Brock Beauchamp

I'm always fascinated how players develop these reputations and why people believe them. We have numbers to verify/disprove these narratives so let's use them. Polanco's career tOPS+ with RISP is 136, which means he's 36% better with RISP than he is overall. Polanco's 2021 tOPS+ with RISP is 126.

Frankly, what does firing Baldelli accomplish? I don’t think he has done a good job of field management this season but literally every player he puts into a critical situation, either offensively or defensively, just flat-out fails. Firing him may make a statement but right now, the players are the ones who need to be fired because they suck at their jobs when it matters most.

I feel like this inning perfectly represents the 2021 Twins. They get a break, hit a few balls nicely, load the bases, then make the third out on a .640 xBA ball that's nearly a grand slam. Smell those RBI, boys. Statcast Metrics Batter PA In. Result EV (MPH) LA (Deg.) Dist (ft.) Pitch Vel (MPH) xBA Kyle Garlick 31 4 Flyout 100.0 27 390 95.4 .640 Willians Astudillo 30 4 Strikeout 95.2 Max Kepler 29 4 Field Error 97.0 -7 15 91.6 .240 Mitch Garver 28 4 Walk 94.2 Trevor Larnach 27 4 Double 105.3 17 268 89.2 .570 Nelson Cruz 26 4 Strikeout 89.1 Jorge Polanco 25 4 Pop Out 70.6 81 43 94.6

I noticed there was a problem with the blog display of tables. I have added a side scroll to the tables on mobile so they don't extend outside the page wrapper, you just scroll right/left to view part of the table.

So I watched all of yesterday's game and my big takeaway was "I regret doing this".

Yep, this should be fixed now.

I suspect that's a code problem, I'll take a look at it later tonight.

It's probably because I got so fed up with him several days ago that I referred to his hitting from the left side as "hot garbage". You know what else is hot garbage? The entire Twins roster. #fingerscrossed

I don't want to start a conversation about this but I *only* hear this message from people who don't go to downtown Minneapolis. I know *so many* people who go to a ton of Twins games and/or live downtown and they move around down there without a bit of trouble. Hell, our own John Bonnes lives downtown and (obviously) goes to a bunch of Twins games. He walks back and forth and has talked about it on the podcast a few times. Never had a lick of trouble, nor has one of my best friends who literally lives two blocks from Target Field. Don't buy into politically-driven narratives from people who don't actually live or visit the place in question. With that said, I have no interest in pursuing this line of conversation or arguing about it, as I've been there, know people who live there, and no one has reported any difficulty or worry so let's end the discussion here and move on.

Every few days, I'm going to try to cover some of the features of the new site in a few paragraphs. Using the old site, as I'm sure many of you are aware, tables were basically unusable. That has changed! I'll tackle B-Ref tables quickly in this post but you can do similar things with FanGraphs or other sites that use table data (which is how almost all stat sites display their content). First, pop on over to Lord Byron's B-Ref page: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/buxtoby01.shtml I'm going to grab his 2019-2021 season stats. Just above his stat table, you'll see Share & Export. Click and then select Modify, Share, & Export Table. Boom, you can then select what stats you want to display and which you want to remove. I've removed all seasons except the last three. I also removed team and league because "duh". Then click the big X in the top right of the yellow square and you have your filtered table. Grab that table by moving your cursor to the top left of the table (just to the left of Year in this case) and while holding down the button of your mouse/trackpad, drag toward the bottom right of the table. The table will begin to highlight in yellow as you select the cells. Grab them all and let go of the mouse/trackpad. Then copy what has been selected (control+c on Windows, command+c on macOS). Pop over to Twins Daily, start typing a comment, and paste your content (control+v on Windows, command+v on macOS). Year Age G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+ TB GDP HBP SH SF IBB Pos Awards 2019 25 87 295 271 48 71 30 4 10 46 14 3 19 68 .262 .314 .513 .827 116 139 3 2 2 1 1 8/HD 2020 26 39 135 130 19 33 3 0 13 27 2 1 2 36 .254 .267 .577 .844 127 75 2 1 0 2 0 8 MVP-16 2021 27 24 98 92 19 34 10 0 9 17 5 0 4 23 .370 .408 .772 1.180 236 71 0 2 0 0 0 *8 7 Yr 7 Yr 456 1602 1472 223 363 87 17 60 189 67 9 95 467 .247 .297 .451 .748 99 664 10 13 14 8 3 162 162 162 569 523 79 129 31 6 21 67 24 3 34 166 .247 .297 .451 .748 99 236 4 5 5 3 1 And that's it! Note: you can use this method for most websites and spreadsheet data so whatever table data you have available you need to copy and paste, this method will likely suit your needs.

I've been pretty unimpressed with Garver's defense this season for many of the reasons you listed but in fairness to him, that first failed block that scored a run was some pretty lousy baseball luck. The ball hit something - possibly the edge of the plate - and bounced the opposite direction it was tailing (and the direction Garver was moving to block). Happ is a lefty and the ball hit the opposite side of the plate. It then bounced back to Happ's arm side of the plate, which isn't something a catcher can expect to happen or have time to react to it happening. https://www.mlb.com/gameday/twins-vs-white-sox/2021/05/12/634160#game_state=final,lock_state=final,game_tab=videos,game=634160 Blech, MLB doesn't want to let me easily link to a specific video. Look for the video "Hamilton Scores on a Wild Pitch" after scrolling.

Sorry, I just hadn't gotten around to adding that. If you refresh the site once or twice, a popup should prompt you to subscribe to our newsletter.

Strange, that’s not how it works for me. OS and browser?

It depends on the context of the issue and how each of us views the ability to replicate putrid results in specific innings or situations going forward. Overall, the Twins offense is pretty good and I happen to believe that while they may be built to fail more often in important situations, what we're witnessing is beyond anything I've ever seen or read about in baseball, which tells me it's at least in part some really terrible luck in sequencing. But we can argue the details of what that means all day long, I certainly don't know where they "should" be given their talent level, only that they're better than their record in 2021.

Oh, I’m definitely not in favor of trading Berrios for the reason you just stated, I was just pointing out his value is probably quite high right now.

Ugh. You have absolutely no evidence this is the case, which is what makes evaluating a manager from the outside so bloody difficult. Baldelli isn't a screamer and that's a good thing but fans believe that screaming leads to better outcomes for whatever reason (stop watching sports movies and glorifying the likes of Bobby Knight, if your boss acted that way, you'd go find a different ****ing job ASAP). In both 2019 and 2020, the Twins were reeling late in the season, blowing and ultimately losing the division lead in both seasons. They rallied both times and won the division. Was Baldelli competent in those seasons and incompetent this season? Or does his influence not matter? Or, more likely, is this a really complicated situation that can't be evaluated by comments in newspaper articles and snippets of Zoom conferences? Don't conflate anger/outrage with good management or leadership.

I think Berrios could bring quite a haul but with Buxton being injured *again* and his likely return not that long before the trade deadline, I'm skeptical of how much teams would give for him coming off yet another injury.

I don't see any need to rebuild yet and there's no real benefit in making that decision on June 1st versus July 15th. I agree that Larnach and Kirilloff should continue to receive playing time but quibble with the others. Sano should still receive playing time, at least in a platoon, until he shows he can't hit at all or shows life again. Polanco is not a third baseman, he doesn't have the arm for it. Besides, what are you going to do, bench Donaldson in the meantime? That makes no sense. Rooker doesn't deserve playing time over Kepler and I'd argue that he hasn't shown he deserves playing time in Minneapolis at all. "Different" is not automatically "better", particularly when speaking about the defensive butchery of Rooker over the quality defense of Kepler. And calling for the DFA of quality veterans is the ultimate knee-jerk reaction. Donaldson will be paid by the Twins for over 2.5 more seasons, you really want him to go be productive for another team while the Twins foot the $70m bill? That's really foolish, no team would *ever* do that.

They may have internal bullpen options, we just don't know yet because instead of having played 30-35 games, the Saints have played... seven. Thanks again for that, MLB.

I've never watched a team this infuriating to watch on a daily basis. They're not a terrible team but they're so completely and epically terrible in such specific ways for no apparent reason. Like the fact they're one of the better offenses in baseball but have scored like three runs in the ninth inning or later. AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HOWWWWWWW STOPPPPPPPPPPPPPP

There's a red tab with a white up arrow that appears as you scroll down the page (left side near bottom of screen). Tapping/clicking that will scroll you back to the top of the page.

He's also injured for multiple weeks (again), which is why the FO didn't extend him at the price he was likely asking. This is a circular argument. I don't think anyone is in the wrong, Buxton just wasn't (and maybe isn't) ever going to be an extension candidate because one side will always weigh the risk more heavily (as they should) while the other will always weigh the reward more heavily (as they should). I think too many look to allocate blame instead of looking at the nuance of a situation and realizing that both sides are operating logically and can't reach an agreeable solution together. Ultimately, I think the only solution for Buxton is to go to free agency and see just how much someone will pay him despite the massive (and way above average) risk.