Brock Beauchamp

I don't disagree but I'd like to see the team move Donaldson in the offseason and Sano cannot be trusted. Rooker is more of a longshot for the 2022 roster but I'm not writing him off entirely yet.

Rooker's only hope to stick with the Twins is to hit enough to hold down DH, keeping Sano at first next season... but then that causes a roster pinch across all the corner positions. So... dunno?

Yeah, I'm currently chasing my own tail on this one. I thought I had it resolved yesterday and it came right back, still trying to figure out how to prevent it.

I only popped in and out of the broadcast. Was today Kaat's last day? I feel both sad and satisfied to hear that. Kaat is a good analyst but he's getting up there in age and the game has changed a lot. I'm sad to see him go but understand why it's time. It's nowhere near a Blyleven situation where I'm ready to tell him about doors hitting and asses and ways out. I genuinely like Kaat and think he does a pretty good job but the game is shifting and he has become more stodgy about it every year.

I'm not really sure what to think of Maeda for 2022 but it's pretty obvious something weird was going on with him before he ultimately went on the IL. Here are his stats before the IL: Date Tm G GS GF CG Rslt Dec DR IP H R ER BB SO HR HBP ERA 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) Apr 1 to May 22, 2021 MIN 9 9 0 0 2-7 W-L:2-2 5.4 42.2 52 30 25 11 39 9 3 5.27 190 .299 .351 .517 .868 .341 718 65% 15% 13% 0.79 26% 7% 0 45 ---% 2 0 0 174 9 1 0 2 0 1 1.06 -0.801 .85 -0.42% -5.44 92.40 194.00 per 162 games 35 35 0 0 21 162 197 114 95 42 148 35 12 718 2713 27 0 8 0 0 658 35 4 0 8 0 4 -3.0 -1.5% -20.5 350 733 And after the IL: Date Tm G GS GF CG Rslt Dec DR IP H R ER BB SO HR HBP ERA 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) Jun 14 to Aug 14, 2021 MIN 11 11 0 0 6-5 W-L:4-2 5.1 59.1 50 25 25 20 69 7 2 3.79 242 .228 .298 .379 .677 .299 969 65% 15% 15% 0.62 23% 11% 0 55 ---% 0 1 0 219 10 1 1 7 1 1 1.03 0.286 .09 -0.01% 5.70 194.30 358.00 per 162 games 35 35 0 0 16 184 155 78 78 62 214 22 7 749 2996 35 0 0 4 0 677 31 4 4 22 4 4 0.9 0.0% 17.7 601 1107

That seems high but in today's game, it's really not. Sano will be a very productive hitter with a K rate around 30%. Here's hoping this latest trend continues through the end of the season.

I'm very intentionally not allowing this to happen. While I think one of Jax, Barnes, Ober may work out... I certainly do not believe all of them will continue to pitch as they have for the past couple of weeks.

Too little too late but watching winning baseball is always better than watching the other kind of baseball.

That was an incredibly fun game. So at this point the Twins have faced the three division leaders of the AL in consecutive series: Houston, Chicago, Tampa. The Twins have gone 6-3 in those games. As we all predicted, of course.

Well done, sir. Well done.

Oh no, sorry, my jokes were all R rated so I can’t type them here, that’s all. No offense taken and none given.

I have no witty retort to this that isn’t R rated so imma just gonna go watch some baseball now.

First, you need to ratchet the rhetoric down about 90% and chill with the hyperbolic exclamations. Second, Stu is given a lot of liberty to write and satirize by Twins Daily ownership, of which I am a member. You may disagree with his take and that is fine but he’s here writing by invitation. We support his content and pay him to continue producing it. If you don’t like what you read, feel free to move on to the next (probably much more straight forward baseball) article. Personally, I think Stu is funny as hell and that this was one of his best pieces yet. YMMV. Third, don’t waltz onto a website and tell people to “keep X out of this space” when you haven’t bothered to learn the site’s mission statement or even who you’re responding to in comments. It’s bad form.

I don’t really have evidence to support this but I’ve always considered them largely working in tandem.

Simmons did not take the vaccine and has stated he will not take it.

Really? Yikes, bro. I had no idea.

All sides have a right to their opinions but the difference is that we've invited Stu to share his without editorial oversight. The same cannot be said for user comments. If Squirrel has asked users not to go too deep into the coronavirus weeds over a tongue-in-cheek editorial piece, that request needs to be respected. Squirrel is a representative of Twins Daily and is following owner policy.

No, it doesn't. The first amendment is protection from the government restricting individual speech, not a private organization telling an employee/contractor "you're a pain in the ass and bad at your job, now get lost".

Oh sure. I personally don't believe refusing the vaccine is enough on its own, at least in the case of Simmons where actual danger to other humans is moderate at most, but it can certainly factor into a larger decision of whether he's worth the effort at this point. I'd argue he's not, mostly for on-field reasons, but him being a significant part of the April Torpedoing Of The Season would also factor into my decision. If I was in this front office, I would have spent the afternoon of July 30th calling other teams literally saying "you can have Andrelton Simmons for $1m and nothing else" in part because of his anti-vax nonsense.

Well, there comes a point where headaches no longer become worth it. Simmons, with his anti-vax stance, sidelined a significant portion of the team when the Twins were still in contention for the season. The wheels completely came off after that point and Simmons has been a terrible baseball player as it unraveled. There's nothing wrong with letting "you're a pain in the ass and have been a negative influence on the team and season" factor into the decision whether to release a bad baseball player. This front office prioritizes character and frankly, benching a portion of the roster because a player doesn't believe in science and other things way above his pay grade to the detriment of the rest of the team is a slight on his character. But for the record, I'd be very wary of firing someone ONLY for refusing the vaccine.

Not really sure how you got that from this: But okay, you do you.

Just the anti-vax stance? No, probably not. But it just so happens that Andrelton Simmons is also really bad at baseball right now, which makes the decision much easier.

Perhaps Stu’s best piece yet.