Brock Beauchamp

I see no reason to avoid Appel in the next draft. He has already refused to sign once. There's almost a zero chance he does it again. That would be madness.

He's almost a zero risk in the Rule V draft. He has dominated AAA for multiple seasons and is now healthy after being injured in previous drafts. Where is the risk? You pay a little money, put the guy on your roster, and see what he does. If he fails, just give him back to the Twins. No loss outside of the $50,000 or whatever it costs to acquire a Rule V guy.

No, he was trying to get more than 4-5 innings per start out of the guy with an ERA+ higher than 80. Liriano's best season was 2010, a season where he walked 7.2% of the batters he faced compared to 12.7/13.0% in 2011/2012. In 2010, Liriano threw 64% of his pitches for strikes. In 2011/2012, he threw 57/59% of his pitches for strikes. Liriano has swing and miss stuff. Swing and miss stuff only works if the batter actually swings at the pitches thrown. Liriano's success revolved around his ability to locate his fastball and set up the slider for a swing and miss. If he's not locating his fastball and guys are sitting on the pitch, it all goes to hell because nobody can consistently get a good slider over the plate. The very point of the pitch is to bait people into thinking it's a fastball and swinging as the pitch drops out of the zone. Unsurprisingly, his Zone% (number of pitches thrown in the strike zone) tells a similar story, going from 48% in 2010 and dropping to 43.5/42.3% in 2011/2012. As an aside, it should be noted that much of Liriano's success revolves around him throwing harder, which he did in 2010 and has done in 2012, though he's struggling again in 2012 because he's throwing too many balls, which batters lay off and end up taking the walk instead of inducing weak contact or striking out. Whether you call it "pitch to contact", "pound the zone", or whatever you like, it's a simple philosophy in baseball and few pitchers are truly elite without that trait.

What's interesting about Slama is his situation, not necessarily the pitcher himself. He could fail as a MLB reliever. The interesting question is "why isn't he getting a shot instead of Gray/Perdomo/scrub reliever?" The team has answered that question several times. The question has become do fans know more than the Twins FO on player development? This actually sorta reminds me of the Kila Ka'aihue situation in KC. KC fans demanded that Ka'aihue be brought up - he had dominated the minors (although prospect sites weren't as heavy on him). He got 12 games in the majors at 24, spent all of his age 25 season back in AAA, as well as most of his age 26 season. In 5 seasons at AAA (over 400 games) he had an OPS over .900 while drawing nearly as many walks as strike outs. KC fans were going crazy that he didn't get a shot since KC sorta sucked while letting vets like Mike Jacobs play first base. Things from the FO like his defense is horrible, he has plate issues, he can't hit ML pitching were part of some vast conspiracy by a FO afraid of stats. Of course, he was a disaster at the ML level, traded for a crappy relief pitcher and DFA'd by Billy Beane. No matter what you think of Slama, this team kept Jeff Gray on its roster for a good portion of the season. Jeff Gray is an awful major league baseball pitcher. We knew that from day one. Nothing he did had any indication that he would stick in the majors (literally, zero indication), yet the team stuck with him for at least two months. If the team wanted to see Perdomo so badly, why didn't it happen earlier and why isn't Slama getting a shot in September? Why did the front office stick with a guy who was so freakin' awful that even the most casual fan could tell he was not major league material? On that basis alone, Slama deserved a shot after the "scholarship" comments when JR returned to the GM spot. I don't care that much about Slama. He could fail spectacularly. That's not the point. The point is that a guy who earned a shot at the majors is not getting it in favor of playing a combination of talentless scrubs for a good portion of the season.

You read my last sentence, right? Or this entire paragraph? Pitch to contact is a good way of taking a guy with marginal talent and maximizing his usefulness by eliminating unnecessary baserunners (walks) and expecting your defense to make outs on ~70% of the balls hit to them. It doesn't mean that those pitchers will suddenly turn into Cy-freakin-Young, it means you'll occasionally get an 08-09 Nick Blackburn out of lackluster talent. Those pitchers are incredibly useful at the back of a rotation. On the other hand, if you don't have truly talented pitchers up front to support those lesser pitchers, your rotation is going to suck no matter how many strikes you throw.

What's interesting about Slama is his situation, not necessarily the pitcher himself. He could fail as a MLB reliever. The interesting question is "why isn't he getting a shot instead of Gray/Perdomo/scrub reliever?"

Parmelee and Slama are the only interesting topics on the Twins right now. It's not surprising that many of the TD writers want to take a shot at interpreting the situation.

It's an article, not a thread. Articles are automatically generated as a forum topic.

The Twins aren't going to get a top shelf pitcher for Span. Denard is a decent, but not spectacular, player and pitching prospect value is through the roof right now (all prospect value is through the roof, pitching is just more so). The best bet for the Twins is a close to MLB pitcher with solid upside (a B prospect, maybe) and then a lower, raw guy that's a bigger question mark. It's also possible that they could squeeze a high upside guy in low/high A from a team as the centerpiece but it's unlikely that they will be able to pull a close to MLB prospect pitcher that is an "A" prospect.

His objective wasn't to walk guys but there are plenty of pitchers who try to get "cute" with their pitching and nibble at the corners, like they're suddenly a reincarnation of Greg Maddux. I'm not saying that's what Liriano did (I think his problems are far more complex than that) but it's not as if that tendency is unheard of in the pitching community. In their minds, they're trying to get guys out but their actions are counter-productive to that goal. "Pitch to contact" is a fine philosophy. The Twins rode it for years, taking marginal guys and getting decent production from them by avoiding walks and letting the defense make outs. On the other hand, when it was working, the Twins also had several pitchers with real talent (Radke, Santana, Baker) who missed a few bats as well. Remove that pitching talent and no matter how much you either tell a guy to "miss bats" or "let the defense play", it doesn't matter. Your pitching staff is going to be bad because your pitchers are bad. The Twins spent a decade near the top of the list in walks issued and coincidentally, they had some pretty decent pitching staffs during that time. I don't think that's entirely a coincidence but it's not the entire story, either.

Baseball Stars was the best NES baseball game by a longshot. It offered options other games didn't have for years.

I'd be shocked if no one took Slama in the Rule V draft. Where is the risk in doing so? You're not going to find a more MLB-ready player in that draft.

Yep. I'd deal one this offseason, try to move another at the 2013 deadline, and then consider moving the third next offseason. Trading all three at once isn't going to get much of a return. Morneau's value is hamstrung by his 2013 contract (which is why I'd deal him next deadline) and losing both Span and Willingham would be devastating to the offense. I'd try to move Span this offseason and consider moving Willingham the next (the less contract time left on his deal, the more willing teams will be to take on an aging slugger, the exact opposite of Span's situation).

If you believe that, then you're missing the point. So is Reusse. I don't see anyone here claiming that Slama is definitely going to be a great reliever in the majors. In fact, I'm very willing to believe that the Twins' evaluation of him may be correct. But I don't trust them enough that I'm going to simply take their word for it. It simply doesn't hurt anything to give him a shot that he's clearly earned through performance. No one can look at the 2012 bullpen and then tell me with a straight face that Slama hasn't earned multiple chances to pitch for the big league club. Jeff-freakin-Gray, people. Jeff-freaking-Gray.

No, YOU don't know anything about the situation. WE have learned some things. Sticking one's fingers in one's ears and singing "la la la" doesn't mean information wasn't presented. Outside of a few names, that information doesn't tell us much of anything. We know the names of people, we still have no information regarding internal policy, who makes certain decisions (training or medical), or who "calls the shots". We don't even know if that information is current. Personally, I think it's in the best interest of the organization that JR make some sort of public announcement this offseason. At least let us know they're doing something, even if it isn't a full disclosure of all internal operations regarding the medical and training staff.

Twins: Ben Revere CF Eduardo Escobar 2B Joe Mauer DH Justin Morneau 1B Ryan Doumit C Chris Parmelee RF Trevor Plouffe 3B Matt Carson LF Pedro Florimon SS (P.J. Walters P) White Sox: Dewayne Wise CF Kevin Youkilis 3B Adam Dunn DH Paul Konerko 1B Alex Rios RF A.J. Pierzynski C Dayan Viciedo LF Alexei Ramirez SS Gordon Beckham 2B (Jake Peavy P)

Chris Parmelee. Ridiculous.

Hey, look. More runs!

It's a good thing we all got to know so much about Jeff Gray.

Hey, look. Runs.

No matter your party affiliation, if you can't laugh at this spoof campaign ad, you're taking yourself too damned seriously. This is freakin' hilarious. [video=youtube;RQx3qWL43Qo]

Twins: Ben Revere CF Jamey Carroll 2B Joe Mauer C Josh Willingham DH Justin Morneau 1B Ryan Doumit LF Chris Parmelee RF Trevor Plouffe 3B Eduardo Escobar SS (Scott Diamond P) White Sox: Alejandro De Aza CF Kevin Youkilis 3B Adam Dunn DH Paul Konerko 1B Alex Rios RF Dayan Viciedo LF Alexei Ramirez SS Tyler Flowers C Gordon Beckham 2B (Jose Quintana P)

He went over the "prospect/rookie" plate appearances early this year, so he wouldn't be included any more in prospect lists. When I do mine, I go by the MLB Rookie criteria. If they can still win the rookie of the year award, they're a 'prospect.' That's fair. I guess it all depends on where you draw the line on "prospect". For me, it's a guy who hasn't gotten a real chance to play every day for at least two months. Chris hasn't had a real shot, he's just accumulated ABs here and there.