Brock Beauchamp

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.

If you exclude the final ten games, his games played drops all the way down to 51. So yeah, the guy had a 2.5 fWAR through 50 games played...

Well, he grew up in a small town a few hours away. For all I know, he still lives in Georgia.

I think both Posey and Mauer are easy cases to get into the Hall because the Hall (ie. its voters) need to reevaluate what is expected from a "Hall of Fame catcher" because the threshold is too damned high. We commonly use 70 WAR as a HoF baseline and without looking I'm 98% sure no catcher has hit that threshold in the past 25 years. Maybe Gary Carter was the last to do it? He retired 30 years ago while his career started over 45 years ago (not looking at any of the stats, going from memory here).

Welcome to Twins Daily!

And we’re back! After a second half of the season that was markedly less painful than the first, the Twins Daily Community Awards have returned to commemorate the best posts, blog entries, and posters of the second half of this eminently forgettable baseball season! What are the Twins Daily Community Awards, you ask? For a long time, we wanted to recognize the best contributors to our awesome community and earlier this summer, we handed out the first prizes to our top community members. We offer two prizes for the Top Post (the comment that receives the most user reactions) and Top Blog Entry (the blog entry that receives the most user comments) but we also try to recognize others who contribute to the Twins Daily experience through popular content or prolific status in the forums and blogs, perhaps doubly so given how easy it was to give up on this team in June, much less continue giving it your attention through the end of September. Without further ado, let’s get to the winners… Top Post of the Second Half of the 2021 Season goes to… Honorable Mention: @wsnydes and the article In Defense of the Twins Front Office for his comment with 28 reactions from other users. During a season when the front office (deservedly) took a lot of heat from fans over their offseason choices leading up to the 2021 season, wsnydes took a more tempered approach in suggesting that they’ve had quite a bit of success in the past and how they deal with adversity for the first time since taking the reins will be quite telling. Does the front office deserve this kind of leeway? Who knows? Stay tuned! The Top Post and Prize Winner: @jmlease1 and the topic Three Things to Like (and Hate) about the Nelson Cruz Trade for his comment with 31 reactions from other users. jmlease1 had good things to say about the Nelson Cruz trade and the upside of trading an expiring contract and receiving pitching to fill an immediate need in return… which feels even more prescient now after witnessing Joe Ryan’s glorious mane baffle hitters through his first handful of Major League starts. While this front office has certainly made some questionable moves over the years, early returns on the Cruz trade look outstanding. In recognition of jmlease1’s popular post, they shall receive the most incredible prize to memorialize the 2021 Minnesota Twins’ season, particularly the outstanding bullpen that sunk the season before it even began; an item perfect for any mantle or centerpiece in the home to spur conversation… a commemorative display featuring the amazing 1984 season of Twins reliever and overall menace to baseball fans across all of Minnesota, Ron Davis. You can witness the awesome interactivity of this display in the video below... Ron Davis Prize.mp4 Blog Entry of the Second Half of the 2021 Season goes to… Honorable Mention: @LA VIkes Fan and the entry Nick Gordon Sent to AAA - Is He a Long Term Player? with 34 user comments. Nick Gordon was something of a catalyst for Twins fans this season, with fans taking (sometimes over-the-top) opinions about a player who profiles as a tenth or eleventh man on the roster. Either way, LA Vikes Fan used a tried-and-true method to easily create a popular blog entry: pose a question and ask for opinions. Like our blog entry winner from the first half of the season about the history of Twins left fielders, this rewarded the entry with over 30 comments as it seemed like everyone had a pretty strong opinion about Gordon during the second half of this season. Probably because there wasn’t much else worth talking about. The Top Blog Entry and Prize Winner: @bean5302 and the entry No, Top FA Starters Are Not Risky with 46 user comments. The moment I saw this entry, I suspected it would end up walking away with the most popular blog entry award. Nothing fires up a fan base - particularly we Twins fans - more than a conversation about spending on top-shelf free agent pitching. In this entry, bean5302 makes a convincing point that it’s better to pay big for a single player than to dispense those same dollars over multiple players. Congratulations, bean5302! For this effort, we’ve found the perfect gift for a nascent Twins blogger… a Twins-branded keyboard! It’s WIRELESS, even! Did I mention it’s a hot dog? It’s definitely a hot dog. Because offering a prize that isn’t just plain weird in one way or another isn’t really our style here at Twins Daily. Why is this keyboard a hot dog? God only knows because I can’t imagine why anyone in their right mind would buy this ridiculous thing and not something cool like a photo of Target Field or Byron Buxton… or frankly, I could make a convincing argument that a keyboard with TC Bear on it makes more sense than this thing. BUT IT’S WHAT YOU GET, BEAN. Either way, we all look forward to the brilliant blog posts you type on this weirdly branded-but-in-the-most-esoteric-way-possible input device! Most Read Blog Entry of the Second Half of the 2021 Season… @mike8791 and the entry The Dust Has Settled - What's Next, Part 2 with the visually pleasing number of 1,111 readers. Sorry, mike8791, no prizes are awarded for this honor except a good ol’ slap on the back from the Twins Daily community but we like to also point out those who create popular content through sheer reader numbers. And you topped the list in this regard with a post-deadline entry examining where the Twins are heading next: a rebuild or retool? Most Popular Topic of the Second Half of the 2021 Season… @Danchat and the topic 40 Man Roster Management For 2022 saw over 1,700 readers click in and check out their topic. Ah, a classic way to climb the Twins Daily leaderboard is to go the nuts-and-bolts route. In this post, Danchat examines the 40-man roster and various options available to the Twins going forward. Well done, chap! Prolific Posters of the Second Half of the 2021 Season… We like to give a hat tip to the posters who contribute the most to Twins Daily over the course of a season and year. For the second half of the season, we saw stalwart posters @Mike Sixel accumulated 2,087 reputation points and @ashbury, ever the bridesmaid but never the bride, once again takes second place with 1,130 reputation points. And that’s all, folks… Once again, a big thank-you goes out to the entire Twins Daily community and the wonderful content you bring to the site. All of you, whether you comment once or 800 times, fill the second half of Twins Daily with the best Twins content found anywhere on the internet. That’s all the back-slapping I have in me today so see you all again next spring, Collective Bargaining Agreement and greedy MLB ownership willing… View full article

No idea. I hope they spend for one of the big 4-5 but I’m quite skeptical of that happening.

I also see Simmons as a decent bounce back candidate but still want him nowhere near the 2022 Twins roster.

Not only did the Jays only miss by one game, they faced a ton of adversity playing away from Toronto *and* they were wildly unlucky with their run sequencing. They should have cruised to a postseason appearance, frankly.

Here is the format and rules: Here is where you can request a topic: If you check out the forum itself, there are already future topics with one participant, just waiting for an opponent to throw their hat in the ring.

It's a really great idea, thanks for suggesting it to me!

Several months ago, user @mikelink45 contacted me via private message and asked "why don't we have a debate forum on Twins Daily?" I didn't have a good answer to that question, as the idea of such a thing had never crossed my mind. Roll forward to today and we're excited to announce the Head 2 Head Debate Forum! The premise is simple: two Twins Daily users - names obscured to prevent bias in voting - square off on a single topic over the course of a week and the Twins Daily community votes on the winner afterward. There will be rules limiting the frequency of posts and the number of rebuttals in an attempt to streamline this process into an easily-digestible debate for reading and voting. We will only host one debate at a time and the frequency of the debates entirely depends on user interest in both participation and voting. We have a few topics already lined up with interested users but our community will be the ones deciding most of the topics and participants once everyone familiarizes themselves with the operation of the forum. Note: to keep everyone on topic and focused, there are a few differences between this forum and most other forums on Twins Daily: users cannot create topics in this forum, nor can they respond to posts until the debate is complete, at which point the debate thread becomes a free-for-all for everyone to participate in the topic. If you're interested in the rules, topics, or participating, please jump over to the H2H forum right now and check out the initial series of posts explaining the rules, how to suggest a topic, and how to participate!