Brock Beauchamp

Yep, and that was supported through many stats: increased K rate, zone contact rate, soft/med/hard hit balls, groundball rate. All of those support the notion he wasn't squaring up on the ball and wasn't making good contact when he did swing (at least in comparison to his former self). Lots of weak contact, lots of grounders, lots of missed swings. All of that has changed this season... Yes, it's only ten games but hell, I'll take it. For the first season in a long time, I'm bullish on Joe Mauer being a 3+ WAR player.

Perusing the stats, I just noticed that Mauer had a 96% zone contact % in 2010. He swung and missed at 1 of 25 balls thrown in the strike zone. That's pure 100% amazeballs.

I still think we'll get to that point, though I'm sure it will take longer than any of want to see.

Oswaldo Arcia has put the ball in play five times. Two of those times, it has been a line drive. Two more of those times, it has been medium-hit. Oswaldo Arcia has a .000 batting average. Just an interesting thing I spotted this morning.

Which is why I wasn't down on the trade. I wasn't particularly fond of it, either. The trade was a few moments of head-scratching, consideration, and then a resounding "meh" after it happened. Both Murphy and Hicks have modest upside (Hicks more than Murphy, probably) but that upside is probably a pipe dream at this point. Whatever Murphy gives to Hicks in upside, he makes up with floor. It was a fair trade of talent... Underwhelming talent. But I'd still like to see Murphy play a lot more than he has this season. May as well find out what you have in him.

Bah, lay down all the snark you want, Murphy has taken Hicks to the mat and won't look back all season. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_KoqL_iOR5hg/TGG16MsULNI/AAAAAAAAAAk/Ya3xwxNhDgo/s1600/Intense_Kids_Wrestling.jpg

We all know he's been the one shining bright spot on the team (given Escobar falling back to earth a bit in recent games) but given how many of his hits were coming from singles, I was a bit concerned. Well, I'm not sure that concern was founded. Joe is making contact when he swings, not swinging when he shouldn't, and hitting the ball hard when contact is made. Here's a run down of some of his stats. The first slash is his 2016 number, the second is his career number. A few aberrations in here but the good kind of aberrations that indicates he's seeing the ball well again. K%: 9.3%/12.3% (maybe the most promising aspect of all this and supported by later stats) BB%: 14.0%/11.9% (he's maintaining his discipline) BA: .371/.313 (not particularly relevant, I simply liked the number) SLG: .543/.451 (whoa, didn't expect to see this) LD%: 34.4%/23.9% (yeah, the eye test matches up with this) GB%: 50.0%/50.7% (again, this matches up) Hard Hit%: 37.5%/33.5% (solid) Pull%: 34.4%/28.9% (yay!) O-Swing%: 12.1%/21.8% (what?!?!?!) Z-Swing%: 46.3%/51.1% (will pitchers take advantage of this in time?) Zone Contact%: 93.0%/87.3% (will the above matter? his elite contact has returned) Okay, some of these stats aren't sustainable but we haven't seen this Joe Mauer since the concussion... Hell, we haven't seen a full season of this Joe Mauer since 2010. Even when Mauer had good months in 2014/2015, it always felt like he was teetering on the edge and the stats backed up that feeling. He was getting hits but his K rate didn't change, his approach didn't change, and balls were simply falling into the green part of the field instead of a fielder's mitt. That wasn't sustainable... But it appears this change might be sustainable if he keeps it up. This isn't smoke and mirrors, this is vintage Joe Mauer being Joe Mauer. These numbers are extremely encouraging. Yeah, Mauer is going to regress here and there but he's doing exactly what he did in the past and having similar success doing it. No more bad swings, no more missing the ball, no more grounder-after-grounder-after-grounder to the second baseman. I never thought we'd see the old Joe Mauer come back but it appears just that may have happened. Lots of baseball left to play... But if Joe continues seeing and hitting the ball at anything approaching the level he has thus far, we're going to see another borderline elite season from Joe Mauer, something most of us had written off as history long ago.

Well, this trade is turning out a lot like many people expected... Yes, it's early and yes, a lot can change but I thought it'd be fun to track these two over the course of the season because important things are important. I'm going to use BB-Ref for simplicity's sake. As of 4/16: Hicks: 13 PAs, .083/.154/.083/.237, -29 OPS+, -0.4 WAR Murphy: 11 PAs, .091/.091/.182/.273, -23 OPS+, 0.0 WAR Not a lot of data points but I'm declaring a winner none-the-less. While Hicks is dominant with his .071 isoD, Murphy is raking the ball to all fields with his .099 higher slugging. Despite Hicks' bird-of-prey eye from both sides of the plate, it's pretty clear Murphy has taken an early and possibly commanding lead with a keen power stroke, led by his -23 OPS+, a full -6 OPS+ higher than Hicks' early effort. Our inaugural champion, wearing the white shorts with red and gold piping: http://d3k2oh6evki4b7.cloudfront.net/req/201604090/images/headshots/0/09077946_mlbam.jpg

Fascinating game, this baseball. Score more than three runs and you might just win a game now and then.

That was unexpected. No reason to use Dozier in that situation.

While I think this entire situation is bizarre and badly managed, trading away production for nothing just to clear space is bad practice 100% of the time. Maybe you turn Plouffe into a super-utlity guy or put him in an OF role but trading him for nothing "just because" is a terrible plan.

Well, this is where grey area and interpretation takes hold of the argument. Do PAs matter? Absolutely. Does age matter? Absolutely. What does it mean that Buxton has half of McCutcheon's PAs at the same age and is posting abysmal MLB numbers? I have no idea.

Yeah, Buxton has started off worse than anyone else I remember but really, that doesn't worry me as much as the non-stop injuries. It's hard to be a good player if you're rarely on the field and then banged up a good portion of the time you are on the field.

Moustakas is an interesting comparison. He held his own right off the bat but then went into a deep slump for quite some time. His OPS+ by year (including his start to 2016): 86, 91, 77, 75, 120, 139 Obviously, that's not the route we want to see Buxton take but Moustakas was a consensus #10-ish prospect for a couple of years.

Yeah, which is why I find some of the arguments being made on this forum over the past week quite strange. There's a lot to dislike about this team and how it was constructed and picking apart a young player after 25 PAs should be waaaaaay down the list.

No, you didn't, but the poster I responded to - and the post you quoted - made/refuted that exact point.

Sure, he's been terrible. He also has all of 55 games under his belt, split over two seasons.

Sure, my point wasn't that Buxton will become Trout - I hate that comparison - my point was that even some of the best players in history struggled out of the gate. Implying a front office has failed because prospects struggle to immediately acclimate to MLB is a ridiculous assertion to make. If an elite prospect struggles over 750 PAs, that's an entirely different argument.

I'm not making excuses for this 0-9 start - it has been abysmal - but the most complete player I've ever seen play the game of baseball was demoted after his first taste of MLB pitching produced less-than-stellar results. Young players sometimes have to be sent back down, even the immensely talented ones. It's just a reality of baseball.

Yeah, it's fair to say Buxton should be in Rochester - I was pretty iffy on his promotion out of ST but couldn't truly disagree with it, either - but "ruined" is a pretty ridiculous statement to make after 150 PAs of MLB. Has Buxton been set back by the quick promotion? Maybe. Was it good for his development? Maybe not. But is he ruined? No, if this "ruined" him, he never had much of a shot to be a good MLB player in the first place.

He... has... a career... MiLB OPS of... .872... You and I have very different definitions of "really broke out".

It's a good movie but I didn't feel it was great. A bit slow, plodding, and mostly predictable even though I only vaguely remember this happening. The Big Short was a much more entertaining movie, IMO. Creed was also much better, IMO. Creed was soooooo fuggin' good. I have a huge soft spot for the original Rocky and that movie hit all the same notes.

I like Paul Molitor. I think he's a smart guy. But based on the way he has managed this team the past few weeks, I don't want him within 50 feet of the GM's chair. I might actually prefer Rob Antony in the chair before Molitor, that's how much I don't want to see Molitor have that much control over the organization.

I attended today's game because I work a few blocks from Target Field and got lost on my way to the bus stop. The weather was nice.

I no longer understand anything that is happening in the world.