Cup of Coffee: January 9, 2025

Good morning! And welcome to Free Thursday!

And away we go . . .

The Daily Briefing

White Sox sign Martín Pérez

The Chicago White Sox signed lefty Martín Pérez to a one-year $5 million deal.

Pérez is a 13-year veteran who split time last year between the Pirates and the Padres. And he was adequate, basically. He went 5-6 with a 4.53 ERA (92 ERA+) and 107 strikeouts to 49 walks in 135 innings across 26 starts. It wasn't an outlier of a season in either direction, really. He's been a soft-tossing guy with numbers more or less like that for his whole career. He's not someone a contender would want eating innings but he's perfectly cromulent cannon fodder for the Chicago White Sox.

I was never the sort of parent who pushed his kids into anything, but if you are and you can't help yourself from pushing your kids into sports, do them a favor and train them to be left-handed first.

The Twins could be sold by Opening Day

The Athletic reports that the Minnesota Twins could be sold to a new ownership group before Opening Day.

Last month it was reported that Phoenix Suns owners Mat and Justin Ishbia were interested in buying, but The Athletic says there are a number of groups who have inquired and who are being vetted by Major League Baseball. Their source says the club has a “robust market" in light of the fact that, by the standards of major sports franchises, the Twins are something of a bargain. Probably because their TV situation is a mess.

Take these numbers with a grain of salt, but Forbes values the Twins at $1.46 billion and Sportico values them at $1.7 billion. For more concrete reference, the most recent team sold, the Baltimore Orioles, went for $1.725 billion early last year. The New York Mets sold for $2.475 billion in 2020, the Kansas City Royals sold for $1 billion in 2019, and the Miami Marlins sold for $1.2 billion in 2017.

We all root for the owners, right?

The Orioles released their 2025 promotional schedule yesterday. This one stuck out:

I can envision a situation in which people are such big fans of the team's owner that they'd like to celebrate him this way, but that all but requires the owner to have done a single damn thing. Rubenstein has been the Orioles owner for less than a year and, despite a lot of happiness about him taking over for the loathed Angelos family, the club hasn't accomplished anything under his watch.

There is a lot of talent there, sure, but that was there when he got there. He's shelled out money for contract extensions for none of that young talent yet despite the fact that many other teams probably would've tried to do so by now. The club has made no major player acquisitions since he's taken over, they have lost their best pitcher in free agency, and last season the O's bowed out of the Wild Card with two straight losses to the Royals.

I understand that the people who get the most excited for bobblehead days are memorabilia collectors and speculators, but this is pretty goddamn bottom of the barrel as far as these things go.

Hey, Fernando Rodney signed!

The Hamilton Cardinals are the Hamilton, Ontario-based member club of the Intercounty Baseball League, which is an amateur league comprised teams of college players and former professionals. The league dates back over 100 years. They play a 42-game season in ballparks which range in capacity from 1,100 to 5,200. I feel like I've heard of this league a few times over the course of the past 20 years or so but I always forget it exists until I'm reminded again, at which point I think "oh, neat."

Anyway, the Cardinals made a big splash in late November, though I just learned about it yesterday when I saw a random post: they signed former big leaguer Fernando Rodney.

Rodney will turn 48 years old in March. He last pitched in the big leagues in 2019 though he has remained active, pitching in Mexico and in foreign winter leagues since then. While his age means that he couldn't compete in most leagues these days, my guess is that he'll do a pretty dang good job in the Intercounty Baseball League and I salute his attempt to do so from the bill of my crooked cap.  

Brian Matusz: 1987-2025

I had missed this yesterday, but former Orioles and Cubs pitcher Brian Matusz died on Tuesday. He was just 37 years old. No cause of death was given.

Matusz was a first-round pick of the Orioles in 2008 out of the University of San Diego, debuted with Baltimore in 2009, and remained with the club for almost his entire eight-year career. The O's traded him to Atlanta early in the 2016 season, they released him before he could make an appearance, and then he latched on with the Cubs for whom he appeared in one game in 2016. He signed with the Diamondbacks prior to the 2017 season but was released that May and that was that.

For his career Matusz went 27-41 with an ERA of 4.92 (85 ERA+) with 462 strikeouts in 528.2 innings. He appeared in 280 games, 69 of which were starts. He was fifth in the AL Rookie of the Year voting in 2010 and made seven career postseason relief appearances for Baltimore. He was known for being particularly effective in neutralizing Boston's David Ortiz, and Orioles managers frequently reserved him for innings in which Ortiz was scheduled to bat during Boston-Baltimore matchups.

The Orioles released a statement on Tuesday:

"Our hearts are heavy tonight as we mourn the passing of former Oriole, Brian Matusz.

"A staple in our clubhouse from 2009-2016, Brian was beloved throughout Birdland, and his passion for baseball and our community was unmatched. He dedicated his time to connecting with any fan he could, was a cherished teammate, and always had a smile on his face.

"Brian's family and loved ones are in our thoughts and prayers at this difficult time. 

Rest in peace Brian Matusz.

Other Stuff

I don't have anything substantive or informed to say about the horrible fires raging in Los Angeles. It's just awful and scary and like anyone else I worry about my friends who live there and hope it all ends quickly and with as little damage to life and property as possible.

But I will comment on a couple of side stories about it all in the next three items because, hell, why not?

This is fucking grim

For those who don't know, Polymarket is a cryptocurrency-based prediction market where "investors" – gamblers; let's be honest – can place bets on various future events. As of yesterday they had this item up:

There is also a betting line for how many days until the fire will be contained. It's bleak as hell.

I grew up at a time when there were a lot of books and movies which featured dark portrayals of near-future dystopias. As time has gone on most of them have been rendered positively quaint. But dudes, betting markets for deadly natural disasters would easily fit right into them.

Thank you, Steve Guttenberg

Late Tuesday KTLA reporter Gene Kang was doing man-on-the-street interviews in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood when he encountered a local resident who was trying to keep people from abandoning their vehicles in the middle of the road in such a way that they impede firefighters and people trying to evacuate. Turns out it was actor Steve Guttenberg, who the reporter did not recognize at first:

After this started going viral people said that Guttenberg has lived in Pacific Palisades forever and is considered an elder statesman/informal mayor of the neighborhood. And while I know this may sound crazy given that most of us know him from the "Police Academy" and "Three Men and a Baby" movies, the fact that Steve Guttenberg is out there on the streets, acting as a calm voice of reason and trying to impose a little order out of chaos in the midst of a horrible disaster is weirdly comforting to me on some level.

Also: while he may be best known for "Police Academy" and "Three Men and a Baby," Steve Guttenberg starred in a film alongside Gregory Peck, Sir Laurence Olivier, James Mason, and Uta Hagen, and I defy you to find a 1980s sex comedy star who can say the same.

Today's civics lesson

How it started:

How it proceeded:

How it's going:

Somebody who understands how civic society works please help me budget this, my wealth-preservation vehicle is dying.

Wasserman, by the way, is the co-founder of a real estate investment firm called Gelt Venture Partners. He's stinkin' rich and, as part of the real estate community, he knows damn well that (a) property taxes pay for public goods like firefighting; and that (b) California's property taxes are unconscionably and artificially low due to a 1970s taxpayer revolt which helped usher in one of the most destructive laws imaginable for civil society but which people in the real estate world ABSOLUTELY LOVE because it inflates the market in pretty major ways.

Please don't mistake this for some sort of schadenfreude over this guy's house being at risk or him suffering as a result of these fires. I really, really do not offer this for those purposes. I'm simply observing that situations like these provide a fantastic example of why the sorts of selfish and greedy positions guys like him take are horrible and destructive and that, perhaps, if they were to reflect on this for even a moment, they'd understand just how wrongheaded they are.

Sure, Sam

Yesterday ABC News reported that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito spoke with Donald Trump by phone. This comes just a day or two before the Supreme Court is expected to weigh in on Trump's emergency petition to block a New York judge from sentencing Trump for his felony hush money conviction. When reached for comment, Alito claimed that he spoke to Trump in support of a former law clerk who is seeking a job in the incoming administration. He claims that the two did not talk about Trump’s effort to delay his sentencing.

Yeah, bullshit.

To think that (a) Trump is working personally to fill low-to-mid-level attorney roles in his administration; and that (b) Alito himself, as opposed to someone else on his staff would make that kind of outreach to a lower-level person on the transition team, probably via letter as opposed to a phone call, is ludicrous. To think that Trump, a man who has no filter, no sense boundaries, and who cares about absolutely no one about himself, did not personally ask Alito to step in and stop the sentencing likewise strains credulity.

Of course there wasn't a record of the call and no one else was on the line to confirm it. Indeed, the fact that ABC even has this news is likely because someone in Alito's office got wind of it, realized how wrong it is for a judge to speak one-on-one with a litigant with personal business before the Court this very week, and leaked it to the press.

In a sane world Alito would be investigated for a serious breach of judicial ethics here and, at the very least, would be forced to recuse himself from Trump's case. But of course there is no effective oversight of the Supreme Court, Alito is a horribly corrupt political partisan who has already shown that he'll do whatever Trump wants, and absolutely nothing will come of this. Well, except for Trump getting his sentencing delayed, which is something I would absolutely bet on if I were a Polymarket customer.

Guess I struck a nerve

I don't have an inventor's mindset. Like, at all. I'm bright enough and I believe I think about a lot of topics in at least marginally unique and thoughtful ways, but I'm just not wired to think of things no one has thought of before. Indeed, if I ever think of some neat new-to-me idea I almost always Google it first and realize that, no, it's nothing new. I'm just sort of the median human being when it comes to innovation and it's probably a good thing I didn't get into engineering or design or some creative field.

Which is why the reaction to this post I made yesterday sort of surprised me:

I do not consider this to be an original an idea – as you can see, I note that I actually saw this in a hotel before – but I was surprised at how many people have never encountered the little hotel door ledge anyplace. I'm surprised that I've never seen another hotel with them than that one. I'm really surprised that no one responded by saying they've seen one elsewhere.

Which makes me wonder if (a) all kinds of people who do hotel design have thought of this before but rejected the idea for some reason; or (b) there's a huge opportunity for some hotel to differentiate itself with door ledges you can set your coffee on while you get your keycard out.

The only reason I can think of for not having them is that they're worried people would set drinks on them only to have them fall to the ground, messing up the carpet. But it's not like crouching down to set the cups down on the floor, unlocking the door, and then bending down for the coffee while propping the door open with one leg is less likely to make a mess. Indeed, I've sloshed coffee out of cups doing just that before.

So, hive mind: what are the pros and cons here? Why is there only one damn hotel in the country – that I know of at least – that has ledges outside the rooms?

And no, I had NOT seen this Onion story touching on that before I posted this yesterday. Someone sent it to me after I posted in response, however, which is just further confirmation that if I'm thinkin' of something someone else already has.

Have a great day everyone.