Brock Beauchamp

No idea. I hope they spend for one of the big 4-5 but I’m quite skeptical of that happening.

Yeah, I did. Then you talked (and continue to talk) a bunch about the postseason. Cut it out already.

I also see Simmons as a decent bounce back candidate but still want him nowhere near the 2022 Twins roster.

I share everyone's postseason frustration, I share it as much as anyone. But the thing is we've all had A LOT of fun watching these teams win divisions for six month-long regular seasons. Sure, the postseason futility overshadows that success and enjoyment but I remember having a hell of a lot of fun through many an August and September over the years. That counts for something and shouldn't be ignored.

Yeah, I forget how many ticker tape parades have been celebrated in ALC cities over the past two decades. Oh, wait, I know the number. Two. It's super-irritating to create a thread that specifically talks about regular season performance and constantly be hit with "herr derr POSTSEASON" because that's all Twins fans can ever talk about. We're all aware of the Twins postseason futility. I literally mention it in the first sentence of this topic.

Well, to keep things a bit more recent, they traded a guy this July (when you claim they should have been buying) for a guy who was contributing enormously to the team by September.

"Spoiled" is different than "spoiled by a lack of mediocrity". I'm speaking specifically about one thing and that's how the Twins rarely meander through a season and either go for a high pick or make the postseason. The title of the topic specifically calls out that one thing.

That's literally not the definition of the word but okay.

Another way to look at this to adjust for the overall strength of the division is pure probability in a vacuum... On a pure probability basis the Twins should finish 1/5 40% of the time but they've done it 60% of the time. Inversely, on a pure probability basis the Twins should finish 2/3/4 60% of the time but they've done it only 40% of the time.

If we're going to talk about the general weakness of the AL Central, imagine how it must feel to be a fan of one of the teams that hasn't won the division 40% of the time over the past few decades. There are undoubtedly advantages to playing in the ALC compared to the ALE but there are also four teams that the Twins trounce in the regular season on a routine basis. What's their excuse?

True, but their only “mediocre” postseason appearance also came during one of those seasons thanks to a quirky AL that year. But recency bias starts and ends where one chooses it to start and end. I could just as easily say the Twins haven’t had a mediocre season in the past three years.

Yes, I know, the Twins and their postseason woes. It seems like an eternity ago when they last won a postseason game: I know better than most, as I was living what feels like a separate life, sitting in (then) Edison Field, watching the Red Sox battle the Angels as the Twins lost their first postseason game of the series a few thousand miles away, starting the postseason tailspin that continues through to this day. But... we have seen many postseasons in the past 20 years, even if their ending was always premature and usually brutal. On top of that, we've been relatively lucky to not watch a bunch of mediocre baseball during the regular season, either. I was thinking about the nearly two decades of postseason futility and realized just how few seasons there were that felt like the team was going through the motions, neither succeeding nor failing. So I looked it up. While we've seen a lot of both bad and good baseball in Minnesota, we haven't seen much mediocrity. The way I'm defining mediocrity in baseball is the 10-game +/- around .500 baseball, records between 76-86 and 86-76. Basically, the territory where (American League, at least) teams finish in the 2-4 spots in the division but very rarely make the postseason. Here is the breakdown by year, "mediocre" years in bold: 2002: 1st (postseason) 2003: 1st (postseason) 2005: 3rd - 85 wins 2006: 1st (postseason) 2007: 3rd - 79 wins 2008: 2nd (game 163 loss) 2009: 1st (postseason) 2010: 1st (postseason) 2011: 5th 2012: 5th 2013: 4th 2014: 5th 2015: 2nd - 83 wins 2016: 5th 2017: 2nd - 85 wins (postseason) 2018: 2nd - 78 wins 2019: 1st (postseason) 2020: 1st (postseason) 2021: 5th Only five times in the past two decades have the Twins qualified as "mediocre" and they still made the postseason in one of those seasons (2017). By comparison, the White Sox have fielded mediocre teams eight times during that stretch, Cleveland seven times, and Detroit and Kansas City done it only four times... but that's the result of being pretty terrible baseball teams, as both of them combined have fewer division titles (5) than the Twins do by themselves (8). If a team is awful almost every season for two decades, mediocrity probably looks pretty appealing. Is a yo-yo approach to competition better than perpetual mediocrity? Hard to say for certain - we've only experienced one side of the coin - but I'd take all of those competitive seasons (and non-competitive rebuilding seasons) over a string of mediocrity that never leads anywhere. It's no fun having your heart broken in October over and over again but I'll still take that result over apathy. Will this newest result lead to more of the same or are the Twins set to rebound? Only time will tell, CBA and greedy MLB ownership willing.

Not only did the Jays only miss by one game, they faced a ton of adversity playing away from Toronto *and* they were wildly unlucky with their run sequencing. They should have cruised to a postseason appearance, frankly.

The award is no longer merely a straight vote, though. 25% of the vote is awarded by SABR defensive stats while managers and coaches account for the other 75%.

A borderline 90 loss team trading for a pending free agent is a lot different than signing said free agent that off-season.

Sano actually changed his approach considerably last season and we should all give him credit for it. He sacrificed power and walks to reduce strikeouts and it worked. Sano is far more willing to try new things than Kepler, it seems.

Hopefully the man can convince Kepler to consider occasionally hitting the ball to left.

Here is the format and rules: Here is where you can request a topic: If you check out the forum itself, there are already future topics with one participant, just waiting for an opponent to throw their hat in the ring.

But if you're not going to account for literally the biggest variable possible in a team aggregate stat - the on-field talent level - it feels like you're using the stats to support the conclusion you had decided beforehand. Because "good before, still good now" really doesn't tell us anything if the numbers aren't adjusted for player talent and/or expected results.* *which is just one of many reasons why outside evaluation of coaching is mostly a fool's errand, IMO

The Twins also reached deep on Wes Johnson (more good than bad thus far) and Tanner Swanson (outstanding results before he was poached by the Yankees) so I'd be a little wary of declaring this "hubris".

It's a really great idea, thanks for suggesting it to me!

Just an additional note: this is a completely new idea that I've never seen attempted before in my literal decades of forum participation and management (at least in this controlled a capacity). These rules are bound to change as we learn more about the process and if you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to PM me, @Squirrel, or @Otto von Ballpark.

Several months ago, user @mikelink45 contacted me via private message and asked "why don't we have a debate forum on Twins Daily?" I didn't have a good answer to that question, as the idea of such a thing had never crossed my mind. Roll forward to today and we're excited to announce the Head 2 Head Debate Forum! The premise is simple: two Twins Daily users - names obscured to prevent bias in voting - square off on a single topic over the course of a week and the Twins Daily community votes on the winner afterward. There will be rules limiting the frequency of posts and the number of rebuttals in an attempt to streamline this process into an easily-digestible debate for reading and voting. We will only host one debate at a time and the frequency of the debates entirely depends on user interest in both participation and voting. We have a few topics already lined up with interested users but our community will be the ones deciding most of the topics and participants once everyone familiarizes themselves with the operation of the forum. Note: to keep everyone on topic and focused, there are a few differences between this forum and most other forums on Twins Daily: users cannot create topics in this forum, nor can they respond to posts until the debate is complete, at which point the debate thread becomes a free-for-all for everyone to participate in the topic. If you're interested in the rules, topics, or participating, please jump over to the H2H forum right now and check out the initial series of posts explaining the rules, how to suggest a topic, and how to participate!

I was speaking about Polanco, actually.