The water heater that came with our house has been a champ. I'm a little embarrassed to tell you the year it was installed actually, but though not on the top of its game, it's always been at least serviceable. The last place we rented once had a water heater emergency that I'd like to avoid (and that's also the last time I remember being able to call an owner and say, hey, take care of this; I miss that).
Anyway, two questions:
- Name a current or former Twins player that's never been outright good, but has at least been goodish now and then, but also never outright bad. Bonus points for someone that maintained that until the end of their career.
- Uhh, any recommendations for a natural gas water heater replacement? Again, it's working "fine", but better to replace before it's a problem. I have no dog in the tank vs. tankless fight.
When I replaced mine a few years ago (after about 13 years of service from a 6-year warranty water heater), I just got whatever Rheem Home Depot had that was reasonably priced. I looked at tankless, but the plumber I called to install it said he refuses to install them around here because the water is so freekin hard. Swapping what I was replacing with a very similar unit at least meant it was easy to take care of myself. The only annoying part was that the dumbass contractor that did this neighborhood elected to not put an isolating shut off valve on its inlet, so I had to turn the water off to the entire house to do the install.
Tankless came with our house and I’m not sure I love it. We waste so much water sometimes waiting for the warm water to show up, and it definitely doesn’t discourage long showers.
Question #1 I'm going to say Doug Mientkiewicz. Just checked his B-R page, and his career OPS+? 100
Might have to name this trophy after him.
He was going to take it home regardless.
give that man $1WGOM$1
Rich Reese?
Disco Danny Ford? (Career 11.8 rWAR with a high of 2.9; a low of -0.8 in his final season in only 28 games)
I was always convinced he was really good defensively, though, at least by the eye test.
Also, Doug had 4.3 rWAR in 2003, which I think disqualifies him from the “never been outright good” criteria.
yeah, I was waffling on that part. definitely agree on his defense though
It’s funny to get excited about a defense-first first baseman, but it also made him a perfect fit for the TK/Gardy small ball mindset.
oh, I'll throw Marty Cordova's name into the hat.
I like this idea, too, but his ‘98 season was pretty bad. It’s pretty hard to find someone who stuck around but never had a really good or bad season.
If I had the right database, I’d query for players who always had WAR between 0 and 2.
If you're a FanGraphs member, you can export any of their leaderboards.
If not, here's every Twins batter season with a minimum of 50 PAs.
Using that leaderboard and going by the definition the player must never have had a Twins season outside of [0.0, 2.5] FanGraphs WAR, here's the top 20 by PAs:
That's a lot of "remember some guys" right there.
Keeping the WAR between 0 and 2 and never having much variation is a pretty tall order. Guys who are good enough to reach 2 WAR can luck into a 3 WAR season or two, and guys who hover around 0 almost certainly will dip below replacement level for a season or two due to overexposure on a bad team. When you add in that these guys are an injury away from going from bench player to starter, the playing time alone could push them either direction. I’m more in favor of a ~1.0 WAR per season average with a low cap on 3.0 WAR seasons and a minimum for plate appearances.
My answers for position players would have included Ben Revere & Robbie Grossman (on Sean’s list from FanGraphs), plus Pat Meares, Greg Colbrunn, Otis Nixon, & “He was a Twin?” Rick Dempsey. Anthony John is probably disqualified for 2003, but 23.7 WAR over 19 seasons would still be in the ballpark for a very lengthy career of modest compiling.
I set a minimum of 100 PAs (so any season below that is ignored) and changed the max to 3.0 WAR, plus kept the same 0.0 minimum, and now Sanó leads the list with 2859 PAs with Brian Harper's 2691 right behind. Harper doesn't seem like a good fit for your criteria but Sanó had 9 WAR from 2015-2021. Dan Ford and Don Mincher are next and Arraez shows up after Ortiz now.
I hadn’t thought of Harper in this way because he’s one of my all-time favorite Twins and I’d be thrilled to have a catcher like him on the roster pretty much any time. But his success with the Twins is bookended with little success in very limited playing time and a quick decline that isn’t surprising for a catcher. It adds up to 13.4 rWAR with the Twins in six seasons and -1.1 rWAR everywhere else, spread out over ten years and not even 700 PA. His 162 game average is exactly 2.0 rWAR.
Found another pretty good candidate by FanGraphs WAR: Jamey Carroll. He compiled 12.8 fWAR over a remove year career, with a low of -0.7 fWAR in his final season and a high of 2.7 fWAR in his best, and no other seasons above 2.4 fWAR. The 87 WRC+ is acceptable for a guy who is a decent baserunner and is best deployed as a reserve infielder who shouldn’t be asked to fill in at shortstop for more than an handful of games.
Randy Bush is my first thought
Randy Bush is a decent idea, but his ‘92 season was really bad (not the only Bush with a bad 1992), so I’m not sure if he fits the “never outright bad” criteria.
Our current water heater (gas/tank) is somewhere around 25 years old now, I got it when I worked at Lawson Software and our old one sprung a leak. I expect this one is nearing its end of life but I'll run it until it dies on me.
I subscribe to this, unless there has been major improvements in efficiency since the old was was installed. I know it was well worth $$ getting a new refrigerator when it was time.
[whispers] I believe it turned 30 last year...
So yeah, I think it's on its way out. Plus, Jane, really loves hot water and this old man isn't so consistent with it. Seems like a relatively cheap quality of life improvement.
And I will throw Tim Laudner into the pot.
Lots of mediocrity there, but does his ASG appearance disqualify him?
I'd ignore that -- ASG may just be signifying a good half-season (or best mediocre player on a poor team), and in Laudner's case TK was the one that added him (which people at the time had heartburn about).
Would Max Kepler qualify? Did he approach both good and bad?
What's the bar for both? I think Kepler's 2018, 3.5 rWAR, and 2019, 4.0 rWAR, count as actually good but he qualifies after that.
I feel like there have to be some relief pitchers that fit this criteria. Jesse Crain had rWAR between 0 and 2 with the Twins every year except 2007, but he only got 16.1 IP that year, so you could argue he didn’t pitch enough that year to be outright bad.
In his better seasons, you could think about putting him in medium-high leverage situations, but he never had more than 1 save in a season, so he was never good enough to get a bunch of save opportunities.
Pitchers are challenging given how much variability they can have season-to-season. My first thoughts were Mark Guthrie, Mike Trombley, & Mayor McCheese.
The Wild's first playoff game starts at 9pm. The second starts at 10pm.
That first game better move fast!
They'll be eliminated before daybreak.
Dead by dawn! Dead by dawn!
Mrs Runner and I take off tomorrow for a week at Bellaire, MI followed by a few days near Ann Arbor to visit with a some good friends, all part of the Escape Oak Allergy Season Tour. Can't wait - my eyes are juuust starting to itch.