Brock Beauchamp

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.

Holy ****, how did I never notice that before? I knew Joe did well in certain situations but a tOPS+ of 129... wow...

BTW, Tony Gwynn was indeed clutch. 116 tOPS+ with 2 out, RISP which is insane for a guy who had a career 132 OPS+. To be 16% better in that situation over a career is bonkers. Clutch Stats I Split G GS PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS TB GDP HBP SH SF IBB ROE BAbip tOPS+ 2 outs, RISP 823 974 795 465 255 49 9 16 311 56 3 176 41 .321 .446 .465 .911 370 0 3 0 0 104 10 .324 116 Late & Close 1305 1768 1551 250 547 82 10 28 234 71 21 184 88 .353 .418 .473 .890 733 42 2 13 18 87 31 .357 111 Tie Game 2069 3546 3189 381 1041 192 29 48 349 109 46 297 156 .326 .381 .450 .831 1435 101 4 24 32 92 55 .329 96 Within 1 R 2269 5938 5397 748 1781 310 47 80 588 204 93 444 272 .330 .379 .449 .828 2425 151 13 35 49 131 81 .334 96 Within 2 R 2358 7606 6910 1007 2320 406 65 106 816 252 111 573 332 .336 .385 .459 .844 3174 188 16 42 65 159 102 .339 99 Within 3 R 2391 8634 7827 1150 2637 472 73 119 953 283 117 672 375 .337 .387 .461 .849 3612 211 17 44 74 185 111 .340 100 Within 4 R 2410 9272 8412 1246 2824 494 79 128 1022 304 122 718 400 .336 .386 .459 .845 3860 232 20 45 77 195 121 .339 99 Margin > 4 R 599 960 876 137 317 49 6 7 116 15 3 72 34 .362 .409 .455 .865 399 27 4 0 8 8 18 .368 105 Ahead 1351 3086 2754 565 946 165 28 36 396 108 54 284 115 .344 .403 .463 .866 1275 60 10 11 27 100 38 .346 105 Behind 1548 3600 3345 437 1154 186 28 51 393 102 25 209 163 .345 .382 .463 .846 1549 98 10 10 26 11 46 .349 99 Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table Generated 8/11/2021.

I was hoping I'd never have to post this damned chart again now that Rosario is almost a season removed from this team but I guess it needs to be posted one more time. "Eddie Rosario is clutch" is mostly a made-up narrative just like the other "player x is clutch" statements of the past 50 years. True clutchness over a long career is exceptionally rare. IIRC, Tony Gwynn is one of the only examples of it actually happening, though I'd have to look that up to confirm. Clutch Stats I Split G GS PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS TB GDP HBP SH SF IBB ROE BAbip tOPS+ 2 outs, RISP 277 335 309 113 76 14 2 11 105 10 2 25 61 .246 .304 .411 .715 127 0 1 0 0 9 3 .274 86 Late & Close 352 481 443 70 123 28 5 17 78 9 2 26 98 .278 .317 .479 .796 212 8 1 8 3 6 1 .320 105 Tie Game 514 802 757 86 201 44 3 29 114 11 6 33 150 .266 .294 .446 .741 338 10 1 3 8 4 5 .294 90 Within 1 R 691 1595 1495 217 412 82 12 66 238 25 13 77 301 .276 .309 .479 .788 716 18 1 10 12 8 11 .304 102 Within 2 R 741 2113 1976 290 551 107 18 83 302 35 14 103 389 .279 .312 .477 .789 943 27 2 12 20 11 12 .307 103 Within 3 R 751 2454 2299 335 621 123 19 93 337 39 18 120 469 .270 .304 .462 .766 1061 30 2 12 21 12 14 .300 97 Within 4 R 758 2695 2521 367 685 132 21 102 367 46 21 137 506 .272 .307 .462 .769 1165 34 2 12 23 15 15 .301 98 Margin > 4 R 245 441 423 62 125 17 2 24 67 2 1 13 80 .296 .315 .515 .831 218 5 1 0 4 0 3 .313 112 Ahead 484 1231 1152 186 330 59 13 50 193 23 13 63 199 .286 .321 .490 .811 565 17 1 3 12 8 10 .306 108 Behind 475 1103 1035 157 279 46 7 47 127 14 3 54 237 .270 .304 .464 .768 480 12 1 6 7 3 3 .306 97 Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table Generated 8/11/2021.

Definitely, and I was really impressed by how aggressive the Sox were up until the Madrigal trade. I think that will end up being reckless and wasteful for yet another aging right-handed reliever.

For sure, but you just listed the two best-run organizations in all of baseball. 28 teams are jealous of what those teams accomplish on a yearly basis.

Oh, I'm not diminishing what the White Sox are doing but it's hard to compare two franchises that are in different stages of competition. While the Twins were drafting low and competing, the White Sox were effing terrible, to put it bluntly. If the White Sox bomb out of the postseason and the loss of Madrigal burns them badly while the Twins bounce back and are competitive soon, will the Twins then be geniuses?

This is a lot easier to do when your team loses 95, 100, and 89 games while the other team is trying to contend, as was the case for the White Sox vs. the Twins from 2017-2019.

Woof, I so strongly disliked Molitor's bullpen management. He would use and abuse his three best guys until they were ineffective or injured. While a burning fire to win is nice and all, the baseball season remains a 162 game slog and a pitching staff must be managed with that at idea at the forefront of the manager's mind nearly 100% of the time.* *this was something Gardy was excellent at for a very long time, IMO

Yep. This front office inherited some nice positional pieces but good lord, look at those pitching "prospects". Every single one of them bombed out and without looking I'm pretty sure none of them even accumulated 100 MLB innings in their careers.

That honor still goes to 2011, which had *two* former MVPs under 30 on its roster to open the season. Wow, that season was terrible. Much like this season, everything that could go wrong did but at least that team still had a ton of under-30 talent. The bulk of the team people cared about was still under 30: Mauer, Morneau, Kubel, Span, Baker, et al.

The Rule V draft happens in early December. And I'd bet quite a bit of money that Detroit had no more than the typical confidence one has in a Rule V pick... and that's very little confidence at all. Sometimes, people just get lucky and others get unlucky. We don't need to attribute mastermind scheming - particularly from the likes of Detroit - to explain they took a calculated risk and won while the Twins took a calculated risk and lost. It happens.

While I am critical of the front office, I think it's hindsight and unreasonable to accuse them of mistakes for not outbidding other teams for the likes of Gibson and Schoop. The Twins simply do not have the budget to retain every player on their roster, especially someone like Gibson who was terrible and sick when he entered free agency. That contract looks a lot less great if Texas didn't luck out of not paying him much in 2020 when he was, again, awful. And while they made mistakes with pretty much every pitcher they signed this season, that doesn't mean it's fair to go back multiple years and point fingers for not signing players who no one really wanted signed at the time. Not a single person I can remember was sad to see Gibson so somewhere else on a 3/$30m deal. The same goes for the likes of Schoop, who had just been replaced by the younger, better, and yet-to-be-injured Luis Arraez.

Which is mentioned in the article. And while the system looked pretty good overall when they took over, the pitching situation was bad and that hasn't really changed. The new front office inherited a really bad version of Berríos (which we all expected to improve) and little else that showed real promise, especially in the rotation. As we were about to find out, the previous front office had completely blown three consecutive top six draft picks, two of them on starting pitching that would never pitch in Minnesota.

I can give them a pass on Baddoo, as I suspect leaving him unprotected was a calculated risk that backfired. Having not played in a couple of years and being a Rule V candidate that needs to stay on the MLB roster, I completely understand why the front office would take the risk that no one would draft him and if someone did, the Twins would receive Baddoo back in short order. Trading Wade was probably the right decision but... wow... to dump Anderson so quickly while Wade was thriving requires a series of bad evaluation and mis-management that deserves loads of ridicule.

My problems with the front office don't have a lot to do with this season in Minnesota, at least not directly. They made some mistakes, did dumb stuff, was slapped around for it. That happens, now let's see how they rebound next season. But... 1. They've shown to be pretty bad at self-evaluation of the organization. They're routinely trading or waiving or leaving unprotected players that immediately turn around and have success elsewhere. Their trades from their first two seasons, 2017-2018, are showing mixed results at best. I can forgive them a Baddoo but not multiple Baddoos over only a few seasons. 2. People are being rather unfair with the pitching timeline (there are currently only five pitchers from that 2017 draft with >1 career rWAR, pitching takes time) and I've been quite patient with the results, particularly with Covid. But in the wake of Covid, we have over half a MiLB season to evaluate and let's just say they're not blowing my socks off with these results. Right about now is when we should be excited to see the coming wave of prospects but what we're really excited about is other teams' prospects that the Twins gave away high-end MLB assets to control. That's not an encouraging sign. 3. This is tied into #2 but... Beau Burrows. And a thousand other players like him in 2021. It's time to wipe out these fringe acquisitions and promote from within. If they don't see what they have right now, they won't know what they have to start 2022, either. And while it's primarily a problem with pitchers, there is zero reason for Andrelton Simmons to be on this roster right now. Play Gordon, IL Donaldson, call up Miranda... shuffle things up because record no longer matters in 2021. I'll forgive the front office for everything going to hell in a handbasket in the immediate follow-up to 2020 but their responses are almost as disappointing as the failures that led us to this point. I'm not ready to move on from them yet but where I was generally positive about them one year ago, I'm am equally as negative today. It feels like they're operating without a coherent plan right now and that's possibly the worst trait a front office can have in a time like this. They need to commit to a decision and move in that direction.

Yeah, it sounds like Thorpe is still dealing at 89, which makes him close to useless as an MLB pitcher, even a lefty. I sure wish we knew what has happened to him and whether it's something that will resolve itself in time or if this is just who he is now.

If these four players are traded, they should trade literally every player with over one year of service time because the team has no hope of being good for several years. Come on, it doesn’t feel like much thought was put into this piece.

Yeah. The gift that keeps on giving. Sigh.