44 thoughts on “November 19, 2015: Most Valuable Player Awards”

1. I voted Donaldson because of defense, but dang Trout has finished 1st in rWAR four consecutive seasons. Unbelievable.

   1. Donaldson likely wins, meaning Trout will have won his only MVP so far in his worst full season.

      1. Donaldson is significantly closer to Trout in fWAR than rWAR, which made the decision easier for me. The other thing that helped was Donaldson's line in the second half, when he hit 20 of his 41 homers in 20 fewer games than the first half. That .302/.396/.615/1.011 line in the second half really helped the Blue Jays.

2. yo, free, just found out a buddy is teching for the Ike Reilly assassination while they're on tour. I should probably check em out when they roll through Chicago, right?

   1. Absolutely. Ike puts on a great show. Here next Wednesday.

      1. My boy says he'll get me in, so no reason not to go.

3. This is for AMR:

   

   1. not really the same is it tho

4. Light snow flurries now here at work in Prospect Park.

5. Forbidden Zone below, but I have to get this off my chest:

   'Homeless Veterans vs. Syrian refugees'

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   My own brother used the homeless veterans vs. Syrian refugees argument on FB the other day. To this point I have never heard or seen him raise veteran homelessness as an issue he feels strongly about, though I don't doubt the genuineness of his feeling now. But, as I told him, there is no reason – other than hardheartedness & fear – that we can't end veteran homelessness and provide shelter & aid to people fleeing an absolute collapse of civil society, and quite honestly, civilization. (Civilized people don't burn other people alive as political statements.) His response was basically "We need to help our own first, and since nobody helps homeless veterans, why should we expect them to help refugees?" Now, I'm the political black sheep on that side of my family. I know my brother doesn't see welfare or other social support programs the way I do. But he'll gladly support funding the VA because Red, White, and Blue. The VA's mere existence gives a lot of people making this argument a pass because paying their taxes to support it absolves them of any need to do something about veteran homelessness, particularly veteran homelessness in their own communities, themselves. Instead, I feel like my brother (and people pushing that rhetoric) are using my homeless comrades as a rhetorical human shield to avoid dealing with the reality that we destabilized the societies these refugees are fleeing.

   1. 'That, and other zones forbidden'

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      I'd often seen the: "Homeless Vets before Illegals" posts as well, as though those populations are in a zero-sum bubble. I think ultimately FB is a place entirely unsuitable to nuanced debate. I have little ties to North Minneapolis, but have been watching with interest one former classmate who engages heavily in that community on the Jamar Clark news. I hate to say that, at least in the world of FB, there is as little room for understanding on the BLM side as among the 'Murica posts that I see for other issues. All the ignorance on these and other issues gives me angst and a desire to engage, but so far I'm remaining utterly convinced that no good could come of it.

      1. Your last sentence almost exactly describes my own feelings on FB or Twitter debates.

         1. FB, Twitter, comments sections in general. All black holes.
            Only this place do I find civil discussion.

            1. Maybe I've said this before, but I wish Facebook would implement some sort of rating feature that would allow users to vet articles for correctness and logical fallacies before they can show up in the trending list. It seems like only emotionally charged (and almost always flawed) articles trend, so there's little incentive for those sources to provide intellectually honest information.

               1. FZ?	SelectShow
                  If Texas doesn't bother, why should Facebook?

                  1. I laughed.

                  2. Ugh, texas.

               2. My suspicion is that if you pay advertising dollars to Facebook the more likely "trending" articles from your site appears on the sidebar.

               3. I must not click through those things. Because all my trending articles are celebrities*, sports, random science news.
                  *I need to stop clicking celebrity news just to go "Do I know who that is? Nope."

            2. I have had both productive and non-productive conversations on FB. It took me quite a while before I learned some tricks to having productive ones.

               The biggest trick was swallowing my ego. In fact, last night I was called out for my slightly careless statement* in a way I thought was incredibly cruel, but I acknowledged that what I said could be seen as careless* and pledged to do better. The conversation improved greatly from there, and someone who had previously been espousing a "keep all refugees away" position said "maybe we Christians should be welcoming them."

               * It was a very intentional statement that I made to a specific person because I knew what button it would push for him, and I waited a long time into the conversation to say it, because we hadn't gotten to that point yet, and I knew he wouldn't really take offense to it, so when I said it, it was probably just fine. Except that our conversation wasn't a private one, it was a public one, so someone else took offense. In that sense, it really was careless of me, and I'll have to be more aware of that in the future.

   2. Not a Direct response, but...

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      Generally speaking, I believe that these Veterans are not directly competing with immigrants or refugees for housing or other forms of assistance. My office has been aggressively working on the Veterans Homelessness issue. People are helping homeless Veterans. In Minnesota, we've trimmed the number to around 90 identified Veterans that are currently living without a sustainable residential plan. The progress that has been made is pretty amazing. What's also amazing is how much lip-service is paid to the theme/concept of ending Veteran Homelessness, and how little action there is (or how challenging the process becomes) when the circumstances that are preventing those remaining Veterans from finding a place is the reality of their uneven rental history, criminal backgrounds, mental health and/or chemical dependency issues. That we shouldn't take in refugees if we can't take care of our own is an easy quip, but it's not really accurate. Our society's choice is not really between one or the other; these aren't competing agendas. Your last sentence aligns with my perspective - well said.

      [edit] I should refresh more often.

      1. 'As a soldier, once'

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         Thank you for your services, then, Corn. This is good to hear. Blasphemery, I know, but I'm a little offended, maybe just irritated, at the notion that having served entitles ALL manner of benefits, spare no expense. We're a volunteer military, there's a contracts with commitments and benefits (have to caveaut this for draftees...). To the extent that transitioning out is difficult, or for service-related issues that remain, yes, the VA benefits and services are relevant. I love what a representative cross-section of our country that our military is, but that's also in both good and...not-so-good characters. Let's not go crazy in glorifying all soldiers and holding them up as an argument against other needs of society.

         1. As a Veteran and Serving Veterans...

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            Of all of the positive outcomes of the national effort to make sure Post-9/11 Veterans are not scorned and disparaged as Vietnam Vets were, the "Everyone Who Served is a Hero" meme is a byproduct that I don't find all that beneficial. Taking it back to what CH said, it feels like the label removes much of the critical thinking associated with social observations & public policy advocacy, i.e., Service Member = Hero -but- Immigrant/Welfare Recipient/Refugee, etc. = Dangerous Leech.

      2. I'm really glad to hear that Minnesota has made so much progress addressing the veteran homelessness issue. That's fantastic, and everyone involved in that effort deserves some major accolades. I'm not surprised – instead, I'm dismayed – that it's harder to get support lined up to address the factors exacerbating/creating the homelessness. We remain a very puritan society in the way we view personal troubles.

         1. Yes we do.

            1. This is in response to CH's "everyone involved in that effort deserves some major accolades", isn't it?

               1. Heh, no. It was in response to his last sentence -"We" as in society. Though yes, it fits the segment you've highlighted as well (except I would just say I'm thankful for even being affiliated with the folks who really deserves the major accolades rather than referring to the group as "we."

   3. FZ

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      Maybe I'm starting to turn blue, but I find myself bending the other way on the refugee argument (from others on my side of the aisle). Yes, I want our nation to be secure, but if we lose our humanity and compassion, what have we really gained? ISIS has maneuvered into a win-win situation. Their antics have pushed people from the Syria-Iraq region. This gives them perfect cover to sneak into other countries with the refugees. But, those countries that reject refugees are fostering a hostile environment toward Muslims that pushes some of them into joining with ISIS. (That's the argument I've heard anyway). I think we certainly have to be diligent and careful about who we allow into this country, but to just blanket-state that we should accept no refugees is not the answer I want to hear. And regarding the homeless vets side of it, I agree with whoever said it's a handy argument to shield from actually doing something about the refugees - a thinly veiled excuse. There's no reason we can't help both. With that said, one thing I actually agreed with Bernie on recently was when he said if we can't afford to take care of our veterans after war, we shouldn't send them to war. Like I said... maybe I'm turning blue.

      1. 'Spoiler'	SelectShow
         So...having compassion is turning blue

         1. Yes.

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      I'll echo what others have said here. Combatting homelessness is great. I worked for the VA for a time and I loved the resources available to my clients. And the notion that veterans deserve housing more than anyone else is disgusting. All people deserve housing, and we owe it to society to find ways to reduce the causes of homelessness.

6. T-Mobile is now offering to allow users to stream a number of different video services that won't count against your data usage, including MLB.tv and ESPNWatch.

   1. I believe Netflix too. Now everyone can N.a.C. without crazy data usage!

      1. Yeah, it's all the major streaming video services. I'm guessing they have a deal with these companies to get back some of the lost revenue for the free data.

7. My favorite perspective of this young season ... though I'm worried because, despite the logic laid out in the article, I can't get my head around the idea of starting Zach LaVine.

   1. I have a hard time understanding how anyone could think Lavine could possibly be a primary ball handler after watching him try to make an entry pass. Seems to me it's damaging to both his development and others around him. Off ball just makes so much more sense, so I'm totally on board with putting him in the starting lineup.

      KAT, though. More blocks than turnovers seems mind blowing to me.

8. If anyone in downtown Minneapolis is still around and looking for something to do, there's a Mayhem event at EagleBOLT Bar on (one of the) 5th and Washington. 5:30-8:30

9. I mentioned this on twitter but I do not follow the National League, especially the bottom feeder teams, all that closely. Two players Nolan Arenado and AJ Pollack got MVP votes and I have no idea who they are.

   1. Arenado hit 42 home runs! How did I not know this!

      1. He's also a very good defensive 3B.

   2. Pollack had 7.4 rWAR, so yeah, that's pretty MVP vote worthy, especially since MVP ballots have 10 spots on them.

10. I hate Jeff Gordon.

    1. I haven't watched a race since Dale died. I might catch this one.

       1. I've seen parts of races over the past 10 years, but my last NASCAR hurrah was watching from the stands as Jr. won the Daytona 500 in '04. Loved to hate Jeff Gordon, but I'll admit I'm pulling for the fairy tale ending.

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