37 thoughts on “February 28, 2015: The Enemy”

    1. I'm not against it. It's not an arbitrary ban, there was empirical observation and hypothesis and experimentation involved in the decision, and I think the manager has a reasonable expectation that his players be fully engaged in the games they get paid so handsomely to play.

      1. I'll second all of this. the stuff I've read if this regime so far makes me feel that, even if the hiring process was rather Wolvesian, the staff isn't going to be.

      2. That's pretty much how I feel, too. I've read some comments that it's old-school and modern players won't put up with it, but I see it more as a reasonable requirement that players focus on the game when it's getting close to game time.

    2. On a related note, the local card shop owner was commenting about a traded player ripping on his former closer for sleeping in the bullpen. Our take was "so what? If he was doing a good job (he was) and he wasn't going to be used before the 7th, big deal."

      1. exactly. These are grown-ass men, to borrow a phrase. Is there a reason to believe that cellphones (or whatever) are impeding their performance?

        this is up there with the Yankmes ban on facial hair. Arbitrary and unrelated to job performance.

        1. I don't know about that. If they're using their cellphone, they can't pay attention to the game or their teammates and will miss things. This won't turn Hicks from a 0 win player to a 5 win player but I think can help the team gel. That in turn could help performance.

          1. I can totally buy this. Cell phones are fantastically advanced distraction machines. I can only imagine how much more distracting they could potentially be if you're young, famous, and have piles of cash to burn (even the lowest paid players are still relatively well off). Facial hair is ticky-tack for sure, but I certainly wouldn't put that in this category.

            That is, unless you have a powerful mustache that you constantly brush, trim, wax, and twirl. That could take one's attention as well.

            1. Meh. It's a "Respect Mah AhhthoriTAH!" thing. These kids, these days. They don't know how to be a professional, like back in the day when we had honest distractions, like cocaine.

          1. Man, I'd suggest that there's even a correlation between distracting cellphones and my ass growing.

    3. I know I'm not on my phone in the 30 minutes before a court hearing starts, so it makes sense to me.

    1. I'm pretty much done with everything but fantasy baseball, but I'm going to be pretty sad when I'm no longer using that team name.

  1. Fun coincidence. Pierre's career fWAR and rWAR were 23.2 and 16.6 wins. Adam Dunn's career fWAR and rWAR were 22.7 and 16.6 wins. Dunn has 462 home runs, so he could loan two to Pierre and they both finish with round numbers.

    1. Did you know Juan Pierre is 16th all time in stolen bases? Also, he is the last American Leaguer to steal 60+ in a season (68 in 2010)

      1. That prompted me to check the list of active stolen base leaders. First is Ichiro Suzuki with 487. Second is Carl Crawford with 470. Neither of them is likely to rack up a big stolen base total in the future. Third, but the first one with a chance to add significantly to his total, is Jose Reyes with 455.

          1. There are only three in the top twenty younger than thirty: Melvin Upton, 264 (13th, age 29), Carlos Gomez, 204 (17th, age 28), and Elvis Andrus, 192 (20th, age 25). Not surprisingly, the only Twin on the list is Torii Hunter with 193 (19th), and he's unlikely to add significantly to that total.

  2. You guys, even though though they lost tonight the Timberwolves are a totally watchable product right now!

    1. i don't know why, but i found this funny (and kind of weird, if you think about it):

      pretty sweet game from the wild tonight at least (what would make a good DGWWW signal?).

      1. I am shocked SHOCKED that a Patrick Roy team would goon it up at the end of the game.

      2. bwhahaha

        Michael Russo ‏@Russostrib
        Parise: "I'd probably be frustrated too if you play a team, haven't scored on them in 4 games except on a dump-in." #mnwild #avs

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