Cup of Coffee

August 17, 2012: Mistakes

116 Comments

Yesterday I dropped my daughters off at school only to have Sour Cream's teacher call me later and remind me she didn't have school on Thursdays this year. Yep, it's the first week, alright.

116 thoughts on “August 17, 2012: Mistakes”

    1. I'm guessing that on Thursdays, his daughter is to remain home or at day care or be looked after in some other manner. Much like during other days in which she doesn't have school, like holidays, conferences, and summer.

  4. Ed Thoma makes a good point:

    (The Red Wings have) a better chance to make the International League postseason if Parmelee is playing there than if he's sitting in Seattle this weekend. And Rochester is more likely to re-up with the Twins if the Red Wings make the postseason.

    For that matter, this may be an overlooked benefit to returning Brian Dozier to Rochester.

    1. Why do the twins have their AAA team in rochester in the first place? It seems to me you would want a team closer geographically for marketing purposes and to reduce travel costs.

      The Twins made a mistake ever leaving Des Moines. Between the Iowa Cubs and WGN, iowa became a Cubs state over the 80s. It was mainly Twins fans before that.

      1. Should be Rochester... MN.
        However, teams with AAA and AA farms too close risk making call-ups, DFAs, and optioning too easy. Think of the Royals and Omaha and (formerly) Wichita.

        1. I assumed it was Rochester, MN for years. I didn't realize the Red Wings were in New York until...I want to say something like 1999-2000. I was shocked by the revelation, and shocked that I'd never known it until then.

          1. So you realized three or four years before they became an affiliate? That's fortunate timing!

            Man, I'm bursting everyone's memories.

              2. I'm with Rhu Ru, I totally remember Toledo being the Twins AAA team. I was shocked when they changed, at the time I didn't know they could do that.

            2. My memory for 1994-2001 is very, very poor...not that it happened in that frame, but I wouldn't know what happened in that frame, in general.

              So, apparently I must not have had it wrong for long. Well, that's good news.

        1. Are you disagreeing with the memories of an 8 year old? 😉

          I always thought they were affiliated with the Oaks before Oakland took them. It must have always been Oakland.

        2. I still think it should be within driving distance. If I live in Sioux Falls, I would have much more interest in watching a Twins affiliate than any other team.

          The problem is we just don't have that many AAA cities in the midwest. I think Des Moines might be the smallest. (I will wait for Sean to correct me. It feels like I am on PTI.)

          2. I am now imagining your gravatar and sean's sitting at a table together in front of a camera. I think that would be more watchable than the real PTI.

          3. It looks like Des Moines is the third smallest AAA area and smallest in the Midwest.

            Spoiler SelectShow

          4. It seems like it could make some sense to try to convince the Saints to become the Twins' AAA affiliate, but that means someone in the International League would lose their spot--not sure how that would work out. It almost seems too close, but it seems to work out pretty well for Seattle and Tacoma.

            1. I'd selfishly prefer it be the FM Redhawks if they're going to pull a team away from the American Association.

              1. The Redhawks have averaged 25% lower attendance than the Saints this year, despite being 11.5 games up on them in the standings. FM also has less than half the metro area population of Des Moines, one of the smallest AAA markets. I could maybe see putting a AA team there. I could see making a case for them over Duluth and Rochester, MN.

            2. Gwinnett is the Braves AAA affiliate. It appears to be farther away from Atlanta than St. Paul is from Minneapolis, but not by much. They moved from Richmond after the 2008 season.

          1. There are so many awesome team names in the minor leagues. The Bears were the most boringly-named team in their league; they had teams like the Everett AquaSox and the Tri-Cities Dust Devils.

            1. Watched the last half of "Mary Poppins" the other night. Was very surprised to hear "Hottentots" when the admiral misidentifies the chimney sweeps as they Stepped in Time.

          1. Yep. When I was very little, the Indianapolis Indians were the Expos' AAA team. Then for most of my childhood they were the Reds'. Then they were the Brewers for 3 or 4 years, and now they've been with the Pirates since '05 or'06.

            I personally loved it when they were the Reds' farm team because I was a Reds fan, which goes to Algonad's point. Dad grew up half way between the two cities, and we could drive for about an hour, see my grandparents, then drive a little more than another hour and be at the Reds.

            1. Yeah, the Yakima Bears are a Diamondbacks affiliate, but they were a Dodgers affiliate for years. Teams trade affiliates, including all players and personnel, with some regularity.

      3. If I remember right, Rochester became disgruntled with Baltimore after many many many year of subpar talent. The Twins were in Salt Lake City and wanted to get out of the PCL.

      1. There's a scenario where if the Twins and Rochester split up and a few other teams make changes, the only open minor-league team available would be Las Vegas, in the PCL. That would be not good, in my opinion.

    3. Question about the AAA affiliation. How does it work for the players? What I mean is, if Rochester and the Twins split, do the Twins take all of the players they've drafted to the new AAA affiliate and Rochester has to field a new squad made up of another MLB teams AAA guys? Or, do they stay in Rochester and the Twins just have access to them via their rights?

        1. It's funny CoC asked this because just two days ago the girlfriend asked the identical question. I don't know 100%, but I can fake it the below is what I've learned/guessed. Looks like I was right based on bS's link.

          1. Bad day here. First I am accused of being a White Sox fan and now CoC is compared to Sean's girlfriend! (If this wasn't a family friendly site, I had a little more colorful language in mind.)

            1. Hey now. I never accused you. It's just that The Question Has Been Asked. I don't know the answer, but People Are Asking The Question. Are you hiding something?

      3. The Twins own the players and coaching staff. The Red Wings own the facility and staff for that facility. If The Red Wings decide to not renew with the Twins (contract is up at the end of this year I think), then the players and coaching staff would move to whoever the Twins pick for next year.

    4. He could at least cite me if he's going to steal my ideas.

      Also, even though Rochester is essentially out of the playoffs, they could make things interesting if they play well the next couple of weeks. Maybe the Twins are throwing them a bone.

  5. So I had successfully interviewed for and been offered a job at another company, and I was all set to take it even though it was yet another low-paying, mind-numbing temp gig. But my boss at my current job just told me that within the next few weeks they plan on buying out my contract from my staffing agency and hiring me in a full-time salaried capacity. I actually really hate this job, but the idea of a sizable raise and actual benefits sounds great to me. Assuming the rug won't be pulled out from under me spookymilk-style, this is pretty exciting news.

    1. Well done, man.

      And in fairness, both the Milkmaid and I have been promoted in the last two months. The huge promotion she was initially offered didn't happen, but she instead got a small promotion that actually keeps her on a path that she prefers. Mine was also a promotion that's in preparation for another promotion.

      So, yes, early 2012 was a disaster for us, but of late things are looking up.

      1. And I'm in LA getting ready to interview for a huge opportunity. The pros of this job include working alongside the most famous artists in the states, having everything I produce included in the national archives, and working in a really, really cool shop. The cons include leaving my wife in a city we both love living in and starting my professional career without my partner in crime. That's a pretty big con. Injust got an email from my professor telling me that there are a hundred printers who would stab me in the back to get this interview. This is like being called up from single a to the majors.

            1. Yes, good luck to you both (and hopefully good news to Philo at some point soon).

          1. I have less than 48 hours in the city, and doc S's old buddy is taking me to some watering hole. If I end up working here I'll certainly be in touch.

  6. from rising star last year to Dumpsville

    Phil Mackey ‏@PMac21
    #MNTwins outright Rene Tosoni to clear room for Matt Carson on the 40-man roster

    who the heck is Matt Carson? (Ive been behind on my minor league readings)

    1. 30-year old journeyman OFer. Cups of coffee with the As in 2009 and 2010. 280/342/500 career AAA slash line in 2051 PA, but that SLG is inflated by a lot of PCL time.

      1. A lot of time in the PCL, plus just a lot of time in AAA in general. He seems like a decent, if unspectacular, AAA player, but with something like a 3:1 SO:BB ratio, I don't see him contributing "at the major league level."

    2. Tonsils has been in AA for most of the season. I'm surprised he was still taking up a 40-man roster spot. (Could've been used for another backup catcher.)

    3. If only the Twins had a worthless 2Ber making $3 million at AAA that they could DFA off the 40 man.

  7. MLB to test expanded replay soon.

    MLB will analyze a radar-based system and a camera-based system, both similar to the one used in tennis for down-the-line fair-or-foul calls. Yankee Stadium and Citi Field will be the guinea-pig parks for the systems, which have been installed recently.

    The onus now is on the systems to perform well enough they track within a fraction of an inch balls traveling more than 100 mph.

    Uh, that's kind of easy. Tennis has no problem tracking serves, where 100 mph would be a slow first serve. They accurately measure the ball deforming when it hits the ground as well. In tennis, it works quickly enough, but not real-time. It would be very cool if MLB could get it operating in near real-time to use during the game.

    2. Not to mention that few balls in baseball actually travel in excess of 100 MPH (or are traveling at such speeds when such systems would need to evaluate their location).

    3. My prediction is that if this happens, umpires will start to call just about anything close a fair ball and we'll see lots of runners coming back after replay. Because if a ball is fair, but you call it foul, there's no way of really reconstructing what might have happened on that play.

      1. Isn't that sort of how it is already? The players assume the ball was fair until they've rounded the bases notified by the ump(s) it's foul.

  8. Just noticed this.

    The 12-year old boy in me just did a fist pump.

    “Joss Whedon has signed an exclusive deal with Marvel Studios for film and television through the end of June 2015," Marvel said in a statement Tuesday.

    "As part of that deal, Whedon will write and direct Marvel's 'Avengers 2' as well as help develop a new live action series for Marvel Television at ABC. He will also contribute creatively to the next phase of Marvel’s cinematic universe.”

    1. I hope the tv show is family friendly. It is tough telling the boy that he can get the toys but can't watch the movies. I still don't understand why there can't be two versions of the same movie. It really wouldn't be that difficult.

        1. I haven't seen that one yet. I don't actually go to theaters!

          I just know Iron Man was a little too violent for him and he would have loved to see it. Even just cutting/changing 10 minutes of footage would have worked.

    1. one-third of reviewers will call it a "drain pour", one-third will hail it as the greatest beer evah! and one-third will just drink it and belch.

      1. I especially agree with this sentiment.

        "Beer brings people together," [Brad Magerkurth] said. "If people could just sit down and share a beer, I think the world would be a better place."

  12. No Revere or Span tonight. Maestro in center, Carson in right. Safeco has already seen two perfect games this season. Could it see three, two of them conesecutively? (And no, it won't be Blackburn).

    1. Mauer batting second? Excellent. I don't know how I feel about the Carson/Carroll/Florimon bottom of the lineup, though.

  14. is only a preseason game, but that play by Jerome Simpson was pretty awesome. Simpson hurdled over a Bills defender like he was on the US Olympic track team.

  15. 8 mile group run 7AM tomorrow. Wish I could help cheer the lads, but a 10:10PM start is not in the cards.

  16. Safely encamped in Owatonna, ended up eating at Sportman's Grille. Nothing special, did have Schells Firebrick on tap.

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