Cup of Coffee

Cup of Coffee, April 7, 2017: Three and Oh

46 Comments

The Twins had three four-game winning streaks and two three-game winning streaks last year. That's it. Three games is three games, but this start is better than a sharp stick in the eye.

46 thoughts on “Cup of Coffee, April 7, 2017: Three and Oh”

  1. The StarTribune is running a sale. 52 weeks of their digital subscription and 52 weeks of the WaPo digital for $52. I bit.

    1. I reupped the Sunday/digital. I feel like I should pay for something I read every day. Heck, I even help pay for this half-baked stuff!

      1. can print out a souhan column, so...

        Do you remember when I actually took a Souhan column and put cat waste on it, photographed it and posted it? Ha!


  2. -the AL Central is the hottest division in baseball
    -Yadi is on pace for over 50 balls stuck to his chest protector this season
    -Twins are undefeated in day games for several months now
    -Castro is over 1/2 a BB/G ahead of Barry Bond's season record pace!
    -with zero errors, Dazzle has free reign to call the Twins the best fielding team in baseball :/

    1. Bonds' 232 BB in one season is probably the most unbreakable live-ball era record. No one else (other than Bonds) has been within 70 in the last 90 years.

      1. The only way I could see it broken is if a team had the misfortune of having an inner inner circle hall of famer and just complete dreck around them, like worse dreck than the Giants had in 2004. And even in that unlikely scenario, I'm not sure modern managers would do just because it statistically doesn't make sense unless the dreck holds pitcher like batting lines.

        1. One of the reasons it made sense to walk Bonds so often was that the lineup around him wasn't totally incompetent, just that he was such a big step above anyone behind him. It's true that he was sometimes walked with the bases empty, but if it's truly one superstar and 8 Jason Tyners, then the bases would be empty a lot but you'd only walk him with the bases empty in certain close-and-late situations.

          1. Baseball Prospectus actually ran the run expectancy numbers on this a long time ago and determined the batting line for that run environment where it made sense to intentionally walk someone (not including the situational reasons like runner on 3rd in the bottom of 9th with 1 out) with Bonds hitting line, and it still only made sense if the player behind him was batting something like a .400 OPS or lower.

            1. Yeah, bases empty is going to be rough to find a situation where you would realistically want to walk a hitter.

              Though I disagree with some of those analyses because for situational decisions you may care more about the run distribution than the straight run expectancy. Sure, in general you care mainly about run expectancy, but the closer you get to the end of the game, the more it's about win probability. I think if you are the away team in the 9th with a one-run lead or tied score and two outs and bases empty, you would probably want to walk Bonds because his HR rate was insane and you're more likely to keep him from scoring than he would be to hit a HR, especially if you had a righty closer, which most teams do. Probably walking him there increases the run expectancy, but in this case you are more concerned about maximizing the no-runs probability even if it increases the multiple-runs probability.

              1. Yup, agreed. But 43 of Bonds's intentional walks that year were in innings 1-3. 24 of those were in the first inning! 35 more were in innings 4-6.

                More preposterous stats:

                9 times he was IBB'd after the Giants were already up 4 runs.
                Twice he was walked when the Giants were down 4 runs, which means he couldn't have possible represented the tying run (neither walk was with the bases loaded)

                19 times he was IBB'd with no men on base.

                1. Yeah, the early-game walks are way harder to justify. I feel like the fans should have held a riot when he was intentionally walked with the Giants up or down by 4+ runs.

  5. Fine day for Delta to have widespread delays and cancellations. *stares at long Delta line*

      1. Oooh! All I got for my woes last night was the pleasure of sitting on the floor at JFK airport for many hours. But I did eventually make it home . . . at 1 am. Here's wishing you luck!

        1. Although I will say they were dicks to me at check in in Boston, though that might have just been a masshole thing.

          2. Yup, last two companies I've worked for have said anything but SWA. I don't know specifically why, probably something shady though.

          1. You asked why someone wouldn't want to fly Southwest.

            But on top of that, I haven't found their fares to be compelling. For instance, I need to go to Cleveland in September. Southwest's best fares are no different than United's. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It's just another airline to me, sometimes they have a good fare, other times they don't.

            2. Having done some scrambling to figure out flights home yesterday, Southwest had the same price as Delta, but it took twice as long because of a layover in Chicago. So, pass.

    1. Last fishfry of the season.

      As a resident of Wisconsin, I don't understand what this means.

      1. Presumably there is not a single fish left in Rhu_Ru's state. That's the only reason I can figure.

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