Brock Beauchamp

The arm motion was definitely NOT sidearm as a standard third baseman would throw it.

And this is why a team cannot play positionless players all over the field. Jax should he sitting down, thinking he had a pretty okay game against a good offense.

Yep.

Well, Jax got three outs that inning before the run scored.

Yep, unfortunately. He had to put all he could on that ball, which a third baseman shouldn’t have to do on a bare-handed grounder.

That throw was awful.

This is the right decision. Let a young starter learn to navigate a lineup one more time. It doesn’t really matter if this game is won or lost.

I thought he looked fine but remember a few head scratchers that I basically wrote off as nerves, a lot like we saw with Hicks early on. Every scouting report I’ve heard seems pretty confident he’s a CF, though maybe not a plus glove. The kind of guy who stays at the position through age 27-28 and then is moved, perhaps.

Jake Cave just slid... headfirst... into first.

Well, the Twins aren't exactly making Houck pay for his wildness but at least they're not handing him free outs, either.

That inning is such a good example of how slow baseball has become. Two hits, one run scored, pretty standard inning. Twelve minutes long.

But triples are fun! Still, that changes nothing about my opinion.

I do not understand Kepler in the leadoff spot. I just don't.

While Kepler hasn’t turned out to be the player we all hoped he would be, he has a 96 wRC+ this season and extrapolating his PAs to 600 (ie. a full-ish season), he’d have a 2.0 fWAR. That’s an entirely serviceable, if underwhelming, starter. The team would lose A LOT by moving Donaldson off third base. Not only is he the best available defender at the position, moving his bat from third to first reduces quite a bit of its relative potency.

Agreed in that Ober is far from a sure thing but he has pretty much earned his 2022 rotation spot written in pen. But that doesn’t mean he’ll be good long term - though I’m somewhat optimistic about him - only that he’ll start the season in Minnesota.

The bullpen isn't good, either. Personally, I'd call up Albers for maybe one spot start and keep Gant in the bullpen because I think he actually has the potential to be a decent option there, not a stopgap. And after getting one start out of Albers, I'd bump him for Dobnak or Ryan, whomever is ready first. Whenever the second option is ready (or maybe Strotman), I end the painful Charlie Barnes Experiment and put in the either guy. In an ideal situation, all of this would happen in the next ten days.

I mean, sometimes... but Celestino was put into a really bad situation. He didn't play in 2020, barely played in AA, then was shipped straight to the majors and unsurprisingly was destroyed by MLB pitching. In a normal situation, that's a guy you want to see in AAA for at least 100 plate appearances before even considering him as an MLB option.

Don't let the surface stats fool you with John Gant as a starter. His 2021 FIP in St Louis was a painful 5.12 while his WHIP was an ungodly 1.572. His ERA? 3.42. That is a man that has flipped a coin and landed on heads 12 times in a row, not a good pitcher. And he did that while being gifted a pitcher in the batter's box ~10% of the time.

A Celestino/Buxton/Kepler outfield is an amazing defensive outfield that will remain healthy for no fewer than two outs into Opening Day.

Gant is 28 years old and has over 40 career MLB starts. I don't know how much more anyone needs to see of him as a starter, just look at the film.

You're looking purely at age, I'm looking at situation. Ryan missed a month of the minors, only to come back with an entirely new organization after pitching erratically in a very different environment. Giving him a couple of "get back into the flow" starts before tossing him amongst the wolves is a reasonable development and comfort strategy. And if Strotman was pitching better, I'd already have called him up after a couple of "here's your new org" starts. The thing is that... he hasn't been very good since coming to St Paul.

Most of us knew the name of Celestino going into the season, as he was a key component of the widely ridiculed Pressly trade in 2018. And, over the course of a few seasons, Celestino was regarded as a decent-but-unspectacular centerfield option. His upside looked like he could be a complementary contributor, an MLB starter that does the job but never posts a stat line that jumps off the page at us. And those prospect scouting reports and evaluations were backed up by his stat line in the Twins organization: Register Batting Year Age AgeDif Tm Lg Lev Aff G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS TB GDP HBP SH SF IBB 2018 19 -1.3 Elizabethton APPY Rk MIN 27 117 109 13 29 4 1 1 13 8 2 6 16 .266 .308 .349 .656 38 3 1 0 1 0 2019 20 -2.4 Fort Myers FLOR A+ MIN 8 33 30 6 9 4 0 0 3 0 0 2 4 .300 .333 .433 .767 13 0 0 0 1 0 2019 20 -1.3 Cedar Rapids MIDW A MIN 117 503 450 52 124 24 3 10 51 14 8 48 81 .276 .350 .409 .759 184 20 4 0 1 1 2021 22 -4.6 St. Paul AAAE AAA MIN 18 76 64 9 18 4 0 4 15 1 0 11 15 .281 .395 .531 .926 34 2 1 0 0 0 2021 22 -2.1 Wichita AACN AA MIN 21 96 84 10 21 5 0 2 7 0 1 11 24 .250 .344 .381 .725 32 1 1 0 0 0 Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table Generated 8/24/2021. Then 2021 happened. Celestino, due to an absurd flurry of outfield injuries in Minnesota, was rushed straight from AA to the Twins not once but multiple times, never logging an official stop in St Paul along the way, other than for the required paperwork. And oh boy did we see how unprepared he was to face MLB pitching... which wasn't his fault, as no one reasonable expected him to successfully make that jump as a middling prospect who didn't even play in 2020. After scuffling in Minnesota and being mercifully sent back down to AAA - where he never even had a single plate appearance before this month - he has shown life in his bat most of us didn't expect to see, especially after having his face punched in against the highest level of talent for a good portion of the season. But that's exactly what he has done. Here is his stat line after the demotion: Date G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF GDP SB CS BA OBP SLG OPS BAbip Aug 1 to Aug 22, 2021 18 76 64 9 18 4 0 4 15 11 0 15 1 0 0 0 1 0 .281 .395 .531 .926 .311 per 162 games 162 684 576 81 162 36 0 36 135 99 0 135 9 0 0 0 9 0

Oh, without a doubt. I'm actually of the opinion I'd consider keeping Gant next season because I think he could be a decent 5/6 bullpen piece. As a starter, though:

*groans* There's a guy I wouldn't hesitate to replace with either Strotman or Ryan about five minutes from now.

Gant is taking the mound, making it a bullpen game no matter what the plan may be going into the first inning.