Brock Beauchamp

I see this said a lot but I can't really agree with it. If you're a team looking for mid-season help, how much more are you willing to give up for a Liriano, Morneau, or Willingham if the other team tacks on $3-4m? In my eyes, it's not much. Instead of getting the 14th best prospect, they offer up their 12th best prospect. On the other hand, the Twins just handed away $3-4m for a prospect who might be worth a handful of dollars more than the prospect they'd receive without giving up a dime. Sure, it's not my money and all that but that's a pretty bad deal for the Twins. They're handing away millions to get thousands in return. Now, this might work on occasion when a team is searching the couch cushions for mid-season cash but I suspect that situation arises infrequently. If it comes down to $2-3m and a late-season run, what owner isn't going to spring for that cash? It's likely they'll make it right back in fan attendance in August and September as everyone comes to watch a competitive team make a run at the postseason (never mind the increased ticket sales and revenue that bleed into the following season). This argument seems like a good idea in theory but I don't think it's quite that cut-and-dry in reality.

There was a slight upside guy available that year (who bombed spectacularly, IIRC), I simply can't recall his name. Someone out there probably remembers who it was. Those guys are always available and the Twins pursued none of them. If you want to pick up Correia and a flyer, that's okay, too... But going with non-upside guy when the team is expected to win 60-something games is a bad strategy because fans don't care if a team wins 61 or 68 games. If you're gonna be bad no matter what, roll the dice a few times. It's not like there's much to lose in that situation. edit: it's not who I was thinking of but Kazmir was available that offseason, I believe.

BTW, this article is fantastic and points out bad tendencies fans tout in losing seasons. When the Twins were really bad, I was also (mostly) fine with their spending. The only thing that was going to drag the team out of its sinkhole was prospects and lots of 'em. On the other hand, I hated the Correia signing. If your team is going to be bad, take risks. Instead of going after Correia - a known commodity whose ceiling is "I just threw up in my mouth a little" - go for someone like Brett Anderson (yes, the timeline doesn't match up, just fill in another player's name if you don't like the Anderson reference). An injured player with real upside. Worst case scenario, he stinks or doesn't play. Who cares? You're expected to suck anyway. Best case scenario, wow, he's really good! Keep him or trade him at that point, whatever. Finding a warm body is rarely the best solution in my eyes. Not only is a "warm body" unlikely to change the team's fortunes at all, it sucks to watch from a fan perspective. I'm not going to buy tickets to watch Kevin Correia pitch because he's Kevin ****ing Correia. Now to the present: I'm completely fine with the Twins avoiding elite relievers but that's due to years, not dollars. But for crying out loud, pick up somebody. I'm not a tough sell. Make it look like you're trying. Even if I disagree with any particular move - the Murphy trade and Park acquisitions are decent examples of this - I'll show some excitement that something happened and will look forward to the upcoming season. But it's really hard to rally behind nothing.

While I hate May in the bullpen, Berrios has a better chance of becoming an ace. Hell, I'd argue that Meyer has a better chance of becoming an ace. Trevor May has almost zero chance of becoming an ace. His ceiling is a very good #2 if everything breaks right. That's an extremely valuable pitcher - and one that should be in the rotation - but it's not an ace by any definition other than "the guy who starts on Opening Day". A Brad Radke-style "ace", that is.

If anything, that would increase his BABIP, as groundballs have a higher chance of turning into a hit than a flyball (though obviously not a line drive). Dozier's soft-medium-hard hit balls moved around as the season progressed (not in a positive way) but not so much that he should suddenly see a BABIP rivaling the most plodding of MLB players. Dozier has a career BABIP of .269. His BABIP in Jul/Aug/Sep/Oct of 2016 was just under .230. Dozier's GB% did skyrocket in the second half, though. It's a weird situation... Logic would infer that his BABIP should also rise a bit, not plummet as it did. Maybe it's likely that pitchers adjusted and he hit a dose of bad luck at the same time.

I think he'll get there but I'm skeptical it will be in 2016. I'd be happy with 30 homers out of a 23 year old player.

Yep. Even if it's not luck, it may be (nearly) impossible to track. Maybe Brian Dozier is *really good* at taking home plate in certain situations (let's say a left-center gapper where he tracks the ball but doesn't have that advantage in a right-center gapper). Maybe in 2015, that situation arose four times and directly led to two wins. Maybe in 2016, that situation only occurs once in a non-critical situation and leads to zero wins. That's not luck, it's just a rare skill that only arises a handful of times a season. Or maybe Dozier's ability to do something awesome is offset by Aaron Hicks getting *really* unlucky, which negates Dozier's skill-based gains and gives the team stat an appearance of "luck neutral" when, in fact, they were unlucky. Metrics are awesome and I love the insight they give us into the game but it's hard to rely on them too much because, at best, they're somewhat incomplete. At worst, they're largely incomplete.

It's also possible "luck" consists of multiple data points for which we are currently unable to account and, when aligned correctly, skew results way out of proportion. We assume it's luck when it could be multiple things; some repeatable, some not. It's a mistake to assume we're only missing one or two things that account for noise. It could be a handful. It could be dozens. It could be a lack of chances to exploit a particular skill (say, a baserunner taking home plate, something that drastically alters the outcome of a game). Baseball is a complicated game and I'm not sure mathematics will ever be able to explain it fully because humans seem to enjoy playing the role of monkey wrench.

I'd also take the under on almost all of these predictions but on the other hand, it wouldn't surprise me one bit to see Arcia jack 15-20 bombs in 2016 if he gets the playing time. In a full season, it wouldn't surprise me to see Oswaldo hit 25 homers if some team out there can stomach his outfield defense that often.

He will hit between 7 and 84 home runs in 2016. Book it.

It's possible but I refuse to turn bearish on Dozier until he actually underperforms. Some have been predicting the fall of Brian Dozier for 1500 PAs but the guy just keeps hitting. He's approaching 2000 PAs of well above average offense. I can't fully buy into "pitchers have figured him out" because if it was that easy, they would have figured him out over 1000 PAs ago. In today's game, it doesn't take long to assemble a strategy to face a hitter, particularly one who turned high-profile almost overnight. it's not as if Dozier was able to fly under the radar of opposing pitchers because the mighty Twins offense made him an afterthought in past seasons; shut down Brian Dozier in 2013-2014 and you do a pretty good job of shutting down the Twins offense. I'm not dismissing his lackluster second half performances, just pointing out that I think it's more complicated than pitchers finally building a book on the guy. One thing rarely discussed about Dozier's 2015 fade is his BABIP of .209/.260/.222 in July/Aug/Sept. What does that mean? Not sure but it could easily be chalked up to some pretty bad luck. His K rate didn't change appreciably during those months, nor did his walk rate.

Oh yeah, I get that part. I agree, teams that are expected to be terrible can easily skew the curve.

True, but part of that could be a chicken and egg situation. If you run through more than six starters without org depth, it's hard to compete.

I wonder what the average number of starts missed from >6 starters are for MLB. I'd imagine it's higher than 10-ish. I don't think it's really fair to remove Santana from the Twins' number. He missed 16-ish starts and if not for the Twins' relatively deep farm system, that would have been quite a blow to the season. Which is why depth matters (as you pointed out with Berrios). Without Duffey, the Twins fade from the postseason picture in July, maybe August, at the latest.

Agreed. He's an interesting flyer in that there's a little upside in that bat if you squint really hard. But, at the very least, he's solid behind the plate and that's what is really important in a third catcher.

Given the make-up of the 40 man, I view this as a swap of Pinto for Hicks. Given how both struggled mightily in 2015, I'll take the safety net of Hicks' defense over the potential bat of Pinto. Herrmann and Fryer are irrelevant, IMO. Those guys are readily available every offseason and I like the small upside of Hicks if he gets the bat going.

First post wins the thread.

Can Kurt Suzuki turn things around? Sure. Will Kurt Suzuki turn things around? Nah, probably not. Boy, I really hope Murphy works out.

Heheh, I'm in it for the long haul with NFLX. Going into the stock, I fully expected a bumpy ride because they're aggressively expanding and a lot of money is going out the door while not enough is coming back in. I'm already way into the black on the stock and a bit of regression in the short- or even mid-term doesn't bother me. I learned some time ago that I'm not clever enough nor do I pay enough attention to market ebbs and flows to "game" a stock. I pick companies that I believe in and, by and large, I stick with them for a long time.

I only buy into those stocks when I plan to hold onto them for a looooooong time because I believe in the business model's long term viability. Like 20 years long. I mean a long time.

Laudner killed it. I laughed when so few "sabermatriciansians" raised their hands (even though when called on, I was off on Blyleven's total strikeouts by 200).

Gaming is getting bigger but I don't think it's in ways that will benefit Nvidia in a positive way. The companies that stand to profit the most from gaming expansion are Google and Apple, provided they get their **** together. Smartphones destroyed the handheld gaming market and at the rate SoC chips are advancing, the same could happen to the console market in the next half decade. I predict the future of gaming is to be found on $150 set-top boxes, not dedicated consoles and PCs where Nvidia makes most of their money. Not only are consoles closed and expensive, developers who can use the power found within are becoming fewer and fewer by the day. In a market where it takes $10m to produce a game that draws customer attention, the risk of failure is too high for independent studios. Hell, even the big studios are tightening their belts because one big failure could cripple their business. Nvidia themselves see this wave - which is why they created Shield in the first place - but I suspect they're going to become just one more option in an increasingly crowded Android space while Google rakes in money hand over fist.

True, there is that. I forgot they were into that market. Though I wonder how that market is going to play out once Google and Apple enter it in earnest (personally, I'm not in love with the idea of Apple entering that market at all, at least not from the manufacturing side of things and Apple is loathe to offer only a software solution for anything).

I'm surprised you guys like Nvidia. They've been under my radar because I don't like their long-term future (admittedly, at a glance). Third party GPUs are not going to be a long-term necessity as computing continues a slog toward SoC systems. They have a stake in SoC as well but I don't think it's a particularly strong presence against Qualcomm and Apple. I'm not sold on their hardware (Shield) or virtual reality, either (I think VR isn't going to pan out into much of a market, just as smartwatches aren't going to be a powerhouse market). But, again, this is at a glance. I haven't really examined their business in a long time.

I have a small stake in Disney partially because I wanted to increase my dividend stocks to balance my portfolio. I think we've seen the majority of Disney's growth in the short-term and whatever they're gaining in film, they're losing in ESPN. The stock is a mixed bag, IMO.