To add to last night's beer discussion, This is such a Brau Brothers beer. So close to being good, but just not quite there, some small taste element falls flat. Not quite sure what it is, but it's got that BrauBros deadness of flavor. Like stale crackers, but to beer? It's great that they're pushing for new things, and they're no worse at it than they are the basics.
Someday they're going to make the world's most frustrating double IPA.
One of the comments hit the nail on the head re: Brau Brothers for me. The gist being that I want so badly to appreciate folks who grow their own ingredients on site, but really can't continue to support the lackluster product.
It's now moved more to curiosity for me.
I won't buy another unless I see it cheap or it's new.
But if it's cheap, that probably means its been sitting there a while, meaning maybe it tastes stale because it is, which reinforces the feedback loop. Does beer get stale? Or just skunky?
Hoppier beers will mellow on the bitterness after a relatively short amount of time, so if you see a pale ale or something similar that is old, I'd stay away because it won't be a good representative. A beer that is more malt forward will most likely be perfectly fine provided it was stored reasonably properly.
The flavors I remember from the couple of Brau Brothers I've had were flavors I've noticed a lot in homebrews, which leads me to believe they aren't controlling their fermentation as well as a pro brewer should. I think it could be a delayed start to fermentation or maybe just oxidation when they're moving the stuff from tank to tank, or wherever. Interestingly enough, those are things that often improve over time, so maybe finding an old, discounted sixer is just what you need.
I would modify this statement about hoppier beers. As cheaptoy no doubt will attest, any bottle-conditioned beer will change as it ages. A hoppy beer can age in interesting ways, such that the really astringent, in-your-face qualities of the hops can mellow. It's a different flavor profile, but not necessarily a bad one.
Yeah, that's true. My point was in the context of Brau Brothers, with one of their flagships being a regular American IPA that should probably be consumed fresh.
They are going to be moving locations before too long because they want to expand/get better water than they can get in Lucan. Philosofette is from a town of 600, which is the local metropolis compared to Lucan.
All this to say, I agree entirely, but have some optimism things'll get better.
Based on my recollections of their beers and my experiences, it seems more of a process issue, so until proven otherwise, I don't think a change in water will help. (and its really easy to adjust water chemistry, so if that is the problem, they should have been messing with it until they move.)
I didn't mean the water is a problem (though it probably is... water in that area tastes awful) so much as I meant they're possibly focused on other things right now, so that improvement stuff might be tabled for now.
Then they really shouldn't be making a Russian Imperial, should they?
Focus on getting the Ringneck and Sheephead better.
Yeah. I think their strategy is variety over quality. I don't mean to be defending them, as I've stopped buying them too (a while ago). I'm just holding out hope that once they move to the hometown of DG, that they, too, will turn everything they touch to gold.
We did a 5K/barbecue/brewery tour at Harpoon Brewery in Vermont several years back.
The Meister Brewer said a couple things that I remember:
1) They take out everything from the water, and then add back exactly what they want for minerals, etc.
2) They keep their proprietary yeast (original) in a protected vault.
3) Wine is for farmers; beer is for scientists.
It's looking like I should be able to get home today. I don't imagine it'll be the most fun trip I've ever had, but it should be all right. I'm planning to leave sometime around late morning/noonish.
Travel safe, Padre.
safe travels.
godspeed, padre.
Made it home all right. Only one stretch of thirty miles or so where the road wasn't very good. It's nice to be home.
Glad you made it safely- still spitting rain and sleet south of Sioux Falls, but the roads I've been on have been pretty good, considering.
Most of the ice has melted off the lines and trees today. Hopefully the powerline crews can start making a dent replacing all the poles and broken wires now.
If it weren't for bad luck, Liam Hendricks would have no luck at all.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPL7nN99jno
I decided that once a bus is thirty minutes late, then I am entitled to walk back home and work from there.
I must have left at just the right time. Bus was only a few minutes late to the bus stop, but I was about ten minutes late getting to work. I think I will be waiting a while on the commute back home.
I wish I could do that. Waiting for the streetcar when it's raining cats and dogs makes meat a something something.
Wet?
Make sure the TV and beer are handy.
who would have guessed the biggest snowfall of the year would come two weeks into April?
well, it means I get a four day weekend. and I got double the workout pushing this snow around. oof
It's been raining here all week, and I've never been happier to see rain (though today some of it may end up freezing)
Yesterday my gauge rain had over 2" in it then it turned to snow last night.
The rain was much needed. The snow, not so much.
I grew up hearing that April snowstorms were the most deadly.
Just got our internet/TV/phone back up after a lightning strike out back knocked out AT&T's power supply at the house. Sounds like houses lost their roofs in a couple StL suburbs; preliminary walkthrough I noticed some siding problems (and I think I spotted one of the pieces in the woods out back).
I can remember at least one late April storm when I was in h.s. I had to shovel large drifts out of the discus circle and down the lines of the arc in order to practice and so that we could compete in a home meet shortly thereafter. mmm, track-n-field in the snow!!!!111one111!!!
yep. all the distance guys had mud splatters up the backs of their warmups.
I can only imagine having a track meet on a frozen/snowy cinder track. We at least had a very nice all-weather, metric track.
which engenders a rant. My kids' h.s. has a cinder track. What century are we in? This school opened in 2001, for criminy. I mean, WTF? This is California, which is supposed to be one of the hotbeds for track & field in America. How can you not have a real track?
(fwiw, the older h.s. across town also does not have an all-weather track. It has produced a number of reasonably prominent track athletes in its history, including two-time Olympic shot putter Jill Camarena, and 1960 4X400 relay gold medalist Jack Yerman)
FWIW, my K12 school had a crappy cinder track which narrowed to maybe 2 lanes on the curves and was (at most) 400 yards around and our track team was usually competitive for the section title. It was mainly a disadvantage for practicing relay hand-offs.
I just caught a glimpse of the University of Washington's new track last weekend (they are getting rid of the track in Husky Stadium in the remodel) and it looked fairly nice except that it's purple.
My HS didn't even have a track -- so there.
I think only one HS that I ever competed at had a cinder track. And I never competed on a snowy and/or frozen track. We did a lot of road work practice on wet and muddy locations, though
Same here, I remember one cinder track that hosted meets (and even then, they might have just been middle school meets) and all the tracks we raced on were bare (well, maybe a puddle here and there) and thawed, since we usually started the season with 3-4 indoor track meets. Plenty of miles were logged in non-ideal weather, though.
yeah, good point - we always had the Dragon Invitational and UND indoor meets to start the season
We did a lot of road work practice on wet and muddy locations, though
Luxury. We used to have to run through newly plowed fields with fresh manure in worn out shoes if we were lucky.
"I can't live with that," the manager said about Hicks' jog to second base, and he went on at length about the play, growing angry as he spoke. "We always run," Gardenhire said before cutting off the interview, his point well made.
But he's not upset with him struggling to even make contact or striking out multiple times per game? Hmm.
But the lack of success at the plate didn’t bother manager Ron Gardenhire, who professes great patience with a rookie trying to figure out the big leagues.
But when his frustration boils over into a lack of hustle? That angers Gardenhire a lot more than a 2-for-35 start.
I would say something about Hicks not being ready, but, you know, small sample size.
My guess is that Gardy is concerned about that, but all hitters go through slumps (but in this case, looks completely overmatched by a curveball)
But hustling never takes a slump.
I don't know that he's entirely wrong about that.
Yeah. Some things are more under a player's control than other things. That's the standpoint from which attention to the "little things" makes sense, because even if a player is doing everything right the "big things" might not work out. If he struggles at the plate long and hard enough, they'll move him to AAA, and all of the blograge about service time will essentially be rendered moot.
I'm thinking that this is just the excuse that Gardy was looking for to move him down in the lineup.
Why would he be upset about his offensive struggles? Disappointed, sure, but upset? You get upset at effort and concentration, things you can control. Either he's ready or he's not, but you don't get upset at him unless you think he's trying to strike out or you think he's not putting the work in to get better.
I'm quite glad about this - it gives Hicks something that he can improve entirely on his own, no matter what opposing teams are doing to him. It's a little thing, but something to "learn" and if he makes "progress" then maybe that optimism will translate to other areas.
It might take his mind off of the fact that he can't hit major league pitching, too, which might help him there as well. Or it might further erode his confidence. We'll see, I guess.
I don't get this. Hicks ran and went in to second standing up. I would like to see an example of a veteran player (not Nick Punto) sprinting all out like he's going for a triple on a routine popup right to the CF. Especially on a wet, muddy infield. They showed Hicks on that play on FSN and DicknBert made no mention of lack of hustle.
That makes me think that Gardy was worried about Hicks' hustle even before that play, and when one has a story line already in your head, it's easy for one to bend the facts to fit the story line. The worst thing about that kind of warped reasoning in this case is that it's less effective management to go off on a really minor (at most) lack of hustle, rather than some of the more major examples which altered your viewpoint in the first place.
Gardy's also probably paying more attention to his hustle since Hicks is a rookie and he's not hitting. It ain't fair, but essentially every manager in baseball (or all sports?) does it.
I think he was projecting his frustration about his lack of hitting onto that play.
That is a distinct possibility.
I agree with Gardy. I don't think Hicks needed to sprint but he was jogging slowly, stopped, and then trotted into 2nd. Even after he saw it dropped, he didn't run. He could easily have been to 3rd on that.
I took off from the Fatherland early yesterday afternoon, in hopes of missing the storm. I got home last night without incident. This morning, I awoke to crappy driving conditions. Not that much snow, but a nice ice base makes for less than happy driving.
I had had several days of poor sleep in a row. Back home in my bed, I got 10 hours last night. Yeah, I needed that.
Fargo Flood watchers: by this time in 2009, the river had crested, come down, and was headed up to a second, lower crest (but still a major flood). In 1997, we were now at the peak of flooding. (2009 is the record and 1997 was the second highest). This year was a record snow pack for the last day of March. Now, that is a little deceiving, because the crest in 2009 was in March, so yeah, no snow left on March 31. But, the 1997 flood was in the middle of April, so there was snow left then, but the melt had already started. I'm not sure what is going to happen, but the river in Fargo has not yet gotten to flood stage and is stalled out about 2 feet below that. In other words, there's no water flowing into the river right now and the temperatures are such that it won't happen for a while. Meanwhile, here comes more precipitation.
I'm not sure what it's like south of here, but Joel Heitkamp has said things were melting pretty well. In Fargo proper (and north of here) the melt has come a long way. I see a lot more dead grass than dingy snow now, but another blast of precipitation isn't going to help matters. This extension of the winter, which is extending flood season, has me pretty cross. I hate the winter, and the flood stuff makes me unbelievably tense. I just want to be able to relax and enjoy spring. I'm thinking I won't get to until June now.
That's what Joel says*. My observations are that there isn't a lot of water running toward the river. Is it sinking in? Might be, although I have to think that the ground is pretty frozen. There's still a lot of snow sitting out there and it has a lot of moisture in it. I didn't hear much about the projections when I was up there this last week and I'm not sure anyone really knows because of this late thaw. I don't pretend to know, but John Wheeler did kind of dispute what Joel was saying.
*I used to drink beer with Joel and his cohort on a regular basis (more his cohort, because he's a little older than me and was out of college by then, but he showed up in Fargo on more than a few occasions) back when I was in college. I've heard him say some things that were, ahem, not true.
Yeah, I don't think we've received any updated forecasts since the melt started. And it sounded like they didn't want to do any until the rivers were unfrozen. Which is frustrating, since at least by my eye test up here it seems like the melt is going okay?
I was curious how... accurate his statements were. I knew he took a lot of heat for them in town, though when the main rival radio station is run by the same company who runs a TV station and a paper there's a lot of focus put on any negative things he may say. Mostly I'm just hopeful he's right since I'm pretty tired of all this flood garbage and I really do not want to have to take the detour on the Manitoba side of the border on my trips to Winnipeg. It's terrible.
He's not stupid, but sometimes he can get a little off the rails. The newspaper/tv/radio conglomerate in Fargo is worthless, John Wheeler excepted. I trust him and he was kind of out in front of this stuff pushing back on Joel. There is no water in the river right now and that's either really good news or really bad news. I don't know which.
The newspaper/tv/radio conglomerate in Fargo is worthless, John Wheeler excepted.
This cannot be overstated. When I was working at the arcade after high school, I would take a copy of the Forum and a copy of the Star Tribune with me to work to read during the day. I'd be done with the Forum in 30 minutes tops. It'd take me most of the day to get through all the decent stories in the Strib. It's somehow gotten worse in the last 12 years, but holy moly is it ever bad.
Did you see the article above the fold, page 1, yesterday about the 2nd meteorologist at their TV station? I mean, really, have you no shame. The top story of the day is a cross-promotion of some talking head on your TV station. They should be embarrassed.
I now can read the Strib in about ten minutes (soooo much of it is written by the AP), but I would love to spend an hour a day reading the New York Times to actually learn about what is happening in the world.
I dont know if this has been discussed, but is anyone going to see '42'? From the previews Ive seen, it looks pretty good.
right after was a clip of Chris Carter hitting an absolute bomb off some chump named "Capps".
also, man, but the stands were empty in Safeco.
I'll have to check it out at home. Stupid thing is blocked here.
Anyone can hit a homer in Safeco now. It's just not the same.
Poor Ichiro.
One of my friends posted a great picture to bookface yesterday of their car in an otherwise empty level of the parking garage across from Safeco. I haven't seen the pics of empty seats, but can imagine. While it's not as cold here as it is in Minnesota at the moment, evening games and the marine chill at Safeco don't make for especially relaxing times. Day games in the summer are where it's at if you're not picky about the opponent, and are priced accordingly (the market has spoken!)
When I checked out single game tickets earlier this spring, they seemed expensive (relative to other years, team performance, fan attendance, and other MLB games I've been to.) Not outrageously so, but enough that I was discouraged from purchasing any tickets before the season started. Might as well wait for the summer promotions when the stands are inevitably empty.
Although this whole comment has prompted me to check Mariners ticket prices and I see that apparently all view level tickets for tonight's game are going for $10 and Felix Hernandez is pitching. Hmmmm...
Did anyone else hear the thunder this morning? I won't say I'm pleased about the snow, but the thundersnow thing was pretty cool.
Yes. I saw a bright, purple-white flash this morning and thought a street lamp blew out. Then I heard the thunder and remembered the thundersnow.
We heard it this morning and thought it was pretty cool. The kids were unimpressed.
I heard it. At first I thought it was the snowplow coming down the street, but then I peeked out the window and realized it was thunder.
We had thundersleet in Sioux Falls the other day.
Just asking, was the Twins short-lived plan to charge $15 for the privilege of watching batting practice discussed here?
I guess that I would be in the camp of just opening the doors and selling the 4th most expensive beer in the majors for an extra 45 minutes. Yes, the money is not much, so no big deal, right, but the Twins could generate a little good will among the general public by providing that as part of the game day experience.
I just flipped on DirecTV's Masters channel. Nothing says the Masters like Lady Gaga being the background muzak.
interesting nugget from Doogie
Darren Wolfson @DarrenWolfson
#MNTwins are kicking the tires on OF Julio Borbon, per a team official. My sense: won't trade for, but could possibly claim if in that spot.
KG is still 41st in PER in the league. If the talent in the league were evenly distributed, that would make him the 2nd best player on most teams. PER doesn't measure defense, which is KG's strength. So yeah, all these years later, he's still an elite player in this league.
Tim Duncan is 5th, and turns 37 in two weeks. 🙂
Never heard of him.
More PER: of the 339 players in the NBA who qualify for the scoring title, 338 are within 3 standard deviations of the mean (14.33, a little less than 15.0). The 339th player, LeBron James, isn't within four standard deviations of the mean. He can play defense, too.
The way the end of the season is going with Kobe and the Lakers (and the refs) has made LeBron look like the least annoying NBA personality of all time. It sucks to say for some reason, but I will definitely be rooting for the Wolves to lose their next two games, I hate Stern Kobe that much.
I actually think that the whole "Decision" fiasco and its fallout has been good for LeBron. For once in his basketball life, he got a ton of pushback and I think he learned a little bit from it. I'm speculating, of course, but in terms of his basketball playing, he's better than ever and he seems to have developed the elusive killer instinct.
Of course, since the decision, he's been playing his age 26-28 seasons in the NBA, which seems like a big factor to me.
Impossible to say for sure, obviously, but I don't think you're wrong. I don't have cable, but I haven't heard much from LeBron on the intertubes that annoyed me. The only thing I read about him now is how he's pretty much great at basketball. I even hate Dwayne Wade more nowadays.
I think the Dwight Howard drama helped LeBron's image much more, though. How can you hate a guy who simply made a contract signing public over a guy who actively gave up on his team and held the organization hostage during the season?
Never forget the beautiful SVG press conference where he told everyone Dwight wanted him fired and then Dwight came up and put his arm around him, Judas style. Diet Pepsi!
I wonder if there is anyone in ESPN's programming department (even some outnumbered lackey) who thinks that they have ultimately shot themselves in the foot by making LeBron out to be the league's biggest villain/choker/underperformer/etc. What I find most remarkable about LeBron is that he was so hyped out of high school and he's turned out to be at least as good as his hype--even though all I can remember of media coverage from his first couple years in the league were accusations (veiled or otherwise) that he was overrated.
Hell no. They can just change their story.
They can change their story, but that doesn't mean anyone is going to buy it. LeBron has been effectively A-Rodded at this point.
I think the average ESPN viewer is willing to buy whatever they're selling.
Maybe, but I feel like Joe Public likes his sports grudges and would prefer to keep them.
When it comes to this subject, I am Joe Public, and even I'll admit that LBJ, tineared or no, is absolutely the king of the game right now.
seriously?
I guess I don't watch that much ESPN any more, because I've seen plenty of fawning and/or appropriate praise for him. teh Ringz curez allz.
Plenty of praise relative to what? Surely he's gotten less positive attention than Tim Tebow.
Not a fair comparison. Everyone has less positive attention than Tim Tebow.
As you pointed out to start this thread, though, comparing LeBron to anyone else in the NBA is unfair, he's in a different league. The only story I remember hearing specifically about LeBron this season is that people were irritated that he would do fancy dunks in warm-ups but not in the dunk contest. Which is a bit like criticizing Mozart for using too many notes, but ESPN was happy to pass that along as a legitimate story.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoY0Qa0zU0A
Maybe he needs to rape somebody. Or even kill two people. I hear that helps.
It only helps when he wins a ring after he kills a couple of dudes.
Riddle me this statheads. I see B-ref recently updated their WAR stats again to make them more like Fangraphs, so I was updating my spreadsheet of top300 Twins. Good news for Delmon, he's now above replacement player level in his time as a Twin!!!
But the weird thing I notices was Frank Viola had a positive .2 WAR as an offensive player despite not ever having a plate appearance. How did he do that?
Rounding error perhaps? Bert has the same thing for 73-77 (0.1 rWAR) and 81-93 (0.2 rWAR).
He hit into fewer DPs than replacement players did.
Does this mean that I have .2 WAR??????? w00t!
Soup Campbell has .1 offensive WAR for his 1 PA where he struck out.
Looks like the Mets did a good job a few days ago of getting their pitching staff prepared to deal with our frigid conditions.
Who else would love to see Mauer hit an HR and then celebrate by making a snow angel?
That would be sweet. I'd also accept him hitting Top Jimmy across the face with a full bag of money.
I can supply the bag, but he has to supply his own money.
I'll go to the bank and convert one of his fifties into pennies.
Used to be you could sneak some Canadian pennies in there, but pointness now - le sigh.
In defense of smaller bullpens (in the sidebar, not even close to the main topic of the link or the sidebar in the link):
"When I was with the Diamondbacks," said Angels general manager Jerry Dipoto, "we signed Wily Mo Pena as a minor league free agent [in 2011], brought him to spring training as a non-roster player and then sent him to Triple-A, with the express idea that when we reached this nine-game window in June where we were playing in American League parks, he was going to play on our big league team and be our DH. He wound up coming up, hitting a couple of home runs, won us a game in Kansas City and then nine days later he was designated for assignment."
Here's a guy that a team deemed to be good enough to be their starting DH--and they couldn't find space for him on the bench? Their pinch hitters that year collectively hit .206/.275/.309 over 248 PA. Even accounting for pinch hitting being a little more difficult than batting 3-5 times in a game, that's utterly abysmal. They even had a pinch hitter bunt once.
Wow, Willy Mo's slash line for that season.
196/196/522 in 46 plate appearances.
That's better than their collective bench for sure, but not by a ton.
He had quite a AAAA year that year. He also played for the Mariners some that year, wound up with a .204/.250/.416 line in 120 PA counting his time in Arizona and Seattle. Wily Mo hit .358/.440/.712 in 332 PA in AAA that year. That was in the PCL, though, and there are probably good reasons to doubt his ability to get enough contact in MLB to be a productive pinch hitter--but then again, if that's a concern for him as a pinch hitter, isn't that a concern for him as a DH? His .212 ISO that year would have been second on the Twins behind only Thome, though Plouffe was close behind, so Wily Mo could still hit the ball hard when he did hit it.
I'm not big on arguing player valuations, but I think we can all agree if he got a hold of the ball, it went far
Oh yeah. I think WMP's skill set was (always?) pretty obvious: not going to hit for much average, not going to walk a whole lot, but hitting for a lot of power when he does get a hit. A .195 career ISO is pretty solid--pretty close to Morneau's .210 career ISO, though WMP got his on fewer XBH/AB.
My brother called earlier and said he got accepted to Field Training for Air Force ROTC. This is a big step on him becoming an officer and going to flight school down the line. I'm very proud of him for excelling.
I saw he was quoted in the DM Register from something he said on Twitter a couple weeks ago. I can't remember what it was about.
ubelmann - can you email me acm[zerozerosix] [at] gmail? I have a kinematics/projectile motion question.
The bits have been sent through the tubes.
ruh roh. tear-or plotting?
My wild guess is it's more likely something about bobsledding, but I may be jumping to conclusions based on partial information.
My backside neighbor is outside, engulfed in a shroud of "medicinal" smoke. I had to close my windows or I would have serious munchies by now.
your shoulder might feel a lot better.
I bet your neighbor's cataracts are in great shape.
the Minnesota Wild should think about winning some games scoring some goals real soon
Kyle Gibson with an ugly line tonight, but the peripherals were really good. 5 ER in 4 1/3 innings with 8 H allowed, but he had 6 Ks and 1 BB with 6 groundball outs to 1 flyout.
Also, Joe Benson is 1-for-3 so far and is batting .158, so if/when Hicks goes down, the most likely replacement will be Clete Thomas, who is starting in CF tonight and is currently batting .368.
Then again, Oswaldo Arcia just hit his third homer in seven games and is batting .458 and he has played 77 games in CF in the minors.
But how would they make their strikeout quota if they don't have Hicks or Klete?
Speaking of which:
The thought of a Willingham, Arcia, Parmelee outfield makes me cringe.
And now I just got flashbacks to the Delmon, Cuddy, Kubel outfield. *shudder*
Willingham goes back to catcher, Mauer to third, OF of Arcia, Mastro, Parm
problem solved!
if Hicks goes down, my guess is that Mastro takes over at CF
However, Royals #1!!!!
Whoooooo!!!!
To add to last night's beer discussion,
This is such a Brau Brothers beer. So close to being good, but just not quite there, some small taste element falls flat. Not quite sure what it is, but it's got that BrauBros deadness of flavor. Like stale crackers, but to beer? It's great that they're pushing for new things, and they're no worse at it than they are the basics.
Someday they're going to make the world's most frustrating double IPA.
One of the comments hit the nail on the head re: Brau Brothers for me. The gist being that I want so badly to appreciate folks who grow their own ingredients on site, but really can't continue to support the lackluster product.
It's now moved more to curiosity for me.
I won't buy another unless I see it cheap or it's new.
But if it's cheap, that probably means its been sitting there a while, meaning maybe it tastes stale because it is, which reinforces the feedback loop. Does beer get stale? Or just skunky?
Hoppier beers will mellow on the bitterness after a relatively short amount of time, so if you see a pale ale or something similar that is old, I'd stay away because it won't be a good representative. A beer that is more malt forward will most likely be perfectly fine provided it was stored reasonably properly.
The flavors I remember from the couple of Brau Brothers I've had were flavors I've noticed a lot in homebrews, which leads me to believe they aren't controlling their fermentation as well as a pro brewer should. I think it could be a delayed start to fermentation or maybe just oxidation when they're moving the stuff from tank to tank, or wherever. Interestingly enough, those are things that often improve over time, so maybe finding an old, discounted sixer is just what you need.
I would modify this statement about hoppier beers. As cheaptoy no doubt will attest, any bottle-conditioned beer will change as it ages. A hoppy beer can age in interesting ways, such that the really astringent, in-your-face qualities of the hops can mellow. It's a different flavor profile, but not necessarily a bad one.
Yeah, that's true. My point was in the context of Brau Brothers, with one of their flagships being a regular American IPA that should probably be consumed fresh.
They are going to be moving locations before too long because they want to expand/get better water than they can get in Lucan. Philosofette is from a town of 600, which is the local metropolis compared to Lucan.
All this to say, I agree entirely, but have some optimism things'll get better.
Based on my recollections of their beers and my experiences, it seems more of a process issue, so until proven otherwise, I don't think a change in water will help. (and its really easy to adjust water chemistry, so if that is the problem, they should have been messing with it until they move.)
I didn't mean the water is a problem (though it probably is... water in that area tastes awful) so much as I meant they're possibly focused on other things right now, so that improvement stuff might be tabled for now.
Then they really shouldn't be making a Russian Imperial, should they?
Focus on getting the Ringneck and Sheephead better.
Yeah. I think their strategy is variety over quality. I don't mean to be defending them, as I've stopped buying them too (a while ago). I'm just holding out hope that once they move to the hometown of DG, that they, too, will turn everything they touch to gold.
We did a 5K/barbecue/brewery tour at Harpoon Brewery in Vermont several years back.
The Meister Brewer said a couple things that I remember:
1) They take out everything from the water, and then add back exactly what they want for minerals, etc.
2) They keep their proprietary yeast (original) in a protected vault.
3) Wine is for farmers; beer is for scientists.
It's looking like I should be able to get home today. I don't imagine it'll be the most fun trip I've ever had, but it should be all right. I'm planning to leave sometime around late morning/noonish.
Travel safe, Padre.
safe travels.
godspeed, padre.
Made it home all right. Only one stretch of thirty miles or so where the road wasn't very good. It's nice to be home.
Glad you made it safely- still spitting rain and sleet south of Sioux Falls, but the roads I've been on have been pretty good, considering.
Most of the ice has melted off the lines and trees today. Hopefully the powerline crews can start making a dent replacing all the poles and broken wires now.
If it weren't for bad luck, Liam Hendricks would have no luck at all.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPL7nN99jno
I decided that once a bus is thirty minutes late, then I am entitled to walk back home and work from there.
I must have left at just the right time. Bus was only a few minutes late to the bus stop, but I was about ten minutes late getting to work. I think I will be waiting a while on the commute back home.
I wish I could do that. Waiting for the streetcar when it's raining cats and dogs makes meat a something something.
Wet?
Make sure the TV and beer are handy.
who would have guessed the biggest snowfall of the year would come two weeks into April?
well, it means I get a four day weekend. and I got double the workout pushing this snow around. oof
It's been raining here all week, and I've never been happier to see rain (though today some of it may end up freezing)
Yesterday my gauge rain had over 2" in it then it turned to snow last night.
The rain was much needed. The snow, not so much.
I grew up hearing that April snowstorms were the most deadly.
Just got our internet/TV/phone back up after a lightning strike out back knocked out AT&T's power supply at the house. Sounds like houses lost their roofs in a couple StL suburbs; preliminary walkthrough I noticed some siding problems (and I think I spotted one of the pieces in the woods out back).
I can remember at least one late April storm when I was in h.s. I had to shovel large drifts out of the discus circle and down the lines of the arc in order to practice and so that we could compete in a home meet shortly thereafter. mmm, track-n-field in the snow!!!!111one111!!!
yep. all the distance guys had mud splatters up the backs of their warmups.
I can only imagine having a track meet on a frozen/snowy cinder track. We at least had a very nice all-weather, metric track.
which engenders a rant. My kids' h.s. has a cinder track. What century are we in? This school opened in 2001, for criminy. I mean, WTF? This is California, which is supposed to be one of the hotbeds for track & field in America. How can you not have a real track?
(fwiw, the older h.s. across town also does not have an all-weather track. It has produced a number of reasonably prominent track athletes in its history, including two-time Olympic shot putter Jill Camarena, and 1960 4X400 relay gold medalist Jack Yerman)
FWIW, my K12 school had a crappy cinder track which narrowed to maybe 2 lanes on the curves and was (at most) 400 yards around and our track team was usually competitive for the section title. It was mainly a disadvantage for practicing relay hand-offs.
I just caught a glimpse of the University of Washington's new track last weekend (they are getting rid of the track in Husky Stadium in the remodel) and it looked fairly nice except that it's purple.
My HS didn't even have a track -- so there.
I think only one HS that I ever competed at had a cinder track. And I never competed on a snowy and/or frozen track. We did a lot of road work practice on wet and muddy locations, though
Same here, I remember one cinder track that hosted meets (and even then, they might have just been middle school meets) and all the tracks we raced on were bare (well, maybe a puddle here and there) and thawed, since we usually started the season with 3-4 indoor track meets. Plenty of miles were logged in non-ideal weather, though.
yeah, good point - we always had the Dragon Invitational and UND indoor meets to start the season
We did a lot of road work practice on wet and muddy locations, though
Luxury. We used to have to run through newly plowed fields with fresh manure in worn out shoes if we were lucky.
Gardy upset at Hicks' lack of hustle:
But he's not upset with him struggling to even make contact or striking out multiple times per game? Hmm.
From Miller's recap:
I would say something about Hicks not being ready, but, you know, small sample size.
My guess is that Gardy is concerned about that, but all hitters go through slumps (but in this case, looks completely overmatched by a curveball)
But hustling never takes a slump.
I don't know that he's entirely wrong about that.
Yeah. Some things are more under a player's control than other things. That's the standpoint from which attention to the "little things" makes sense, because even if a player is doing everything right the "big things" might not work out. If he struggles at the plate long and hard enough, they'll move him to AAA, and all of the blograge about service time will essentially be rendered moot.
I'm thinking that this is just the excuse that Gardy was looking for to move him down in the lineup.
Why would he be upset about his offensive struggles? Disappointed, sure, but upset? You get upset at effort and concentration, things you can control. Either he's ready or he's not, but you don't get upset at him unless you think he's trying to strike out or you think he's not putting the work in to get better.
I'm quite glad about this - it gives Hicks something that he can improve entirely on his own, no matter what opposing teams are doing to him. It's a little thing, but something to "learn" and if he makes "progress" then maybe that optimism will translate to other areas.
It might take his mind off of the fact that he can't hit major league pitching, too, which might help him there as well. Or it might further erode his confidence. We'll see, I guess.
I don't get this. Hicks ran and went in to second standing up. I would like to see an example of a veteran player (not Nick Punto) sprinting all out like he's going for a triple on a routine popup right to the CF. Especially on a wet, muddy infield. They showed Hicks on that play on FSN and DicknBert made no mention of lack of hustle.
That makes me think that Gardy was worried about Hicks' hustle even before that play, and when one has a story line already in your head, it's easy for one to bend the facts to fit the story line. The worst thing about that kind of warped reasoning in this case is that it's less effective management to go off on a really minor (at most) lack of hustle, rather than some of the more major examples which altered your viewpoint in the first place.
Gardy's also probably paying more attention to his hustle since Hicks is a rookie and he's not hitting. It ain't fair, but essentially every manager in baseball (or all sports?) does it.
I think he was projecting his frustration about his lack of hitting onto that play.
That is a distinct possibility.
I agree with Gardy. I don't think Hicks needed to sprint but he was jogging slowly, stopped, and then trotted into 2nd. Even after he saw it dropped, he didn't run. He could easily have been to 3rd on that.
I took off from the Fatherland early yesterday afternoon, in hopes of missing the storm. I got home last night without incident. This morning, I awoke to crappy driving conditions. Not that much snow, but a nice ice base makes for less than happy driving.
I had had several days of poor sleep in a row. Back home in my bed, I got 10 hours last night. Yeah, I needed that.
Fargo Flood watchers: by this time in 2009, the river had crested, come down, and was headed up to a second, lower crest (but still a major flood). In 1997, we were now at the peak of flooding. (2009 is the record and 1997 was the second highest). This year was a record snow pack for the last day of March. Now, that is a little deceiving, because the crest in 2009 was in March, so yeah, no snow left on March 31. But, the 1997 flood was in the middle of April, so there was snow left then, but the melt had already started. I'm not sure what is going to happen, but the river in Fargo has not yet gotten to flood stage and is stalled out about 2 feet below that. In other words, there's no water flowing into the river right now and the temperatures are such that it won't happen for a while. Meanwhile, here comes more precipitation.
I'm not sure what it's like south of here, but Joel Heitkamp has said things were melting pretty well. In Fargo proper (and north of here) the melt has come a long way. I see a lot more dead grass than dingy snow now, but another blast of precipitation isn't going to help matters. This extension of the winter, which is extending flood season, has me pretty cross. I hate the winter, and the flood stuff makes me unbelievably tense. I just want to be able to relax and enjoy spring. I'm thinking I won't get to until June now.
That's what Joel says*. My observations are that there isn't a lot of water running toward the river. Is it sinking in? Might be, although I have to think that the ground is pretty frozen. There's still a lot of snow sitting out there and it has a lot of moisture in it. I didn't hear much about the projections when I was up there this last week and I'm not sure anyone really knows because of this late thaw. I don't pretend to know, but John Wheeler did kind of dispute what Joel was saying.
*I used to drink beer with Joel and his cohort on a regular basis (more his cohort, because he's a little older than me and was out of college by then, but he showed up in Fargo on more than a few occasions) back when I was in college. I've heard him say some things that were, ahem, not true.
Yeah, I don't think we've received any updated forecasts since the melt started. And it sounded like they didn't want to do any until the rivers were unfrozen. Which is frustrating, since at least by my eye test up here it seems like the melt is going okay?
I was curious how... accurate his statements were. I knew he took a lot of heat for them in town, though when the main rival radio station is run by the same company who runs a TV station and a paper there's a lot of focus put on any negative things he may say. Mostly I'm just hopeful he's right since I'm pretty tired of all this flood garbage and I really do not want to have to take the detour on the Manitoba side of the border on my trips to Winnipeg. It's terrible.
He's not stupid, but sometimes he can get a little off the rails. The newspaper/tv/radio conglomerate in Fargo is worthless, John Wheeler excepted. I trust him and he was kind of out in front of this stuff pushing back on Joel. There is no water in the river right now and that's either really good news or really bad news. I don't know which.
This cannot be overstated. When I was working at the arcade after high school, I would take a copy of the Forum and a copy of the Star Tribune with me to work to read during the day. I'd be done with the Forum in 30 minutes tops. It'd take me most of the day to get through all the decent stories in the Strib. It's somehow gotten worse in the last 12 years, but holy moly is it ever bad.
Did you see the article above the fold, page 1, yesterday about the 2nd meteorologist at their TV station? I mean, really, have you no shame. The top story of the day is a cross-promotion of some talking head on your TV station. They should be embarrassed.
I now can read the Strib in about ten minutes (soooo much of it is written by the AP), but I would love to spend an hour a day reading the New York Times to actually learn about what is happening in the world.
I dont know if this has been discussed, but is anyone going to see '42'? From the previews Ive seen, it looks pretty good.
Craig says it's a good baseball movie.
EDIT: damned embed codes. here's the link.
My thoughts exactly.
right after was a clip of Chris Carter hitting an absolute bomb off some chump named "Capps".
also, man, but the stands were empty in Safeco.
I'll have to check it out at home. Stupid thing is blocked here.
Anyone can hit a homer in Safeco now. It's just not the same.
Poor Ichiro.
One of my friends posted a great picture to bookface yesterday of their car in an otherwise empty level of the parking garage across from Safeco. I haven't seen the pics of empty seats, but can imagine. While it's not as cold here as it is in Minnesota at the moment, evening games and the marine chill at Safeco don't make for especially relaxing times. Day games in the summer are where it's at if you're not picky about the opponent, and are priced accordingly (the market has spoken!)
When I checked out single game tickets earlier this spring, they seemed expensive (relative to other years, team performance, fan attendance, and other MLB games I've been to.) Not outrageously so, but enough that I was discouraged from purchasing any tickets before the season started. Might as well wait for the summer promotions when the stands are inevitably empty.
Although this whole comment has prompted me to check Mariners ticket prices and I see that apparently all view level tickets for tonight's game are going for $10 and Felix Hernandez is pitching. Hmmmm...
Did anyone else hear the thunder this morning? I won't say I'm pleased about the snow, but the thundersnow thing was pretty cool.
Yes. I saw a bright, purple-white flash this morning and thought a street lamp blew out. Then I heard the thunder and remembered the thundersnow.
We heard it this morning and thought it was pretty cool. The kids were unimpressed.
I heard it. At first I thought it was the snowplow coming down the street, but then I peeked out the window and realized it was thunder.
We had thundersleet in Sioux Falls the other day.
Just asking, was the Twins short-lived plan to charge $15 for the privilege of watching batting practice discussed here?
Yep.
Okay, thanks.
I guess that I would be in the camp of just opening the doors and selling the 4th most expensive beer in the majors for an extra 45 minutes. Yes, the money is not much, so no big deal, right, but the Twins could generate a little good will among the general public by providing that as part of the game day experience.
What were they thinking?
Some of those have to be intentional on the part of a giggling logo designer, right? I mean, right?
Great link, socal.
Most definitely not that pediatric care one. That was just a flat out blunder.
here's a few more logo fails for ya. the last one took me a second...
No Dodge of Burnsville. Sad.
And Crazy Uncle Dick, classic!
This would be me at the Masters:
I just flipped on DirecTV's Masters channel. Nothing says the Masters like Lady Gaga being the background muzak.
interesting nugget from Doogie
Maybe the Twins do read the WGOM.
KG is still 41st in PER in the league. If the talent in the league were evenly distributed, that would make him the 2nd best player on most teams. PER doesn't measure defense, which is KG's strength. So yeah, all these years later, he's still an elite player in this league.
Tim Duncan is 5th, and turns 37 in two weeks. 🙂
Never heard of him.
More PER: of the 339 players in the NBA who qualify for the scoring title, 338 are within 3 standard deviations of the mean (14.33, a little less than 15.0). The 339th player, LeBron James, isn't within four standard deviations of the mean. He can play defense, too.
The way the end of the season is going with Kobe and the Lakers (and the refs) has made LeBron look like the least annoying NBA personality of all time. It sucks to say for some reason, but I will definitely be rooting for the Wolves to lose their next two games, I hate
SternKobe that much.I actually think that the whole "Decision" fiasco and its fallout has been good for LeBron. For once in his basketball life, he got a ton of pushback and I think he learned a little bit from it. I'm speculating, of course, but in terms of his basketball playing, he's better than ever and he seems to have developed the elusive killer instinct.
Of course, since the decision, he's been playing his age 26-28 seasons in the NBA, which seems like a big factor to me.
Impossible to say for sure, obviously, but I don't think you're wrong. I don't have cable, but I haven't heard much from LeBron on the intertubes that annoyed me. The only thing I read about him now is how he's pretty much great at basketball. I even hate Dwayne Wade more nowadays.
I think the Dwight Howard drama helped LeBron's image much more, though. How can you hate a guy who simply made a contract signing public over a guy who actively gave up on his team and held the organization hostage during the season?
Never forget the beautiful SVG press conference where he told everyone Dwight wanted him fired and then Dwight came up and put his arm around him, Judas style. Diet Pepsi!
I wonder if there is anyone in ESPN's programming department (even some outnumbered lackey) who thinks that they have ultimately shot themselves in the foot by making LeBron out to be the league's biggest villain/choker/underperformer/etc. What I find most remarkable about LeBron is that he was so hyped out of high school and he's turned out to be at least as good as his hype--even though all I can remember of media coverage from his first couple years in the league were accusations (veiled or otherwise) that he was overrated.
Hell no. They can just change their story.
They can change their story, but that doesn't mean anyone is going to buy it. LeBron has been effectively A-Rodded at this point.
I think the average ESPN viewer is willing to buy whatever they're selling.
Maybe, but I feel like Joe Public likes his sports grudges and would prefer to keep them.
When it comes to this subject, I am Joe Public, and even I'll admit that LBJ, tineared or no, is absolutely the king of the game right now.
seriously?
I guess I don't watch that much ESPN any more, because I've seen plenty of fawning and/or appropriate praise for him. teh Ringz curez allz.
Plenty of praise relative to what? Surely he's gotten less positive attention than Tim Tebow.
Not a fair comparison. Everyone has less positive attention than Tim Tebow.
As you pointed out to start this thread, though, comparing LeBron to anyone else in the NBA is unfair, he's in a different league. The only story I remember hearing specifically about LeBron this season is that people were irritated that he would do fancy dunks in warm-ups but not in the dunk contest. Which is a bit like criticizing Mozart for using too many notes, but ESPN was happy to pass that along as a legitimate story.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoY0Qa0zU0A
Maybe he needs to rape somebody. Or even kill two people. I hear that helps.
It only helps when he wins a ring after he kills a couple of dudes.
Riddle me this statheads. I see B-ref recently updated their WAR stats again to make them more like Fangraphs, so I was updating my spreadsheet of top300 Twins. Good news for Delmon, he's now above replacement player level in his time as a Twin!!!
But the weird thing I notices was Frank Viola had a positive .2 WAR as an offensive player despite not ever having a plate appearance. How did he do that?
Rounding error perhaps? Bert has the same thing for 73-77 (0.1 rWAR) and 81-93 (0.2 rWAR).
He hit into fewer DPs than replacement players did.
Does this mean that I have .2 WAR??????? w00t!
Soup Campbell has .1 offensive WAR for his 1 PA where he struck out.
Looks like the Mets did a good job a few days ago of getting their pitching staff prepared to deal with our frigid conditions.
Target Field:
Who else would love to see Mauer hit an HR and then celebrate by making a snow angel?
That would be sweet. I'd also accept him hitting Top Jimmy across the face with a full bag of money.
I can supply the bag, but he has to supply his own money.
I'll go to the bank and convert one of his fifties into pennies.
Used to be you could sneak some Canadian pennies in there, but pointness now - le sigh.
In defense of smaller bullpens (in the sidebar, not even close to the main topic of the link or the sidebar in the link):
Here's a guy that a team deemed to be good enough to be their starting DH--and they couldn't find space for him on the bench? Their pinch hitters that year collectively hit .206/.275/.309 over 248 PA. Even accounting for pinch hitting being a little more difficult than batting 3-5 times in a game, that's utterly abysmal. They even had a pinch hitter bunt once.
Wow, Willy Mo's slash line for that season.
196/196/522 in 46 plate appearances.
That's better than their collective bench for sure, but not by a ton.
He had quite a AAAA year that year. He also played for the Mariners some that year, wound up with a .204/.250/.416 line in 120 PA counting his time in Arizona and Seattle. Wily Mo hit .358/.440/.712 in 332 PA in AAA that year. That was in the PCL, though, and there are probably good reasons to doubt his ability to get enough contact in MLB to be a productive pinch hitter--but then again, if that's a concern for him as a pinch hitter, isn't that a concern for him as a DH? His .212 ISO that year would have been second on the Twins behind only Thome, though Plouffe was close behind, so Wily Mo could still hit the ball hard when he did hit it.
I'm not big on arguing player valuations, but I think we can all agree if he got a hold of the ball, it went far
Oh yeah. I think WMP's skill set was (always?) pretty obvious: not going to hit for much average, not going to walk a whole lot, but hitting for a lot of power when he does get a hit. A .195 career ISO is pretty solid--pretty close to Morneau's .210 career ISO, though WMP got his on fewer XBH/AB.
My brother called earlier and said he got accepted to Field Training for Air Force ROTC. This is a big step on him becoming an officer and going to flight school down the line. I'm very proud of him for excelling.
I saw he was quoted in the DM Register from something he said on Twitter a couple weeks ago. I can't remember what it was about.
ubelmann - can you email me acm[zerozerosix] [at] gmail? I have a kinematics/projectile motion question.
The bits have been sent through the tubes.
ruh roh. tear-or plotting?
My wild guess is it's more likely something about bobsledding, but I may be jumping to conclusions based on partial information.
My backside neighbor is outside, engulfed in a shroud of "medicinal" smoke. I had to close my windows or I would have serious munchies by now.
your shoulder might feel a lot better.
I bet your neighbor's cataracts are in great shape.
the Minnesota Wild should think about
winning some gamesscoring some goals real soonKyle Gibson with an ugly line tonight, but the peripherals were really good. 5 ER in 4 1/3 innings with 8 H allowed, but he had 6 Ks and 1 BB with 6 groundball outs to 1 flyout.
Also, Joe Benson is 1-for-3 so far and is batting .158, so if/when Hicks goes down, the most likely replacement will be Clete Thomas, who is starting in CF tonight and is currently batting .368.
Then again, Oswaldo Arcia just hit his third homer in seven games and is batting .458 and he has played 77 games in CF in the minors.
But how would they make their strikeout quota if they don't have Hicks or Klete?
Speaking of which:
The thought of a Willingham, Arcia, Parmelee outfield makes me cringe.
And now I just got flashbacks to the Delmon, Cuddy, Kubel outfield. *shudder*
Willingham goes back to catcher, Mauer to third, OF of Arcia, Mastro, Parm
problem solved!
if Hicks goes down, my guess is that Mastro takes over at CF