76 thoughts on “December 26, 2013: Success”

  2. hey, everyone. your DJs are tired and bloated with christmas cheer and travel plans. so, in an effort to phone it in for awhile keep things up to our rigorous standards, we're going to have a run of the best music of 2013, created by you, the citizens!

    check in below to sign up. we'll get started on the 30th. everyone gets one day for the video of their choice (sorry, only one per citizen). first come, first served, and everyone is going to have to look after their own toes. anyone that doesn't know how to post a video of the day, let me know.

    EDIT: we're both going to be busy for a bit, so seriously, as many people should sign up as possible. if we've got enough people for several weeks, then dagnabbit, we'll go for several weeks.

     
     
    ongoing schedule:

    date dude/dudette
    dec 28 hj
    dec 29 meat
    dec 30 zack
    dec 31 mags
    jan 01 algonad
    jan 02 DG
    jan 03 nibbish
    jan 04 the dread pirate
    jan 05 davidwatts
    jan 06 cheaptoy
    jan 07 carter hayes
    jan 08 philosofer
    jan 09 freealonzo
    jan 10 twayn
    jan 11 new guy
    jan 12 E-6
    jan 13 pepper
    jan 14 socaltwinsfan
    jan 15 spookymilk
    jan 16 DK
    jan 17 AMR
    jan 18 rhu_ru

    (thanks, sean)

    keep `em comin', you guys

    2. I have no idea what the best music of 2013 might have been. Had you asked for the best music of 1973, however, I'd have been all over that.

      1. yeah, i'm going to get to that a little later in the month (the past several weeks have been ridiculously busy). no changes from the past couple years.

        also, going to get a FKB sign-up going too. anyone want to volunteer for january to get the ball rolling?

      1. Hey Mr. DJ, should we specifically be looking for videos of live performances? (I assume yes, but I thought I'd check to be sure.)

    21. I tried to schedule mine but it looks like I screwed something up. The video isn't coming through.

      1. I don't see a video link at all. The category also needs to be 'WGOM Videos' and you should select 'Video' in the post format on the right side.

                1. Got it. Thanks.

                  I was putting it in through the "Add media" and it was throwing those tags in there.

      1. They parked the bus big-time and Everton had countless chances, but couldn't find the equalizer. Sunderland's unfrozen caveman goalie was on his game.

      1. I have Suarez and Yaya Toure, so I'm interested from a fantasy standpoint. It's been very entertaining for us neutrals.

      1. This particular accounting appears to look at season-ending salary rather than the more traditional season-starting salary. Since he's not pro-rating salary obligations between teams, I think it makes more sense to use the Opening Day salaries. Cot's Contracts has the Twins at $82M for 2013, whereas Phil Roth has them around $65M. The biggest difference is the $15M obligation to Justin Morneau, of which the Twins likely paid about $13M. Roth doesn't pro-rate bonuses, and so credits Pittsburgh for $14M and Minnesota with $0M when it comes to Morneau.

      2. By Cots' figuring (which is also not perfect, but seems to capture the bigger picture more accurately), the AL Central last year was:

        $149M -- Detroit
        $119M -- Chicago (really? That's more than I expected)
        $82.0M -- Minnesota
        $81.9M -- KC
        $80.6M -- Cleveland

        I'm more worried about the overall level of talent in the Twins' system than I'm worried about their payroll. When they expect to be competitive (and are selling more tickets), I expect they'll move back into the $110M+ payroll range. It's enough money to compete, but I don't think it'd make sense for them to go to a $150M payroll without a massively different TV deal or some other new revenue, and without massive rule changes, they're not going to lead the league in payroll.

        1. To start the season, Danks, Dunn, Konerko, Peavy, and Rios all made over $13 mil (roughly $71 mil combined)

  5. The Sporting News for June 16, 2008, as found in the upstairs bathroom at my parents'. Promising minor leaguers:

    Aaron Crow (Nationals)
    Justin Smoak (Rangers)
    Brett Wallace (Cardinals)
    Andrew Cashner (Cubs)
    Josh Fields (Mariners)

    1. I haven't checked out Fields in a while. It seems like if you're going to pick a college reliever in the first round of the draft, he'd better be basically ready to go straight to the majors. Although the difference on average between a 20th overall pick and a 10th overall pick is pretty big.

      Smoak is an enigma to me. I don't feel like he should be struggling as much as he is in the majors. He was kind of rushed through the minors, so his performance there is a bit of a SSS even if you include the entire performance, but he had solid SO/BB ratios and good power when he was in the minors. His strikeout rate in the majors is not that bad for a power hitter (13 of the top 20 in ISO last year had a 20%+ SO%) and he still has a decent walk rate. Mainly he has a poor BABIP (which is a skill for hitters) and needs to do better with the contact that he does make. He's a disappointment for an 11th-overall pick, but in his prime I could see him having a couple of league average seasons.

        1. It's a skill for both. For pitchers however, the range is much smaller due to increased selection pressure to be in the top whatever percent. Therefore, variations in hitters' BABIP is more real than for pitchers.

        2. My current opinion is that it probably is a skill for pitchers, but that the range of BABIP for pitchers (at the MLB level) happens to be pretty narrow, so the noise makes it difficult to differentiate one pitcher from another and other pitching indicators (K/9, BB/9, FB%, GB%) tend to be better tools to forecast their future performance.

          BABIP for hitters definitely suffers from some noise as well, but it's not some weird coincidence that Joe Mauer's career BABIP is .349 and Drew Butera's career BABIP is .214.

          To take an example with pitchers, Verlander's career BABIP is .288 and Correia's career BABIP is .297, without adjusting for park or anything (which could make some difference), it wouldn't be crazy to assert that Verlander is better at holding hitters to a lower BABIP than Correia, it's just that the difference in their effectiveness comes down largely to their K/9 rates (8.5 vs. 5.9).

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