79 thoughts on “August 16, 2011: Taters”

    1. "You know, I'd kind of like to be remembered as a pretty good guy. Isn't that how you would want to be remembered?"

      I said something then about being remembered as a great baseball player. His eyes lit up.

      "Sure," he said happily. "Why not? That would be great too!"

      This.

        1. honestly, i liked _elm_n. obviously, i didn't like what he did on the field, but he seemed like a really nice, cool, quiet guy. i really wanted him to do well, and i wish he could've hit his potential. delmon, we hardly knew ye.

          1. This is actually how I feel about him. Good guy, just not a good ballplayer. I hope he figures it out and plays better, hopefully it's not for a divisional rival or a team on the coast.

          2. Same here. I wanted Del to succeed. Still do. Sadly, it was not to be. Here, anyway.

            My hope is he gets it together and forces cheaptoy to name a bitter after him.

    1. Yeah, it looked painful when I saw the replays. I'm not Revere, but 4 years of rugby have taught me with that size differential, trying to go around rather than through is a better option.

  1. You know, I could see the Twins players looking at the trade of Delmon as a white flag on the season, so they relax and start playing better with the pressure off. They certainly hit better last night than they have in a while. Maybe Revere and Plouffe will hit better knowing they will be there most days now.

  2. "If he had jumped and gotten that over the wall, he and I might have met up behind the stands tonight," Thome joked.

    I count two jokes in that sentence. Good job Jimmers

  3. Twins have announced that they have received righthander Lester Oliveros as the player to be named later in the deal that sent Delmon Young to the Tigers on Monday.

    Oliveros, 23, is [a] reliever. He began the season 2-0 with a 0.53 ERA at Class AA Erie before moving on to Class AAA Toledo, where he was 1-3, 6.43 in 22 games.

    He was called up to the Tigers this season, making his major league debut on July 1. In nine games, Oliveros gave up five earned runs over eight innings with four walks and four strikeouts.

    He has struck out 317 batters in 254.2 minor league innings, but he has walked 113 batters. He will be assigned to Class AAA Rochester.
    -LEN

    Edit: An early season prospect profile.

  4. In recognition of the Emeritus's trip to Chicago, plus the widespread fondness for advanced stats here, I present to you DOGS.

    When we decided to start reviewing Chicago Dogs, we obviously needed to figure out what criteria we would use to rate them. Usually, ratings that pertain to food tend to be subjective and involve emotion and personal bias. Although our personal opinions are important, we still needed to figure out how to equally compare Chicago Dogs objectively.

    We are trained in "Root Cause Analysis" (RCA). In simple terms, RCA is a technique for evaluating, identifying and measuring non-conformance with a process. Suddenly it hit us. If creating the perfect Chicago Dog is a process, could the concepts learned in training actually help in the rating of Hot Dogs? To our surprise, Root Cause Analysis is the perfect tool for the objective evaluation of Chicago Dogs.

    Based on our analysis, we developed a scientific mathematical formula to accurately determine how close to perfection a Chicago Dog is. Our formula calculates something we cleverly named "DOGS" (Dog Overall Greatness Score). The formula takes into account factors such as quality, ingredients and authenticity (example: is the Dog built to specification?).

    1. As someone who has completed a few RCA's, the idea of using one for "fun" just seems well, wrong. Then I clicked on the link and found out the reviewers are quality assurance engineers and it all made sense to me.

  5. Still no Span or Cuddyer for tonight's game. Mauer DHing, so no Thome. Verlander must face the dynamic trio of Tosoni, Nishi and Butters at the bottom of the lineup. At least Tolbert's on the bench. With Blackburn starting, if the Tigers don't win this game, I might start believing that a comeback is possible.

  6. I'm meeting (and am about to meet) some fairly big names out here through friends who already have contacts. Must...not...drop...names...

    Being out here is hard for all the reasons I've already spoken, but getting people I know from film to do a table read of my script is just surreal enough for me to be able to enjoy this a little bit.

      1. those were abominations.

        they reminded me of little kids playing army in the back yard, yelling "PEW! PEW PEW PEW!!!" to simulate gunfire.

        1. Heh, I was just reading about that movie and noted that detail. I'm glad I never watched that one. I'll stick to the SciFi series with the not-bad-for-tv-at-the-time-but-still-sort-of-cheesy special effects.

          1. some swear by the Lynch film. Aspects of it are great (the Baron, and, of course, Sting, spring to mind).

  7. Pretty devastating article on the _elmon Young trade. I especially loved (not) this quip:

    Then there was Young's defense. Though defensive metrics were just starting to become mainstream in 2007, it was becoming increasingly clear that the numbers didn't back up Young's strong defensive reputation. If Tampa Bay could find a team that valued batting average, run production, reputation and prospect pedigree over more meaningful results, they were ready to make a deal.

    1. I've never actually seen the full bat throwing incident before and always assumed it was simply tossed or flipped at the ump. Holy sh*t did I assume wrong.

    2. Though defensive metrics were just starting to become mainstream in 2007, it was becoming increasingly clear that the numbers didn't back up Young's strong defensive reputation.
      Same thing could be said about Bartlett. His ratings in 2005-2007: +8, +3, +3. 2008-2010: -8, -3, -5. The Twins still under valued a cheap shortstop, but they correctly rated his defense.

    3. Bill Smith’s tenure as Twins GM has some potential black marks, with the failure of the Johan Santana trade
      Yes, but not because of the Santana trade. Convenient how everyone forgets about the no-trade clause and that he would only waive it with a contract extension. He probably bungled it, but failure? No.

      1. agreed. He got four top prospects for him...and while none were slam dunks, I don't know if BS was going to get slam dunk prospects. Perhaps one of the rumored Sox/Yanks deals could have gone through which may have been better, but we don't know if Smith bungled them or not. The only thing we can say for sure is that keeping Santana and letting him walk probably would have been more helpful to the team (in 07 and possibly with draft picks) in retrospect.

  8. From the MLBTradeRumors post on the finishing up of the Delmonster trade:

    The Secret Inspector 43 minutes ago
    I hope Young goes complete beast the rest of the season, and than Dombrowski gives him a 5yr/60mm deal.

  9. From LEN3's pregame notes:

    Matt Tolbert has a sore left hand. He's not sure what he did to hurt it but he felt pain during his final at- bat of the Monday's game.

    [Redacted]

      1. actually, if yickit's going where i think he's going with this, i believe [redacted] would be the proper nomenclature.

          1. synonyms perhaps, but let's not forget the subtle nuances.

            (i can't believe we're talking about this like it's a thing)

                  1. this is correct, and the shipping destination was indeed the orioles. the name came about after a need to shield ourselves from possible libel allegations due to multiple disseminations and second hand accounts of said player's, um... "hobbies". hence, if yickit was going with that where i thought he was going, [redacted] was indeed the proper usage.

                    (though it can easily be used in the manner of which bS previously mentioned as well)

  10. From Jim Bowden, on tWWL:

    Every general manager and scouting director from all 30 clubs wants to sign their first-round draft picks. After investing millions of dollars in scouting salaries and travel and using the time of your team’s top evaluators, not signing your first pick is the ultimate failure in amateur scouting.

    ....

    [Bowden reviews teams who have not signed their first round picks in the past several years]

    Washington Nationals: When I was still GM of the Nationals, we did not sign our 2008 first-round selection (ninth overall), right-handed pitcher Aaron Crow. The Nationals used that excess budget amount for a combination of players taken later in that draft (outfielder J.P. Ramirez, who signed for $1.2 million), international signings [and our other first round pick].

    Heh.

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