Brock Beauchamp

It's rare but Edgar Martinez accumulated over 1,000 plate appearances in AAA with a ~.940 OPS before receiving a legitimate chance at playing in Seattle. That's a pretty long time by my standards.

While I have lots of not-nice things to say about Simmons and his anti-vax stance, I can't agree with your take on his on-field demeanor. Simmons is constantly talking to his teammates, directing action on the field, and I think his smoothness looks like laziness just because he's that damned good (or was, as his athleticism is now on the decline). Look at the way the guy throws the ball. No effort, looking flat-footed quite often... and it drops right into the first baseman's mitt almost every time. He makes it all look so easy.

Except the expectation was that Simmons would be a pitching assist player. His signing was primarily to supplement the entire pitching staff after several seasons of terrible infield defense.

Given that I control the god account on the site, I’m considering logging in under 100 different accounts just to like your post, ash.

You’re right, I had the payers reversed. What I meant was that giving back Baddoo out of ST was Detroit essentially throwing away a little bit of money.

Oh, velocity isn't everything but it sure doesn't hurt. And I believe Ryan can be a good pitcher, I'm only saying we need to temper our expectations a bit, particularly after a night where he posted an amazing stat line but actually watching the game, he was slightly less dominant and with 1-2 more mph on a few of those balls (or even a slight pull instead of to dead center), could have merely posted a middling start. Again, I'm very encouraged by Ryan and excited to see more, I'm just suggesting people not get too drunk on his stat line from last night.

While the game was fun and really exciting in the moment, I feel we should pump the brakes on Ryan a little bit. At the end of the day, he's still a two-pitch pitcher whose second pitch isn't great and he has little velocity, to boot. I think he can have a really nice career because he really seems to have the right mojo on the mound, which goes a long way with a starting pitcher, IMO. But Ryan had quite a bit of hard contact last night, it just fell into Twins' leather until the seventh inning. Good start, loved to see it, want to see more. But it wasn't as dominant as it looked on the stat line.

How is it "cherry-picking" to use WAR, which is generally regarded as the best catch-all single stat to measure a player's value? Sure, most players decline in time but it's not a guarantee to happen with high-end pitching, just look at the likes of Verlander or Greinke. They may have declined from "elite" but they're still quite good.

Detroit kept Baddoo on the roster because they had to keep him or literally pay the Twins to take him back. The good spring was just a bonus.

I appreciate the ability to be awarded an F- in this grading. ”You were so bad, we created a new bottom rung for you to occupy.”

No other options is how it started. Why is it still happening? Not sure, but Gant hasn't been horrible so I guess that's okay.

That's entirely possible, my main point is that he was jerked around enough that he deserves a real, healthy look before making any decisions.

You know there's someone out there who has had Simmons as their pick to click for the past 137 games and for the first time...

While I've been quite unimpressed with Rooker this season, he still has fewer than 200 MLB plate appearances with an overall 102 OPS+. My biggest issue with Rooker is this roster and his glove but Miranda doesn't really fix that problem, either, because Josh Donaldson and Luis Arraez are occupying third base and Jorge Polanco is occupying second. Before we christen Jose Miranda the second coming and Brent Rooker a waste of roster space, we should look at their numbers: Brent Rooker AAA: 541 PAs, .932 OPS Jose Miranda AAA: 285 PAs, .917 OPS Obviously, Miranda is younger and has a position (though it's blocked in Minnesota) while Rooker is older and positionless but we need to temper our expectations and valuations of players just because we're frustrated with a different player in the moment. But a blocked position doesn't really help Miranda that much in the here and now. He's not 35 year old Josh Donaldson at third base, much less 23 year old Josh Donaldson at third base. I expect Rooker will not be on the Twins 40-man next season and I'm pretty okay with that, though it's slightly risky. But I also understand why the front office is giving Rooker one more shot before kicking him (or another position player) off the 40-man roster to add Miranda for September. Personally, I thought the time to call up Miranda was when Arraez was banged up and Donaldson wasn't playing third base but that window has passed.

Except they didn't force him to overload on sliders, as he has thrown it slightly less this season than he did last season. He has actually returned to leaning more heavily on his sinker this season than he did last season, too. I think we can chalk up most of Randy's issues to injury and not having a defined role. I suspect being thrown into the bullpen in a rush set him back and by the time he would have normally recovered, he was injured. Season Team Level FB% SL% CT% CB% CH% SF% KN% XX% 2019 MIN MLB 59.3% (92.7) 27.9% (84.2) 12.9% (85.8) 2020 MIN MLB 48.4% (91.6) 35.3% (83.5) 16.3% (85.7) 2021 MIN MLB 59.5% (91.7) 33.2% (84.3) 7.3% (84.6) Total - - - MLB 55.2% (91.9) 32.8% (83.9) 12.0% (85.4)

I don't think they tinkered with his primary pitch at all, it was the addition of the slider they worked on. And given his finger injuries, I'm not sure we should be surprised his sinker stopped working, as it's such a feel pitch.

To be fair to Nick Blackburn, he was a legitimately solid pitcher for two consecutive years, averaging 200 IP and a little over 2.5 rWAR a season. Ober could easily end up worse than Blackburn when all is said and done. I don’t think he will but it’s certainly possible.

The Twins would have to go 3-23 to finish the season to finish with 100 losses but hey, I guess it's possible.

Well... do you, punk? Last July, we started a new community initiative where we offer prizes for the most liked posts and blog entries on the site. We'll post these awards four times a year: first half of the season, second half of the season, offseason, and spring training. Probably. Unless it becomes a miserable experience, at which point we reserve the right to stop at any time. These prizes... aren't great, to put it bluntly. They kinda stemmed me from reading comic books in the 1980s and loving the "No-Prize" award in every letters page written by the editor of Marvel Comics, signed off by Stan Lee and wow... I'm getting old real fast with that sentence so I'm gonna stop. But the prizes, while not great, are incredible. This season has been such a train wreck, such a total collapse of all things at once, such a complete and utter failure across the board that it was difficult to decide which of the many ripe fruits I should pick off the Minnesota Twins 2021 tree to celebrate this season finally coming to a close. But ultimately, I had to go back to the source of our collective misfortune and, at that point, it became clear what most needed celebration: the 2021 Minnesota Twins bullpen. And once that clicked into place, I realized there was only one place I could go with the second half community prize: A Ron Davis commemorative display. This display not only features Ron Davis' epic 1984 campaign with the Minnesota Twins but it also features Ron Davis' epic 1984 campaign with the Minnesota Twins. 2021 Twins fans surely can commiserate with everything I said - and didn't say - in that sentence. But there's more than just a few trinkets included in this display, as the below video will show to you skeptics still standing in the back: Ron Davis Commemorative Display Prize Ron Davis Prize.mp4 Yes, you heard that right. That is Grammy award-winning artist Sarah McLachlin singing her 1997 hit "Angel" from her 8x platinum album, Surfacing. So if you have the nerve, feel the moxy, can be the spoon, will channel your inner Randball's Stu... this perfect piece of Twins history could be yours, all you have to do is write the most popular post in the Twins Daily community. That could be a comment on a news story, a reply to a blog post, or even a blog comment. For the lucky person who can be all those things to all those people all at the same time, you will win the ultimate piece of Minnesota Twins memorabilia. I know, you just want this thing so much but remember, YOU HAVE TO EARN IT. Just like Ron Davis.

Watching the game it was a decent, though mostly uninspiring, start. The line looks worse than it should because Thielbar relieved Jax and promptly added a run to Jax's stat line by giving up a home run to a .500 OPS hitter (see my above post).

I agree but there's very little lost in getting him starting innings right now. Converting him to a reliever in September means he'd get maybe 5-7 innings, tops, against MLB hitting. As a starter, he can face 3-4x as many hitters, which is probably what he needs most right now.

The next hitter was Austin Meadows and Thielbar should have faced him whether Cruz walked or singled, which probably why they let Jax pitch to Nelson. Austin Meadows slash against RHP (Jax): .256 .344 .548 .891 Austin Meadows slash against LHP (Thielbar): .199 .277 .278 .556 A huge problem with this season, I'd argue the biggest problem, is that the Twins pull the right levers but then the players go out there and vomit all over the baseball diamond. At the end of the day, the player is the one who has to perform. The loss of the lead is 100% on Caleb Thielbar for failing to get a same-sided hitter who is terrible against same-sided pitching out. And he not only didn't get Meadows out, he gave up a home run to a guy slugging freaking .278 against LHP. Inexcusable. EDIT: And I just realized Meadows' LHP splits there are INFLATED because they include his home run against Thielbar. After calculating minus the homer, his OPS against LHP entering that Thielbar appearance was a terrible .527 and that means his slugging percentage was probably about .260.

Nailed it, this world is all about verticality and it's not good for consumers because we're ultimately left with 1-3 choices and none of them fit our particular preference.

It's becoming more likely by that day that zero pitchers will win 20 games this season. Basically, the only one with a shot is Urias and it's going to require perfection through five starts to accomplish the feat, as I doubt he'll get a sixth start (currently at 15 wins).