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Everything posted by Brock Beauchamp
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I'm not necessarily against a Plouffe extension but I wouldn't fall over myself to get it done. Let Sano play for a season and then reevaluate. That may mean you don't extend Plouffe because he becomes too expensive but it also means you have a better idea of what you need and you're not shuffling players out of position to keep a guy you extended but don't *really* need.
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Article: What To Make Of Mike Pelfrey
Brock Beauchamp replied to Parker Hageman's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
I put Ricky on a plane to Los Angeles and let him hang out on Sunset Blvd until someone flounders enough to deserve a demotion. Snark aside, I postpone the decision for as long as humanly possible by letting Nolasco rehab the max number of days. -
Article: What To Make Of Mike Pelfrey
Brock Beauchamp replied to Parker Hageman's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
While I agree that it's probably for the best if he ends up there at some point in the season, the Twins would be foolish to move their best starter (stifling laughter) out of the rotation while he's on his game. -
Article: When Is It Time To Take Action?
Brock Beauchamp replied to Nick Nelson's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
And that's fair. 1-2 starts was just an approximation. If Pinto was *guaranteed* two starts a week (plus 1-2 starts at DH), then it might make sense to call him up earlier... But in all likelihood, he'd probably get more around 1.5 starts a week and little/no starts at DH. And that's where my problem lies. Pinto needs to play as much as possible right now and he can't really do that in Minnesota. If he's raking in June and the Twins can't find room for him, then I'll start to get irritated about the situation but right now, I think there isn't a lot of upside in calling him up and there are certainly more pressing concerns on the roster.- 113 replies
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Article: When Is It Time To Take Action?
Brock Beauchamp replied to Nick Nelson's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
It's not possible Pinto will be worse, it's likely. And it's likely that he'll make the pitching staff - already on very shaky ground - worse along with him. Why are we champing at the bit to lose more games in April? There's a lot of baseball left to be played. Let Josmil play every day in Rochester and if Suzuki stumbles or gets injured, then give him a call and let him play every day. What the Twins are doing now is what I wanted to see in 2013 and 2014; Pinto getting every day reps behind the plate. Let him do that for awhile and see what happens. The catcher position is not a position of weakness for the team right now so they don't need to fall over themselves to make a change behind the plate, especially at the risk of losing more early season games in 2015.- 113 replies
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Article: When Is It Time To Take Action?
Brock Beauchamp replied to Nick Nelson's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
wRC+ does not adjust for position. That's a good number for a guy behind the dish. Also, a wRC+ of 100 is "average", not to be confused with "replacement level", which is *considerably* lower than that, probably around 80 or so. As I said earlier, it's highly unlikely that Pinto is an improvement over Suzuki while there's a better than average chance he's a significant step backward.- 113 replies
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Article: When Is It Time To Take Action?
Brock Beauchamp replied to Nick Nelson's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
And while it's early in the season, Suzuki is hitting well for the second year in a row. It's really unlikely that Pinto would be an upgrade at this point and there's a better than 50% chance he'd be a significant downgrade at the position.- 113 replies
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Article: When Is It Time To Take Action?
Brock Beauchamp replied to Nick Nelson's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
And that's fair but the Twins just aren't going to push Suzuki out of the lineup in April. That's the reality of the situation. Until the Twins are ready to give Pinto more than 1-2 games behind the plate a week, he should be refining his defensive game in Rochester.- 113 replies
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Article: When Is It Time To Take Action?
Brock Beauchamp replied to Nick Nelson's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
With Pinto, it has always been about his defense. He has eight games played defensively at Rochester, seven of them at catcher. He should stay there and play every day until the Twins are convinced he's ready for MLB defensively or that he'll never be an MLB catcher. They should have been playing him every day at catcher last season but that's a bridge already crossed and debated to no end.- 113 replies
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Article: When Is It Time To Take Action?
Brock Beauchamp replied to Nick Nelson's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
Well, sure. If the guy has a long track record of awful play, that's a different situation entirely. Though offhand, I'm not really sure what I'd change about the current roster other than blowing up the bullpen and calling up prospects. I'm fine with the rotation in the short-term now that May is in it. I don't like Robinson, Nunez, & Co but I'd rather see the minor leaguers stay in a place where they can play every day for the time being. But the moment Rosario, Hicks, Pinto, or whomever looks ready, they should be in Minnesota playing every day. Hopefully that time comes soon.- 113 replies
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Article: When Is It Time To Take Action?
Brock Beauchamp replied to Nick Nelson's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
Even walks and strikeouts have limited use at this point in the season. If a guy faces a particularly tough pitcher or a guy he doesn't see well, he might golden sombrero and skew the numbers. Right now, it's all about the eye evaluation and incorporating player attitude and demeanor, which we can't do as outsiders. The stats mean virtually nothing.- 113 replies
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Thank you, Jack. As someone who has been a technical lead on more projects than I can count, it can't be overstated how useless tools are unless you get the tool users to buy into said tool. And that takes time... and often, many compromises that techies don't like to make.
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Article: When Is It Time To Take Action?
Brock Beauchamp replied to Nick Nelson's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
Trading Vargas in the future might make sense. Right now, it would be premature and a terrible trade because I think his value is only going to rise in the next 12-24 months. Vargas had a good season but he wasn't a heralded prospect coming through the minors. Opposing GMs are going to be reluctant to loot the farm in trade and for good reason.- 113 replies
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If you can find a single example of a baseball team digging into a player's life to the extent of rooting through his trash before signing the player, I will concede that my statement is "naive". Good luck with that. "Signing a contract in good faith" does not mean skipping research into a player. It means you don't dig deeply into areas where there are no reasons to expect a problem (eg. digging extensively into the drug history of a player who has never been linked to drug use). EVERY contract ever signed has a "good faith" element to it because not everything can be known about another person. You do what you can to mitigate risk but if the other person is devious and clever enough, you WILL get screwed.
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This is absurd. Are you honestly advocating the Twins to start rifling through free agents' garbage before signing anyone? This is not on the Twins. They signed a contract in good faith and were taken by a cheater (presuming Santana's story isn't on the up-and-up, I personally have a hard time believing he didn't know what he was taking). The problem here is that baseball contracts are too iron clad... Any breach of contract of this magnitude should allow the team to terminate the contract. One can't expect an employer to rifle through a guy's past so deeply that they uncover possible drug use when that guy has never been associated with drugs in the past. Either Santana just started taking these drugs, which deflects any potential blame away from the Twins, or he's so wily that several teams missed the fact that he's a PED user (after all, Ervin Santana played for three different teams from 2012-2014... If the Twins are somehow culpable then so are the Angels, Royals, and Braves).
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Matt Garza is the same ticking time bomb yet continues to be a good starter. I wasn't entirely sold on the Santana signing when it happened but now that he's been busted for steroids, I'm not going to ex postfacto my argument to make me look better and the Twins worse. Ervin Santana has been an MLB player for a decade. First, he should know better than to take something that might contain banned substances (provided he didn't do it on purpose) and second, there's no friggin' way the Twins are expected to know that a guy who has been in the league for a decade and has never been busted for PEDs is, in actuality, a PED risk. There is one person to blame for this Ervin Santana situation: ERVIN SANTANA. This forum and some of the posters on it drive me up the wall some days. There are plenty of reasons to be frustrated with the front office right now, you don't need to go manufacture reasons that involve Terry Ryan being a psychic, soothsayer, and reader of &^%$ing tea leaves. Argh blargh. I'm glad I'm leaving the continent for two weeks tomorrow.
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My underlying point is that using ERA+ to determine an "average starter" isn't fair because ERA+ is skewed by lower reliever ERAs. An ERA+ of 100 is all pitchers, not just starters. Add in the lower ERAs of relievers and the "average" number of 100 is a touch unfair to starters, who have a higher ERAs. ERA+ is a better stat than ERA. I won't argue that point, only its use to determine "average" when talking about either a reliever or a starter. For example, a starter that posts an ERA+ of 98 is likely above average as a starter, particularly if he pitches in the AL. All those relievers are skewing ERA+ to make that starter look slightly below average when that almost certainly is not the case.
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This is not invalidating your point but I've seen ERA+ used in this fashion in the past and it always bothers me. An ERA+ of 92 is not necessarily below average for a starter. The NL ERA of starters last year was 3.73 in 1400 innings. The NL ERA of relievers last year was 3.53 in 720 innings. The NL ERA of all pitchers last year was 3.66. So, while Santana was probably a touch under league average in ERA+, the "average starter" in the NL was probably an ERA+ in the 96-ish range, not 100. Santana was in the "close enough" range where I'd consider him a league average starter in 2014. The split was more dramatic in the AL last season, about .30 ERA difference between starters and relievers. I assume this is because NL starters get to face pitchers at the plate while relievers face more pinch-hitters.

