Brock Beauchamp

Pulled selectively from the middle? Man, I posted half the friggin' article while you pulled a single sentence. You're cherry-picking a single line while I posted the actual reasons Silver wrote that sentence. Silver made a convincing point about situational hitting. Look at that list of hitters. While they vary slightly up and down the scale, almost all of them share competency in the same traits: average, discipline, power. Looking up and down the list, all of them (without stat-checking every single player) are rounded players without a major flaw in their game. And Silver drew a completely reasonable conclusion from that data. Are you really trying to discredit Silver by claiming he drew a conclusion before examining the data? You know you're talking about Nate Silver here, right? He's certainly not infallible but this is Nate Silver. He's more accomplished and respected in his field than any of us will be at anything we do, ever. The guy straight-up called two elections and embarrassed almost every political pundit in the nation while he did it.

You're joking, right? From that very same article: Silver himself doesn't buy into the clutch hitter argument, he concludes that well-rounded hitters are able to adjust to the situation as needed. It makes a ton of sense but changing strategy is a far cry from "clutch"... That is "adjusting to the situation". One-dimensional hitters can't adjust. Guys like Joe Mauer, well, they adjust (Joe has solid MoB and RISP numbers throughout his career, probably due to his situational awareness of the game). Look at the list of hitters in that article. What traits do most of them share? Good/very good averages, decent discipline, and moderate/good power. In other words, they are all well-rounded hitters. Funny how so many players who profile in such a similar manner are the "clutchiest"... Or maybe it's not "clutchiness" at all but the ability to adjust in-game that put them at the top of that list. The word "clutch" implies that a hitter is able to step up his game in a particular situation to the benefit of his team. Silver's article doesn't reach that conclusion. The conclusion it reaches is that good, rounded hitters continually adjust based on the game situation to the benefit of their team. It's part of what makes them good hitters. They don't suddenly become better hitters in that clutch situation, they use their rounded skillset to achieve the best possible result as often as possible. It's a skillset they have (and use) throughout the game, clutch situation or not. Let's say you have Adam Dunn at the plate. His options for a PA are basically the following: walk, homer, strikeout. What if your team is in a tie game, runner on second, two outs in the ninth? Dunn isn't a great fit for that situation. Chances are he puts two runs on the board or doesn't win the game. Now let's say you have that same situation and John Olerud (totally random guy to pick, I know) in that situation. Olerud has more options for the PA: single, double, walk, homer, strikeout. Three of those options win the game. Who is the "clutch hitter" there? Simple, it's Olerud because he has a more versatile repertoire to help the team win. Does that mean John Olerud is a clutch hitter? No, absolutely not... It means he's a more flexible hitter that can adapt to the situation.

Why do the Twins need more Escobars? They're already facing a roster logjam at multiple positions. When a team is contending, there's no good reason to sacrifice today's wins for marginal prospects that may or may not have even a small impact in 2-3 years.

BTW, did anyone else see Romney's tweet about the flag? Why can't we get this kind of honesty during the election cycle? This is the right equivalent of Obama's asinine "gay marriage is a state's rights issue" statement during the 2012 campaign. Civil rights and decency are not a state's rights issue, Mr. President.

And that makes it even worse, at least in my opinion it does. In a little over a decade, I've gone from voting Republican to shaking my head at their statements to openly despising the party. A big reason - maybe the biggest reason - for that shift is their descent into misleading rhetoric and demagoguery as their primary methodology to win elections. Both parties ramp up the rhetoric but the GOP has turned it into the driving force behind their ideology. Can't win the climate debate? Defund NASA's earth sciences division. Can't win the net neutrality argument? Attempt to defund the FCC so they can't enforce their entirely legal policy, even though the public is overwhelmingly in favor of that policy. Don't talk about the issues, spew distracting phrases (Obamacare for the Internet!) to enrage your constituency. And then there's ObamaCare itself, which has been so grossly misrepresented that it's hard to wrap your head around the amount of misinformation (not to mention the absurdity of the 55+ votes to repeal it, though they knew failure was a given). It's not factually correct to say "one party is good, the other is evil" but given the past decade of listening to the GOP, I think it's pretty fair to say "one party is questionable, the other is evil". I can tolerate dissenting opinion but in my eyes, it's downright evil to intentionally manipulate things like voter laws and funding because you can't win on even ground. That's the time you change your opinions, not work to remove the competition from the debate. Decent people change their opinion when faced with overwhelming evidence that they're wrong. Bad people try to change the rules.

Yeah, calling Berrios a likely #2/3 is not an insult to the kid or his potential. That's still a very good, very valuable player.

I used to refer to myself as "fiscally conservative". A few years back, I realized how that term didn't align with my personal outlook so now I refer to myself as "fiscally responsible". I worry less about money spent and now focus on deficit/surplus. And neither party is even a little bit fiscally responsible so I lean toward the party that doesn't insult my social opinions. It's not a perfect solution but at least I don't feel like an ******* in the voting booth. That counts for something, I guess.

I agree... to an extent. I used to vote Republican but once they turned on fiscal issues, I stopped listening. Sure, the modern GOP is slightly more fiscally conservative than the Democrats but the gap has shrunk to the point that the two parties are almost indistinguishable. What the Democrats favor in social programs, the Republicans nearly make up with insane defense spending and moronic tax cuts for those who need it the least. It's a false equivalency, in my opinion: Social freedoms: Democrats >>>>>> Republicans Fiscal responsibility: Republicans > Democrats And that's why I've reluctantly turned blue in recent years. The GOP isn't strong enough in some areas to compensate for their enormous deficiencies in others.

I think this is where words like "ceiling" get sticky. What is Berrios' ceiling? At this point, I wouldn't put a ceiling on the kid. He seems like the type of prospect with the drive and work ethic to routinely beat expectations and become more than any of us expect. Which is why I'm now bullish on the kid. Now, if you want to talk "expectations", I think a #2/3 starter is the most likely outcome... But that's pretty different than "ceiling".

I generally agree but I think it gets into tricky ground when you're talking about a blockbuster trade on this scale. While it's beneficial in the short- to mid-term, one should at least consider whether it's a good idea to set up a division rival to be an elite powerhouse for half a decade. But yeah, normally, I don't care about intra-divisional trades.

Yeah, the Sox have no reason to trade Sale at all, my comment was more directed to the point that they'd get much more than Sano/Berrios for him in trade. News flash: the overwhelming majority of MLB franchises don't have a Sano/Berrios to give up in the first place. You can't get more for a player than what a team has in their farm system.

Include me in the number of those who are skeptical that Jon is dead.

ERA+ isn't a perfect stat but it's a pretty good one. While you might personally draw the line a touch higher, your statement that a healthy Baker (and his best ERA+ seasons of 122 and 129) is a #4 on a contender is laughable. I can see making an argument for #3. I don't agree but that's a personal line one draws when numbering starters. You're making Mussina's numbers look good with that "130-150" number... his combined numbers during his prime 1991-2003 seasons was a 127 ERA+. Shorten that a bit to cover just his 1991-1999 years and it bumps slightly to an ERA+ of 130. Shorten it to his first four seasons and in two of those seasons, he qualifies as an ace pitcher by your definition and just misses the cut in another year. Sure, Mussina spent most of his time as a #2 pitcher but his numbers weren't terribly different than a couple of seasons Scott Baker threw when healthy. Again, Scott's problem was that he was almost never healthy. Hell, the guy is virtually out of baseball at age 33.

Good job using career numbers on a guy who I said was rarely healthy and that it impacted his numbers. You also ignored his two 120+ ERA+ seasons while wearing a Twins uniform. Did you even read my post or did you simply view it as an opportunity to take a swing at another ex-Twin?

That's definitely possible, though Baker's command bordered on elite. I'd be thrilled if Berrios turns into a healthy Baker. Anything better than that approaches ace pitcher territory.

Milone has a zero chance of clearing waivers if he's pitching anything like he has pitched in the past several months.

When healthy - unfortunately, that wasn't often - Baker was a solid #2. Scott's problem wasn't ability, it was health. Baker is one of the more under appreciated Twins players in the past few decades.

Okay, so you believe clutch hitting exists as a repeatable trait. So prove it. Otherwise, you're just using personal bias and conjecture to believe in something has has no indication that it exists. Me? I'll put stock in the mountains of data that indicates it's not a repeatable skill. Could that data be wrong? Sure. But it's more likely to be right than anecdotal evidence based on as little as one data point.

1. Bill James didn't write Moneyball. 2. Re: clutch hitting, I don't believe sabrematricians went into the study trying to discount clutch hitting... It's merely that after studying thousands of hitters over the history of baseball, they discovered that it does not appear to be a quantifiable trait. And that makes sense when you think about it. If a hitter was capable of "stepping it up" and becoming a clutch hitting machine, why wouldn't he do so on a more regular basis? Why does someone have to tap into a "clutch moment" during a critical game situation to become a better player? If it was a quantifiable skill, we'd see hitters routinely hitting third inning doubles whenever a guy is on base because he'd have the ability to flip a switch in run-scoring situations.

Oy, no. Good god, no. I was a huge Berrios skeptic. I didn't believe in the kid at all. He has continually not only beat expectations but shattered them. Even Law is on board with the kid now. I think it's wrong to put a ceiling on the kid at this point. He's the type of prospect you ride out to see what happens because he feels more and more like Pedro by the day. I'd trade anyone in the system not named Byron Buxton before I traded Berrios. The guy seems like someone who will succeed through sheer determination and that can't be quantified.

Yeah, his foot caught the leading edge of the bag at a really bad angle.

Damn, saw that when it happened and went "uh oh, that's an out".

I enjoy the fact that in recent days, Joe Mauer has remembered that Joe Mauer's greatest talent is getting on base.

Exactly. Mistakes are expected. The Buxton play was good, aggressive running by Byron. The Rosario pickoff was a young player doing something stupid. It's okay, the young guys are bound to do that from time to time.

Yep, aggressive is good. If a play requires a perfect throw to fail, it was the right play. The overwhelming majority of throws in MLB are not perfect.