Brock Beauchamp
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Everything posted by Brock Beauchamp
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That's where I'd start were I in the Padres front office. Maybe you can talk them down to a player slightly further back in the system but they're going to want talent in return for a capable, though underwhelming, starter. And I simply don't feel good enough about this team to give up Gonsalves. Maybe next season if the Twins pick up an FA starter and a few bullpen pieces graduate.
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Santana, probably. Dozier, maybe not. Polanco is holding his own and Gordon is absolutely destroying Chattanooga. The middle infield situation looks pretty good right now and if Dozier heats up, I'd definitely put him on the market. Maybe you don't get a good enough offer and that's okay but if you have positional excess, trading some of it away is usually a good idea.
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This is my feeling as well. I'll start to revaluate around mid-June. I'm just enjoying good baseball right now and remain unconvinced it will continue at this pace. I'm starting to suspect the Twins will finish with >78 wins but that's still 8-ish wins from postseason contention.
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It's a hell of a lot harder to pull that off today. In 1987, the Twins had to win eight games to carry home a World Series trophy. Today, you need to win 11 games as a division champion, 12 if you get in via the Wild Card. Each additional series exposes the weaknesses of any given team. It's still not impossible for a seriously flawed team to win it all but it is more unlikely.
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Backup Backstop Battle Royal?
Brock Beauchamp replied to Tom Froemming's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
Why did you expect him to be better? His OPS is almost exactly between his last two seasons. I was worried Castro would be a little worse with the stick than he has been this season. He has modest power but played half his games in Houston, which gave the illusion of a bit more power than he actually has (going into the season, he had nearly twice as many homers at home than he did on the road). I'm quite satisfied with Castro's play. -
Yeah, this. If he's still in the high 80s, use the full extent of that rehab. He simply isn't effective at that velocity and despite the rotation's current woes, it's unlikely he'll be significantly better than someone you pull off the waiver wire (or even Gibson, should he ever get his head on straight again).
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Like so many things said on this site, easy to say in principle, damned near impossible to implement in practice. I don't see the ads you see. We have a managed ad service that squashes bad ads as soon as they're aware of them but if no one makes them aware, the ad cannot be blacklisted. For the record, most anti-virus software gives false positives on "viruses" in ads all the freakin' time. Sloppy ad code + overly ambiguous software parameters = fake virus.
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Well, sure. And that's all the Twins need him for right now. He's a somewhat capable guy all-around. He can field well enough to not embarrass himself and he can hit enough to not embarrass himself. That's a pretty solid backup guy.
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Whoa, that's a pretty arbitrary stat to break out to make Escobar look bad. If you're going to break out starters, what happens when you cut out those terrible early seasons when Escobar was in his early 20s? For example, Escobar had an OPS well over .800 against LHP in 2014 and an OPS around .780 against LHP in 2015. He was bad at everything in 2016. This season, he is once again hitting LHP well in a SSSS. What he did in 2012 as a 23 year old doesn't really matter much.
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Hughes has made $54m in his career. He shouldn't feel obligated to retire but he may feel that's enough money and rehab isn't worth the frustration. We're not talking about a fourth year player here. Phil Hughes is already filthy rich. He may want the rest of that contract and that's his right as a player in MLB. He may also feel that he has enough money and just quit.
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That's baseball. It's a silly game. At the end of the day, what I care about is whether Molitor played the percentages on any single move. And this move was pretty percentage-neutral. That means I wouldn't have done it myself but can't criticize it too much, either.
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Probably a function of SSS. My point isn't even that the move was "right", only that it was defensible. I've said multiple times that I wouldn't have pinch-hit in that situation. My problem comes from people conflating an opinion with correctness. This was a defensible move. It didn't work out. That's baseball. Inversely, had Escobar hit a homer in that situation, I wouldn't be back-slapping Molitor for the move. It would have been a risk that panned out. That's also baseball.
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It's hard to call it short-sightedness when the original plate appearance in question had the chance of extending an inning and giving the Twins a lead. This is a situation where I would have done things differently but it's not as if this move was wrong unless you're purely looking at results. And baseball strategy should rarely operate solely on hindsight results. Vargas has 24 plate appearances against lefties this season. He has two singles and one walk. Going with the hotter hand is pretty standard practice when a guy has looked that bad against LHP.
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Which is fine, I don't want to see that happen either, but I do wish there was someone else in line. Unfortunately, there isn't. This situation is why I so badly wanted Santiago retained. Pitching depth isn't a thing that exists on bad pitching staffs. The Twins are already digging on the scrapheap we're not even out of May yet.
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Another thing worth pointing out is this: In 2017, Escobar has three of his four home runs against LHP. In 2017, Vargas has zero of his five home runs against LHP. In a SSSS, Escobar literally has a .800 OPS advantage over Vargas against LHP (.216 to 1.025).
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Yeah, this is why I wouldn't have made the move but given that Escobar strikes out slightly less, there's a slightly higher chance he'll put the ball in play and something good will happen. Again, it seemed a bit like shuffling deck chairs but the move wasn't stupid, as some have suggested. It's not the move I would have made but that doesn't automatically make it wrong.
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The players get to vote on doubleheaders when there are something like 3-4 already on the schedule, I believe. I read it awhile back but don't recall the specifics.
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What do you believe the pitch was? Herrera throws a changeup with an average speed of 89.9mph. The pitch to Vargas was 89.9mph. Herrera's other average pitch speeds: Fastball: 97.4mph Slider: 86.2mph Curve: 81.0mph but he hasn't thrown it this year according to FG The way the ball looped, it looked like a changeup. It was either a typical changeup from Herrera or the worst looping slider he's ever thrown (and +3.8mph). I'm not ruling out that it wasn't a changeup but it sure behaved like a changeup and was delivered at the speed of a Herrera changeup.
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Yeah, I just noticed Gonsalves is still in Chattanooga. For some reason, I thought he started for Rochester the other night. Obviously, that pushes back the timeline a fair amount.
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Boy, I hope so.
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Yep. I also would have let Vargas hit simply because I don't believe in shuffling deck chairs when the outcomes are likely to be similar. But Escobar had a better chance of putting the ball in play. Both Vargas and Escobar have almost identical batting averages versus LHP but here are their K rates versus lefties: Escobar: once every 5.19 PAs Vargas: once every 3.79 PAs Again, the decision was defensible. I wouldn't have gone that route but I don't have to agree with everything the manager does, I only want his moves to make sense on some level.
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This is the problem with snap decisions based in part on SSS. Last year, Escobar was bad at everything. He was so outside his career norm it's hard to explain it without considering whether he was injured. As for this season, Escobar has so few plate appearances that he could go 2-4 in today's game with a homer and single and his offensive numbers look good again (85 PAs, 88 OPS+ currently). Just four days ago, he was rocking a .785 OPS.
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I'm not ready to give up on a backup middle infielder that posted an OPS+ over 100 in two of the past three seasons. Most middle infielders who hit that well are called starters. I'm not sure why anyone would want Escobar off the roster. Are you going to find a more capable player in the minors? No. Then why get rid of him? Never mind that one injury to Sano, Polanco, or Dozier and Adrianza is a starting player. He's slick with the glove and everything but no thanks.
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It's sad that I kinda view this as a good thing. Okay, so Mejia is now locked in. How quickly can Gonsalves get up to speed?* *I'm half-joking, he won't be ready any time soon but only half-joking because seriously, I'm not ready to see Gibson pitch again
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Severe LHP bias. And he was brought in to face a lefty, IIRC. Escobar career splits (these include Escobar's horrible 22-24 age seasons): RHP: .640 OPS LHP: .766 OPS Vargas career splits: RHP: .733 OPS LHP: .771 OPS I would have let Vargas hit in that situation but once you dig into the numbers, the decision becomes defensible. It's certainly not idiotic by any means. Against LHP pitching in their careers, Escobar and Vargas have nearly identical splits in batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging; within a few points of each other on all three slashes. Difference of opinion should not be conflated with right/wrong, especially when the numbers don't back up your argument and are deep into a grey area.
