I have a week off starting Sunday. Yesterday was so slow, there were times I forgot I was at work anyway.
40 thoughts on “September 28, 2016: Vacation from What?”
I left my house at 6:50 yesterday and got to work at 8:40. Today we left at 6:30 and got to work at 7:40. It's amazing how much traffic was different for only 20 minutes departure time.
Speaking of vacation, the four of us here in CO took a long leisurely drive along through a good part of Rocky Mountain National Park, and let me tell you that you can't swing a cat without hitting an elk. They were on the roadway, they were in parking lots, they were with deer, they were on mountain glens where three bulls trumpeted and approached another bull elk's herd only to get chased off or to think twice and wander away. The aspen has turned and make a beautiful splash of yellow or light orange against the pines, and the higher elevations still had snow from the weekend. Today we're going back to do some hiking.
Last night at Poppy's Pizza & Grill, the beer glasses were inscribed with Beer and Pizza go together like
Romeo & Juliet
Clark & Lois
Westley & Buttercup
If you end up in the area, Roaming Buffalo BBQ won a best Denver BBQ award from a paper out there last year, and the owners are good friends. You'd want to get there early, as they sell out every day.
Added this year's MLB predictions be the citizenry to the Achievements page. I wanted to see how we did as a nation and allotted two points for each predicted division winner and one for the wild card.
Our predictions:
League
East
Central
West
Wild Card 1
Wild Card 2
AL
Toronto (21 pts)
Kansas City (18)
Houston (21)
Cleveland (10)
Minnesota (10)
NL
Washington (19 pts)
Chicago (21)
Los Angeles (19)
New York (16)
San Francisco (14)
We did not do well for the AL. Toronto has a chance to win the division but tiny. That means we completely whiffed the division winners. Division leaders Boston had eight points (two predicted a division win and four a wild card spot) and Texas had seven points (two and three respectively). Baltimore had seven points, same breakdown as Texas. Let's not mention Minnesota.
We nailed the NL, completely. Going by points, we predicted Chicago, Washington / Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco. Going by actual record so far, we have: Chicago, Washington, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco. We had Pittsburgh next at ten points and St. Louis at eight points.
I believe I already have it wrapped up this year.
Need to swap highlighting on Dodgers/Giants though
Could've sworn I made picks. Apparently not. Instead I'll make comments from my peanut gallery.
"Hoooooooo BOY, those AL ROY picks!!!"
In my defense, what I put for NL, "Some Cub", was disqualified. So a Twin whose name I know was more likely to be right than that.
wait, what? I won something once??? w0000000t!
Ricky Nolasco, disaster in MN, has a 1.4 rWAR in 73 innings in LA. He had zero scoreless starts with the Twins this year. He has three with the Angels.
They also signed Deolis Guerra and he's been okay for them in low-leverage relief. In 52.1 innings, he has a 3.27 ERA and 0.3 rWAR. He does have four blown saves in all four of his high leverage appearances.
...huzzah.
His FIP for the Angels is worse than it was last year. His ERA is better than his FIP. He hasn't done that for a full season since 2008. I'd be more concerned if it was Alex Meyer doing well, but he's still walking 6 per 9 IP for the Angels.
His ERA is better than his FIP.
So the Twins traded Nolasco, renown for his FIP being lower than his ERA, for Hector Santiago, who has a better ERA than FIP. Then Nolasco turns into Santiago for the second time in his career.
Of course, Nolasco's ERA for the full season is still worse than his FIP for the full season. He's probably had other stretches like this in his career that are just kind of invisible because we don't often see things broken out into 11-game increments.
"Vacation" + Cup of Coffee --> Dido makes sense to me because somehow this is the Dido track I've most listened to in my life.
Found this photo from the 1985 All Star Game while looking for something else this morning:
Really too bad that they couldn't have found a way to get Hrbek, 1984's runner-up for MVP, on that All-Star team playing in Minnesota. Hrbek had a poor first half and Bruno had a big first half to get selected for the only AS game of his career.
When it came to contemporaneous recognition or appreciation of his skills & accomplishments, Hrbek generally got hosed. In 1985, his 15.0 rWAR before age-25 put him 4h among Expansion Era first basemen, behind Murray, K. Hernandez, and Jason Thompson. Unfortunately, Murray was still in Baltimore and Mattingly was in the middle of his second 6-win season in '85. (If you're curious, in 1985 Hrbek was 57th in rWAR among all position players through age-25, sandwiched between Winfield & Carew.)
My guess is the two World Championships make up for that.
As I recall it, Hrbek thought he had been unfairly overlooked for the all-star game early in his career and so refused to participate in it after that.
That is correct, he boycotted. Don Freakin' Mattingly
Pretty cool - thanks for sharing. Winfield was a big man.
When Molitor retired in 1998 only 21 players had hit 500+ doubles and earned 1000+ walks. Two of them are in that photo above, and only two of them were born in the same city. That might be one of the things I appreciate most about baseball – a guy Winfield's size and a guy Molitor's size can wind up on a list combining power & speed, intimidation & finesse.
Today that list is up to 34 players, and three cities have multiple hometown representatives. St. Paul (2), New York (3), and Donora, Penn (2).
Mauer needs 135 more doubles and 178 more walks. Assuming this was through 2013 Mauer, that means he would need five more seasons to reach the threshold.
The list is up to 42 players, not 34, and at least two other cities have multiple players: Santo Domingo, DR (3) & Maracay, Venezuela (2).
You know what the greatest thing ever is? Getting into the office after being gone for three days for a conference, only to learn that you were supposed to have flown out that morning (for another presentation but never made the travel arrangements). Awesome.
But did you remember your shirt?
that I managed to accomplish this morning. Oy.
According to B-Ref, Ryan Howard will likely win the Carter-Batista Award this year as the league leader in HR of players posting an OPS+ below 90. He needs 2 more homers to tie Brandon Inge for 6th all-time, but can't gain more than 2 points of OPS+ in the process.
AMR: today at Rocky Mountain National Park -- Stellar's Jay and Gray Jay (as well as Brook Trout, elk, chipmunk, and mule deer)
At a picnic location I'd guess. I remember them thick there, perched above the tables on branches just out of arm's reach, waiting for any morsel to drop. (Or be left unguarded on the table.)
Gray Jays are also known as "Camp Robbers" (and "Whiskeyjacks", too... but that's an Anglicization of an Anishinaabe word).
We saw them mostly around water, but they certainly were not bothered greatly by the hikers to paused to watch them.
I remember a picnic spot on the western side of the park, near the Never Summer Mountains.
Just looked at the map. I think it was Lake Irene. There were Bighorn Sheep on a knoll across the road.
I left my house at 6:50 yesterday and got to work at 8:40. Today we left at 6:30 and got to work at 7:40. It's amazing how much traffic was different for only 20 minutes departure time.
Updated the WGOM Map as well
If a fella was looking to update that his own self, how might he go about that?
Or, you know, transforming "TATTERS" into "TATERS"
I think you'll need to take that up with the Gentleman Masher.
If "Open In My Maps" isn't an option, try this
Got it – thanks!
Ooo. Update my marker. It moved about 2 miles!
Speaking of vacation, the four of us here in CO took a long leisurely drive along through a good part of Rocky Mountain National Park, and let me tell you that you can't swing a cat without hitting an elk. They were on the roadway, they were in parking lots, they were with deer, they were on mountain glens where three bulls trumpeted and approached another bull elk's herd only to get chased off or to think twice and wander away. The aspen has turned and make a beautiful splash of yellow or light orange against the pines, and the higher elevations still had snow from the weekend. Today we're going back to do some hiking.
Last night at Poppy's Pizza & Grill, the beer glasses were inscribed with
Beer and Pizza go together like
Romeo & Juliet
Clark & Lois
Westley & Buttercup
If you end up in the area, Roaming Buffalo BBQ won a best Denver BBQ award from a paper out there last year, and the owners are good friends. You'd want to get there early, as they sell out every day.
Added this year's MLB predictions be the citizenry to the Achievements page. I wanted to see how we did as a nation and allotted two points for each predicted division winner and one for the wild card.
Our predictions:
We did not do well for the AL. Toronto has a chance to win the division but tiny. That means we completely whiffed the division winners. Division leaders Boston had eight points (two predicted a division win and four a wild card spot) and Texas had seven points (two and three respectively). Baltimore had seven points, same breakdown as Texas. Let's not mention Minnesota.
We nailed the NL, completely. Going by points, we predicted Chicago, Washington / Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco. Going by actual record so far, we have: Chicago, Washington, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco. We had Pittsburgh next at ten points and St. Louis at eight points.
I believe I already have it wrapped up this year.
Need to swap highlighting on Dodgers/Giants though
Could've sworn I made picks. Apparently not. Instead I'll make comments from my peanut gallery.
"Hoooooooo BOY, those AL ROY picks!!!"
In my defense, what I put for NL, "Some Cub", was disqualified. So a Twin whose name I know was more likely to be right than that.
wait, what? I won something once??? w0000000t!
Ricky Nolasco, disaster in MN, has a 1.4 rWAR in 73 innings in LA. He had zero scoreless starts with the Twins this year. He has three with the Angels.
They also signed Deolis Guerra and he's been okay for them in low-leverage relief. In 52.1 innings, he has a 3.27 ERA and 0.3 rWAR. He does have four blown saves in all four of his high leverage appearances.
...huzzah.
His FIP for the Angels is worse than it was last year. His ERA is better than his FIP. He hasn't done that for a full season since 2008. I'd be more concerned if it was Alex Meyer doing well, but he's still walking 6 per 9 IP for the Angels.
So the Twins traded Nolasco, renown for his FIP being lower than his ERA, for Hector Santiago, who has a better ERA than FIP. Then Nolasco turns into Santiago for the second time in his career.
Of course, Nolasco's ERA for the full season is still worse than his FIP for the full season. He's probably had other stretches like this in his career that are just kind of invisible because we don't often see things broken out into 11-game increments.
"Vacation" + Cup of Coffee --> Dido makes sense to me because somehow this is the Dido track I've most listened to in my life.
Found this photo from the 1985 All Star Game while looking for something else this morning:
Really too bad that they couldn't have found a way to get Hrbek, 1984's runner-up for MVP, on that All-Star team playing in Minnesota. Hrbek had a poor first half and Bruno had a big first half to get selected for the only AS game of his career.
When it came to contemporaneous recognition or appreciation of his skills & accomplishments, Hrbek generally got hosed. In 1985, his 15.0 rWAR before age-25 put him 4h among Expansion Era first basemen, behind Murray, K. Hernandez, and Jason Thompson. Unfortunately, Murray was still in Baltimore and Mattingly was in the middle of his second 6-win season in '85. (If you're curious, in 1985 Hrbek was 57th in rWAR among all position players through age-25, sandwiched between Winfield & Carew.)
My guess is the two World Championships make up for that.
As I recall it, Hrbek thought he had been unfairly overlooked for the all-star game early in his career and so refused to participate in it after that.
That is correct, he boycotted. Don Freakin' Mattingly
Pretty cool - thanks for sharing. Winfield was a big man.
When Molitor retired in 1998 only 21 players had hit 500+ doubles and earned 1000+ walks. Two of them are in that photo above, and only two of them were born in the same city. That might be one of the things I appreciate most about baseball – a guy Winfield's size and a guy Molitor's size can wind up on a list combining power & speed, intimidation & finesse.
Today that list is up to 34 players, and three cities have multiple hometown representatives. St. Paul (2), New York (3), and Donora, Penn (2).
Mauer needs 135 more doubles and 178 more walks. Assuming this was through 2013 Mauer, that means he would need five more seasons to reach the threshold.
The list is up to 42 players, not 34, and at least two other cities have multiple players: Santo Domingo, DR (3) & Maracay, Venezuela (2).
You know what the greatest thing ever is? Getting into the office after being gone for three days for a conference, only to learn that you were supposed to have flown out that morning (for another presentation but never made the travel arrangements). Awesome.
But did you remember your shirt?
that I managed to accomplish this morning. Oy.
According to B-Ref, Ryan Howard will likely win the Carter-Batista Award this year as the league leader in HR of players posting an OPS+ below 90. He needs 2 more homers to tie Brandon Inge for 6th all-time, but can't gain more than 2 points of OPS+ in the process.
AMR: today at Rocky Mountain National Park -- Stellar's Jay and Gray Jay (as well as Brook Trout, elk, chipmunk, and mule deer)
At a picnic location I'd guess. I remember them thick there, perched above the tables on branches just out of arm's reach, waiting for any morsel to drop. (Or be left unguarded on the table.)
Gray Jays are also known as "Camp Robbers" (and "Whiskeyjacks", too... but that's an Anglicization of an Anishinaabe word).
We saw them mostly around water, but they certainly were not bothered greatly by the hikers to paused to watch them.
I remember a picnic spot on the western side of the park, near the Never Summer Mountains.
Just looked at the map. I think it was Lake Irene. There were Bighorn Sheep on a knoll across the road.