Cup of Coffee

August 10, 2011: It Takes All Kinds

80 Comments

Last night I sent out about a billion (estimated) emails to people in the entertainment biz. My first reply was from a girl who's doing a documentary on former baseball mascots. Well, of course it was.

80 thoughts on “August 10, 2011: It Takes All Kinds”

  1. My first reply was from a girl who's doing a documentary on former baseball mascots. Well, of course it was.

    Do what you know, right Spook?

    1. She's looking for people on Wednesday and Thursday, and I wouldn't be available to her until Sunday. She still wants me to email her when I get there, in case she isn't done with her interviews.

      It would be a shame if I missed this one.

              1. on the flimsiest of pretexts, i finally got around to updating my android firmware from 1.5 to 2.1. i've got a new phone, basically.

    1. These rumblings have been going on for a long time. I remember it being openly discussed as an explanation for why Johan could never beat them a few seasons ago.

      Edited to add: from a May 2005 LEN3 column: "[A] recent Baseball Weekly column claimed that the Blue Jays had successfully cracked the Santana code, finding habits in his delivery that revealed which pitch he was about to throw. And Santana was 0-2 with a 7.13 ERA in his previous three starts against Toronto. Hmmmm."

    3. Yeah, it is such a huge advantage that the Jays are 28-27 at home and 30-30 on the road.

        1. It doesn't make it any worse, does it? Assuming the same pitching and defense at home and away, sign-stealing should improve the offense and lead to more wins, right?

          1. The pitching hasn't been the same, though. At home the Jays' pitchers have given up 276 runs, compared to only 250 on the road. Meanwhile, the offense has scored 273 runs at home, and 262 on the road.

  4. TJ archives:

    -In 2005, we learned that "Tiger Woods changing his swing is like B.B. King switching to the ukelele, like Aretha Franklin doing rap." Glad to see TJ was hip to the music scene a few yearsa go.

    -In the Twins game in 2004, "Michael Cuddyer, who was used as a defensive replacement at first baseman for Justin Morneau in Saturday's 4-3 victory over Oakland, has seen perceptions of his fielding change dramatically. 'It used to be, they used a defensive replacement for me," he said. "Now I'm the defensive replacement.'"

    -In 2002, there was a minor incident within the clubhouse. "[Doug] Mientkiewicz made . . .comments in a lengthy story Wednesday [in the Washington Post] about the team's success and the differences between [Ron] Gardenhire and former manager Tom Kelly. 'We're happy for Gardy,' Mientkiewicz said in the story. 'But, on the other hand, he should be happy for the situation he walked into. We police ourselves very well. This team could function by itself.'"

    -In 2001, TJ was pointing out the injury bug going through the Twins. "The Twins have used the disabled list 12 times this season, causing injured players to miss 429 games. Last season, the Twins used the disabled list four times, with players missing 124 games. The last time the Twins used the DL 12 times in a season was 1996, when Kirby Puckett and Rick Aguilera started the season on the DL." Twelve times a season? Those were the days...

    1. Aaron pointed out a doozy from today's Top Jimmy column: "Mauer's contract kept the Twins from bolstering their bullpen this winter and it might keep them from re-signing Michael Cuddyer, who has vastly outperformed Mauer over the past two years."

      1. Mauer last year alone has outperformed the last three years of Cuddyer. Mauer's 2009 and 2010 has outperformed Cuddyer.

        1. did you see my comment:

          But Cuddy does magic tricks, that’s got to count for at least 2 Wins. Then there’s the fact that Mauer is a pussy singles hitter, deduct one win from his total, viola Cuddy is better than Mauer!!

          But I liked someone's comment which is probably at the crux of the matter:

          Cuddy Interviews with TJ: 225
          Mauer Interviews with TJ: 5

          1. viola Cuddy

            is better than Mauer fiddle.

            I assume you had auto-correct bite you on that one, free.

      3. I ought to know better than to even follow that link.

        Tsuyoshi Nishioka is Twins property for two more years. If they had kept J.J. Hardy, they would have been dramatically better at shortstop, and would have been able to spend more money on their remarkably shallow bullpen.

        From Cot's:

        Nishioka, 2011 salary: $3,000,000
        Hardy, 2011 salary: $6,000,000

        Where did that $3,000,000 difference go? Oh yeah, Fat Crapps ate it.

        1. The Twins did pay an upfront $5.3M posting fee as well, so maybe that was the thinking there. The Twins may not consider that part of the salary budget but more international signing budget, but money is money.

    1. That's a good reminder for me to check the milestone comments when that banner pops up. Nice.

      1. Unfortunately, that project to pushed to the side lately with the relationship stuff. Hopefully, I'll get them all done over this weekend.

          1. Cool. If it's during the gamelog, there's about a 33%* chance of profanity.

            *figure is calculated from home team and opponent win-loss record, past player performance, lineup and bullpen construction, Blackburn pitching and estimated amount of alcohol spooky has consumed.

  8. So Gibson is going to try to rehab a partially torn ulnar collateral ligament? I'm sorry if it comes across as stribbie, but hearing stuff like this makes me wish the Twins would fire their entire medical team.

    1. Gleeman makes a good point that there's about a two-month window here for the rehab, then they can re-evaluate. If he has surgery now or in two months, he's not going to miss much more time either way. But, yeah, my reaction is if it's torn, partially or whatever, just get the surgery done ASAP.

      1. Going off other Twins' recent attempts at rehabbing injuries, I have precisely 0% confidence that Gibson's rehab schedule will be managed in such a way that he undergoes surgery in time to be ready for Spring Training 2013 should an attempted UCL rehab be unsuccessful (and let's face it, the Twins' track record in this regard sucks, too).

        1. I can't disagree* with this sentiment, as much as I'd like to.

          *Well, I could, but it would only be half-hearted.

            1. Twins' docs: 'Tis but a scratch.

              Gibson: A scratch?! My arm's off!

              Twins' docs: No it isn't.

              Gibson: Well, what's that then? (points at tear in X-ray)

              Twins' docs: You've had worse.

    2. They were painting this as good news on KFAN this morning. I hope they make a decision quickly, because I expect him to end up under the knife for this regardless.

    3. I don't think the Twins' medical team has the final say in these kinds of decisions. Don't they usually end up going to TJ experts? Or at least supposed TJ experts? If they operate now or by spring training, neither of these guys was going to be helping the Twins before 2014 anyways, right? Not much difference here and with Neshek, it didn't make any difference, since he was never the same and ended up being released. Nathan is probably the best success story for TJ for the Twins. Liriano has had success but he's still not been close to as dominant as he was before surgery. This decision affects a player's career, so I don't think there's a need to rush it just because it might affect the Twins for a couple months.

      1. But if it's done in the next few weeks, the player will have the offseason to recover and let the scar tissue break up. If it's done in March, then that happens in May and the player gets demoted.

      2. How many players have successfully rehabilitated a partially torn UCL without surgery? I'll grant you that the decision to have Tommy John surgery has an effect on a player's career, but I submit that the effect is to mainly determine whether or not they have a post-tear career at all.

      3. Don't they usually end up going to TJ experts?

        It sure seems like they are going to Top Jimmy experts sometimes....

    4. This is unrelated to Gibson, but I found this article about a torn UCL from Johns Hopkins to be informative. However, I think it covers full tears of the UCL, not partial tears. I did find this interesting though:

      Once the ligament has torn, it does not really heal well enough to allow a return to throwing.

      However:

      Of the three bands in the UCL, the anterior band of the UCL is the arm’s primary restraint from stress to the elbow, while the posterior and transverse bands do less to stabilize the elbow.

      I wonder if the partial tear is limited to the posterior or transverse bands. Then I can see why rehab would be prescribed.

  9. I just got a breathless, though certainly sincere, Facebook message from one of Pops' former coworkers, someone I've never met apart from at Pops' wake. She wanted to tell me that she felt Pops' presence with her on her recent 3 day, 60 mile walk for breast cancer. Given that I've never really met her, how exactly am I supposed to respond to this?

  10. cc to Can of Corn: apparently brotherS and sisterinlawS were already semi-regular customers of Heritage Liquors. So if you see a middle-aged guy who looks kind of like my avatar (but even less hair), that might well be brotherS. Fair warning.

  12. Revere in right, Kubel to the bench against Lester. Hopefully just a day off against a tough lefty. Plouffe at second. Apparently, the Twins can play Plouffe in RF but not Delmon. Huh?

    2. They probably figure Plouffe is a better defender than Delmon. They're probably right. And usually with weaker fielders, it's not a good idea to ask them to move around.

      On a related note: Please non-tender Delmon. Please, please, please. Maybe he hits someday, I don't know, but he's got the baseball IQ of Carlos Gomez and is beyond frustrating to watch.

      1. I'm right there with you on _elm_n, ubes. I've been preaching the non-tender for a couple years now.

        1. A couple years ago, he was cheap enough that I thought it was a worthwhile gamble to keep him around in hopes that he'd have a good season at the plate, someone else would be interested, and then you could deal him. I was hoping in the offseason that he could be shipped away for a little more than beans. (Maybe magic beans.) At this point, he has no value over any similarly-abled corner outfielder on the free agent market.

      2. I can't imagine any fans complaining if they do and I doubt anyone would hold it against them if he does an Ortiz and "realizes his potential" someplace else. I would bet that Joe Benson could come up right now and give the Twins offensively what Delmon has given them this year and he would be a big upgrade defensively (even though B-Ref is still giving Delmon .7 dWAR this season, which gives him .2 rWAR on the season).

        1. I get what you're saying with the Ortiz comparison, but Ortiz didn't just start hitting out of the blue. He had a career 107 OPS+ in the majors when the Twins let him go, and a 339:186 SO:BB ratio. So he'd strike out, but for a power hitter, it wasn't so crazy. In contrast, Delmon has a 100 OPS+ and a 484:118 SO:BB ratio. When Ortiz hit, you could tell he had a plan. When Delmon hits, you can tell he wants to swing at anything remotely close to a strike.

          If Delmon turns it around at the plate, it'll be more like Sosa than Ortiz, and it's pretty rare that players start learning to take walks this late in their career. So yeah, I agree with you, no one's really going to complain if the Twins let Delmon walk away.

          1. Did Sosa learn to take walks, or did he start getting pitched around after his power surge started? I'm not asking rhetorically; I'm legitimately wondering if that could have been the case. I was a bit out of the baseball loop around the time of Sosa becoming Sosa.

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