Brock Beauchamp

The episode "A Dark, Quiet Death" is one of the finest single episodes of television in the past 20 years.

Thank you, my memory is going in my old age...

Which Ober do you expect, though? He struggled mightily early in his 2021 debut. His first ten starts: Date Tm G GS GF CG Rslt Dec DR IP H R ER BB SO HR HBP ERA FIP BF BA OBP SLG OPS BAbip Pit Str StL StS GB FB LD PU Unk GSc IR IS SB CS PO AB 2B 3B IBB GDP SF ROE aLI WPA acLI cWPA RE24 DFS(DK) DFS(FD) May 18 to Jul 25, 2021 MIN 10 10 0 0 5-5 W-L:1-1 5.1 43.1 42 26 25 13 45 11 1 5.19 5.36 182 .251 .308 .521 .829 .277 733 66% 18% 9% 0.52 24% 7% 0 48 ---% 2 3 0 167 6 3 0 2 1 3 .91 -0.460 .14 -0.07% -3.36 107.90 202.00 His remaining ten starts: Date Tm G GS GF CG Rslt Dec DR IP H R ER BB SO HR HBP ERA FIP BF BA OBP SLG OPS BAbip Pit Str StL StS GB FB LD PU Unk GSc IR IS SB CS PO AB 2B 3B IBB GDP SF ROE aLI WPA acLI cWPA RE24 DFS(DK) DFS(FD) Jul 31 to Sep 24, 2021 MIN 10 10 0 0 7-3 W-L:2-2 5.1 49.0 50 19 18 6 51 9 0 3.31 3.84 197 .265 .284 .460 .745 .313 743 68% 16% 14% 0.54 21% 10% 0 53 ---% 1 0 0 189 10 0 0 5 2 0 .93 0.532 .00 0.00% 6.62 150.65 270.00

Can Parker Hageman hit a 100mph fastball and can Dan Anderson catch a 100mph fastball? Courtesy of the Killebrew 100 MPH Fastball Challenge, they both have the opportunity to try. View full video

Without looking, name even one of the characters that died. Which means the sacrifice wasn't significant. Sure, it made sense, but what *actually happened on screen* made it appear Baba Yaga set up the elf to give birth, then took her baby to free herself from prison by triggering an massive grief event on an epic scale, which makes way more sense than what ended up happening. I thought that was actually a really clever way for the demon to free herself and I was into it. Having that sucked away (never mind Baba Yaga's completely punchless return to her domain) felt like the show was knee-capping itself and making the story worse every minute events continued to unfold on-screen.

I agree, though I'm a lot less confident in Ryan. Ober went through lineups multiple times, pitched back-to-back against the same teams, etc. I'm more confident his stuff is legit, provided he stays healthy. Whereas I still have lingering concerns that Ryan's secondary stuff just isn't good enough and he'll ultimately revert to a one-trick pony. I'm still optimistic he can be good, there's just more concern surrounding him in my eyes.

The conflict dragged on without ever being in doubt and the show is increasingly trying to be Game of Thrones. The final scene ruined a bunch of what came before it, as it made no sense for the final reveal to have killed the child while it made all the sense in the world for the Baba Yaga character to have done it. Also, the Witcher battle looked to have real sacrifice involved but the stakes turned out to be zero and everyone walked away. I don’t mind the over-arching story but felt the show worked much better using the monster of the week format.

The Witcher? Yeah, I really enjoyed the first four-ish episodes.

Witcher s2 had me until the last episode, which was both boring and threw the rest of the season sideways and not in a good way. Still worth a watch if you liked s1 but don’t get your hopes too high for the end.

By the way, if anyone is holding out to see Spider-Man, go see it before anyone spoils it for you. The movie is absolutely delightful and surprising at almost every turn. It's probably a top three Marvel movie. I was on board for the premise but no way did I think they'd be able to make a film bursting at the seams with fan service be so heartfelt and touching in a variety of ways.

I'm of the opinion they let it ride with Kirilloff with Larnach behind him in case of failure. If they acquire an OF, it needs to be a defensive-minded CF to back up Buxton.

Perhaps the biggest "what if?" in a season full of "what ifs?" And welcome to Twins Daily!

Well said.

I agree with all of this in a typical year but right now, this team is so upside-down with pitching that I'm willing to take more short-term risks to shore up the 2022 and possibly 2023 pitching staffs.

Agreed, though I'd strongly consider two years at a high AAV if that's what it takes. The options are going off the board in a hurry and we have no indication the Twins will EVER hand out a 5+ year deal to a pitcher.

With Rodon, I’d be more interested in overpaying in AAV and cutting down years and given his peak performance level, he may want that as well.

Except if you trim Buxton's numbers to the past three years - after he stopped tinkering with his swing and went back to being the guy he was when drafted - his OPS is .900. That's why he's getting paid and at that point, Billy Beane wouldn't care about his OBP in comparison to the rest of his tools.

Yeah, there are, what surprised me is that they start at 500 PAs and not something like 300 PAs, which definitely favors the Twins over Buxton (like pretty much everything in this contract does).

Buxton, and it’s not close.

It means Buxton cannot be traded to anyone without Buxton's approval.

I'm surprised about so many of the aspects of this contract. First, that the Twins were able to convince him to accept big MVP bonuses and not plate appearance bonuses, ensuring that performance, not health, will escalate the contract. Second, no opt out or anything, full no-trade clause (good for Buck!). Remember, Buxton *should* be a free agent *right now* but the front office hosed him very intentionally. Byron appears to be a very forgiving man and we should all be thankful for it. This is a very team-friendly contract.

I'm pretty lukewarm on Baldelli over a variety of in-game management items but I don't think he actually does much fieldwork with the players, which tends to deflect some of the blame over poor fundamentals from Baldelli to the field coaches. Sure, obviously Baldelli is the manager and takes some of the blame for anything that happens but if he's not the one doing the work and he's not the one picking his coaches, blame should probably point upward toward the front office. While I can't really evaluate Baldelli's management style, his teams always seem to hang in there through a long season. That should probably be a point in his favor; the fact the Twins played better in the second half of 2021 with a bunch of rookies and cast-offs was a pleasant surprise.

The Twins currently have two legitimate starting pitchers on the roster and both were *rookies* last season. There is something approaching a zero percent chance of any pitcher in the rotation being blocked at any point in the near future.