Cup of Coffee: February 20, 2024

Good morning!

Today we talk about Blake Snell and the Yankees but maybe not Blake Snell ON the Yankees. There were some signings. The Nats are off the market. More like Anthony Rendon't, amirite? An update from a tragedy. A Substack vibe check. Some stuff about being a stay-at-home-dad. And, finally, the old hurkle-durkle.

 The Daily Briefing

Blake Snell has an offer from the Yankees but I doubt that’s happening

The reigning National League Cy Young winner is still unemployed. But yesterday there was at least a little Blake Snell news, with Mark Feinsand of MLB.com reporting that the Yankees have an offer on the table. There is not a sense that the sides are close to a deal, however, and it’s reported that the Angels and the Giants are still in the mix to land Snell.

So, not to go all tea leaves here, but I feel like this is all about Snell’s folks trying to get one of the California teams to up their offer. It’s just a gut instinct, based on the fact that Snell is not really the sort of pitcher that Yankees fans or the New York media is likely to embrace and he probably knows that.

I say that because, for as good as he was last year and in his first Cy Young season in 2018, he’s not a workhorse. And he’s not super consistent either, as he pitched only 413.2 innings of barely above-average ball in the four seasons between his two Cy Young campaigns. He’d be greeted in New York — and likely paid — like a big time ace but there’s a good chance that he’ll regress some as he proceeds through his 30s, and that he’s more likely to pitch 100 innings in a season then he ever is to threaten 200 innings in a season. Which, by the way, is something he’s never before done. Guys like tend to be greeted with hostility in New York.

Like I said: I suspect that Snell wants to stay on the west coast and that he wants the Giants or Angels to up their offers. To that end, earlier this offseason it was reported the Yankees offered Snell a six-year contract worth $150 million, which was immediately thought to be pretty light, so I imagine the Yankees still have it out there, open, and have for some time. My guess is that Snell’s people — and Scott Boras, the master of playing one team off another is Snell’s people — is just churning that old offer a little and that he put this out based on the old offer in the hopes of generating some heat.

Red Sox sign Liam Hendriks

Liam Hendriks and the Red Sox have agreed to a two-year, $10 million contract. There are performance-related bonuses that can push the total value to $20 million and there’s a mutual option for 2026.

Hendriks is recovering from Tommy John surgery and is targeting late-July or early-August for his return. Last year, of course, he made it back after undergoing offseason treatment for Stage 4 non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, so his drive to get back on the field cannot be questioned, that’s for damn sure.

There has been a lot of chatter about Boston dealing Kenley Jansen some time this year. One figures that this move makes that even more likely. At least if Hendriks’ rehab continues apace.

Brewers bring back Brandon Woodruff

The Brewers non-tendered pitcher Brandon Woodruff late last year after it was revealed that he has a serious shoulder injury that will cost him his entire 2024 season. At the time I figured that someone would sign Woodruff to one of those back-loaded two-year deals in which Woodruff would rehab in 2024 and, assuming all goes well, they’d have him in 2025, likely at a below-market rate.

And that’s what happened. Except the team that took advantage of the Brewers non-tendering Woodruff was . . . the Brewers. Terms aren’t yet public from what I’ve seen, but it’s not a major outlay, I’m sure.

This is no sure thing for anyone involved. The injury in question — a ruptured anterior capsule in Woodruff’s right shoulder — is no minor ailment. A lot of great pitchers have never been the same after sustaining that particular injury. But at least now Woodruff has something to aim for in rehab and a place to be next season when he begins to see whether or not he can be the same ace he used to be.

Mark Lerner is no longer looking to sell the Nationals 

For a couple of years now we’ve been hearing about the Lerner family — first the late Ted Lerner and then current team chairman Mark — shopping the Washington Nationals for a potential sale. Welp, that’s not happening now. From the Washington Post:

The Lerner family is no longer exploring a sale of the Washington Nationals, Mark Lerner, the club’s managing principal owner, told The Washington Post on Monday.

“No. We have determined, our family has determined, that we are not going to sell the team,” Lerner said.

Lerner said that his family came to the decision “a while ago.”

If that decision came “a while ago” it sorta makes you wonder why Mark Lerner hasn’t put much if any money into the club. I mean, yeah, it’s cynical, but at least it makes sense to strip the roster bare of almost all long-term commitments when you’re trying to flip your team to someone else. But if Lerner decided some time ago that he wasn’t gonna sell, you’d think he’d maybe start doing things to make the club better. Which he totally hasn’t done in some time.

Anyway: looks like the current brain trust will be there for some time, Nats fans.

Anthony Rendon is built different

There has been a lot of talk over the past couple of years — based mostly on interview responses he has given and some word-of-mouth stuff from the Angels’ clubhouse— about how third baseman Anthony Rendon doesn’t much enjoy baseball, that he would rather be on the Injured List than active, and that he might just walk away from the game entirely. He’s certainly not there for the fans, that’s for damn sure.

I have no idea if the criticisms we’ve heard of Rendon are fair or accurate, if his own words were taken out of context, or what motivates him or doesn’t motivate him. There has been enough noise about him not being motivated to play, though, to where I’m inclined to believe it’s true, but honestly, I don’t know.

Yesterday at Angles camp down in Tempe, Arizona, Sam Blum of The Athletic spoke to Rendon. The exchange they had will in no way whatsoever end the chatter about Rendon’s attitude and approach, that’s for sure:

I'm the last guy who demands pro athletes be all rah-rah about things. I get that even being a highly-paid baseball player is a job and that all jobs can suck. I likewise understand — and indeed applaud — when a ballplayer talks about real life things like friends and family or issues in the world being more important than the game. It’s some admirable life and mental balance that the “LEAVE IT ALL ON THE FIELD!!!” types don’t always demonstrate.

But Rendon’s responses here and elsewhere make me less inclined to believe he’s just a super balanced dude than to believe that he doesn’t enjoy the game at all. He’s a lot more surly about it, that’s for sure.

Rendon was an excellent player when he was with Washington, and I feel like no one could do what he did through 2019 without being disciplined and determined, but maybe he’s never been that way. If so, it makes you wonder how good he could’ve been if he actually gave a shit.

Former MLB shortstop Royce Clayton testifies in drunken vehicular homicide case, then gets a DUI of his own

Former MLB shortstop Royce Clayton has made the news twice recently, each time for not great reasons.

While I had not seen any previous report that Clayton was involved, late last month he was one of the first witnesses to testify in the murder trial of Los Angeles socialite Rebecca Grossman. Grossman, you’ll recall, is on trial for running down and killing two children in a crosswalk while she intoxicated and racing her then-boyfriend, former MLB pitcher Scott Erickson back in 2020. Clayton, it seems, was drinking with Erickson and Grossman before the accident. He had planned on joining them back at Grossman’s house but he ended up not following them.

In his testimony, Clayton criticized Erickson for his poor judgment and said the two are no longer friends as a result of what happened that night. To be sure, blaming Erickson flows with the defense’s theory that it was Erickson, not Grossman, who actually hit the children in the crosswalk first, though police and prosecutors have discounted that theory and have not charged Erickson in connection with the children’s deaths. Clayton tried to clarify his testimony after the fact to make it clear that he was not directly accusing Erickson of killing the boys as opposed to him being generally irresponsible, but he was not permitted to retake the stand. Which, given that he was not an actual eyewitness to the incident is probably of no real legal moment, but I’m guessing the defense was happy to hear him say that.

That’s not all the Royce Clayton news, however: Clayton was arrested for DUI in Thousand Oaks, California in the early morning hours a week ago Sunday. He was caught at a drunk driving checkpoint after 2AM, arrested, cited, and released. So, yeah. Not ideal.

Back at the trial, the defense is going all-in on that Hail Mary “Scott Erickson actually killed the kids” defense. Last week Grossman’s daughter, who was 16 at the time of the accident, testified that she drove by the scene of the crime, just by happenstance, while the police were on-site. She said she tried to get to her mother but was prevented from doing so by police. She then testified that she saw Erickson hiding in the bushes nearby. Then, after she got home, Erickson came to the Grossman’s house and threatened her:

Alexis Grossman told jurors that the man in question, former Dodgers pitcher Scott Erickson, showed up to the family’s home shortly thereafter. She said he smelled of alcohol, and threatened her and her family if she told investigators what she had seen.

“Why did your mom stop? Why did your mom stop?” she said Erickson told her. “He seemed very angry. He was frantic. I could smell alcohol on him. He was freaking out. I was scared.”

She said he gave her a warning: “Don’t tell anyone you saw me, or I will ruin you and your family.”

It’s worth noting that she did not tell anyone this until the following year and that was her parents, not any authorities of any kind. Later she specifically denied seeing Erickson any time after the accident when prosecutors asked her about. So, well, I dunno.

What a mess. Whatever happens at that trail, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a case as tragic as this one. One involving two children who’d would’ve been alive today if any of the adults involved had behaved with even a modicum of responsibility at any time that evening.

Other Stuff

Happy Subaversary

From the wayback machine:

Still driving that Forester. It has 111,800 miles on it. I’m supposed to give it to Anna in August when she moves into an apartment up in Vermont and will finally need a car.

On the one hand, I still love my slow, lame Subaru. It’s my favorite car ever, and I’d keep it for another 100,000 miles if it’d let me. On the other hand, there’s something almost . . . religious about an old Subaru going up to Vermont to spend its golden years, so I suppose I’ll be OK with it.

Since I live in a pretty walkable area Allison and I may very well try to make do with only her car after I give Anna the car. But if for some reason that doesn’t work out and I need to continue to have a second car, I’m about 99.9% sure I’ll just get another Subaru Forester.

Substack vibe check

First you see something praising Hitler as a painter and adopting the Nazi viewpoint about the “degenerate disgusting leftists” who were ascendent in Weimar Germany . . .

. . . and then you hit him with the “check out my Substack!” bio:

I realize we’ve had a lot of technical hiccups around here since the changeover and that Beehiiv’s comments section functionality blows, but I still don’t regret ceasing to subsidize that damn company and the cretins whose deplorable content it is content to host.

Stay-at-Home Dads 

The New York Times has a big story about stay-at-home dads and how, even though it’s still relatively novel in our society, old stigmas and hangups about stay-at-home dads — most of them sexist — are receding.

Because I always worked I don’t suppose I was ever truly or strictly a stay-at-home dad per the parameters set in the article, but the nature and mechanics of my work — writing all the time, basically on my schedule but setting it aside for long stretches during the day for housework and/or child care — made me one, practically speaking.

I left my office job to do whatever it is I do back in 2009. A year prior my ex, after a couple of years of being a stay-at-home-mom, which didn’t really agree with her, had gone back to work full time. Because I was at home and she was downtown at work, I was the parent who took kids to and from preschool and then elementary school. To doctor’s appointments. To ballet and to soccer practice (at least until my kids developed into the sort of non-conforming quasi-nihilists who don’t join things). I ran most of the errands. When my ex and I split up I kept the house and continued to do all of the same things as before but I was also the full-time cook, cleaner, errand runner, etc. as well, at least when the kids were with me. What’s more, I was my ex’s day care, for lack of a better term, on days she had the kids, with her dropping them at my house in the mornings during the summer and breaks and the kids coming to my house after school during the school year, at least until she got off work and picked them up.

All of which is to say that, for all intents and purposes, I lived something about as close to being a stay-at-home-dad as one could while still holding a full-time job. And while I greatly enjoyed it — seriously, I wouldn’t have traded the experience and the time I had with my kids away for anything — it was, at times, weird. Mostly because of how others treated me.

The place where I raised my kids, New Albany, Ohio, featured far more stay-at-home moms than anyplace else I’ve ever lived. Some of them, to be sure, were monied types who had nannies which allowed them to go to yoga or extremely long coffees with friends in the morning, then lunch at the club, then tennis or whatever, but there were certainly a lot of truly full-time moms as well. These women were volunteering at school and bringing in snacks. Carting the kids to practices and play dates. Buzzing through the grocery store so they could be home in time to beat the school bus.

I can’t speak for stay-at-home dads who live elsewhere, but my little corner of upscale, professional class suburbia did not really know what to make of a guy doing all of those things. To wit:

• I used to volunteer at my kids’ first grade classes, helping kids practice their reading skills in little one-on-one sessions out in the hallway. The first time I showed up to volunteer Anna’s teacher went on and on about how “nice” — which came off as “weird” — it was for a dad to be doing this. No small number of the six and seven year-olds who came out to read their selections to me also made some “wow, you’re a dad!” comment;
• At some point in early elementary school one of my kids’ classes had this deal where, each Friday, some kid was designated as “snack helper” or something like that and their parents were to bring in snacks for the whole class. On a day my son was snack helper I showed up with a few dozen chocolate chip cookies. The teacher asked me if Carlo’s mother made them. When I said, no, I did, she literally said “good for you!”;
• On more than one occasion when I took my kids to the neighborhood playground or out someplace during working hours and I’d get into conversations with other adults, I’d get the dreaded “so, you’re babysitting today?” This, by the way, almost exclusively came from men. I’m trying to imagine what goes through the head of a father who considers time with their own kids to be “babysitting”;
• When Anna did ballet practice was directly after school, with no time for her to come home first. So I’d wait in the pickup line, get both of the kids in the car, rush over to the ballet studio and, after Anna quickly changed, I’d do her hair up in one of those ballet buns. Anna, then as now, has very fine hair that doesn’t take easily to styling, so the bun sometimes took a couple of tries. Whether it was sympathy for the sometimes less-than-perfect buns I’d create or because they were simply unable to handle a bald man trying to do anyone else’s hair, it was not uncommon for one of the mothers to come over and offer to do Anna’s hair for me. Sometimes this felt like heavenly mercy. Sometimes I’d get a little annoyed. I never saw any of the moms helping the other moms with it, though, even though I did better buns than some of them;
• I’d often see parents of my kids’ friends — or, occasionally, the wives of my former law firm coworkers — in the grocery store in the middle of the day. While it decreased over time, the first couple of years I was at home led to a LOT of playful “oh, she’s letting you do the shopping?” comments; and
• When Anna was maybe ten she was, for a brief time anyway, friends with a girl who lived a few doors down. She told me once that the girl’s mom was very curious about my whole deal, because I would take walks in the neighborhood or working in the yard during the workday and she wanted to know when and where I actually worked. I eventually met the mom and she was lovely, but there was definitely this sense that my being home during the day did not really compute for her.

I want to be clear here: none of this represents some sort of ordeal or hardship I had to endure. I’m not saying I was the victim of some unfair stigma. I wasn’t mocked or shunned or anything. It was just a little weird and awkward sometimes. For the others far more than me, but it was awkward all the same.

To be even clearer: this sense of confusion or novelty with my stay-at-home dadding certainly declined as the years went on, especially as working from home became more common. But it’s true that for most of the time I was raising my kids I was almost always the only man around doing the things the moms were doing.

I don’t consider New York Times trend pieces to be great gauges of real trends that actual people, as opposed to friends of New York Times editors and writers, experience. But I do hope that the normalization of stay-at-home dadding the article describes is legit. Because having all of that extra time home with your kids fucking rules. If more men did it we’d be better off as a society in a whole bunch of ways.

Hurkle-Durkle

When I woke up yesterday morning I had never heard the term “hurkle-durkle.” Then at 9:32 AM Allison texted me an Instagram post from a New York Times-affiliated account referring to the notion:

Sometimes nothing feels better than a morning lounge — but is it possible to stay in bed too long?

Trends like “hurkle-durkle” (an old Scottish phrase for spending idle time awake in bed) or “bedrotting” (lounging in bed all day or even all weekend) are allowing people to reclaim a bit of leisure time.

Those ideas are appealing because we crave agency, said Eleanor McGlinchey, a sleep psychologist. Much like “revenge bedtime procrastination,” lolling about in the morning is front-loading that “me” time before responsibilities invade.

While there is no hard and fast rule about how long is too long to huddle under the covers after you wake up, experts say there are some daily limits to keep in mind.

Then, mere hours later, a tweet crossed my timeline linking to a Yahoo story from last week:

"Hurkle-durkle" is a term you might not be familiar with. But, according to TikTok, you're likely already hurkle-durkling yourself — and if not, you'll want in on the practice.

The quirky term, which dates back to 19th century Scotland, is something that's taken the internet by storm, thanks to young TikTokers who have discovered, and delighted in, its snoozy meaning. Hurkle-durkle refers to people lying in bed past the time they're meant to get up (think sleeping through the alarm and missing work, or lounging under the covers instead of meeting friends/making that appointment, etc.).

There's no sense of guilt about having a hurkle-durkle. According to TikTok, this lie-in is meant to be embraced. But how does it work, and why is it suddenly so popular? More importantly, what can the trend teach us about prioritizing rest?

As I am not on TikTok and and I am not a Gen-Z person I was wholly unfamiliar with this being some sort of new phenomenon. I am familiar with the practice, however, because my borderline GenX/Millennial wife has engaged in this practice for basically her entire life. On Saturdays and Sundays — or work-from-home days when she remembered to bring her laptop into the bedroom — might find her hurkle-durkling until noon.

Which, of course, is why she sent me the link yesterday morning. She wanted to rub my face in the fact that the old hurkle-durkle is, in fact a thing. Because while I have indulged her hurkle-durkling for the 12+ years I’ve known her — live and let live, after all — I have been utterly baffled by it and her ability to do it and I will never, ever in my life engage in the practice.

I go to bed extremely easily — once I lay my head down I’m out like a light in about 27 seconds — and barring the periodic but thankfully rare bout of 3AM insomnia — I am typically woken up by one thing and one thing only: my brain’s strong assertion that we have had enough sleep and it is time to get up and begin our day.

When this happens I go from asleep to alert startlingly quickly. My head is instantly filled up with the things I wish to accomplish before too much of the day gets away from me. With “the day getting away from me” beginning at 7AM, at which point it’s too late to have successfully attacked it if I have not already begun my assault preparations. Staying in bed more than a minute or two beyond the time I wake up is actively uncomfortable for me. I get itchy and antsy. My mind is all over the place. My body starts to ache. That coffee is not getting itself, ya know.

Not that it’s all anxiousness and addiction forcing me out of bed. I also just love a quiet, dark house before anyone else is awake. It’s when I get my best thinking and often my best writing done. It’s when I feel my most at ease and at peace. This is especially true during rough or challenging times. Even if the previous days have battered me, being upright and alert at 5:26 or 6:02 simply orders my mind and allows me to forge a battle plan. It’s the most valuable time. It’s when I’m at my strongest and sharpest. I’d never give it up.

Again: I am very happy for you if you are partial to the old hurkle-durkle and I hope you get a chance to engage in it as much as you’re able. But I will not be doing the same. I simply can’t. I simply won’t. There will be plenty of time to hurkle-durkle when I’m dead.

Have a great day everyone.

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