Brock Beauchamp

“No lead is safe” OH COME ON ARE YOU KIDDING ME

There are at least five jokes in this image.

Outdoor transmission is very low, which is why I no longer wear a mask while just walking around because I can keep my distance from people, but the one huge caveat to outdoor mask wearing is that outdoor transmission is a very real problem when you sit people next to each other for long periods of time… you know, like at a baseball game. Crowded areas with immobile people is like the only time you really need a mask outside. It’s mostly not a problem otherwise.

Garver's season is a tale of two players. Since his OPS bottomed out at .517 on April 27th, this is what he's done. It's basically a 2+ week snapshot of the 2019 version of Mitch Garver. Mitch Garver Batting Gamelogs for Career Games 259 to 269 Date Tm G GS Rslt PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF ROE GDP SB CS BA OBP SLG OPS BAbip aLI WPA acLI cWPA RE24 DFS(DK) DFS(FD) Apr 28 to May 13, 2021 MIN 11 8 3-8 37 32 5 9 0 0 4 7 5 0 9 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 .281 .378 .656 1.035 .263 .86 -0.234 .52 -0.07% 1.82 89.00 118.50 per 162 games 162 118 545 472 74 133 0 0 59 104 74 0 133 0 0 0 0 15 0 0 -3

Duffey is having more than a down stretch. Look at these swinging strike percentage. Yikes. And that zone contact %. Double yikes. Season Team Level O-Swing% Z-Swing% Swing% O-Contact% Z-Contact% Contact% Zone% F-Strike% SwStr% CStr% CSW% 2015 MIN MLB 32.4% 62.3% 45.5% 63.0% 88.7% 78.5% 43.8% 63.6% 9.8% 18.3% 28.1% 2016 MIN MLB 33.1% 65.6% 47.3% 70.5% 89.6% 82.0% 43.7% 63.8% 8.5% 17.6% 26.1% 2017 MIN MLB 32.9% 67.4% 49.3% 63.1% 86.1% 78.0% 47.4% 63.9% 10.7% 17.0% 27.7% 2018 MIN MLB 36.4% 65.0% 48.4% 64.8% 90.4% 79.3% 42.2% 57.0% 10.0% 16.5% 26.5% 2019 MIN MLB 34.6% 71.9% 50.6% 50.5% 81.8% 69.6% 42.9% 67.2% 15.3% 14.9% 30.3% 2020 MIN MLB 40.3% 59.1% 47.0% 54.7% 78.2% 65.3% 35.9% 68.5% 16.3% 18.5% 34.8% 2021 MIN MLB 26.9% 60.4% 40.4% 58.3% 94.5% 80.2% 40.4% 59.3% 8.0% 19.6% 27.6%

@chaderic20 SUN MON TUE WED THU TOT Anderson 0 0 0 54 0 54 Did not pitch Thielbar 0 0 41 0 0 41 1-20 Pitches Law 0 0 19 13 0 32 21+ Pitches Alcala 0 0 12 0 16 28 Rogers 0 0 0 0 20 20 Duffey 0 0 0 16 0 16 Colomé 0 0 0 15 0 15 Robles 0 0 0 0 12 12

I agree with most of this, except that I believe the chance of Cruz being traded is close to 100%. No matter if the return is good or not, he'll almost surely be moved. There aren't many teams that need a DH but literally every single playoff team wants Cruz on their roster, if only for pinch-hitting duty.

I'm always fascinated how players develop these reputations and why people believe them. We have numbers to verify/disprove these narratives so let's use them. Polanco's career tOPS+ with RISP is 136, which means he's 36% better with RISP than he is overall. Polanco's 2021 tOPS+ with RISP is 126.

It *might* be possible to move Donaldson's contract if the Twins are willing to eat part, but not that much, of the contract. Josh is having a relatively nice season despite a recent cold streak. If he continues on this pace, he should have a 4-ish win season, which would make him appealing to some contenders. At the very least, I'd explore the option of moving him and be open to eating roughly 33% of his remaining contract if it brings back decent prospects.

Yep, may as well give him a shot there because it's not as if the bullpen can get worse.

I generally agree but given this atrocious bullpen, there's really no reason not to give Shoemaker a shot in the pen before cutting him loose.

If we fast forward to July 15th, I’d bet money that Colome is more valuable than Shoemaker.

Frankly, what does firing Baldelli accomplish? I don’t think he has done a good job of field management this season but literally every player he puts into a critical situation, either offensively or defensively, just flat-out fails. Firing him may make a statement but right now, the players are the ones who need to be fired because they suck at their jobs when it matters most.

There's still a lot to do this season... First, the FO needs to move the expiring contracts, which should net a very nice return: Cruz, Simmons, Pineda are all playing quite well and should bring back nice pieces. Second, then you need to determine if you can move the Donaldson contract. That's a big challenge but if he keeps playing the way he has played, it may not be impossible. The Twins will probably have to eat some of the contract but if they can pay $20m to offload that deal and bring back some prospects, they kinda have to do it. Then they need to figure out what they're going to do with Buxton and Berrios. I lean toward moving Buxton if possible and trying as hard as possible to extend Berrios.

I feel like this inning perfectly represents the 2021 Twins. They get a break, hit a few balls nicely, load the bases, then make the third out on a .640 xBA ball that's nearly a grand slam. Smell those RBI, boys. Statcast Metrics Batter PA In. Result EV (MPH) LA (Deg.) Dist (ft.) Pitch Vel (MPH) xBA Kyle Garlick 31 4 Flyout 100.0 27 390 95.4 .640 Willians Astudillo 30 4 Strikeout 95.2 Max Kepler 29 4 Field Error 97.0 -7 15 91.6 .240 Mitch Garver 28 4 Walk 94.2 Trevor Larnach 27 4 Double 105.3 17 268 89.2 .570 Nelson Cruz 26 4 Strikeout 89.1 Jorge Polanco 25 4 Pop Out 70.6 81 43 94.6

I noticed there was a problem with the blog display of tables. I have added a side scroll to the tables on mobile so they don't extend outside the page wrapper, you just scroll right/left to view part of the table.

So I watched all of yesterday's game and my big takeaway was "I regret doing this".

Yep, this should be fixed now.

Well, this team is certainly un-****ing-watchable this season.

Okay, I'll loop back to this later. In the meantime, you prompted me to create a new user group Old Timey Member, which kicks in for any user over 10,000 posts. You have unlimited upload access now.

I suspect that's a code problem, I'll take a look at it later tonight.

Baseball in general is borderline unwatchable this season. MLB is going to have to take action if this keeps up, and there's really no reason not to expect it to keep up.

What's so irritating is looking at this list of players sorted by OPS+ and then comparing it to watching the daily performance of those same players... Team Batting Rk Pos Name PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+ ▼ TB 1 CF Byron Buxton (10-day IL) 98 92 19 34 10 0 9 17 5 0 4 23 .370 .408 .772 1.180 236 71 2 DH Nelson Cruz 133 119 22 36 2 1 9 22 0 0 9 26 .303 .353 .563 .916 163 67 3 3B Josh Donaldson 90 78 11 23 6 0 3 13 0 0 11 13 .295 .378 .487 .865 152 38 4 UT Luis Arraez* 112 94 17 28 2 1 1 14 0 0 14 13 .298 .393 .372 .765 127 35 5 C Mitch Garver 89 82 9 17 3 0 6 13 0 0 7 32 .207 .270 .463 .733 110 38 6 2B Jorge Polanco# 133 119 17 30 7 1 3 16 2 1 10 26 .252 .316 .403 .719 109 48 7 SS Andrelton Simmons 91 79 10 19 4 0 1 8 0 0 11 17 .241 .341 .329 .670 98 26 8 RF Max Kepler* 99 86 11 17 5 1 2 12 5 0 10 17 .198 .293 .349 .642 88 30 9 1B Miguel Sano 81 66 7 8 0 0 2 5 0 0 15 31 .121 .284 .212 .496 49 14 10 LF Jake Cave* 93 84 8 14 5 0 1 2 1 0 6 35 .167 .239 .262 .501 47 22 Team Totals 1293 1156 161 284 61 4 46 153 15 1 107 309 .246 .315 .425 .740 115 491 Rank in 15 AL teams 12 6 6 4 8 6 11 1 11 7 5 5 3 4 5 Non-Pitcher Totals 1287 1151 161 284 61 4 46 153 15 1 107 306 .247 .316 .427 .743 116 491 Pitcher Totals 6 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 .000 .000 .000 .000 -100 0 Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table Generated 5/13/2021.

Fixed it for you, for some reason there were several hundred spaces between the last hitter and Pineda in the lineup.