world of CGI animation and such to realize how revolutionary the special effect were in The Invisible Man. Whale really does pull of making things float realistically and Rains’ not appear through the holes in his bandages. That stuff looks old-hat now, but it wasn’t so easy as using invisible wires or green screen technology in 1933. It helped that the film is in black-and-white, but I’d say no one improved upon The Invisible Man in creating the illusion of invisibility until probably forty years later.
There are a few sort-of sequels to The Invisible Man, but part of the reason that the film isn’t remembered as well as Frankenstein, Dracula and The Mummy was it didn’t really spawn a franchise like those films did. Part of this was because Rains was so successful in the role that he moved on to bigger and better things (like The Adventures of Robin Hood) and there wasn’t the same kind of appeal without him. (He did eventually return to the Universal “monsterverse” in a different role in 1941 in The Wolf Man.)
There are two big reasons to watch The Invisible Man. The special effects and the incredible performance of Claude Rains. For me, that’s well more than enough. The solid plot and supporting characters are just a bonus that make the film even better.
In this scene, Griffin removes his bandages for the first time, revealing that he’s the Invisible Man.
Welcome back to everyone who skips the music and movies.
In 2022, catcher Adley Rutschman appeared to be the future face of the Baltimore Orioles. He was the first pick of the 2019 MLB Draft and finished second in Rookie of the Year balloting behind Seattle’s Julio Rodriguez that year. He was a rare two-way catcher who could both hit and field at a high level.
Since then, it’s been downhill for Rutschman. His 2023 season was still plenty good, hitting .277/.374/.435 with 20 home runs. But his caught stealing rate dropped from 31 percent down to 22 percent. The other defensive metrics didn’t like him as much as t hey had before either.
The slide didn’t stop with 2023. In 2024, Rutschman still hit 19 home runs, but his triple-slash line dropped to .250/.318/.391. His defensive metrics went down again too. In 2025, Rutschman went on the injured list twice with oblique strains—once to his right one and once to his left one. He played only 90 games and hit a career-low .220/.301/.366.
Why am I bringing this up? Because while Rutschman was declining, the Orioles saw catcher Samuel Basallo emerge as their top prospect. Basallo didn’t excel in his brief stint in the majors last year, but he had a huge season in Triple-A and seems to be the Orioles future catcher, leaving Rutschman’s future in limbo.
Since there seems to be some question of Rutschman’s role with Baltimore and because he becomes a free agent after the 2027 season, there is a lot of speculation that the Orioles will try to trade Rutschman.
So should the Cubs try to acquire Adley Rutschman? Certainly if he’s the catcher in his injury-filled season last year going forward, the Cubs should stay away. But even the “down” Rutschman of 2024 is an asset both behind and at the plate. And if he can rebound to his 2022/23 form, Rutschman is one of the most valuable players in the league. Catchers who can hit and field are rare and if one becomes available, it behooves teams to grab one.
Carson Kelly, of course, had a fantastic year in 2025 and was easily the better player than Rutschman last year. For one, he was healthy. But you and I both know that Kelly’s 2025 season was well out of character for the rest of his career and that the Cubs probably shouldn’t count on him repeating it.
Miguel Amaya was supposed to split catching duties with Kelly, but he couldn’t stay healthy and played in just 28 games. He put up a great line of .281/.314/.500 in those 28 games and that’s pretty much in line with some of the most optimistic projections for Amaya. But of course, no one should count on the most optimistic projections coming true and 2025 may just be a sample-size anomaly. Amaya is a good defensive catcher and a good handler of pitching staffs (as is Kelly) when healthy. But Amaya is of no use to anyone if he’s not healhty.
Then there is rookie catcher Moisés Ballesteros, arguably the Cubs’ top prospect. There’s no question in my mind that Ballesteros can hit and he demonstrated that in his short stint in the majors last year. But only the most optimistic think he can even be an fringe-average major league defensive catcher. The Cubs certainly have their doubts as they didn’t let him catch in the majors until the final game of the season after everything was decided.
So the Cubs would have to make room for Rutschman, but if you were confident he’d return to his 2022-23 form, you’d make room for him.
How much would Rutschman cost? He certainly wouldn’t be cheap, even after a down year. I would think the Cubs would have to part with a top five prospect—Ballesteros, Owen Caissie, Jaxon Wiggins, Jefferson Rojas or someone like that to acquire Rutschman. And probably not Rojas. The Cubs might have to throw in a controllable major-league pitcher like Ben Brown as well.
So would you pursue such a trade for Rutschman? Or is the Cubs catching situation good as it is?
Thanks for stopping by tonight. We’ve had a good last week of the baseball season. It was good to see you. Please get home safely. Don’t forget anything you might have checked. Recycle any cans and bottles. Tip your waitstaff. And join us again next week for more BCB After Dark
