Cup of Coffee: December 3, 2020

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As for today’s content: last night was the non-tender deadline. Fifty-nine souls were cast out into the wilderness of involuntary free agency. Fifty-nine other souls signed mostly team-friendly deals in order to avoid being non-tendered. It’s rough out there. High water everywhere.

In other news, the Orioles decided that employing actual major league-caliber players isn’t a priority, the Cubs said goodbye — maybe — to Kyle Schwarber, and the the Dodgers picked up an intriguing bullpen rehab project. We also talk about things that Yogi Berra didn’t actually say and the advantage younger siblings have over their older siblings when it comes to sports. Greg Maddux and Rick Reuschel tell Mike Maddux and Paul Reuschel “hi.”

In other stuff we talk about the COVID vaccination schedule, empathy from lame duck presidents and from self-indulgent writers, the ghosts of segregation, a re-jiggered “Godfather III,” and a guest poster posits — perhaps against all apparent evidence — that today will be better than yesterday.

Let’s get at ‘er.

The Daily Briefing

The non-tender deadline has come and gone

As I explained yesterday, last night at 8PM was the non-tender deadline. Teams had three main options with arbitration-eligible players: tender them a contract, with the amount to be determined via arbitration or negotiation later, agree to a one-year deal for 2021 avoiding the arbitration process altogether, or non-tender them, making them free agents.

There were 59 non-tenders. That’s only six more than what we had last year. Which is sort of surprising because most folks were expecting the non-tender deadline to be a bloodbath. It really wasn’t. That said, there were a bunch of guys who agreed to deals avoiding arbitration that appear at first glance to be below-market contracts. Fifty-nine of them too, in fact, which was up from only 30 in 2019. Basically, a lot of guys chose to take discount deals so they wouldn’t be non-tendered, so don’t assume all of this was business as usual.

The most notable among the non-tenders were Cubs outfielder Kyle Schwarber and Braves outfielder Adam Duvall, each of whom were fairly defensible non-tenders by historical statistical standards, even if they are bigger names than one usually sees cut loose. But there were other notables as well. Among the most likely to make some sort of impact next year: Orioles infielder Hanser Alberto, Jays infielder Travis Shaw, Royals infielder Maikel Franco, Twins outfielder Eddie Rosario, Reds pitcher Archie Bradley, Rockies outfielder David Dahl, and White Sox starter Carlos Rodon.

Here is the list of all of the players who were non-tendered. Add them to the free agent pile. Here’s a list of guys who signed deals to avoid arbitration. And further into the cold, cold offseason we go.

Kyle Schwarber non-tendered

As mentioned, the biggest name to be non-tendered last night was Cubs outfielder Kyle Schwarber. Schwarber, 27, is coming off a year in which he hit just .188/.308/.393 in 224 plate appearances. He walked a lot but struck out a lot and he’s a zero on defense, so it’s probably not super surprising that the Cubs don’t want to pay him arbitration rates, even if he’s famous.

Cubs sources said they’d like to find a way to keep Schwarber around, which simply means getting him to agree to play for them on a lower-dollar deal. Now that he can sign anywhere, however, other clubs may think he’s worth a bit more. Once a guy has had some success — and Schwarber has certainly had success — suitors tend to focus on the upside more than the downside. That’s how Dontrelle Willis got so many chances. It’s why Schwarber may get a handful of good offers for a change-of-scenery deal.

Orioles GM Mike Elias says the quiet part out loud

On Tuesday night, MLB asked this:

You asked for miracles, Theo, I give you the Baltimore Orioles.

Here’s what Orioles GM Mike Elias said about the non-tender of Hanser Alberto, a clubhouse leader and fan favorite:

There’s actually nothing in the Collective Bargaining Agreement preventing the Orioles from tendering Alberto a contract, of course. And given that the O’s were dead last in payroll in 2020, there is no possible penalty or structural disincentive demanding Alberto’s non-tender. The guy made a prorated $1.65 million in 2020. He was maybe — maybe — gonna make a tad north of $2 million if the O’s kept him.

Is Alberto an amazing player? No. But based on Elias’ comments — the entirety of which you can read at the Baltimore Sun — there is close to 0% chance that Alberto will be replaced by someone who has anything even close to his league average bat. Elias is focusing on getting younger and “subtracting” — his words — from a roster that had almost nothing to begin with and has even less today.

But Elias wasn’t done:

Most other GMs at least try to avoid saying “we have no interest in winning but, rather, want to save as much money as possible.” How bold of Elias to be honest and say that the point is to be cheap. Or maybe it’s not boldness. Maybe it’s hubris. Elias, after all, is a Houston Astros-trained execubot, and those sorts seem to think that everyone around them is dumber than they are and that businesspeak about the point of running a baseball team being to cut costs as much as possible is somehow compelling.

What a goddamn stupid sport this can be sometimes.

Orioles trade José Iglesias to the Angels

In other Orioles news, back on November 2 I wrote this:

“Lol, just kidding,” the Orioles basically said yesterday. “We’re not keeping a recognizable and likable guy making over $3 million! We’re trading him for some dudes our fans have never heard of!” And that’s exactly what they did.

The deal: Iglesias heads to Anaheim in exchange for 19 year-old righty Jean Pinto who has only pitched in the Dominican Summer League and righty Garrett Stallings, a 2019 draftee who has yet to pitch a professional inning at all.

Iglesias hit a pretty flukey .373/.400/.556 over 150 plate appearances in 2020. He’s not that good, of course, but he’s a legit major leaguer who will replace Andrelton Simmons, who is leaving via free agency. For their part, the Orioles are clearly none too interested in having many legit major leaguers hanging around these days.

Dodgers acquire Corey Knebel

The Dodgers acquired right-hander Corey Knebel from the Brewers right before the non-tender deadline last night. Milwaukee dealt him for either a player to be named later or cash. He’ll still be eligible for arbitration with the Dodgers.

Knebel, a former All-Star, came back from Tommy John surgery in 2020 and didn’t have a very good year at all, posting a 6.08 ERA with a 15-to-8 K/BB ratio in 13.1 innings. In 2017-18, however, Knebel saved 55 games while posting a 2.54 ERA in 131.1 innings while striking out 14.7 batters per nine. L.A. is clearly thinking that last season was an anomaly — a ramp-up after being out due to TJ surgery — and that it’s worth the $5 million or whatever it will take to keep him in order to see if he bounces back.

Hire a GM, Steve

After the non-tender deadline, Mets owner Steve Cohen tweeted this:

The new inefficiency in baseball: never hiring a general manager and, instead, hoping fans tell you who to sign on the cheap. I see what you’re doing, Stevie boy.

Yogi Berra really didn’t say everything he said

Yogi Berra was a war hero and one of the best players in the history of baseball but, for better or for worse, most people know him for his sayings and malapropisms and stuff. Yogi was no fool, though. He knew that brand mattered so he leaned into it. You don’t get AFLAC commercial money by being boringly erudite.

Arguably his most well-known turn of phrase was “it ain’t over ‘till it’s over.” Which he is credited as defiantly saying in 1973 when the Mets team he managed was way out of first place in late July. That Mets team came back, of course, won the NL East and the NL pennant before falling to the A’s in the World Series.

It’s a great story except for the fact that Berra never said “It ain’t over ‘till it’s over.” At least not until after it had been widely credited to him and he just echoed it back. For the story of how that saying and attribution came to be, check out Brandon Riddle’s article about it over at Pitcher’s List.

The Little Sibling Effect

There’s an interesting article at Five Thirty Eight — written by a guy who has a book coming out on the same topic — about why younger siblings tend to be better at sports than older siblings. The lede example is Serena Williams being better at tennis than Venus Williams, but there’s a statistical breakdown of multiple big-time sports, and it applies pretty much across the board. Even in baseball:

Greg Maddux laughs. Mike Maddux sighs.

The author’s explanation makes some sense: younger siblings “play up” to the level of their older, physically superior siblings at a young age, and thus learn more and develop more due to the challenge. Older siblings, on contrast, having no leader figure living in the same house are not so challenged, at least at a young and impressionable age. Another part of it: with younger siblings, parents know how to better navigate the increasingly complicated world of youth sports than they did with the first kid. Maybe Mr. and Mrs. Maddux were able to get young Greg on to an elite traveling team earlier and more easily than they did Mikey, with whom they were flying relatively blind.

I’m a younger sibling, but none of this applies to me because I come from a long, long line of flat-footed, slow-moving people whose primary genetic trait appears to be the ability to avoid conflict by moving to completely other countries or states the moment things go sideways. But all of this does sound plausible.

Other Stuff

When are you going to get your COVID vaccination?

An independent panel advising the CDC has offered its recommendations about the rollout schedule and priorities for the COVID vaccines. The New York Times has a comprehensive story about that. The upshot:

• December: Health care workers and nursing home residents get vaccinated where they live and/or at their place of work;

• January-March: Vaccines to be available at doctor’s offices, hospitals, pharmacies, and some specially-created clinics with the emphasis initially on people over 65, people with medical conditions that put them at greater risk of death if infected, and people who work in education, food, transportation and law enforcement. People in these groups who have already had the virus, however, will likely not get the vaccine seeing as though they are immune from it for at least some period of time;

• April, May and June: People who are lower risk — healthy, nonessential workers younger than 65 — will begin getting the vaccine, with the vast majority of Americans to be vaccinated by early summer.

An expert the Times spoke to for the story says that social gatherings will again be common — and safe — by the summer. Until then, buckle up and buckle down.

If only Trump had shown empathy?!

President Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale went on TV on Tuesday night and said that if Trump had shown empathy in the face of the pandemic that he would’ve been reelected:

And if I had shown the baseball ability of Derek Jeter I’d be getting inducted into the Hall of Fame.

People have said this kind of thing about Trump a lot this year. “If only he had taken the pandemic seriously!” or “if only he had at least pretended to care!” that he’d be starting a second term next month. I get why they say that, but it’s a rather absurd thing to say.

The man is incapable of empathy and, even if he were capable, he’s uninterested in it. Indeed, he’s actively hostile to the concept of empathy. It may even be reasonable for him, in his own twisted mind, to be hostile to it because if he had the capacity for or even pretended to display empathy back in 2015-16, there’s a pretty good argument that he never would’ve gotten elected in the first place.

Trump’s entire appeal to those who voted for him was “you don’t have to care about other people.” He, unlike all the other politicians who merely feint and dog whistle at the idea, provided explicit absolution for racists, xenophobes, and “fuck you, I got mine” shitbags to freely and publicly revel in their toxic and antisocial convictions. He was a liberating force for sociopaths, the selfish, and for the reactionary revanchists, of which there are over 70 million in this country based on this year’s election results. His toxicity on that score — his aggressive lack of empathy and, in fact, naked antipathy for women, immigrants and people of color, or anyone who falls on the “have-not” side of the ledger — is an essential feature of Trumpism, not a pesky bug.

I realize that The Goldwater Rule and general standards of public decorum prevent psychiatric professionals from diagnosing a person who is not under their care — and I realize that I am no psychiatry professional — but it seems abundantly clear that Trump has narcissistic personality disorder, a primary trait of which is a lack of empathy for others. Seriously, I defy anyone to go read they symptoms of it and to find even a single aspect of the disorder Trump does not display on a near daily basis. He’s such a textbook case that the people who write the textbooks sit and watch the news at night and say “damn!” If I’m insensitive for pointing that out, welp, sorry, but it seems no less controversial to me than pointing out that the sky is blue.

“If only Trump had displayed some empathy,” the guy once in charge of his campaign says. It’d be just as reasonable to ask what might have been if only Trump morphed into a frog and then sprouted wings and flew to keep from bumping his ass a-hoppin’.

Speaking of empathy

As a writer, this spoke to me:

I won’t go as far as Saunders and say that I would keep writing even if it was demonstrated that it had an overall net negative effect on people’s lives, but, without question, I write because it makes me feel better and makes me feel alive.

Before I began writing on a regular basis — which was before I did it for a living — I was asleep. After I began writing I woke up. And I don’t mean “waking up” as a metaphor for political or social consciousness or anything. It’s more basic than that. I felt like life was happening to me before I wrote and, since I began writing, I feel like I am living my life. It’s as simple as that.

None of which is to say that you should all unsubscribe since my purpose for doing this is to some vague self-affirmation kick as opposed to a purely commercial endeavor. Being able to eat is a big part of the self-affirmation, even if it’s not a necessary part.

The Ghosts of Segregation

Photographer Richard Frishman has spent the past couple of years on a massive project in which he has documented the vestiges of racism and segregation in America’s buildings. Separate “colored” entrances for restaurants and movies theaters. Fading signs and ghost billboards touting “all white help” in kitchens and hotels. The places where notable and notorious chapters of America’s racial history took place but which, now, appear to be innocuous. Or, more often, are crumbling and fading away.

The website for his project is here. I came across it via this New York Times article Frishman wrote and which features a number of the photographs with explanatory context. It’s fascinating, eye-opening stuff even if you are well-versed in our nation’s history of segregation and oppression. It’s one thing to know it from books, news articles, and people’s stories. It’s another thing to see evidence of it in a building you may have passed by for years, completely unaware of the significance of what you thought was a service entrance.

“Godfather III” redux

Francis Ford Coppola has taken a new stab at the 1990 disappointment “The Godfather III.” Which has been renamed “The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone.” It’s a recut version of the movie that will be released in theaters tomorrow if you’re feeling reckless like Sonny Corelone. If you’re sensible like Michael it’ll be on video-on-demand on December 8, though I’m not sure which platform. A story about the recut — which contains spoilers about some of the changes Coppola has made — can be read in the New York Times.

I got super into the first two “Godfather” movies when I was about 15 or 16, so it was just a year or two later that Part III came out. I was excited, went to see it at the theater the day it came out, and . . . wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. Everyone cites Sofia Coppola’s casting as Mary as what killed the movie, but I think that’s too lazy a read. No, she wasn’t good in the role, but it could’ve been forgiven if the rest of the movie worked, but the rest of the movie didn’t work particularly well.

The stuff about the Vatican — which was the main plot driver — never really clicked for me. “The Godfather” is a story about America and its corrupting influence. To take it out of America and to run headlong into European/Vatican intrigue was a mistake, I think. It just seemed kinda convoluted and lost the plot of what the saga was all about. The central conflict of the story — Michael wanting to go legitimate but being unable to escape the gravity of his corruption and the corrupt world he played a huge part in creating and perpetuating — could have been far more simply told via a plot that focused on him, Vincent, and the mob. And actually, Coppola and Mario Puzo’s exploration of the idea that there are worse entities than the mob — like the Vatican! — and they’re considered legitimate sort of undercuts the whole thing. It takes away all the stakes, going clear back to the first “Godfather.” After all, if Michael would’ve found himself in a world of corruption no matter where he went, how was his choosing to stay corrupt in his family’s business any worse?

According to the Times story Coppola has made some edits and rearranged some things to try to make the Vatican stuff work better, so we’ll see if that improves things. And, it says, he has cut out some of the more hammy and over-the-top scenes, most of which did not, actually, involve Sofia Coppola (I’m looking at you Pacino and Eli Wallach). Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t, but I’ll give it a chance. The guy who made both of the first two “Godfathers,” “The Conversation” and “Apocalypse Now” — not to mention the greatly underrated “Peggy Sue Got Married” — is allowed a Mulligan.

Cup of Coffee Coffee Cup Guest Post: Kyle

Subscriber Kyle sent me a photo of his Cup of Coffee coffee cup (available for purchase here). As such, he’s entitled to a guest post. Here it is!

Hi there, my name is Kyle. I live in Milwaukee. You might have put that together based on my Twitter handle, @KyleinMKE (that’s the airport code for Milwaukee). I am a born and raised Wisconsinite. I went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison and have worked as a CPA the last five-plus years.

I struggled with what my topic was going to be for this guest post. I wanted to do something witty, but if I am totally honest, it is damn hard for me to be witty if you give me time to think. Wit, at least for me, is something best unplanned and unforced. So that left me with a last resort topic, and that is Twitter bits.

Most of you likely are on Twitter; there are probably a few of you that are not and are from Craig’s old HBT days. I envy you. My 11.5 years on Twitter have been mostly bad. But Twitter, like a bad addiction, keeps coming back into my life. You see, a lot of Twitter is about bits, or just recurring topics/jokes that get beaten into the ground faster than Manfred’s been able to kill baseball. Hell, Jon Rothstein is a college basketball writer that monetized and commoditized his Twitter bits into an apparel line. A grift that I am truly jealous of. But I digress.

One bit that literally changed my life came from . . . Buster Olney of all people. As of this writing, I am not blocked by Buster on Twitter, but I did have to check. Starting way back in 2010, Buster started signing off his then-daily ESPN blog (RIP) with the line “And today will be better than yesterday.” Back then, his younger sister had been diagnosed with cancer and this was simply one way he managed dealing with that news.

One day, around my 20th birthday, I tweeted that line with a typo that haunts me to this day (I used a comma instead of a period). It is the first recorded time that I used that phrase. It is my pinned tweet and I am pretty sure I will never change it. I cannot remember when I started tweeting it daily, but I do. Sometimes it comes later in the day, sometimes at five in the morning, but it always gets tweeted. At least every day that I’m on Twitter; I’ve deactivated from time to time so there are gaps.

This simple phrase has come to define my life. I have it as my license plate. I have a wooden board with this inscribed on it. I actually tweet a photo of this board every day. I have it written on a whiteboard that is hung on my refrigerator. I see it and say it all the time. People associate this phrase with me. And I can never claim full credit for it, but I have fully adopted it nonetheless.

2020 has sucked for damn near all of us. Stress and anxiety at work led me to take a leave of absence and ultimately a new job. I’ve struggled with depression and bipolar II disorder. I’ve dealt with suicidal ideations. The whole nine yards of mental health, I have dealt with it. But this stupid phrase, from a defunct sports blog, from over a decade ago, has stuck with me.

Bits can be funny, they can be poignant, they can be inconsequential, they can be of deep importance. I think what I am trying to say is that bits can define who you are, and that is perfectly okay. You should embrace them. Because sometimes, they can literally save your life.

Today will be better than yesterday.

Thanks Kyle!

Have a great day, everyone. One that is better than yesterday, in fact. And if you liked what you read today, how about subscribing:

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