Cup of Coffee

November 30, 2012: Spanless

58 Comments

Again, it looks like the Twins are going with "We have another person at this position, so we'll trade the other one for whatever." Seriously, how do you make this trade and not know you're probably getting fleeced?

58 thoughts on “November 30, 2012: Spanless”

  1. Watched the last Simpsons ep on free OnDemand, and laughed at this line from Cleetus' wife:
    "That spells 'hope', like in Hope Floats, that movie with Sandra Bullock that I wrote."

    1. Me neither. It's certainly better than Ramos for Capps.

      If this guy becomes a reliever, though, he'll have to be Joe Nathan to make the trade palatable. At least Ryan is trying for high upside arms.

      1. I also agree this wasn't a bad trade but then again the Twins would be hard pressed not to have a trade that is "certainly better than Ramos for Capps." I hope that's not the benchmark we judge all Twins moves by.

        Since Meyers probably isn't ready until 2014 and they have to work Gibson in slowly this year, I'm almost wishing the Twins would just admit 2013 is a rebuilding year, sell it under a "get to know these guys" campaign and then sack up for 2014.

        1. My first thought is, we here with some eye for the longview will watch the games anyway and might even go so far as to applaud the honesty. The general populace likely wouldn't be as forgiving.

          1. I think there are a great number in the general populace who would be forgiving. MN is not KC/Pittsburgh, etc. A genuine rebuilding would follow 2 down years, but that follows a decade of success. Closely following success, rebuilding can be accepted. It's following constant futility and previous rebuilding efforts that the public doesn't accept. That and being told the team will be competitive when clearly it won't be. I think people are more frustrated that the Twins failed miserably at their goal (staying competitive) than they are that the Twins lost (which would be acceptable in a genuine rebuilding).

    2. Agreed. I like Span - he was a good (not great) player and seemed like a good guy. It was nice to see him actually make good on his potential after he seemed to be a bust. But Revere and Span were similar enough that it didn't make a lot of sense to have both long term. And neither were likely to be the starting CF on the next good Twins team (sigh). So I guess this gives Parmalee a position if he can keep it. It adds a promising power arm.

      Time - I guess - will tell.

      1. As a FA pitcher, I wouldn't want to have this IF or this OF behind me. At least with Span & Revere (I'm not looking at you, Willingpork) a FB pitcher had some help.

        2. Span is heading into his age 29 season and defense tends to peak earlier than offense, so he could easily be on the down side part of his career defensively. Meanwhile, he's had a 95 OPS+ for the last three seasons. The biggest commodity in baseball is power, both pitching (especially starting) and hitting. Span has none and Meyer has a ton of it. TR indicated that they see this guy as a starter, not a reliever. Plus, they made room for more power in the lineup since Parmelee now has a position. Plus, the Twins' two best prospects in AAA are outfielders. Hicks has a similar skill set to Span with better power and a much better arm. His numbers at AA at age 22 were better than Span's at age 22. Both played the full season at AA at age 22. The Twins could bring up Hicks in June or July and bring him along like they did Span, where he plays different positions. Plus, he's a switch hitter that is better from the right side and could give Revere and Parmelee days off against lefties. And the Twins cleared room in the payroll for improving the team this season. Of course, it is up to them to use it properly.

            1. Which my calendar says is only 21 days away! Sigh, not going to be able to witness the Wolves win the NBA championship.

            2. There are no guarantees in anything, especially in baseball. Span could age better than most and be an All-Star leadoff hitter for a playoff team. Or he could have another concussion and retire with a couple years left on his contract. Meyer could have the "inevitable" arm problems and never make the majors, or he could be the next Justin Verlander. What I like is this signifies the Twins are not being unrealistic about this season coming up and the Twins are realizing the importance of power pitching in the rotation.

              1. There are no guarantees in anything

                Did you not see that the Vikings are totally going to win the Super Bowl this year?

    1. Okay, I'd never heard of Vib Ribbon before, and I don't know whether to post this here or in the FRM post, but cool demo music:
      httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbHO1ZYhtLk

      1. I love that this is included! It's a shame this never came out in the US. All the music in the game is really great, though there are (unfortunately) only a handful of tracks. The main draw is that you can insert your own CDs, and the game will dynamically generate courses for you based on the track you select. Nothing feels as perfect to me as playing it with Matsuura's music, but I'm a huge fan of his. PaRappa the Rapper & UmJammer Lammy are two of my most cherished games ever.

        They did a couple of weird follow-up/sequels to this game on the PS2. Mojib-Ribbon had you walking along an ink line, and I think you had to interact with lyrics to the music as they played. Since my Japanese knowledge is terrible at best I never imported it (though it seems to be pretty cheap nowadays, so maybe I'll pick it up at some point). There was also a direct sequel to vib-ribbon where you jumped around on photographs like a trampoline. I've not heard great things about it, but Vibri is cute, so there's that.

        Sorry, I couldn't help myself. Matsuura is awesome.

    1. So if you were going to choose numbers based on your favorites (Twins, or otherwise), what would your ticket look like?

      Mine:
      8: Gaetti
      14: Hrbek
      18: Guardado
      22: Radke/Gomez
      34: Kirby

      Powerball 24: LeCroy

  7. Well, I am at a definite crossroads in my career (or whatever you want to call it). The company I work for has been going through Chapter 11. The owner has been looking for someone to invest in the company but finally decided to sell it to someone with more resources. We were told the new owner was going to come in and make us successful like his other companies, so everything seemed to be going well. Then I found out the other day that a competing company was also trying to buy us. This other company is an industry leader and does 10 times as much business as we do, so that could be very good as well. Except there is a rumor floating around that this company is just trying to buy out the competition and will just shut us down one they buy us. Well, today is when the sale is made final and we still don't know who is buying us. I guess the courts are deciding because of the bankruptcy. Anyways, I have today off because they shut us down for the weekend for accounting purposes (the old company pays us up through Thursday and the new company will pay us starting Monday). On Monday, I go in to find out whether I actually still have a job.

      1. I'm looking at it as having a three-day weekend. Junior's birthday party is today. They get off early on Fridays, so the party would have started before I normally would've gotten home, so now I can be there for the whole party, which my wife appreciates.

    3. Oof, best of luck. I've been in similar situations and the uncertainty is the worst part. But, it turned out all right for me in the end.

    5. I have in the past had the duty of creating corporate communications/messaging for the employees of acquired companies. Few things in my career have made me feel dirtier than assuring people I would never meet that their livelihoods were not in jeopardy, knowing full well that for the majority of them they very likely were. Good fortune to you, socal.

      1. last year, my brother went through a corporate "restructuring" that led to his exit from a company he'd been with for the last decade or so (since getting downsized from Unisys). The company, which had been growing at a healthy double-digit rate for years, acquired a failing California company in the same general business sector. After which, the company decided that all of its technical staff (programmers, analysts) would have to re-apply for their own jobs at ~20 percent (or more) pay cuts, under the supervision of a new manager drawn from the acquisition.

        He took a buyout instead, and wished the new folks luck (since my bro had written essentially all of the company's existing applications).

    1. but why is Bob Hoskins sadly retired. I'm sad that he's retired, but if he's disgruntled, why don't he go back to work?

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