Brock Beauchamp
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Everything posted by Brock Beauchamp
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I'm not protecting anyone. I've been a LOUD opponent of Florimon being anywhere near an MLB roster for almost a year now... Louder than anyone else on this forum, I'd wager. More than one thing went wrong... The second thing that went wrong was whatever happened with Presley. As I've mentioned in this thread, that entire situation is baffling from start to finish. And, no, the CF situation is not worse than Florimon and shortstop. Pedro Florimon has an OPS+ of 5. No, I didn't skip a digit there. His OPS+ is 5. Finding guys like Sam Fuld just isn't that hard. This thread has tossed around a half dozen names of his calibre, if not better. It's no surprise the Twins were able to find him and play musical chairs with the fourth outfielder position. -
I think we can get one of those rare "100% agreement, Twins Daily approved" stamps for this comment.
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Too many topics going back and forth in this thread... Yes, the Twins could have gone after different guys... But they had Presley until the end of March. That's where everything took a turn for the weird. That one move set all of this into motion. As for free agents worrying about Buxton, it wasn't only Buxton... What if the vet started off slowly and Hicks raked in AAA for a month? Then what happens if Buxton continues to rip it up in New Britain? I just don't see a scenario where anyone of quality would want to sign with this team with those two guys waiting in the wings. Could they have done better? Absolutely, particularly if they knew Presley was a problem. That's the origin of this mess, in my opinion.
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It's baffling. It's just baffling. From an on-the-field-performance standpoint and from a depth standpoint, Presley was a shoe-in for the 40 man roster. Yet he was released. Something had to have happened there.
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Well, I think they expected Hicks/Presley to bridge to Buxton... Not a fool-proof plan but not one I'll deride like I will the shortstop fiasco, where the upside of the position was "if we're lucky, it won't be terrible". To me, all of this hinges on "what the hell happened with Presley?" Everything surrounding that situation was confusing to outsiders. I can't believe they would just give up on him without an underlying reason.
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I think Plouffe was a fine stop-gap for Sano. He was pretty bad last season but he wasn't awful. I think it's a bit unreasonable to expect a team to have more depth than a former decent prospect (and acceptable stop-gap) chased by the #6 prospect in baseball. Well, Presley was their CF guy behind Hicks. Something happened that changed their mind. It's not as if they went into 2014 with no options, they discarded their primary option at the end of Spring Training... Why? I don't know. Something had to have happened there... I'd like to know what it was.
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It's never hard to find Fuld/Mastro/Presley type players. Teams do it all season, every season.
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The earliest I thought we'd see him was July. So you have Hicks, a former top 100 prospect as of just last season. 4+ months behind him, you have the best prospect in baseball. Who is going to sign with the Twins at that point? Nobody better than a Presley/Fuld-type of player. Hence, we sit in a position with Sam Fuld as the CF. Again, I think anger is directed the wrong place here. LENIII writes about the Twins not having CF depth... Well, going into March, they had two solid prospects at the position. One failed, the other is injured. They rolled the dice with young players and it failed. I'm not going to throw a fit about that happening. Whereas the Twins willfully opened the 2014 season with a horrific hitter at shortstop and absolutely nobody worth mentioning behind him. Where is LENIII's outrage over that blunder? I won't fault the team for rolling the dice on young, good players stepping up, especially when you have multiple young players at the position... but I will fault them for rolling the dice on middling, bad players doing the same at a critical infield position.
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While I agree that the Bartlett move was ridiculous and deserves ridicule (though I personally don't really care about 25th men), this sentence points out my problem with criticizing the team over depth issues. Third base has Trevor Plouffe, who was expected to be supplanted by Sano early in the season. Sano got injured and now everything is riding on Plouffe staying healthy. It's pretty unreasonable to expect a team to have more depth than that at any position. While the Twins could have possibly picked up someone else to man CF, was that player going to be enough better than Sam Fuld for it to make a discernible difference?
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Article: Logan Darnell to join Twins on Friday
Brock Beauchamp replied to Seth Stohs's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
Eh, I think Hughes is the best pitcher on this staff. I thought that the moment he was signed. He's had some rough innings but overall, he's been pretty good if you look past that ERA. Though Deduno is no lower than the third best starter on the team *if* (and it's a big if) he can stay healthy. -
This was one of the primary reasons why I wasn't 100% against the Pelfrey signing. If he's throwing at 94mph from the bullpen, you can get value out of that guy. But yesterday, he was sitting at 89-90mph. He's no good anywhere at that velocity.
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Everything I read said Buxton was starting the season in New Britain. But you're right about Sano.
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Injuries and suspensions caused that to happen. When you have your top two hitting prospects go down in March and your third best hitter get suspended, it's going to cause issues.
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I never said the rotation was full of MLB-quality players... AAA rotations are almost never full of MLB-quality players. I said the rotation was very good, which it is. It has one impact guy, another guy who looks like he might become an impact guy, and then depth guys. That's what you want a AAA rotation to look like. A couple of guys on the brink of joining the MLB team and then fall-back options should MLB pitchers get injured. The biggest flaw I see in the Twins' minor league rotation(s) right now is that there's really nothing at New Britain. They have a quality rotation in AAA and several solid prospects in the low minors but AA is pretty barren right now. I expect to see that change soon but it's not a perfect scenario.
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They've built the system but not all players are sitting in AA/AAA at once, waiting for the call-up. That part takes time. They've graduated the first wave to mixed results. Now it's time for the elite guys to step up and advance.
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Kyle Gibson's swinging strike percentage is 5.5%. Holy moly. I knew it was bad. I didn't expect it to be on the level of a pitching machine.
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I'm starting to doubt Hicks more every day. While Gibson's peripherals give me pause, I think he'll continue putting it together and improving as he gets more starts. I doubt he'll ever be great or maybe even good but he should be passable. The stuff is there, he just needs to trust it.
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One thing that worries me is that hit rate. I don't see how it's sustainable, as his average against is under .200, IIRC.
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Not even remotely comparable. Meyer is head-and-shoulders above anyone from last season and right now, May is looking better than Gibson did last season. Last year, the Twins had one guy who projected as a decent MLB starter. This season they have one guy who looks elite and another guy who looks to be a decent MLB starter, possibly even a very good one if he keeps the walks down and continues striking out over 11 per 9. Also, both of those guys are two years younger than Kyle Gibson was last season.
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We're talking past each other. I see that now... When I said "elite", I was mainly referring to Meyer, who we will almost surely see later this season. Arcia is tough to categorize. He's a very good prospect. Elite? Dunno. He's on the line. Gibson and Hicks never were elite. They're in the "very good" part of that sentence.
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My point is that sometimes, you need to just rely on prospects and say "you're our guy this season" and hope it works out. If that player completely collapses, well... then you know you can't rely on him anymore. To me, I don't care if the Twins run out Sam Fuld, Darin Mastroianni, or Alex Presley if Hicks bombs out. They're all bad players and no good player would have signed with a team that wants to see Hicks and Buxton succeed and replace them.
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Yep. I always enjoy disagreeing with you, Mike.
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There were also outcries over how the Twins had no depth at catcher. That was analysis... wrong analysis. Just because it's analysis doesn't mean it's right. Yeah, the Twins could have done something about centerfield. Honestly, I don't really care that they didn't... It required a few things to go wrong for this to be a real problem. Hicks had to fall on his face again. Buxton had to get injured, preventing any kind of "one month patch" to bridge over to him at center. And, at the end of the day, Sam Fuld has played pretty well. On the other hand, shortstop. THAT is the one glaring "what the &^%$ are you thinking?" offseason move, IMO.
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As are mine. I've had some real whoppers over the years. We all have... It's part of the game.
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That's painting a pretty one-sided picture of things. There were just as many pessimists who were wrong about what the team would do with Gibson and Pinto as there were homers who defended the front office at every turn. There are plenty of dumb opinions and comments from both sides of the coin. Let's not play up one side and ignore the other.
