Brock Beauchamp
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Everything posted by Brock Beauchamp
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Okay, I take that back. Sorry, Mitch. That was the right thing to do. -
Ugh. I can’t believe how much bad play we’ve seen on defense this season.
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Yeah. It’s painful to watch Rodney pitch but he’s had some horse**** luck to go along with that pain. Three outings ago, he got the ball he wanted. It bounced off the mound. Two outing ago, Sano makes an errant throw and then a swinging bunt puts two men on base. No excuse for the homer ball to Sanchez but things out of Rodney’s control turned that solo shot into a game-winning shot. His outings have been ugly but not nearly as bad as his line looks thus far.
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- jake odorizzi
- eduardo escobar
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Article: NYY 14, MIN 1: What Did We Expect?
Brock Beauchamp replied to Tom Froemming's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
Dunno. This is a team that previously took two of three from the reigning World Series champs and split a series against Cleveland. It's a rough patch but probably just that... a rough patch for a team that is likely to finish with a win total somewhere in the 80s. -
Article: NYY 14, MIN 1: What Did We Expect?
Brock Beauchamp replied to Tom Froemming's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
I followed this game for 2-3 innings and checked out because I just knew it was going to get ugly. Woke up this morning and SHOCK, it turned ugly. -
Article: Twins Extend Phil Hughes
Brock Beauchamp replied to Seth Stohs's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
Uh... Dozier. A guy they already had under control so that makes it less amazing. So... Santana, maybe? But that's more of a "very good" contract than a "great" contract. -
Article: Twins Extend Phil Hughes
Brock Beauchamp replied to Seth Stohs's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
Definitely. IIRC, I wasn't super excited about the extension but generally liked it. I was super excited at the original signing. -
Except your .040 BABIP doesn't explain the .150 OPS drop from 2013 to 2014. Using Joe's 2013 season, normalizing his BABIP from .380 to .340 is a difference of only 15 hits over the course of a season. But to get his OPS to drop 150 points, you need to remove 25 doubles from his 2013 season. That's 50 bases removed to see a 150 point drop in OPS. Joe's 2013 season would have gone from 35 doubles all the way down to just 10. Not only do you need more than 15 hits to get a drop that large, you need every one of those hits to count for extra bases, which we know just isn't a reality in the game. Your BABIP argument doesn't add up. A .040 swing in BABIP just isn't that much and, sure, it'll take a decent chunk out of a player's OPS season-over-season but nothing even close to 150 points. Something more like .075 of OPS at the upper end of the spectrum.
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Watching the game after listening last night. Man, I *really* dislike Molitor’s decision to remove Berrios.
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But we established there was a moderate correlation... which doesn't tackle the rest of the problem, that Mauer struck out more in 2014 than he had in any previous season while also hitting the ball more softly than any point in his career. BABIP and hard hit is a correlative argument but it still doesn't explain why Joe missed the ball so often and so rarely squared up. And, yes, his 2013 season saw an increase in strikeouts... but the rest of his stats, even the underlying ones, stayed strong. He posted one of the highest OPS seasons of his career with that strikeout rate because those underlying stats stayed at his career norms (his BABIP was a bit high but only .040 over his career rate, nothing even close to explaining a .150 OPS drop). So what changed? People who argue the concussion wasn't the most significant impact on his career throw out "shifts" and "harder-throwing pitchers" but that doesn't pass the smell test. It's not as if shifts and harder-throwing pitchers showed up overnight. Those are gradual game changes not implemented by every team to this day, yet it's used as a reason why Mauer went from great to pedestrian in ten months.
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Yeah, in no way do I believe that the concussion is 100% responsible for his decline. But I'd be surprised if it's less than, say, 60% of the reason. Mauer didn't just decline... he literally lost 150 OPS points season-over-season. It's hard to suggest a shift could be responsible for even half that number.
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Suggesting that Prior would have won the team a World Series is a bit of a stretch. Just as Mauer couldn't pitch his team out of the ALDS, Prior wouldn't have slugged his team out of the ALDS. Those playoff failures were a team effort. The Twins had the best pitcher in baseball and still couldn't get past the first round, for crying out loud.
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The strikeouts blipping upward before the concussion throw a bit of a wrench in the analysis but there was a lot more going on with Joe than missing the ball... when he actually connected, the ball wasn't hit very hard, which strongly implies that something was wrong with Mauer's vision and/or coordination. Hard Hit % 2012: 37.1% 2013: 37.4% -----------------Concussion 2014: 28.0% 2015: 29.8% 2016: 31.3% 2017: 36.4% 2018: 36.7%
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I hate to agree with Chief on anything Mauer related but it wouldn’t have killed Joe to swing at that 2-0 pitch. I’m not one to get too down on Joe because his approach is so consistent and solid but that doesn’t mean it isn’t occasionally aggravating, either.
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I don't know what else it could be but the concussion. It's not as if he has changed his approach or defenses stopped shifting against him. I'm really relieved to see the old Joe back, aged to 34 years. I was a strong supporter of the contract because he always seemed like the type of player who would age gracefully. Unfortunately, it's unlikely we'll ever know how gracefully he would have aged had he not suffered the concussion.
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Yeah... that was a really awkward way to put it.
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Yeah... Look at this article written before the 2014 season. https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/leaderboarding-best-hitting-catchers-in-baseball-history/ Mauer is first in batting average, first in OBP, and second in OPS on the catcher leaderboard. What more did the guy need to do to be considered amazing and/or legendary?
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I guess being one of the top ten catchers of all time for a decade isn't good enough for some people.
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I will concede that Mauer isn't "clutch" in the sense that he'll take that walk all day long if the pitcher gives it to him. But is it really fair to compare him to the rest of first basemen when RBI are so homerun-driven and Mauer doesn't hit homeruns? We all love home runs but I thought one of the sticking points of the Moneyball era was "don't get out". I'm not dogging home runs but if you gave me a choice of Wade Boggs or Jim Rice, I'd choose the former.
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This is a fun read. John Sickels is a smart guy. http://www.espn.com/mlb/columns/story?id=1764708
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Interesting way to analyze it and that's where many MLB teams have landed: a position player is a better bet than a pitcher. But I think Mauer should be viewed a bit differently: imagine Hunter Greene with a curveball. Mauer wasn't just a prep catcher: he was a prep catcher with such a refined approach that he was more Bryce Harper than Luke Hochevar.
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Half a dose of quaintness, half a dose of underlying bias how it's just "fascinating" that someone from a primitive culture could learn how to hit a ball as well as an American.
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It's almost as if people forget that Kluber is one of the best pitchers of his generation. Almost.
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I didn't really mean to target you with that post, I just get frustrated how Minnesotans could watch such an amazing player and not appreciate him appropriately. Joe Mauer was a legendary catcher for 5-6 seasons. He was a good catcher for 3-4 more. It's a shame that he doesn't get the credit he deserves.
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Fair enough.
