Brock Beauchamp

"Opening Day starter" and "best pitcher" are not synonymous. There are a host of reasons not to start your "best pitcher" on Opening Day: 1. He might be injured. 2. He might be in the minors. 3. He might be young and you want to defer the pressure of Opening Day to a veteran. 4. You might trust a particular veteran more than another. Continue ad nauseum.

I didn't say they had to pass the Koufax standard. I listed four great players with incredibly diverse skill sets to counter your argument that different players deserve to be in the hall. The common trait between those four is greatness... A trait that Jack Morris did not consistently show during his career.

Sure there is. That's why Rickey Henderson, Sandy Koufax, Ozzie Smith, and Babe Ruth are in the same Hall of Fame. All vastly different players. All the best in the game at one particular skillset during their careers. Jack Morris lacks the most important quality shared between them, and that is "greatness".

Not many, because WAR didn't exist. But it says a lot that the overwhelming majority of them pass with flying colors. If some of you think Morris should be in the Hall due to his postseason performances, so be it. I don't agree but there is a case to be made for such players. But don't try to pass off his career numbers as Hall-worthy. They simply aren't. Again, Jamie Moyer compares favorably to Jack Morris. Jamie-freakin-Moyer. Think about that for a moment.

Jamie Moyer pitched 250 more innings than Morris and had a higher career WAR. They had virtually the same ERA+. And Moyer did it in the middle of the PED era when pitchers were pulled after six innings. Jack Morris was a good pitcher. He was not a great one.

There are many reasons to be upset with the BBWAA and their voting process. Jack Morris isn't one of them. Bartolo-freakin-Colon has a higher career WAR than ol' Grumpystache. Morris has no business being in a Hall that refuses to elect Alan Trammell, Mike Piazza, Craig Biggio, Jeff Bagwell, and Tim Raines, among others (all are 69+ career WAR players, compared to Morris' 43 WAR... which is lower than Joe Mauer, BTW). And that's not even getting into the PED guys who deserve to be there: Clemens and Bonds, for starters. The problem with the HoF voting is that there are a slew of writers who just aren't very bright. They take moralistic stands on the most bizarre of topics but they can't even stay consistent within their own "rules". How on earth can you vote for Larkin but not Trammell? How can you vote for Jim Rice but not Raines? How can you completely ignore the contributions of the Killer Bs? Hell, Trammell and Raines didn't even play during the PED era. That's no excuse (it shouldn't be an excuse either way but whatever) to leave them off the ballot. And then there's Mike Piazza. The best offensive catcher in history and it's not even really close. Never linked to PED use, played in monster stadiums his entire career, and a hell of a guy to boot. But nah, don't vote for him. This is the Hall of Fame. Not the Hall of... uh... Great?

The BBWAA revoked the wrong guy's credentials.

I don't know what's so rosy about "Brian Dozier either has a floor of .700 OPS or he's out of the league". I simply don't see a world where he maintains solid plate discipline but can't SLG at a .375 clip. He's either going to revert in plate discipline and collapse completely or he'll be somewhere around a 100 OPS+ player.

I just don't buy it. Ryan has openly said that he hasn't seen Jason Bartlett in 18 months. No way is a GM, even one as loyal as Ryan, going to give a 25 man spot to a guy who hasn't played with the organization in half a decade, a guy that hasn't played professional baseball in over a year. Occam's Razor.

Yep. Joe Crede is another guy who had a chronic issue, which is very different than a "I slipped in the tub and broke my face. Hope it doesn't happen again." type of injury.

Except that you can draw a line in the sand the day Dozier changed his approach. He stopped swinging and started walking that day. I'm not talking about fluctuations in BABIP or homers. He drastically altered his approach and yes, he started also hitting for more power but he started taking more BB and hitting for a higher average, as well. The power and, to an extent, the BA might fluctuate... But not the underlying discipline, which is what we're talking about here. Either you believe Brian Dozier has permanently changed his approach and is going to continue walking more or you believe he's going to revert to being a very bad baseball player. I don't see a lot of room in between those arguments when it comes to plate approach. The power, yeah, that's very debatable... But not the discipline. If he goes back to swinging at bad pitches, he will not be the starting second basemen in July. Hence, an OPS floor somewhere around .700. If he's going to keep walking, he's going to post an OBP north of .320. Add in a SLG of .375 and there's your .700. If he doesn't keep walking, he's out of the league by season's end because he's almost certainly posting an OPS under .600 again. This isn't about using stats beneficial to my argument, it's about acknowledging that he made significant changes in approach some time in early June and ignoring some of stats previous to that point because they are no longer relevant to him as a player.

Eh, injury plagued players are always injured until they aren't. Healthy players take the field every day until they don't. Really, I think too many people throw around terms like "everyday" and "injury plagued" far too freely. There simply isn't a good predictor for health. Carl Pavano is a perfect example of such a player. He was a workhorse innings-eater until he wasn't. Then he was injury plagued until he wasn't. Then he was a workhorse innings-eater again until he wasn't. Then he got old and tried to shovel some snow. A famous exception is if you're Rich Harden. Then your arm might fall off doing the dishes one day. But Rich Harden can't be used as an example of anything, not since he killed that gypsy's daughter and had an unbreakable curse placed on him using goat's blood baked into a pie.

Eh, I think Miller is speculating. Ryan just said in an interview (paraphrasing here) "Nobody has seen Jason in a year and a half. We'll see what he looks like in Ft Myers." That isn't exactly a ringing endorsement to see him on the 25 man roster.

Only if you use his entire 2013 stat line and ignore that he had a ~.260 OBP in April-May and a ~.340 OBP from June-September. Again, using Dozier's 2013 stat line is pretty misleading. He was a different player in those first two months.

Okay, I'll come out and admit it. I only want the Twins to sign Drew so they can call their middle infield a cool nickname: GIDDDP The Killer Ds Drezier The Venture Bros. Okay, so the last one doesn't make any sense. Screw you guys.

3506 plate appearances of sub-par hitting, for starters.

You're looking at the wrong numbers. Drew does everything better with the bat. He hits for higher average. .264 to .219. He walks more. .329 to .278. He hits for more power. .435 to .323. RBI, like always, are irrelevant. They are a corrollary stat that depends on BA, SLG, and team participation to get on base. Homeruns are largely park-dependent and don't tell if a player has gap power. They're particularly useless when examined devoid of other stats. Stephen Drew has a 98 OPS+. Pedro Florimon has a 67 OPS+. That's all you need to know about them as hitters. What really matters is that Stephen Drew, by every measurable statistic we have, is a significantly better overall baseball player than Pedro Florimon. You may argue that he's not better enough. I don't agree (and the statistics show that he's worth between 1-3 more wins than Florimon) but the two shouldn't even be in the same conversation. Admitting that Florimon is good enough is one thing... but suggesting that he's even remotely comparable to Stephen Drew is absurd. One is a quality MLB player and has been for quite some time. The other is a 27 year old journeyman whose numbers project as a spot starter at best, a waiver wire pickup at worst. And you continue to suggest that Florimon will improve with the bat. Why do you believe this? He is 27 years old and hasn't OPSed over .750 in a full season since rookie ball in 2006. While it's nice to wish for player improvement, it's certainly no way to run a baseball team and Pedro Florimon has not given any indication that he will ever hit baseballs at an acceptable clip in MLB. His entire track records suggests that this is who he is as a player.

If he continues to walk (which I think he will), it would take a Jamey Carroll-esque SLG to not reach a .700 OPS. No matter how you view Brian Dozier, I think he can be counted on for a SLG of .375, which is hardly earth-shattering. That puts him somewhere around .700 overall. It's really hard for a guy to post a respectable walk rate and not approach a .700 OPS unless he's a singles machine. Even if Dozier stops hitting dingers, the doubles should still come steadily.

I'm not dismissing them at all. Well, maybe Santana. He just hasn't shown much with the stick... Or anything with the stick, when you get right down to it. Polanco and Goodrum haven't played above Cedar Rapids. They're non-issues at this point. They may turn into fantastic prospects. They may bust. Neither will hit the majors before 2016 at the earliest.

In fairness to Drew, he is not the type of hitter that thrives in Fenway. He has zero opposite field power.

The problem is that the author considers herself a feminist. She's not a feminist. She's a ****ing crazy person. I hope, and often see, the "normal feminist" community give people like this the boot because they give anti-feminism forces an insane argument to rally against. People like this blogger are counterproductive to the task at hand, and that is female equality. BTW, if you want a real "treat", read the comments section. She is only scratching the surface of crazy in the article itself and really hits her stride in the comments section (along with some of her fellow commenters, who are equally as crazy). The most hilarious aspect of it was the line of thinking that men "bred out" disobedient females long ago because they were too unruly. Because, as we all know, men are the only interested parties in perpetuating our own species. Real women were so unruly that they wanted to see the entire species die out of principle.

TC;DR (Too Crazy, Didn't Read)

Greatly impact his numbers, yes. Make him a bad MLB starter, no, I don't think so. Which is why I think Dozier's floor is somewhere just north of a .700 OPS. If he's laying off bad pitches, his OBP should maintain a respectable floor making him a solid, if unspectacular, player. After all, that's how mediocre players make their hay. Fight off good pitches and lace the occasional bad pitch. As long as Dozier continues to fight off good pitches and lay off pitches outside the zone, he should be fine.

Well, I think there's more to it than that. Here are Dozier's 2012/2013 swings/pitches broken down: Overall Swing %: 48.0%/40.0% Strikezone Swing %: 61.8%/54.0% Outside Strikezone Swing %: 34.7%/28.9% Balls thrown in Strikezone %: 48.9%/44.1% Contact %: 84.5%/84.6% Pitches per Plate Appearance: 3.69/4.17 In 2013, Brian Dozier was thrown less strikes but swung at a fewer percentage of pitches. He swung at fewer pitches outside the zone. His contact rate remained steady. Basically, he made huge gains in pitch recognition and swung at hitter's pitches while learning to lay off junk pitches. That kind of transformation leads to sustained success, whether pitchers are throwing him fastballs or not. If they're not throwing him hittable pitches, he has shown the discipline to not swing and take the walk instead or wait out the pitcher until he's forced to throw a fastball.

I understand not being a fan of the Pelfrey contract but Pelfrey is blocking no one. There is still one rotation spot up for grabs and sooner rather than later, a second will open up from injury.