Brock Beauchamp

Do you ever say anything positive about this team? Honest question. A second bat behind Sano... Yeah, that'd be nice. It could also be a guy already on the team: Brian Dozier. Or Sano can bat behind Dozier. Tomato, tomahto. I think the offense problem will largely sort itself out in time through Vargas, Arcia, Kepler, Hicks, Rosario, et al. Plouffe doesn't need to be under contract. He has two more years of team control. If the Twins want him - and I don't see why they wouldn't - they have him through 2017. Buxton's injuries are frustrating but guys are only injury prone until they aren't. Given the weirdness of Buxton's injuries - this sliding injury is the first injury he has had where you can really point to him doing something wrong - there's no reason to think the kid is going to break down at age 22. A "top" starting pitcher... Well, the Twins have a 21 year old kid in AAA and he's kinda kicking ass down there. Maybe you've heard of him. Are the Twins guaranteed to be good in 2016-2018? No, no team is guaranteed success over a three year period... But in my opinion, the Twins are better positioned to be successful during that time than any other team in baseball not playing in Chicago or Houston. They have a slew of talent and most of that talent has tasted major league baseball... Keep those kids on the field and it's likely we'll see them power the Twins to winning records in the near future. It's rare to see a team with middling success that is going to lose zero players who can't be readily replaced either internally or via budget free agency acquisitions. Yet that's the position the Twins will find themselves this offseason. It's not going to be hard to make this team better this offseason... Hell, if Ryan literally does nothing this offseason, they still probably enter 2016 as a better squad than they are in 2015.

That's my point, though. The Aaron Hicks who received 90 PAs in May/June is not the Aaron Hicks we're watching today. Given that horrible stretch constitutes ~45% of his 2015 PAs, I'm skeptical of that .600 number.

With the right moves and a bit of luck, that team could contend. Will they dominate? No, I doubt that... Domination would require a slew of things to go right and almost nothing to go wrong. I don't think the ALC will be very good next year unless a team goes nuts this offseason, which helps the Twins reach "contender" status pretty easily. I think KC will fall to earth a bit, CLE/CHI will improve, DET will get old and drift away, and the division will have a lot of parity (though obviously, loads can change during the offseason). If the Twins make 1-2 savvy moves this offseason (it won't even require any big moves, really), I see them as the second team behind KC going into 2016. At that point, anything can happen.

Zobrist is a good comp, though he's probably better than Kepler will ever become. Kepler is a weird player. Left-handed Good corner defense, fringy CF defense Moderate power BB/K parity No discernible L/R splits That's a weird player that's going to be hard to comp (particularly the left-handed with minimal L/R split).

I didn't mention catcher because having one major flaw on the team won't kill it. I'd try to upgrade the position - it might be my first priority, actually - but having either SS or C fixed is enough to keep me happy. Slotting one bad player in the nine hole is pretty common, even amongst good teams. Notice I didn't say the word "contender" in my post. I said "good". I expect the Twins to improve next season and I hope they'd win somewhere around 83-86 games, which classifies as "good" in my book (assuming things like the bullpen are not a complete mess like they are today). I'm aiming for "good" first... Then I'll aim for "contender".

The Twins won't be good for 3-4 more years? We must be watching different teams because I think they're on the verge of being good now, they just need a SS, another plus starter, and some bullpen arms. They can get most of those things from the farm in the next 12 months.

Yep, his peripherals are pretty much the same (at least they were from a glance). What's happening is that hitters are finding holes in the defense. That's the difference, really. Kyle is suffering from an unlucky stretch of baseball (as is the entire team when you get right down to it). That will pass in time and he'll go back to being a fringy #2 or a decent #3 depending on how you view his upside.

Oh, there's definitely wiggle room for interpretation but that's not the case with most posters' screams of "SELL HIGH!" Most of the time, it's "the guy had ten good starts, SELL HIM! HE'S VALUABLE!" Or "DANNY SANTANA!" It's one thing to say "2014 Oswaldo Arcia is a promising, though flawed, baseball player, I think the Twins should move him for different assets" versus "Kyle Gibson had four bad starts following ten good starts! We're doomed, the Twins should have sold him!" One, teams rarely pivot in that fashion at the midseason mark. Two, few GMs are going to be terribly impressed by ten starts from Kyle Gibson. Sure, he has value but that value hasn't moved much from the beginning of April. GMs aren't so rash/stupid to radically revalue a player based on one-third of a season.

The problem with the concept of "sell high" is not with the Twins front office, it's with message board posters' perceptions of the concept. Look, it's this bloody simple: If you think a player is a sell high candidate, so does every other GM in baseball. No further explanation necessary. Posters need to stop assuming they're so freakin' smart and opposing GMs are so freakin' dumb. Outside of the Colorado front office, I have little evidence that's actually the case.

I think there's virtually no chance Hunter returns next season.

Is Hicks still hitting at a .600 clip against RHP, though? I haven't dug into the stats to check if his hitting against RHP has continued on an upswing since the recall.

Dunno, maybe an alternate universe version of Milton Bradley where his head isn't jammed up his ass.

That's a pretty large assumption. As we saw with Hicks going from AA/MLB, those New Britain/Chatanooga numbers don't translate very reliably to the majors, doubly so if there are concerns the prospect is playing over his head in AA. Kepler doesn't hit many homers and he doesn't strike out a lot. Don't underestimate what a normalized BABIP could do to his slash line. Whack .050 off his BA and .050-.070 from his SLG and you suddenly have an .800-.830 OPS player in AA. Still impressive, but not nearly as impressive as .950.

Here is Kepler's BABIP per level: 2015: AA - .373 2015: A+ - .316 2014: A+ - .304 2013: A - .254 Which number looks like the outlier? I'm not knocking Max - not even a little bit, as I'm really high on the guy - but .373 is a number to cause minor hesitation in gauging his current performance vs. ability. You couple that BABIP with his SLG %: 2015: AA - .540 2015: A+ - .333 2014: A+ - .393 2013: A - .424 Maybe Kepler is for real. Maybe this is the new Max... but I'd wait it out before aggressively moving the kid up the ladder. Very little is lost by keeping Max in AA for the rest of the season. If he keeps hitting, move him to AAA to start 2016 and he's a half-skip away from the Majors. Or hell, even call him up this September and see how he looks but there should be concerns with those numbers and how Kepler is achieving them, particularly when compared to his numbers in previous seasons.

Yep, fully agreed. My only issue with Graham being on the roster is that he continues to pitch lower leverage innings despite showing a relative level of competence. He could have been the seventh inning guy through June and July and the team would have been better for it.

I don't buy that he should be in AAA today, much less a month ago. We often criticize the Twins for paying too much attention to traditional stats at the detriment of underlying stats that tell another story. Max Kepler's BABIP is .373 in AA. The prudent move is to keep him at that level and see how he performs once that number normalizes, otherwise you risk promoting a guy who might struggle at his current level with normalized luck, much less a higher level with increased competition.

Hah, I just mentioned why I wouldn't have called a bunt in that situation just a few seconds ago.

Yes, this. That's why I believe in bunting only when you need a specific amount of runs, those runs are on the basepaths, and outs are at a premium (generally, the last inning of the game). Last night teetered on that being the case, though I wouldn't have called for a bunt with no outs. IMO, it would have been a more clear-cut case had the Twins been down by one run in that situation. Moving the winning run to second base in that situation is more important than the tying run. The Twins should have played for three runs in that situation by swinging away.

I don't think the Graham situation is mind-boggling at all. Every team needs a long man and if the Twins want to stash a Rule V guy as their long man, that's not a terrible solution. It's everything else about the bullpen that drives me insane. Stashing one Rule V guy is not the Twins' problem... In fact, Graham has been entirely serviceable out of the pen this season. The problem is stashing a Rule V guy in the pen and then filling 2-4 other slots with horrible pitchers.

To me, the difference is last night's bunt was defensible, maybe even the right move (though not my preference). I don't think we should muddy the conversation with defensible actions... If you want to criticize Molitor for calling too many bunts, there are plenty of good examples that are completely indefensible from a numbers standpoint.

This infatuation with bunting is beyond absurd. Come on, Paul, you're smarter than this. With that said, I didn't really mind last night's ninth inning bunt. It wasn't the call I'd make but at least it can be defended as sound thinking, which unfortunately cannot be said for the vast majority of the Twins' recent bunt attempts.

Remember, remember, the Hicks of... 2013. Damn, that doesn't rhyme. Anyway, I think it's very possible Kepler could outperform Robinson with the stick but Sugar Shane has slightly above average defensive ability, which we can't assume Max will bring to the table (though he's reportedly a pretty decent fielder). What I do know is Oswaldo Arcia will outperform Robinson with the stick and by a considerable margin (100+ OPS points). That was my point. It wasn't a knock on Kepler at all, just a concern that he's not ready for The Show quite yet. He doesn't strike me as the type of player to successfully make the jump from AA to MLB without some hiccups along the way. Also, putting Kepler in a platoon is a waste of the guy's ability (when he's ready, that is). The guy has no discernible platoon split. When he gets the call, he needs to play every day. Double also, it's incredibly rare and pretty amazing for a lefty hitter to have no discernible platoon split.

I'm really glad the Twins don't have Arcia on the bench in this situation.

I actually kinda like him. He isn't afraid to knock a player, even if I don't agree with his take a lot of the time. He's not an unabashed homer and I appreciate that about him.

Dunno. Who has played the Twins recently?