Brock Beauchamp

It shouldn't be as hard as it seems to be. If we're all flawed - and we are - there's no shame in admitting I am flawed, just like everyone else. Or that I don't know everything experienced by every other human being on the planet.

Hardcore pass?

"Hard pass" doesn't convey the vehemency of my opinion on this matter.

The White Sox definitely had a fire sale but that doesn't mean they traded every player of value on their roster. Both ideas can exist simultaneously. And besides, it's bloody hard to move ten guys in a single offseason. The White Sox moved their most valuable assets and got a crapton in return for them. I suspect there's a better than even chance we'll see some of those other guys go on the block in the next eleven months.

In 183 career PAs and a career-best .885 OPS from the cleanup spot, he sure looks "comfortable" in that role to me. I'm not saying Brian Dozier's opinion should be ignored. What I'm saying is part of the manager's role is to explain to players that sometimes superstition is just that, superstition. Paul Molitor shouldn't be acquiescing to Dozier's desire to bat leadoff immediately, he should be lobbying Dozier that the best way to help the team is from the middle of the order and statistically, Brian has been slightly better in the cleanup spot than leadoff. It's important to keep players happy and give their opinion weight. It's also important to point out when they're wrong and/or just being silly about something, especially when that something negatively impacts the team. If a manager can't perform that task, why is he there at all?

Thank you for pointing out why the free market is not the cure for everything 100% of the time. The free market doesn't apply to some issues and that's okay. The free market is great at loads of things, most things... but like everything else in the world, nothing works 100% of the time across all situations.

WE'RE 26! WE'RE 26! WE'RE 26! WE'RE 26! WE'RE 26! WE'RE 26! WE'RE 26! WE'RE 26! WE'RE 26!

I wish managers would show a little more proactive thinking in these situations. Brian Dozier: "I like hitting leadoff, I do better in that role." Paul Molitor: "Brian, here are your stats from last season. Notice how you hit better in the cleanup spot, posting an elite .950 OPS. So how about we put you where it helps the team score the most runs instead?" In no way am I suggesting Dozier is better in the cleanup spot because he hits better there. I would make that statement solely to show Dozier that his perspective is skewed, not that I believe he would do better or worse in any given spot in the lineup. The guy is a classic middle of the order bat. The team will score fewer runs with him in the leadoff spot and that's all that should matter.

Maybe but I don't think it's terribly relevant. This is Dozier's career thus far: 2013: 100 OPS point advantage to Men on Base 2014: No advantage for either Men on Base or Bases Empty 2015: 50 OPS point advantage to Men on Base 2016: 150 OPS point advantage to Bases Empty There's no trend there. Like most players, it's just kinda scattershot and all over the place because that tends to happen to players when viewing splits year-by-year. The relatively SSS causes a lot of fluctuation.

No, it should read: "Batting Grossman first is Gross, man."

You should definitely check out Jessica Jones. While she's super-strong and hard to hurt, the show is about manipulation and abuse so her powers are only a small part of the story. IMO, it's the best Netflix series to date and the others aren't that close. And you should probably check out the first season of Daredevil as well. He's not invulnerable or anything close to it; in fact, he gets his ass kicked more than not in the series.

Not really. His career splits: Bases Empty: .747 OPS Men on Base: .772 OPS He only has the relatively small discrepancy because of his ridiculous 2016 splits: Bases Empty: .950 Men on Base: .792 In 2013, Dozier hit much better with men on base than he did with the bases empty. The same goes for 2015. In 2014, he was nearly identical in bases empty vs. men on base situations. So, yeah, one season.

Okay, so you went down that road. Here we go. Regarding race, most white people have a limited scope of experience in this country. That's not hypocrisy, that's just reality. We don't see tons of **** that happen to people on a daily basis because it doesn't happen to us. This is even more problematic for straight white men, who suffer from no real discrimination at all when you get right down to it. Therefore, we white men need to listen from time to time because, sometimes, we don't see the experiences of different people and their day-to-day lives. This shouldn't be a radical concept, it should be common sense. When I needed help with an art assignment in school, I didn't chase down the gym teacher to talk about it. I found someone with real world experience in that arena, I shut up, and I listened for a hot minute. It's unbelievable to me that so many white men don't realize that their inability to comprehend that different people have different life experiences is part of their in-built bias. We're so used to ruling the damned world and being treated as the default setting for American Human Being that we've forgotten other people exist out there and those people may have a different perspective on the world. None of this means we're bad people. None of this means all this crap is our fault and our fault alone. It means we have a limited view of the world in this particular subject because we're not a part of that world. When I started renovating my kitchen, I wasn't ashamed that I had to ask my brother-in-law for guidance. He's a bloody fantastic carpenter with much more experience in that kind of work. Why do we view life experience so differently than skill and training? If you put a group of white people in a room and asked the question "Are we living in a post-racial society?", you'd get a variety of answers. Some people would nod yes, others would be unsure, some would disagree. If you put a group of black people into that same room and asked the same question, you'd be laughed out of the damned room. Why is this? And why are so many white people loathe to accept that reality? There are entire segments of America that fall 90%+ on one side of that argument and the split is clearly drawn along racial and gender lines. White people are the only segment of our society that splits on opinion or is unsure. Why does that happen? What are we missing here? In a normal world, that realization would cause people to rethink their stance. When one group of people with a specific life experience overwhelmingly disagrees with an opinion, there's a chance, just a chance, that we're missing something here because our life experiences aren't the same as every other American.

At the very least it's encouraging to hear we'll see different lineups to counter lefty/righty splits.

Cannot stop laughing. https://twitter.com/tusk81/status/845456242801729536

Except it really doesn't. Sano posted a 149 OPS+ his rookie season. His sophomore season, the team jerked him around and basically put him in a position to fail. Maybe Sano shouldn't have been as bad as he was last season but there are plenty of reasons to just write off his struggles (new position, bad management, injuries, sophomore slump). And he still posted a 110 OPS+ so it's not as if he was out there making a fool of himself. So we're left with one stellar partial season, one meh partial season that may or may not matter when all is said and done.

Sano is a lock for third base because he's a potential superstar and much more valuable at a defensive position, provided he can stick there. He deserves an extended chance to succeed in the field before being relegated to DH duties. As for the rest of the post, it's March 26th. I don't really care if Sano's batting average is .150 or .850. None of it matters in a week.

That article is from early February. Trump's approval rating is actually lower than that now... by 6-8 points, IIRC.

The union argument is silly. What happens if the Twins figure out Brian Dozier is a .780 OPS guy over 155 games or an .800 OPS guy over 151 games with the occasional off day from practice? Is Brian Dozier REALLY going to complain about that?

I didn't mean to imply that at all. Berrios made a decision and it hindered his ability to compete in Spring Training. There's nothing wrong with that, as I commend the guy for wanting to pitch for his country... but given the roster competition from the Twins perspective, he kind of took himself out of the running for an Opening Day position.

As much as I hate to see Berrios optioned, this was the right decision. Mejia and Duffey have been in camp competing for a job. Berrios spent the past few weeks mostly sitting on WBC pine. I don't fault Jose for the decision but it should knock him down a peg in the pecking order.

I've watched 8-9 episodes thus far. I pretty much hate it. The show gets a bit better as the series goes along but the early episodes were so disastrously terrible the show couldn't recover. Netflix blew it.

The only people who seem to feel this way are white. That says all that needs to be said on the subject, as far as I'm concerned.

The kind that actually impacts lives of people en masse. Everyone has bias and is a bigot or an asshat in some capacity. Only some people have those beliefs built into governmental and societal structure, impacting the lives of entire groups of people as a result.

White people are the social default and control the overwhelming majority of power in this country so I don't really see the point in debating whether black people are "racist" because it has no impact on the life of your average white American. But white racism very much has an impact on the life of your average black American because that racism is supported and enforced institutionally.