Brock Beauchamp

I think he can bunt more often than that. Ten attempts is once every 15 games. Given his speed, I think he can bunt more in the every 4-6 game range and keep defenses honest against him. That's one bunt attempt every 16-24 plate appearances.

Eh, yes and no. While Hughes has been around for awhile, he only has 1200 career IP. And he came to the majors at a very young age. Is there a significant difference between throwing MLB and MiLB innings? I'm sure there's a small difference but it's not like MiLB guys throw 2-3mph under their limit to save their arm for the bigs. I just grabbed a pitcher randomly and looked at his stats: Roy Halladay. Despite Halladay not becoming a full-time regular until age 25, he already had 1500 IP by the time he finished his age 30 season. And Halladay threw 650 MiLB innings. Hughes threw only 340. A drop in velocity is to be expected as a pitcher crosses 30 years old but an immediate 2-3mph drop due to injury cannot be predicted.

And it's hard to predict a guy will lose 3mph on his fastball at age 28.

What's the over/under on Buxton triples this season if he plays 150 games? My first thought is 12 but thinking about it more, it could be around 15. The modern record was set by Curtis Granderson with 23 in 2007. Buxton has the potential to break that record, though he'll probably have to make more contact for it to happen. Any ball to the gap has the potential to be a three-bagger with his speed.

Polanco is my sleeper guy on this year's roster. He's quietly been a good player for quite some time now and I expect him to transition to MLB better than other prospects have in recent years. I'd be happy with a .730 OPS and thrilled with a .770 OPS.

I'm not really sold on 17 home runs but that's a minor quibble. Those numbers look about right to me.

Terry Francona's style of bullpen management would drive me up the wall over 162 games but he's a damned fine manager. The reason he'd drive me up the wall is because it's boring baseball. It's also winning baseball but that doesn't mean it's fun to watch.

If Hughes is indeed a 90-91mph guy going forward, I'd be thrilled with that number. It's probably his ceiling at that velocity, IMO.

That's why you pick and choose your approach based on situation. If you clobber the ball the first two times to the plate and the infielders take a step back in the dirt, you consider bunting in that situation. Don't walk to the plate with a bunt in mind, let the fielders make that decision for you. Of course, this means Buxton only bunts maybe 25-40 times a season. And that's okay. Normally I'd say "don't bunt at all" but Buxton is so bloody fast that it only takes one step back from a fielder for Byron to have a very good chance of reaching first safely.

The Vargas injury certainly put a kink in the team's plans for Opening Day but I don't like the decision they made in its wake. To me, it was close to a no-brainer to put Park back on the 40 man roster the moment Kennys wasn't on the team for the opener. This team can afford to have two DH(ish) types on the roster. Mauer shouldn't play every day anyway. Grossman can take some DH reps and some OF reps while Park takes some DH reps and some 1B reps. This isn't the best roster the Twins could field for the opener and that's incredibly disappointing in so many ways. I can begrudgingly accept the bullpen decisions but I don't like this decision at all.

We're still in March. Good to have this kind of optimism but I can't say I share it.

I'm sorry but I don't agree with this at all. If the opposing team gives you a bunt for a hit, you take it. Buxton shouldn't be bunting to move runners over but he should absolutely bunt if he has a better than even chance of reaching first base safely.

So do I but I can't fault the Twins for not saying yes to that trade. They were in an unfortunate spot. Hopefully at this year's deadline, there is more than ONE team looking for a second baseman.

Fair enough. You've been skeptical of Dozier for years. Not saying that as proof of anything, just a reality.

He's a streaky hitter, for sure... which is why I predicted 32 homers for him. If you put a gun to my head, I'd probably predict 28-32. On the plus side for Dozier, his power has increased every year he's been in the league. 24 homers seems a bit low to me, though it's certainly possible. But no way am I predicting 40 again. I hope it happens but I'm not banking on it.

I view Danny Santana as a placeholder for someone else, whoever replaces the guy who fails the hardest and fastest. It's one of the ways I keep myself sane.

Provided Kintzler is who he was in 2016, I don't hate him as the closer. Outside of swing and miss stuff, he has the traits you want in a pitcher who enters a game with the bases empty. He puts the ball on the ground, forcing multiple hits to score runs. He doesn't issue free base runners. He doesn't give up cheap homers, scoring easy runs. And it allows the best bullpen arm to operate in more flexible situations based on need.

I'm not giving them a pass. I question the Chargois move, for sure... but what bothers me the most was the acquisition of Belisle and Breslow, really. Just go get a decent reliever and pay a few bucks. Big deal, this payroll is too low anyway. No $12m contract over two years is going to hurt this team in any meaningful fashion. Nick's latest article sold me a bit on the Breslow deal, though. Really good info in that piece but more could have been done with the bullpen and it wouldn't cost much to do it. There was enough room in the pen to fit a decent reliever, a mediocre vet, and a young guy.

I care less about the Opening Day bullpen than I do the front office's willingness to pull the rug out from under some of these guys in May. That will be more telling than the motley crew of mediocrity they assembled out of the gate. I don't mind occasionally winging it and hoping for the best - particularly in a situation as bad as the one they inherited last November - but I very much mind the refusal to cut loose bad players in a timely fashion.

Other than Chargois, very little here surprises me. So I guess it's not so much that I dislike the bullpen, it's more that I already resigned myself to this happening.

I find Grossman really interesting. He was a competent outfielder with the Astros. What happened last year that led to a disastrous -19 DRS? Yes, Houston is a much smaller park but that can't be everything... In 1320 LF innings with Houston, Grossman posted a +3 DRS. His RF stats were more limited - 280 innings - but he posted a +6 DRS over there so LF wasn't an aberration. Of course, we're dealing with relatively small sample sizes here, as his LF time in Houston is just shy of 150 full games. Still, that's not a tiny sample size. That's a reasonable baseline from which to start. As for the left side of the infield, a -28 DRS is certainly possible but Sano has been acceptable out there, posting a -3 DRS in 450 innings. That's a small enough sample size to almost be discarded entirely but it gives hope he's not entirely hopeless at third. If Sano plays a full season at that clip, it's around a -9 DRS for a full season. Polanco is the real wildcard here, IMO. HIs -8 DRS at short last season was abysmal, getting there in just 405 innings. My thinking is that Polanco won't be allowed to reach a -20 or lower DRS (which is where that tracks over a full season) and will be replaced by Escobar if things go that far off the rails. Which brings up another question about the left side of the infield... Escobar. DRS has the guy all over the place. It'd be easy to ignore his 2016 due to injury and "general awfulness" but DRS hated him in 2014, too. But in 2015, DRS thought he was an okay player. All were in limited but not unreasonably small innings, between 500-800 per season. Lots of questions about the left side of the infield but -28 seems a bit high to me. I think the defensive terribleness probably caps out around -25 DRS, as Polanco won't hang around at short if he's that bad and even if Escobar fails, I suspect the Twins will go glove-first at short relatively quickly, which will counter some of the awful play that preceded the move. Of course, it's hard to get a read on Sano, which will cause a lot of fluctuation. Is he a -5 DRS guy or a -15 DRS guy? We can assume Polanco will struggle but I'm unsure how badly Sano will struggle. He has an outside chance of being competent out there, particularly after losing weight and getting back into a rhythm at third.

I think we see a reasonable drop but Dozier remains a very good player: .260/.340/.480 32 HR I think the OBP remains steady as pitchers stay away from Dozier and pitch around him a bit more often. All the other numbers drop a bit.

True, but that knife cuts in both directions. If you group LHB against righties, that means you're also bunching RHB against righties. The effect isn't as great (usually, anyway) but you're comprising parts of your lineup either way. And in those later innings, the opposing manager doesn't even have to think about it. You've created the perfect storm for him to exploit with left/right pitching matchups.

Anyway, my general point is that LHB are traditionally horrible against LHP in comparison to their RHP performance. Bunching lefties together in the lineup makes the opposing manager's decisions a lot easier from the sixth inning onward.

That's true about starters but lefties get that advantage either way. It doesn't matter if they're split up or in a row. Yes, bunching them together might impact run-scoring a bit but I was thinking of individual OPS performance, which it won't affect. As for leads/deficits late in games, I suspect the lead/deficit would have to be pretty substantial for a manager not to say "aw hell, three lefties are coming in a row, I'm just going to throw a lefty out there to make sure nothing bad happens". Every pen has one lefty reliever and lots have two of them. Chances are, one of them isn't amazing so why not put him out there to face a trio of LHB?