76 thoughts on “December 10, 2012: Comedown”

  1. I was having some internet issues earlier, which means that the winter league reports will be slightly delayed, but they will be coming. Unless the internet issues return, of course.

  3. I would imagine that Buss the Lesser is going to end up giving Phil Jackson about $50 million/yr. to coach the Lakers some time after Christmas.

  4. I've now had every major carrier for wireless phones. For the last three years I've been with At&t and been satisfied for the most part. We left t-mobile because they didn't service W. Texas, and at the time At&t had a better offer. I called to ask them if they offered any incentive for me to stay with them this morning and the woman told me that they offer a great low price on the newest i-phone. I chuckled. She asked what was so funny, and I replied that the cost of the phone is exactly the same from sprint, verizon, and at&t and if they wanted to retain me as a customer they'd have to offer me a better deal on data and text than the competition. She looked up the competitors, and then told me that I would have to make the choice based on what was best for my family. I guess there is nothing to gain from customer loyalty anymore.

    1. Verizon has great coverage, plus I get a discount on my monthly bill for being employed where I am. No brainer for me.

      1. I'm on the verge of switching to Verizon because they're the only carrier with 4g in NOLA. I had verizon many, many years ago and had a pretty horrible customer service experience. I've heard things have changed, but who knows?

    1. We have to start winning games at the major league level

      Two thoughts: When did Bert take over in KC, and this quote may qualify as the years biggest understatement.

      1. That portion of the quote doesn't evein begin to cover the inane redundancy of what he said.

        Edit: The grass is always browner on the other side of the fence. Glad to not be a Royals fan.

        1. Honestly, I'd hate to be in Dayton's position. He probably has a lot of good, young players ready to cut and run as soon as their contracts are up, and he figures the only way he can stop that is by winning some games right now to keep them enthused about the team's future.

          1. The number of times he said "Major Leagues" in his quotes leads me to believe he's a broken man trying desperately to convince himself that its all still possible.

    2. We discussed it a bit last night, with some relevant Rany tweets.

      Short answer: Trading Garza and Bartlett for Del and [redacted] on a much greater scale.

    3. I guess it helps explain why the Rays have been in the playoffs 3 of the last 5 years and the Royals haven't made it since 1985.

      1. I wonder if Dayton has been disappointed that some of their top prospects haven't panned out, so he's going for broke in a weak division. Either way, I doubt this will work well for him.

    4. ct, will be happy after hanging onto Wil Myers the past couple of years in fantasy baseball.

  6. I've long argued that the NY market needs a third baseball team. The same might hold true for the LA market. Expansion franchises for both. 32 teams. Get it done, Billy Smith!

    3. The problem has long been where to put that 32nd team. Thankfully, the Dodgers and Angels answered that.

    4. The Dodgers' opening day payroll is listed at $205 million Cots without Ryu Hyun-Jin's contract. And that's before you include the $8.3 million (!) owed to MannyBManny, the $3.2 million owed to Andruw Jones. And I don't even think the team looks all that good. Kemp's excellent, Kershaw is a top 5 pitcher, Greinke is a stud, Gonzalez & Hanley have been good in the past but I don't know. I think they'll be looking up at the Giants at the end of the season.

    3. remember that time when M11 kept the ball from the final out of the 2004 world series? Yeah, that was awesome.

      1. Considering how Red Sox fans became after that, it should have made him a god damned national hero.

    5. Can they promote Dougie Baseball to the major-league coaching staff midseason?
      There's been a horrible shortage of nicknames on this team ever since Minty was traded to the BoSox.

      1. What do you mean? We've got plenty of nicknames! Our battery alone is "Baby Jesus" and "Not him!", "Please not him!" "Oh for crying out loud!" "Diamond" and "Who now?"

  8. The universe likes its balance:

    Last night, I hardly slept due to a sore throat/congestion thing that has made it a bit difficult to breathe (not in terms of volume, but rather soreness/pain in the tonsils.)

    However, I just got off the phone and have an interview next Monday for a job that I'm very qualified for.

  10. I love my job. I spend part of my time trolling (not trolling) around the Intertubes, looking for policy relevant stuff. And occasionally I find a gem.

    Navy should take a leaf out of the whale's book
    written by Gary, December 06, 2012
    Navy ships could harvest krill through large water intakes in the bow and convert the krill into biofuel. Left over krill could be cooked and served to the crew.

  13. Tee hee. M11 back with the Twin. It's like with the Hobbit, when Baggins comes back to the Shire. Only more-so.

  14. My Night So Far:

    -I went to the local ghetto liquor store for a bottle of dry vermouth and they were out.
    -I looked at the beer selection and found exactly nothing good at a reasonable price.
    -I decided to buy a cheap beer and remembered that Schmidt is pretty decent at $17 for a 30 pack.
    -I was in a fender bender scraper on the way home - squeezed between a fender and bus stop sign* trying to avoid said fender sliding into my lane.
    -I parked and saw** only some paint transfer and no broken plastic/dented door panels/torn metal.
    -I told the girl that we could call the police and make a report or go on our way. She seemed relieved*** and we went on our way.
    -I realized when I got home that I'd had a brain-fart - Schlitz is pretty decent...turns out Schmidt isn't bad either.
    -I then spent the past hour-and-a-half reading about the history of Schmidt beer. Schmidt was apparently brewed in St. Paul until purchased by G. Heileman Brewing of La Crosse, which is now owned by Pabst which is now headquarted in Los Angeles. The cans are decorated with wildlife art - originally designed by Les Kouba, native son of my hometown: Hutchinson.

    *neatly avoided the sign - would've been much worse to scrape that than the girl's fender though I can't say it was skill that kept me off the curb.

    **this could end badly for me as it was dark and I couldn't clearly "see" much of anything.

    ***it was her fault - she was following the car in front of her too closely and braked/swerved into the right lane to avoid rear-ending him. Only problem is I was in the right lane and she ran into the side of me.

    1. I drive through Hutch a few times a year. It always tells me that it's the birthplace of Les Kouba.

      I almost had an accident today too. Someone decided to take a left turn on a green (not green arrow) as I was going straight, down a hill. I barely stopped in time. I was upset. Then I was embarrassed a little later when I realized one of my headlights was obscured by snow, and it's possible the guy didn't see me.

      And I'm drinking Surly.

      So basically we had the same night, right?

    2. oof, rough night on the roads. glad nothing was serious.

      I thought Schmidts was bought by Schells, but I guess thats Grain Belt

      1. About the accident - me too. Also, from the repository:

        In 1976 the remains were sold to G. Heileman Brewing Company (based in LaCrosse, Wisconsin), which closed the original Minneapolis brewery and moved production to the former Jacob Schmidt brewery in St. Paul, Minnesota, which Heileman had purchased only a few years before. At the St. Paul facility, former rivals Grain Belt and Schmidt were brewed side by side with Heileman stablemates Old Style and Special Export for many years.

        Grain Belt was purchased by Minnesota Brewing (Landmark & Pig's Eye anyone?) in 1991 and then by AMR's brewery in 2002. Schmidt's stayed with G. Heileman which was acquired by Strohs in 1996 which was then acquired by Pabst in 1999.

  15. the Twitters tell me the Twins signed Kevin Corriea for 2yr/$10 mil

    start printing those World Series tickets

    2. FanGraphs sez 0.1, -0.1, and 0.9 fWAR over the same years. Assuming it's $5 million for both years, the Twins are paying about $13 million/win.

    4. At least Correia has been better than average at walk rate and groundball rate. His K rate the last two years is the same as Scott Diamond's.

      1. In the context of where the Twins are and what they're doing, I'm okay with this. They're building for the future, but they still have to play games in 2013, too. While they're probably not going to win anything, I'm sure they'd prefer not to be the joke of the league. That means they have to put together some sort of pitching staff for this year.

        This gives them a rotation of something like Diamond, Worley, Correia, Hendriks, and DeVries/Deduno/somebody else. That's not going to strike terror into anyone's heart, but it at least bears some resemblance to a major league rotation. At least they're not likely to have an eight or nine game stretch where they're blown out night after night.

        The other thing is that, in the current market, $10 million over two years is not all that much. At best, Correia gets the Twins by until the young pitchers develop. At worst, they don't have to eat that much salary. And if he doesn't work out, there's always the chance they could trade him for something.

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