Cup of Coffee

May 12, 2011: Hard to Watch

100 Comments

With the "major league" club tanking, this MLB.tv subscriber is having a hard time not switching over to the Rockies or Brewers or something until the injuries subside...

100 thoughts on “May 12, 2011: Hard to Watch”

  1. I attended yesterday's game. I had two thoughts:
    1. Jason Kubel is Mike Sweeney.
    2. The cupboard is bare.

  2. Turns out I got the model of Thinkpad that doesn't have a DVD drive in it. No biggie, I was going for super portability, but this is going to make ripping any future CD purchases a bit more involved (Use mo chailín's laptop to my external HD, I suppose)

    1. If you've got a DVD drive laying around from an old desktop, you can always get an external enclosure for it. I did that for awhile and it worked pretty good.

    2. I've been using my Chromebook since Dec and have yet to need a cd drive. But then again, I haven't bought a CD in quite some time. Amazon FTW.

      1. I haven't bought a CD in some time either. But I am in the process of digitizing my DVD collection so that in the event I move abroad again I can still watch my movies & tv shows.

        1. Yeah, that's a bigger problem. Divx FTW!

          Not sure how I'd handle no netflix overseas. does sidereel work over there?

          1. Sidereel, among others, were highly utilized during my time at Trinity. I became quite adept at getting American TV over there. Now that I'm here, I've had to get creative in getting Ireland and UK shows here.

            I have "Arrested Development" in my instant Netflix queue permanently, and also the DVDs. I want to be able to continue to watch AD whenever I want in the event I no longer have Netflix.

    1. That was my favorite play of the game. I wondered if Revere laid out Avila enough that Tolbert could have scored.

      1. OK, watching it now, not exactly how I remembered it. I thought Revere's head met Avila's crotch.
        Also, Benoit did back it up.

        I'm afraid that Revere won't be as good as I want him to be, but, much like CarGo22, he is fun to watch.

        1. Revere is the only player so far to make it to the bigs from the Snappers teams that I used to travel up to see a couple seasons ago, so I'm really cheering hard for him to stick.

          1. I'm not sure the club can afford to carry a pinch-runner/defensive replacement OFer. So I hope he shows that he can hit at least his ZiPS forecast.

            2. Revere's minor league stats are encouraging. I can think of some players with which to compare him (sorted by SO%):

              .331/.379/.393, 5.1% SO%, 75 SO to 95 BB, 1452 PA -- Juan Pierre
              .322/.375/.422, 5.7% SO%, 140 SO to 189 BB, 2443 PA -- Jeff Keppinger
              .280/.318/.346, 7.5% SO%, 156 SO to 98 BB, 2069 PA -- Placido Polanco
              .326/.386/.406, 8.3% SO%, 134 SO to 117 BB, 1612 PA -- Ben Revere
              .332/.407/.426, 8.8% SO%, 108 SO to 135 BB, 1228 PA -- Joe f'ing Mauer
              .297/.370/.371, 10.6% SO%, 205 SO to 178 BB, 1926 PA -- Alexi Casilla
              .302/.403/.351, 13.5% SO%, 251 SO to 265 BB, 1842 PA -- Luis Castillo
              .255/.311/.366, 14.6% SO%, 499 SO to 237 BB, 3419 PA -- Luis Rivas*
              .278/.341/.396, 17.5% SO%, 259 SO to 88 BB, 1478 PA -- Carlos Gomez
              .278/.314/.356, 18.5% SO%, 253 SO to 54 BB, 1371 PA -- Cristian Guzman

              And then their career major league wOBA and PA:
              .322 wOBA, 1887 PA -- Keppinger
              .323 wOBA, 6969 PA -- Pierre
              .335 wOBA, 6779 PA -- Polanco
              .381 wOBA, 3616 PA -- Mauer
              .285 wOBA, 1161 PA -- Casilla
              .328 wOBA, 7571 PA -- Castillo
              .301 wOBA, 2290 PA -- Rivas
              .291 wOBA, 1565 PA -- Gomez
              .300 wOBA, 5785 PA -- Guzman

              Just looking at their minor league numbers, it's not such a reach to throw Mauer into that mix, although obviously scouts have hugely differing opinions on how good the two hitters are. I think as a Twins fan, especially when the team has been struggling like it has been, it's easy to get really pessimistic about Revere and think of him as being the new Gomez or Rivas or Guzman. But Revere's shown much better contact skills than those guys. The Casilla comp probably shows Revere's downside

              I could really see him being a useful player in the mold of a Pierre or Polanco. Not someone you'd ever call a star or give a 5-year contract to (well, except that the Dodgers were silly enough to offer one to Pierre), but a guy who can have a positive impact on the team.

              It's really too bad Revere's arm is terrible. Being in a corner will hurt his value, but maybe he can develop doubles power and be an above-average left fielder.

              *Some of these PA are after reaching the majors

              1. I wish there was a play index for the minor leagues. Looking up comparable players would be so much easier. I've oft used Pierre as a comparable, but he simply did not strike out at all in minors and had more walks than strikeouts. I'm getting a Polanco-but-faster (and a few more walks) vibe right now.

                Casilla's minor league numbers also seem to fit well. That doesn't scare me much since someone who hit .297/.370/.371 in the minors should hit better than a .285 wOBA.

                1. I was a little shocked by how close Revere and Casilla's minor league numbers are- too bad Laddie hasn't kept it up in the big leagues. I like the Polanco comp. mostly because I always hate it when the Twins face him since he always gets on base two or three times a game.

                  1. I always hated seeing Polanco in situations where he just needed a single to hurt us. Having good contact skills is definitely a weapon.

                2. Casilla's also had the most bizarre minor league deployment pattern. He's played for so many teams in the minors, you'd think he was 33 if you just glanced at his bb-ref page. I don't know what role injuries played in that, but he bounced around enough in the minors (and got traded) that we can reasonably infer that his coaches weren't all that sold on him, which means we should have probably expected him to do worse than a typical .297/.370/.371 hitter in the minors.

              2. I think Juan Pierre is a great comp. People forget how good he was considering the horrible contract the Dodgers gave him. Don't blame the guy for being overpaid. In another organization, Revere could very well play center field even with a weak arm. Other teams would compensate with playing shallow and allow him to use his speed to track the deep fly balls. Since TK was manager, the Twins always seem to play deeper than most, which always helped Kirby and Torii make all those HR saving catches. Plus, the Twins already have Span in CF and Joe Benson was last year's player of the year for the Twins' minor leagues and Aaron Hicks is considered by many a top prospect and both seem to have superior defensive reputations to Revere. In what little I've seen of Revere, he seems like a guy that is easy to root for, with a personality that might be similar to Jacque Jones. Playing in Target Field should help Revere get a bunch of triples and his range in left field will be an important factor, assuming Delmon moves to right field.

                1. assuming Delmon moves to right field.
                  I wonder if that will happen. Gardy has yet to play Young in right field for even a single inning. Playing Revere might force him to though, since it's insanity to put Revere in right to keep Young in left field.

                  1. I think at first it was a reluctance to have Delmon deal with the baggie. And going into 2010, he'd had two straight years of strictly LF, and since he's not a great fielder to begin with, I can see why they'd be reluctant to move him now, though like you said it would be pretty unbelievable if Delmon stayed in LF with Revere in RF.

                    Although it remains a possibility that the Twins don't retain Cuddyer, Kubel, and Thome, which could make Delmon the primary DH. That would somewhat surprise me, but if this season keeps going to hell, they might wind up cutting back the payroll next year.

                    1. You know, I've never quite understood the full strategy of outfield alignments. Two cases in point:

                      1) Greg Luzinski played LF for the Phillies. Nicknamed "the Bull," he didn't strike me as a particularly adept outfielder. B-r rates him as right around (or slightly below) replacement level, defensively.

                      2) Jim Rice in LF and Dwight Evans in RF in Boston. Now, I suppose, Fenway is a special case. But still. Evans was a superior defensive player, and Rice...was not. Indeed, he was bad enough that in 1977, a 37-year old Yaz played 138 games in LF while Rice DH'd.

                      so, what is the evidence on optimal defensive alignments regarding LF and RF choices?

                    2. IIRC, if you look at defensive stats of players who've played a lot of LF and RF, there's not really much of a positional adjustment, so they are mostly interchangeable. But that's always going to be a study done within the confines of managers assigning players to where they think they fit best--there's probably a selection bias that if a manager plays a fielder in both LF and RF, he feels the guy can handle both positions.

                      My general thought is just that RF to 3rd base is a longer throw than LF to 3rd base, so you put the guy with the better arm in RF. I guess this is under the assumption that there are equal opportunities to catch fly balls in LF and RF.

                      I just checked 2006-2010 with all fielders who have more than 1350 innings (150 games of 9 innings), and I found:

                      1.84 BIZ/9 innings, 0.40 OOZ/9 innings -- RF
                      1.77 BIZ/9 innings, 0.38 OOZ/9 innings -- LF

                      So pretty even, but the ball does get hit to RF a little more often.

                      If you wanted to be exotic, and trusted your corner outfielders enough to have them swap between left and right game-to-game, or even pitcher-to-pitcher, I'd guess that you'd want to put the guy with more range in RF with a righty pitcher and in LF with a lefty pitcher. It would likely not be worth the hassle to swap them for every hitter, though.

                    4. It would likely not be worth the hassle to swap them for every hitter, though.

                      I hate it when teams do this. We played a softball team that did this. It pissed me off something fierce. So a opened my stance, looped my hands and hit a inside-the-parker past the RF and RCF that he'd moved to put his best fielders in left/left-center thinking I'd pull the ball.

                    5. I could sort of understand micro-managing like that at a professional level, but it's really lame in rec leagues.

                2. Tangentially, I can't help but think that Torii's deep positioning played a big role in why he hasn't had a positive UZR since 2005. It's great for taking away extra-base hits, but there had to be a trade-off on cheap singles to shallow center.

                  1. I've never really liked that anyways. Most studies of offense in baseball I've seen says on-base skills are more important to power skills (OBP > Slug), so it would seem that it would be better overall to play shallower to produce more outs even if it allows more of the occasional extra-base hit.

    2. Warning - at least for me, the link took me to Inge's triple; if you don't want to relive that moment, quickly click on the vid for Tolbert's hit on the right side of the screen. It's worth it to what Revere's slide a few times.

      1. I was so focused on Capps grooving pitches that I barely noticed the runs that scored subsequently.

      2. Yeah, I noticed I failed on the link- without the edit button to try and fix it, I figured it was close enough. Besides, we should be used to watching the opponent score runs by now.

    1. Heh, the next video is eye-eye popping up a bunt and Konerko making a flashy toss to the pitcher covering first. Looks to me like Torii could've done a better job of running it out- Thornton kinda stepped in front of him to get to the bag.

        1. I remember him doing that in a similar situation with the Twins- he'd been in a slump, it was late in the game, and he just laid down a bunt and got on base. That way he didn't make the last out, I guess. Didn't work out for him this time.

      3. Fun play. I can't believe when I watched this earlier today that I didn't even notice it was ii, which only makes it better.

      4. Huh, it looked like Hunter was hustling, but he also looked really slow. I wish someone kept track of (and made publicly available) how long it takes players to get to first base so we really knew when players were losing a step.

        1. What a weird feeling it must be to have one's job performance broken down to that level. On the other hand, knowledge is power bacon.

          2. I don't think I have the right personality for that kind of job, for sure.

  6. I know this will interest some folks here: Swans are playing First Ave on September 20th. I think I sort of have to attend this show.

    2. I didn't get much past "He was later dumped out of an airlock."

      Everyone knows that Obi-Wan's body disappeared once he became one with the Force.

      *pushes glasses back up*

      1. Dude, don't believe the imperial propaganda! Do you think the Empire would admit his body disappeared and become one with the Force?

        1. I believe the initial reports indicated that Kenobi "died a coward" even though he had a lightsaber at hand.

          Yea, it is both funny, and of questionable taste due to the obvious political implications.

    3. I did, I didn't really care for it. It tried to commit to both the in-references and political commentary so much that it ended up kind of sucking at both, I thought.

      1. That was about 10 times more harsh than I intended. I probably should have said "didn't care for it" and moved on.

        1. Meh, the article deserved it. Meshing the story with real life isn't a bad idea, but it was done in the driest and dullest way possible. Then again, I never liked Star Wars in the first place, so that can't help.

            1. Heh. I have given high scores to Star Wars-themed things in the past when they tickled me. It might not be a great idea to mash it up with something like metafiction, though.

              1. Just kidding. I'm sure I won't really have any concept in mind until 11:00 Saturday night.

          2. I wouldn't call it dry and dull. "Uncomfortable" is more like it. I laughed a few times, but felt uneasy at the same time, with its implication that the U.S. is comparable to the Empire and OBL comparable to a Jedi.

            1. Well, I think it's my general disdain for Star Wars coming through. I sort of ignored the obvious uncomfortable connotations because I couldn't get into the subject matter.

                1. I thought it was an interesting concept, matching Star Wars and current events, but I don't know if there is any way to make these two storylines match up without being out of line on one side or the other.

                  1. I suppose the idea's got potential. When I saw the headline, I thought "that could be interesting". The finished product just didn't live up to what my mind had conjured.

          3. I'll stand by my opinion of the article, I just didn't want to get into "I hate it and you're dumb for liking it" territory, which was certainly not my intention. It just didn't grab me.

    4. They could at least get the details right. Vader was never the "Lord of the Sith." He was never more than an apprentice, unless you count the five minutes between him killing the emperor and his own death, which happened years after Kenobi died.

        1. The title Dark Lord of the Sith is often thought to be synonymous with the title Darth. Contrary to this, however, is the fact that Sith apprentices have been known to carry the title as well. Two examples would be Darth Malak as Darth Revan's apprentice, and Darth Vader as Darth Sidious'. Many Sith Lords have used the Darth title, but there is no evidence as to the synonymic relationship of these two appellations.

          So no, Vader was not a Dark Lord of the Sith.

          1. you didn't read far enough, socal.

            In Bane's reformed order, two Sith held the title at the time, the only two living members of the order in the entire galaxy: a Master and an apprentice. In addition to Darth Bane, known members of this order included:

            Darth Bane
            Darth Zannah[4]
            Darth Cognus[9]
            Darth Millennial[4]
            Darth Vectivus[16]
            Darth Plagueis[17]
            Darth Sidious[18]
            Darth Maul[19]
            Darth Tyranus[20]
            Darth Vader[21]

  9. Listening to Reusse on the way home last night (yeah, I know). He said that the Twins offense was dreadful with "the possible exception of Jason Kubel."

    Possible exception.

    I hate talk radio.

    1. His column today (I am generally a Reusse fan) basically lays the blame on Mauer for being soft. Disappointing.

      1. I find it amusing that the people who most often accuse Mauer of being a sissy are the same who also complain about his contract hamstringing the team. I'm fine with the Twins being a bit overly cautious with him so he can stay healthy for the next 8 years. Mind you, part of the reason Mauer's out right now is that he was trying to fight through the pain at the beginning of the season instead of sitting.

        2. And they are also the ones that forget that the last time he sat this long, he finished with a season for the ages and won a nearly unanimous MVP. If the Twins find a way to turn this thing around and make another huge comeback and the turnaround coincides with Mauer's return, he'll win another one. At least the schedule is favorable. Many more home games than road games and no more games in Toronto, New York or Boston. And maybe not Tampa Bay either, I'm not sure. Plus, 16 more games with Cleveland.

  11. Today at work I saw someone wearing a Rauch jersey t-shirt. I was a bit surprised by this, even if I do miss Neck Tat.

    1. He's not so tall these days. SSST, but a 5.71 tRA and 5.79 FIP (Statcorner version) with 8:5 K:BB and 3 HR in 14 2/3. That wouldn't be solving our bullpen woes right now.

      But I do miss the Stick saying "He's tall" (nearly) every appearance.

  18. I have a hunch that Wilf mentioning MLS is just lip service in order to pitch the new stadium, but there is some precendent. In Seattle, Qwest was built with soccer sightlines in mind and it's a great place for soccer. Of course, I've long thought that MLS in Minnesota would be an uphill battle. With MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, and a D-1 university already in a metro area of 3 million, it's hard to see MLS getting much traction. And while I can see the Vikings making it work in the suburbs, suburban locations for MLS teams have seemingly been hard on attendance.

      1. I agree with you, Ubes. A MN MLS team needs a more convenient location than Arden Hills. I also don't think it is a viable location for NCAA Tournament games, especially a Final Four. And a winter Super Bowl (relatively) far away from the downtown hotels the big shots will stay in, I don't think so.

        Re: the NSC Stars. The hardcore soccer crowd always beats up people who make comments like this, but Blaine just doesn't work for a minor league franchise.

        Not enough people are willing to deal with the commute to check out a NASL game. As a parent, it is almost impossible considering the kid is possessed by demons if not in bed by 9--between a 45 minute drive and 7:30p start time (even on weekends), it just isn't worth the time, money, and energy to go.

        I'd like them to remain solvent, but they have to do it without my support.

      2. 1374 was 3rd-worst in USSF D2 last year, but by 2012, Vancouver, Montreal, and Portland are going to be gone, in which case 2010 attendance for everyone else was between 1,000/game (CP Baltimore, which I think is out of business now), and 6,400 (Rochester Rhinos.) So removing Vancouver, Montreal, Portland, and Baltimore, the average attendance was about 3,000. If the Stars doubled their attendance from ~1,500 to ~3,000, they'd be relatively successful for D2.

        It's too bad the Stars have no afternoon games. I can say that the evening Sounders games are more fun than the daytime games, but it's nice to have some variety in the schedule to keep different groups interested. It would be nice if they could play at TCF Bank stadium, which would be more centrally located and could potentially hook a lot of college kids. It seems like the teams that are doing better in attendance have done a better job at marketing towards younger fans. Looks like they have a Twitter feed and webcast all of their games, so they are at least doing some things right. (Though it's not obvious from their website that they have a Twitter feed.)

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