99 thoughts on “April 15, 2016: Death and Taxes”

  1. The Twins are really having bad luck. Every time they start a series with someone, that team goes on a winning streak.

    1. I've been telling myself we've really just had a tough draw of teams to start the season.

      1. I think you can make an argument that the Twins have played some good teams, but it really doesn't excuse the way they've batted.

          1. Mauer has! Just him and Escobar though. The Twins really should consider using more than two batters.

            Rk Pos Name Age G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS ▾ OPS+ TB GDP HBP SH SF IBB
            1 1B Joe Mauer* 33 9 39 31 4 12 1 1 1 2 0 0 6 4 .387 .487 .581 1.068 209 18 1 1 0 1 1
            2 SS Eduardo Escobar# 27 9 36 34 2 11 4 0 0 2 0 1 2 10 .324 .361 .441 .802 132 15 0 0 0 0 1
            3 DH Byung-ho Park 29 7 28 25 2 4 1 0 1 1 0 0 2 13 .160 .250 .320 .570 64 8 0 1 0 0 0
            4 2B Brian Dozier 29 9 39 33 1 5 1 0 1 1 1 0 5 9 .152 .263 .273 .536 56 9 0 0 1 0 0
            5 3B Trevor Plouffe 30 9 32 31 1 5 1 0 1 2 0 0 1 8 .161 .188 .290 .478 36 9 1 0 0 0 0
            6 CF Byron Buxton 22 9 26 24 1 4 2 0 0 1 1 0 0 13 .167 .200 .250 .450 30 6 0 1 1 0 0
            7 C Kurt Suzuki 32 6 22 19 0 2 1 1 0 2 0 0 2 3 .105 .182 .263 .445 27 5 0 0 0 1 0
            8 RF Miguel Sano 23 9 34 28 1 4 0 0 0 1 0 0 6 15 .143 .294 .143 .437 33 4 0 0 0 0 0
            9 LF Eddie Rosario* 24 9 32 30 2 5 2 0 0 1 1 0 1 10 .167 .194 .233 .427 24 7 0 0 1 0 0

            200 points in OPS dropoff from Mauer to Escobar and another 230 points from Escobar to Park.

            Early season fun with a team that can't score: Mauer has scored double the number of runs as anyone else. The only players to have triples are, of course, Mauer and Suzuki.

              1. might be about time for us to have a discussion about his HOF prospects again.

                He's at 48.5 rWAR for his career. 1 MVP, 6 AS games, 3 batting titles. On JAWS measures, he's right around the career averages for a HOF catcher.

                I don't think he's a HOFer yet, in part because of all the ridiculously negative press he's faced locally for so much of his career. But two or three more good seasons at the plate would move him way up in the career rWAR for position players rankings and likely lead to him catching Harmon Killebrew (60.4; Joe is at 48.5) before he retires. And allow local attitudes to mellow sufficiently.

                he's no Johnny Bench, but he probably will deserve to be a HOFer when all is said and done.

                1. Let's not forget those batting titles were as a catcher too. I mean, that puts him in the discussion for best offensive catchers of all time. He isn't Bench, but he's... one of the best batting catchers. The move to first hurt, of course, but he has as many batting titles as a catcher as all others catchers in all of baseball history combined.

                2. No Bench, perhaps, but very nearly Mickey Cochrane at this point. Cochrane has 52.1 rWAR to Mauer's 48.5.

                  JAWS has Mauer as the 9th best catcher All-Time right now. He's appreciably ahead of Ted Simmons, Gabby Hartnett, Thurman Munson, Gene Tenace, Bill Freehan, and (most importantly?) Jorge Posada. Raising his JAWS from 43.5 to 45 moves him past Cochrane into a tie with Bill Dickey for 7th.

            2. It figures that they would get off to the worst start in franchise history while Joe hits at pre-concussion levels.

                1. I'd check the Strib to find out, but I don't think jamming sharp sticks in my eyes would help my quality of life.

                2. I mentioned to my dad, a Mauer truther, his performance in relation to the rest of the team. All he said the team really needs to start picking it up.

  2. This morning on the Effectively Wild podcast they had Aaron Gleeman and Alex Remington (Braves) on to debate which team has had the most depressing start. Lots of fun, and I think Alex made the better case. I would not want to be a Braves fan right now. I'm impressed none of them mentioned 1991 the entire podcast.

    1. Age could have something to do with it. Aaron is only a bit older than me and I barely remember the '91 World Series, though you could blame my parents for that.

      1. Same. My mom made me go to bed for most of the games (my dad did put his foot down for games six and seven, though...I sadly still don't remember much about them).

      3. Possibly. I was only 7 for the 87 World Series, and while I barely remember watching it, I vividly remember the 180 times I watched the 1987 World Series highlight video and played RBI Baseball with the 87 Twins, so I still think about the team a lot.

      4. Does anyone else remember the song "Drive Time '91"? I'm pretty sure I still have 95% of it memorized, including the rap of (most of) the 25-man roster. It was one of the last tracks on my cassette tape of radio highlights from the '91 season. I wonder if I still have that somewhere...

  3. AMR, that was unexpected.

    Also unexpected was the dead bird (something small and dark gray-ish, I didn't look closely) on the 3rd Ave. sidewalk, midway down the block.

    1. I've been cutting through Cancer Survivors' Park many mornings to see how long the overwintering White-throated Sparrows stick around.
      I had a window-stunned Dark-eyed Junco there yesterday. Sounds like the window-kill you saw was the same species. About 75% of them in my neighborhood left two nights ago and 75% of the remainder left last night.
      (Net change. Could be 100% departure with 25% replacement.)

      1. Heh. It was my first day of 2016 without any jacket, so I was curious if you'd be similarly unburdened by outerwear.

        In truth, I barely noticed what you were wearing. I recognize you by silhouette and gait alone at this point, and what with the need to maintain discretion, I can't be seen studying your appearance too closely. (That said, if you didn't notice my pants today, you've got to be colorblind.)

        1. I've worn shorts the last two days, and it's been glorious. Not to mention rugby last night without needing sleeves and being able to feel my hands.

        2. Crap, I didn't. But I'm not colorblind. Was your bag on that side, maybe obscuring said pants?
          I didn't really expect to see you there, either.

          The claret coat is pretty distinct, but there is another blond woman on those blocks who wears one and also carries a green bag at times. A bit taller than you though, with longer hair, never pulled back. She was behind me and followed me off Nicollet and up the Cancer Survivor's Park steps last week and I freaked out that you were following me and blowing our cover.

      2. Or did you not expect the casual-Friday Canadian Tuxedo?

        (That said, if you didn't notice my pants today, you've got to be colorblind.)

        Damn it, where's DPWY to creep that picture?

    1. Relatedly, I discovered baseballsavant which allows you to search the PitchF/X database and generate spray charts for players (check under Applications). That site says its unaffiliated with MLB but then there's an MLB version now by the same person and with the same name. That site allows you to search the Statcast data and download the raw data for the pitches and batted ball.

      That same person has a version for the NBA and NFL too.

      1. The opposite. These are only boxscores and don't include any prose describing the game. My intention is to make it easier for anyone else (or maybe you!) to write recaps. All the games of the day are there with links to the games themselves.

        1. You just click on "box" to get the box score and "recap" to get the play-by-play. That's what I usually use to write the recaps.

  6. It is pretty exciting to have LaVelle starting the "maybe the Twins miss Torii's leadership more than we thought" narrative so early in the season.

    2. Guy '14 fWAR '15 fWAR Difference
      Hicks 0.1 1.5 +1.4
      Nunez 0.1 1.1 +1.0
      Arcia 0.9 0.0 -0.9
      Escobar 2.4 1.5 -0.9
      Plouffe 3.6 2.5 -1.1
      Vargas 0.5 -0.6 -1.1
      Dozier 4.7 3.4 -1.3
      Mauer 1.7 0.3 -1.4
      Suzuki 2.0 -0.1 -2.1
      Santana 3.3 -1.4 -4.7

      Torii's leadership definitely improved the team!

      NB: I included Arcia since Hunter effectively replaced him on the roster. Hunter was worth 0.5 fWAR last year, so maybe this should be -0.4? I'll just chalk it up to intangibles.

  7. So . . . death. If anyone has thoughts on how to let a 5-year-old know that his grandfather's death is imminent, please let me know. Mr. NaCl's father was quite healthy two weeks ago, and then he had a hemorrhage in his brain, followed by a stroke a week later. He's 84 and has had a good life, but it'll be the jalapeno's first experience with the death of someone he's known well. This is all happening from a distance, so while the jalapeno has some sense of his grandfather's condition, it's not something he can see with his own eyes.

    I'll need to talk with the 2-year-old as well, but his comprehension of these matters is at a different level, so I think it mostly won't register for him.

    Also, if anyone has tips on how to talk about something sad without starting to cry, please share! (Guys are good at the whole not-crying thing, right?)

    2. Do you really want to talk about it without crying? That seems to be an appropriate time to show that adults do cry.

      1. This. I think honesty is the best policy here. My folks were upfront with us when people close to the family passed away. Details weren't necessary, but honestly showing us their grief was a great lesson and has informed how I've dealt with death going forward. I think the fact that they trusted us with an emotional release has allowed their children to seek appropriate coping mechanisms.

        1. Co-sign all of this, especially if Mr.NaCl is the one who tells them. One of the most powerful things boys can see is a man they respect being willing to exhibit the emotional vulnerability that comes with tears.

      2. I see your point. I guess what I don't want to do is cry so much that he's worried about me. Because once I get started, I have a hard time reining in the tears.

        1. Whenever my wife cries, my son says, "What's wrong, Mommy?" and she'll say she's sad. Then he'll say, "Mommy happy!" Surprisingly, that often helps.

    3. Uh... I'll shoot you an e-mail here before long. Sorry to hear about it. Prayers for your family.

    4. We recently had a similar conversation (for even a similar ailment) with our kids a couple weeks ago regarding one of our dogs. (And to I don't mean to imply that the impact of the loss of a grandparent compares to the loss of a dog; just similar conversations.)

      The 2 year old had very little comprehension of what we were talking about. My father died when our oldest was 2, and he could understand that it was sad, but didn't fully get what it meant, of course.

      With our almost 5 year old, we talked with him about what was going on with our dog, and tried to be as clear and honest as possible, telling him that our dog is sick, that she probably isn't going to get better, and that she will probably die soon. He seemed to understand for the most part, and dealt with it well. He was of course sad, as were my wife and I. There were certainly tears involved, from me, my wife, and our son. But, as others have said, I don't think that's a bad thing. It doesn't seem to me that hiding my own feelings, even sadness and tears, would help him now or in the future. My wife and I both feel that it's good to show kids that it's ok to not be happy all the time, that it's ok to be sad, and that it's ok to cry.

      1. We've thought about the distant future when my daughter's dog (a rescue) eventually passes (and she will definitely be heartbroken), and the thing that buoys us is considering how much we've done to make the dog's life better when she was with us, and vise versa. I think Rows probably has a lot more insight into this.

    5. I was just a little older than the jalapeño is when my maternal grandfather died. I honestly don't remember how my parents told me; I remember him being sick, being in his room at Mayo near the end, the grief of my older cousins, what I wore to the funeral, things like that.

      I'll be thinking of you & your family, Pepper.

    6. I don't really have anything to add, but I do agree that honesty is best. If you're religious, it might be a good time to discuss, in an age-appropriate way, what your faith believes happens after death. You and your family are in our prayers.

  8. NBA getting uniform ads starting in 2017.
    [vomit emoticon]

    For all Selig's problems, I was at least sure he'd save baseball from that. Will Manfred?

    2. I need the Democratic Republic of the Congo to revert back to Zaire. And the Republic of the Congo to become, I don't know, maybe Zaire-lite.

        1. When you pick South Sudan as your moniker, you are inviting invective. How about Nilotia, Nubia, or Equatoria?

    3. I keep wondering what Vaclav Havel would have to say about this. A friend who teaches Havel (and Czech) remarked that it sounds like a bunch of Russians decided to rename the country.

      1. It has been quite an anomaly, particularly in that part of the world: a nation-state without a name for its nation (other than the state's name).
        What are the other options? "Czechland" sounds like an Anglo-Germanic renaming. "Czechistan"? "Czecha"?
        I guess that if a euphonious solution had been apparent, it would have already been accepted.

  11. Question for someone who knows more about this stuff than I do:

    Yesterday, chrome wasn't working on my desktop. Said it was being blocked by a firewall or somesuch. When I went to open my Norton product to see if I could figure anything out, it refused to load. Restarted my computer, didn't get back to it yesterday though. Today, chrome works. But firefox doesn't (firefox worked yesterday), and same problem with Norton. Anyone?

    2. I've had stuff like this happen to me before and I never know the real reason why it happens, so I usually just run a lot of adware removal programs and the like until the problem goes away.

      1. That's my usual too, but not being able to access the Norton is irritating. Nothing else seems to be wrong though.

        1. I've liked AdwCleaner as a quick and dirty aware removal. Lately, though, I get more and more wary of whether or not anything ever really cleans these things.

          Were there any strange website pop-ups leading up to the realization that things were wonky?

          1. Not that I'm aware of, but it's very possible. Philosofette has been searching the interwebs high and low for resources for various student teaching things, images for power points, etc. She fully acknowledges that she could have gone to less-than-trustworthy sites. So...

            I've run MalwareBytes, but that didn't do the trick. I'll give your tool a try. Thanks.

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