Brock Beauchamp

Does Michele Bachmann bump him from the bottom of the list? I'm not sure. I consider them two peas in a pod.

The article mentions that Arcia swung at 48% of 3-0 pitches. Nobody else has crossed the 40% mark since 2008. Yeah, it's only a couple of swings, but... Does this explain everything about Oswaldo Arcia? No, absolutely not but it's a glimpse into the attitude of a player and how it might be hurting the team. The dude is straight-up swinging out of his shoes and there's no strategy to his game. That's not going to lead to prolonged success in MLB no matter how talented he is. What's maybe most important about this article is that I read and it and said "of course Arcia swings at more 3-0 pitches than anyone else in baseball". The fact that I wasn't even a little bit surprised by the article's contents is a pretty damning observation of Arcia's game. In the grand scheme of things, does the frequency of Arcia swinging at a 3-0 pitch really matter? No, not really. But it's quite telling about how he approaches an at-bat and why there are some serious flaws in his game right now.

Either way, "green light" isn't synonymous with "swing at a pitch a foot off the plate". It's still expected that the batter use some strike zone judgment and take the walk if that's what's given to him.

That article is embarrassing. It does everything but call Arcia a moron and had the author actually gone that far, I still wouldn't be able to really disagree with his take.

I'd mostly agree if the comics industry hadn't spent half a century portraying women as objectified characters. While I don't like all the outside influences weighing in on the subject, there is an increasingly large segment of the comic reading population that is fed up with female portrayals in comic books. Depending on the study you find, women are between 40-50% of the comic buying market now. Batgirl itself is a very popular title among women. If comic creators hadn't spent 50 years crapping all over women, this wouldn't be an issue in the first place; they'd get a lot more leeway in situations of this kind but the creators themselves are the ones who created the environment and the public - both comic buyers and not - are telling creators "enough is enough". I have no issue with that, even if I don't think this particular cover is an egregious example of a one-dimensional portrayal of a female character.

This actually ties into my earlier point. Even if the Democrats reasonably approached defense spending, the Republicans have so finely crafted the "liberals hate our troops" message that the Democrats just run around reacting instead of actually driving their message home to Americans (cue Benny Hill Theme again). The Democratic Party leadership is largely incompetent. Even when they come out with progressive ideas, the Republicans respond with demagoguery and send the Democrats into a reactive tailspin. Want to cut defense spending? Well, then... YOU HATE OUR TROOPS. We're going to take that phrase and repeat it literally thousands of times on television in the next month and you're going to stop talking about your proposal and start talking about how you don't really hate the troops at all. Bingo, the Republicans win because the Democrats aren't talking about their proposal, they're talking about the troops. America loves its troops! Boo, Democrats! The Republicans have spent three decades crafting these messages while the Democrats stood by and let it happen. It's no longer a "war on poverty", it's "the poor are freeloaders". It's no longer about individual rights, it's about the freedom of religion (but holy moses, definitely not "freedom from religion"). It's no longer about free market unionization, it's about job creators and how they grace the middle class with jobs. You didn't earn that job, you were gifted it from a benefactor who must be protected at all costs or you'll lose your job and die horribly. The Republicans have about a dozen trite responses to Democratic proposals that never fail to send the Dems into a reactive tailspin. It'd be funny if it wasn't so predictable and sad.

Well, yeah... Maybe I didn't make my point clear. The Democrats are the biggest impediment to their own success but the Republicans are more than happy to help them fail and because the Republicans are so organized and good at controlling the message, they don't have to spend much energy coaxing the Democrats into failure. Outside of the ACA, when was the last time you remember a Democrat suggest a wide-sweeping policy that even came close to reality? The Democrats talk a lot but because they can't organize their own party, the Republicans can generally kill anything the Democrats suggest without even trying very hard. I think the FCC Title II reclassification was able to happen because the Republican Party was napping on the job for once (and I think most of them don't understand the internet well enough and missed what was happening under their noses until it was too late to stop it). Thankfully, they were napping because it's one of the most important rulings in this century.

If Democrat leadership was even half as organized or effective as GOP leadership, we'd be on our third consecutive decade of Democrat domination. The Repubicans remain relevant because of Democratic ineptitude. Repubicans are masters of controlling the conversation while Democratic leadership closely resembles the intro to The Benny Hill Show.

I've put a lot of thought into this and that's why I ended up voting mostly blue last election, the first time I've ever done that. The modern Democratic Party is basically the pre-Reagan Republican Party. Even Reagan, who established much of the current GOP's policy, couldn't win a Republican Party nomination in the 21st century because he'd be called that dirtiest of 21st century American words, a "Socialist". Both parties have drifted right in the past 35 years (once you adjust for the continuing leftward shift of social policy that has been in action since the inception of this country). One party, having started further to the right than the other, has drifted over to CrazyTown because of it. The modern GOP is rife with contradictory policy that doesn't make any sense to a person who isn't a partisan.

That's very possible but I'd prefer to give Rosario more time to rebound from a pretty bad 2014 campaign in the minors before we find out. It might not take long, maybe only 4-6 weeks... but I want to see him succeed against AA or AAA pitching before he gets the call.

That Spider Girl cover was atrocious. It's kind of like the Rice/Peterson situation. Peterson did something wrong but had it not been preceded by something even more horrific that put the topic at the forefront of everyones' minds, it probably blows over with minimal controversy.

It probably did but that surely wasn't the intent. It was an homage to one of the most highly-regarded Batman storylines of all time, celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Joker. It was an homage, nothing more. If the Spider Girl cover fiasco didn't happen 6-8 months ago, nobody pays attention to this cover, which was much less provocative than that cover. It was very bad timing.

Except that's not what happened at all. The creative team decided the cover wasn't appropriate for a book that's light-hearted, fun, and about a teenaged girl. Pretty much everybody who actually reads Batgirl agrees that the cover wasn't in line with the tone of the book. I thought the cover was meh. Even if it fit the tone of the book, comic creators need to be acutely sensitive about how they portray women because they've done a piss-poor job of it for half a century and there's a vocal segment of the reading population that is sick and tired of it. This wasn't the most egregious example and it's unfortunate that it received such scrutiny but it largely brought it on itself.

I can get behind that. I also think Walker is a half-wit.

The thing is about net neutrality is that if you don't like what happened with the Title II reclassification, blame Verizon. We had well-reasoned, fair regulation of the internet until Verizon just had to go sue the FCC because they're greedy, horrible slimebags. Verizon screwed it up for everybody else and they pissed off a bunch of other ISPs in the process (ISPs who were smart enough to realize they had a pretty good thing going and didn't want Verizon to upset the apple cart). http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/10/isps-secretly-furious-at-verizon-scared-of-stronger-net-neutrality-rules/ Then we get clownshoes like Cruz (who has received a pile of cash from Verizon & Co) pandering to the lowest common denominator with misleading, horrible, wrong information about what net neutrality is and why the FCC was considering reclassification (in a nutshell, the FCC was forced to reclassify because of the Verizon lawsuit). There are two sides to net neutrality: 1. Those who understand it and see that government regulation is absolutely needed 2. Those who don't understand how the internet works or what series of events led us to this point I have a particular hatred of Ted Cruz because of his net neutrality stance. Again, he's either a liar or incompetent. I'm fine with "less government, more private sector" types... Hell, I used to be adamantly among their ranks, and still am to an extent... But any politician who feeds on the basest insecurities of people the way Cruz does is the lowest of the low in my eyes.

I like that Rand Paul exists. He's the type of guy that keeps other politicians honest, a kind of right-wing equivalent of Bernie Sanders. He bucks his party when he doesn't agree with them and isn't afraid to do things like rant about drone strikes when nobody else is talking about it (but should be talking about it). Congress needs a handful of those people to stir the pot and mess with the establishment. But along with those virtues comes a whole basketful of crazy. Good for Congress, not so good for a leadership role, much less the leadership role.

Isn't that true most of the time, though? Third base is probably the most underappreciated position on the field. But more to your point, I think Trevor's WAR is inflated by a particular lack of quality third baseman right now (but it's not terribly uncommon at the position, IMO). He's a decent player, the kind of guy who fills out a good roster as the seventh or eighth best position player.

That's why I was pulling for Jon Huntsman to gain momentum in 2012. Instead, the party turned its back on him. It was so disappointing that the party would turn its back on the only guy in the debates saying "LISTEN TO THESE PEOPLE, THEY'RE INSANE. I'm normal. I'm smart. Vote for me. For the love of god, VOTE FOR ME."

Fantastic article, Parker. One of the best I've read lately.

I struggle to call any politician honest but were I to create an honesty list, Cruz wouldn't be near the top of it. To use just one example of many, he so badly misrepresented the net neutrality argument (calling it "Obamacare" for the internet, which is completely nonsensical and reeks of demagoguery) that he's either incompetent or a liar. Neither instills faith in his ability to lead this country.

All that other stuff is implied.

Last I read, the Twins were about middle of the pack in organizational TJ surgeries, though that was a year or two ago. They haven't had a rash of them in the past 24 months so that's still likely to be the case.

That's not likely at all. Second basemen who post 9 WAR over two seasons are a rare commodity. Polanco has a chance to do that by 2018 but there's not a particularly good chance he can do it. Polanco is a decent, not great, prospect. He's the kind of guy who you keep an eye on and hope that he matures into something much better than he is right now. Kinda like Brian Dozier, actually... Though Polanco is younger and probably has a higher floor than Dozier. Either way, it's rare for Brian Dozier to turn into Brian Dozier and it'd be stunning to see the Twins strike gold like that twice in a row. Past Polanco, there's... not much. Santana is a SS. Rosario won't be as good as Dozier even if the Twins moved him back to second. Gordon also profiles as a SS and his bat is a pretty big question mark (plus, it would require him to play out of his mind to be in Minnesota by 2018). It continually baffles me how some Twins fans undersell Brian Dozier. He's not a "great" player but he's not far from it, either. He has been a fringe top five performer at his position for two years running. That's a damned fine player.

Absolutely. The league has declined in offense. My point was that at the same age, Morneau was not hopeless against lefties. Below average, yes... But not so far from average that he had no hope of ever getting there. Ultimately, he become an average hitter against lefties, which is pretty good for a LHB.

Not in love with OPS differential because it ignores the overall quality of the hitter. Many seasons, Morneau had a 200 point differential... But nobody cared because he OPSed over .900 against righties (the strong side of the platoon) and .700 against lefties (basically, he held his own). Overall, that's a damned fine hitter who will post around a 120 OPS+ every season. It's also a hitter that can't be completely marginalized in late innings because he can't hit a lefty to save his life. If Arcia can replicate that, we'd all be thrilled... But he'd need to become a much better hitter overall to do it.