58 thoughts on “November 11, 2014: 11:11”

  1. Aww. My sister used to say that all the time. You never know where those little reminders will come from.

  2. My wife and I started dating 11 years ago today. Here's to fairly meaningless but memorable anniversaries!

          1. We actually discussed the "Golden birthday" aspects of the situation a few days ago when we were discussing if we wanted to try to plan a date or something tonight.

  3. Fitting CoC image today. I woke up sicker than I've been in a while. I slept maybe two hours and am so stuffed up I can't lay on my back and breathe.

    1. I recommend Breathe Right nasal strips. I wear one every night and sleep so much better than I used to.

        1. NBBW swears by Zinc. She used to get this product where you would squeeze the zinc spray directly into your nose (Zycan or suchat).

    1. With only three spots on the ballot, it's understandable. I compiled the results and included rWAR. If someone wants to get the fWAR for each one, I'll add it.

      Dude rWAR fWAR ROY Rank
      Jose Abreu 5.5 5.3 1
      Matt Shoemaker 2.5 2.1 2
      Dellin Betances 3.7 3.2 3
      Collin McHugh 4.2 3.3 4
      Masahiro Tanaka 3.3 3.2 5
      Yordano Ventura 3.2 2.8 6
      Danny Santana 3.9 3.2 7
      Nick Castellanos -1.5 -0.5 8
      Brock Holt 2.1 2.3 9
      Jake Odorizzi 1.2 2.0 10
      George Springer 2.0 1.4 11
      1. Looking at that list, I don't see how it's that ridiculous. Abreu is the obvious runaway, but then a bunch of guys are tightly bunched and quite a few of them played in some actual meaningful games. I know we discount that argument for MVP (Trout vs. Cabrera), but it's not like he was losing votes to guys who were half as good. The only person who looks vastly inferior to Santana is Shoemaker, but he has a much better narrative (helped saved Angels season) and voters may not realize how much offense has declined, so they're still impressed by that ERA and the winzzzz!

        1. I suppose there's room for a discussion about what exactly "Rookie of the Year" means. Does it mean "best rookie player (by WAR or wRC+ or by gut) with enough AB/IP to qualify for the batting/ERA title?" Does it mean "best rookie who helped his team reach the playoffs?" Or "best rookie by WPA or WPA/LI?" Or even "best rookie on a big market East or West Coast team?"

            1. Good point. Abreu was two years older than Tanaka, who seemed to be the RoY favorite going into the season, and four years older than Santana.

              And, thinking of Tanaka and rookie status, what constitutes a major league equivalent level of playing experience. This seems to have been largely settled by players from Japan (Ichiro, Nomo), but might be worth rexamining.

              1. ultimately, the award is kind of pointless and is more trivia than anything. Some inner-circle hall-of-famers had relatively weak rookie seasons that constituted just enough plate appearances during their age 20 season, or whatever.

      2. Feel free to delete after adding these:

        fWAR
        Abreu 5.3
        Shoemaker 2.1
        Betances 3.2
        McHugh 3.3
        Tanaka 3.2
        Ventura 2.8
        Santana 3.2
        Castellanos -0.5
        Holt 2.3
        Odorizzi 2.0
        Springer 1.4

  4. Corduroy Day* and I wore jeans** because of snow***.

    * SelectShow
    ** SelectShow
    *** SelectShow
  5. So I back out of my garage, put the car in park, go get the garbage to put it outside, realize my car actually isn't in park, watch it roll down the hill and smash into a pine tree.

    Fortunately, it didn't go into the lake. It didn't cause any property damage (if the tree hadn't been there, it could have taken out someone else's garage.) or car damage.

    Unfortunately, when my car moves, the doors automatically lock. And I don't have a backup key.

    Fortunately, a locksmith was readily available.

    Unfortunately, he charged $130 for 30 seconds worth of work.

    Fortunately, he helped me get my car out of a ditch at no charge, saving me a tow.

    Unfortunately, in my hurry to get to work, my mistake forced me to miss the RISK AND SAFETY committee at work I'm a part of.

    Irony.

    1. Automatic? A while ago I learned the park gear isn't exactly a gear and it was still recommended to use the parking brake in addition to putting it in park. I don't know if I do that when stopping for a very short time, but I'm pretty sure.

      Also, this gets a gold.

        1. You guys are reminding me that I need to replace the cables in my parking brake. I'm currently using the curb to keep the stress off of first gear when I park at home.

            1. I would have settled for weird, but my wife used to get downright annoyed by it because she would somehow forget how to release it every single time. (Its a pedal with a separate lever to release.) I kept telling her she should get in the habit of doing it, to no avail.

          1. I usually do all three when parking on a hill, regardless of automatic or manual. I also do this with my truck most places (whenever possible) because I just don't trust the parking brake.

      1. In automatics, park is actually neutral, but there's a pin in the transmission that locks the gears in place. If that pin breaks, your car is essentially in neutral again.

        1. I have an automatic and I don't think I've ever used the e-brake. Should I be? If so, under what circumstances?

          (Also, I give that story a gold as well. Triple gold for Beau!!!)

          1. Whenever you park, just think about what would happen if you put your car in neutral. If your car would be at any risk of moving in that state, put on the e-brake. Also, I had a car once where the previous owner hadn't use the e-brake in so long, that when I finally did use it, it got stuck.

    2. Partially been there. That's a helpless feeling watching a car roll down a hill. Mine just rolled down into the street and stopped.

  6. If I were a 36 year old baseball player and I had to decide between 15 mil for one year or 21 mil for two, pretty sure I would go with the one year deal.

      1. Given how much he's already made in his career, I think he can risk it. Even if he misses half the year next year, he'll still be able to find $6 mil the next year.

    1. Mauer's problem is not his patience. He's swinging at more pitches than ever the last two years, at more pitches out of the K zone than ever and making less contact than ever at all pitches and at pitches out of the K zone. If anything he's become too aggressive.

    2. Souhan has a job for the same reason you never hear a politician, even the genuinely intelligent ones, make detailed policy prescriptions. Math don't excite folks, plus it takes longer to be insightful than the average time a reader is going to give you their attention.

  7. This is terrible news.

    Chris Mannix ‏@ChrisMannixSI
    Thoughts are with Lakers guard Wayne Ellington and his family. Ellington's father was murdered in Philadelphia on Sunday. Terrible tragedy.

  8. Back from deer hunting. I got a male yearling (it's been a few years since I'd shot, so I was ok with a small one, and last year our party only took one so I didn't know what else we'd see). Our party of 10 got 8 deer, but just one buck, a glorified forkhorn with six points from brow tines.

    We also saw a lot more deer that we didn't get/shoot at. Four of us saw and three of us shot at a good-sized buck with very nice, bright white antlers. His repeat appearances led me to believe he's toying with us. The one guy that saw him but didn't shoot at him was cleaning that other buck at the time. My shot didn't have a great chance, he was behind a tree and had seen me at the same time I saw him I needed to hit the part of his chest that wasn't behind the tree. I at least used the tree to my advantage as I pulled up my gun while hiding from his eyes. I also completely missed a good sized doe that stood in front of that tree broadside two hours later. Overall, I saw 5 deer the first morning and shot at three of them. Sunday morning, only three of us went out. I just wanted the buck but he showed up in the next woods over (where another in our party was hunting). I flushed three more (too far ahead through brush) as I walked out of my stand.
    And populations are supposed to be down.

    My only complaint would be the impending snowstorm pushed a bunch of us to skedaddle quickly Sunday afternoon rather than lingering for the traditional festivities and my annual consumption of a few bites of liver.

  9. Paul Lukas of uniwatch has a question to ask about new uniforms: Is it good or is it stupid?
    Regarding the new Twins Laundry:
    Cap with gold trim: Stupid, looks more like those special stars & stripes or salute the services or whatever one-day caps. Or BP. Save it for the parade.
    Blue Logo/lettering with red trim: Good, hearkens to original jerseys that they throw back to with the cream pinstripes.
    Dropping the pinstripes: Stupid
    Gold drop-shadow: Stupid
    Overall: D+ Make the cream pinstripes the regulars already.

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