Brock Beauchamp

Have they, though? KC is ahead of the Twins in the standings but their pythag record is worse (21-26 vs 23-26) and the BaseRuns gap is even larger (21-26 vs 24-25). The Twins have been woeful in very specific ways but the Royals haven't been good, either, they've just been more lucky. Ranks in AL: Bullpen ERA: KC 9th, MN 13th Rotation ERA: MN 10th, KC 11th Offense OPS: MN 5th, KC 12th KC can't even crack the top half of the AL in any of those categories and rank in the bottom third in two of them.

And this is a really good point, I want to highlight it a bit more. Given what I know about modern coaching staffs (which isn't a lot because it's hard to know much of anything about MLB coaches), I'm inclined to blame Baldelli less for some of the things I've seen but blame the lower coaches more because I think they're the ones primarily interacting with the players in drills, hitting/pitching approaches, defensive practices, etc. Baldelli isn't without blame, but I'm pretty down on the hitting, bench, and pitching coaches in a big way this season.

If you felt that post was targeted at your OP, that is certainly not the case. I think this is a very good thread and question (which is why I featured it on the forum index today, which is what's driving a lot of commentary on it).

See, and this is exactly the kind of thing I find fascinating about conversations regarding MLB managers. What is your evidence of this? Why do you believe it? I mean, maybe it's true. I honestly don't know... but I suspect you don't, either. None of us do, really. I only have a very vague, general understanding of what it is Baldelli even does every day. And I follow the Twins very closely. Which is why I tend to not go ballistic over the manager, I don't think their on-field impact is even that large anymore (other than specific on-field moves that can be viewed somewhat objectively). And attempting to evaluate what they do behind closed doors is nothing more than wild speculation.

No one in this thread has called him stupid but this thread isn't an island. We've all seen the same recurring themes about Baldelli, everyone here knows what I'm talking about and the original post was more of the same, just a tamer dog whistle version of it. Anyway, we all know where we each stand on that topic. Back to fundamentals, there are a few problems with this "theory" (I'll mostly gloss over the "analytics over..." portion of the statement, though that's my primary problem with it): 1. What about 2019 and 2020? Were the same fundamentals issues plaguing this team? What's different now? If anything, they should be far more fundamentally sound, as they have a rock-solid veteran left side of the infield (and that's actually been a key problem re: defensive blunders), which they essentially did not have either of the past two years (Donaldson's 2020 was basically non-existent). 2. In the modern game, I don't think the manager actually drills much with players anymore, at least I haven't seen any evidence that's the case. The modern manager approaches their job so much differently than they did 30 years ago and teams appear to be moving toward something closer to an NFL model. I've neither seen nor heard of Baldelli spending hours with a bat in his hand, pounding grounders at Sano. Tom Kelly did, Ron Gardenhire did, but I have no evidence Baldelli does. The manager's job appears to have evolved into more game theory and less daily implementation. 3. The core of my point, which is also linked to point #2, is that Baldelli does not drive the analytics of the Twins. He's a communicator and manager of people. He's not the one building, analyzing, or even deciding the importance of data. The Twins have entire teams of people doing that job. And as an ex-player, Baldelli was hired in large part because he understands the daily rigors of the game, the perspective of players, and surely tries to balance that viewpoint with the data he's being provided and is expected to implement.

What makes this conversation complicated is that two of the biggest perpetrators of infield blundering have been Josh Donaldson and Andrelton Simmons. Josh Donaldson is a 35 year old veteran with a career +25 DRS (Defensive Runs Saved). Andrelton Simmons is a 31 year old veteran with a career +184 DRS (!!!! that's literally legendary status). They're two of the greatest fielders at their positions (in the case of Simmons, one of the greatest defensive shortstops of all time). I cannot blame their miscues on the coaching staff. Those two veterans could teach master classes at their respective positions, they don't even need a coaching staff.

I stopped reading here because I'm pretty sure close to 100% of the Twins fanbase assumes this will be the case in pepetuity.

Zero homers and a 1.100+ OPS over two weeks. That's a bit unusual, though only five starts. Was he injured or something? Season Totals Split G GS PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS TB BAbip tOPS+ sOPS+ Last 7 days 3 2 9 6 1 4 1 1 0 2 1 0 3 0 .667 .778 1.167 1.944 7 .667 362 437 Last 14 days 8 5 23 17 3 7 1 1 0 4 3 0 5 5 .412 .522 .588 1.110 10 .538 173 210 Last 365 days 35 29 110 96 12 24 6 4 4 19 5 0 12 40 .250 .327 .521 .848 50 .370 100 Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table Generated 5/27/2021.

No team has depth when you're digging into your eighth outfielder option in May. Depth has its limits for every team. I mean, who could have predicted that in the middle of May, both Kirilloff and Larnach would be every day starters for this team? That wasn't even on anyone's radar.

Eh, hard to say. If this group of walking wounded ever get back on the field, the Twins could be competitive (just Buxton by himself is a massive team upgrade). If they continue sputtering and getting injured as they have, I don't like their chances.

I don't think the game was terrible but there were a lot of plate appearances that just didn't look good from both offenses. Loads of misses on hittable pitches and weak contact on pitches that could have been driven. The Twins offense is going to have to hit those pitches when they face the Yankees and Astros or they're going to lose... badly.

You think Baldelli, the ex-centerfielder, is the guy training catchers to drop a knee in Wichita, Kansas? Basically everything you described is game strategy, not "fundamentals". Maybe we define that word differently but I consider "taking the base", "getting front of the ball", and taking good, basic approaches to routine elements of the game "fundamentals", not whether the front office decides when a starter should be pulled on a nightly basis and the manager implements that data-driven plan. And while you may think I'm beating someone down, I'm not the person who has implied Baldelli is stupid, doesn't know anything about baseball, or is wildly deficient in any myriad of ways, which is what happens on this forum basically daily, particularly in game threads.

I'm confused. Buxton has been able to decelerate this entire time? Then why did all those walls happen?

Not a pretty win but it still counts in the column that matters.

I don't even have anything to say, I just wanted to post the obvious GIF.

One thing I can say for certain is I'm not a fan of how this front office has handled Alcala, particularly this season as the bullpen disintegrated and they still didn't just push him toward the front of the line because "why not?"

Not all teams were in the same position through the pandemic... where teams like the Marlins loaded their practice squad with prospects, the Twins used those spots (rightly, I'd argue) on potential MLB role players. I'm not giving this front office a pass, not in the least, just acknowledging the difficult reality they navigated through last year and that this pitching pipeline might be really good (or really bad), we simply don't know yet (and maybe they don't either).

To be fair, we really don't know how good this front office is doing at developing pitching. Their first draft was 2017, just four drafts ago, and then they lost an entire season in 2020, right when we were expecting to see that pitching pipeline either form or stall out. Now we're nearly into June of 2021 when we should either see people graduating (or be disappointed at their failure) and instead, minor league affiliates have played roughly 20 games (thanks again for that, MLB). All of this is such a mess just looking at it from the outside, I can't even imagine how much make-up work teams are scrambling to do after all these players were forced out of game action for ~18 months.

Changes absolutely have unintended consequences, the deadened ball is proof of that. MLB thought "homers will turn into doubles" but didn't seem to use data to show that home runs and doubles aren't the same batted ball profiles. Instead, homers turn into fly ball outs. I'm not in favor of making changes willy-nilly but things like the shift aren't going to drastically impact the game either direction... but it does move the needle in an undesirable direction, if only slightly (particularly against LHB). And it's hard to argue there will be a real negative consequence to eliminating it, as it simply means baseball will return just a little back to the way it was played until 2015 or so.

Coincidentally, the last man throwing also appears to be the last person to say "NOT IT" when the bullpen phone rings in the eighth inning.

I will never understand this country's fascination with the big two collegiate sports. Basketball *can* be good but so much of it is one superior team punching an inferior team in the face for two hours. That's not fun, nor is it interesting.

Sigh. The Bullpen Strikes Back