Brock Beauchamp

If he's hitting at, say, a .750 clip, I think he's a very capable backup catcher. He won't kill you behind the dish 30 times a season because of his bat... But he has to hit, something he didn't do last season. To me, his defense is offset because of his versatility, which allows a team to carry a more versatile bench... Again, if he's hitting. In the AL or NL, I think the added versatility of allowing the team to carry another MI, OF, or P because of Doumit can be worth a lot. If he's hitting. Did I mention that he needs to hit to have value?

Ugh. Pick up a pitcher, sign a patchwork catcher, and see what you have in Pinto. It doesn't take much imagination to see Salty and his ugly splits go from "YAY Fenway" to "get me out of Target Field, please" by mid-May.

We've gone round and round over pitch framing. I have a hard time believing it can impact 8-10% of runs allowed but I think we can both agree on one thing: Ryan Doumit is a horrible catcher and no playoff team would put him behind the dish 80+ times a season. I think he has a lot of value as someone who can DH, pinch hit, and catch ~30-40 times a season but no way in hell should he be the go-to guy at catcher.

Like OMG. BEST. POST. EVAH. SQUEEEEEE!

There you go. My work is done here.

No, but now I'm going to create an exception that displays all fonts at 60px whenever username snepp is logged in.

And there is your rough approximation of a like button. Not quite the same but close enough.

This.

What bothers me most is that everyone keeps putting two "e"s in judgment. Are you all British?

No and no. Kinsler isn't good enough and I've never liked Fielder... His dad imploded at what, age 33? I think it's very possible that Prince follows the family mold.

Earlier in the post, I mentioned "outside Minnesota", which is a pretty important modifier in my opinion. For example, Ken Rosenthal has tweeted about the Twins' interest in Nolasco. Buster Olney has also reported that they're pushing hard for Arroyo. Did that happen in earlier years? It's possible, maybe I just don't remember it... But it's definitely happening this year.

To me, the difference is that we're hearing reports from outside Minnesota that the Twins are involved in talks with various high-ish profile pitchers. We didn't hear that at all last season. We heard the Twins were in on Correia, who they signed. Near the end of the offseason, we heard them in on Saunders, who they didn't. Basically, we heard a few rumors that they were talking to some pretty mediocre-to-bad pitchers. Hearing that they're communicating with the likes of Kazmir (I think it was Kazmir, maybe I'm wrong there) is promising, though hardly confirmation that they're actually going to sign the guy.

Way too early to judge anything. Yeah, it's possible that Ryan holds the line and continues to underspend. On the other hand, we're hearing rumors of real interest by the Twins in some pricey players. We didn't hear that in years past. The Winter Meetings haven't happened yet. Only one or two guys have signed out of a pool of nearly 20. Getting frustrated now is like turning off a baseball game in the top of the first because the starter walked a guy with one out.

By the time he proves himself healthy again, he'll be too old to get anything longer than a three year deal. So, yeah... Three years, tops.

Ding ding ding. What the Twins need to do is stop signing players who are bad at throwing baseballs. Unless I'm forgetting someone, Kevin Correia was their best free agent pitching signing since since Kenny Rogers. Yeesh.

Possibly. Since I wasn't in the room and have absolutely no idea how each party felt about Marquis remaining with the team, it's kind of pointless to speculate about what should/could have been done.

I think it's pretty apparent that my point was that Marquis was greatly affected by his daughter's accident during Spring Training, and for good reason. What I don't understand is how you give any kind of credit for Phil Humber pitching well for half a season but then write off Scott Diamond for regressing. Don't you see that they're basically the same guy with the same issues? They're not very good at throwing a baseball, period. That's who they are as MLB players. If you give credit for one, you have to give credit for the other. Anderson got 3+ months of good pitching from Diamond. Cooper got 3+ good months of pitching from Humber. Then they both crashed and burned. I'm not going to fault Anderson for Humber any more than I'm going to fault Atlanta for not keeping Diamond on the 40 man roster. Hicks and Gibson shouldn't even be in the conversation at this point. Hicks flopped in MLB. Well, he's flopped at every new level he's been exposed to in the short term. That shouldn't surprise anyone. Gibson pitched less than half a season after coming back from TJ surgery. None of us should be the least bit surprised about his performance, though it's certainly a little disappointing. This is how the vast majority of guys reach the majors. They do well in the minors and then flop in the majors as they adjust to the highest level of competition in the world. Two years down the road if both have bombed out of the majors, you might have a point... But not three months into each of their MLB careers. No way. As for Worley, that was strange. Most of us expected regression from the league switch. He also had surgery. Basically, I view him as a holding pattern. If the Twins can't get anything out of him in 2014, then we can talk about coaching failure.

Yeah, this franchise isn't exactly short on soft-tossing #5/#6 pitchers who throw from either side of the mound. That's probably my only issue with this move. Why does Ryan even want this guy? The Twins already have a backlog of AAA starters that they need to sort and find out who is worth keeping and who is a burden.

Getting less nice as time goes on. It seems that San Diegans learned nothing from their Los Angelenos brethren. Traffic has turned into a nightmare down there. Still great weather but ugh, no public transport and horrible traffic compared to when I lived there in the 90s.

I'm eagerly awaiting someone to bring up Jason Marquis. It was probably Rick Anderson's fault that Marquis' seven year old daughter was in a near-fatal accident and put into a medically-induced coma smack in the middle of Spring Training. No way that's going to mess with a guy's head in the first two months of a season. Rub some dirt on it and walk it off, amirite?

My point.

I don't consider it deflating, honestly... I consider it a non-issue. If whats-his-face holds back any prospects or prevents any acquisitions, then I'll care.

You realize that it's November 20th, right? 95% of the free agent market is still available.

I don't know about others' arguments but I thought it could be a bargaining chip to attract Johnson to Minnesota, though it'd obviously have to come alongside a competitive offer. Obviously, that wasn't the case (though it's hard to say whether the Twins pursued him at all, never heard a rumor linking them to Johnson).