Brock Beauchamp

Not really, it's sticky and complex. Employees maintain some rights despite the opinion of their employer. Add in the public aspect of professional athletes and it becomes quite murky because they're not even employees, they're contractors, which have even more freedom than employees because unless something is explicitly stated in the contract, they can probably do it without repercussion. On top of all of that, all MLB players operate under a union and a collective bargaining agreement, which may have even more language protecting their actions/opinions outside playing baseball. After all, there's a reason why the NFL settled with Kaepernick. It isn't as clearcut as "I'm the boss, you do what I say".

Yeah, it sounds like Thorpe is still dealing at 89, which makes him close to useless as an MLB pitcher, even a lefty. I sure wish we knew what has happened to him and whether it's something that will resolve itself in time or if this is just who he is now.

The 2021 season just keeps delivering body shots. After being an absolute trainwreck for much of the season, Jorge Alcalá has been transferred to the IL. Sigh. It finally appeared that Alcalá, who has all the velocity and promise in the world, may have turned a bit of a corner over the past few weeks and showed signs of becoming the dominant reliever we all hoped he would become before this cluster-you-know-what of a season began. But nah, he's on the IL now because of course he is. Twins Baseball: Comin' At Ya Like a Mack Truck with Its Brake Lines Cut™ Season Totals Split G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR SB CS BB SO SO/W BA OBP SLG OPS TB GDP HBP SH SF IBB ROE BAbip tOPS+ sOPS+ Last 7 days 3 11 10 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 6 6.00 .100 .182 .400 .582 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 54 55 Last 14 days 5 22 20 2 3 0 0 1 0 0 1 9 9.00 .150 .227 .300 .527 6 1 1 0 0 0 0 .200 47 43 Last 28 days 9 39 35 8 9 2 0 1 1 0 3 12 4.00 .257 .333 .400 .733 14 1 1 0 0 0 0 .364 106 100 Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table Generated 8/9/2021.

Yeah, I want to address this more directly, as people don't seem to fully grasp just how bad pitchers are at hitting. So let me give a comparison... Pitcher OPS: .278 League average OPS (including pitchers): .722 MLB OPS leader Vlad Guerrero Jr: 1.047 Pitchers as a whole are -.444 OPS under league average while the best hitter on the planet, Vlad Jr, is only +.325 OPS over league average. Pitchers are so bad that it takes 3.75 pitcher combined OPSes to equal one Vlad Jr OPS. Hell, it takes 2.6 pitcher combined OPSes to equal league average. Pitchers should not attempt to hit. It's not strategy, it's a free out in a game that has way too many unproductive, uninteresting outs already in it.

Literal LOL

Numbers simply don't back this up, though. Luis Arraez is bad against lefties and good against righties no matter where you put him in the lineup. So, against lefties, do you want the top of the order to contain Arraez and his .673 OPS against LHP? Or do you want Josh Donaldson and his .880 OPS against LHP? And the inverse is generally true when there's a RHP on the mound, though the splits are generally smaller. Really, the driving force behind these lineup changes is maximizing LHB performance against RHP and minimizing their awful performances against LHP. Righties have the same issue only it's *much* smaller in most players (due to the majority of pitching being RHP, hitters who can't hit righties usually don't make it to MLB at all). There's a reason most of MLB now adjusts lineups based on matchups, not a set player position in the lineup. It's the smart, numbers-based, performance-based strategy.

Maybe "leadership" is letting Arraez flail away against lefty pitching and drag down his overall OPS for no good reason?

With the increase in pitcher velocity and movement in recent years, the gap between pitchers hitting and position players hitting has gone from "terrible" to "ghastly". The game is better if pitchers do not attempt to hit. In 2021, here is the triple slash for pitchers: .105 / .144 / .134 Pitcher OPS is 30 points lower than Luis Arraez's batting average. Who actually likes that garbage? I don't get it. There's nothing fun about watching "hitters" who make an out 86% of the time. Isn't modern baseball bad enough as it is without having to suffer through that experience multiple times a game?

Can we go back and retroactively change the name of every Twins DH between Chili Davis and Jason Kubel to "FirstName Toilet"?

And DHing tonight for your Minnesota Twins... BRENT TOIIIIILLEEEEETTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT I like it.

Yeah, without thinking about it too much, that’s pretty much my thinking as well.

Yep! The current incarnation is a bit clunky and it shouldn’t be too much work to refine it a bit.

This is a really interesting idea. Touch base with me during the off-season and we can figure out how to accomplish this for next season.

Interesting. I find this mildly surprising but good for Schoop. He's having a pretty nice season,.

What I’ve wondered is how much infield defense matters in the TTO era. Given the focus on launch angle and extra bases, outfield defense is still likely significant. I’m less convinced the same is true to infield defense, particularly in a shift-heavy game.

He’s simply not that kind of hitter. He has lots of good tools but his contact tool is low and always has been. Big strength and hard swings is usually counter to batting average and Sano is no exception.

More importantly, they need to offer a standalone app.

They’re brothers, obvi.

Yeah, will try to sort this out ASAP. I kinda patchworked video together as an experiment and now I need to code a better, more flexible solution that will be permanent.

Well, here we are. The day following a first for the 2021 Twins: grasping victory from the jaws of defeat. Having spent the previous four months mastering the inverse, last night the Twins - led by unlikely defensive hero Miguel Sano - did something right and actually won a game it looked like they were going to lose. Which means the Twins are on the verge of a... Exciting, right? Leading the charge into today's game, we have Michael "Inexplicably Still on the Twins" Pineda toeing the rubber, looking to enhance his non-existent trade value for the no-longer-in-existence August waiver deadline. Sorry, Mike, but you're stuck here. Try to make the most of it, no one will fault you for retiring next week if you feel that's the right decision for your mental health. Opposing Pineda is... oh, who the hell even cares. It's probably some cheating bastard we don't like anyway. I was going to type up a lineup analysis but saw Jake Cave in the fifth spot and threw up in my mouth a little bit so I'm done with this **** for the day. Time to start day drinking. Have an exciting game, everyone! Twins: 1. Max Kepler (L) RF 2. Brent Rooker (R) DH 3. Jorge Polanco (S) 2B 4. Miguel Sano (R) 1B 5. Jake Cave (L) CF 6. Ryan Jeffers (R) C 7. Trevor Larnach (L) LF 8. Willians Astudillo (R) 3B 9. Andrelton Simmons (R) SS P - Michael Pineda Banging Schemers: 1. Jose Altuve (R) 2B 2. Michael Brantley (L) LF 3. Carlos Correa (R) SS 4. Yordan Alvarez (L) DH 5. Kyle Tucker (L) RF 6. Aledmys Diaz (R) 3B 7. Chas McCormick (R) CF 8. Jason Castro (L) C 9. Taylor Jones (R) 1B P - Some Cheating Bastard, probably

Wow, that certainly puts sports into context abruptly.

I was ten years old when the Twins won in 1987. I had watched a few Brewers games before then (lived in Wisconsin until 1985) but the sport never really held my interest. While my dad is a sports fan, he was never much of a baseball fan and football/basketball were the main sporting events in my household growing up. When the Twins began winning in 1987 and it appeared they were headed to the postseason, it became en vogue in my elementary school to wear the new "M" cap so I just had to have one like the rest of the kids. I got the hat and watched my first World Series that October. So ultimately, it was a stupid ****ing hat that got me into baseball.

Wow, that's a REALLY GOOD point. I never even considered that MLB should have purchased those RSNs, which would have opened a variety of opportunities to change how MLB delivers content. Also, IT'S A SCONNIE APPEARANCE!!!!!!

Frankly, this is the part of the conversation that gets ignored WAY TOO OFTEN. Pace of play is important. It’s literally narrowing the non-action vs. action part of the game. But a lot of that is intentional. The longer a pitcher waits, the harder they can throw consecutive pitches. The harder they can throw consecutive pitches, the more a batter misses. The more a batter misses, the less the pitcher needs to throw in the zone. Hard pitch clock, 18 seconds. 16 would be best, 20 acceptable. Everyone is going to hate it except fans.