This Butler character has been holding the team down it seems.
38 thoughts on “January 23, 2018: Dead Weight”
My one takeaway from the Oscars announcements this morning is Andy Serkis apparently grew up in southern Missouri.
Yesterday I got a bunch of texts from my mom about the foot or so of snow they got. As soon as her first text came in, it started pouring out down here with some lightning to follow. Some people have all the luck.
That said, we did, eventually, at least get an inch or two. But it wasn't enough to take out the snowblower and it was warm enough that shoveling it was a slushy, awful thing.
We got nothing. Not a single flake.
I feel betrayed.
I was ok with that result.
Winter rain always makes me feel simultaneously cheated and as if I’m being given the meteorological finger.
Is the thunder the audible F-U?
Worse yet is when it freezes hard immediately after the winter rain stops.
Get your timing right, Mother Nature!
That happened right before Younger Daughter was born. Thundersnow mixed with rain to make a slush, then below zero temps right behind. The roads were covered with frozen slush for days because they couldn't plow it and it was too cold for chemicals to work. We drove to the hospital, about 30 miles, the truck jumping from frozen rut to frozen rut and my wife squeezing my arm like a python with every contraction. It was a nightmare at the time, but a great adventure story now.
We got about 13". Spent an hour blowing snow and then drank some post cleanup beer with the neighbors. Daughter missed school yesterday and today.
A foot at my place. I fired up the snowblower yesterday afternoon, and did another round this morning. I saw one of those sidewalk cleaner zamboni things catch fire on my drive down to Mankato this morning.
I'm guessing she didn't really "miss" it though.
She hasn't gone to school for a full day in almost 2 weeks. I'm thinking she'll want to get there pretty soon.
I heard 18" here, and that's with the snow letting up well before it was forecasted to let up. It was a lot of work blowing snow, but at least I didn't have to shovel. No school for the kids yesterday or today.
Darvish will make up his own mind on where to sign, and Gimenez signing a minor league deal with the Cubs might not have any bearing on where he winds up. That said, if the Twins miss out on Darvish, would you prefer they sign one of Arrieta/Cobb/Lynn or trade for Chris Archer?
Sanó for Archer, git er dun, Billy Smith!
Sano has too much upside on a professional level, and I for one believe in second chances and redemption. I've benefited from both many times in my life, and it's made me a better man. I'm trying to reject Calvinism at every turn these days.
From what I understand, even Calvin wasn't really a Calvinist, the way it eventually became interpreted.
Unless you're talking about Calvin Griffith, of course.
Steamer projections for them:
Player
Age
SO/9
BB/9
HR/9
FIP
fWAR
fWAR/180 IP
Alex Cobb
30
6.8
2.5
1.2
4.36
1.7
2.3
Jake Arrieta
32
8.0
3.0
1.1
4.11
2.7
2.7
Lance Lynn
31
7.6
3.6
1.3
4.74
1.3
1.6
Yu Darvish
31
10.2
2.8
1.2
3.70
3.6
3.6
Darvish is the clear leader and Arrieta, despite his apparently obvious decline, is definitely the #2 starter. If signed to a short (three or four years) contract, I like Arrieta. Cobb could be an interesting signing. His peripherals aren't exciting but that's 1.7 fWAR in a projected 133 innings. Prorate that to 180 innings and it's a 2.3 fWAR.
Arrieta adds to the Cub Factor, don't forget, so that's working against him.
Given the Twins’ ineptitude against the Yankmes in the postseason, you’d think they’d want to have at least as many ex-Cubs as the 1960 Pirates or the 2001 Diamondbacks.
My hesitation with Arrieta is that the decline has been fairly precipitous. I wouldn’t give him more than three years, and I feel like that’s already pushing it. It’s also worth noting that he’s only cleared 180 IP twice. Cobb’s never gotten there. Of course, if the Twins are going to get creative with cycling pitchers through the 10-day DL, that might not be an issue.
I read that and thought you said "cyborg pitchers" and thought you were on to the next market inefficiency.
Presumably cyborg pitchers would be more durable, so this may be something to consider. I don’t think there is anything specifically ruling out cybernetic enhancements in the rules...
Note to self...start script for Little League Cyborg
Lines to include: "Huh...I guess it doesn't say anything here in the rules about cyborgs...lets PLAY BALL!!"
And...scene.
I'm thinking Joe got out of catching at an opportune time.
Cobb reached 179.1 last year so I count that as the same thing. I used 180 in order to put their overall production on the same level. Projection systems' guesses of IP are bad so I thought 180 would be a reasonable guess of how good they would be if they managed to pitch a full season.
For Arrieta, it's tough. Same K/9 numbers as 2016, better walk numbers, but way worse home run rate. xFIP nearly the same as FIP in 2017 and only a tiny bit worse in 2016. His GB% went down each year from 2015 to 2017. Would have to do a lot of investigating to separate that from the league-wide home run changes. I think I still like him better than Cobb but the gap from best to second-best pitcher is much larger than second to fourth.
Archer is pretty much my #1 dream pitcher for this team. I'd trade pretty much anyone but Lewis for him, but I'm guessing without including Lewis those talks are a non-starter. If they could swing a trade for him, because his deal is so affordable, I'd still want them to try to sign Lynn or Cobb. I'd only want them to sign Arrieta if it was on a one year deal with a team option.
Lynn does not enthuse me whatsoever. He had a 4.82 FIP to go with that 3.43 ERA. His HR/9 spiked way up. It's hard to say if that's going to stick with how many homers are being hit or he was really unlucky. Steamer thinks it will continue so I'm not interested in yet another home run prone pitcher.
I did this yesterday here, but I've started doing it in my own head on everything I read and it makes the internet more enjoyable.
Read "Eagles" in all stories about football to instead mean the "Hotel California" band.
Like this headline: "Another Eagles Fan Punched a Police Horse"
or this Fb post:"I'm signing up to be an Uber Driver just for the Super Bowl. It'll be fun dropping off Eagles fans in random wrong places."
It'll be fun dropping off Eagles fans in random wrong places.
I had a fantastic conversation with Matt Truebloodd the other night at the Winter Meltdown (and saw Free!). The gist of the conversation was "all evidence points to the fact that very few MLB owners care about winning."
Today in his newsletter he writes this:
the suffusion of smart, hyper-efficient people with backgrounds in finance and mathematics has made teams smarter, but the ability of so many of them to get and retain top jobs has more to do with the dollars their smarts can save owners than it has to do with the wins they can add to the team itself. We need more executives who are willing to occasionally make an inefficient transaction (or at least a risky one), on the chance that the result will be a championship that makes everyone both richer and happier. This offseason has been a reminder that those guys are getting harder and harder to find.
Pfft. Didn’t Poultry Man report this back in June?
Up next for him, some sort of ambassador/roving instructor role with the Twins.
Twins' TV color announcer
At the Winter Meltdown (and saw Philo!) I talked to Lavelle about Hall of Fame vote. He has no inside view of vote but his sense is that Chipper, Thome, Vlad, and Hoffman get in.
Also talked with Mike Bernardino, but to link back to a mention yesterday, he’s not going to The Athletic.
I'm totally behind Vlad and Thome, but that's more from familiarity and respect than any kind of career analysis.
My one takeaway from the Oscars announcements this morning is Andy Serkis apparently grew up in southern Missouri.
Yesterday I got a bunch of texts from my mom about the foot or so of snow they got. As soon as her first text came in, it started pouring out down here with some lightning to follow. Some people have all the luck.
That said, we did, eventually, at least get an inch or two. But it wasn't enough to take out the snowblower and it was warm enough that shoveling it was a slushy, awful thing.
We got nothing. Not a single flake.
I feel betrayed.
I was ok with that result.
Winter rain always makes me feel simultaneously cheated and as if I’m being given the meteorological finger.
Is the thunder the audible F-U?
Worse yet is when it freezes hard immediately after the winter rain stops.
Get your timing right, Mother Nature!
That happened right before Younger Daughter was born. Thundersnow mixed with rain to make a slush, then below zero temps right behind. The roads were covered with frozen slush for days because they couldn't plow it and it was too cold for chemicals to work. We drove to the hospital, about 30 miles, the truck jumping from frozen rut to frozen rut and my wife squeezing my arm like a python with every contraction. It was a nightmare at the time, but a great adventure story now.
We got about 13". Spent an hour blowing snow and then drank some post cleanup beer with the neighbors. Daughter missed school yesterday and today.
A foot at my place. I fired up the snowblower yesterday afternoon, and did another round this morning. I saw one of those sidewalk cleaner zamboni things catch fire on my drive down to Mankato this morning.
I'm guessing she didn't really "miss" it though.
She hasn't gone to school for a full day in almost 2 weeks. I'm thinking she'll want to get there pretty soon.
I heard 18" here, and that's with the snow letting up well before it was forecasted to let up. It was a lot of work blowing snow, but at least I didn't have to shovel. No school for the kids yesterday or today.
Darvish will make up his own mind on where to sign, and Gimenez signing a minor league deal with the Cubs might not have any bearing on where he winds up. That said, if the Twins miss out on Darvish, would you prefer they sign one of Arrieta/Cobb/Lynn or trade for Chris Archer?
Sanó for Archer, git er dun, Billy Smith!
Sano has too much upside on a professional level, and I for one believe in second chances and redemption. I've benefited from both many times in my life, and it's made me a better man. I'm trying to reject Calvinism at every turn these days.
From what I understand, even Calvin wasn't really a Calvinist, the way it eventually became interpreted.
Unless you're talking about Calvin Griffith, of course.
Steamer projections for them:
Darvish is the clear leader and Arrieta, despite his apparently obvious decline, is definitely the #2 starter. If signed to a short (three or four years) contract, I like Arrieta. Cobb could be an interesting signing. His peripherals aren't exciting but that's 1.7 fWAR in a projected 133 innings. Prorate that to 180 innings and it's a 2.3 fWAR.
Arrieta adds to the Cub Factor, don't forget, so that's working against him.
Given the Twins’ ineptitude against the Yankmes in the postseason, you’d think they’d want to have at least as many ex-Cubs as the 1960 Pirates or the 2001 Diamondbacks.
My hesitation with Arrieta is that the decline has been fairly precipitous. I wouldn’t give him more than three years, and I feel like that’s already pushing it. It’s also worth noting that he’s only cleared 180 IP twice. Cobb’s never gotten there. Of course, if the Twins are going to get creative with cycling pitchers through the 10-day DL, that might not be an issue.
I read that and thought you said "cyborg pitchers" and thought you were on to the next market inefficiency.
Presumably cyborg pitchers would be more durable, so this may be something to consider. I don’t think there is anything specifically ruling out cybernetic enhancements in the rules...
Note to self...start script for Little League Cyborg
Lines to include: "Huh...I guess it doesn't say anything here in the rules about cyborgs...lets PLAY BALL!!"
And...scene.
I'm thinking Joe got out of catching at an opportune time.
Cobb reached 179.1 last year so I count that as the same thing. I used 180 in order to put their overall production on the same level. Projection systems' guesses of IP are bad so I thought 180 would be a reasonable guess of how good they would be if they managed to pitch a full season.
For Arrieta, it's tough. Same K/9 numbers as 2016, better walk numbers, but way worse home run rate. xFIP nearly the same as FIP in 2017 and only a tiny bit worse in 2016. His GB% went down each year from 2015 to 2017. Would have to do a lot of investigating to separate that from the league-wide home run changes. I think I still like him better than Cobb but the gap from best to second-best pitcher is much larger than second to fourth.
Archer is pretty much my #1 dream pitcher for this team. I'd trade pretty much anyone but Lewis for him, but I'm guessing without including Lewis those talks are a non-starter. If they could swing a trade for him, because his deal is so affordable, I'd still want them to try to sign Lynn or Cobb. I'd only want them to sign Arrieta if it was on a one year deal with a team option.
Lynn does not enthuse me whatsoever. He had a 4.82 FIP to go with that 3.43 ERA. His HR/9 spiked way up. It's hard to say if that's going to stick with how many homers are being hit or he was really unlucky. Steamer thinks it will continue so I'm not interested in yet another home run prone pitcher.
I did this yesterday here, but I've started doing it in my own head on everything I read and it makes the internet more enjoyable.
Read "Eagles" in all stories about football to instead mean the "Hotel California" band.
Like this headline: "Another Eagles Fan Punched a Police Horse"
or this Fb post:"I'm signing up to be an Uber Driver just for the Super Bowl. It'll be fun dropping off Eagles fans in random wrong places."
It'll be fun dropping off Eagles fans in random wrong places.
Spooky'd that spoiler
I had a fantastic conversation with Matt Truebloodd the other night at the Winter Meltdown (and saw Free!). The gist of the conversation was "all evidence points to the fact that very few MLB owners care about winning."
Today in his newsletter he writes this:
the suffusion of smart, hyper-efficient people with backgrounds in finance and mathematics has made teams smarter, but the ability of so many of them to get and retain top jobs has more to do with the dollars their smarts can save owners than it has to do with the wins they can add to the team itself. We need more executives who are willing to occasionally make an inefficient transaction (or at least a risky one), on the chance that the result will be a championship that makes everyone both richer and happier. This offseason has been a reminder that those guys are getting harder and harder to find.
Pfft. Didn’t Poultry Man report this back in June?
Up next for him, some sort of ambassador/roving instructor role with the Twins.
Twins' TV color announcer
At the Winter Meltdown (and saw Philo!) I talked to Lavelle about Hall of Fame vote. He has no inside view of vote but his sense is that Chipper, Thome, Vlad, and Hoffman get in.
Also talked with Mike Bernardino, but to link back to a mention yesterday, he’s not going to The Athletic.
I'm totally behind Vlad and Thome, but that's more from familiarity and respect than any kind of career analysis.