Brock Beauchamp

I have a slight preference for Tonkin for the reason you listed but ultimately, Tonkin hasn't brought the goods. At this point, I'm willing to concede superior knowledge and experience to Falvey and Levine regarding his ability to step forward and become a quality reliever.

Hah, you beat me to it.

I agree. How the Cubs and Indians managed their bullpens last postseason was closer to a bullpen ace model than what we've seen in years past. There are problems with the bullpen ace model - largely stemming from players who desire a fixed role, which is understandable - but I think we'll see baseball drift more toward that model in the coming years. Obviously, teams can't manage their bullpen ace like it's the World Series during the entire regular season but there are times and places to use that model throughout the season.

Yeah, baseball has shifted their approach to developing relievers over the years. Your list doesn't include guys like Chapman, who were barely MiLB starters in the first place. Chapman entered MiLB in 2010 and made 13 starts. He never made a start for the Reds, nor did they make an honest attempt to convert him into a starter after that point. He was for all intents and purposes a full-time reliever just four months after playing his first MiLB game for the Reds.

Castro is a .750 OPS player against RHP and a .500-.530 guy against LHP. Castro took 26% of his plate appearances against LHP in 2016. I did a quick spot check and the league average for LHB against LHP is just a tick over 30%. So Castro was already seeing his plate appearances against LHP minimized by the Astros. There may be a bit more wiggle room in there as you push those plate appearances toward 20% but I'm skeptical the Twins, even with aggressive platooning, will be able to get it below that number. So, maybe there's room to improve there but not a lot. I think Seth's .675 OPS prediction is pretty fair. Maybe the Twins could try to put that toward .690 but large gains will not be found through platooning.

Keep Tonkin, keep Wimmers, keep Haley, fire them all... these are not the decisions that rile me up. None of those players are obviously superior to the others. I'll rely on Falvey and Levine to know more about baseball than me and make the correct decision.

It seems that, to the right-leaning Christian voting bloc, "unity" means "do what I say and think like me".

To everyone that is predicting a massive drop in infield defense this season... You all realize the left side of the infield was already terrible last year, right? Even Plouffe wasn't good, posting a -5 DRS in just 519 innings (Sano was -2 DRS in 376 innings). The amount it can drop approaches the limitations of how bad an MLB player can be defensively while remaining in MLB.

My opinion is that the proof is in the pudding. People of color fare worse than white people in almost every metric available for judging such things. White people control a disproportionate amount of power in this country in relation to their population. If institutional racism isn't in place and seeded into the white American persona, how do you reconcile those two statements? Bias isn't only about race. Women also get burned by several of these issues, though in different ways. So do lots of people for lots of different reasons. And it changes all the time. Catholics were once treated as second class citizens but that's no longer the case. The same goes for the Irish or Italian populations of this country. In short, the people with the power control the institutional bias. Not all people share the same biases but there's definitely overlap in a population with shared or similar experiences. And in America, that power rests disproportionately in the hands of straight white men. And please remember that when I entered this conversation, I made sure to state that I have no idea whether Kinsler is a "racist", per se. But I do feel he made a subtly racist comment. The two things are significantly different in my mind. One shows clear intent while the other can happen for a myriad of reasons: ignorance, obliviousness, or just flat-out misstating an opinion. Both are damaging but at least one of them may not be intentional. To make it more personal, I do not believe myself to be a racist but I've absolutely said racist things in my life. Lots of 'em.

My brain barely processed the hallway scene because I couldn't comprehend the amount of awesome being thrown at me. I immediately rewound the scene and watched it again.

Yes to all of this. So much.

The staircase is season two. The hallway is season one. Both are fantastic.

It's eye-opening how startled we white people become when entered into a minority situation. I ride the bus to and from NoMi for work and, as you'd expect, buses from NoMi to downtown are chock full of black people. Despite living in Long Beach for a decade and being around all sorts of people from different races and cultures, it took me some time to adjust to that feeling of things just "not being right" because we've become so acclimated to the white majority. It was sad that I had that initial response but it was also a solid learning experience about me and my own biases.

Yeah, that's why I put the Sox at 70-74 wins and the Twins at 71-75. I give the Twins a microscopic advantage.

Yeah, my eyes started to open to this issue when I moved to Long Beach for college and lived in a very diverse neighborhood. It continued as I moved to North Minneapolis and dealt with white suburban responses to my moving there and got to know my neighbors a bit. (The white responses I received when I moved to NoMi were both horrifying and hilarious. I live on the edge of a neighborhood with one of the lower crime rates in all of Minneapolis, but some people seem to believe I live in a bombed out shelter in downtown Aleppo.)

Yep. Kirby seems to believe I'm picking on white people and that only white people have bias. Of course that isn't the case. Everyone has bias and only some of it is negative. I'm pointing out white bias because I understand it better, me being white and all. In no way am I excluding myself from this conversation or attempting to raise myself above it. I have bias, too, but I work damned hard on eliminating the worst aspects of it. Still lots of work to be done on that front, though... just like everyone else I know.

Willingham was a gamble, one that didn't pan out for the Twins. In retrospect, they should have traded him for whatever they could get (and many here lobbied that position). But had Willingham blasted another 15+ homers at the deadline the following season, his value would have been higher. I wish they would have traded him but it's not the most egregious error the front office made during that time span. That's all I'm saying, really.

Yeah. Break down the numbers and it gets pretty ugly. 150 plate appearances is 22% of Dozier's 2016 plate appearances. Brian Dozier hit 42 home runs last season. 22% of 42 is nine home runs. Assuming the average player down the order goes to the plate with men on base 40% of the time, that means at least four of his home runs scored a single run when, had he hit further down the order, they would have scored multiple runs. Assuming the average men on base number is 1.5, that is, at minimum, six runs the Twins left on the table last season. Six runs is close to one team win.

Yeah, that scene is outstanding and they did it again in season two. It didn't have the same impact in season two (because we saw it before) but it was still amazing in its own right.

Yeah, the second half of Luke Cage fell off a cliff. They had built Harlem into this amazing, vibrant character and Cottonmouth absolutely killed it, stealing the show. Then the show removed Cottonmouth and replaced him with a paper-thin villain that bored the **** out of me.

Everyone holds implicit biases. I said that earlier in the thread, yet you still seem to think I believe white people are the only people with bias or even that all white people hold the exact same biases. The implicit biases of black people don't really matter in this conversation because that bias is not actionable at the institutional level. I can be called a cracker by every black person I meet and it doesn't impact my life other than being annoyed at being called cracker all day. Is that person a jackass for calling me a cracker? Sure, you bet. They shouldn't use blanket stereotypes, just like everyone else. But despite that person's personal bias and bad actions, I still have a job. I still have a savings account. I still have a clean arrest record, despite the multitude of illegal things I've done over the years. But I'll never know what it feels like to have my resume dismissed casually because I have a weird white-sounding name. Or to be stopped by the cops because I'm walking down the street after 8pm. No one has ever asked to touch my hair or told me I'm "well spoken" because I have a functioning understanding of the English language. (I'm using black people as examples in the following paragraph because it eliminates immigration factors, which impact many other people of color but not African Americans in significant numbers) It is an undeniable truth that black people do not receive the same treatment as white people in America. Your statement about "proving implicit bias" is right here. Black people are arrested at higher rates. They're convicted at higher rates. They serve longer sentences for the same crimes. They have a higher unemployment rate. They make less money when they are employed. Their children are taken away by the state at a higher rate. Even if you remove socio-economic status from the equation and normalize for white poverty, all those non-financial statements remain true. When you boil that down to its core, you are left with two possible answers: 1. Institutional bias exists and harms people of color. 2. People of color are inferior to white people. There is no third option.

I think this is spot-on. Could the Twins have gotten something for Willingham? Sure. But what was on the table? When Willingham peaked, there were loads of questions about his expected performance going forward. On top of that, look at what has happened to bat-first players over the past half decade. They're signing deals that are far lower than what they received in previous years. The game has moved away from valuing them at the level they were once valued. Look at Edwin Encarnacion. The guy gets MVP votes almost every season, routinely posts a .900 OPS, and signed a 3/$60m deal this offseason. Kendrys Morales signed for just 3/$33m and the Blue Jays probably have some buyer's remorse over that deal after seeing what Encarnacion fetched on the market.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but Thorpe's fastball used to sit 93-94, right? I'm not worried about his lack of velocity today, just wondering what to expect going forward.

That looks about right to me, though I'd shift Detroit down a notch. But I do that every year and I'm always wrong about it so there you go. Cleveland: 90+ wins Detroit: 78-82 wins Kansas City: 76-80 wins Minnesota: 71-75 wins Chicago: 70-74 wins This division is bad but not terrible. I expect them to take a fair amount of their licks from the rest of the league, driving the entire division's win total (non-Cleveland edition) down a bit.

I'd run with Polanco but that's just my opinion. I can see a few reasons to go with Mauer or Grossman or whatever. But I think it's folly to put a 40 home run guy in the leadoff spot where he's guaranteed to spend 20-25% of his plate appearances with no one on base. Given an equal distribution of home runs, that means Dozier will hit 3-4 home runs without anyone on base where, if he was hitting further down the lineup, men would be on base in those situations. That one move alone will cost the team between three and ten runs over the course of a season.* *predicated on the idea Dozier is a 40 homer guy, shift the numbers accordingly if you think he's a 30 homer guy