Brock Beauchamp

And that's fair. I don't have any sympathy for the man, either.

The Twins will throw that speedball by you, make you look like a fool, boy. Or not.

What's important is that Tim Stauffer still has a roster spot. Whew, dodged a bullet there. The Twins were almost in a position to win some ballgames but through craftiness and more than a little pluck from the front office, we've been saved from that horrible fate.

I think it's a slippery slope to advocate that a guy "deserves" to have something rotten done to him just because he's a rotten human being. I don't buy into that argument. I don't feel even a little bit of sympathy for the man and I dislike him as a human being but that doesn't mean I necessarily agree with what was done to him. He has a right to a private life, even if it's hypocritical. Whether I adore or despise a person, I can't get behind them being publicly outed as gay. I've known far too many closeted gays and the trauma outing can have on their lives to agree with such a thing happening to anyone. This is one of those curious instances that reminds me the left can be just as vindictive and wrong-headed as the right when it suits their purposes.

Oy vey.

It's more than handling of pitchers. Pinto is bad at almost every aspect of the defensive game, or at least he was as recently as last season. I have yet to read a single metric or scouting analysis of Pinto that is anything other than "very bad defensively" or just "terrible". He's so bad that one of the team's best pitchers called him out for it. I've been following baseball for over 25 years and that's the first time I've ever seen that happen. Battery mates are usually like glue. Calling out a guy who's on the roster - a guy you throw to at least once a week - speaks volumes about Pinto's defense. And it didn't come from some schmuck on the roster who didn't like Pinto's ability to "get after it". It came from Glen Perkins, who is probably the most well-versed guy on advanced metrics in the Twins' clubhouse. There's something about Pinto's game that he doesn't like enough to say something publicly about it. We should probably listen.

Sure, outfield defense matters. I don't think anyone was thrilled with the outfield defense going into the season. On the other hand, I find it quite curious that you'll blast the outfield defense but advocate Pinto to get the starting job at catcher and create another defensive liability at a position considerably more influential than corner outfield.

The Twins won't lose Plouffe until November of 2017 no matter whether they extend him or not. Plouffe will be entering his age 32 season when they "lose" him. I'm not saying the Twins shouldn't sign Plouffe, I'm saying they shouldn't sign him right now because if Sano pans out at third base, they will no longer need Trevor and can use that money to fill a hole at a position of need. There is simply no reason to make this decision right now. In five months, we'll have a much better idea of what Sano can be and where he will play.

Or you just let him go for a comp pick when he hits FA if he's that good. It's likely that the Twins will get the best of Plouffe by the time he hits free agency. If Sano is a third baseman, you can trade Trevor or just let him walk. He's not the type of player who will make or break the team.

Holy balls, Plouffe.

Joe Mauer looks like a different baseball player this year.

Outing someone as gay is a pretty horrendous thing to do to someone. With that said, it's hard not to chuckle at this situation.

I was going to respond but Mike pretty much summed up how I feel about the situation. People don't riot just for funsies. There is a lot of frustration and anger pent up behind these outbursts and we'd be wise to examine the disease, not the symptoms.

I'm not necessarily against a Plouffe extension but I wouldn't fall over myself to get it done. Let Sano play for a season and then reevaluate. That may mean you don't extend Plouffe because he becomes too expensive but it also means you have a better idea of what you need and you're not shuffling players out of position to keep a guy you extended but don't *really* need.

It all depends on whether you think Mauer's 2015 is typical Joe Mauer or whether you think his recent 7/14 day splits are indicative of where he's going. 7 day splits: .368 .500 .579 1.079 14 day splits: .298 .382 .426 .807 I'm cautiously optimistic about Joe. I'd be thrilled with an .800 OPS at this point but there's a decent chance that Joe still has a few .850 OPS seasons left in him.

As an illustration of how badly the Twins' youngsters have performed in 2015, Santana's OPS is .519 as of today. That's horrible. And it's still .057 points higher than Kennys Vargas. Ouch. This is what young players do... While I'd consider demoting Vargas, a guy who hasn't even played in AAA, I'm willing to give Santana another week or two to sort it out. We need to be patient with the kids, though Vargas looks like he needs a breather in the minors.

Fixed. It should revert back to normal once the cache automatically clears in the next 2-5 hours.

Thanks for the notification. I know what happened... I'll revert some code I implemented and get rid of it.

Bad. We're talking about a guy who handles the ball 150 times a game. He has more impact on game than everybody but the pitcher. There's a reason why catcher isn't an offense-first position.

If he can't improve on his 2014 as a catcher, the guy doesn't have much of a shot at being a MLB player, really. There's an outside chance he could be a middling DH but I don't think he has enough in his bat to be a longterm starter there, either. Pinto's bat would play fine as a catcher right now... That has never been the question. It has always been about his defense. He'll hit enough to hold down a catching spot if he can show any competence behind the dish.

I don't really trust them either but with absolutely no evidence to support a belief that Pinto has improved, I can't get too worked up about him not receiving a call-up right now. Like Parmelee before him, my biggest complaint is that the Twins should have made a decision on him already but by letting him sit on the bench for a good portion of last season, we're still at the point where we don't know what the team has in him.

It's not about showing the pitchers anything, it's about him being so bad behind the plate that MLB pitchers complained about him. You're letting the tail wag the dog here, Mike. If Pinto is *so bad* that pitchers don't want to throw to him, you can't convince them otherwise unless he has *actually improved* as a catcher. Given that we're all of 15 games into the season, it's unlikely that has happened. If Pinto has improved, I'm all for calling him up immediately but we, as outsiders, have absolutely no way to measure his current ability behind the plate while the Twins coaching staff gets to watch him every day. Suzuki may be bad behind the plate but Pinto was worse. Don't like Suzuki's -1.43 pitch framing calls per game? Then take a gander at Pinto's -3.06, one of the worst in baseball last year. Suzuki was -149 calls in 8106 chances. That's bad. Pinto was -81 in just 2076 chances. That's horrrrrrible. Couple that with pitcher complaints, questionable pitch calling, and the eyeball test and you have yourself one of the worst catchers in baseball. Yet some think he should be handed the job simply because they think he's "ready" just because he's swinging a hot bat. I don't get it. I'm all for considering Pinto as a backup catcher option now that it appears the Twins need help at DH but I'm not going to fret if the Twins think he's better served by staying in Rochester right now to work on his awful defensive game. But that opinion comes with the realization that Pinto could do significant damage to an already-shaky pitching staff, even as a backup starting only twice a week. I think that's an acceptable risk given the Twins' weaknesses and ability to compete in 2015 but no way can I advocate Pinto as starter until he has proven he is capable of being even a "bad" catcher, which would be a pretty significant step up from his 2014 ranking of "OMG awful".

There's certainly merit in familiarity and logging time with MLB pitchers... My main sticking point is the nebulous nature of catching. More than any other position, it can't be defined by statistics but what statistics we have suggest Pinto is a very bad catcher. Therefore, we have to rely on the eyeball test and we simply can't do that with Pinto in Rochester... But the Twins can. With Vargas struggling so badly, the door is open for Pinto. I hope the Twins have enough confidence in him to give him a shot at catching a few times a week and DHing a few more. To open the season, the Twins didn't really have room for Pinto but with their DH situation the way it is right now, they can fit Josmil into the lineup on a regular basis and not waste him on the bench, which has always been my biggest issue with having him on the Minnesota roster. The guy needs to play regularly.

In the short term, he's more valuable in Rochester if the Twins think he can become an MLB catcher in time. The Twins aren't going to shift Suzuki out of the starting catcher role in April so if Josmil is going to get regular ABs in Minnesota right now, it's going to come at the expense of Vargas. I wanted to see the Twins migrate Pinto into more of a catching role last season but somebody was adamantly against it. I don't know if that was Gardenhire, Ryan, or both but it didn't happen and it's not going to happen in April of this season, either. If Molitor is willing to name Pinto backup catcher and leave the door open for Josmil to earn more playing time behind the dish as the season progresses, I'm all for it (as I was last season). If management is reluctant to do that based on what they think of Pinto's defense, then he should stay in Rochester in hopes that he'll learn a few things and not be a total menace behind the plate. If they have no faith in Pinto ever becoming an MLB catcher, then he should be in Minnesota today. What drove me nuts last year was how much Pinto was jerked around. He often sat in Minnesota and didn't even catch much when he was demoted to the minors. At least he's catching again, which gives me hope the Twins think he can be an adequate defensive catcher in time.

Pinto can play one position on the diamond and by most accounts, he plays it very badly. If he's going to get regular PAs, it's going to be at the DH position with some catching starts mixed in. We've already played the "call up Pinto and let him sit on the bench" game a few times. If Pinto gets the call, he needs to play regularly and that will have to come at the expense of Vargas, at least in the short term. If he's going to get the call and sit 3-4 days a week, he should just stay in Rochester and continue working on his defensive game.