Cup of Coffee

May 10, 2018: FKB Signup

76 Comments

Need another fresh batch of volunteers for Father Knows Best. Any takers? Bonus points if you can go this month.

MAY - Pepper
JUNE - Carter Hayes
JULY - nibbish
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76 thoughts on “May 10, 2018: FKB Signup”

    1. I’m game for another FKB go-round. A month that isn’t September or November is preferable, at least as far as my participation in the discussion goes.

  4. NBA Playoffs.

    The second round was decidedly less dramatic than the first round.

    CLE got the Raps down and then stepped their collective throat. The King solidified his standing as the best player in the game, 15 years in. He's playing as well now as he ever has. I can think of no other player in NBA history who has played as much as he has who continued to play at the highest level. #LeBronto

    BOS dispatched PHI in 5, but man are the 76ers gonna be kicking themselves over this one. They absolutely should have won last night, but they just couldn't get it down. These two teams look like they'll be battling out for East supremacy for sometime, should LBJ ever slow done. BOS is ridiculously good and young and man what assets they have. Plus, they have maybe the best coach in the league who got a total of Zero (0) votes for coach of the year from his peers.

    HOU took care of UTA in 5 and Chris Paul got a huge monkey off his back. First trip to the conference finals for Paul, who was a man possessed in game 5. He was way too much for UTA, which was good for HOU because James Harden was not way too much in game 5. Harden has thrown in a couple of clunkers so far in the playoffs and he absolutely cannot do that going forward or this will be the last series that they will win. (I think it is anyways.) Donovan Mitchell is tremendous and what a steal he was in the draft. UTA has solidified itself as one of the top 4 teams in the West.

    GSW defanged NOP and it wasn't much of a series. I didn't see the game that NOP won, but that must have been a clear anomaly. What I did see a lot of was Klay Thompson and Durant hitting shots. Curry not so much and more than a few people noticed his inability to get separation. But his presence on the floor was huge and it showed up in the +/- numbers. GSW is a huge favorite to win it all and anything other than a championship would be a failure, unless Durant and probably one other star go down.

    I think we're gonna see the same matchup in the Finals again. LeBron is on a mission and that Celtics team is good, but I think LBJ just blots out the sun in that series. In the West, I see HOU being vulnerable, mainly because I think Harden can be shaken. To beat Golden State, HOU needs Harden to absolutely go off in four games. That can happen, but even still I don't think it's enough.

    1. I am disturbed by the fact that I can't really find anything to argue with in this LTE.

      Basketball-ref's similarity scores algorithm can't do justice to him. He's a unicorn. There has never been a player with his combination of size, power, athleticism and handle. Maybe someone like Dr. J sort of comes close. Maybe George McGinnis (who is not even on LBJ's most similar list). The only thing he can't do great is shoot threes, and even there, he's merely average (34.4 pct for his career). (Ok, he also has a mediocre mid-range jumper)

      McGinnis, of course, was only a star through age 28. Erving did not have LBJ's power game, but he was really, really good through age 35. But Doc had the advantage of playing with a loaded roster in Philly.

      1. Although his numbers don't line up, Magic Johnson is the parallel. Magic has the size and the court vision. But LBJ is more athletic and a better shooter and better finisher. And I've been watching in the playoffs and I've been thinking that LBJ might even be a better passer, at least in the half court set. Overall, though, he remains, in my mind, his best comp.

        1. Hmm. Yea, I guess that makes sense.

          If you think of LBJ as the primary ballhandler and initiator of the offense at a "point forward" kind of position, then guys like Paul Pressey, Robert Reid, Johnny Johnson, Detlef Schrempf, Derrick McKey, and even Rick Barry come to mind. But of those guys, only Barry comes remotely close in terms of talent and impact.

    3. Ricky Rubio got hurt at the wrong time. Dont know if they would have beat the Rockets with him in the lineup, but having him gone reduced their chances.

  5. Speaking of young ones, Newbish woke up this morning, looked up and said "watch baseball?" This surprised me, as he'd never shown any overwhelming interest before that wasn't directly tied to trying to get out of going to bed. But no, this morning, he HAD to watch baseball for ten minutes before he would touch his breakfast.

    Luckily, ESPN was showing women's college softball, and that was apparently good enough to scratch the itch.

    1. This is less useful for people in the Twins market, but the MLB.tv subscription was very helpful for this. We watched a few different games at the end of the 2017 season for several weeks after the season ended. There are also the condensed games that are nice for pure baseball play and have no announcers or breaks.

      1. Yeah, when I was out of market and thousands of miles from close friends, mlb.tv was everything. I watched Ubaldo every time he was on during his peak, unless the Twins were playing (and sometimes even then). When I see a curveball like his, I have to go out of my way.

        Now I'm home and don't need the subscription, which is sort of a bummer.

        1. I meant more than the parent watching baseball, but being able to pick any previous game and watch it before breakfast. But, being in-market means that's the only way you'd be able to use the subscription.

        1. Yeah, it's a bummer. They used to show every play where there was a runner on base, and the final out of every inning. Now it just seems more like a highlight reel.

          1. Huh. This is a bummer. I loved the stadium sounds of the condensed games as a way to fall asleep last year.

            1. They don't even offer stadium sounds for the live games. I'm really upset about it. It was such an amazing feature.

              1. They do now. It wasn't available at the start of the season but the ballpark audio overlay is now an option.

                  1. I see what my problem was. Used to be you selected it before starting the stream. Now you have to do it from within.

  7. Anybody up for some Truck Time? Last weekend I got a wild hair and started cleaning out the garage where the Yota has been in cold storage for the last year or so with a dead clutch. I've considered junking it, but just for giggles I crawled underneath with a hammer and started pounding away at the frame to see how much of it is left. Other than extensive surface flaking on the rail sides and bottoms, though, the frame is pretty darn solid. A lot of what I thought was rust is actually the old rustproofing coming off after 30 years. So that got me thinking, and that got me researching and estimating, and that led me to this Toyota pickup boneyard in St. Stephen and several sources for new parts, and before it was all over I decided that I'm going to restore the truck. The majority of project costs will be back-loaded (fiberglass replacement bed and tailgate, paint) and front-loaded with sweat equity, mostly rust cleanup and abatement. I'll need a few new tools for the job -- a pneumatic needle scaler, angle grinder and bench grinder to start -- but Father's Day isn't that far off. I'll likely do a pretty major replacement of suspension parts but they're actually pretty cheap, about $200-300 for all the ball joints, tie rod ends, stabilizer links, and bushing set. Non-wear suspension parts should just need a good cleanup and painting. I had the engine head rebuilt a few years ago when I replaced the head gasket and the engine front (timing chain and gear, guides, adjuster, water pump, etc.) but the front and rear seals leak so I'm thinking I'll pull the engine and have somebody do just a block rebuild -- hone the cylinders, replace the rings and shaft seals, do all the cam adjustments, yada yada yada. I'm figuring about $1500 for that. This is going to be a big job and I figure it will take at least 1-2 years depending on time and budget factors, and I have the blessing of the Missus to get started. I'll keep y'all up to date and if this actually happens there will be regular Truck Time features in the future.

      1. Lots of pics are promised. If I can get may daughter to help out, some video, too. I was thinking I could mount a small webcam somewhere and do a time lapse of the teardown, which should go pretty quick until I have to pull the engine, tranny and cab. I've got a decent compressor for may air tools now so I'm good to go for all power wrenching, ratcheting, and chiseling.

    2. I'll be following with interest! Now that my brother-in-law is up here, I might even work up the motivation to attempt the F100's rear main seal replacement in the driveway. I hope the tires haven't flat-spotted...

  8. Chris Jaffe talked on the Book of Face about how he and his brother spent most of the White Stuff game the other day brainstorming the "worst" players for whom you could own a White Sox jersey (someone either a) horrible for the White Sox, b) just unlikeable for some reason, c) who blossomed after they gave up on him, or d) really prominent for a decent team and not really associated with the White Sox). Thought it would be fun to crowdsource a Twins list. My suggestions:
    1. Bret Boone
    2. Steve Carlton
    3. Tsuyoshi Nishioka
    4. JJ Hardy
    5. Tommy Herr

      2. Pitcher number 3 on that list led me (via the transaction that brought him and his awfulness to the Twins from the Yankmes) to this question: what are the top Twins' pitchers by rWAR prior to age 24?

        Roger Erickson had seasons of 2.9 (age-21) and 3.9 (age-23) sandwiched around -0.5 at age-22.
        Bert has to be the runaway leader at 31.3 rWAR prior to his age-24 season.

        Others I could think of:
        Kaat: 7.4 (cheating; ignores his age-20 and -21 seasons as a Senator, both of which were negative rWAR)
        Scott Erickson: 7.1
        Bradke: 5.1
        F-bomb: 4.5
        Johan: 3.1
        Joe Mays: 3.1

      1. But it's not just Hardy. It's that he was the conduit to turn Gomez (right before he became good) into Nishioka (while also playing well both before and after his over year with the Twins).

          1. I was thinking he did underperform until I looked at his BR page. He was at or over his career averages for offense and was only slightly below his defensive averages. Maybe our expectations were too high.

            1. Ooor: maybe you're using selective memory to cope with how stupid it was to trade him for Jim f***ing Hoey.

              1. I think a lot of us thought that trading him away for magic beans was pretty stupid.

    3. I got a Nishioka jersey for about $5 after everything went south. I offer it up as a spare when I go to a game with someone who doesn't have any Twins gear. The only people who take me up on it are people who have no clue who Nishioka is, and they always get comments at the game.

    4. Vance Worley. He was terrible AND unlikable! He gave himself he own nickname: Vanimal

    5. Joe Niekro. Or maybe that would be awesome.
      Phil Nevin.
      Mike Lamb.
      Craig Monroe.
      Butch Huskey.
      Jarvis Brown.

    6. In addition to the others named, here are some on my list:

      Johnny Podres
      Dave Hollins
      Jerald Clark (131 OPS+ in 1995!)
      Jerry Koosman (native son, but a Met to most)
      Kent Hrbek, but with #26
      Tony Oliva, but with #37
      Denny Neagle
      Sidney Ponson
      Wally Backman
      Billy Beane
      Tippy Martinez
      John Candelaria
      Jim Eisenreich
      Rich Garces
      Otis Nixon
      Dick Such (#42, no less)
      Anything with "ULLGER" on it.

      My favorite idea might be to create a Drew/Sal Butera jersey with Drew's half on the left (as you wear it) & Sal's '80-'82 Twins jersey on the right, which would form Drew's #41 when sewn together. That's probably pretty close to their combined OPS+ in a Twins uniform, too.

      1. Koosman won 20 games with the Twins in 1979 and finished fifth in Cy Young voting. He then won 16 more in 1980. I get that people think of him primarily as a Met, and that's appropriate, but I don't see how he belongs on this list.

      2. Yeah, I wouldn't include Koosman. I think I'd leave out Eisenreich and Garces as well -- they came up as Twins and played more elsewhere, but didn't really make that huge of a splash with other teams. Garces had an ERA+ over 400 with the Twins (SSS)!

        1. Practically every non-Twins blogosphere reference I see to Rich Garces is an association with the Red Sox.

          As for Eisenreich, it’s more about why the Twins cut him, and the success he found elsewhere afterward. Yeah, he never became the star he looked like he could be, but he played a dozen more seasons, in two World Series, and got a ring. Maybe he didn’t blossom, but he did have a fruitful career after the Twins basically gave up on him.

  9. Interesting Twins trivia: Who were the last three players to be the Opening Day DH in back-to-back years?

    Actual Spoiler SelectShow

      1. For the record, I didn't Battey him - I just didn't think he was the answer!

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