Brock Beauchamp
-
Posts
32,299 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
328
Content Type
Profiles
News
Minnesota Twins Videos
2026 Minnesota Twins Top Prospects Ranking
2022 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks
Minnesota Twins Free Agent & Trade Rumors, Notes, & Tidbits
Guides & Resources
2023 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks
The Minnesota Twins Players Project
2024 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks
2025 Minnesota Twins Draft Pick Tracker
Forums
Blogs
Events
Store
Downloads
Gallery
Everything posted by Brock Beauchamp
-
Great post. -
If this team and its sub-$100m commitment needs to move Santana to acquire another good pitcher, we should all be furious at ownership. They easily have the wiggle room to move to $120m and even $130m based on previous promises to the fanbase.
-
Sure, if that's what you meant, I'm not going to argue with you about your intent but "poor” can easily be interpreted as "bad".
-
You said this, which is what I rebutted: "Even severe regression and a poor 18' campaign" If "poor" isn't synonymous with "bad"... *shrugs*
-
Oh no, not at all. It was a good catch. I had a dozen tabs open and could easily have missed Porcello or flipped him with Cole.
-
Ah, right. And Porcello. He also had an ERA+ of 98. Or maybe I accidentally flipped Cole and Porcello. I don't care enough to go back and double-check. The overall point is still the same.
-
Thanks, you as well. The defense thing was an edit. Over time, those things will balance in the modern game. Given how we're talking almost exclusively about pitchers with 1000+ IP, it's likely they not only changed teams but that the defenses behind them rotated several players as well. It's not as if Nolasco's 2006 season with the Marlins had much in common with his Twins stint in front of bad OF defenses or his Angels time with Trout roaming center.
- 61 replies
-
- 1
-
-
- johan santana
- kirby puckett
- (and 3 more)
-
Yeah, this. At a glance, the only pitchers who crossed 200 IP with an ERA+ under 100 were Samardzija and Cole. Samardzija had a 94 ERA+ while Cole had a 98 ERA+. Given how ERA+ works, Cole is smack-dap at "average starting pitcher". If you want to argue it, Samardzija is close enough to count as well (though I'd consider him just a hair below average). No one with 200 IP came anywhere near "bad" and most were way above average on the season.
-
How many bad pitchers do you believe reach the 200 IP mark in the modern game?
-
True, but it measures actual runs allowed and all pitchers play under the same rules regarding ERA. The run scores or it doesn't. You get the out or you don't. Factors can influence those things over the short term (defense, bullpen) but in the long run, it should balance out in time. Now, in the olden days when a pitcher would play most or all of his career for the same team and (mostly) in front of the same defense, I can see more wiggle room to debate the validity of ERA. But when a modern player plays for four teams in both leagues in front of an ever-changing defense every season, the measurement that tracks actual runs allowed has more validity in my eyes.* *in no way am I defending the use of aberrant ERA numbers year-over-year, I'm speaking only in terms of player career
-
Absolutely. I'm not really bashing FIP, as I think it's very useful. But there are pitchers who seem to defy FIP predictions to varying degrees. Like Santana to a small extent. His FIP/ERA split is .22 runs. Now, that's not a lot and well within a margin of error IMO but the guy has 2400 career IP. If my math is correct, FIP and ERA disagree on ~60 runs over the course of his career. That ain't nothin'. And then you have guys like Nolasco, whose FIP is about .6 runs lower than his ERA. The guy has just shy of 1900 career IP. He has played for multiple teams in multiple leagues so that discrepancy simply should not exist to that degree. Again, if my math is correct, FIP and ERA disagree over a whopping ~115 runs in his case. And that's my point about FIP. I think it's a pretty good indicator of future performance (and often a good indicator of past performance) but there are guys out there that are doing something FIP cannot measure.
- 61 replies
-
- 1
-
-
- johan santana
- kirby puckett
- (and 3 more)
-
This assumes an infallibility of FIP that I'm not willing to accept. At some point, maybe 700-1000 IP, measurable on-field performance needs to be a major factor. Did this pitcher allow runs or not? As we all know, there are some pitchers who change teams, leagues, and defenses yet still over/underperform their FIP. That leads me to believe FIP is missing something that leads some pitchers to be better or worse than their expected numbers over 1000 or more innings. So we either have to accept that either FIP or ERA isn't an accurate indication of some pitchers' ability. And I haven't really seen the argument that ERA is the truly flawed stat over large sample sizes. But I'd be interested in seeing it made and how it draws its conclusions.
-
To point out something else about FIP and Santana, he has overperformed his FIP seven out of the past eight seasons, the lone exception that slightly weird season he had in Atlanta. And a lot of the time, it's not particularly close. While 2017 was his biggest FIP/ERA gap, in five of those eight seasons he overperformed his FIP by .4 or more runs. So why are we assuming that Santana will revert to his FIP (or even that his 2017 FIP was a true measure of his performance)? He's closing in on a decade of showing us that FIP isn't particularly relevant to him, particularly if he's playing in front of good defenses, as he is in Minnesota, was in Kansas City, and (IIRC) was in Anaheim before he left. Another fun fact that's mostly irrelevant but interesting to note: Santana's career low in BABIP was not 2017 but his 2012 campaign with the Angels, where he posted a .241 BABIP... In what was probably his worst season as an MLB pitcher.
-
Santana was a bit "lucky" but if you dig into his numbers, they weren't that out of line with his career. He allowed a few more flyballs but cut down on line drives and increased his IFFB rate. That BABIP wasn't as out of whack as it looks at a glance and this is one of those cases where I'm unwilling to let the FIP gods rule my opinion of a player. Santana got worse at the things FIP hates (flyballs and therefore, home runs) and better at the things FIP ignores (contact that doesn't drop for hits at the rate FIP expects balls to drop). Even if Santana regresses to his 4.40-ish FIP of 2017, he's a league average pitcher. That is easily worth $13m in 2018. If he manages to pitch 200 innings of league average ball, he'll be worth another $13m in 2019. We're talking about a guy who hasn't seen a significant enough injury to drop under the 175 IP threshold since 2009. I ride that arm until it proves it's no longer capable of doing the job. I'd have a very different opinion of the situation if the Twins had more than two starters I trusted but that isn't the case.
-
Yeah, this. You can make an argument that Mauer falls under the Puckett clause but it's hard to make that case for Johan. He just broke down, as pitchers often do. On that note, it's hard to believe Joe is still 400 PAs shy of Puckett's career number, has been mediocre-to-bad for 4+ seasons, and still has 3 more career fWAR than Kirby.
- 61 replies
-
- 2
-
-
- johan santana
- kirby puckett
- (and 3 more)
-
I agree with the bolded but the rest kind of loses me. Why do the Twins care about anyone's value beyond their on-field performance right now? To be perfectly blunt, I don't give a rat's ass about Santana's trade value because the Twins made the postseason and Santana helped them get there. Pick up another arm and let Santana help them get to the postseason again. One aspect of baseball fandom I don't really understand is the constant need to maximize trade value in every single player. Some guys give you their value on the field and help you win games and that's what matters. If the Twins were coming off another 72 win season, sure. Trade Santana and get what you can out of him. But why on earth would you trade a guy that can help you win baseball games in the offseason following a postseason appearance when you have one of the youngest rosters in baseball? You go find players to help that guy, you don't just trade him away.* *every player should be traded if the deal just blows you away and/or improves the MLB team
-
Article: Three Bagger: Darvish, Marte & Otani
Brock Beauchamp replied to Cody Christie's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
There are certainly doubts about Ohtani's ability to hit MLB pitching but Nishioka comparisons should be tossed out the window. Nishioka was a slap hitter who played in a league where artificial turf is common. Nishioka came to the US after his age 25 season. Nishioka never hit for power. Nishioka was coming off a season where he OPSed .080 higher than any previous season. I don't see a lot to compare between the two, any more than I'd judge Buxton's ceiling based on Ben Revere's career because they're both black and play centerfield.- 67 replies
-
- 2
-
-
- shohei otani
- yu darvish
- (and 2 more)
-
I can't support trading Santana. He's the type of pitcher you can write 175+ IP in permanent ink on Opening Day. Sure, he's getting older and might regress but I don't care. $13m for 175 IP of 100 ERA+, I'll take it on this team every time. I don't care about 2019's salary right now, I want to see the Twins at least make the ALDS and Santana helps them reach that goal. If you need to trade Santana to convince the Pohlads to take on Darvish, it's time to fire up Excel and show how much money they'll make with an 88-90 win season and 5-7 postseason games, never mind how that sets them up for 2019 sans Mauer and a growing season ticket base. It's time to spend money on this team. Maybe not Darvish money but legit starting pitcher money.
-
There are so many factors here - many of which we don't know - that I don't put the Twins above or below most teams (though I believe New York has an advantage over everyone else). The Twins have a lot going for them: 1. Lots of cap space to give him $3m+ 2. One of the youngest and most promising teams in baseball 3. Room to DH Ohtani and a pitching staff bad enough that he'll get plenty of opportunities 4. Great facilities 5. New front office with a forward-thinking mindset But, hey, it's still Minnesota. That in itself may be a deal-breaker to someone with aspirations of New York or Los Angeles.
-
Is there any timeline on a decision? I haven't seen anything.
-
An interesting aspect of this deal is that if you're confident Darvish brings you Ohtani, it makes all the sense in the world to wildly overpay for Darvish, up to as much as $200m. Yu could see the market for his services go insanely out of proportion thanks to Ohtani. Dropping an extra $40m on Darvish is a no-brainer if it locks you into Ohtani at $500k for several seasons.
-
Well, this is good for everyone involved. That frees up Eduardo Escobar money (well, close to it) for the Twins next season.
-
Article: What's Next For Kohl Stewart?
Brock Beauchamp replied to Cody Christie's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
I mean, probably. My primary question is whether the organization is so down on him that they'll take anything for him just to move on. -
Article: What's Next For Kohl Stewart?
Brock Beauchamp replied to Cody Christie's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
Same here, but I put Stewart's chances of sticking on a 25-man roster for a full season very low. Like Which raises the next question: does the new front office like Stewart enough to take him back or would they work out a deal with the claiming team? -
I should slightly rephrase: I want to sell high and buy again somewhat low. I don't expect to necessarily get the stocks back for less than I sold them for, but that'd be nice. It's also probably unreasonable to expect it. I'd be thrilled to buy back a bunch of them at the same price or even a touch higher, allowing myself to do something else with the money for 3-5 years.
