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Brock Beauchamp

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Everything posted by Brock Beauchamp

  1. Brock Beauchamp
    Garver was the worst defensive catcher in baseball in 2018, if I recall correctly. He was truly awful behind the plate when he arrived in Minnesota.
  2. Brock Beauchamp
    OF/1B/DH depth is easy, catching depth is not. And I don't think the Twins actually have enough catching depth to really think about trading someone unless the perfect deal arises to make them want to do it. As for past catching depth, it's pretty hard to rival Mauer with Ramos in the minors. Garver may be good but he ain't Joe Mauer and while some of the prospects might be good, Ramos *at least* equalled them at the time. Or, if you want to go back a few more years, Pierzynski in Minnesota with Mauer in the minors. That may have literally been the best catching depth in the history of MLB. We're talking about a guy in MLB with 20+ career WAR, followed by a guy with close to 50 career WAR. Now that I think of it, the Twins have this weird ability to field some really nasty players at the ends of the field; centerfield and catcher. How does a team field so many good/great players at those two positions over 40 years while sucking pretty hard at fielding even decent players at the other seven spots?
  3. Brock Beauchamp
    I'm going to ask you to back up a moment here because, if what I'm understanding you're saying, is that you're suggesting THIS front office made a mistake with Garver. Is that what you're saying? Because this front office inherited Garver after the 2016 season and had him in Minnesota later in the 2017 season, when he was atrocious behind the plate. Once he came to Minnesota in 2017, he never left again. If you're saying this front office did something wrong, what exactly could they have done differently?
  4. Brock Beauchamp
    I really dislike that the players are getting off with no punishment but acknowledge why it happened. Thankfully, Manfred got out in front of this a few years ago by saying "teams and their management will be punished for the infractions of their players" or something of that ilk. At least he thought all of this out a bit because punishing players opens up a giant can of worms with the MLBPA. Sure, Lunhow and Hinch will get back into baseball, but it won't be at the positions they previously held and it will be reluctantly. Ultimately, they may return to the positions they previously held but that will take years and each will have to start over at a much lower level, which is a pretty massive penalty. Say you're senior management in a company. If you know that if you cheat and someone catches you, you will be unemployed for a year, then spend the next 5+ years slowly working your way back to seniority, all the while having the taint of what you did hanging over you, would you do it? My guess is that the answer to the question is "hard no", especially given just how little advantage that cheating gave you in the first place.
  5. Brock Beauchamp
    Professional sports do not, and should not, operate like the jackassery that is the NCAA (literally the worst sports organization in the world, even surpassing FIFA and the NFL). Lifetime bans aren't necessary and set a bar so high that any nuance is lost should later, more ambiguous, situations arise. One year is fine as a first offense because, in the case of Lunhow and Hinch, it's going to end up being a lot more than that. Just like everyone who follows. If you get caught cheating, lose a year, and are fired, you're not going to hop right back into the same position you left. It's going to be a long, slow crawl back through the ranks, if you ever make it back at all. And that's enough, isn't it? The point is to stop this behavior and if MLB can lop someone off at the knees for half of their career with a simple one year suspension, what more is needed? If managers and GMs realize that if their team is caught cheating (even if they don't condone it, a la Hinch), they'll basically lose their career for a decade or more. What more do you need to do to stop that kind of behavior? Managers and GMs are now on notice that they're basically ****ed if they let this kind of thing happen under their watch, which is plenty enough to keep them in line because people in baseball love baseball and will do whatever it takes to stay there.
  6. Brock Beauchamp
    This is a really great, thorough breakdown of May's career, though I had to LOL a bit at this: "The team's rotational depth however pushed May into a bullpen role." Yeah... maybe that wasn't such a great call? Anyway, love the article, can't wait to see more.
  7. Brock Beauchamp
    I'm crying I'm laughing so hard.
  8. Brock Beauchamp
    I also believe the latter. And me saying he was a terrible catcher isn't some knock on Garver, it's just the reality of the situation at the time. People clamored to get him to Minnesota and when he arrived, it was BRUTAL watching him catch. His glove darted all over the place, he didn't block balls well, he was just fundamentally bad at catching. On the flip side of that coin, massive kudos to Mitch for recognizing those deficiencies and working so bloody hard to fix them. But three years ago, no one would have had the ability to know he would not only be so willing to learn, or even so capable of learning, but that he'd work so hard to do it.
  9. Brock Beauchamp
    Keep in mind that Garver was also a terrible catcher. Was he held back because of Turner or was he held back because he was a terrible catcher?
  10. Brock Beauchamp
    I totally believe that, as Barry Bonds didn't PED his way into plate discipline. He had that from day one, which is what made a roided-up Bonds so damned devastating as a player. Now imagine what Barry Bonds would have looked like as a more nimble, more athletic, slightly weaker player who knows what pitch is coming. He already had great discipline, god only knows what he would have been like had he known what the pitcher was going to throw every time.
  11. Brock Beauchamp
    Some of both, I think. See Aaron Judge in the ALDS last postseason. Judge is a good defender (despite that size), which gave him the opportunity to snag that snowcone catch running toward the wall. But also, it was or was close to a snowcone catch. There's a fair amount of luck when the catch comes down to inches but if Judge wasn't a good defender, it wouldn't have been catchable at all.
  12. Brock Beauchamp
    The type of depth the Twins have in the minors (few blue chippers, loads of potential MLB contributors) is the type of depth that is awesome to have during the regular season but becomes something of a lodestone around their neck in November. Just one more reason why this team should be moving prospect assets in trade for quality MLB players to help the team win today.
  13. Brock Beauchamp
    Just testing some forum changes, nothing to see here.
  14. Brock Beauchamp
    If there's any possible way to acquire a legit starter without dragging the entire farm system into the mud, it MUST be pursued. If anything, signing Donaldson increases the necessity to go all-in on winning for 2-3 seasons. I've seen enough half measures, thanks. Time to push the chips into the middle of the table.
  15. Brock Beauchamp
    Fair enough, someone else privately questioned my use of that phrase, which was a bit off the cuff and slightly inappropriate. I just wanted to clear the air on what I meant.
  16. Brock Beauchamp
    My phrasing was unnecessarily lewd but I don't hold any ill will against a single individual Twin from the 2000s. But there's no denying that those experiences were painful to watch from a fan perspective. Some very good teams simply did not compete when it really mattered. I'm not mad about it or anything, just pointing out that the teams did not come anywhere close to our (or their) expectations. Ask any player from one of those teams and I doubt they'd disagree with me on that. It required a team effort to be beaten that soundly and consistently, year in, year out.
  17. Brock Beauchamp
    It’s possible I misunderstood as well. I guess it never occurred to me that people believe Polanco isn’t good.
  18. Brock Beauchamp
    I think 20 runs might be realistic given health, 30 runs a bit much. Cron was pretty damned good for most of the season. Still, 20 runs is A LOT. That's a couple of wins in itself. But I've always felt that the Twins didn't need to worry about the 2020 season as much as they needed to worry about the 2020 postseason. They were good enough to get there as-is but they weren't good enough to advance. I'm not sure Donaldson gets them there, though if he's enough to push them to a one or two seed, that might do it. It's all a numbers game. You could have the greatest pitcher in the world (Johan Santana) but if the rest of the team craps the bed, that's basically it. Maybe the Twins can finally see the opposite happen.
  19. Brock Beauchamp
    That's why I said it's not the stock market. Some fans view a player contract that's a net positive right now as something that should be traded so that the team can attain... another... net positive asset... in the... future... Sorry, that's where I always get lost in this conversation.
  20. Brock Beauchamp
    Do you want to sign good players in the future? This isn't the stock market, human beings are involved and risk is taken by both sides.
  21. Brock Beauchamp
    Signing a player to an extension and then trading them 12 months later is a good way to ensure no player ever signs an extension with you again.
  22. Brock Beauchamp
    I mean, maybe, but pretty much everybody not named Cruz was banged up in a significant way during that series. It was an unfortunate few weeks for the Twins leading up to that postseason.
  23. Brock Beauchamp
    Except for that one part where the last time they fielded a 90 win team, they were around 10th in MLB payroll. Besides, should we just let ownership slide when they’re being cheap just because they’ve done it in the past, too?
  24. Brock Beauchamp
    Oh, for sure, but the Twins has a solid lead when Cron missed that hop and the entire series played differently from that moment forward. Never mind how differently fly balls play with Buxton in center. The Twins were outplayed in that series and significant damage was done because they were specifically outplayed on defense.
  25. Brock Beauchamp
    One shouldn’t prevent the other. Even after the Donaldson deal, the Twins basically sit at $140m, including Buxton and Berrios. Give them both a raise and the team still wouldn’t be at even $150m. $150m would have ranked 12th in baseball in 2019 and probably lower than that once the dust settles on 2020. Twins fans really need to de-program themselves from what the Pohlads have been selling us for the past decade. IIRC, the Twins had the 10th highest payroll in 2010 and they should be able to replicate the modern equivalent for a 3-4 year competitive run. That’s about $160-165m in 2020 money.
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