36 thoughts on “Cup of Coffee: 9/11/15 Water Under the Bridge”

  2. As socal reported last night, Max Kepler's two-out two-run single in the bottom of the ninth gave the Lookouts a come-from-behind win, 4-3, in Game 1 of the Southern League playoffs. The first two batters of the inning had struck out, but that was followed by two walks, a wild pitch, and Kepler's game-ending single.

    In the MIdwest League, Chris Paul's two-run single in the eleventh carried the Kernels to a 3-1 victory over Quad Cities. It was Paul's third hit of the game, and he drove in all three Kernel runs. Sam Gibbons pitched eight strong innings, giving up just one run on four hits and no walks. The win gave the Kernels a 2-0 win in the series.

    Cedar Rapids has the day off before starting their next round against Peoria. Chattanooga will send Jason Wheeler to the mount tonight to try to take a 2-0 lead in their series with Montgomery.

      1. No. The last article I saw, a few days ago, said that he could go to Chattanooga or he could go to Cedar Rapids. I had it narrowed down to those two myself, since they're the only two still playing.

  3. We're knocking off work at noon today for our Q2 reward party. I get a paid half-day and a steak lunch. Best part is, I wasn't here for Q2, so I'm reaping all the rewards for having put in zero contributions towards meeting our sales goals.

  4. This new schedule is destroying my sleep patterns. Last night I went to bed at about 10:30 to try to get back on track, and still woke up at 9:30 this morning. Ugh.

  5. I am again doing the Relay for Life cancer walk this year. I'd love for the Citizenry to help me be one of the leading fundraisers again this year. The walk is in three weeks, and any help between now and then is appreciated:

    Direct link to my page.

  7. Timberwolves chief executive Rob Moor, citing the desire for privacy for Saunders and his family, declined to speak specifically about Saunders' condition during a news conference. The team said Saunders recently experienced complications from chemotherapy treatments.

    ''Our first priority is making sure Flip regains his strength and is back to 100 percent before he is back to work,'' Moor said. ''And while there is no timetable for Flip's return, we believe it will be measured in months, and not weeks. To attempt to place a timeline on things at this time would be unfair to the due process of recovery.''

    Not good news for Flip.

  9. I have a Dell Latitude E6410 that I use as my personal laptop and being a tweaker I decided to max out the entertainment functionality. I upgraded to an SSD early this year, which has been awesome. This week I doubled the RAM to max it out at 8GB. There was an extra card slot in the motherboard intended for a WAN adapter, but data be data so I filled it with a Broadcom Crystal HD decoder card. The difference when watching Netflix is amazing, full 1080p output to the screen and external monitors (via HDMI and VGA) and perfectly smooth motion. The last upgrade will be to replace the wireless NIC with an 802.11AC+Bluetooth model, which is in transit, although the picture on the current 802.11N wireless is really quite steady. I can get a lot of live and canned cable programming online through Xfinity, plus we have HBO Go and Netflix, and the whole Internet, so I'm pretty good for content.

    My next project is to get an advanced docking station for the old Thinkpad T61 (they come with slot for a full PCI-E desktop video card), upgrade to an SSD, and then revert the OS from Vista to XP so I can play all of my old PC games on it. Don't tell Mrs. Twayn.

      1. Only a few of the games have multi-player options, and I don't expect those servers see much traffic anymore.

    2. I have a docking station similar to that. At my last job I had a USB docking station and I wish I would have gotten one of those instead. With the one I have now, the laptop and docking station lose their connection if I touch the laptop and it takes a while for the monitors to come back, and sometimes it gets into a bad state where I have to restart the laptop. Plus I could presumably use the USB docking station with my Surface as well.

  11. This probably could have been a stand-alone post, but they tend to get buried, so it's a LTE instead. h/t to Twayn for reminding me to share.

    When things slid sideways in New York, a discussion commenced regarding what positions needed upgrading and who the superfluous individuals on the roster might be.* I said we didn't need both Nunez & Escobar.

    After the Aug 26th game in which Eduardo Escobar hit two home runs, Padre stated that he thought EE could be, "an adequate major league shortstop." and it got me thinking. That was two weeks ago; I thought Escobar was merely the best in-house answer until Polanco was ready. I've decided that I don't think the Twins should look for a new SS at all, and despite a recent 0-8 mini-skid, I'm still pretty content to let Eduardo Escobar hold down the 6-hole for as long as he can manage it.
    Updated from my Monday Game Recap:

    Since taking over as the primary SS at the end of July, Escobar is slashing .313/.375/.565 .293/.353/.528 with 19 extra base hits, 18 RBI and a 1.548 1.358 WPA.

    I just read a Gleeman article from last week that took our thoughts and ran with 'em. Impressively:

    During the past three seasons shortstops have hit .256/.308/.372 for the lowest production of any position. In the games he's started at shortstop during that time Escobar has out-produced the average shortstop by 100 points of OPS or 15 percent. His overall 2013-2015 production is lower at .263/.306/.407, but still tops the average shortstop by 35 points of OPS.

    *I'll be the first to admit that I thought that series was looking like the beginning of the end.

    1. Escobar is certainly earning the job. I was also thinking about Suzuki and our lack of a decent backup catcher. Turns out AJ Pierzynski is a free agent next year, so TR needs to get on that.

      1. No, we need to go after Mauer with Power, who is also a free agent. He's coming off TJ but has hit well this year while also easing back behind the plate. I agree that Escobar should be the shortstop and hopefully Torii will retire so Hicks can be the full-time RF with Buxton and center and Rosario in left and Kepler in the wings if any of them struggle.

        1. I'd love to see Escobar given a fair shot at being the starting shortstop, but I don't think it's likely. The Twins decided when they got him that he was a utility player and I don't think there's anything he can do to change their minds. And Hunter should not be the starting right fielder regardless of whether he retires, but I doubt Terry Ryan will tell him to go away if he wants to come back.

          1. May not be likely, but this is the first season Molitor's been in charge, and I don't think he has the same weakness for futility infielders that Gardy had. My hope is that he sees what E-squared is doing and figures that, if they don't provide him with a clearly better player, he'll roll with Eddie.

        2. Wieters would be a great option, but he made $8.3M this year while AJ made $2M.

          2015
          .295 BA .334 OBP .416 SLG .750 OPS 107 OPS+ Pierzynski, 99 games
          .263 BA .300 OBP .413 SLG .713 OPS 93 OPS+ Wieters, 62 games

            1. Well, I'd much rather spend any available money on pitching than another catcher, but our depth behind the plate is tenuous and that will have to be addressed eventually.

  12. Had a nice day wine (and cheese) tasting in Sonoma... by Segway. First time, and it was a blast. It was only noticeably hot the last 1/2 hr or so, which had been a worry earlier.

    1. Had a great day in Albuquerque. Seems that 'burque has become new brew city with 5 new micro breweries in the last 2 years. Now off to roast my mentor at his retirement party.

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