Need something to occupy your time? Need gift ideas for your loved ones?
Hey, how’s about putting fermented cabbage under the tree this year?!
And….here’s how:
Making Sauerkraut is Easy!
Sandor Ellix Katz, the creator of this wildfermentation.com and the author of Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods (Chelsea Green, 2003) has earned the nickname “Sandorkraut” for his love of sauerkraut. This is Sandorkaut’s easy sauerkraut recipe, one of more than 90 ferments included in his book.
Timeframe: 1-4 weeks (or more)
Special Equipment:
* Ceramic crock or food-grade plastic bucket, one-gallon capacity or greater
* Plate that fits inside crock or bucket
* One-gallon jug filled with water (or a scrubbed and boiled rock)
* Cloth cover (like a pillowcase or towel)
Ingredients (for 1 gallon):
* 5 pounds cabbage
* 3 tablespoons sea salt
Process:
1. Chop or grate cabbage, finely or coarsely, with or without hearts, however you like it. I love to mix green and red cabbage to end up with bright pink kraut. Place cabbage in a large bowl as you chop it.
2. Sprinkle salt on the cabbage as you go. The salt pulls water out of the cabbage (through osmosis), and this creates the brine in which the cabbage can ferment and sour without rotting. The salt also has the effect of keeping the cabbage crunchy, by inhibiting organisms and enzymes that soften it. 3 tablespoons of salt is a rough guideline for 5 pounds of cabbage. I never measure the salt; I just shake some on after I chop up each cabbage. I use more salt in summer, less in winter.
3. Add other vegetables. Grate carrots for a coleslaw-like kraut. Other vegetables I’ve added include onions, garlic, seaweed, greens, Brussels sprouts, small whole heads of cabbage, turnips, beets, and burdock roots. You can also add fruits (apples, whole or sliced, are classic), and herbs and spices (caraway seeds, dill seeds, celery seeds, and juniper berries are classic, but anything you like will work). Experiment.
4. Mix ingredients together and pack into crock. Pack just a bit into the crock at a time and tamp it down hard using your fists or any (other) sturdy kitchen implement. The tamping packs the kraut tight in the crock and helps force water out of the cabbage.
5. 5. Cover kraut with a plate or some other lid that fits snugly inside the crock. Place a clean weight (a glass jug filled with water) on the cover. This weight is to force water out of the cabbage and then keep the cabbage submerged under the brine. Cover the whole thing with a cloth to keep dust and flies out.
6. Press down on the weight to add pressure to the cabbage and help force water out of it. Continue doing this periodically (as often as you think of it, every few hours), until the brine rises above the cover. This can take up to about 24 hours, as the salt draws water out of the cabbage slowly. Some cabbage, particularly if it is old, simply contains less water. If the brine does not rise above the plate level by the next day, add enough salt water to bring the brine level above the plate. Add about a teaspoon of salt to a cup of water and stir until it’s completely dissolved.
7. Leave the crock to ferment. I generally store the crock in an unobtrusive corner of the kitchen where I won’t forget about it, but where it won’t be in anybody’s way. You could also store it in a cool basement if you want a slower fermentation that will preserve for longer.
8. Check the kraut every day or two. The volume reduces as the fermentation proceeds. Sometimes mold appears on the surface. Many books refer to this mold as “scum,†but I prefer to think of it as a bloom. Skim what you can off of the surface; it will break up and you will probably not be able to remove all of it. Don’t worry about this. It’s just a surface phenomenon, a result of contact with the air. The kraut itself is under the anaerobic protection of the brine. Rinse off the plate and the weight. Taste the kraut. Generally it starts to be tangy after a few days, and the taste gets stronger as time passes. In the cool temperatures of a cellar in winter, kraut can keep improving for months and months. In the summer or in a heated room, its life cycle is more rapid. Eventually it becomes soft and the flavor turns less pleasant.
9. Enjoy. I generally scoop out a bowl- or jarful at a time and keep it in the fridge. I start when the kraut is young and enjoy its evolving flavor over the course of a few weeks. Try the sauerkraut juice that will be left in the bowl after the kraut is eaten. Sauerkraut juice is a rare delicacy and unparalleled digestive tonic. Each time you scoop some kraut out of the crock, you have to repack it carefully. Make sure the kraut is packed tight in the crock, the surface is level, and the cover and weight are clean. Sometimes brine evaporates, so if the kraut is not submerged below brine just add salted water as necessary. Some people preserve kraut by canning and heat-processing it. This can be done; but so much of the power of sauerkraut is its aliveness that I wonder: Why kill it?
10. Develop a rhythm. I try to start a new batch before the previous batch runs out. I remove the remaining kraut from the crock, repack it with fresh salted cabbage, then pour the old kraut and its juices over the new kraut. This gives the new batch a boost with an active culture starter.
(taken directly from here)
goddamn I love Kraut
Thanks, and go As.
Well, now you can make your own. And if you start now, it’ll be ready for Christmas!
iFSU, Kraut loves you
:swoon:
Thanks, and go As.
Me too. But anyone who tries to serve me kraut with fruit in it better be ready to defend himself.
Yeah, I’ll agree. That’s just wrong.
Really the only thing that should be served with Kraut?
Bratwurst.
Thanks, and go As.
hot links.
also acceptable.
Thanks, and go As.
How about MOAR KRAUT?
Went to the beaujolais nouveau party at Kermit Lynch today, and Christopher Lee was serving up boudin blanc with sauerkraut and potatoes. The kraut had apples in it, and was delicious. A bite of sausage, kraut and mustard was pretty near perfect to accompany the fresh nouveau.
Just read the whole thing. Now.
Holy. Shit. Balls.
Wow.
I didn’t think it was possible for me to love Tim Gunn any more than I already did. I was wrong.
That was awesome!! I love Tim Gunn.
I’ve got to read his book.
srsly. His book sounds great.
OK. This is actually starting to sound a little cool.
DMcW certainly sounds excited…
Well, he has an idiosyncratic range of things he gets excited about.
Overanalyze This.
But then, the last line is great.
I honestly wonder if Rove had a hand in the decision-making. It’s less a portrait for posterity (“who knows — we’ll all be dead!”) than a campaign image.
It’s just SO different than any of the others…
Yeah, well, so is Jerry Brown’s gubernatorial portrait:
Brooks: as close to an economist’s Big Lie as is possible.
One of the things that I think is actually most valuable about Krugman is his willingness to violate the op-ed omerta and to have public pissing matches not merely with other pundits, but with other NYT pundits.
RaysDBacks shoppingUpton?UPTON?!?Christ. What would you need to do that? Cahill/Carter?
I’d do that deal.
Me too. I’m just not sure if it’s enough.
Brett Anderson, Carlos Gonzalez, Greg Smith, Dana Eveland, and Aaron Cunningham.
Heh.
Only if they give us Haren back too.
I don’t think that would be enough, actually.
Thanks, and go As.
So. Awesome.
Regardless of his views on Israel, Goldberg really is a mensch.
3-year old “submits” to pat down.
I’m flying with the family in a few days, and I’m dreading this. It puts the traveller in one of those classic no-win scenarios with authority: sure, you can “opt out” and make a point of objecting to going through a naked scanner and/or being fondled by TSA. And they can in turn oblige your concerns by totally ruining your vacation plans if they are so inclined. Oh joy.
Yup, we’re flying out on Thursday and I’m worried about the same thing. Most TSA employees have been extremely friendly with the kids so far. But lord help you if you try to pat down my three year old. When we flew last week, we had to remove the “shoes” – those soft-soled, glorified socks that babies wear – from our one year old.
When I flew out of SFO 10 days ago I got pulled out of line for extra security checking apparently because of my cargo pants.
Faced with the lose-lose scenario, I consented to the “enhanced” pat down, which was actually much less intrusive than I’d expected from the press. There was no junk-fondling, they just went higher up my inner thighs than before to the extent that I could imagine accidental contact on a warm day. YMMV.
Next time you get asked to submit to an enhanced pat-down, slip the guy a twenty and ask him to enhance it a little more.
And the bonus is that you can’t be convicted of bribing a public official, because he’s a private-sector employee!
Apparently there is a profile of that krauteur (krautier? krautisan?) in the current New Yorker. But only the abstract is available online, unless you’re a subscriber.
See how current and “hip” I am, everyone?
I’ve seen exactly how hip you are.
I love you right now.
Boy, I thought you meant one of us (gabba gabba hey).
I think the term would be krautmacher.
grover bait
Though … WTF is up with the hair?
kd lang meets Kid n Play. Huh.
I am less impressed with her than other people seem to be.
She’s no Chloris Leachman.
A Monarchic Shell?
O anarchic smell (there’s no h in Cloris)
Cloris, wat an assole.
Halloween Parade clown fractures Emmy-winning WPIX reporter Arthur Chi’en’s face
Is it bad that I’m really amused by this?
It is, isn’t it?
I’d say the newsroom staff owes the clown some retribution.
I have to say … I’m not as vehement/scarred as Calcaterra, but I don’t disagree with him.
You are both deranged. Though I’ll agree that the current toned-down colors are better than the pre-’86 ones (especially the solid yellow tops).
Agreed. But basically I love the yellow, and may actually fork over money for an officially licensed A’s product if they offer yellow jersey tees again. I have a Reggie jersey tee in yellow which I adore, but it’s pretty ragged now.
All links to him should be bAnNeD fOr LiFe after that article.
Can we do something stronger than that?
Anthrax?
When you look up the word “insufferable” in the dictionary, this is the picture next to it.
And from the story accompanying same, YOTW:
sal bait
?
Pass.
(Euphemism alert: “have a coffee on me”)
You don’t say.
andeux bait
(also, the carbon footprint of that hybrid just went waaay up)
It’s better to burn out than it is to rust.
(not sure why that is me bait, though)
Aren’t you the biggest NY fan among FKers? For some reason I think that.
I’m a big Neil Young fan also…was listening to Decade on my drive to work just this morning.
The lesson here is not to store your valuable and irreplaceable items in the same place as your electrical experiments.
[gasp!]
ALL my valuables are stored in the garage!
… euphemism?
mebee.
how’s about putting fermented cabbage under the tree this year?
definitely.
Maybe. I do love me some Neil, but so do several other krauthors.
I think you’re confusing that with his being the biggest non-NYY-hater.
Who knew he was hard up for $$$
START stopped (despite $200 billion bribe).
Goodness knows we wouldn’t want to do anything to interfere with the chance to use 1,500 nuclear warheads before the next Congress is sworn in.
Good Grief!
Subway to nowhere may go … nowhere
That’s about $100 MM/mile, in case you were wondering.
What was the Big Dig number?
Horrifying (although, in fairness, the big dig also included improvements to non-Central Artery portions of the roadway as well, including the creation of a new Bus Rapid Transit branch on the T).
3.5 miles, 6B estimate, 1.7B/mile (2006 dollars).
Actual cost: 14.6B, 4.2B/mile (2006 dollars).
About half a billion was “refunded” when a judge ruled against primary contractor.
Of course, the Central Artery was carrying ~200K motorists per day in 1990 (not sure what the traffic is today). I’m not saying it was worth it, but there was definitely not a “for-show” project.
If unemployment was below, say, 7% nationally, I might have a problem with the cost.
Hey, I’m unemployed! [waves]
But if this Merced County supervisor has his way, we’ll soon have a high-speed rail line from Merced to Fresno!!
Only map to UC Merced lost.
nm bait/Barbara Lee speaks for me but not on this particular issue
Clyburn grew up hoping to someday be the first minority minority leader.
I will say it is silly that the majority party has 3 leaders while the minority has 2. Seems like this third position is an obvious fix.
Calcaterra doing Ba’al’s work
How would he feel about spending public moneys to research the proposed ugliness of A’s uniforms?
A Galactic Arc Err
At least the blogetariat is getting the right message out there on QE2:
Crime Is Out Of Control – We Have To Stop The Police From Fighting Crime!
For once, I’m being outdone in the cynicism department here: Stan Collender predicted all this back in August, on the grounds that Republicans would oppose anything that might help the economy on Obama’s watch.
That Pence quote is really something.
Also:
Called Stern No
This seems like a cheap price for Uggla
Seriously.
What’s that like Rosales and Ziggy?
ZOMG OMAR INFANTE. ALL STAR.
Thanks, and go As.
Holy. Shit.
Don’t worry, we’ve still got Cojax.
So… scum = bloom. Got it.
No, no, no: bloom = scum.
And Joyce = Bloom.
Hmmm…
[sigh]
Wait …
… is that Olbermann from 0:15-0:17?
Can I get a W. T. F.
Maybe they mean rigor mortis has set in.
Thanks, and go As.
Or he’s so delicate that they have to keep him immobilized.
W.T.F.
I’m not surprised (or disappointed) that the A’s are holding onto him, even at arb pricing. He seems like a better bet to bounce back and be a good player than Sweeney or Davis (or Buck, of course).
Can’t figure out what Colorado would want with him, though, they seem to always have a surplus of outfielders.
Bounce back to what? He’s only had a >1.3 WAR season once. That year (his only above average year) is 3 years and several hamstring injuries + a hernia + a strange disease ago. He’ll cost around 4 million if the A’s tender him a contract. That seems unreasonable considering that, by all accounts, Conor Jackson is bad at baseball and bad at staying healthy. I’d rather keep Buck cause at least he’ll be relatively cheap.
NT him, offer him a nonguaranteed minor-league contract, warehouse him at Sacto.
Jackson won’t go for that if he thinks he can get a major league contract. And since there’s already a team inquiring about his services…
Do we care?
Yeah, good point. As I’ve made clear, I don’t mind if Jackson is out of the organization.
No way would Jackson get a raise via arbitration. Lowest the A’s could offer with a tender is about $2.5 million… my guess is Jackson’s side would try to hold the line at $3 million.
Worth it? Either way?
If he’s healthy he’ll hit.
He offers better OF defense than Cust plus the ability to back-up 1B as needed. If Edwin is going to have a problem with being a part time player then I don’t see anyone else on the roster who can do those things.
For his career, he has a 294/395/461 line in 608 PA with 52 extra base hits and an 84/65 BB/K rate vs. LHP. Whether the A’s keep Cust or replace him with Berkman… Jackson would be a boost to the bench. Even at $2.5 million.
Assuming he’s healthy.
This is true. Either way, I don’t agree with spending ~2.75 million on Jackson.
What if the A’s did a two year deal similar to what I proposed with Edwin… say $2 million base with $500K in incentives plus a $500K buy-out/team option $4.5 million in 2012?
And assuming Edwin has issues with sticking around in Oakland and wants a full time gig somewhere else.
Are we also assuming that Rosales and Sweeney are not healthy to start the season? I think only under that condition would I agree with trying to keep Jackson.
Rosales should be healthy.
Sweeney is poo.
Sheesh .. tough crowd. I thought I’d get Sal’s blessing at least.
It ain’t FKin’ easy being a wiseguy…
I thought the F was brilliant.
Thank you :-)
The TPC analysis says “The Bowles-Simpson proposal is indeed an across-the-board tax increase – and a fairly progressive one at that.”
Unfortunately “The TPC estimate is also static, thus it assumes no behavioral response to the proposed tax law changes” which seems to me to render it entirely useless (except as cover for the wealthy to claim that it is fair).
Progressive?
Obviously not.
My point was just that assuming that the rich would keep their wealth in its current distribution under a massive overhaul of the tax codes beggars belief.
How should mortgage interest relief be abolished?
It’s clearly regressive, and it’s not even that much of a benefit to many home-owners since it just pushes house prices up until the effective mortgage payment is what it would have been without the relief (so really it just benefits the bank that holds the mortgage).
But if you simply scrap it outright you put pressure on people who (necessarily) budgeted for the relief and suppress prices, pushing many homes even further under water.
So what about scrapping the interest relief *and* re-adjusting all existing mortgage principals to the amount that would result in the same monthly payment (assuming the lowest tax-bracket for uniformity)?
I think the more likely way (in the sense that there aren’t enough grownups in Washington to give this any chance at all either way) would be to announce a multi-year phase-in that would slowly reduce the amount of interest that could be claimed so that people could adjust.
Your idea is clever, but banks would go apeshit (and probably rightly so).
Fuck the banks.
Sell it hard (it would benefit the vast majority of the population – including floating a fair number of currently submerged mortgages), and force the republicans to block it.
Actually it would benefit no one and harm anyone paying more than the minimum tax rate. At least as you describe it.
I think:
The closing of the entitlement would benefit anyone who didn’t own a home, and anyone more than a few years into a conventional mortgage (as the principal/interest ratio of their payments increases).
The increase in tax revenues would benefit anyone relying on government-funded services.
The re-setting of mortgage principals would benefit anyone whose mortgage is now underwater.
No?
Only if you reduced tax rates or something. Removing a subsidy on some doesn’t by definition benefit others.
Not clear what that has to do with it. Are you planning on resetting mortgages to 30yrs too?
Not really, services aren’t paid on a percent-of-revenue basis. It would benefit anyone receiving a chunk of the new windfall, but that’d probably just be Blackwater anyway (unless there was an announced use).
Not really, because property values would fall too.
As it stands the entitlement benefits property owners, so repealing it removes that inequity. The specific way in which it would benefit non-owners would indeed depends on the package that it is a part of. Under B-S that would be a reduction in income tax rates, but even if you did nothing else it would be an absence of the tax increase owners were experiencing.
The relief becomes less and less significant as the fraction of the repayments that is interest drops over the lifetime of the mortgage, so the effective cost of each payment increases over time. Scrap the relief, and the repayments are a fixed cost from then on.
Yes. What I really meant was an increase in government revenues at no cost to the individual taxpayer represents some sort of a benefit to them. Of course if that additional revenue is then given as a bonus to Blackwater, or back to the banks, it is a moot point.
At very least the absolute value of negative equity would drop; it’s also possible that a uniform, system-wide, devaluation (with income remaining fixed) would stimulate the property market.
Interesting.
I’m having trouble seeing some of these actually playing out, and I think you’re wrong on the second one (If you were into the significantly-reduced-interest-stage your monthly payment just wouldn’t go down much).
Either way, though, it’s an interesting idea.
Tom Verducci, fellow Cust fan:
I am just a layman and apparently equal to scum, but Jack in the NL sounds like a real bad idea.
FSU bait
I have long thought that Vlae is not very smart. Today’s example is his assumption that Oakland’s ballpark moves and Jean Quan’s election have anything to do with one another. They do not.
More (Gammon warning).
(emphasis added to note exactly with whom the City has been negotiating.)
Gee, it’s almost as though such work has been going on for months! You FKers heard it here first.
{scans google maps for San Jose’s waterfront}
News clarifying yesterday’s #6:
Also, it’s cute how people think Lew is relevant to the success or failure of Oakland’s ballpark efforts.
Yeah, from the interLew, it’s pretty clear that he’s out of the Lewp.
LB bait
“rocket docket” is a common phrase for courts that resolve cases quickly. It isn’t some outrage perpetrated in Florida.
What kind of cases though?
And the Indonesia comment is wrt public observers in court rather than their speed per se.
I’m just responding to his use of that phrase throughout the amount I could read without overdosing.
Rocket dockets exist for just about any type of civil matter, but started as a patent litigation thing in Texas ~10-15 years ago.
I wrote an app a couple of jobs ago that would pull info from various databases and spit it all out in the correct format for patent filing. I wanted to call it Docket Rocket but was denied.
I suddenly feel very, very stupid.
Nah, it’s the equivalent of finding papers in a filing cabinet and stapling them together (which, ironically, I suck at in real life).
Or did you mean coming up with “Docket Rocket?” I thought that was pretty brilliant at the time!
I agree.
I can’t wait ’til Clemens gets prosecuted for perjury …
Where the fuck did Taibbi learn to write, Bad Cliche University?
And apparently the egocentric Mr. Taibbi has not dealt with Florida very much. Yes, Matthew, it is essentially a third-world country wrt civil liberties and consumer protections.
Taibbi learned to write iFSU.
Shit, I hope Jim had nothing to do with that self-important douchebag. I know he wouldn’t.
In college, I played zampogna for the Italian Growth Disaster.
Needs moar colon
As of yesterday, I can no longer send packages over 15 ounces to the USA via air mail. The terrorists have won. It’s slow boat or nothing (which takes 6-8 weeks, missing Christmas).
Wow. Seriously?! Just Japan into US or is this a reciprocal thing? None, in or out?
Japan into US only. From US is fine. And it might just be through the Japan Post, which is what I always use to send stuff. I haven’t looked into private shipping companies, but I’d imagine they’d be a little more expensive.
Just send the anthrax 14 ounces at a time.
Or on board an airliner, strapped to a 3yo.
Okay, then, we won’t go spend our disposable income in your shops, theatres, restaurants… garages…
And while you’re at it, get all your damn corpses out of our Colma.
I came to Colma because I had been told that my father, a man named Pedro Paramo, lived there.
Don’t the A’s have a catching prospect by the same name?
Well… congestion pricing is always a good idea, it’s just always unpopular.
Presumably (unlike on the bridges) you could just exit the freeway and take surface streets around the toll, which may make those neighbourhoods a mess during toll hours.
What you need is the London system.
But then non-American = evil.
What is the London system?
What strikes me as unique about this plan is that the toll applies at the city border. Wasn’t the London system only a city center charge? I think it takes a different flavor, either in reality or perceived, when the toll is imposed at the city border.
The other thing is that SF does not have the most convenient/extensive/affordable public transit if you’re coming into the city. The extent to which this will encourage public transit seems dubious to me.
Re: my last para, that’s my perception as a 6-year NRAF who only ever commuted to SF for 10 weeks in 2003.
BART, I hear, works fine from parts of the south bay to parts of the city. If you don’t work along the market street corridor, though, it would probably be a real pain.
The question with any of these measures is what you’re using the money for. In this case, if they put all the net revenue towards lowering south-of-SF BART fares I would probably support it.
You’re certainly right about the city border part, but it is certainly true that the freeways are plugged and charging for their use would more appropriately price the resource.
I have zero faith that the money would be used wisely/not raided to pay for non-transit outstanding obligations. YMMV.
BART can get you to the city from the southern peninsula, but not the “south bay.” For that you need to take CalTrain.
Sure, especially if they don’t announce a use for the $$$. As a revenue grab it’s less appealing.
And fair enough. I routinely misuse “south bay”
euphemism?
… in revenue grabs.
I always charge extra when someone wants to cross over to the tip of the peninsula.
You touch my Pacifica and I’m having you arrested.
I’d prefer to move down to your more desirable, broader-based downtown San Jose area.
I thought Silicon Valley was up north.
That’s silicone valley.
I’m more of a Mussel Rock Park fan, myself.
Northern Peninsula. No farther south than Millbrae, which is just barely Northern Mid Peninsula.
The London system is a central zone that you have to pay to enter, with video cameras set up on every street crossing the threshold linked to a database of vehicles and users. Once you cross the threshold you have 24 hours to pay if you haven’t pre-paid.
While the principle is good, the degree of surveillance that the implementation requires is troubling (the UK is the most monitored country in the world now, I believe).
Yeah, it would be better to do it with fastracks or something, but the implementation of that would be near-impossible.
But the theory of “if you want to take a car downtown you pay a lot” is sound.
Could that be done by eliminating (some or all) city parking? That would allow you to do it without the surveillance. If you want to bring a car into the city center, then you pay by proxy by paying for parking.
Again, what I don’t understand about the SF proposal is that it targets the entire city as opposed to the downtown area. Downtowns are usually small and well-trafficked by buses and trams, but overall any given city is not. For example, in Boston we never take the car to go downtown, but we always drive to the zoo or arboretum because there is little traffic and public transit won’t get you there/takes 3x as long.
The reason, presumably, is that the freeway traffic doesn’t care where you’re going.
And it looks like this is mostly a rush-hour pricing scheme, so your trip to the zoo would be fine.
Holy fucking shit, someone agrees with my metaphilosophy!
Works best when, like Shadyac, you earn millions first, and then free yourself of all possessions and move to the trailer park.
Two columns in a month is not what I’d hoped for from the formerly prolific Mr. Goodman.
True.
Until I cut my curly hair recently, all the kids would ask me if I had permed it (since it’s unfathomable for a Japanese that such hair could be natural). The question actually bothered me, since I’m not the type of person to get my hair professionally treated. It turns out that the kids not only aren’t able to fathom hair that isn’t straight and black, but also aren’t allowed to have anything else. If your hair is wavy, curly, or not-black (or extremely dark brown) by nature, you have to receive a permission slip from a doctor showing that it’s natural.
I’ve heard stories of a Japanese girl in the area who was so embarrassed of her naturally wavy brown hair that she routinely died it black and got a straight perm so that she wouldn’t have to get a note from the doctor explaining that it was OK for her to be different.
So, now that my hair’s all gone, the kids have decided to ask me “why” my eyes are blue. How the hell do you answer that question?
Because I look at the sky so much.
“Because I have a soul.”
[laugh manically]
[refuse to engage in the topic again]
E5, DeJesus, the entire outfield, Japanese pitcher – is it just me, or is trying the “take a bunch of shit and see what sticks” offseason plan once again?
Not just you, but to me without E5, it seems a lot less that way. We know what we’re going to get (from what I understand?) from DDJ, and Iwakuma seems less shitty (again, from what I understand) than most acquisitions in recent offseasons. But E5 definitely gives this thing a “hey, a warm body with potentially some skill!” feel.
The thing I don’t get (especially with the 3B strategy, but also OF, other than DDJ and Crisp) is, what is the evaluation period? I’m assuming like most that one of the two will get traded, but neither has particularly high value, so what if they end up with both (and the current glut of uninspiring 3rd OF) going into ST?
DDJ is quality, but was hurt last year. I recall a Jason Kendall low buy a few years ago with a similar feel. Coco isn’t a paragon of health. CoJax, Rajai, Sweeney, Buck, etc. all are mediocre and/or injured, each too good to simply cut bait on but collectively a pile of suckage. E5 has the warm body feel. Iwakuma Goes to White Castle is nice, but he’s also coming from another league and country.
I’m not *against* the plan, it just seems like a familiar tune is all.
If he’s able to adapt successfully and blend into his surroundings: Iwakuma Chameleon?
DDJ was hurt, but in the freak injury way not the health-is-a-tool way, so I’m not too concerned.
Coco had a great year, when healthy, but has health-is-a-tool issues which mean we need a second CF. Currently that’s Rajai, so you need him too.
Sweeney would be a perfectly good RF option if his knees->defense are back, and that seems like something you’d know pretty quickly in ST.
Buck, I can’t imagine we keep since we’ve been screwing him for years and his serfdom is all used up. CoJax I honestly don’t get at all. I hope I’m wrong but I see Jake Fox written all over him.
3B I honestly have no idea what is going on. I’m shocked we are one of the super-serious Beltre pursuers, since Kz is hardly the team’s weakness, but if we get him we presumably cut/trade Kz and E5 for little return. If we don’t, I have no idea what we do. It’s perplexing.
What I really don’t understand (at all) is why Cust is just floating out there with nearly no interest. I think you do have to prefer Berkman (I’ve been swayed on that), but if we jettison Cust for a Nick Johnson or something I’m going to be pissed.
I agree with all of that (except maybe the Berkman thing; I’m not yet swayed — though to be fair both he and Cust could be washed up).
Weird thing is with Kz — IIRC, since even before the E5 grab, there were mutterings from th4e beat writers that the A’s weren’t convinced his D was all it was cracked up to be by advanced metrics; plus, he was absolutely atrocious at the plate. Who knows — maybe he didn’t play nice with mgmt as well?
Frankly, I still don’t understand why we got rid of Hannahan (for, essentially, nothing) and ended up ultimately replacing him with an inferior glove and not really even superior bat (H2N3 at least takes pitches and draws walks and avoids GIDPs).
Yeah, Kz’s regression was ugly, and sub-.300 OBPs are suck.
It’s entirely possible the A’s have an internal defensive stat that says bad things about Kz. If that’s the case they have to see him as a gaping black hole of suck, and E5 is a clear improvement (since we know he can hit, and he could theoretically not give away too many runs defensively).
Also, apparently his bad back may be badder than in-season reports indicated.
Maybe Clay Wood needs to put in a Tempurpedic 6 inches below the soil at third.
We got rid of Hannahan for close to nothing because he has basically no value.
Kouzmanoff is more like the platonic ideal of Hannahan, as you might say. His worst year with the bat (this one) was still better than Hannahan’s career numbers, and his better years were much, much better. I don’t think the defensive difference (if it even exists at all) is nearly enough to make up for that.
E5 I don’t really get at all. I like the power, but he seems like an inferior choice overall to Kz at 3B or to Cust (or the free-agent options) at DH.
Count me among those holding out hope for CoJax based on promise shown 4 years ago. He’s my new Travis Buck.
Jackson may never hit well again, but that seems like a lousy comparison.
Jackson was a high pick, top prospect, and had three seasons (2006-2008) as a full-time player with an OPS+ above 100. (Per the discussion above, it’s true that in two of those three years he still wasn’t very valuable overall according to WAR, but that’s partly because he was playing mostly 1B and the defensive metrics like him less at 1B than in the outfield).
By contrast, Fox was never considered much of a prospect, and when we got him he had less than half a season in the majors, with an OPS+ of 97.
I meant in the sense that he gets a lot of playing time, sucks, and costs us at least a WAR.
E5 was a $20K waiver claim to pick up a guy who hit 20+ HR in a part time gig last year. Can’t catch lightning in a bottle if you don’t have a bottle.
True enough — I think the “lightning in a bottle” feel of these moves is what NT is referring to; at least, that’s what I was speaking to. To me, DDJ seems like more of a sure thing (as much as there ever is such a thing), injury effects notwithstanding.
Also, not that this matters to me that much, but it’ll cost more than $20K to figure out whether they’ve actually caught the lightning; sounds like that number could actually be significant.
5/45 offer to Beltre.
Hmmm.
Thanks, and go As.
That ain’t gonna do it. Seems like a weird negotiating position to start with.
Yeah. Not enough money, and maybe too many years.
Not good enough.
Everything’s about Joe vs. the Volcano with you.
It’s always gonna be something with you, isn’t it, Bloom?
[yes]
ESPN Deportes is saying 5 years/$64 million. Same as he got from Seattle back in the day.
I’m shocked. Shocked I tell you.
Both the landslide vote and the Politico spin that this was ever in doubt are TOTALLY UNEXPECTED.
More SHOCKING SPIN:
Invisible factors like leading the House through one of it’s more productive sessions in history.
Hey nm, you are much more in the know than me. I only know that Politico just kind of “showed up” five years ago or so, but what spin are they supposed to have? Where the hell did they come from? I thought the point was to be non-partisan.
Imagine if David Broder tried to simultaneously ape Drudge and Wonkette. It’s that (or those) kind of “nonpartisan.”
I’ve always referred to Broder-types as “Establishmentarians,” whose default responses to any political issue is to back the incumbant legislative leaders. The right answer to Establishmentarians may lean Democrat or Republican on any given matter, but will pretty much always choose small incremental variations on the status quo as suggested by those who represent the status quo.
Right, basically it was created to serve blog-ish political news directed at people in the industry (there’s a print version circulated in DC).
It’s goal is circulation, which it gets by breaking any story any of its sources feed it (often the sort of silly GOP points that result in a Drudge link -> high traffic -> profit).