Brock Beauchamp

Even if he ends up in the bullpen, there's likely value in giving him 30 IP as a starter in 2021 over 8 IP as a reliever. Given how few innings these guys have been able to pitch in recent years, just logging innings on their arms likely has a fair amount of value for future performance. The guy, like so many, needs to learn how to get MLB hitters out and it seems like the more hitters he faces now, the better he'll become at doing so.

Exactly, we're in SSSS territory here and should treat it as such. But either way, this is an interesting development to keep an eye on late in a season where there is little to care about on-field.

I'm far less confident in the Scott Diamond thing after seeing Jax strike out ten White Sox. Baker is a good ceiling, I think, as Baker was a wildly underrated pitcher who had a Berríos level ceiling but couldn't stay healthy. Not that I think Jax will become Baker, only that Baker would be close to his 100% outcome.

Just to be clear, I never had any expectations for Griffin Jax but I have to admit at now I'm intrigued by him a little bit. Maybe it will turn out to be the same reason I was intrigued by Scott Diamond back in the day - cautious pessimism - but good performance is certainly more fun to watch than the other kind of performance and god knows we've witnessed enough of that lately. Anyway, this is exactly the reason why this front office should not be wasting time with the likes of Beau Burrows and instead focusing on their plethora of prospects this season, many of which will require a 40-man decision this fall. I don't even really care who they run out there to see what they have, only that they get as many eyeballs on as many prospects as possible in hopes of finding a diamond in the rough for 2022. Is Griffin Jax one of those diamonds? A month ago I would have laughed at the question, now I'm less sure he isn't. Griffin Jax first five appearances: 2021 Pitching Game Log Rk Gcar Gtm Date Tm Opp Rslt Inngs Dec DR IP H R ER BB SO HR HBP ERA BF Pit Str StL StS GB FB LD PU Unk GSc IR IS SB CS PO AB 2B 3B IBB GDP SF ROE aLI WPA acLI cWPA RE24 DFS(DK) DFS(FD) Entered Exited 1 1 60 Jun 8 MIN NYY L,4-8 9-GF 99 1.0 3 3 3 0 1 2 0 27.00 6 23 17 2 2 1 4 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 .15 -0.065 .03 -0.01% -2.51 -3.55 -3.00 9t --- 0 out d2 9t end d 5 2 2 61 Jun 9 MIN NYY L,6-9 5-8 0 3.1 3 1 1 0 2 0 0 8.31 13 51 35 11 4 1 10 4 3 0 1 0 0 0 0 12 2 0 0 0 1 0 .04 0.001 .01 0.00% 0.69 7.70 13.00 5t 1-- 2 out d7 8t 3 out d7 3 3 67 Jun 15 MIN @ SEA L,0-10 5-GF(8) 5 4.0 5 4 4 3 6 2 0 8.64 20 93 55 16 5 3 8 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 16 0 0 0 0 1 0 .03 -0.005 .00 0.00% -2.03 8.20 18.00 5b --- 0 out d6 8b end d10 4 4 75 Jun 25 MIN CLE W,8-7 2-6 W(1-0) 9 4.1 3 3 3 2 2 1 0 7.82 18 75 49 12 4 7 7 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 16 0 0 0 0 0 0 1.28 -0.136 .18 -0.01% -0.88 8.75 22.00 2t --- 2 out d2 6t 3 out tie 5 5 81 Jul 3 MIN @ KCR L,3-6 GS-5 L(1-1) 7 5.0 8 6 6 3 3 1 0 8.66 25 88 58 14 9 6 13 4 1 0 27 2 0 0 21 2 0 0 0 1 0 .95 -0.374 .06 -0.01% -3.31 -1.35 6.00 1b start tie 5b 3 out d4 Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table Generated 8/11/2021. Griffin Jax last four starts: 2021 Pitching Game Log Rk Gcar Gtm Date Tm Opp Rslt Inngs Dec DR IP H R ER BB SO HR HBP ERA BF Pit Str StL StS GB FB LD PU Unk GSc IR IS SB CS PO AB 2B 3B IBB GDP SF ROE aLI WPA acLI cWPA RE24 DFS(DK) DFS(FD) Entered Exited 6 6 93 Jul 19(1) MIN @ CHW W,3-2 GS-4 15 4.0 1 1 1 1 6 1 0 7.48 15 68 43 6 16 3 5 0 2 0 61 1 0 0 14 0 0 0 0 0 1 .89 0.074 .03 0.00% 1.08 17.80 27.00 1b start tie 4b 3 out d1 7 7 104 Jul 30 MIN @ STL L,1-5 GS-5 10 5.0 2 1 1 2 2 0 0 6.41 19 83 52 19 4 5 10 3 2 0 59 2 0 0 16 0 0 0 0 1 0 .97 0.140 .01 0.00% 1.36 10.85 18.00 1b start tie 5b 3 out tie 8 8 109 Aug 5 MIN @ HOU W,5-3 GS-6 W(2-1) 5 5.1 3 1 1 1 0 1 0 5.63 20 75 49 11 3 8 11 2 1 0 57 0 0 0 19 1 0 0 0 0 0 .67 0.127 .00 0.00% 1.42 11.60 25.00 1b start tie 6b -2- 1 out a3 9 9 114 Aug 10 MIN CHW W,4-3 GS-6 W(3-1) 4 6.0 5 3 3 1 10 2 0 5.45 24 83 57 15 14 5 8 2 0 0 59 0 0 0 23 1 0 0 1 0 0 .94 -0.023 .00 0.00% 0.03 27.90 51.00 1t start tie 6t 3 out d1 Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table Generated 8/11/2021. The splits: Date Tm G GS GF CG Rslt Dec DR IP H R ER BB SO HR HBP ERA BF BA OBP SLG OPS BAbip Pit Str StL StS GB FB LD PU Unk GSc IR IS SB CS PO AB 2B 3B IBB GDP SF ROE aLI WPA acLI cWPA RE24 DFS(DK) DFS(FD) Jun 8 to Jul 3, 2021 MIN 5 1 2 0 1-4 W-L:1-1 5.3 17.2 22 17 17 8 14 6 0 8.66 82 .310 .366 .620 .986 .296 330 65% 17% 7% 0.43 22% 12% 0 27 1 0% 2 0 0 71 4 0 0 0 3 0 .60 -0.579 .06 -0.04% -8.04 19.75 56.00 per 162 games 57 12 23 0 61 201 250 193 193 91 159 68 0 930 3740 136 0 12 23 0 0 805 46 0 0 0 34 0 -6.5 -0.4% -91.1 224 635 Date Tm G GS GF CG Rslt Dec DR IP H R ER BB SO HR HBP ERA BF BA OBP SLG OPS BAbip Pit Str StL StS GB FB LD PU Unk GSc IR IS SB CS PO AB 2B 3B IBB GDP SF ROE aLI WPA acLI cWPA RE24 DFS(DK) DFS(FD) Jul 19 to Aug 10, 2021 MIN 4 4 0 0 3-1 W-L:2-0 4.5 20.1 11 6 6 5 18 4 0 2.66 78 .153 .205 .347 .552 .137 309 65% 17% 12% 0.62 13% 9% 0 59 ---% 3 0 0 72 2 0 0 1 1 1 .87 0.318 .01 0.00% 3.88 68.15 121.00 per 162 games 34 34 0 0 39 173 94 52 52 43 154 34 0 664 2627 77 0 26 0 0 612 18 0 0 9 9 9 2.8 0.1% 33.0 580 1029

Lol Astudillo everyone definitely saw that coming

Definitely, and I was really impressed by how aggressive the Sox were up until the Madrigal trade. I think that will end up being reckless and wasteful for yet another aging right-handed reliever.

For sure, but you just listed the two best-run organizations in all of baseball. 28 teams are jealous of what those teams accomplish on a yearly basis.

Oh, I'm not diminishing what the White Sox are doing but it's hard to compare two franchises that are in different stages of competition. While the Twins were drafting low and competing, the White Sox were effing terrible, to put it bluntly. If the White Sox bomb out of the postseason and the loss of Madrigal burns them badly while the Twins bounce back and are competitive soon, will the Twins then be geniuses?

This is a lot easier to do when your team loses 95, 100, and 89 games while the other team is trying to contend, as was the case for the White Sox vs. the Twins from 2017-2019.

Woof, I so strongly disliked Molitor's bullpen management. He would use and abuse his three best guys until they were ineffective or injured. While a burning fire to win is nice and all, the baseball season remains a 162 game slog and a pitching staff must be managed with that at idea at the forefront of the manager's mind nearly 100% of the time.* *this was something Gardy was excellent at for a very long time, IMO

Yep. This front office inherited some nice positional pieces but good lord, look at those pitching "prospects". Every single one of them bombed out and without looking I'm pretty sure none of them even accumulated 100 MLB innings in their careers.

Without a doubt. One of Baldelli's jobs is to make the players under him the best version of themselves. How much responsibility does he take for player failure? Don't know. It's not the majority of the blame but it's a portion.

Actually from what I've read in the modern game managers have less and less influence over this kind of thing. I suspect Baldelli has little to no real input on acquisitions. Sure, he could probably say "I hate that dude, do not sign him" and the front office would listen but I suspect the front office would listen to anyone who speaks that loudly against the character of any potential acquisition. It's a very different game than it was in the age of TK or even Gardenhire. From everything I've read, the scope of a manager's role continues to narrow because the game continues to get bigger, forcing everyone to specialize in what they know best and leave the rest to others more qualified.

Blown save stats are really misleading this way, as *many* relievers are granted "blown saves" for games they would not have qualified for a save at all (eg. pitching and giving up the lead in the seventh inning by a pitcher who does not pitch more than one inning). There are can be many blown saves in a game but only one save, which leads to absurdly low "save" numbers when viewed as a percentage league-wide. If you look at pitchers that pitch in actual save situations (aka. a "closer"), the blown save percentage is wayyyyy lower than that, usually around 15% (but I haven't checked in the past couple of years because I no longer really pay attention to save stats).

That honor still goes to 2011, which had *two* former MVPs under 30 on its roster to open the season. Wow, that season was terrible. Much like this season, everything that could go wrong did but at least that team still had a ton of under-30 talent. The bulk of the team people cared about was still under 30: Mauer, Morneau, Kubel, Span, Baker, et al.

The Rule V draft happens in early December. And I'd bet quite a bit of money that Detroit had no more than the typical confidence one has in a Rule V pick... and that's very little confidence at all. Sometimes, people just get lucky and others get unlucky. We don't need to attribute mastermind scheming - particularly from the likes of Detroit - to explain they took a calculated risk and won while the Twins took a calculated risk and lost. It happens.

While I am critical of the front office, I think it's hindsight and unreasonable to accuse them of mistakes for not outbidding other teams for the likes of Gibson and Schoop. The Twins simply do not have the budget to retain every player on their roster, especially someone like Gibson who was terrible and sick when he entered free agency. That contract looks a lot less great if Texas didn't luck out of not paying him much in 2020 when he was, again, awful. And while they made mistakes with pretty much every pitcher they signed this season, that doesn't mean it's fair to go back multiple years and point fingers for not signing players who no one really wanted signed at the time. Not a single person I can remember was sad to see Gibson so somewhere else on a 3/$30m deal. The same goes for the likes of Schoop, who had just been replaced by the younger, better, and yet-to-be-injured Luis Arraez.

Which is mentioned in the article. And while the system looked pretty good overall when they took over, the pitching situation was bad and that hasn't really changed. The new front office inherited a really bad version of Berríos (which we all expected to improve) and little else that showed real promise, especially in the rotation. As we were about to find out, the previous front office had completely blown three consecutive top six draft picks, two of them on starting pitching that would never pitch in Minnesota.

I can give them a pass on Baddoo, as I suspect leaving him unprotected was a calculated risk that backfired. Having not played in a couple of years and being a Rule V candidate that needs to stay on the MLB roster, I completely understand why the front office would take the risk that no one would draft him and if someone did, the Twins would receive Baddoo back in short order. Trading Wade was probably the right decision but... wow... to dump Anderson so quickly while Wade was thriving requires a series of bad evaluation and mis-management that deserves loads of ridicule.

It's pretty hard to blame Baldelli for having no good options on his roster. He's not immune from blame this season but a bad roster definitely isn't under his purview.

My problems with the front office don't have a lot to do with this season in Minnesota, at least not directly. They made some mistakes, did dumb stuff, was slapped around for it. That happens, now let's see how they rebound next season. But... 1. They've shown to be pretty bad at self-evaluation of the organization. They're routinely trading or waiving or leaving unprotected players that immediately turn around and have success elsewhere. Their trades from their first two seasons, 2017-2018, are showing mixed results at best. I can forgive them a Baddoo but not multiple Baddoos over only a few seasons. 2. People are being rather unfair with the pitching timeline (there are currently only five pitchers from that 2017 draft with >1 career rWAR, pitching takes time) and I've been quite patient with the results, particularly with Covid. But in the wake of Covid, we have over half a MiLB season to evaluate and let's just say they're not blowing my socks off with these results. Right about now is when we should be excited to see the coming wave of prospects but what we're really excited about is other teams' prospects that the Twins gave away high-end MLB assets to control. That's not an encouraging sign. 3. This is tied into #2 but... Beau Burrows. And a thousand other players like him in 2021. It's time to wipe out these fringe acquisitions and promote from within. If they don't see what they have right now, they won't know what they have to start 2022, either. And while it's primarily a problem with pitchers, there is zero reason for Andrelton Simmons to be on this roster right now. Play Gordon, IL Donaldson, call up Miranda... shuffle things up because record no longer matters in 2021. I'll forgive the front office for everything going to hell in a handbasket in the immediate follow-up to 2020 but their responses are almost as disappointing as the failures that led us to this point. I'm not ready to move on from them yet but where I was generally positive about them one year ago, I'm am equally as negative today. It feels like they're operating without a coherent plan right now and that's possibly the worst trait a front office can have in a time like this. They need to commit to a decision and move in that direction.

The owners make more money, by a lot. I never understood why people resent the on-field product that entertains us and not the people who sit in luxury suites and do nothing but move money around.

I have to admit that I'm losing patience with this front office in a big-ass hurry. Burrows? Come on, now. WHY

Oh, the NFL had a bunch of reasons to settle out of court and I bet zero of them were "do not want to spend the time to prove our case". They would have been (rightfully, IMO) skewered by public opinion if evidence was brought to light about that situation. But aside from that, I notice you didn't quote the rest of my post. It's going to be *very* hard for a sports organization to stop a player from raising a fist or taking a knee using legal action; not only is that likely a protected right of the player, the sports organization will be raked over the coals for trying to stop the player at all.