Brock Beauchamp

I don't know enough about Baez' bunting ability to really judge the call. But, yeah, on its face the call didn't make a lot of sense.

The announcers mentioned it but the Indians' fielders were playing it straight up. Not that they could have played in on that ball given the situation. It was a really risky move that, unfortunately, didn't work. Because wow, what a way to win the World Series.

Well, if you're gonna choose a single game to make as exciting as possible, it may as well be game seven.

One advantage of the bunt is surprise. Maddon went with surprise. No one is ever surprised by a Molitor bunt.

Unreal.

Man, America needs to pull its head out in regards to Clinton's position on the political scale. Fun fact: Hillary Clinton is further right on policy than many western countries' CONSERVATIVE PARTIES. See Merkel, Angela. We've let the GOP so completely skew our perceptions that we can't even identify a centrist candidate anymore.

I will say that, yes, as a white man I'm deeply disappointed with the direction the white male populace has taken in the past decade. They're powering the most destructive political movement of my lifetime and it's only getting worse. And I'm tired of them desperately holding on to whatever power they have and actually trying to take the country backwards, at the expense of *everyone else*.

My wife and I were just discussing it this morning. My job is very transferrable and many countries would love to have my skillset. Unfortunately, my wife is a lawyer. Those skills don't cross borders. I doubt we'd move but I'd certainly look into it long and hard. My patience has run out with white people in this country. I have no desire to continue fighting upstream in a country that is so eagerly moving toward and accepting white nationalism. If a western Europe nation or Canada would have me, I'd take that opportunity. I'm just... Tired. I'm tired of having arguments over matters the rest of the western world settled 2-3 decades ago. I'm tired of arguing whether 150 year old legislation should be struck from the Constitution. I'm tired of fighting obvious voter suppression tactics. I'm tired of American white people, particularly the old ones who long for a past that never ****ing existed in the first place.

But you know that isn't my opinion at all. First, drop the obvious dead weight in Suzuki, probably Plouffe, and portions of the bullpen. Second, see what a Dozier and/or Santana trade can net you in prospects, preferably ones very close to MLB. Third, put players in the right role to succeed. That means May to the rotation, Duffey to the bullpen, Sano to third as an experiment but probably to DH. Turn Mauer into a platoon player with Park and/or Vargas. Then, take the guys with actual upside and get them reps: Rosario, Buxton, Sano, Kepler, Polanco, Berrios. That's your core. If you're going to win, it's with those guys leading the charge. Finally, figure out the positions where you have little to no hope for near-future performance and haven't filled with trades. That's probably the rotation, bullpen, and catcher. Do what you can to patch those positions for a season, maybe two if possible. Fix the obvious, glaring needs first... Then consider what to do with young players like Rosario if or when they falter or if they fail to progress to an acceptable performance level. Working on guys like Rosario first seems pretty backwards to me. If Eddie stumbles in 2017, there's always next season to get another outfielder. It's not as if the Twins don't have plenty of other issues to tackle in the next four months.

That may ultimately be the case but the Twins are coming off a 103 loss season. There's little damage to be done by giving Rosario one more (at least partial) season to see if he takes a step forward. But yeah, if Eddie continues to walk to the plate with the strategy there's no pitch he can't hit, he won't progress as a hitter. Give him an offseason and part of a season with a new coaching staff and let's see what happens.

He's still only 22 years old so anything is possible but I wouldn't hold my breath over Gonsalves picking up speed on his fastball. It's more likely he learns to control it better and add movement.

I don't see the wisdom in signing a traditional "fourth outfielder". The Twins have three young players who need reps in the outfield. All of these players, to a varying degree, can play center field. One of them is exemplary, another is adequate, the third is passable for a short period of time. But what these players lack is the ability to hit both left- and right-handed pitching. Their 2016 splits: Buxton RHP: .225 .277 .426 .704 LHP: .223 .299 .436 .735 Rosario RHP: .270 .293 .459 .752 LHP: .263 .305 .289 .594 Kepler RHP: 248 .325 .468 .792 LHP: .203 .273 .322 .595 The Twins currently have two young lefty outfielders who can't hit lefties worth a damn. To me, the smart move is to not focus on defense with a fourth outfielder, but instead focus on picking up a guy who mashes lefties and rotate him into the lineup on a regular basis. It also gives you a late-inning replacement when Kepler and/or Rosario inevitably face a shutdown left-handed pitcher. Use your roster to shore up weaknesses with your everyday players. I don't like how bad he is defensively but Grossman might be the guy the Twins need and he's already on the roster. In a perfect world, you'd want a guy who can hit lefties but isn't horrific in the field.

FIFY. I haven't watched Westworld yet - it's going to be a binge for me - but I routinely lament how American television mercilessly flogs ideas until you can no longer remember why you liked the material. Imagine how amazing Lost could have been if the writers went into the series with the plan "four seasons and go home".

Ah, they didn't get big raises, but they got raises. http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-essential-politics-state-panel-approves-raises-fo-1464803518-htmlstory.html And more on how lawmakers are paid in general: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-much-should-state-legislators-get-paid/ Interestingly enough, my wife (a lawyer) has another friend who is a lawmaker and he wants this to pass because, by comparison, Minnesota's lawmakers are underpaid compared to the median household income and he believes this will help lawmakers get regular raises without a fuss. It's an interesting law and one that may be needed but I think people are looking at it from the wrong angle. Lawmakers, like everyone else, deserve to be paid and it's not like they're living the high life on a $40,000 yearly salary.

You may want to reconsider. This happened somewhere else - I forgot where it was, I only briefly scanned the article - and lawmakers' pay skyrocketed over the following few years. And they were completely guilt-free while it happened. I'll try to dig up a link.

Yeah, I don't know how to really refer to Dozier as a hitter... He's definitely a somewhat flawed hitter overall. Whether that's due to his feast or famine or if it's his (usually) ridiculously low batting average, there's usually a hitch in his value that drags him down a bit in relation to his overall power numbers. But he does two things well: hit for power and draw walks. He's a bit like Adam Dunn without dominant numbers in either category but offsets that "deficiency" with acceptable defense up the middle. He's a weird player when you get right down to it. I don't know if I've ever seen a player as streaky or one that plays an up the middle position with power and discipline but an absolutely **** batting average. edit: Just remembered Dan Uggla. He's a decent comp as a hitter but Uggla was a butcher with the glove. Dozier already has more career value with roughly three seasons less playing time.

Is there such a thing as "empty power"? "Empty batting average", sure... That makes sense. The batting average stat is limited in its ability to record extra valuable base hits as opposed to simply scrapping together singles. Power, uh... it doesn't really work the same way because slugging awards more points for additional bases. I think I see your point but claiming Dozier's power is "empty" is a disservice to his value as a hitter.

That's fair. I was thinking about Jay just yesterday and was trying to put a ceiling on him. He hasn't pitched enough innings to really get a read on him but I think 2/3 is pretty fair. That's about where I landed.

That may be the case when trading for a one-year guy but I doubt the pending CBA will impact trades of guys like Dozier, who have 2+ years of control. Teams are interested in winning and a potential draft pick isn't going to hold back a team trying to make a push at the postseason. If the CBA changes, Dozier's new team still has three opportunities to trade him: 2017 deadline, 2017 offseason, 2018 deadline.

Agreed. The offer at the end of that blog post is laughably low. The Twins don't desperately need more mid-rotation or lower prospects. They already have several of those guys in minors.

I'd avoid the iPhone 7. If you want an iPhone, wait for iPhone 8. It's going to be a huge redesign for the tenth anniversary of the device. The early rumors are no home button, entirely glass phone with an edge-to-edge screen. The home button, touch ID, and all that jazz will be baked into the screen itself.

He was probably thinking of the Nexus 6p (is that right? i forget google's naming schema), which is considerably cheaper but is a year old and wasn't a flagship phone when it released. The Nexus devices were always much cheaper than the iPhone but they were never meant to be flagship devices. They were nice devices, definitely, but not top-tier hardware.

The common practice of accusing Apple of "price gouging" is really bizarre. Apple builds high-end devices and they charge high-end prices for them. The new Google Pixel is the same price as the equivalent iPhone. The same applies to Samsung's Galaxy line. All high-end phones start around $650, give or take $50. All high-end large phones start at $750, give or take $50. The iPhone's price is $650. The iPhone Plus is $770. Look at the Microsoft Surface line and compare prices to Macbooks. Apple's mid-range lines are a bit overpriced but all their high-end hardware is in line with what others charge for their devices. As for proprietary, the only proprietary port on any Apple device is the Lightning port. And with their current push toward USB-C, I hope they eliminate Lightning in the next round of hardware, though I'm not holding my breath. Apple loves their Lightning cable. But even the Lightning port served a legitimate purpose before USB-C offered all the same features. It was omni-directional and waterproof, something micro USB didn't offer.

Eh, that's just the internet being the internet. There are problems with Apple but they have nothing to do with cabling. We're in another transition period of cabling, where tech and speed has made several jumps in the past year. Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C will be the standard within two years because they're vastly superior tech and it's not close. Hell, Thunderbolt 3 is the only tech that can run a 5k monitor out of the box today. And the fact the ports on the new Macs can run USB-C (so much fast), Thunderbolt 3 (again, 5k display), and power through the same port (any port on the computer) is pretty damned impressive. Apple has finally created the mythical "One Port to Rule Them All" and everyone else will follow. They just paved the way for a future where we see a cable that can do anything and you just plug it into an open port on the computer. You don't think about it, you just plug the cable into the box and go. It doesn't matter if that cable is connected to a monitor, a power source, a device, or a network. It's the final step of the "plug and play" concept. Now the rest of the world needs to catch up and make devices using these cables (which they will, as neither Thunderbolt nor USB-C are proprietary Apple tech). While Apple is catching hell for it today, give it three months. As more high-end devices begin to ship with these "horrible" cables (that are faster, much faster, and superior in general), people will just shut up and get on with their lives. And while Apple's lack of innovation is somewhat disturbing, the device market is almost entirely stagnant right now (another typical cycle in the tech world). Microsoft is building some exciting hardware in the Surface line but they don't sell for ****. Worry about the stagnation of the market, sure... But blame Apple for it? Why? Everyone else is suffering from the same issues. It's a market problem, not an Apple problem. It affects Apple because they're a hardware company and one should be concerned about market stagnation but that also applies to every other hardware company who competes in the same markets.

It will release the day following the conclusion of the World Series. Or immediately following the last out of the World Series. I think that depends on Nick and/or John, who are handling the release.