Cup of Coffee

May 20, 2013: Recovery

76 Comments

My friend Andrew, who was given a very grim diagnosis last week, has woken up. He's very forgetful so far (and extremely hungry) but otherwise seems to be himself. Win one for the good guys.

76 thoughts on “May 20, 2013: Recovery”

  1. the Twins now have 3 regulars batting under .200 : Hicks .139, Willingahm .197, Parmelee .198. Dozier is a couple of bad games joining them, he is at .212

  2. Remember when the Twins were playing pretty good? Man, those were good times. I blame this CoC entry. If there are two words taht should never enter a sentence together when the Twins are involved, they're "its" and "happening".

    1. If there are two words taht should never enter a sentence together when the Twins are involved, they’re “its” and “happening”.

      Generally true, but in Spooky's defense, he said "it's all happening" which is a line that is used repeatedly in one Spooky and my favorite movies: Almost Famous. I am wondering if he was referencing that.

        1. Well, my thoughts went right to that hashtag crap from two years ago, so maybe its my fault they haven't won since for mis-interpreting things. Sorry guys.

        2. Spooky, have you seen the long version of Almost Famous? What do you think of it?

          1. I'm not Spooky but since I'm an Almost Famous rube I will tell you that I only watch the long (bootleg) version. There's a few scenes that didn't need to be included but generally the additions add to the story.

  3. Surprised this was missed yesterday. davidwatts:

    New Marney tells us that Joe Mauer likes carpentry.
    insightful stuff

    It is definitely interesting to me to hear that Joe Mauer would have been a carpenter if he hadn't played baseball. Who was that other guy who would have been a carpenter if he hadn't had a higher calling?

  4. I may have mentioned this last night in the CoC, but: KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Spoiler SelectShow

    1. When you posted that last night, I was wondering what happened with the Timberwolves. I'm more awake now.

  5. I just now realized it, but earlier in the month, Steam released a beta version of Portal for Linux. There goes my afternoon.

        1. He can't because he needs 10 days in the minors. Also, he's been struggling since returning.

          1. I should say he can't come up in time for what would have been Pedro's next start.

      4. This article showed up on the list of articles about third down on my Yahoo page today, so that's kind of neat. Of course I have it set up to show me Minnesota Sports related articles, but this is the first one of yours that I found without your link.

    1. He doesn't touch much on negative ANT--the type that Kevin Slowey and Scott Baker seemed to get a lot of. In terms of positive ANT, Delmon Young and Torii Hunter spring to mind.

      Thinking about this more, I am questioning my attitude towards Dick and Bert. I'd always had this idea of them being homers, but they've had some fairly negative views of certain Twins over the last few years--Slowey, Baker, Bartlett, Garza, Lohse, even arguably Mauer given how good he is.

      1. My belief is Dickenbert get, ahem, direction on whom to trend negative on from higher powers.

        1. Agreed. It is with amazing consistency that they start to bag on a player they were praising a week ago and suddenly the player gets demoted. They don't have that much insight.

        2. I've also had that impression, but I guess it's just weird that the party line seems to be so negative so often. Once the team goes publicly negative on a player, his reputation seems to take forever to mend.

    2. I loved the comment from "Jason":

      The entire Twins' offense for the better part of the last decade.

      They "play the game right." They "move runners over." They "hustle." Ozzie Guillen famously referred to them as "piranhas."

      All this to cover the fact that they don't hit home runs or score many runs in general. In 11 full seasons under Gardenhire (2002-2012), here's their AL rankings in runs scored (14 teams):

      9, 6, 10, 14, 8, 12, 3, 4, 5, 13, 10

      But they "do all the little things right"!

      1. Don't the Twins generally rank higher in runs scored than they do in home runs? Wouldn't that be evidence that they actually do the little things right?

        1. socal, over the same period, they ranked higher in runs than in SLG five times, lower 4 times, the same twice. Not much evidence either way, I'd say.

          1. The commenter and I both referenced homers, which could be in no way considered part of "little things." Slugging can be affected by batting average and legging out extra bases. Anyways, in the last 11 seasons, the Twins have ranked higher in runs than home runs eight times, including every year since 2005. Plus, how do you manage to increase homers? Also, the Twins average rank prior to this year was 8.4, meaning slightly below average, which is hardly anything to complain about. It's not like the Twins have been the Mariners.

            1. I went with SLG because I think it correlates pretty strongly with doing the Big Things right, and should be less noisy than HRs.

        2. That's assuming there's perfect correlation between home runs hit and runs scored. Last year, the Twins were tied for last in the AL in home runs hits and tenth in runs scored. Seems good, except the Twins were fifth in OBP.

      2. That comes to an average ranking of 8.5 out of 14. Median is 7.5, so they've been somewhat below median, but not by much (if you go by ranking.) I wonder what their payroll rank is over those 11 seasons. It's not like the offense has been that bad. (Certainly not as bad as Francoeur the last couple years.)

        I'm coming around on "doing the little things" as a positive thing. Yeah, it's annoying to hear it repeated by pundits/announcers, but it's annoying to hear anything repeated by commentators. It can't take a team from the bottom to the top, but if you're going to show up, you might as well take care of the things that are under your control. Gardy might be able to influence the team into taking care of the details. He's not going to make Drew Butera into a major league hitter.

        My personal issue with praising the Twins for doing the little things right is that announcers say it whether or not it's true. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. Sometimes they even seem to ignore players who are the best at doing the little things. I would argue that Joe Mauer ought to be the poster boy for doing the little things right. He seems to never make a mistake on the bases, in fact he seems quite good at making the right read and getting the extra base when he can even though he's not Usain Bolt. He always seems to have a plan when he's out there. He does a very good job at a defensive position which requires the most attention to detail. Yet doing the little things right seems to be reserved as a phrase for players with false hustle (looking at you Punto) regardless of the bone-headed mistakes they make.

        2. Some other viewpoints:

          -- It's a crapshoot, we don't know anything about the team so assume they are .500 the rest of the way out: 79-83

          -- Figure they play the last 122 games the same as last year's last 122 games: 70-92

          -- Pythagoras Rules Everything Around Me: 76-86

          1. I really liked this little exercise. With your permission, I may actually update my book d'faces with it.

          2. What about when they call up Buxton and Sano and Meyer and Berrios and Rosario in July? World Series!?!!?!

          3. Pythagoras Rules Everything Around Me
            PREAM is the money.
            Dollar dollar bill y'all.

  10. From a coworker: Fun Fact of the day: Warren Buffett, the 4th richest man in the world, still lives in the house he bought for $31,500 in 1958 in Omaha, NE.

    (He does also own another property in Laguna Beach, CA though.)

    1. The End came on the car radio once when I had a 4 year old in the car. Everytime the lyrics said, "And he.." I heard from the backseat, "What! What!"

      It was pretty humorous.

    2. Man.

      Just.......sigh. The Doors was my first "classic" rock album. Before even a Beatles compilation or Led Zeppelin or the Stones. The sky still opens up a bit whenever I hear that jazzy snare tap to start the tune.

        1. When we got doused yesterday, I ran to put that song on - it always gives me chills to listen with natural stereo.

  12. After a very long battle with cancer, my wife's friend Alicia is near the end. She is in her early 40s with two grade school aged boys.

    1. very sorry to hear this, Boss. I'm not a praying man, but you, Lucy, Alicia and her family are in my thoughts.

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