Latest news with #JulianBarnes
New York Times
12-05-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
This Week in Mets: Jeff McNeil's bat speed, Juan Soto's ground-ball rate, other early trends
'You begin to understand that the reward of merit is not life's business.' — 'The Sense of an Ending,' Julian Barnes After another series win over the weekend, the New York Mets have played 41 games, or just over a quarter of the season. This is when you can start to maybe think about coming close to a conclusion about a team's strengths and weaknesses. Advertisement For now, though, let's look under the hood at a few early trends for the Mets, what they say about current developments and what they could mean. Bat speed is one of the quickest stats to give us a read on swing changes: It can take as few as five swings to reveal useful data. Jeff McNeil went into spring training with an eye on improving his bat speed above the month-over-month improvement he showed in 2024 in the new metric. The early returns, even after a spring oblique injury, are promising. McNeil averaged 68.8 mph on his competitive swings in 2024; so far this year, it's 71.2 mph. That's the gap between well below average and right near it across the sport. The main difference for McNeil has been eliminating many of his slowest swings and placing a larger chunk of his swings above league average (71.6 mph). (Baseball Savant) Though that added bat speed hasn't translated into more consistent hard contact just yet, McNeil's slugging and expected slugging numbers are up from last season. What stood out during Juan Soto's lukewarm — it was never really cold — start was how often he was hitting the ball into the ground. At one point, his ground-ball rate for the season was above 55 percent, basically the level that was leading to Brett Baty's struggles. But over the last two-plus weeks, Soto's ground-ball rate is below 40 percent, and he's hitting the ball hard in the air more often. Those are the balls that become home runs and extra-base hits. This time last year, the Mets had achieved an almost inconceivable statistical combination. They had allowed, by far, the most stolen bases in the majors. And they'd caught the fewest runners attempting to steal. Advertisement This weekend 365 days ago, the Mets allowed 10 stolen bases in a sweep to the Tampa Bay Rays. Through 36 games, they'd permitted 52 steals in 55 attempts. At the time, the Mets' inability to do anything to corral the opposing running game felt like shorthand for all the ways they were flailing in 2024. They weren't doing the big things right (yet), and they couldn't even do the little things. In 2025, the story is entirely different. Only one team has allowed fewer stolen bases this season than the Mets. And nobody has caught more runners attempting to steal. It's the exact inverse of the situation last year. When I wrote about this dynamic last May, I broke it down into its component parts. Let's do that again. Are the Mets just limiting stolen-base opportunities? Using the most basic measure, no. The Mets have actually thrown more total pitches and a higher percentage of pitches than any team in baseball with a runner on first and second base open — the likeliest situation to steal. Are they just playing teams that don't steal much? Again, no. Let's bring back the same measure I used last season, comparing how often teams have stolen and been caught stealing against the Mets versus what they've done in all their other games. In other words, if the Mets were an average team against opposing base runners, you'd expect them to have given up about 34 steals on 42 attempts. They've saved themselves 19 bases while picking up six extra outs. Is this because Luis Torrens played more to start the season? Certainly, having Torrens on the roster helps. The No. 1 difference from this point last season to now is simply the personnel. Most of those steals early last season were against Omar Narváez. The rate slowed when Francisco Alvarez returned and especially once Torrens was added in early June. But the improvement for the Mets is across the board. Here's how each catcher has done: 'It helps, especially when you have two guys who can shut down a running game and pitchers giving them chances to throw guys out,' manager Carlos Mendoza said. 'It definitely puts it on (the opponents') heads. We're ready. We're paying attention to the little details.' The Mets returned home to take two of three from the first-place Chicago Cubs. The Mets' 26-15 mark is a game off the Los Angeles Dodgers' pace for the best in baseball and 1 1/2 games clear of the Philadelphia Phillies in the National League East. The Mets own the best run differential (plus-67) in the National League. Advertisement The Pittsburgh Pirates fired their manager last week and responded with a series win over the Atlanta Braves to halt a seven-game slide. Still, Pittsburgh is 14-27 and buried in last place in the NL Central. The New York Yankees took two of three in West Sacramento from the Athletics. Their 23-17 record is two games clear of the Boston Red Sox in the American League West. The Yankees, who play three games in Seattle before hosting the Mets this weekend, own the best run differential (plus-75) in baseball. v. Pittsburgh LHP David Peterson (2-2, 3.05 ERA) vs. RHP Paul Skenes (3-4, 2.77 ERA) RHP Kodai Senga (4-2, 1.16) vs. RHP Mitch Keller (1-4, 4.40) RHP Clay Holmes (5-1, 2.74) vs. LHP Bailey Falter (2-3, 4.36) at New York (AL) RHP Tylor Megill (3-3, 3.10) vs. LHP Carlos Rodón (4-3, 3.29) RHP Griffin Canning (5-1, 2.36) vs. RHP Clarke Schmidt (0-1, 4.79) LHP David Peterson vs. LHP Max Fried (6-0, 1.05) • Jesse Winker officially hit the injured list last week with a Grade 2 oblique strain that will keep him out six to eight weeks. • J. Minter has decided to undergo season-ending surgery on his lat. The recovery time is 10 to 12 months, so Minter is hoping to have as close to a normal spring training as possible next year. • Danny Young has opted for Tommy John surgery. He'll be out until next summer. • Jose Siri is making quicker-than-expected progress from his fractured tibia. Though a rehab assignment isn't on the schedule yet, Siri has started real baseball activities. Triple-A: Syracuse vs. Lehigh Valley (Philadelphia) Double-A: Binghamton at Hartford (Colorado) High-A: Brooklyn vs. Winston-Salem (Chicago, AL) Low-A: St. Lucie at Daytona (Cincinnati) • The future of the Mets offense is at Coney Island • Why is Juan Soto spending so much time in the Mets' bullpen? • Takeaways on the Cubs series, including Brett Baty's revival • Prospect Jonah Tong had himself a night Saturday • Mailbag on Luisangel Acuña's role and other pitching prospects • TWIM: The most encouraging aspects of the Mets' start Advertisement Hey, it's a book I've actually read this year. The 2011 Booker prize winner, 'The Sense of an Ending,' is a slim treatise on memory — the stories we tell ourselves about our maturations and how they might differ from those close to us. Its protagonist's lack of awareness — both self- and general — is reminiscent of narrators in 'The Remains of the Day' or 'The Good Soldier,' though I liked both those books more. The revelation at the end, though surprising, didn't strike me as especially meaningful. I think I liked the idea of the book more than the book itself. The Mets' only three-game sweep in the Bronx came in 2008, and it didn't feel like one because the finale was postponed by rain for a month. The Mets' three winning pitchers in that series were all starters and, coincidentally, the three starters for the less satisfying season-ending series that season against the Florida Marlins. Who were they? I'll reply to the correct answer in the comments. (Photo of Jeff McNeil: Mark J. Rebilas / Imagn Images)
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘Access Denied': Trump stops a meeting at the Pentagon to brief Elon Musk on potential war plans
Julian Barnes, New York Times National Security Reporter joins Nicolle Wallace on Deadline White House to discuss his stunning reporting detailing that the Pentagon set up a meeting with Elon Musk where Musk was set to get a briefing on the United States military plans for any potential conflict with China, until it was stopped by Donald Trump after reporting about the meeting broke the news.
New York Times
18-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Book Review: ‘Changing My Mind,' by Julian Barnes
CHANGING MY MIND, by Julian Barnes In an essay from his collection 'The Dyer's Hand,' W.H. Auden describes his personal Eden: an 'absolute monarchy, elected for life by lot,' a place without automobiles, airplanes, newspapers, movies, radio or television, whose economy depends on lead mining, coal mining, chemical factories and sheep farming and whose public statues are 'confined to famous defunct chefs.' In 'Changing My Mind,' a slender new book-length essay that has the misfortune to share a title with a 2009 collection by Zadie Smith, Julian Barnes, the novelist and all-around man of letters, envisions a far less idiosyncratic utopia, which he calls, tongue-in-cheekily, B.B.R. (Barnes's Benign Republic). I'd gladly live in B.B.R. — its attractions include separation of church and state, nuclear disarmament, and restoration of arts and humanities courses at schools and universities — while I wouldn't last a day in Auden's zany Ruritania. But which is more fun to read about? 'Changing My Mind' can't make up its mind about whether it's a single piece or, as it appears to be, a loosely connected series of ruminations on the topics of 'Memories,' 'Words,' 'Politics,' 'Books' and 'Age and Time.' The back cover of the handsome Notting Hill Editions paperback calls it 'an engaging and erudite essay,' but, in fact, the copyright page tells us that 'versions of these essays were first broadcast on BBC Radio 3' … in 2016. The book's origins may account for otherwise baffling concluding lines, in which Barnes, now 79, confronts mortality. (As he did, more affectingly, in his 2013 memoir 'Levels of Life.') 'Who knows, perhaps a friendly radio producer with a microphone will come along to my bedside and ask the right questions. If so, I'll be able to let you know.' Barnes begins the book by pointing out what an odd expression 'I changed my mind' is: 'Where is this 'I' that is changing this 'mind,' like some rider controlling a horse with their knees?' he asks. 'This 'I' we feel so confident about isn't something beyond and separate from the mind' that 'you might as well say 'My mind changed me.'' Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
19-02-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Ukraine's Equation
For Ukraine, a peace deal with Russia is not just about stopping the war. A deal should also prevent the next one — by convincing Russia that its invasion was a costly failure. In that context, the past week brought a lot of bad news for Ukraine. American officials conceded that Ukraine would not reclaim all of its territory or join NATO. They also said that U.S. troops would not help protect Ukraine's borders after the war. Maybe a truce would have eventually included those conditions. But by granting them now, the concessions push a peace deal in Russia's favor — and may get Vladimir Putin to think that, after all of this, the war was worth the costs. 'The United States is intent on ending this war,' said my colleague Julian Barnes, who covers international security. 'And ending it quickly likely means trying to end it on Russia's terms.' Today's newsletter looks at why Ukraine is increasingly concerned about a future Russian invasion. Since the beginning of the war, Ukraine has worried that an eventual cease-fire will simply give Russia time to rebuild and come back. So Ukraine and its allies have tried to prevent this scenario through two approaches. First, they have tried to make the war as costly as possible for Russia. On the diplomatic front, Ukraine's allies have imposed economic sanctions on Russia. On the battlefield, Russia has lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers to death and injuries. At the same time, Ukraine has tried to retake as much territory as possible. If Russia ended the war with an economy in ruins, a colossal death toll and little new territory, it would likely look at the invasion as a mistake. Credit... Sources: The Institute for the Study of War | Map is as of Feb. 18. | By The New York Times Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The Guardian
29-01-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
In Slovakia, a frenzy of cultural repression is underway, as we turn back to Soviet times
In his novel The Noise of Time, Julian Barnes depicts the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich as 'a man standing by a lift, at his feet a small case containing cigarettes, underwear and tooth powder; standing there and waiting to be taken away'. He knows that it will soon be his turn to be arrested by Stalin's secret police and is prepared for it. Power in the Soviet Union had been seized by many who were uneducated and coarse, driven by a vindictiveness amplified by the sense that they were merely taking what was rightfully theirs. Shostakovich, along with writers such as Leonid Andreyev, Ivan Bunin, Alja Rachmanowa and others left strikingly similar depictions of the upheaval caused by the Stalinist purges: society was divided and riven by fear, anxiety, acts of revenge, lists of inconvenient people, destruction. Brute force prevailed over talent, expertise and education. The winner took all. Slovakia is (for now) a member of the EU, it is (for now) a democratic country and has not (so far) endured a bloody or violent coup. But the atmosphere today feels to me in some ways quite similar to that described in Russia 100 years ago. Since the populist Robert Fico's return for a fourth term as prime minister in October 2023, Slovakia has pivoted from the west to the east and is drifting away from liberal democracy to what looks like authoritarianism. A long-term critic of the EU and Nato, Fico has questioned Russia's role as the aggressor in the war in Ukraine, threatening to stop electricity supplies to Kyiv. In December Fico travelled to Moscow for a private meeting with Vladimir Putin, only the third western leader to do so since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In response, Slovaks have taken to the streets to voice their anger about the country's future, their support for Ukraine and for Slovakia's continued membership of the EU and Nato. The most recent protest, drew more than 100,000 people, many calling for Fico to resign. But how does one defend democracy if the state's very representatives are involved in systematically dismantling it? And how could the achievements of the 35 years since the Velvet Revolution have been upended so quickly? Slovakia's artistic and cultural community has always been at the forefront of the pro-democracy cause. That was the case during the Velvet Revolution and in the 1990s protests against prime minister Vladimír Mečiar's government. Thirty years later, in the mass rallies that followed the murder of the investigative journalist Ján Kuciak, it was the voices of Slovakian artists and cultural workers that sounded loudest about the threat to freedom and democratic values. That uprising led to the collapse of Fico's third government. No wonder, then, that attempts to silence government critics are now targeted on the arts, culture and NGOs. Under the guise of balancing budgets, Fico has brought in sweeping institutional changes and taken a scythe to sources of funding for culture. Those who can't be sacked or silenced are starved and exhausted out of existence. While the media, judiciary, police, prosecution and security services – key areas by which democracy stands or falls – have been subjected to similarly radical shake-ups, a look back at the assault on the arts over the past year tells an alarming story. One of Fico's first and most controversial appointments was Martina Šimkovičová. The former TV presenter, who lost her job at a private TV station in 2015 for anti-refugee posts on social media, was appointed minister for culture. Šimkovičová, a member of the far-right Slovak National party, set the tone for her new role by stating that 'the culture of the Slovak people must be Slovak and no other'. Her head of office, Lukáš Machala, is a man who questions whether the Earth is really round (this is not a joke). Šimkovičová quickly embarked on a wholesale purge across the arts. She started by sacking a large number of culture ministry staff, followed by weekly dismissals of key employees in almost every state-run cultural institution, including the National Library. Hardly a week has gone by without a leading figure in a well-regarded museum, theatre, gallery or conservation agency being fired. Those who have not yet been removed or demoted are dreading their turn, which they know is only a question of time. One of the most egregious examples of the purge is what happened at the Slovak National Gallery (SNG). It underwent an extraordinarily thorough and, by Slovakian standards, successful reconstruction under its director, Alexandra Kusá, who turned it into a modern, acclaimed and popular institution. But in August last year, shortly after the big opening of the refurbished galleries, Kusá was dismissed. This led to a public protest and the resignations of a number of key SNG staff, not only in solidarity with Kusá but citing untenable working conditions. Alarmed by the situation, two partner museums, in Austria and Germany, have taken the unprecedented step of withdrawing from an exhibition they had long planned jointly with SNG, because as their letter noted, 'the current situation poses a potential risk to the items to be lent, for the protection of which the institutions themselves are responsible'. Kusá has accused accused the culture ministry of launching 'an era of bullying and intimidation'. A hundred National Gallery employees resigned em masse this week and the biggest sponsor stopped its financial support. The blows keep coming. The functioning of the Slovak Arts Fund (modelled on Arts Council England) has been brought to a complete standstill and rendered incapable of allocating and disbursing grants. With other funding schemes paralysed, thousands of artists, professional and amateur alike, from folklore through literature, theatre and the visual arts face uncertainty as to whether they will be able to survive financially. Even works to restore dilapidated historic buildings have been halted after the abolition of a range of culture ministry departments, including the one tasked with the preservation of monuments. The director of the Slovak Literary Centre, the agency responsible for promoting Slovakian literature at home and abroad, has been replaced by a figure who is accused of ties with conspiracy platforms. The head of the national heritage office was dismissed in December. As if this were not enough, the writer Michal Hvorecký and the visual artist Ilona Németh say the culture minister has filed criminal complaints against them. For a year now, the arts community has implored the government to listen to sense, but to no avail. Two petitions for the dismissal of Šimkovičová have appeared in the space of six months, garnering record numbers of signatures. Castles and historical landmarks have hoisted black flags in protest. At the Slovak National Theatre, another institution whose director was dismissed without notice, actors have taken to reading statements before or after performances. Slovakia's president, Peter Pellegrini, has ignored pleas from the arts community for a meeting. His continued silence prompted Zdena Studenková, an acclaimed Slovakian actor, to turn down a new year honour. More than 700 psychiatrists and psychologists have signed an open letter to the PM, as have more than 2,000 academics and almost 6,000 workers in education. But since Fico's Moscow visit, such small-scale protests have widened into the mass demonstrations we've been seeing. Fico says he has no intention of stepping down. And in the context of other crises plaguing Europe, the dismantling of Slovakian culture may seem insignificant. But a vast machine now appears aimed at unravelling our democracy. Every regional museum closure or curator sacking is a another step in that process. Fico is following in the footsteps of Putin, Viktor Orbán and Alexander Lukashenko. Monika Kompaníková is a Slovakian journalist and novelist
