Brock Beauchamp

Well, there are concerns (Morrison) and then there are "concerns" (Sano). One is coming off a possible (likely?) career year and the other is a young player who has shown he's capable of being an extremely good hitter but you're concerned that his age 22-24 seasons are his career baseline because of the K rate. Any way you shake it, calling Sano a career .850 OPS guy just because he K's 35% of the time is a bit misleading. First, he hasn't even turned 25 yet. Second, he's been injured several times in his career, which has dragged down his numbers. Third, that career .850 OPS includes his miserable sophomore season, which he bookended with better seasons. Fourth, he's hitting the ball a country mile again this season. You can be concerned about Sano but even if he doesn't "improve", he's a damned good player when he's on the field. So what exactly do we expect from this man? You brought up Miggy, which is just as unfair as mentioning Trout in comparison to Buxton. Being a generational player is just that... generational. You don't get five of those guys at the same time.

I think you're arguing past each other a bit. - An .850 OPS without capable defense (which I'm not ready to write off with Sano) is not very, very good. That's a good 2-4 WAR player. - Predicting, in any way, that a 24 year old player with a career .848 OPS will not improve in any extent is taking a pretty negative view of said player.

Yes, all of this. The offense is firing about as well as most of us expected (some clunkers, some raking, it will balance out in time) but everything looks just a little bit better than it did last year. The big variable is Berrios. He could be amazing. And we haven't even seen Santana yet. I expect him to regress but still be solid. This could be a really good team.

I'm not even a little bit emotional about this. The drunk comment was having a bit of fun at the expense of Minnesota fans never being satisfied with the gifts they are given. The hill comment was made in genuine perplexity at your statements that Miguel Sano is in any way comparable to Logan Morrison. Because that's a seriously weird comparison to make, especially when making the (obvious) comparison of Morrison posting a Buxton-esque OPS to start this season while Sano is raking. I'm having a bit of fun because your takes here are a bit hyperbolic. That's all there is to it.

Actually, I think this is a really poignant statement in the sense of race discussion. One side of this discussion has had literally all the power for centuries and has forced everyone else to cross "their" bridge. I think it's time for us to stop demanding that everyone else cross our bridge to speak to us.

It's certainly something to watch but going into this season, I gave the Twins roughly a 33% chance of taking the division (only after the Lynn acquisition). They shouldn't be aiming for the Wild Card, even though that's likely where they end up competing. There's no reason this team can't challenge for a title in a weak division.

Yeah... yeah.

Miguel Sano is 24 years old and has played 319 MLB games. His career fWAR is 5.9. Logan Morrison is 30 years old and has played 873 MLB games. His career fWAR is 5.8. This is a really weird hill to die on, man.

Yeah, exactly... And right now, if using OPS+, Sano is slightly closer to Ortiz' career number than he is Morrison. Oh, and Sano is still 24 years old.

He’s not. Sano is 24 years old with a 126 OPS+. Morrison is 30 years old with a 108 OPS+.

The man is pure fire right now. It’s so fun to watch.

Um... No? Yes? That’s a complicated question.

I don’t think we should be worried about anything. He’s a very good player who has the ability to be great. Whether he gets there isn’t really something that keeps me up at night. I’m enjoying what he delivers because it’s fun to watch. If he improves, I’ll enjoy it more.

Just to be clear, when we’re talking about Miguel Sano, we’re still talking about the Miguel Sano with an OPS over .900, right? *scratches head furiously* He’s the new anti-Mauer. Joe didn’t hit dingers and was crucified for it. Sano only hits dingers and is crucified for it. Go home, Minnesota. You’re drunk.

I’m only listening on the radio but how was that a gaffe by Mauer? The dude ain’t fast but should he have scored on that double?

Great write-up, Ted. It lends weight to a career that far too few Minnesotans appreciate.

It could be politicking but Molitor just pointed out that Sano came to him yesterday and asked "How many, how many?" in regards to Mauer's run at 2000. It's not a side of Sano we hear about very often.

Agreed. You have to talk to people like they're people, which is doubly hard to do on the internet. There is no back and forth in text communication; i say my piece, you say yours. It makes conversations such as this much harder than in real life.

Burn of the day.

To add to this, the "pain threshold" of being uncomfortable is different for every person, which is really the core of my "too many don't want to talk about this at all" point. Short of someone coming up to me and screaming "Racist!" and punching me in the face, I'll stand there and take the discomfort because I earnestly want to hear how other people with different life experiences view the conversation and I have a vested interest in hearing them out. A couple of years ago, my wife and I realized there was an overwhelming chance we'd end up adopting a child(children) of color and that forced me to really listen to an extent I hadn't in the past. If I'm going to raise kids of color, I damned well better understand the challenges they may face in life to the best of my ability. On the other end of the spectrum, you have people who get uncomfortable, then hostile, at the mere mention of racial inequality. Most people fall somewhere in the middle. And it's bloody hard to reach those people because the more nuanced and complicated you get with your conversation tactics, the more likely you are to not offend one person but offend the person standing next to them. My argument is that we all do our best to spur the conversation along and talk as politely as possible but aggressively push back at attempts to talk about the conversation instead of having an actual conversation. Because I've been through this semantical argument loads of times in the past. You know where it usually gets you in the end? Nowhere, because in the process of deflection and distraction, everyone has forgotten to actually converse about the topic at hand, which hands an automatic "victory" to the side that doesn't want to talk about it.

While I believe Molitor leaning on his best bullpen arms so frequently is probably his biggest flaw as a manager, it's hard to get down on him for going that route in the Houston series. It was a good time and place to make a statement about the 2018 Twins, both to the opposition and the team itself. And really, it's the White Sox and you just need to get through one game against them. After tonight, most of the good relievers will be available again tomorrow and it's unlikely the Twins play at all on Saturday.

Would they, though? We're talking about 4-5 performances from the team's most heavily-used relievers. A good front office doesn't make/regret decisions ten games into a season, especially a season as volatile as this one has been. And it's hard to blame the front office for things like Molitor putting Duke in against righty after righty... after righty. I just don't get it.

This has been a rather wild ride, that's for sure. I hate to keep beating at the drum of "weather" but I just don't see how we can glean much of anything at this point. Particularly on this home stand, we've seen some really volatile pitching performances from both the home and visitor dugouts, some of them coming from really good pitchers. Odorizzi is getting by on smoke and mirrors. Lynn is Wild Thing and you have no idea what you're going to get. Hildenberger is just painful right now. Reed is amazeballs. Gibson teeters between very good and very bad almost pitch-to-pitch. Rodney is kinda what we expected, except maybe a bit moreso. All in all, I don't see a lot of evidence telling us one thing or another, particularly when the opposing team has had nearly the same volatility. I'm really looking forward to May so we can get a real look at the potential (or lack thereof) of this team.* *and I haven't even mentioned the offense in this post

I whole-heartedly agree that "you're racist" needs to not be the knee-jerk reaction to a conversation with another person unless that person is the kind of racist that can't be ignored (but those are rare nowadays). It's super unproductive and you'll never change the mind of a person you just insulted. Which is why I generally try to talk about how the system is racist and leave people out of it. Sure, we're a part of the system but my "contribution" to that system's racism is so small that I need not make it personal. It's a problem much bigger than any one person and I don't expect any one person to take responsibility for it. And I've addressed it in this way to many people over the past couple of years. And I still get pushback on the idea that the system has hurt some and empowered others. Even if I go out of my way to not make it about the person, some people still defend the institutions and I'm not sure why that happens, to be frank about it. I've met resistance at the mere suggestion that there is something wrong with the status quo. I don't get it. And to loop it back to this original thread topic, it's a damned good example of this in action. The OP did not accuse anyone on this forum of being a racist. They (very gently) asked if there's a chance some of the criticism of Rosario is steeped in how the media, coaches, and fans view Latino players. Cue forum explosions of "IRRRMMMM NOT RACCCISSTTTTTT!!!!1!1eleven"