Cup of Coffee

January 7, 2014: Progress

73 Comments

The Cleopatra card for my game is almost done, with the Milkmaid providing the face that launched a thousand ships. If you're a lurker and have no idea what I'm talking about or how these words make sense in this order, I'm sorry.

73 thoughts on “January 7, 2014: Progress”

  1. Once again I've secured a last place finish in the neighborhood card collecting blogger's college bowl pick 'em -- 29th out of 29. That's where picking 14 of 35 winners will get you (even after winning the highest weighted game). I've placed last twice in four years (with a second-to-last finish as well) thanks to a "strategy" of picking Big Ten teams, Mizzou, UCLA, not picking Notre Dame, USC, or Texas teams, and doing tons of no research.

    2. The ancient history prof at GW loved to show his classes a coin commissioned by Cleopatra featuring a hideous woman's facial profile. His punchline was always, "If a representation of her is that ugly with her paying the artist, imagine how horrific she must have really looked!"

    1. Looks like he has them with the 7th-highest SOS, that probably plays a factor, too. That only really helps the Wolves if their schedule gets easier the rest of the season, though.

      1. It has been brutal. They've played a ton of tough back-to-backs, which will abate, even if the competition doesn't let up much.

        1. Yea, too bad about that whole Western Conference thing.

          on another note, what the hell are the Bulls doing trading Luol Deng for Eddy Curry Andrew Bynum and picks? Are they really tanking already? In the East? It's almost impossible not to make the playoffs in the East if you have 5 guys with a pulse.

          2. They've got other options that are cheaper. Might be a smart move for the future to get those draft picks, especially knowing they're not very likely to win a championship this year, especially without Rose.

            Remember when Bynum was going to be better than Dwight Howard? Or something like that- I can't remember, I was pretty busy laughing.

            1. Has any professional athlete stole more money than Bynum has in the last two seasons? Almost $30 million for virtually nothing.

              Edited to $30 million 'cause he's gonna get cut and miss out on $12 million.

              1. I was potentially going to argue Pujols, but I see that he's only made $29M combined for '12-'13 and fangraphs has him at a $20M contribution. I still feel like he can bounce back, though.

                You could make a case for Alex Rodriguez--$57M for $11.1M in production the last two years.

              2. I mentioned Eddy Curry for a reason.

                Season Team Lg Salary
                2001-02 Chicago Bulls NBA $2678400
                2002-03 Chicago Bulls NBA $2879280
                2003-04 Chicago Bulls NBA $3080160
                2004-05 Chicago Bulls NBA $3896402
                2005-06 New York Knicks NBA $7390000
                2006-07 New York Knicks NBA $8171103
                2007-08 New York Knicks NBA $8947543
                2008-09 New York Knicks NBA $9723983
                2009-10 New York Knicks NBA $10500423
                2010-11 Minnesota Timberwolves NBA $11530592
                2011-12 Miami Heat NBA $1229255
                2012-13 Dallas Mavericks NBA $23852

                Dude appeared in 26 games (182 minutes) over his last 4 season, including 10 games and 74 minutes combined in 2009-10 and 2010-11, for $23 million.

  4. Does anyone here have experience writing federal civil service resumes? If so, I've got a few questions to run by you. Writing mine might be my least favorite thing in a long time.

  5. sean, I'm working on a post, and I'd like to include a few tables. I'm not seeing a table layout option on the post writing page – do I need to hand code these things? If so, is there a WGOM/WP-compatible HTML table generator I can use instead? Because lazy.

    1. Do you have the data in an Excel table? If so, I like to use Tableizer. Just copy/paste from Excel into the box and hit the button, and out comes everything in the proper <table> tags.

      1. I'm using a different spreadsheet program, but I'll give that a shot. Thanks, Mags.

    2. Nope, it's still manual. There's the sports-reference table option, but it works best with tables that closely resemble in data style those from sports-reference.com sites (i.e. lots of numbers).

  6. Sick yesterday, so didn't have to go anywhere. Today, tried to and the car didn't start. Grumble.

    So the question is, and I should probably know the answer, but don't, will it start when it warms up, or will it still need a jump? More importantly, I'm curious about the science behind this stuff. Anyone?

    1. My car had no intentions of starting on Sunday, but I was able to get it going last night and then this morning. I'd assume as long as you didn't run your battery down too much it should start when it warms up but I'm not an expert.

      1. Right. If the battery had some juice, it'll probably be okay when it warms up. My wife's car wouldn't start yesterday, but I have every confidence it will later today. I'm going to have to get it started today because I'm leaving for ND in the morning. If it doesn't start, I'll be in serious trouble with her.

    2. Every chemical reaction needs energy to get it started (otherwise it would have already happened). In low temperature situations, there is much less energy available (that's pretty much the definition of temperature), and so the chemical reaction that generates the electrical current doesn't take place. As long as the materials in the battery that start the reaction aren't depleted, it should be fine once more energy is available (warmer temps).

      I actually don't know what the reaction is that car batteries operate on, but I'm sure that information is available somewhere.

      1. A car battery's plates are made of lead and lead dioxide. They react with the sulfuric acid electrolyte to generate an electrical charge. Over time, the plates convert to lead sulfide. Charging the battery reverts the plates to their original lead and lead dioxide composition. Generally, if the battery acid doesn't freeze the batter will be okay when it warms up (assuming it was undamaged before the cold snap). If the acid freezes, it can damage the plates in one or more cells and the battery has to be replaced.

        1. Last time in Minny over the holidays, we had a rental car, and the temperatures got really low on the day we were supposed to leave.

          Plan was to go to Just For Me Spa in Stillwater (and workout club!), get in the run on the treadmill, then head to the airport.

          On the way, the car's sensors detected that the back right rear wheel's pressure was low, and gave a warning (supposed to be 34, is only 26). I didn't want any problems, so stopped to two different gas stations to add more air to the tire.

          The machine didn't appear to do anything. I talked with the dude in the station, and he said, 'Yeah, when it get's this cold, these machines don't seem to work.'

          Is that right? Air compressors don't work at -10F?

          We made it to the airport - the sensor warning finally went away - I wondered if the problem was with the sensor at those temps.

    1. Actually, Jason Kendall to age-30 is not an utterly horrible comp. Kendall was a poor-man's Mauer through age-30. The differences being that Mauer was just better overall at the plate.

      Kendall through age-30 season: 30.6 rWAR, 4.5 oWAR per 650 PA, 1.1 dWAR per 650
      Mauer through age-30 season: 44.3 rWAR, 6.2 oWAR per 650, 1.0 dWAR per 650.

      also, and this quote from further down in the article is pretty telling:

      He's owed $115 million for the next five years. That's … not too far from what he'd get now, I'd guess. After all the disappointment, all the ups and downs, all the switches and perception changes, Mauer would still get (over)paid today. He probably wouldn't get that much. Consider, though, that Jacoby Ellsbury is a year older, with a similarly sketchy injury history, and he blew past the total value of what Mauer has left. Yes, Ellsbury can still play center, but that shouldn't be a $38 million difference.

      1. I mean, I guess if having 67% of Mauer's contribution constitutes a poor man's Joe Mauer, then yes, that's what Kendall was.

        1. 14 wins, that's about $70 million. So, if you don't have an extra $70 million lying around, you probably get the poor man's version.

    2. Consider, though, that Jacoby Ellsbury is a year older, with a similarly sketchy injury history, and he blew past the total value of what Mauer has left. Yes, Ellsbury can still play center, but that shouldn't be a $38 million difference.

    3. Apparently Brisbee reads too much MSM. Using a 5-4-3 weighting of fWAR, here are simple year-by-year projections of Mauer's fWAR:

      4.0 - 2007
      4.2 - 2008
      5.0 - 2009
      6.0 - 2010
      6.3 - 2011
      4.3 - 2012
      3.8 - 2013
      4.1 - 2014

      It has definitely dropped, but you would have had to be really pessimistic to ever believe that he was Jason Kendall.

      1. Here is what a Kendall-Mauer comparison looks like, using 5-4-3 projections at the same ages. For Mauer's age 33 and out, I subtracted 0.5 fWAR/year.

        Mauer - Kendall , Age
        4.0 - 4.2 , 25
        4.2 - 4.7 , 26
        5.0 - 4.8 , 27
        6.0 - 2.7 , 28
        6.3 - 2.3 , 29
        4.3 - 2.7 , 30
        3.8 - 4.0 , 31
        4.1 - 3.5 , 32
        3.6 - 3.2 , 33
        3.1 - 1.2 , 34
        2.6 - 1.5 , 35
        2.1 - 0.9 , 36

        And presumably shifting Mauer to first base will keep him on a track from declining too quickly. We'll see about that, I suppose.

        1. Has anyone brought up Paul Molitor in the Mauer to first conversation? Obviously it's hard to forecast anything based on one comparison, but for whatever reason, I just thought to compare Mauer to Molitor.

          Through age-30:
          .323/.405/.468, 136 OPS+ -- Mauer
          .297/.357/.433, 118 OPS+ -- Molitor

          Molitor switched to 1B/DH full-time at age 34, though he dabbled a bit there at age 33.

          .306/.372/.450, 131 OPS+ -- Molitor age 31-33, primarily 2B/3B
          .326/.397/.487, 144 OPS+ -- Molitor age 34-36, primarily 1B/DH

          So Molitor was already turning into a bit of a late bloomer before the position switch, but he really hit his stride after he moved to first base. One can at least hope this is the case for Mauer.

          1. I'll be honest – I'm hoping Mauer goes on a tear and hits like George Brett in his thirties now that he's not catching. Molitor's probably a more reasonable level of production to shoot for, though. Am I'm surprised nobody else has mentioned this?.

            1. Interesting that Brett made the transition to 1B/DH at the same age that Molitor did. Expanding the above tables to include Brett:

              Through age-30:
              .316/.370?.503, 141 OPS+ -- Brett
              .323/.405/.468, 136 OPS+ -- Mauer
              .297/.357/.433, 118 OPS+ -- Molitor

              .306/.372/.450, 131 OPS+ -- Molitor age 31-33, primarily 2B/3B
              .326/.397/.487, 144 OPS+ -- Molitor age 34-36, primarily 1B/DH

              .306/.400/.517, 150 OPS+ -- Brett age 31-33, primarily 3B
              .294/.380/.481, 136 OPS+ -- Brett age 34-36, primarily 1B/DH

              Turning 31 seemed to help George Brett more than moving to first base did. Regardless, if Mauer can have a 140 OPS+ for the next 5-6 years, I'll be overjoyed.

              Edit--one reason I think comparisons like this don't come up much is that Molitor and Brett were never catchers. So sure, it's different, but it's still a position change and there are only so many elite hitters with which to accurately compare Mauer's hitting.

              1. right. And not too many elite-hitting catchers who changed positions after age-30 against whom to compare. Joe Torre? He comes reasonably close to Mauer's class as a hitter.

                1. It's kind of funny looking at Mauers through-age-30 bb-ref comparables. Only one of the 10 has more rWAR than Mauer by age 30 (Lou Boudreau).

                  Mickey Cochrane -- catcher, but never changed positions
                  Michael Young -- must be similar because they aren't park-adjusting stats before comparison
                  Charlie Gehringer -- lifetime 2B
                  Lou Boudreau -- SS was primary position until last season (4 games)
                  Travis Jackson -- Made a SS to 3B switch but was never really in Mauer's league as a hitter (102 OPS+)
                  Jason Kendall -- Stayed at catcher
                  Thurman Munson -- Stayed primarily at catcher
                  Craig Biggio -- Switch from catcher much earlier (age 26), basically stayed in up-the-middle positions
                  Bill Dickey -- Stayed primarily at catcher
                  Nomar Garciaparra -- Switched to 1B at age 32, was good for a 120 OPS+ that year, tailed off playing multiple positions after that season

                  Torre's an interesting comparison. He hit .305/.369/.475 for a 135 OPS+ through age 30, but he was already rotating into first base pretty heavily at age 22, so presumably the Braves were already saving his legs when he was posting those numbers and you might not expect as much of a bump when he switched positions. Torre hit .280/.356/.397, 118 OPS+ from age 31-36 to end his career, playing mostly 3B/1B.

                  1. Torre caught 90 games in 1970 at age-29, then never caught again. In 1971, he won the NL MVP, starting 161 games at 3b and hitting .363/421/555 with career-highs in OPS+ (171), hits (230) and RBI (137). I would find that acceptable from Mauer's first year of not catching.

              2. I think the Molitor comparison ought to make sense to folks, though. Molitor was capable of playing up-the-middle positions, but moved because of injury problems. When a guy moves from 2b, C, or even 3b to 1b, it's pretty different than a guy who moves from LF to 1b.

                1. don't know whether you were implicitly or explicitly including Torre there. That Joe played a plurality of career games at catcher, before switching to 3b and 1b.

    4. Sure, if you ignore history and focus only on the last day it was pretty bad. Sane people don't, so it wasn't that bad.

  8. I ran the update manager on my laptop the other day and it updated the headers for the kernel. Now my video driver isn't playing nicely and I can't run the desktop shell I like. It's very annoying. Everything still works, but it doesn't look right and I don't like change.

    1. Are you using a proprietary video driver? It's been a while since I've used proprietary drivers, in part due to this problem. I recall AMD's being especially finicky with newer kernels while Nvidia's work better.

      1. I have been, yes. FGLRX 13 for AMD Catalyst. Steam won't run on the generic Ubuntu driver, Unity 3D won't run on the new kernel. Fiddling with it now, but I may have to revert to the generic and forgo Steam until things get sorted out. I really don't play all that much, where as I use the launcher constantly.

        1. I ran sudo apt-get remove fglrx-* and now Unity is working again. I'll just have to give up playing "Portal" for awhile.

          1. If you have a new enough card (and kernel), the open source radeon driver seems to be pretty good. You might already be using the radeon driver, but probably have to use 13.10 to get a recent enough kernel.

            1. I'm still on 12.04 LTS, and it's working alright (recent problem excepted). It's not a big enough deal for me to not be able to play Portal to bother with a change to 13.10, at least not at this point.

              1. I forgot the generic driver doesn't work with my video card when using "suspend". If I suspend my laptop, I can't wake it up. The screen just cycles without ever turning on. But I can use suspend just fine with the proprietary FGLRX drivers.

  9. Sunderland 1-0 at the half. Now they just have to hold United through the second half and the second leg at Old Trafford and they're into the cup final. That should be pretty easy.

    2. Premier League teams beaten by Sunderland this season (current EPL table ranking in parentheses):

      Manchester City (2)
      Chelsea (3)*
      Everton (5)
      Manchester United (7)*
      Newcastle (8)
      Southampton (9)*

      * = cup match

      6 wins and 1 draw in 12 matches against the top 9 in the league.
      0 wins and 4 draws in 11 matches against the other 10 teams in the league.

      Very strange stuff.

      1. This got me to go look at the current way of things in our EPL contest. I was sad to see Nibbish (WTF) has dramatically dropped off.

  10. NDSU got 17 votes in the final AP poll and finished 17th in the Sagarin Rankings, sandwiched between tOSU and the Badgers. I think it's pretty safe to say that this is the greatest FCS team of all time.

    1. Not even close. Mauer's will be dwarfed by Buxton's -- just compare the current $$ for their autographed cards. Low-end Mauer cards can be found for $25; you're really lucky to nab a Buxton card for $45.

  14. RMZ (our youngest - almost 3 months) has been feeling a bit off for a few days, so we brought her into the doctor this afternoon. The diagnosis is potentially Pertussis and/or pneumonia. She's on a course on antibiotics and she'll be evaluated again Thursday, but in the meantime prayers are appreciated.

    Also, make sure you vaccinations are current, as Pertussis isn't one of those diseases that is fine with the childhood course of immunizations, and I wouldn't wish what we're going through on anyone.

    1. Pneumonia is bad enough, pertussis is really not fun. Hope she gets over it quickly, rpz.

        1. Secondy-second. Prayers sent.

          And while we're at it, my sister with CF is doing better, but my brother with CF went into the hospital today.

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