Brock Beauchamp

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.

I'm not sure about that, but it's definitely possible. We might see Strotman and/or Ryan, which would be fun... but I'm not holding my breath, as I suspect the team is eager to shut down one or both of them after 2020. I CANNOT WAIT to put 2020 in the rearview mirror permanently.

The September rosters are very different this season. Teams can only add two players for a total of 28.

In this case, Manfred did it right, IMO. Yesterday was so much more exciting and intense than most deadlines, as GMs had their safety nets of the waiver wire deadline taken away from them.

No silly, that's Robert Redford.

Bah, now they're just being greedy.

I've been hard on this front office lately but they literally traded JA Happ for a live human being that plays baseball.

As Ayn Rand famously wrote, "Who is John Gant?"

Both players are in AA so they're relatively close to MLB.

In a season full of weirdness that's almost universally bad, Colome's explosive HR/FB numbers are at the top of the list.

@ashbury By the way, you just reminded me that I had created a badge last month but never saw it in my feed. I looked in the admin panel and it wasn’t set to live so I activated it.

I agree with a lot here but I'm not sure why so many people minimize Berríos' skill level right now. No, he's not an ace, at least not by my personal definition, but it's almost impossible to classify him lower than a good #2 right now. His ERA rank out of American League qualifying pitchers the past three seasons: 8, 13, 11. HIs ERA+ over the past three seasons: 119. That's pretty clearly a guy who, if he's maybe just a click below a traditional ace, is clearly in that second tier of starting pitchers.

This is hilarious because the first draft of this article had this image in GIF form.

Welcome to the inauguraualal Twins Daily Community Awards presentation! For some time now, we’ve wanted to start giving out prizes to the community for doing fun things like posting on our forums, writing blogs on the “not quite worst in the American League… yet” Minnesota Twins, yelling at clouds, and other things that no rational adult human being would spend their free time doing. We expect to give these awards out a few times a year, provided we don’t become distracted by something else that seems more fun, or maybe we just get bored and wander off. We’ll cross that bridge when it comes. To be semi-serious for a moment, we at Twins Daily appreciate the conversation and great content you all provide the Twins community every single day. It’s awesome to see this site bigger and better than ever as we approach our tenth (wait, what?) birthday next February. Without all of your great content, this site would be nothing more than John Bonnes and Nick Nelson sitting in a bar arguing how to spell “Chris Parmelee” and both of them getting it wrong. While we have a great stable of writers to give the community a platform and topics on which to speak, it’s the community that fills the second half of Twins Daily and, unlike most of the second half of the internet, reading the great output of this community isn’t an embarrassment to all mankind. Okay, enough of that. Without further ado… Top Post of the First Half of the 2021 Season goes to… @Old Twins Cap In the middle of June, when all of us were reaching a low point of our Twins fandom, Old Twins Cap stood up and pronounced that not only is this season rather pathetic, any chance of winning a World Series ever is basically gone. We’re doomed, our Twins fandestiny only to bring us more sorrow and heartbreak for all eternity. Sadly, he’s probably not wrong. https://twinsdaily.com/forums/topic/51892-game-recap-twins-7-mariners-2/?tab=comments#comment-1046436 For this post, Old Twins Cap received the most likes of the first half of the 2021 season, rendering his bite-sized entry the top post of the first half! As a prize, he is awarded an autographed Rocco Baldelli rookie card. Look at cute wittle Wocco. He’s adorable. Keep this card close to your heart always, Old Twins Cap. Blog Post of the First Half of the 2021 Season goes to… @Greglw3 Taking a very straightforward, nuts-and-bolts approach to blogging, Greglw3 is light on the words, heavy on the imagery, and wholly capturing our hearts with this blog entry. Not settling to convince us who is the best Twins leftfielder of all time, Greg instead asked us to convince him of the best leftfielder of all time. Some might call this approach lazy, I call it efficient. https://twinsdaily.com/blogs/entry/23049-who-is-twins-best-lf-of-all-time-reopened-with-3-new-choices/ And convince we did, apparently. His blog entry gained the most views and comments of the first half, winning him the blog post of the first half award! To celebrate this achievement, he will receive a rookie card for the Best Twins Leftfielder of All Time (a commanding victory), Bob Allison! We’d also like to congratulate Bob for being very good at the baseball and the extraordinary baseballing he performed in his baseball career of baseballing. Collectin’ Those Likes @USAFChief With a whopping 2,541 reputation points in the first half of the season, our dear ol’ moderator Chiefie received the most likes and attention of anyone on Twins Daily! That’s a good thing, I hear! Sorry, Chief, you get no prize other than our hammering away at that like button whenever we see one of your posts. I hope that helps put food on your table. We’re on a shoestring budget here, we can only do so much. Better luck next time. Collectin’ (About Half as Many of) Those Likes @ashbury At 1,375 reputation points, ashbury was next in line behind chief and also gets no prize! And those are our awards for the first half of the 2021 season. No matter how painful this season seems, remember that there's a cottage industry of Minnesota Sports Therapists, just use the coupon code "wide left" to activate your personal pain point. Thank you one and all for everything you do here at Twins Daily. It’s truly an honor (and a lot of fun) to build and maintain the website that so many of you visit every single day to talk Minnesota Twins and how painful it is to be a sports fan in this god-forsaken state of ours. And remember, we have a fantastic community hidden behind the front page here at Twins Daily. I highly recommend you check out our forums and our community blog and interact with some of these great folks. Jump into the conversation with us anytime, everyone is welcome. Until next time! View full article

They’ve made some mistakes but most I can think of were this past off-season and none were on this list. I’m definitely not going them a pass for their mistakes but the above list isn’t a good example of them. The closest is Pressly but it appears they received a decent return for him.