Brock Beauchamp

The only pop-up on this entire site is Twins-related video created by Twins Daily's staff but you do you, I guess. And even that pop-up video only loads 10% of the time on mobile and 50% of the time on desktop. The rest of the time it's a static entity that doesn't follow you on the page.

Yes, that's exactly what I said and that's all I said. I didn't mention age, number of quality pitches, competition level, or anything else. Only missing bats. C'mon now. SWR is pitching against AA competition in his age 20 season, literally one jump away from the majors in many cases. Joe Ryan's age 20 season was as a *sophomore* at Cal State Northridge.

Frankly, I don't know if they care at this point. They'd rather sacrifice Colomé than put a younger, more inexperienced pitcher in his place and potentially mess with their head if they fail.

No, he has three pitches and the ability to miss bats. He jumped from not pitching in 2020 straight to AA where his ERA is ugly, his control is suddenly spotty (not a problem before now), but he's still missing A TON of bats. And he's doing this as a 20 year old. He's the type of guy where if he regains his previous control and maintains missing bats - which has never been a problem for him - he could be pitching in Minnesota as a 21 year old. That's why he's ranked higher than Joe Ryan.

I don't expect either to turn into great pitchers but either could be league average or slightly better, with Ryan looking significantly better in the here and now. My hopes aren't high for Strotman at the moment. If the Twins want to replace Berríos, or even improve upon him, they're going to have to pay for it in free agency or trade. I don't expect any of their immediate internal options to be top of the rotation starters but they can be nice pieces that slide into the third or so spot in the rotation and give the Twins a chance to win every fifth night. I mean, they have a few guys more highly regarded than Ober and he's doing pretty well for himself so far, definitely the kind of guy you don't mind slotting into the four spot next season. So yeah, the Twins definitely need arms but 2022 may not be dire if the team signs Marcus Stroman (not my personal fave, just a name), Ryan looks good, Strotman is a bullpen piece, and the Twins backfill with decent (read NOT SHOEMAKER) options that don't break the bank. This offense can carry the team quite a ways if the pitching staff isn't, as you pointed out, barely better than BALTIMORE. But the front office has a lot of work ahead of them and they need to show they can make *much* better decisions than they made 10 months ago.

I don't know about 5-6 "impact" arms but they need several arms at or above league average. IMO, the real difference rides on, FOR ONCE, one (or more!) Twins prospects to come to the majors and succeed immediately. I know that seems impossible but as a person who watches quite a bit of non-Twins baseball, I assure everyone it has happened before.

Weird, I don't recall saying anyone has done a good job or that this pitching staff as a whole has been anything other than a trainwreck.

AA, I assume?

Permanent rule from before Covid hit, and I kinda hate it. I understand not allowing the entire 40-man in September but 28 is too effing low for rebuilding teams who need to try out young players. 30 would have been a much better middle ground to appease owner cheapness and other considerations that went into the 28-man decision.

Age, level, past performance, upside. That doesn't mean Ryan won't be good, or better than Woods-Richardson, but it's how baseball evaluates its own.

I protest! The real low-hanging fruit was making a Wes Anderson and The Royal Tenenbaums joke. I showed extreme restraint in my reply and demand that you acknowledge it, good sir.

Holy overpay, Batman. While either pitcher would be great and I'd love to have them, according to rWAR, Arraez has been more valuable than either in 2021 (and Luis would only be 50% of your package) and Arraez has more team control than either pitcher. I'm all in favor of slightly overpaying for a good young pitcher but I'm not going to hand away $100m in future value in return for $40m in future value.

Believe it or not but Davis wasn't only worse, he was MUCH WORSE. This season, Colomé has a -2.0 WPA. In 1986, Ron Davis had a -3.2 WPA. EXCEPT THAT WASN'T EVEN HIS WORST SEASON In 1984, Ron Davis had a -3.5 WPA.

As we all know, with the loss of Maeda, the Twins rotation has gone from bad to laughable. Drew Strotman hasn't pitched well since being traded for Nelson Cruz. Randy Dobnak is still on the rehab path. Joe Ryan was in Tokyo pitching for Team USA until... he wasn't. And while I supported the logical step of letting him have a few starts in the Twins organization to re-acclimate himself to the cycles of American baseball and familiarize himself with his new organization, this season isn't going to last forever. Every start the Twins give to the likes of Andrew Albers into September is one fewer start they can use to evaluate the likes of Joe Ryan. The Twins were put into a really bad situation with Strotman struggling, Ryan in Tokyo, and seemingly half their minor leagues injured. I'm willing to be patient when things spiral out of the team's control and they're forced to run Charlie Barnes out there every fifth day. Except my patience runs out when other, vastly superior options become available. And as of about 8pm yesterday, a *very* attractive option became available and the Uber ride to Target Field won't even cost the team $30. Two games and this is what he has done. Never mind that he pitched to a 1.50 ERA in the Olympics, including a 4.1 IP with 1 ER in the silver medal game against Team Japan. FREE JOE RYAN 2021 Player Pitching Game Log Rk Date Lev Tm Opp Inngs Dec IP H R ER BB SO HR HBP GSc AB 2B 3B IBB GDP SF SB CS PO BF Pit Str StL StS GB FB LD PU 13 2021-08-20 AAA-AAAE St. Paul Saints Iowa Cubs 1-4 4.0 1 1 1 1 9 1 0 64 14 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 15 67 49 15 12 4 1 1 0 14 2021-08-25 AAA-AAAE St. Paul Saints @ Toledo Mud Hens 1-5 5.0 4 1 1 1 8 0 0 62 17 1 0 0 0 1 2 0 0 19 81 52 16 10 6 4 1 0 Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table Generated 8/26/2021.

Larnach has 30 plate appearances and a BABIP of .133 in St Paul. That's only seven games, or basically two bad series. One 3-for-5 day and his stat line looks great. And given that he was demoted because he was in such a funk, it's not terribly surprising he hasn't rebounded immediately.

His OPS in Minnesota was .466. That's a 28 OPS+ and a 22 wRC+. His demotion was not a service time consideration, it was a development decision.

I can't believe it took me until the end of August to think to make this.

Oh sure, but when it comes to velocity, strength and leverage are literally what makes a baseball fly faster. It's simply physics. Control, command, hand-eye coordination, etc... those are all outside the typical strength/speed aspects of athleticism.

This team sure is special some times.

But we can look at their physical build, their height, and their tendency to chain-smoke in the dugout and come to the rather obvious conclusion they weren't Jacob deGrom. I mean, every Olympics it feels like half the world records drop to faster, better athletes. There are entire billion dollar industries dedicated to athlete health and wellness. Why are people so reluctant to admit that their favorite 6'1" pitcher from 1982 just wasn't as good of an athlete as the equivalent guy in 2021?

I was also around to see pretty much all of Morris' career. The reality is that Jack threw under 90mph for most of his career and the bottom of orders were filled with slap-hitting .650 OPS middle infielders. It's just what baseball was at the time. Pitchers didn't throw as hard because they didn't have to, which allowed them to go longer in games. I'm sure Morris could have been a 93-94mph six inning guy but that wasn't the game at the time.

I'm sorry but this is wildly incorrect. 1. Baldelli doesn't get to decide when Buxton is put on his roster 2. Baldelli played the overwhelming majority of his career in centerfield and then a few games in rightfield

I literally had the exact same thought. I was NOT expecting to see a one before that two.