We're in the midst of them, but not a lot of news so far. What's been your favorite rumor so far? Or your least?
34 thoughts on “December 12, 2017: Winter Meetings”
I read last night that the Twins have been connected to Chris Archer. I think of him as a guy who gets a lot of strikeouts, which is true – 10.8 per 9 innings, or 28.3% of batters faced over the past two seasons. His walk rate isn’t excessive, but his FIPs in 2016 & 2017 are pretty unimpressive. Looks like he’s giving up harder contact – there’s a noticeable spike in his extra-base hit rate (and percentage of hits going for extra bases), perhaps driven by a big spike in his home runs surrendered.
He’s an intriguing name, but if given the choice between signing Darvish & surrendering quality prospects for a gun basically the same age on a downward trend, I’d rather pay the monies.
Can't we go for both? Twins have both money and prospects. What they don't have is pitching. I've also seen reports of the Twins interested in Gerrit Cole. I would offer much less for him.
Cole and Archer are quite comparable, but Cole only has two years left under team control. So any offer for Cole will be lower, reflecting that reality.
And yes, I’d be in favor of signing Darvish & adding Cole via trade. I think that would allow the Twins to shift May to the bullpen, where he could be a dominant fireman, while still maintaining an open fifth starter slot for the young guys or inevitable cast of thousands.
This was the best move and the best deal for the organization.
As an extraordinarily cynical person when it comes to all things corporate, this is spoken like a true, executive sh*theel. I imagine he'll be able to re-use this quote when they lay off a bunch of ticket sales reps and customer service people.
I like to think he made that quote, then looked down at his Marlins jersey and went “...oh sh*t, right.”
I like to think he was still wearing his pinstripes.
Yeah, this probably qualifies him as True Yankee as much as anything he did at the plate.
Maybe he's just a jerk. Don't we have plenty of evidence at this point? Gift baskets, refusing to switch positions, and now this.
Maybe he's just a jerk
Dude -- he's a Yankee
I had to google hathos. Seems I've been missing out on a perfect way to describe my feelings about a lot of things.
I didn't google, but hate+pathos/bathos, right?
yup.
Hathos was the recluse fifth Musketeer. Predilection for quilting, aquarium fish, and Sudoku.
My great-nephew had a successful ride in the short go of the Junior National Finals Rodeo. If I understand things correctly (and I might not--I don't really know all that much about rodeo), he finished eighth in the bareback riding. Again, he's ten and competing in the 10-13 year old division. Eighth would be great under any circumstances, but in this circumstance I think it's fantastic. As you can tell, we're very proud of hiim.
Nice!
It turns out he was eighth in the short go, but ninth overall. Still very impressive, in my opinion.
The four points laid out are what new Belgium has been doing for years. Interesting that the little guy proved it could be done on the mass scale.
I think the barriers to entry problem is the biggest downside going forward. There was always going to come a point where there were so many options on the shelf that some (or a lot) of the smaller guys would go out of business, but over time it seems like we'll probably get AB's top 6-8 beers locked in and as long as they have a stranglehold on distribution, there's not going to be much innovation to push them to keep improving. I hope I'm wrong.
Found out today that an elderly couple in Arizona that my wife befriended at church died in a shocking murder-suicide. She’s wrecked. I have little to offer in this situation.
What a terrible thing. I don't know if anyone has much to offer in that situation. Just try to be there for her and support her in any way you can.
Awful news, spoons.
Anyone read "Cat Person"? Apparently, a piece of fiction in the New Yorker went viral.
I went to it, when some tweet said it was about a Cat/Person. I imagined "Sleepwalkers" or a version of a Japanese kitsune ("fox wife") story.
I think the ending is too neat. Those texts justify her decision to end it too well. I'd've preferred it to leave open-ended, she wondering if she was the jerk or the jerked.
Yeah. I read a lot about it before actually reading it, which was sort of a weird way to approach it, though I wouldn't say it ruined the story for me. I felt a little icky after reading it, though.
In reading about the story, it was interesting to see all the different takes--they ranged from "the fat shaming is awful" to "the 20-year-old protagonist is immature" to "it's not well written." I care not at all for those who dismiss the story because it centers the experience of a contemporary young woman. To deny there's something to this story is to ignore the fact that is resonating with a lot of readers.
To me, the core of the story was that the protagonist and her love interest (or whatever you want to call him) spent all this time creating imagined versions of the other rather than actually getting to know each other and forming any sort of authentic connection. The story does a good job of showing the "emotional work" young women are often expected to do to be entirely sympathetic to a male interested in her, to the point of at times thinking more about his needs and feelings than her own. I didn't see her reaction to his body as "fat shaming" per say, but rather a reaction to the disconnect between the version of him that existed in her head vs. the version of him actually before her. Yes, the narrator is immature, but hey literature has lots of male protagonists who are immature and no one seems to have a problem with that! (Also, she's 20, ffs.) Is the prose exquisite? No. But it's engaging. Not every good piece of writing is good in the same way.
I did think the title was a little misleading, though I'm not sure off the top of my head what I'd suggest instead. Other than, you know, "Bad Sex."
AMR, I see what you're saying about the ending. We know so little about this guy that it's hard to know whether the way his texts escalate at the very end is true to who he is.
I saw two mentions in my "tweets I might have missed" on Monday morning after a weekend away from Twitter, and the faint suggestion of it being a veiled kitsune-type tale was enough to make me print it out (in the way I do). I then decided to read nothing else about it.
"Red Vines and Texts" Your title gives away too much.
As it is, I kept trying to read him as a cat, with the personalities people assign them.
This 2nd half is insane.
omg jimmy buckets.
This overtime, not so good.
I was at the game. Lots of love for Buckets. Less for the rest of the gallery.
The younger of my younger brothers bought a Butler jersey for $110. He's been dying to do so for a while. From a drunken misspeak my other brother made, it sounds like I might get a Towns jersey for Christmas.
At first I thought you were commenting about the later parts of "Cat Person".
Ha! (By the way, your suggested title is much better than mine.)
I read last night that the Twins have been connected to Chris Archer. I think of him as a guy who gets a lot of strikeouts, which is true – 10.8 per 9 innings, or 28.3% of batters faced over the past two seasons. His walk rate isn’t excessive, but his FIPs in 2016 & 2017 are pretty unimpressive. Looks like he’s giving up harder contact – there’s a noticeable spike in his extra-base hit rate (and percentage of hits going for extra bases), perhaps driven by a big spike in his home runs surrendered.
He’s an intriguing name, but if given the choice between signing Darvish & surrendering quality prospects for a gun basically the same age on a downward trend, I’d rather pay the monies.
Can't we go for both? Twins have both money and prospects. What they don't have is pitching. I've also seen reports of the Twins interested in Gerrit Cole. I would offer much less for him.
Cole and Archer are quite comparable, but Cole only has two years left under team control. So any offer for Cole will be lower, reflecting that reality.
And yes, I’d be in favor of signing Darvish & adding Cole via trade. I think that would allow the Twins to shift May to the bullpen, where he could be a dominant fireman, while still maintaining an open fifth starter slot for the young guys or inevitable cast of thousands.
I think Archer is quite a bit better.
It hasn't recovered since Archer: Vice
This piece on Jetes being out of his league pushes my hathos button.
As an extraordinarily cynical person when it comes to all things corporate, this is spoken like a true, executive sh*theel. I imagine he'll be able to re-use this quote when they lay off a bunch of ticket sales reps and customer service people.
I like to think he made that quote, then looked down at his Marlins jersey and went “...oh sh*t, right.”
I like to think he was still wearing his pinstripes.
Yeah, this probably qualifies him as True Yankee as much as anything he did at the plate.
Maybe he's just a jerk. Don't we have plenty of evidence at this point? Gift baskets, refusing to switch positions, and now this.
Maybe he's just a jerk
Dude -- he's a Yankee
I had to google hathos. Seems I've been missing out on a perfect way to describe my feelings about a lot of things.
I didn't google, but hate+pathos/bathos, right?
yup.
Hathos was the recluse fifth Musketeer. Predilection for quilting, aquarium fish, and Sudoku.
My great-nephew had a successful ride in the short go of the Junior National Finals Rodeo. If I understand things correctly (and I might not--I don't really know all that much about rodeo), he finished eighth in the bareback riding. Again, he's ten and competing in the 10-13 year old division. Eighth would be great under any circumstances, but in this circumstance I think it's fantastic. As you can tell, we're very proud of hiim.
Nice!
It turns out he was eighth in the short go, but ninth overall. Still very impressive, in my opinion.
Food for thought
Why Anheuser-Busch's new PR initiative might actually be good for beer drinkers
The four points laid out are what new Belgium has been doing for years. Interesting that the little guy proved it could be done on the mass scale.
I think the barriers to entry problem is the biggest downside going forward. There was always going to come a point where there were so many options on the shelf that some (or a lot) of the smaller guys would go out of business, but over time it seems like we'll probably get AB's top 6-8 beers locked in and as long as they have a stranglehold on distribution, there's not going to be much innovation to push them to keep improving. I hope I'm wrong.
Found out today that an elderly couple in Arizona that my wife befriended at church died in a shocking murder-suicide. She’s wrecked. I have little to offer in this situation.
What a terrible thing. I don't know if anyone has much to offer in that situation. Just try to be there for her and support her in any way you can.
Awful news, spoons.
Anyone read "Cat Person"? Apparently, a piece of fiction in the New Yorker went viral.
I went to it, when some tweet said it was about a Cat/Person. I imagined "Sleepwalkers" or a version of a Japanese kitsune ("fox wife") story.
Yeah. I read a lot about it before actually reading it, which was sort of a weird way to approach it, though I wouldn't say it ruined the story for me. I felt a little icky after reading it, though.
I saw two mentions in my "tweets I might have missed" on Monday morning after a weekend away from Twitter, and the faint suggestion of it being a veiled kitsune-type tale was enough to make me print it out (in the way I do). I then decided to read nothing else about it.
This 2nd half is insane.
omg jimmy buckets.
This overtime, not so good.
I was at the game. Lots of love for Buckets. Less for the rest of the gallery.
The younger of my younger brothers bought a Butler jersey for $110. He's been dying to do so for a while. From a drunken misspeak my other brother made, it sounds like I might get a Towns jersey for Christmas.
At first I thought you were commenting about the later parts of "Cat Person".
Ha! (By the way, your suggested title is much better than mine.)