Cup of Coffee

November 15, 2017: Big Money

80 Comments

Say the Twins are actually thinking about dropping some coin on starting pitching. If you could pick one starter (non-Otani division) to break the bank on, who would you choose?

80 thoughts on “November 15, 2017: Big Money”

    1. I didn't know that Addis Ababa was so incredibly midrange with its temperatures.

      Average high is mid to high 40s pretty much all year. Average high is low to mid 70s. Record low is 32, record high is 90.

      How boring.

      1. One of my staff is from Addis Ababa and she just told me of this news this week. World is trying to tell me something

    2. I keep Yakutsk in my weather app, and I’ll periodically check in on how things look there. I remember one night a winter or two ago I took a look and saw the temperatures in the People’s Republic and Yakutsk were exactly the same: -25ºF. Of course, Yakutsk is 15 hours ahead of the People’s Republic, so -25ºF was actually the high. I thought that sounded about perfect.

        1. "Neighbor"?
          2,120 km as the crow flies
          Google puts the drive at 3,100 km and 40 hours.

          For Comparison, Yakustk to Moscow directly is 4,890 km
          But a road trip is 8,400 km and 108 hours.

          Looks like everyone in Russia gets about 77km/h on cross-country road trips.

              1. Don't ask laypeople to decipher subtle actuarial attempts at humor through pedantry and unnecessary use of numbers.

    4. Fargo! Minneapolis! People who aren't from here really don't understand the wide range of weather we get. It is not always cold! Sometimes, it's damned hot!

      1. I tell people all the time that Minnesota has stretches of summer just as hot and humid as those in south Louisiana. The locals are always quick to point out that stretches aren’t the whole summer, and that’s when I remind them that Minnesota also has stretches of negative degree weather every year as well. Blows a lot of folks’ minds.

        1. Late in the summer when the corn is really humming, its more humid in the upper Midwest than in the Amazon (75 degree + dew point reading)

          1. Late in the all summer when the corn is really humming, its more humid in the upper Midwest St. Louis than in the Amazon

            FTFY. *whimper*

            Also, people in St. Louis don't really know what cold means.

        2. When I lived in Dublin and told my friends I lived in a place that saw teperatures swing about 60-65C every year, they just couldn't fathom.

    6. I did my time in the hot heat and the cold cold. I would rather have cold than hot (you can add clothes in the cold but at some point you run out of clothes to subtract in the heat), but Addis Ababa looks pretty tempting as well.

      Kind of surprising that Minneapolis isn't closer to Turpan. I guess it's a little colder overall (by 7-8 degrees), but the humidity is higher in Minneapolis by a lot, and the spread between average high in the summer and average low in the winter is about the same.

    7. Upon using google maps to find McMurdo, I was surprised to learn that Antarctica must be about five times the size of Russia. Who knew?
      You'd think Google would be able to overcome that age-old mapping conundrum.

    8. Hilariously, San Francisco is in the "hate cold and hate heat" bubble. Because Cold, Foggy.

      Also, where the hell is San Diego? If that is not pretty much climatic heaven on earth (at least west of the 5), I don't know what is.

      1. Meh, the record low is 27, the coldest month has an average low of 45, the daily mean is between 50 and 62 all year round. I think that fits not cold and not warm.

        1. Sure, I know the numbers. I also know I've frozen my butt off in the Bay Area in the summer.

          I'm not overly serious here. But it is funny to depict SF as some sort of climatic paradise and then not even have San Diego on the graphic.

      1. I'm... so curious. I recall a time when the Twins were being praised for their ability to land Marte. I know his stock has slid a little bit, but (absent the vision issue) he still seems to be a worthwhile target.

      2. Is it? Marte didn’t pass a physical, which isn’t any different for him than any other free agent. It doesn’t preclude the Twins from signing him again, or another team signing him instead. It doesn’t even mean the Twins have changed their minds about wanting Marte; just that they can’t justify the amount based on what the physical uncovered.

  6. As to the day's question... honestly, it looks like more or less a wash to me between Darvish and Arrieta. I was surprised to see Darvish doesn't really project as favorably as Arrieta by B-R's 2018 guess. They're the same age, with Darvish being a few months younger. Darvish strikes out a few more, it looks like?

    I guess it would probably come down to risk and financials for me, if I were setting a preference. Does Ohtani like Darvish? Why not just import all previous Ham-Fighters' pitchers?

      1. Any specific reasons? I admit I don't know enough about either to do much more than look at the numbers, and I don't see a ton of difference there. From what I'm reading, that seems to be the general consensus, but I'm not quite sure why?

          2. It's the trend mostly. Arrieta had two elite seasons and that's it. His FIP the last four years: 2.26, 2.35, 3.52, 4.16. For a pitcher that has had only two years of (supreme) note and is over 30, I don't like the idea of committing five or six years to him. I also don't like committing the same number of years to Darvish (c.f. age) but after his Dodgers stint, I have greater confidence he'll at least be good.

          3. I'll also add that part of my preference towards Darvish is that because he was traded mid-season, the Dodgers could not give him a qualifying offer. Arrieta (and Alex Cobb) got one, and while I'd prefer Darvish for the reasons mentioned above even if he had received a Q.O., not losing a pick to sign him is another sweetener.

            As an aside, apparently Ohtani does look up to Darvish. I'm not trying to get my hopes up, but I would probably cry tears of joy if the Twins somehow nabbed one of the two, and might die of happiness if they got both. Which would be a shame.

            1. I'm reasonably confident that if the Twins somehow got both Ohtani would turn out to actually be Nishioka and Darvish would be Nolasco. And then ultimately Detroit would try really hard to get both guys, as they're former Twins.

              2. This was where my head was going...consider it counseling the ignorant...why is Ohtani the third time/charm after Nishioka and Park? Both of those were well established heroes in their leagues, no?

                1. Nishioka really wasn't. He'd been a good player, but he had an awesome 2010 (the year before the Twins signed him) in Japan (.346/.423/.482) which was a lot better than anything he'd done before. Park had been a star in Korea for three years before the Twins signed him, but I think most would say Korea is a lesser league than Japan and he was twenty-nine when the Twins got him. Also, with Park, I still think injuries were a much more significant factor than anyone wants to admit.

                  1. And I still say that the Nishioka deal could have worked out if the Twins hadn't been so hell-bent on clearing the way for him, rather than giving him the opportunity to earn it.

                    Hardy's 2011-14 (nearly 2500 PA's, .259/.301/.720 w/ a 96 OPS+, 600 hits, 86 HR, 276 RBI) overwhelmed what the Twins got out of Nishioka, Plouffe, Dozier and Florimon from 2011-2013. In 2014, they finally saw Escobar hit .275/.315/.721 with a 102 OPS+.

                    'Spoiler' SelectShow
                    1. 'Spoiler' SelectShow

      2. Likewise. Darvish had a pretty good year and added 86.1 innings during the regular season over 2016, which points to a good recovery from Tommy John. Arrieta fell off a cliff this year, pitching fewer innings of significantly less quality. Darvish has performed well in the American League; Arrieta would be returning to the AL, which lowers his projection in my eyes.

        1. Darvish has a career 126 ERA+ and Arrieta 114. Arrieta was below average with Baltimore and then had a couple huge years in Chicago and then seemingly back to Earth the last couple years. I wouldn't touch him.

        2. Darvish is extremely good, but it'd be nice if he could be as good while spending less time between pitches.

            1. WOOO!!! That would be fantastic. As the article mentions, this has already been implemented in the minors without any ill consequences. All the theoretical arguments about "oh, the batter will mess with the pitcher's clock," etc. have been shown to be non-factors in practice. I'm sure a fair number of the players in the majors have already been exposed to the pitch clock, either on a rehab stint or because they are young.

              I am so in favor of this, I might not even mind the ridiculous split-screen in-innings ads if that's what it takes to get it over the line. Radio already does in-inning promos and it just kind of fades into the background eventually.

              1. I agree. I was skeptical of the pitch clock at first, but I listen to a lot of minor league games and it's rarely an issue. Getting major league players to accept it may be a problem, but they'll adjust if they need to. In fact, I doubt it would take them very long.

              2. The one concern I have remaining is injury. I've seen it suggested that pitchers need some number of seconds between pitches in order to reliably avoid injury. That makes sense to me. So long as the pitch clock is greater than that number of seconds, it shouldn't be an issue, and I'm guessing the test period in the minors has shown whatever number of seconds to be workable. Still, it's a thing to keep an eye on while otherwise embracing the idea.

                1. But certainly there will be a broad spectrum for that number among pitchers (for reasons of genetics/mechanics) and an increased rate of maximum exertion will have to increase injury likelihood somewhat?

                2. My hypothesis is that pitchers are slower because they're throwing at max effort. My hope is that a pitch clock will require them to not throw at maximum effort instead of continuing to throw hard and then injure themselves with the lessened recovery time between pitches. I think pitcher will adjust quickly enough that it'll be fine.

  7. This piece on Chancellor Adams and his grandmother is extraordinary.

    Chancellor Adams was born 10 weeks premature when NFL player Rae Carruth murdered his mother in an effort to avoid paying child support.

  8. I have always found the local television/newspaper (owned by the same company) in Fargo to be very exploitative of people. This instance in the spoiler below really bothers me.

    'Spoiler' SelectShow

    2. well, given that

      'Spoiler' SelectShow

  10. any MS Word Gurus out there?

    I am dealing with a newish and not correct contracts template (we contract with UC and they require us to use a particular template). Anywho, this template combines what used to be a host of separate Exhibits into a single document, but with the separate Exhibits still in place.

    Normally we use "Page X of Y" formatting for page numbering within the headers of each Exhibit. This is what I need to fix. Some less-than-skilled person tried manually to recreate the appropriate headers, but not actually as headers, and manually numbered the pages. I need to recreate the appropriate headers (the stupid things I do that I should be able to delegate to my staff....) with "Page X of Y" formatting for EACH Exhibit. I am adding in section breaks between each Exhibit, but the "Page X of Y" formatting only resets the X counter, not the Y counter. I want each Exhibit to show the number of pages for that section.

    Any (helpful) pointers?

    1. some help you guys are.

      Anyhoo, I figured it out. Had to right-click on the field and change the field code to "SectionPages" from "NumberPages" or something like that.

        1. Yeah, if it was an Excel problem, I might have had something.
          I don't use Word for things like that.

    1. I kept waiting for the bottom to drop out, and it never happened. There were some dog-ugly shots down the stretch but they picked up some necessary boards.

      It's KAT's birthday, which was called out after the game, and reminded me to call my brother to tell him the same. I tend to think of my siblings' birthdays all day while I'm at work, and then I get home and all sense of time eludes me.

      1. I missed the second quarter (damn wiener kids), which I'm told was fantastic. But other than that, that game was fun (Wiggins excepted. My thoughts throughout the game: "Oh, Wiggins has it on the wing. This one's going up whether its a good shot or not...") I, too, had that same feeling of Wolvesy when the Spurs got within five in the fourth, but Towns and Gibson were tenacious down the stretch.

        That had to be KAT's best all-around game of his career, right? He's had better games offensively, but tonight he looked nearly comfortable on defense and was, for the most part, in all the right spots. I hope that is a trend and not just a birthday thing.

        Also, because its obligatory at this point, #freebjelica. (Edit: I see he had 22 minutes, so that's better. Another 5-6 per game would be good, though)

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