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Brock Beauchamp

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Everything posted by Brock Beauchamp

  1. Brock Beauchamp
    By the way, I'd like to repeat again that this debate was really informing and fantastic in a variety of ways. While one debater will "win", both debaters took a really detailed approach and frankly, I learned a lot from the debate. It was a really cool read.
  2. Brock Beauchamp
    The Brewers scored six runs in four games. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're getting at here but how is that series win not the result of hitting, or lack thereof?
  3. Brock Beauchamp
    While I advocate waiting things out to see if a plan forms - remember, a trade may be their key strategy this offseason and basically none of those have happened - but I'm with you that things look rather bleak right now. If I was running this franchise, and everyone should be happy that I'm not, I would have been out in front of this market and grabbed one of the mid-rotation arms before the looming lockout happens in December. No matter whether they buy more later or not, this team needs a lot of pitching and if they like a guy, they should have already made the offer to get him and then be moving on to the next phase of their offseason plan. It's not as if they need one piece this offseason, they need 3-4 at minimum. And while sitting back and waiting to see what falls to them at a discount is a good plan for filler pieces, it's not a good plan for pitching if you need a lot of it. If this front office likes a pitcher, like they did Wheeler, they should be offering more than everyone else to nab said pitcher. At the end of the day, getting the guy you want is worth the $2-5m it will cost per season over the life of the contract.
  4. Brock Beauchamp
    Yeah, it really depends on the third baseman. Josh Donaldson of five years ago probably would have slid into the SS position in a shift but no way in hell is anyone doing that with Miguel Sano at third unless the team is quite confident no ball will be hit to him, at which point the better question becomes "then why is he even standing there?"
  5. Brock Beauchamp
    Oh, definitely. Control artists could make a comeback either way. What I was speaking about specifically is that, to my understanding, right now umpires don’t call the high strike by the rule book. If MLB doesn’t change the rule book and automated umps call the rule book zone, pitchers would have 1-2” more space to work at the top of the zone, which could propel pitchers like Odorizzi to an elite level. If they didn’t have to risk occasionally dropping a ball into the meat of the plate to be hit 450’ and instead had two more inches of wiggle room above the current zone, they could become very valuable players, much moreso than today.
  6. Brock Beauchamp
    LOL ouch.
  7. Brock Beauchamp
    Good point. It definitely changes pitching but how MLB implements the zone will factor heavily into how it changes pitching.
  8. Brock Beauchamp
    It absolitely changes what I look for in a catcher. Given the construction of baseball and the lack of a running game, I’d immediately go out and find a defensive butcher who rakes because the downside is so minimal.
  9. Brock Beauchamp
    I'm pretty lukewarm on Baldelli over a variety of in-game management items but I don't think he actually does much fieldwork with the players, which tends to deflect some of the blame over poor fundamentals from Baldelli to the field coaches. Sure, obviously Baldelli is the manager and takes some of the blame for anything that happens but if he's not the one doing the work and he's not the one picking his coaches, blame should probably point upward toward the front office. While I can't really evaluate Baldelli's management style, his teams always seem to hang in there through a long season. That should probably be a point in his favor; the fact the Twins played better in the second half of 2021 with a bunch of rookies and cast-offs was a pleasant surprise.
  10. Brock Beauchamp
    The Twins currently have two legitimate starting pitchers on the roster and both were *rookies* last season. There is something approaching a zero percent chance of any pitcher in the rotation being blocked at any point in the near future.
  11. Brock Beauchamp
    Great debate! I'm still on the hitting side but primarily because it's easier to build, project, and develop hitting, which then allows to trade and sign pitching. I'm surprised the two of you wrote off that aspect as "off-topic" so quickly but hey, it wasn't my debate!
  12. Brock Beauchamp
    Frankly, this is building a narrative to suit an argument, not an objective look at the situation. First, Rosario posted a 116 OPS+ in 2020 while he has a career 108 OPS+. Second, here is Rosario's OPS by postseason series: NLDS: .665 NLCS: 1.040 WS: .664 He drew one walk in the NLDS and hit for no power. He drew three walks and hit three homers in the NLCS. He drew four walks but once again was pretty ineffective in the World Series. Eddie Rosario didn't "figure anything out" and anyone who has watched Eddie play for 6+ seasons should know this is just what he does over short periods of time. He's a wildly inconsistent, frustrating, and fun, player depending on the day.
  13. Brock Beauchamp
    Framing's goal isn't to cheat, it's to get as many strikes called as possible. I haven't seen data in a few years but last I saw, the byproduct of framing was getting more actual strikes than stealing balls with slick glove work. But at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter whether framing is built to keep strikes or steal balls. The reason it exists is because human umpiring is flawed so catchers have had to completely alter their defensive game to compensate for human deficiency in umpiring. And that's stupid. No position on the field should re-dedicate its approach to counter human error if we can EASILY remove human error and improve the overall process.
  14. Brock Beauchamp
    I've read quite a few pieces on how robot umps will change the game and the consensus seems to be "a lot", though how it will change differs quite a bit on opinion and how MLB implements the automated zone (for example, we've discovered that umps don't really call the rulebook strikezone but robot umps would, which creates a lot more vertical strikes).
  15. Brock Beauchamp
    The catcher position will completely change when - not if - robot umpires are implemented in MLB. It will go from soft-handed framers to catch and throw guys because framing will be irrelevant. Personally, I think that's a good thing. Framing's primary goal is to prevent umpire mistakes so let's just remove mistake-prone umpires and remove the necessity of framing pitches. (not that umpires are bad at their jobs, it's incredibly difficult, but a machine will be more consistent and accurate than a human)
  16. Brock Beauchamp
    Just to reinforce how much baseball has changed, if you go back 35 years to 1986, the best team batting average in the AL was Cleveland at .284. The Astros' 2021 number of .267 would have finished fifth in the American League in 1986. The median AL team in 1986 had a batting average of .259-.260 (between the Twins and Orioles that season). The median AL team in 2021, Detroit, had a batting average of .242. I'm not one to wax nostalgic about times past but baseball was simply a better spectator sport 30+ years ago, even if the overall performance level was considerably lower.
  17. Brock Beauchamp
    Hopefully it goes just as well as their Keuchel signing and their Kimbrel trade.
  18. Brock Beauchamp
    I generally loathe ownership influencing baseball decisions but I'm continually surprised at how bad this front office is at baseball-related PR so maybe some ownership influence wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. There's just no effing reason to have this Buxton situation going sideways so publicly and that's a big PR mistake. And it continues all the way down to little stuff like Drew Maggi not getting into a baseball game, which was a very small PR mistake. I'm increasingly convinced that this front office has no ability to read public perception of their actions on even the little stuff that impacts very little financially or baseball-wise but has a "feel-good" vibe that makes fans happy (again, Drew Maggi). It was such an unforced error with no downside that it still baffles me. On the other hand, I've been surprisingly impressed by the Pohlad kids' ability to deftly navigate difficult situations like the George Floyd protests, the BLM movement, the Calvin Griffith statue, etc.
  19. Brock Beauchamp
    The first time I heard of the concept of pitch framing - though the exact phrase wasn't used - was by noted "sabermetrician" Tim McCarver. And guess what? Actual sabermetricians of the era laughed off the concept as old school nonsense (this was maybe 2001-2003 or so). So not only is it laughably wrong to say pitch framing isn't real and not only didn't it originate from sabermetrics, but sabermetrics didn't even buy into it right away.
  20. Brock Beauchamp
    First, I said "Stroman", as in "Marcus". And any mention of Dobnak in the rotation assumes it's the good version of Dobnak or he wouldn't be there at all. The jury is still quite out on Dobnak, as his 2021 was just a mess of injuries. He was actually pretty good for most of 2020 but had two bad starts to close the season and yet again played in front of an infield defense that was really bad.
  21. Brock Beauchamp
    I actually agree with most of what you're saying, I'm only pointing out that if baseball continues to homogenize pitchers and it leads to sinkerballers being undervalued more and more, smart mid- and small-market teams will pivot and the first will likely show great success doing it. And I'm not so sure Stroman can't unlock something any more than I'm sure any other pitcher can't unlock something, maybe even moreso because he spent the past couple of seasons on the #lolmets.
  22. Brock Beauchamp
    You just listed two guys who will be paid $36m and $25m, respectively. Yeah, that's always going to be a problem until the Twins develop literally the best pitcher in baseball to counter them, at which point Minnesota will have *maybe* 2-3 years to compete before that pitcher leaves to one of the teams able to offer him $36m a season for eight seasons. Whether the Twins are "playing" the scrappy little team that can or not, baseball's economics virtually ensure they "are" the scrappy little team, at least compared to the top eight-ish baseball markets that can simply throw money at the best players and afford to miss pretty regularly.
  23. Brock Beauchamp
    I mean, yeah, that's a great approach and I agree... but what if MLB skews so heavily in that direction that effective groundball pitchers become undervalued? And that may not even be theoretical, that may be the case right now. If every team is zigging to the point of it becoming financially ineffective to zig with everyone else, that probably means it's time to zag and being the first one to do it usually pays off in a big way.
  24. Brock Beauchamp
    Gleeman was speaking about this on the podcast the other day. I'm leaning pretty heavily toward Cave not being a guaranteed contract at this point. If it's not guaranteed, I still don't agree with the decision but it's no longer indefensible. Having Cave as an insurance policy for $100k or whatever isn't a terrible decision. It's absolutely not the decision I'd make but it's not terrible.
  25. Brock Beauchamp
    Infield defense is less important than ever but it still matters, particularly depending on your pitching staff. If you have a rotation with Dobnak in it, a good SS helps. If you have a rotation with Dobnak and Stroman in it, it'd be downright foolish not to field a good defensive SS. And remember that defense tends to bite one in the ass particularly hard in the postseason. Polanco alone basically guaranteed a loss in the postseason with his defense at least once.
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