Cup of Coffee: April 29, 2024

Good morning!

Today I am writing to you from lovely Boerne, Texas where I am visiting my in-laws. Due to this sojourn there will be some disruption this week. Today and tomorrow’s missives may be a bit shorter than usual due to my social obligations and I may just punt Wednesday all together given that I have a long travel day on Tuesday, but we’ll just play it by ear. Thanks for understanding.

In the meantime, today we have some good uniform news for once. Also: Wade Miley is having Tommy John surgery, Tommy Pham is just looking to play someplace where he can win — but only on tax day — the O’s sent down a prospect, the Red Sox picked up a first baseman, and the Indiana prison system picked up a former major league outfielder on a nine-year deal.

Other stuff is brief today, but we have an update to the Chicago Bears’ stadium ask and I went to the best place in Texas.

And That Happened 

Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:

White Sox 4, Rays 2: I’ve sorta made fun of Tommy Pham over the past couple of years and I do so again, albeit lightly, down in the Daily Briefing. In my defense, there has been a fair amount of reason to make fun of him. But the guy can still play and all he did this weekend is get signed on Friday, go 5-for-14 while scoring three runs in his first three games, all of which the lowly Chicago White Sox won, while getting headlines for being a team leader and good example. So: hats off. Erick Fedde pitched into the ninth and Gavin Sheets and Eloy Jiménez each had three hits as the Chisox complete the improbable sweep, doubling their season win total in the process.

Nationals 12, Marlins 9: Nick Senzel homered twice and drove in five runs as the Nationals overcame a 7-0 Miami lead. Trey Lipscomb and Jacob Youg had three hits a piece and Alex Call reached base five times. This was the Nationals’ biggest comeback in nearly six years. The Marlins have lost six straight and, thanks to the White Sox’ surprising weekend, now own baseball’s worst record at 6-23 compared to Chicago’s 6-22.

Tigers 4, Royals 1: Tarik Skubal continues to dominate, allowing just one run over seven while striking out six. Wenceel Pérez hit a two-run homer. It was his first-ever homer. In related news, he is my first-ever Wenceel. Jake Rogers also homered for the Tigers, who have won five of seven. My father-in-law, who I am visiting at the moment, has been a Tigers fan since the early 1950s and, in recent years, has sort of given up hope that they’ll ever be good again. I’ve been trying to convince him that, actually, this is a pretty scrappy team that, while maybe a bat or two short of being truly dangerous, does have some gumption. Between watching Saturday’s come-from-behind win and the end of this one, I think he may be starting to believe me.

Atlanta 4, Guardians 3: It was close and Atlanta tied it up until the eighth inning when Matt Olson singled in Ozzie Albies. In the tenth Austin Riley singled home the Manfred Man to complete the walkoff win and to give Atlanta the series. Cleveland gave the Barves quite an assist in this one as their Manfred Man, Stephen Kwan, was picked off trying to steal third in the top of the tenth with one out. José Ramírez singled just after he was nailed, so whoops. Then Ramírez screwed up by overrunning second while trying to steal. They’re giving you a man in scoring position guys. Maybe don’t waste him.

Athletics 7, Orioles 6: The O’s were leading in the seventh when Tyler Nevin homered to close the deficit to one run. Craig Kimbrel, who blew the save on Friday night, came in to lock things down. And then he blew this one even more, walking the first batter he faced on four pitches and then giving up a two-run jack to Kyle McCann. At that point Kimbrel was taken out of the game and was said afterward to be suffering from back tightness. Seth Brown homered and Brent Rooker singled in two runs for the A’s who took two of three and who have won three of four.

Blue Jays 3, Dodgers 1: Kevin Gausman was great, allowing one run over seven. All three Jays runs scored in the second, with Alejandro Kirk homering and two more runs coming in on groundouts. Shohei Ohtani hit a deep drive to center field in the first inning but Daulton Varsho made a leaping catch on the warning track before slamming into the fence. The Dodgers’ six-game winning streak ended.

Mets 4, Cardinals 2: A good start from Lance Lynn and a great start from José Quintana led to a 1-1 game at the end of regulation. The tenth was scoreless and the Cards scored one on a single-in-the-Manfred Man play in the top of the 11th. In the bottom half Harrison Bader singled in the Mets’ Manfred Man to tie it, which brought in Mark Vientos who smacked a 1-2 pitch for a walkoff, sweep-averting homer.

Yankees 15, Brewers 5: Aaron Judge had been struggling mightily until pretty recently but he went 2-for-4 and homered on Saturday and then went 3-for-4 with a homer and a two-run single yesterday. Judge:

Beyond Judge, Anthony Rizzo went 4-for-4 and hit his 300th career homer and Anthony Volpe hit a three-run homer. It was his 23rd birthday. I remember my 23rd birthday. I went to work at my summer DOJ clerkship, left early because they weren’t paying me and they couldn’t make me stay if I didn’t have anything to do, and then I went home to my Alexandria, Virginia apartment where my wife and I ordered a Domino’s pizza and drank what we probably thought was good wine at the time but really wasn’t. We really knew how to party, folks. Anyway, the Yankees scored 15 runs in back-to-back games. Which I’m gonna consider to be an homage to the Steroid Era, during which my 23rd birthday took place.

Rangers 4, Reds 3: Adolis García hit a regular two-run homer in the first and, later that inning, Wyatt Langford hit a inside-the-park two-run homer, aided bigly by the fact that he hit it to the crookedest part of the ballpark, causing it to pinball all over the place. Those four runs were enough for Dane Dunning, who struck out ten and allowed only one earned run while pitching into the sixth. Which is good, because a lot of his contemporaries in the film business lost their careers because they found themselves stuck in the bottom of a fifth. Like Barbara Payton, the female lead in the infamous noir, “Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye” in which The Dane played an unnamed police officer who had no lines. Dear Lord, Payton’s was a sad story. Tinseltown will chew you up and spit you out, friendo.

Astros 8, Rockies 2: Kyle Tucker, Jose Altuve and Jeremy Peña each hit solo homers while Framber Valdez returned for the first time in nearly a month to pitch five innings of two-run ball. Houston, who came into this two-game series down in Mexico having lost five in a row, outscored Colorado 20-6. Also: baseball at 7,300-feet of elevation is wild.

Giants 3, Pirates 2: Thairo Estrada and Mike Yastrzemski hit back-to-back solo home runs in the third inning and a Lamont Wade Jr. sac fly that same inning accounted for all the runs Giants would score. And it was all they’d need, as rookie right-hander Keaton Winn allowed one run over six. Pittsburgh mounted a little rally late but it ended when Joey Bart grounded out with two men on in the ninth. Man, it woulda been something if Bart had jacked one out of there against his old team. I’m choosing to believe the fact that he did not is just further evidence that we live in a universe possessed of no author but random chance.

Diamondbacks 3, Mariners 2: Christian Walker homered, Ketel Marte broke a tie with an RBI double in the eighth inning, Brandon Pfaadt struck out 11 in six innings, and Arizona relievers retired all nine batters they faced. The Dbacks salvage one in the series and end a three-game skid.

Phillies 8, Padres 6: Bryson Stott hit two two-run homers and J.T. Realmuto also went deep. Luis Campusano hit three-run homer and Jake Cronenworth hit a two-run shot in the losing cause. The Phillies sweep and the Padres lost their fourth in a row.

Twins 11, Angels 5: Minnesota is on fire, having won seven in a row. This one was won on offensive firepower as the Twins rattled off 17 hits. Ryan Jeffers, José Miranda, Christian Vázquez and Willi Castro had three hits a piece and Austin Martin and Alex Kiriloff drove in two runs each. The Twins scored 32 runs in the three-game series. The Angels have lost four straight and nine of 10.

Red Sox 5, Cubs 4: Jarren Duran found himself down 0-2 leading off the bottom of the ninth but he worked a walk off of Mark Leiter Jr. He then took third on a Rafael Devers single and came home on a Tyler O’Neill single to walk the game off. All of that came after the Sox blew a 4-0 lead in the seventh and eighth thanks to a Matt Mervis RBI knock and a three-run homer from Michael Tauchman. With that Boston takes the series.

The Daily Briefing

MLBPA memo reveals that MLB is going to fix the crappy uniforms 

Jeff Passan of ESPN reported yesterday that Major League Baseball plans to address the crappy-ass uniforms that it and Nike foisted upon the world this season. That news came via a memo from the MLBPA to the players. From Passan:

The most prominent modifications include a return to larger lettering on the back of jerseys, remedying mismatched gray tops and bottoms and addressing the new Nike jersey's propensity to collect sweat, according to the memo distributed to players by the MLB Players Association on Sunday.

The changes, which will happen at the latest by the beginning of the 2025 season, will also include fixes to the pants, widely panned this spring for being see-through.

The fun part of this is that the memo pulls no punches, placing all of the blame on Nike, which the union says “was innovating something that didn't need to be innovated.” The union memo absolved uniform manufacturer Fanatics, who has apparently been trying its best to work with players to deal with the complaints while being constrained by Nike’s design specifications. "This has been entirely a Nike issue," the memo says.

No one is commenting about this, but really, what are they gonna say? Sounds to me that Nike had an idea, MLB just let them do what they wanted to do, and despite player and union complaints going back to last summer’s All-Star Game, when the new design was given a sneak preview, Nike didn’t seem to give a crap. Only after two months of players looking ridiculous in comically-sweat-stained and often ill-fitting uniforms that have a propensity to rip while sporting amateurish lettering did MLB step in and, it would seem anyway, told Nike that it needed to fix things.

It stinks that it may take until next season to right this pretty pathetic wrong, but on the bright side we will always be able to look at game footage in the future and know for certain which of it took place in 2024 and which of it didn’t.

Wade Miley to have Tommy John surgery

The Milwaukee Brewers rotation was already something of a mess. Corbin Burnes was shipped to Baltimore, Brandon Woodruff is out for the season due to shoulder surgery, and DL Hall is on the injured list. Now it’s gotten worse, as the club announced on Friday that Wade Miley needs Tommy John surgery. His 2024 season is over and he'll miss a decent portion of 2025, too. 

Not that 2025 is any sort of guarantee. Miley becomes a free agent after the season, so he’ll have no guarantee of a job next year. While some guys in his situation often sign two-year deals — one cheap year for rehab/ramp-up, one for when they’re back at full strength — that’s pretty unlikely for the 37-year-old like Miley. Still, he told the reporters that he's planning on returning rather than retiring so he can go out on his "own terms." Good luck to Miley in that regard. Tough break for the 14-year veteran.

Despite all of that, Milwaukee — who sits in first place as we wake up this morning — has been doing pretty well in the early going, yesterday’s disaster notwithstanding.

Orioles send Jackson Holliday back down 

You probably saw this already but the Baltimore Orioles sent top prospect Jackson Holliday back to the minors on Friday. It was certainly justified as Holliday was 2-for-34 with two walks and 18 strikeouts in 10 games. But he’s just 20, he’s still good, and he’ll be back, probably fairly soon. The O’s are contenders and can’t waste a lineup spot on a kid struggling that badly.

I found something that Baltimore GM Mike Elias said during the demotion announcement interesting, however. He said that part of the reason Holliday may have struggled is because the overall talent/competition gap between Triple-A and the majors is getting bigger. Meaning that Holliday was probably facing worse pitching at the minors’ highest level than prospects may have faced there a few years ago.

I think that’s probably true, but I suspect that the reason it’s true is attributable to people who think like Elias and, possibly, even Elias himself.

As we all know, Major League Baseball took over minor league baseball a few years back, eliminated scores of teams, and got rid of short-season minor leagues in favor of complex leagues. The thinking behind that move — apart from just saving money — was based on the belief that player development at the lower levels could be done just as well in instructional environments at team complexes. That idea came from Jeff Luhnow, the now-disgraced former general manager of the Houston Astros. Elias was himself Luhnow’s right-hand man in Houston, overseeing player development and then serving as his assistant GM before being hired by the Orioles. It’d be utterly shocking, therefore, if Elias was not in agreement with Luhnow on the minor league contraction stuff and I’m guessing that he participated in the conception of the contraction plan while he was still in Houston.

Anyway, a byproduct of that contraction plan is that there are now hundreds fewer minor league roster spots available. It stands to reason that a lot of the people who lost jobs in that business were the older, more seasoned minor league veteran journeymen. Quad-A types who represent tough competition for young prospects and who help them hone their game. Their disappearance is probably a big reason why, per Elias, Triple-A is not as challenging for guys like Jackson Holliday anymore.

It’s like a black fly in your chardonnay, Mike. A death row pardon two minutes too late.

Red Sox acquire Garrett Cooper from the Cubs

The Boston Red Sox acquired first baseman Garrett Cooper from the Chicago Cubs on Saturday. They got him for cash considerations.

Cooper had been designated for assignment by the Cubs, as he was losing playing time to Michael Busch, who has really broken out this year. The Red Sox, in contrast, have an open first base slot given Triston Casas going on the IL with hurt ribs. Which I’ve seen referred to as fractured and not fractured at various times, but which I’m going to just refer to as “hurt.”

Cooper is a .268/.337/.439 (105 OPS+) hitter with 57 home runs and 228 RBI in 493 games. You could do way worse as far as mid-season stop-gaps go.

Tommy Pham said the thing 

Outfielder Tommy Pham signed with the Chicago White Sox late last week. When he did so he said that the Padres, for whom he played a few years ago, had also offered him a deal but that money was the tiebreaker in picking the Sox. It seems, though that Chicago did not outbid San Diego as such. Rather, Pham said, he wanted San Diego’s offer to account for the higher state taxes in California compared to Illinois.

I find this remarkable. For years and years baseball writers, commentators, and fans have spent time during hot stove season talking about how tax considerations may influence free agents’ decisions about where to sign. Ken Rosenthal and Buster Olney have written multiple columns about that. Fans — often fans from Florida or Texas, where there is no state income tax — have speculated on social media and talk radio and stuff about how so-and-so was TOTALLY gonna choose their team because they can save so much money on taxes.

Except it rarely seems to be a huge consideration. The California and New York teams have done great in free agency. And, while I’m sure taxes get discussed by free agents and their representation, no one has ever said tax rates were important in the mix. Until now anyway. That it’s Tommy Pham isn’t shocking I don’t suppose — his levels of DNGAF are off the charts — but it’s still a hell of a thing to actually hear. It’s especially notable given that tax considerations inspired him to pick the worst team in baseball over a team that is expected to contend.

Formber big leaguer Dustan Mohr sentenced to nine years in prison for child sexual abuse

Dustan Mohr was an outfielder who played for the Twins, Giants, Red Sox, Rockies, and Rays from 2001 through 2007. After his playing career he became a high school baseball coach and girls softball instructor in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Now he’s going to prison for nine years for child solicitation, child seduction, and sexual misconduct in connection with a 14 year-old girl he was coaching. From WPTA news in Fort Wayne:

Mohr’s 14-year-old victim gave police evidence of sexually explicit text messages and photos she received from Mohr, according to a probable cause affidavit written by Allen County Sheriff’s Office Detective Nicholas Keefer. She also told police Mohr inappropriately touched her.

Mohr could’ve gone away for far longer, as he was originally slapped with those three charges plus a charge of dissemination of matter harmful to minors. He pled guilty to the first three in exchange for the final charge being dropped. He could’ve faced 18 years but was given five years on each of the three charges, with two years suspended for each charge.

Other Stuff

Bears stadium price tag would actually be $6.9 million

Last week the Chicago Bears announced their intention to build a stadium which, after you account for everything, would cost $4.7 billion, at least half of which would be funded by public money of some kind. You’ll be shocked to learn that they undershot what the actual costs would be. From the Chicago Sun-Times:

The Bears’ pitch for a new domed lakefront stadium came with a $4.7 billion price tag. In reality, though, Chicago and Illinois taxpayers would end up paying $5.9 billion to help the Bears build and finance the stadium and retire existing debt used to renovate Soldier Field and Guaranteed Rate Field, where the White Sox play.

Add to that the $1 billion already paid to revamp Soldier Field and Guaranteed Rate Field, and the overall cost to taxpayers is $6.9 billion, says Frank Bilecki, executive director of the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority.

The higher costs were gleaned from figures provided by the Bears during their initial meeting with the stadium authority and in follow-up conversations with the team, Bilecki said.

On the one hand this is appalling and ridiculous and, based on what most Chicago people I spoke to are saying, is never going to happen because there is almost zero political will to make it happen. And if there is a vote on it soon, noted anti-tax crusader Tommy Pham will part of the electorate so you know that there will be strong celebrity/athlete opposition.

On the other hand, a handful of randos skated into my mentions over the weekend to tell me that, actually, the Bears would be paying for almost all of it because extending taxes for years and covering old debts and things don’t count as public financing. Only “new taxes” do, according to these geniuses of finance. So who’s to say?

Deep in the Heart

As mentioned above, Allison and I are in Texas for a couple of days. And, as is the case every time we visit Texas, we had to stop at the greatest thing the Lone Star State has to offer:

I’d like to say that we just went in and bought the things we planned to cook for dinner but that would be a lie. We bought far, fare more than we or anyone else needed, including some weird Mexican spiked seltzers, some unusual potato chip flavors, some cow hide coasters in the shape of the State of Texas, and a hollowed-out steer skull candle, which we gave to Allison’s aunt as a gift because we always buy her weird crap from H-E-B.

But we didn’t buy everything we saw:

Those really put the nationalism in Christian Nationalism, eh?

But then there’s fun stuff:

Honestly, I probably should’ve bought a pair of these. I’m still in Boerne today and tomorrow, so maybe I’ll go back.

Have a great day everyone.

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