Cup of Coffee: November 19, 2024

Good morning!

Congrats to our Rookie of the Year winners, Paul Skenes and Luis Gil, and good luck to the gentlemen on the Hall of Fame ballot. Also: some ballpark news, some sports gambling thoughts, how the rich wash their hands, and an item on head transplants. Yes, head transplants. Hallelujah, holy shit, where's the Tylenol?

The Daily Briefing

Paul Skenes, Luis Gil named Rookies of the Year

Pirates pitcher Paul Skenes was named National League Rookie of the Year last night. Yankees pitcher Luis Gil won the honors in the American League.

Skenes received 23 of the 30 first place votes in the NL, beating out Padres center fielder Jackson Merrill, who got the other seven first place votes, and Brewers outfielder Jackson Chourio who came in third. Shōta Imanaga of the Cubs was the only other NL rookie to receive any votes.

In the American League Gil beat out Yankees teammate Austin Wells and Orioles outfielder Colton Cowser for the honor. It was a close vote, as Gil received 15 of the 30 first place votes and Cowser received 13, with fourth place finisher Mason Miller of the Athletics and fifth place finisher Cade Smith of the Guardians each receiving a first place vote.

Skenes, 22, was the No. 1 overall draft pick in 2023 and made his debut for the Pirates in May. He made an immediate splash, going 11-3 with a 1.96 ERA (214 ERA+) and striking out 170 batters in 133 innings across 23 starts. His starts soon became appointment viewing — “Paul Skenes Day” — and he was named the starter of the All-Star Game for the National League despite having less than two months in the bigs under his belt at the time. He’s also a finalist for the Cy Young Award, though that’s likely to go to Chris Sale of Atlanta.

Gil actually debuted for the Yankees in 2021, but only made seven total appearances before 2024, thus retaining his rookie eligibility. He wasn’t even supposed to break camp with New York this season but did so due to Gerrit Cole beginning the year on the injured list. Gil made the most of that opportunity, however, going 15-7 with a 3.50 ERA (117 ERA+) and striking out 171 batters in 151.2 innings over 29 starts.

Fun fact: this is the first time two pitchers have won the Rookie of the Year awards in the same year since Craig Kimbrel and Jeremy Hellickson did it in 2011 and was the first time two starting pitchers did so since Fernando Valenzuela and Dave Righetti in 1981.

The 2025 Hall of Fame ballot is out

The Hall of Fame released the 2025 BBWAA ballot yesterday.

• The new names: Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia, Carlos González, Dustin Pedroia, Hanley Ramírez, Félix Hernández, Fernando Rodney, Ian Kinsler, Ben Zobrist, Troy Tulowitzki, Russell Martin, Brian McCann, Curtis Granderson and Adam Jones
• The holdovers: Bobby Abreu, Carlos Beltrán, Mark Buehrle, Torii Hunter, Andruw Jones, Andy Pettitte, Manny Ramírez, Álex Rodríguez, Francisco Rodríguez, Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, Omar Vizquel, Billy Wagner, and David Wright.

Wagner, who fell just five votes short of election last year, returns for his tenth and final year of consideration. He’s the only guy in his last year of eligibility.

As you know, it’s been a good while since I gave up caring much about the Hall of Fame. The reasons I did so are stated here, but the short version is (a) I find Hall of Fame arguments positively boring; and (b) the Hall of Fame’s existence obscures more than it illuminates and limits rather than expands the bounds of baseball discussion and understanding and that’s precisely the opposite of what a good museum should be doing. But if I had to vote I guess I’d go for Ichiro, Sabathia, Beltrán, Andruw Jones, Manny, A-Rod, Wagner, Rollins, Utley, and one of the others just so I had a full ballot. But like I said: I don’t care and I haven’t put much thought into this for years so don’t ask me to defend my choices. They could very well be different tomorrow and I’ll stop caring about who gets in the moment I write the period at the end of this sentence. Ah.

The votes of eligible BBWAA voters are due by December 31. The results will be revealed on January 21. But remember: getting elected to the hall of Fame does nothing to change what the gentlemen listed above did on or off the field or how we are required to value or talk about them.  

The Astros’ ballpark has a new name

The baseball stadium in Houston that is home to the Astros will soon have its third name in its 24-year history. Minute Maid Park — which was originally called Enron Field — will officially be known as “Daikin Park” as of January 1.

Daikin, a Japanese company, is the world's largest air conditioner manufacturer. It operates a massive factory in exurban Houston, which is the third-largest factory of any kind in the United States following Boeing’s Everett, Washington production facility and Tesla's “Gigafactory” in Nevada. Daikin also makes and processes chemicals and makes a number of industrial-scale machines that none of us will ever buy, at least knowingly.

Between Hurricane Milton destroying Tropicana Field and now this, it’s been a bad month and a half for orange juice-branded ballparks.

Speaking of the Trop . . .

Tropicana Field is a hellscape

Yesterday the Tampa Bay Rays released the first photos of the damage inside Tropicana Field caused by Hurricane Milton. It's pretty catastrophic:

Looking at this, knowing the price tag to fix it — the city will be out-of-pocket at least $30 million and probably more — and knowing the drama/brinksmanship going on with the hypothetical new park makes me think the Rays have one more season in Florida. I suspect that after their 2025 residency in Steinbrenner Field they’ll be bound for Nashville, Montreal, or someplace else, because right now this whole situation is all a mess.

White Sox sign Austin Slater

The Chicago White Sox are signing outfielder Austin Slater to a major league deal. The terms are not yet known.

Slater, who will turn 32 next month, is an eight-year veteran who spent his entire career with the Giants until being traded to Cincinnati in early July and then being flipped again, this time to Baltimore, in late July. It was a pretty bad year for him too, in which his previously reliable ability to hit lefties basically cratered. Given Slater’s skill set, if he can’t hit lefties he really doesn’t have much of a use. It was certainly bad timing for him given that it was his walk year.

So off to Chicago he goes. It’s sorta like being sent to The Wall in “Game of Thrones.” Except there is less honor in becoming a member of the White Sox than in becoming a member of The Night’s Watch.

Other Stuff

Legalized sports gambling isn’t making enough money, so the sports books want something even worse

Rolling Stone has published a big story about sports gambling by reporter David Hill. The upshot: after six years of legalized sports gambling in the United States, things aren’t as rosy as the gambling companies and their backers promised they’d be:

Yet despite America's deeply entrenched propensity to bet on sports, regulating gambling hasn't panned out the way anyone had hoped. This year, a number of sportsbooks have pulled up stakes and left the business, choosing to eat the losses of costly licensing fees rather than continue on. In search of higher profits, some sportsbooks have started limiting gamblers whose bets win while accepting bets of any amount from those who stand to mostly lose, including problem gamblers, sending the winners back into the arms of the offshore sportsbooks and barroom bookies the regulated industry had promised to replace. Eye-popping endorsement deals and marketing budgets are being dramatically scaled back. State legislatures that once welcomed sportsbooks and their promises of tax-revenue windfalls with open arms have grown frustrated after those companies couldn't deliver. After a cascade of 38 states adopted sports betting, voters and legislators in the states that have yet to come on board have pumped the brakes, with California, Georgia, and Texas all recently rejecting it. The tide appears to be receding.

It’s far too much to say that sports gambling is truly in trouble, however, as opposed to it being at a crossroads. A ton of companies that jumped in with both feet are losing money or going out of business, but market share is being overwhelmingly consolidated by two companies: FanDuel and DraftKings, which had the best mobile/online infrastructure in place when the starter’s pistol fired.

Now, however, those companies are leading the charge to protect their investments and lower their own risk, such as going after skilled gamblers more aggressively by limiting their bets our banning them outright while favoring the dumbest money and most hardcore addicts from which they know they can profit. They also want to expand their business into far less risky ventures than betting on sports:

But even after luring VIPs with gifts, parties, and deposit bonuses when they go broke, American sportsbooks still aren't making enough money. Many of the companies now believe their future lies in slot machines, not sports betting. In states without mobile gaming, sportsbooks are lobbying for legislation allowing them to expand from sports to mobile slots -- a game with higher margins and zero risk.

Sportsbooks tell lawmakers that mobile casinos will deliver the tax revenues sports betting didn't. Currently, only seven states have regulated mobile casinos. At the NCLGS meeting, Cesar Fernandez, head of state government relations at FanDuel, gave a presentation on what the taxes his company paid had funded -- road construction, teacher salaries, and state troopers. But it was actually a pitch. "What would happen if these states actually passed iGaming?" he asked, referring to an industry term for mobile casino apps. "It gives you a sense of what the actual impact could be if we looked at authorizing online gaming as a means to this end, as a means to teacher salaries, as a means to making sure that our law-enforcement officers and first responders are never subject to budget cuts."

There was scant discussion, however, of preventing problem gambling. 

I’m struggling to think of anything more ruinous than putting slot machines, roulette wheels, and other casino games on people’s phones with a direct link to their bank accounts, but such a thing would obviously create a massive windfall for the sportsbooks/casinos who run them.

In the end Davis concludes that there is something ironic about how companies want to get rich off gambling, but don't want to take any risks themselves. About how the gambling company shareholders, their CEOs, and their willing partners in business and government all want their money guaranteed in ways that are anathema to the very idea of gambling.

Personally, I don’t find it all that ironic. Indeed, it’s exactly in keeping with self-proclaimed capitalists across almost all industries trying to do whatever they can to insulate themselves from competition, just as they always have. The difference is that, for a brief period in history, we had governments that actually tried to prevent monopolization and the exploitation of customers on the part of those companies. Now they have all but given up that work and have, instead, become willing partners in that exploitation. So too will it happen with gambling. It’s not any different at all.

You: up against the wall

Look, I do not know how to solve our country’s problems or how to keep America from marching double-time into fascism, but I feel like we may be able to find some level of common ground around the collective rejection of those responsible for $190 soap dispensers, those who purchase $190 soap dispensers, and those who publicize $190 soap dispensers:

Honestly, the phrase “slabs of parsnip cake at communal farm tables” is worthy of a firing squad in and of itself, but I’ll allow for the possibility that parsnip cake tastes good, even if I’m certain that it is insufferably presented and priced by people with whom I don’t want anything to do.

More like UNpopular Mechanics

When you’re out here just minding your own business and some algorithm serves you a story:

[Editor: Craig, you do realize that the algorithm served you that story because you’ve read a bunch of stuff that made it think this would up your alley, right? And, honestly, your pretending that this is not the sort of story that you love to read is hardly convincing. Admit it: You live for this kind of stuff]

Sigh. I suppose that if we want the rewards of being edited we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known.

Have a great day everyone.

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