Brock Beauchamp

Buxton taking an important step forward that we needed to see for sustained performance: taking bases on balls when the pitcher refuses to throw him strikes.

Not about the Twins, but still the perfect tweet.

Twins Baseball™

BTW, Buxton catches that ball at a jog... But then decapitates himself on the wall.

Wowwwwww, Springer. Back to the ball, full sprint, snowcones the ball.

It's so frustrating to watch just how effing good Buxton-Polanco-Donaldson-Garver is and how little we've seen it this season. **** this season, man.

First, the front office *does* know more than us and that's indisputable. Second, I'm not entirely playing results. I'm open to the idea that the route the front office took with Gordon could be the reason he's playing so much better right now. Maybe the front office did exactly what Nick Gordon needed to succeed. Or maybe they just got lucky. Or, more likely, it's somewhere in between. The thing is, I don't really know and neither do you. In the end, we almost always judge by results, we just like to spend a lot of time in the middle pretending we don't (or even that we have an informed opinion in the first place).

Maybe they were 100% convinced they were retaining Gordon in June. Maybe they are 100% convinced they will not keep him today. Maybe they prioritized players in a certain order for reasons we don't see like health, attitude, chance of release, or any number of reasons. Again, we can "if" this situation all day long but in the end, it didn't matter one damned bit. Gordon ended up performing somewhere around his 90th percentile outcome, a borderline best-case outcome. We can talk about process until we're blue in the face but, again, what we're really arguing is "this is the way I wanted it to happen". What makes my opinion about process - remember, I also wanted to see Gordon play and said so many times - more correct than the process used by the front office, especially when their process resulted in a near best-case outcome? We have spilled far more digital ink complaining about the processes of the Joe Bensons and Oswaldo Arcias of the world than we EVER do the Akil Baddoos of the world, which is a good reminder that we don't know **** and should always keep that in mind.

Again, another assumption that the only processes that exist are the ones we see.

You’re assuming they don’t have a different process in place that we don’t see. In the end, I think my point is that thoughtful discussion happens more often with the statement “that’s not how I would have done that” versus “they’re wrong for doing it that way”, particularly in situations where there are so many variables in play, many of which we cannot see. Or that there is only a single correct path to take to reach the same conclusion.

If he was injured in August, he’s almost surely off the roster because that’s what happens to guys on their last shot with a team. We can “if” the situation all day long but the end result is that it didn’t matter one damned bit, which is so often the case in these situations. I cannot count how much howling I’ve seen over the management of the Oswaldo Arcias of the world over the years, almost all of it resulting in none of it mattering in the end.

But we're ending up at the point where he's basically guaranteed a 40-man spot any way; in the end, your complaints are that the front office didn't reach the conclusion as immaculately as you'd like. When put that way, it seems like a pretty absurd thing to criticize, doesn't it?

From the beginning of June through the end of August, Nick Gordon played 47 games in Minnesota. During that same span, the Twins played 77 games. Through those three months, Gordon posted an OPS of .585. So the Twins were playing roughly a 70 OPS+ player in over 60% of their overall games. Would I have played Gordon more often? Sure, and I've said as much multiple times... but let's stop pretending that he was anything but awful for quite some time and the Twins were still playing him more often than not. Are we really upset whether the Twins worked him into nine extra games over three months? The guy is a LHB who is epically terrible against LHP. He's going to be shielded more than other players - resulting in fewer PAs - and that's the right thing to do. He's not going to be a 600 PA player, probably ever. Situations like these make me roll my eyes, frankly. If they play Gordon and he sucks, they made a mistake by playing him. If they don't play Gordon and he sucks, they didn't give him enough time to develop. If they play Gordon somewhere between those points and he ends up succeeding, they didn't play him early enough, often enough. At what point can we just be happy that a player looks like he's going to become more than we thought he'd become just two months ago? Why does there always have to be a blame element involved in every situation?

It was especially a complaint with Aaron Hicks, who was considered an above average CF in the minors and was flat-out bad in Minnesota for awhile.

Frankly, I'm shocked how completely okay he looks in the OF. He still often takes bad jumps but that's just an experience thing. I think he can be a legit second (more optimally third) option for CF.

Efficiency is the new market inefficiency.

And Gordon is even worse, which is my point.

Beau Burrows started one game and appeared in relief in four others. Nick Gordon is going to finish the season with over 200 PAs. Never mind that when the Twins claimed Burrows, their requirement to make the roster was “alive and can throw a baseball 60.5 feet”.

Ah, the famous "you just agree with the front office all the time" argument... come on, you're better than that. Too many conflate "I've seen no evidence" with "no one has seen evidence". Those aren't the same thing and we all need to acknowledge it, especially in situations such as this one where the data imbalance between parties is as lopsided as it can get (one side has years of examination, the other has basically none). What I'm actually saying is that I can't declare someone is mismanaging something when they have evidence something is true while I have no evidence the opposite is true. To believe and argue otherwise is, in a word, arrogance... a word thrown at this front office almost daily on this forum. And you hanging on so dearly to fielding percentage, of all things, only indicates just how little data you have to evaluate Nick Gordon. Sure, errors matter, but if we've learned anything about baseball over the past two decades, it's just how little of overall defensive value can be gleaned from fielding percentage.

Gordon has an OPS of .585 against LHP (only 42 PAs but his MiLB track record also indicates a significant deficit against LHP). Arraez has a career .646 OPS against LHP.

It's not really a low risk situation in a rotation with Jax, Ober, and Ryan in it. While I agree that I'd personally have played Gordon more at short, I also haven't watched him play there over 350 times already. They have and while I'm free to disagree with them about the frequency at which he plays, I'm also coming from a place of relative ignorance on the matter. Which makes it pretty hard for me to argue that they've mismanaged anything. As for shortstop and 2022, they need to fill that role and if they don't view Gordon as an option, that means they need to look outside the organization. That's not uncommon and this is a good offseason to be shortstop-shopping.

I don't really understand this criticism of the front office, frankly. Since Falvine took over in 2017, they have film/coaches/eyeballs on Gordon playing shortstop in 361 (!!!!!!!!) minor league games and nine more games in a Twins uniform. Why do people believe they have no evidence whether he can or cannot play shortstop in Minnesota?

There is definitely a SSS issue with proclaiming Gordon a competent hitter but a Danny Santana comp doesn't really work here. Santana had that breakout season on the back of a .400+ BABIP, which many people brought up time and time again when others would expect sustained performance from Danny. Where Santana had a .400+ BABIP, Gordon's is a quite reasonable .341 right now. That's entirely sustainable, if a touch on the high side for a guy with his contact tool. But it's not stratospheric like Santana's was at the time. On the other hand, Gordon's wOBA is .310 right now... and his expected wOBA is .316. Those are closely aligned and don't show a lot of luck, either good or bad, involved in this situation. What we're seeing is both sustainable and real, now it's a matter of Gordon continuing to do it... which, of course, is far from a sure thing.

Eh, I'm very much using "clutch" tongue in cheek here. Very few players - and I mean very few - can sustain any kind of elevated performance in close situations. Gwynn and Mauer were two, for example, just so you have a baseline of the talent level I'm talking about when I say "very few". Generational hitting talents with Hall of Fame careers can occasionally do it. Most of the rest of baseball, not so much. Whether Gordon continues to be unsustainably clutch or not, he's playing quite well overall, which is what I'm really interested in.

This has been one of the most fun things to follow that doesn't involve Joe Ryan's hair. Nick Gordon has suddenly become... a good baseball player? I mean, we all knew it wasn't technically impossible for this to happen given how much time he missed over the past couple of years but it's still unexpected. His OPS+ now sits at 97, which I definitely didn't see coming. He's still a flawed player; he's not great up the middle, his plate discipline isn't great, and he misses the ball too much for a player with his profile... but if he can hit somewhere close to league average while playing (sometimes kinda badly) around the entire diamond, I think he's basically a lock for making the 2022 roster as a tenth man. Which is an upgrade because my hope was that Gordon could become the eleventh man, which is far less of a sure thing on modern rosters. But hey, something good happening at the end of this crap season is still fun to watch! Gordon's splits: Season Totals Split G GS PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS TB GDP HBP SH SF IBB ROE BAbip tOPS+ sOPS+ 2021 Totals 65 46 189 175 18 46 9 1 4 21 10 1 11 48 .263 .317 .394 .712 69 6 3 0 0 0 2 .341 100 96 Last 7 days 5 5 20 19 3 9 2 0 2 8 2 0 0 4 .474 .500 .895 1.395 17 0 1 0 0 0 1 .538 285 271 Last 14 days 11 9 35 32 4 12 2 0 3 10 4 0 2 8 .375 .429 .719 1.147 23 0 1 0 0 0 1 .429 218 202 Last 28 days 19 14 56 52 5 17 4 0 3 13 5 0 3 13 .327 .375 .577 .952 30 1 1 0 0 0 2 .389 165 155 Last 365 days 65 46 189 175 18 46 9 1 4 21 10 1 11 48 .263 .317 .394 .712 69 6 3 0 0 0 2 .341 100 Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table Generated 9/24/2021.