Cup of Coffee: November 16, 2023

Cy Young winners, an even shorter pitch clock, a new manager in Milwaukee, John Fisher being a jackass, college helicopter parents, Facebook is tapping my phone, the scandalous 60s, and a guest post

Good morning! And welcome to Free Thursday!

So much to get to today, so let’s get going!

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The Daily Briefing

Gerrit Cole, Blake Snell win Cy Young Awards

Before I talk about the award winners, a brief digression regarding how the coffee gets made around here.

On Tuesday I had it in my head that, that night, the Cy Young winners, not the Manager of the Year winners, would be announced. I don’t know why I thought that because the order is the same every year, but I did.

Given how clear it was who was going to win the Cy Young Awards, I pre-wrote this item mid-afternoon on Tuesday. I finished my newsletter writing for the day just before dinnertime. Figuring no other major baseball news would happen, I set the newsletter to publish at 6:10AM yesterday morning. I then spent the evening watching old “X-Files” episodes, including “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose,” which remains an absolute banger over 28 years later and which hits you a bit harder in the feels as a 50 year old than it does a 22 year old.

Anyway, because I’m not reckless I did check my phone before I went to bed to make sure I did not miss any news. It was then I realized that it was Manager of the Year day, not Cy Young day. So I grabbed my laptop and wrote up the Hyde/Schumaker item from yesterday, copied the Cy Young item into a draft of today’s newsletter, and thanked my stars that I did not forget to look at my phone or else yesterday’s newsletter would’ve been quite the topic of conversation.

[Editor: As you learned with “Dog Fister,” there is no such thing as bad publicity, Craig. You might’ve gotten a lot of new subscribers if you had let such a silly mistake go live. People love to look at train wrecks].

Crap. You’re right. In that case, here are today’s MVP Award winners . . .

Ok, maybe not.

As was the case with the Rookies on Monday night, last night’s Cy Young Award announcement brought no surprises: Gerrit Cole of the Yankees is your AL winner and Blake Snell of the Padres takes home the NL hardware. Cole won it unanimously. Snell got 28 of 30 first place votes with Zac Gallen and Logan Webb each getting one. This is Cole’s first Cy Young and Snell’s second.

The Yankees may have had a disappointing year but Cole was not the reason why. He went 15-4 and led the AL in eight pitching categories: ERA (2.63), ERA+ (165), innings pitched (209), W-L percentage (.789), games started (33), shutouts (2), hits allowed per nine innings (6.8), and WHIP (0.98). He closed the season strongly, going 5-0 with a 1.29 ERA and 52 strikeouts in his final seven starts, including a two-hit shutout of the Blue Jays to close out his season. The Yankees won 23 of his 33 starts overall. Cole is the first Yankee to win the Cy Young since Roger Clemens did so in 2001.

Blake Snell picked up his second Cy Young, having won it with the Tampa Bay Rays in 2018. In so doing he becomes just the seventh to have won the award in both leagues, joining Gaylord Perry, Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens, Roy Halladay and Max Scherzer. It’s a well-earned award given that Snell led the Majors with a 2.25 ERA, a 182 ERA+, a .181 batting average against, and 5.8 hits allowed per nine innings while finishing second in the NL with 234 strikeouts in 180 innings. Snell is the first Padre to win the Cy Young since Jake Peavy in 2007.

MLB wants to shorten the pitch clock with runners on base

News broke yesterday that Major League Baseball's competition committee has proposed reducing the pitch clock with runners on base from the current 20 seconds to 18 seconds. The 15-second clock without runners on base would remain the same. Because of changes in the most recent CBA, this rule can be implemented unilaterally by the competition committee.

The rationale for the rule is that despite game times being dramatically reduced by the pitch clock in 2023, there was some “backsliding” on that towards the end of the season. I can’t really figure that two seconds per pitch with runners on base will make a huge difference in that, but given that the minor leagues, from Double-A on down, already have an 18 second pitch clock while Triple-A has a 19-second pitch clock, one should assume this is where MLB wanted to go with it all along and that the “backsliding” thing is merely a pretext.

Tied up in all of this is talk about pitcher injuries, with a lot of people arguing that the pitch clock increased them in 2023 and that reducing the pitch clock even more might make it worse. Personally, I’m not convinced of the premise.

Per Sportrac, last year there were 405 pitchers placed on the Injured List for a total of 31,955 days. In 2022 there were 427 pitchers on the IL for 30,738 combined days. In 2021 489 pitchers went on the IL for 31,849 combined days. While it’s entirely possible that the severity of injuries was greater — more Tommy Johns or shoulder capsules, perhaps? — at first blush it cannot be said that the pitch clock increased the number of pitcher injuries or the amount of time lost to them. I’m totally open to data-based arguments that the pitch clock is, in fact, bad for pitchers’ health, but no one has made one yet and in no way should such an unsupported assertion be used to make or block a rule at this point.

Anyway, I’m guessing most of us won’t notice the two seconds. I’m also guessing that the two second won’t have a material impact on game times either.

Pat Murphy is now, officially, the Brewers manager

This has been expected for a couple of days now but yesterday the Brewers officially promoted bench coach Pat Murphy to be the club’s manager, filling the gap left by Craig Counsell hightailing it south to Chicago. Rickie Weeks, previously a special assistant, is now the Brewers associate manager. Which, again, “associate manager?” Whatever.

Everyone I’ve chatted with who follows the Brewers closely says this is a fine hire and the Murphy taking over is the best thing to do. I’ll take their word for it.

Andrew Bailey to be the new Red Sox pitching coach

The Boston Red Sox have hired Andrew Bailey to be their pitching coach. Bailey and new Red Sox GM Craig Breslow spent five years as teammates with the A’s and Red Sox, and the two are friends, so this is not a huge shock. Indeed, people have been rumbling about this move for several days now.

Bailey has been the Giants pitching coach since 2020. During his time in San Francisco pitchers like Kevin Gausman, Logan Webb, Anthony DeSclafani, and others enjoyed great, often unexpected levels of success, the sort of which pitching coaches are often credited. Bailey’s contract expired after this past season making him a coaching free agent. With Bob Melvin taking over the Giants, Bailey is taking the opportunity to head east and join his friend in Boston.

John Fisher wants you to know how hard it’s been for him

Bob Nightengale writes about three Oakland Athletics fans who showed up at the Owners Meetings in Arlington, Texas to attempt to get the owners to vote down the team’s impending move to Las Vegas. The shocker: A’s owner John Fisher actually talked to them.

If you think it was a constructive conversation, however, think again:

And there [Fisher] was, entering the lobby at 7 p.m. local time, and after speaking to San Francisco Giants chairman Greg Johnson, walked to the bar, greeted the trio, and shook their hands.

It was as if he came over to apologize.

They asked, in a round-about way, whether anything be done to save the team, with Leon saying, “Do the right thing.”

Fisher shook his head, told the group that he has been trying to find a solution to stay in the Bay Area for 18 years, but his patience as run out. Come on, even if everything suddenly went smooth with government officials and the city council and financing, the A’s wouldn’t have a ballpark until 2031.

“It’s been a lot worse for me than you,’’ Fisher told them. “Anyway, I just want to let you know I appreciate you guys being here, I appreciate the passion you have shown.’’

Yes, it truly has been worse for Fisher. A man of massive inherited wealth who has found it somewhat, though only temporarily, difficult to get taxpayers to underwrite his competitor-subsidized private business to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. His struggle, I am sure, is real.

When I say, “Christ, what an asshole” in response to this, know that I’m being polite. Joe Sheehan absolutely destroyed Fisher yesterday. If you don’t already subscribe to his wonderful newsletter, by all means remedy that if you’re able.

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Other Stuff

College helicopter parents

As you all know, I have two kids in college. I miss them, of course, but I’m glad they’re off at college for all of the obvious reasons. They’re learning stuff. They’re learning to live independently and solve problems. They now have a lot more space to figure out who they are and what they want to be. I have far, far less laundry to do. Them being gone is pretty damn important!

Some college parents don’t see it that way. As this article in The Cut explains, some parents have joined college parent Facebook groups which they are using as a basis to attempt to micromanage their kids’ lives and solve all of their problems, both real and imagined, for them:

Some parents also use these sites to send out the Bat-Signal for their children. “There were definitely a lot of posts that said, ‘My child has no friends,’ and of course that’s heartbreaking,” says Ali, a Manhattan mom of twins. Dozens of parents responded to one such post, offering up their own kids for a playdate or suggesting that the lonely kid join a club. One shared an idea that worked for their daughter: “She organized a listening party to the Taylor Swift album drop in the fall and she brought back a game or two with the idea of throwing a game night??” . . . A recent editorial in The Tufts Daily called out “well-intentioned, extremely online parents” whose posts about their lonely kids are “a serious invasion of privacy” that impede the transition to adulthood.

My kids love me and everything but they would murder me with hammers if I did something like that. And, as they did it, I’d use my dying breaths to say “actually, you have a good point here with the hammers now that I think about it.”

I’m not meaning to suggest that Anna and Carlo are completely immune from some degree of parental involvement. We check on them and send them money sometimes. Carlo has three roommates whose mothers created a group text into which my ex got included somehow. Before dorm move-in there was a rising level of micromanaging entering the chat, to the point at which we feared we might be dealing with this sort of thing. Thankfully that all seems to have gone away. If anything I sometimes worry that we’re too detached.

Of course, as long as no one is getting arrested, waking up in gutters or — worst of all — contemplating law school, I think that we’re handling it OK.

Facebook is totally listening to my phone calls

On Tuesday I was out running some errands when Allison called me. She had just found out that a loaf of gluten-free bread we had bought has an ingredient in it that, while not gluten, tends to cause her problems, so she asked me to pick up some different bread. The ingredient and the details surrounding it aren’t important. It is important to know, however, that during the call Allison used the word “FODMAP,” which refers to a cluster of carbs which some people with sensitive digestive systems like she does have trouble.

Though I am familiar with the term “FODMAP,” it is not one that comes up between us often. I had not Googled it or even said it aloud for ages, nor had I viewed anything online even remotely related to the idea in recent memory. The only time the term had been referenced in my presence in the past several years was during our 1-2 minute phone call when Allison, but not I, mentioned the term “high FODMAP” exactly once in the course of simply asking me to get her some different bread.

A little while later, while still out and about, I looked at my phone, and this ad was on it:

While I am sure Allison Googled the ingredient in question and likely came across the information about it on her laptop back at home, I certainly did not. We do not share a Facebook account or any other account. And again, I was on my cell phone, miles away from home, when she did that Googling after which we had that conversation. There thus does not appear to be any shared or connected Internet search history BS or even an shared IP address which would inspire Facebook to serve me that ad. I can thus only conclude that Facebook — or Apple, or my cellular provider — has the ability to listen to my phone calls and pick out specific words with which to use as a basis for serving me ads.

Don’t you just love the future, fellow Consumer-Citizens? Isn’t it so very inspiring?

Take THAT Swingin’ London!

Because of my browsing and clicking habits I get served a lot of Facebook content about the Beatles and Beatles-related things. Some of it is obviously the stuff of bot accounts which just scrape Wikipedia or old books or something to write “articles” about how Paul and George Martin figured out an arrangement for a song or to talk about John’s “Lost Weekend” or something. Other times, however, I get cool photos or old film or actually interesting human-written articles. I mean, yeah, that’s probably also scraped content, but when you’re still dumb enough to be scrolling Facebook like me there is far worse stuff you could see.

Yesterday one of those accounts — this one was called “60s Mod Fashion and Beauty” — served up a photo of the Cavern Club, probably around the time of the Beatles’ final shows there in the summer of 1963. The photo did not focus on the Beatles, however, it focused on the crowd:

Pretty innocuous photo, really. Some sweaty kids having a good time. After the photographer took they photo the crowd probably all turned back to the stage. The most transgressive thing in the photo to our eyes is the guy smoking indoors, but that was certainly not unusual back then. Some of the photos these sorts of accounts share are clearly aimed at stirring up reactions but there’s not much one can do with this other than to say “Huh, the Cavern Club. Neat,” after which you click away.

This guy, however, was friggin’ triggered:

Frame that shit and put it in the Louvre, man.

Guest Post: Frank Schloegel

I sell Cup of Coffee coffee mugs here. If you buy one, and you send me a photo, you can write a guest post about anything you want.

In the spring of 2021, and then again about a year ago, subscriber Frank Schloegel wrote a couple of guest posts about his sister, Heidi (Schloegel) Hynes. They were among the more moving and most commented upon of any guest posts we’ve run to date. Today Frank has a another and, as always, it’s well worth your time.

We put up the bird feeders in November. This morning there was a chickadee and a Blue Jay flying around. It is the beginning of the cold season, when the natural world hunkers down. 

I’ve been feeling like a lot of my life is performative. The joy, the sadness, the milestones, the memories. My son has taken to announcing that we are making “Core Memories.” It is a term that somehow I am totally familiar with and absolutely certain was just made up in the last few years. I don’t have the heart to tell him that unfortunately the “core memories” are almost exclusively the horrible shit. The pumpkin patches, and family game nights, and going to see a movie with your cousins – all those core memories sort of slip away. And you’re left with that time you didn’t want to be in the family photo for some reason and ruined it all for everyone. 

I am ruminating on this because November, 2019 is when my sister died. And to honor her memory we do a food drive and raise money for the food program she worked on in the Bronx. These are great and noble causes, and I hope that lots of people bring food to my parent’s house in Kansas City and I hope lots of donations are made to the Mary Mitchell Center in the Bronx. But I can’t help the feeling that it is all slipping away. The radiant reality that was Heidi Hynes is breaking down into the memory of the past. 

I search for “Core Memories” of my sister - desperate to focus on the laughter and the love. But all I find are hospital beds and family fights. My sister trying to make everyone happy, and failing and failing and failing. It is so much easier to hang onto pain than happiness. 

I remember calling my sister long distance when I was about 10. It must have been 1988 when she was at Fordham. My mom would catch me and exclaim, “Not in the middle of the day!!” The world used to be impossibly big. You couldn’t just call someone halfway around the world – it cost a fortune! Remember when someone would describe the crazy things they would do to see a world cup game? 

That how I feel about my sister. Like I just can’t reach her. I don’t have the right long-distance plan or cable package. Like why can’t I just call her, FaceTime message, Facebook Messenger, Periscope? There is something I’m not doing right, but there has to be a way. One last call. And that devastating loss is all the milestones we won’t share. All the performative bullshit we won’t suffer through together. We used to laugh at all the performative bullshit. It was so fun. All of it. And it was all so silly compared to the murder and devastation that happens everyday to people. People that she helped. Everyday.

So if you have a minute this holiday season, try to do something good for people who need help. And if you have some money to donate, there is a great program in The Bronx that could use the donations. And if you are in Kansas City and want to drop off food at my parent’s house next Tuesday, message me on Substack or BlueSky or Twitter or Google Frank Schloegel and you can find me.

Have a great day, everyone.