ThejacKmp
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Everything posted by ThejacKmp
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I'm suggesting that we use the term but also find some other vocal to augment our discussion. I can say something is blue and it's true but it doesn't really help you know what kind of blue. That's why we have all kinds of modifiers with it so you can know that I'm looking for a sky blue sweater vest and not a turquoise sweater vest. We don't have those modifiers with racism, a term much more nuanced and important than blue. We label things racist and non-racist. It's very black-or-white (no better term for that, apologies) and it promotes argument and not nuanced discussion. When we were talking about Jim Crow or Bull Connor, we didn't need nuanced. We needed to call a spade a spade. But when we deal with racism that's internalized, we need to have more nuanced discussions. And that calls for different words. I think it comes down to whether you think your actions being called "racial" would be no big deal. If someone told me, "Hey that comment you made to Dan was pretty racial" I would want to figure out what I said, it would still disturb me. But it wouldn't be labeling me a racist (on the level with skinheads and Trump) so perhaps I'd be more willing to take an honest look at what I said to Dan and not fight back. I also think it gets more people interested in talking about it. We've seen people being defensive in this thread because they object to being called racist. It becomes a discussion of what is and isn't racist. The discussion of racism today is too often about defining it logically when it really should be about feeling it emotionally.
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Wow, I'm really surprised by that. That one doesn't seem like a 90% one to me but I guess I'm wrong. -
MIN 4, SEA 2: Bombs and Bullpen
ThejacKmp replied to Tom Froemming's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
I was at the game today. The thing I was blown by was that Lemarre bats right but throws left. So weird. If he's naturally left-handed, it would be weird to have him hit right handed since left handed hitting is a much rarer commodity. If he just is naturally split between batting and hitting, is this common? Is he an X-man?- 60 replies
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- mitch garver
- miguel sano
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I get part of what you're saying. I didn't feel totally comfortable as a white dude saying that we need to water down the word racist - I get that it's pretty convenient to think that and that lots of progress with race gets nullified by watering down what the 15th Amendment meant or what school busing meant etc. But at the same time, we're talking about an incredibly controversial topic and we're using one word to describe things - people are racist or not racist and there's nothing in between. I think that having some more nuanced language to discuss things would be useful for cutting down defensiveness and making it easier to call out the microaggressions for what they are - moments of racialism. I don't want to speak for anyone but it's got to be hard to know that to call someone out, you have to call them this loaded term racist knowing that they're likely going to fight you tooth and nail on it and not get your point. Maybe having a different word to use that brings up the topic without personalizing 300 years of history would be useful? I could be very wrong of course, just a thought.
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Thanks to everyone for their thoughts on this. As stated before, I came home and checked Twins Daily (as I do when I come home after a few drinks out) and really enjoyed the conversation. I didn't agree with everyone but I got something from everyone's POV and loved the discussion. It's a discussion worth having. We talk about race and the NFL and get pigeon-holed into "Don't you love America?" and "You're a flag burner aren't you?"* Baseball should be more open to talking about race because it's a real thing. Baseball is also uniquely prepared to make it not just the Black-And-White issue history and pop culture makes the Civil Rights movement. Cesar Chavez and the Latino experience in America is criminally underrepresented and I hope baseball can be a catalyst to talk about that. Again, many thanks and I hope we can keep the discussion going. No one is wrong and we're all better to hear all sides. Except whomever ya'll are talking about who called people who disagreed with him racist all the time. That guy sucks. * Just my opinion but the thing I love most about America is our ability to burn a flag. Nothing says free speech like the ability to burn the flag that defends that free speech. Amazing, just amazing.
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You made this personal in a way that is kind of strange. I replied to a comment in the original thread but that doesn't mean it wasn't part of a larger discussion and it doesn't mean that I was setting this up as a thejackmp vs. Mike Sixel throwdown. I felt uncomfortable with the coverage of Rosario before last night (Dick and Bert treat him like a child sometimes) and it crystalized last night for me. I happened to piggy back off something you said but I think that: A) I was pretty clear about using broad language and ambiguous statements to make this a "Twins World' issue and not a "Mike Sixel" issue I in no way called anyone racist, just brought up the concept of race in how we view individual players. It feels like you took this whole thing really personally and that's a thought process happening just for you. I wasn't a part of that at all.
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Aside: I went to the game today and then bowled (poorly) in my league. Don't have a smart phone so was happy to come back and see this blow up kind of. I take it back Ashbury, Sports Bar is a thing! I think we need better language around the word racist. We use racist to discuss everything with race and it should be more nuanced. Skinheads are racist, my deceased grandpa's endless discussions of the neighborhood transitions in Chicago was racist -- they made grand assumptions based on stereotypes and applied them to people based on skin color. And yet we have jimmer and USAFchief saying that the only time they get called racist is here. And that's a problem because I'm pretty sure they're not racist in the sense of my grandpa and skinheads. At the same time, I think most reasonable people can comprehend that there are unconscious biases that we all have because we grow up in a world that takes race super seriously. But that doesn't mean we're racist. What we need is another word that describes that societal De Facto racism that we all have at least a bit of. I propose "racial". It doesn't mean we're applying ****ty stereotypes willy nilly but acknowledges that we see race and our viewpoint may be tainted by it. Our opinions are racial. I know that happens to me all the time. I have an ongoing battle with the racial aspects of my worldview. I don't like being called racist because I equate that with skinheads, the alt-right and my grandpa (a lovely guy who was progressive in 1950 and racist in 2010). But I'm certainly racial. I try to fight it but I'm racial. Maybe this makes no sense? I have been drinking :-)
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See and I think I would disagree that Eddie does this much more than other players. I think we just focus on it more because of a narrative we've built. Buxton and Dozier are two players I would argue make equally bad decisions but don't get called out on it as much. Buxton's arm is great in theory but he makes some terrible throws home and to bases. Lots of overthrowing and three bounce throws. And terrible pitch selection and situational hitting. Dozier is a great team leader but he's another guy swinging for the fences in bad situations. Another guy who makes some bad decision on steal attempts (though admittedly, it's hard to tell what is him and what is the coaches) and who has issues with running out balls and making "fake hustle" plays. P.S. Sano's base running is often terrible. He runs through signs way too often and we excuse it because it's funny that a big guy is running through signs. But we hold him to a different standard. And that's my overall point -- we have developed a narrative where every bad Rosario decision is magnified unfairly because it fits that narrative.
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Are you quoting a stat or is that a fact? I find it hard to believe that any ball hit 20 feet over someone's head to the fence has a 90% catch rate. Do I think he should have caught it? Yes, mostly because I think he's got above average range for left. But am I going to count it against him? No, that was a tough enough catch that missing it while crashing into the wall is okay. I'm also saying that sliding into first is stupid no matter who does it, feet or face first. I'm just adding the context that Dozier has done that several times in the past as well and no one harps on that or brings it up when talking about Dozier. Swing at bad pitches isn't directed at you, not everything is about you? Not everything is a one-on-one discussion. I see people complaining about Rosario's pitch selection on TD a lot, just adding that in. He swings at some bad pitches. So does every Twin not named Mauer. Not sure why you're taking this personally, I didn't even know who I was responding to.
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We talking about the Berrios game? That was not a routine fly ball. It was slicing away on a cold and windy day and it hit the wall. Not a gimme. He could make that but better OF than Rosario have missed that ball.No one should slide into first, but feet first is probably smarter. And many people think it is charming when Dozier or Punto do the way more stupid headfirst slide.He didn't try to get picked off. That's ludicrous. It was a nice move and he got caught leaning. And he was called safe.This is why I think race/youth plays a role in this. Dozier slides headfirst into first, doesn't run out groundballs, swings at bad pitches and no one bats an eye. Rosario does it and it confirms what we already know about him and we tweak.
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Hard to find a country that has had more consistent unhappiness than Russia. Maybe it's the tundra?
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I dunno, Eddie seems like the kind of guy who might have thought through "I have a right to stay in this box, I can get in the way." It's actually not a bad baseball move to teach your players - you have a right to that spot and if you can legally make things better for your team, go ahead. It did really look like he was almost trying to get in the way of the catcher.
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I like it too. I don't like Sano running through stop signs. It will not usually work out.
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What are the odds that someone tweaks a hamstring running hard to first? Are those odds higher on a day where it's 30 degrees out? Are those odds higher than the likelihood that an MLB player will miss a popup in front of the plate? I don't know those numbers but it's not a simple matter of "run hard on everything". I don't want Sano busting ass down first base on a routine grounder to second. I want him moving at 3/4 speed and making sure he's available when I need him with two guys on in the 7th. If it's Nick Punto, get your butt down that line.
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To be fair, he's not even close to the worst leader the Russians have had to live under. In fact, he might be up close to the top. The Tsars were a-holes; Lenin only killed hundreds of thousands, not millions and that Stalin guy gave Uncle Adolph a run for his money. You can make an argument for Yeltsin and co. over Putin but even that was just a blatant money grab. The worst Presidents in American history would be Founding Fathers in Russia. The illegal machinations of Nixon, LBJ and JFK would be considered charmingly childish by Russian politicians. I teach Russian History to 9th graders. One of my kids came in and said, "When does Russian History get happy?" I laughed and said never.
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Part of the issue is that everyone in white America thinks that they too might someday be rich. We don't make rational decisions ("I'm likely to remain lower to middle class so I should support positions that help people like me") because we think "Maybe I'll be rich and then I won't want to pay tons of taxes". Democrats often have trouble connecting with people because it's an outwardly focused worldview - "We should help others who are less fortunate" not "we should help ourselves because we are less fortunate than we could or should be". That American Dream is a double edged sword.
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Lots of talk on Twins Daily about Rosario not running out the popup. Always good to run out a popup. That said, I've seen Dozier barely run out a ground ball to second at least twice this year and haven't heard a peep about it. It made me think about the narratives we build around players and what those narratives are based on. Narratives are built on draft spot (Mike Pelfrey is a first round pick, give him a shot), biography (Max Kepler is the child of ballerinas), minor league performance (we all love that Dozier suddenly hit bombs in the pros) etc. But we also base these on race. There are stereotypes we didn't create that are passed down, consciously and subconsciously. I wonder how much of Rosario getting called on hustle issues or throwing the ball to the wrong base has to do with some of the biases the media, the coaches and the fans have for Latino players. Thoughts?
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Yeah, I think my point would be that we fixate on Eddie and not on mistakes made by other players (Dozier, Kepler etc.) I think there's a reason for that - confirmation bias (kind of like how when a young football player fumbles a few time, now everyone fixates on him fumbling and then defensive players go for the fumble more often because of that rep) and a bit of a racial bias (which I guess we need to take to the Sports Bar, whatever that is).
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To play devil's advocate, Eddie Rosario standing there clearly flummoxed the catcher who was unable to get into the play (to the extent that I thought Eddie might be called for interference). The catcher is usually the one who calls out who gets that ball. Eddie standing there may be the reason that the ball fell and Sano was able to get to 3B and score easily on a single he might not have otherwise. Maybe we should look at it as Eddie Rosario cleverly helping a runner score?
- 42 replies
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- eddie rosario
- miguel sano
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Nope, it's actually about the same thing. If anything, the routine grounder has a better chance of hopping weird and causing a bobble. That popup is caught just about every time. Four guys could have caught it. And what's the difference between not running at all and jogging? Neither one changes the result if a miscue is made. I can think of several reasons that Eddie gets blamed more than a Brian Dozier. One is the young guy vs. veteran thing (though really, we should blame the vet more since he should know better). More controversially, I think race and ethnicity plays a role. I'm not sure we want to descend down this path too far but there are stereotypes about Latino players that come into play, often subconsciously. This may be a poor place to take this and I apologize in advance if anyone gets offended but I think it's better to talk about the elephant in the room than ignore it.
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Dozier would have little incentive to do that. He'd have a decent amount in the bank and unless you gave him 2 years, $45 mill he'd be better off betting on Free-Agency-at-31 over Free-Agency-at-33. 31 teams talk themselves into, 33 teams talk themselves out of. Not sure he'd even have taken that 2 years $45 mill. Might take closer to $50.
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Joe Mauer money from here on forward is middle reliever to set-up man money. Dozier money from here on forward is #2/#3 starter money. We will miss Dozier but good teams replace Dozier in talent and leadership from within.
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This is crazy talk. Joe Mauer over five years would cost nothing even close to Dozier. You'll get Mauer on one or two year deals at $5 mill to $10 mill per year. He won't go elsewhere. Dozier is going to cost $20 to $25 million per year and you're going to have to go at least four years from the get go. You make fine points about Dozier playing 2B or 3B but the Twins have a ton of middle infielders coming up, Sano looks good at 3B for at least 2-3 years and you don't pay a guy like Dozier Blackmon money and years if you're smart. There's little upside on the deal. Mauer is the kind of vet the Twins should be keeping around - he doesn't cost much, he comes year-to-year and he plays a position (LHB first baseman) that the Twins don't have an obvious replacement for. Dozier is a luxury. If the Twins can get him for three years and $50-$60 mill they should. Otherwise they should take the draft pick.
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Eddie Rosario will get roasted for the popup. And he deserves to be because you always run it out. That said. I've seen Brian Dozier dog at least two easy ground balls outs this year. I hope we don't start applying a different set of standards to Mr. Rosario than we do to Mr. Dozier or Mr. Mauer. MLB players play the %s and a ground ball to second and a pop up in front of the plate are outs 99.7% of the time in MLB. They should run it out but we also should cut Rosario the same break we do all pro players.
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- eddie rosario
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Good to see TD not buying into the "play the game the way people in 1890 wanted" B.S. I'd get it if it was the Twins doing it up 7-0 but when you're down and there's no no-hitter on the line and there's a shift on, it becomes ridiculous to complain. Agreed it seems like a media/Molitor thing.
