“Not many people in the history of sports have said, ‘Everyone get on my back,’ ” Cleveland’s Richard Jefferson said. “The city, state, organization, team … ‘Get on my back. If we win or fail, I’ll take the blame – but I’m going to lead you.’ How many people have ever said that? I can’t think of too many players who have put that type of pressure on themselves and then have delivered more times than not. And he embraces it …
I'm torn on who to root for. On one hand, I hate it when all time great teams get relegated to losers (07 Patriots, 01 Mariners). On the other, it would be nice if the city of Cleveland had a nice sports thing for once.
Guys, help me make a decision.
I like LeBron, always have. I like when teams are historically good, and eclipsing a hated (by me anyway) Bulls team if it happens would also be nice.
I'll just hope for a competitive Game 7 and then stay away from all the hot takes in the media for the next forever.
Yeah, I watched the 4th quarter last night and LeBron is just amazing. I think at one point he scored like 20 straight points for them and bad a huge one-on-one block on the other end.
I generally wish well for LeBron because I feel like he's faced impossible expectations since he was 16-17 years old and miraculously he's nearly lived up to the impossible expectations.
I mean, when you're in high school, and people are comparing you to Michael Jordan, and the big knock on you is that you've been to the NBA Finals 6 times and "only" won 2 of them, I don't think you have anything to feel bad about.
And I generally hate comparing elite players--since almost all elite players have a bit of a different style--but if we're putting James' Finals record up against Jordan, when do we talk about coaches? Here are the coaching match-ups in all of James' Finals appearances:
Mike Brown vs. Gregg Popovich
Erik Spoelstra vs. Rick Carlisle
Erik Spoelstra vs. Scott Brooks
Erik Spoelstra vs. Gregg Popovich
Erik Spoelstra vs. Gregg Popovich
David Blatt vs. Steve Kerr
Tyronn Lue vs. Steve Kerr
Maybe I'm crazy, but I'd take Popovich, Kerr, and Phil Jackson over Spoelstra, Brown, Lue or Blatt without even thinking twice about it.
If the Cavaliers win, will Cleveland still exist on Monday? The city may explode from the euphoria release.
If Cleveland does survive there is always the RNC to finish it off.
I've been rooting for history all season and I'm not about to give that up now. Plus I've been pretty annoyed by the sudden 180 the internets have done since game four.
Also, screw Cleveland. They don't really deserve good sports things until the baseball team goes back to being the spiders.
How about they just go back to being the Naps?
I still want them to be the Rocks.
Drew Carey is too busy for that.
thanks Cheaps. I was leaning that way and this helps. I just listen and read a lot of Posnanski and he's from Cleveland so I've been pulled too far in the other direction
Also, isn't Cleveland the only city with a longer championship drought than the Twin Cities*?
* non-WNBA edition
We're way down the list. Reading down the list, I think if you limit it to cities with at least three teams then MSP is second. San Diego sort of counts for first there but they lost the third team midway through their drought.
I'm happy for Arcia.
Definitely a guy that needs a fresh start.
Same. I hope he finds his place on a club that can use him. He still might not pan out, but it feels like he should've gotten a chance to play on a more consistent basis.
Decided to look up Arcia's and Ortiz's career progressions after the comparison last night. It's not quite the same.
Season
Ortiz OPS+
Arcia OPS+
1
108
100
2
111
108
3
-43
97
4
101
78
Ortiz had 880 PAs through his fourth season at age 24. Arcia had 967 PAs part way through his fourth season. Ortiz's third season stick outs but he only had 10 PAs. When he was let go, he had just posted his best season yet, not his worst season.
I don't believe Arcia will turn into David Ortiz (not by a long shot), but I hope he turns into a serviceable platoon player for some team.
Worked for Valencia. And then he figured out how to hit righties too.
Maybe Arcia should sign with Boston. I hear there's something in the water there.
And there's an opening.
Arcia, Escobar, Plouffe, Santana, Murphy, and Rosario all are sporting significantly negative rWARs this season. But then, so are several pitchers on the roster....
What's bizarre is the historically out-of-nowhere great seasons from Nunez and Grossman. Nunez's defense is keeping him from having that great of a WAR, but at least offensively, other than Mauer, those 2 are the only ones that are even living up to career expectations, which means 8 of 9 players expected to be the starters at their position for the season are below expectations (well, I guess many expected Suzuki to continue to be really bad). I guess it was hard to know what to expect from Park, but he seems to be going backwards now. Then there's the pitching staff, which is really bad. Tommy Milone was cast off early in the season and his 5.79 ERA is better than both Hughes and Gibson. Nolasco's ERA+ of 83, although the best since signing with the Twins, would still be the worst of his career for a full season prior to joining the Twins. Ervin Santana is the anti-Giant. He has good years in odd seasons. But if he's going to have a bad season, might as well be this year.
Also, the PR says Grossman is hot (and Mom confirmed) so he should probably be kept around so she stays interested.
I would broaden the comparison to look at strikeouts and walks. If you look at Ortiz, let's throw out '97 and '99, since he had 51 and 25 PA in those seasons respectively. So then you have:
Ortiz struck out an awful lot less and walked a good bit more. I think that any time you get to that 30% SO%, or even high 20s, you're pushing the limits on "a strike out is just another kind of out." Especially if you have 9 strikeouts for every 2 walks.
tl;dr
1.8 SO/BB -- Ortiz with Twins
4.5 SO/BB -- Arcia with Twins
I do hope this means Kepler continues to play almost every day, if the team regularly starts Santana in a corner OF spot (or in place of Buxton) then I think it will be time for Molitor to go.
We're well past that time for everybody in management for this team.
Danny Santana starts in LF today, TWINS BASEBALL
Has anyone checked to see if maybe TR is a performance artist?
Life-saving beer! And a lot of mosquitoes.
This story has everything!
"a long, tall, very, very skinny wolf" There's the problem!
inb4 JeffA: Bears are cool.
Forgot to mention, I got invited to see Garrison Keillor's (last) live performance of A Prairie Home Companion at the Fabulous Fox tomorrow. The only other time I've seen him live was at his Third Annual Farewell Performance at the Universal Amphitheater in LA.
After last night, I have now logged 124 major league games I have attended* into SportsPassport, and the only pitcher I've seen strikeout more batters than Captain Cheeseburger is BRadke. For a never-Twin, that's amazing.
*there are more, but it haven't been able to verify which ones with certainty yet
Oooh, that's cool. I'm gonna see what I can do from memory
"I played football in high school, but I had a pretty good arm. Could of definitely started if I wanted to. If my arm was sore, you know what I'd do? Pitch. Labrums aren't even real, I bet. Just some PC bullcrap that's making us soft."
Could of definitely started...
Reminds me of a survey I took yesterday which (twice) had wincing grammar similar to "He should try and steal second."
Yes, but because it's a quote and because Randball's Stu is so great, I'm comfortable in thinking it was intentional.
Right, unlike the yahoo who coded up the survey.
So now that Wright is out for the season, it's time to trade Plouffe! for deGrom, right?
Who would want him? Suzuki has a better OPS than Plouffe right now.
Plouffe has been so bad that you would have to wonder why the Twins would offer him a contract for next year (I believe 3rd year arb eligible), which would mean if the Twins are just going to release him, then the decision not to trade him and stick Sano in RF was really bad and would be compounded if they continue to play Plouffe when Sano returns and bench one of Kepler, Buxton or Grossman (or Park if one of those DHs).
Is he hurt or something? I wouldn't expect a 30-year-old to drop off a cliff so badly. Walks and power are both down more than you would expect just from getting a year older.
His numbers were pretty good before he hit the DL.
Aha, I missed that he went on the DL earlier in the season. I'd bet he's injured but given the Twins' toxic culture around injuries, he's just gutting it out to the teams' detriment.
He's also playing essentially every day, which can't help to heal a nagging injury. I looked up intercostal strains on an internet search and here's what I came across:
An intercostal strain can occur either suddenly (e.g. from a forceful bowl, particularly if not warmed up properly) or gradually over time from excessive or repetitive activity (e.g. overtraining). They most commonly occur due to a sudden contraction of the intercostal muscles when they are in a position of stretch (such as during the fast bowling action) or during other activities involving excessive side bending or twisting forces.
In athletes, intercostal strains are most commonly seen in cricket (fast bowlers), javelin throwers, rowers and ice hockey players. Occasionally they may occur traumatically due to a direct impact to the ribs, forcing the ribs apart such as a collision in contact sports or due to a motor vehicle accident.
So basically, a strained intercostal should be no big deal unless you want to throw or hit.
Something has to give with this roster, it would be crazy to keep trying Sano in RF and there isn't room at 1B or DH.
There is no reason to allow someone of Plouffe's caliber to block one of the team's top prospects from playing the only 'natural' position left for him to try on the diamond. Maybe Sano will prove to be just a DH, but I would like to see him have a shot at holding down 3B for at least a few years.
If the team is willing to DFA Arcia, then why not DFA Plouffe if it turns out no one is interested in giving up a minor prospect for him?
UZR and DRS both like Sano in the very short amount of time he's been at third. It's just +1, but it's plus-one.
USMNT game last night was awesome. Now I've seen Dempsey score in person for club and country.
Magoo and I once saw him score for country.
Clint Dempsey has scored in every USMNT match I've attended:
v. England at Soldier Field - his 1st int'l goal
v. Brazil at Soldier Field
v. TnT at Toyota in the WCQ mentioned by DPWY
Hey! I'm going to the Twins game next Thursday with work. Not a small group: the whole office! So I can meet other people, if anyone will be there.
It'll be Glen Perkins Baseball Card Giveaway Day! To all fans in attendance!
Dozier's dumping his collection, eh?
Aw, too bad . . . I had a chance to go to that game but opted for July 6 instead!
Hey, snag one for me!
It was, you may recall, a frayed labrum that drove Brad Radke into retirement at age 33. Perkins happens to be 33 now himself.
LeBron James channeling his inner Kirby
I'm torn on who to root for. On one hand, I hate it when all time great teams get relegated to losers (07 Patriots, 01 Mariners). On the other, it would be nice if the city of Cleveland had a nice sports thing for once.
Guys, help me make a decision.
I like LeBron, always have. I like when teams are historically good, and eclipsing a hated (by me anyway) Bulls team if it happens would also be nice.
I'll just hope for a competitive Game 7 and then stay away from all the hot takes in the media for the next forever.
Yeah, I watched the 4th quarter last night and LeBron is just amazing. I think at one point he scored like 20 straight points for them and bad a huge one-on-one block on the other end.
I generally wish well for LeBron because I feel like he's faced impossible expectations since he was 16-17 years old and miraculously he's nearly lived up to the impossible expectations.
I mean, when you're in high school, and people are comparing you to Michael Jordan, and the big knock on you is that you've been to the NBA Finals 6 times and "only" won 2 of them, I don't think you have anything to feel bad about.
And I generally hate comparing elite players--since almost all elite players have a bit of a different style--but if we're putting James' Finals record up against Jordan, when do we talk about coaches? Here are the coaching match-ups in all of James' Finals appearances:
Mike Brown vs. Gregg Popovich
Erik Spoelstra vs. Rick Carlisle
Erik Spoelstra vs. Scott Brooks
Erik Spoelstra vs. Gregg Popovich
Erik Spoelstra vs. Gregg Popovich
David Blatt vs. Steve Kerr
Tyronn Lue vs. Steve Kerr
Maybe I'm crazy, but I'd take Popovich, Kerr, and Phil Jackson over Spoelstra, Brown, Lue or Blatt without even thinking twice about it.
If the Cavaliers win, will Cleveland still exist on Monday? The city may explode from the euphoria release.
If Cleveland does survive there is always the RNC to finish it off.
I've been rooting for history all season and I'm not about to give that up now. Plus I've been pretty annoyed by the sudden 180 the internets have done since game four.
Also, screw Cleveland. They don't really deserve good sports things until the baseball team goes back to being the spiders.
How about they just go back to being the Naps?
I still want them to be the Rocks.
Drew Carey is too busy for that.
thanks Cheaps. I was leaning that way and this helps. I just listen and read a lot of Posnanski and he's from Cleveland so I've been pulled too far in the other direction
Also, isn't Cleveland the only city with a longer championship drought than the Twin Cities*?
* non-WNBA edition
We're way down the list. Reading down the list, I think if you limit it to cities with at least three teams then MSP is second. San Diego sort of counts for first there but they lost the third team midway through their drought.
I'm happy for Arcia.
Definitely a guy that needs a fresh start.
Same. I hope he finds his place on a club that can use him. He still might not pan out, but it feels like he should've gotten a chance to play on a more consistent basis.
Decided to look up Arcia's and Ortiz's career progressions after the comparison last night. It's not quite the same.
Ortiz had 880 PAs through his fourth season at age 24. Arcia had 967 PAs part way through his fourth season. Ortiz's third season stick outs but he only had 10 PAs. When he was let go, he had just posted his best season yet, not his worst season.
I don't believe Arcia will turn into David Ortiz (not by a long shot), but I hope he turns into a serviceable platoon player for some team.
Worked for Valencia. And then he figured out how to hit righties too.
Maybe Arcia should sign with Boston. I hear there's something in the water there.
And there's an opening.
Arcia, Escobar, Plouffe, Santana, Murphy, and Rosario all are sporting significantly negative rWARs this season. But then, so are several pitchers on the roster....
What's bizarre is the historically out-of-nowhere great seasons from Nunez and Grossman. Nunez's defense is keeping him from having that great of a WAR, but at least offensively, other than Mauer, those 2 are the only ones that are even living up to career expectations, which means 8 of 9 players expected to be the starters at their position for the season are below expectations (well, I guess many expected Suzuki to continue to be really bad). I guess it was hard to know what to expect from Park, but he seems to be going backwards now. Then there's the pitching staff, which is really bad. Tommy Milone was cast off early in the season and his 5.79 ERA is better than both Hughes and Gibson. Nolasco's ERA+ of 83, although the best since signing with the Twins, would still be the worst of his career for a full season prior to joining the Twins. Ervin Santana is the anti-Giant. He has good years in odd seasons. But if he's going to have a bad season, might as well be this year.
Also, the PR says Grossman is hot (and Mom confirmed) so he should probably be kept around so she stays interested.
I would broaden the comparison to look at strikeouts and walks. If you look at Ortiz, let's throw out '97 and '99, since he had 51 and 25 PA in those seasons respectively. So then you have:
1998 - Age 22 - 2.8% HR%, 22.1% SO%, 12.0% BB%, 8.9% XBH%
2000 - Age 24 - 2.1% HR%, 17.0% SO%, 11.9% BB%, 9.8% XBH%
2001 - Age 25 - 5.2% HR%, 19.6% SO%, 11.5% BB%, 10.4% XBH%
2002 - Age 26 - 4.3% HR%, 18.7% SO%, 9.2% BB%, 11.4% XBH%
Throwing out Arcia's 65 PA 2015, you have:
2013 - Age 22, 3.7% HR%, 31.0% SO%, 6.1% BB%, 8.7% XBH%
2014 - Age 23, 4.9% HR%, 31.0% SO%, 7.6% BB%, 9.5% XBH%
2016 - Age 25, 3.5% HR%, 40.4% SO%, 8.8% BB%, 7.0% XBH%
Ortiz struck out an awful lot less and walked a good bit more. I think that any time you get to that 30% SO%, or even high 20s, you're pushing the limits on "a strike out is just another kind of out." Especially if you have 9 strikeouts for every 2 walks.
tl;dr
1.8 SO/BB -- Ortiz with Twins
4.5 SO/BB -- Arcia with Twins
I do hope this means Kepler continues to play almost every day, if the team regularly starts Santana in a corner OF spot (or in place of Buxton) then I think it will be time for Molitor to go.
We're well past that time for everybody in management for this team.
Danny Santana starts in LF today, TWINS BASEBALL
Has anyone checked to see if maybe TR is a performance artist?
Mushrooms and wolves and bears. Oh my.
and beer!
Life-saving beer! And a lot of mosquitoes.
This story has everything!
"a long, tall, very, very skinny wolf" There's the problem!
inb4 JeffA: Bears are cool.
Forgot to mention, I got invited to see Garrison Keillor's (last) live performance of A Prairie Home Companion at the Fabulous Fox tomorrow. The only other time I've seen him live was at his Third Annual Farewell Performance at the Universal Amphitheater in LA.
After last night, I have now logged 124 major league games I have attended* into SportsPassport, and the only pitcher I've seen strikeout more batters than Captain Cheeseburger is BRadke. For a never-Twin, that's amazing.
*there are more, but it haven't been able to verify which ones with certainty yet
Oooh, that's cool. I'm gonna see what I can do from memory
Randball's Stu made me laugh again.
Could of definitely started...
Reminds me of a survey I took yesterday which (twice) had wincing grammar similar to "He should try and steal second."
Yes, but because it's a quote and because Randball's Stu is so great, I'm comfortable in thinking it was intentional.
Right, unlike the yahoo who coded up the survey.
So now that Wright is out for the season, it's time to trade Plouffe! for deGrom, right?
Who would want him? Suzuki has a better OPS than Plouffe right now.
Plouffe has been so bad that you would have to wonder why the Twins would offer him a contract for next year (I believe 3rd year arb eligible), which would mean if the Twins are just going to release him, then the decision not to trade him and stick Sano in RF was really bad and would be compounded if they continue to play Plouffe when Sano returns and bench one of Kepler, Buxton or Grossman (or Park if one of those DHs).
Is he hurt or something? I wouldn't expect a 30-year-old to drop off a cliff so badly. Walks and power are both down more than you would expect just from getting a year older.
His numbers were pretty good before he hit the DL.
Aha, I missed that he went on the DL earlier in the season. I'd bet he's injured but given the Twins' toxic culture around injuries, he's just gutting it out to the teams' detriment.
He's also playing essentially every day, which can't help to heal a nagging injury. I looked up intercostal strains on an internet search and here's what I came across:
So basically, a strained intercostal should be no big deal unless you want to throw or hit.
Something has to give with this roster, it would be crazy to keep trying Sano in RF and there isn't room at 1B or DH.
There is no reason to allow someone of Plouffe's caliber to block one of the team's top prospects from playing the only 'natural' position left for him to try on the diamond. Maybe Sano will prove to be just a DH, but I would like to see him have a shot at holding down 3B for at least a few years.
If the team is willing to DFA Arcia, then why not DFA Plouffe if it turns out no one is interested in giving up a minor prospect for him?
UZR and DRS both like Sano in the very short amount of time he's been at third. It's just +1, but it's plus-one.
USMNT game last night was awesome. Now I've seen Dempsey score in person for club and country.
Magoo and I once saw him score for country.
Clint Dempsey has scored in every USMNT match I've attended:
v. England at Soldier Field - his 1st int'l goal
v. Brazil at Soldier Field
v. TnT at Toyota in the WCQ mentioned by DPWY
Hey! I'm going to the Twins game next Thursday with work. Not a small group: the whole office! So I can meet other people, if anyone will be there.
It'll be Glen Perkins Baseball Card Giveaway Day! To all fans in attendance!
Dozier's dumping his collection, eh?
Aw, too bad . . . I had a chance to go to that game but opted for July 6 instead!
Hey, snag one for me!