Cup of Coffee

Cup of Coffee, November 22, 2016: Sleeping In and OMG

36 Comments

I'd suspect that maybe Spooky hasn't gotten up in Arizona yet, but I've seen him wandering the store in Eagan a couple of times, so I know that he's just sleeping in or somesuch.

Also, my mother was finishing her first quarter of college on November 22, 1963. I finished my first quarter of college on November 22, 1983. The quarter system is all gone now and most people think of JFK as some relic of history. But, even 20 years after the fact, it was still pretty fresh in a lot of people's minds, kind of like on 9/11/21 we will still recall that awful day.

I did get a chance to see the JFK Presidential Library this summer. It was pretty fantastic. Their treatment of that awful day 53 years ago was stark and simple. The date was written in white on a black wall and a television showed Walter Cronkite announcing the news and taking off his glasses. Very, very powerful.

36 thoughts on “Cup of Coffee, November 22, 2016: Sleeping In and OMG”

        1. I prefer to think of it in terms of how they're kicking other teams assess 75% of games. Also, KAT being the real deal who's will skyrocket once he starts actually getting calls.

  2. 9/11/21?
    The arrest of Fatty Arbuckle?
    Mussolini's founding of the PNF?
    The death of Rudolf Jakob Camerarius?

  4. I touched on it briefly yesterday, but will update at Pepper's request today.

    Miss SBG is now ready to pass ISI Freestyle 4 level in figure skating. She will be tested in December, but she's been ready for about three months. Here are the requirements:

    Freestyle 4

    Flip Jump
    Loop Jump
    Sit Spin
    One-Half Loop Jump
    Two Backward Arabesques (One each on the Right and Left foot)
    Backward Outside and Backward Inside Three Turns / Dance Step Sequence - See more at: http://www.skateisi.com/site/sub.cfm?content=testing_requirements#7

    Flip and Look and Half-Loop jumps are all full rotation jumps. The Flip is off of a toe pick, the loop and half-loop are off of an edge (one lands on the foot you jump off of, the other lands on the other foot). All are initiated skating backwards. She can do a sit spin, the arabesques are skating backward on one foot with the other leg straight with both the knee and ankle above the hip. Three turns are a 180 degree change of direction on one skate. She can do inside and outside 3 turns forward and backward on each foot. This is pretty amazing to watch if you haven't been watching the progression. Piece by piece she put this all together. All I can say is that I couldn't do anything like this when I was 9 years old.

    Now, she's working on her Axel, which is a 1 1/2 forward jump off of an edge, the most difficult jump there is. She does a camel spin, a camel-sit-upright spin, and a backward scratch spin, all of which are Freestyle 5 moves. To do the Axel, she works in a harness. She's landed it several times in the harness already and she also does work off ice on her jumps with her coach for half an hour a week. She's also working off ice on her double Salchow and double toe loop, which she may start doing on the ice in as soon as 12 months. She is in ballet to strengthen her skating. It's pretty intense. She gets worn out. Then at night we watch Timberwolves, although after last night, she may not want to watch anymore. After the game was over, she just said, very simply, "That was terrible." So, she's also got the fine points of basketball down, too.

    1. Does her height affect her figure skating at all? I ask in ignorance, but it seems like most of the figure skaters we see on TV are pretty small.

      1. Well, some world championship caliber skaters are about 5 1/2 feet tall, above average! (Gracie Gold, 5'5"; Katerina Witt, 5'5") She's going to be a big girl, no doubt, but some of the girls in her club are 5'7 or taller and do just fine. She's not going to the Olympics or anything. Right now, her size and strength are assets. She's also got a sturdy frame. Another girl who is three years older than my daughter and an excellent skater is very petite. She's been sidelined with a stress fracture in her leg. Not good. I don't think that will be an issue for Miss SBG.

    2. Thanks Stick--this is great! I never progressed much beyond forward three turns and itty-bitty waltz jumps, so the idea of working in a harness to learn the Axel is wild.

    1. Yep. Jeff Passan says Castro is signing for 3 years, $24.5M. The old guard Twins ignored pitch framing stats for years. New guard's first move is to sign a catcher well regarded in that area despite weak bat. It's time to Make the Twins Great Again (sorry, couldn't resist).

      2. Count me on board with signing Castro. If we accept that the market value for a win above replacement is roughly $8 million (or will be by the time the off-season concludes), then this is a exactly market rate with the potential for extra value. (That's even setting aside Castro's ability to goose his batterymates' value thanks to his substantial framing advantage over Suzuki.) Castro has been worth a bit over 1.0 fWAR each of the last three seasons and will play out this contract over his age 30-32 seasons. If the Twins shield Castro from lefties (heh), he might improve at the dish a bit.

      3. Based on BP's pitch-framing numbers, Suzuki was 35.4 runs below average from 2014-2016. During that same three-year span, Castro was 39.5 runs above average.

        So Castro would be a 75 run upgrade on pitch framing over 3 years, so 15 runs a year which supposedly equates to 1.5 wins a year or about $12M (assuming $8M per win). Twins paid Suzuki an average of $5M a year and provided only slightly better offense, so conservatively I think you can figure the Twins are paying a little more than $3M more per year for a gain of around $10M of value if you discount some for Suzuki's slightly better offense.

    2. Castro's only worn one uni number: 15. I'm guessing that's unavailable.

      Recent Twins backstop numbers: 8, 37, 12, 12, 26, 54, 44, 23, 7, 43, 41, 9, 18, 32, 27.

    2. Doesn't bother me much. I highly doubt there will be actual games lost. The union has ceded too many concessions so now they're pushing back.

  8. Gophers MBB got 30 points by true freshman Amir Coffey in a win over St. John's the other day. Today, Coffey is scoreless in the first half and the Gophers are leading Arkansas by 17 at halftime. Gophers haven't played any high-quality teams, but they're showing good signs of the program turning around.

    1. but they're showing good signs of the program turning around.

      Spoken like a true Minnesota sports fan.

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