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Brock Beauchamp

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Everything posted by Brock Beauchamp

  1. Brock Beauchamp
    It was a bug. The sidebar should be working now. For some reason, the indexing cache on threads stopped working properly. I re-indexed everything and it seems to be functioning properly now.
  2. Brock Beauchamp
    Oh, they surely hate us for being Christian, Western, and other things... But they're not going to go out of their way to attack someone half a world away that isn't meddling in their daily lives. They'll find a closer, more localized target to focus on. It sounds cruel but I don't see the Middle East being "fixed". The vocal part of the population practices a 14th century religion and has no motivation to change, as it helps them control the rest of the population, which (mostly) goes along with the craziness from that vocal minority. So, let 'em have their craziness. Focus on preventing the nutjobs from leaving the area, infecting other regions, and call it a day. Some problems and people just aren't worth the effort. Take some of that money and work with Africa instead. At least there we'll have a chance to fix a problem that isn't steeped in two millennia of ideological "hate your neighbor".
  3. Brock Beauchamp
    This sounds like a good start. The best way to do that is to leave them to settle their problems themselves. After awhile, it becomes hard to rally the troops against an invisible enemy half a world away that doesn't give a damn what you're doing. The "they hate us for who we are" argument doesn't really fly with me; they hate us because of what we've done in the region. By simply poking our nose around, we give fundamentalist leaders a nice, juicy target for which to place all of their peoples' blame. It's a time-tested tradition; if live sucks for your people but you don't want to actually give them any power or self-determination, blame somebody else who happens to be nearby. It deflects blame from the leaders and focuses the proletariate toward an outside enemy, which is a bloody good distraction from their daily misery. After awhile, you have to stop playing World Police and just let people blow each other up for awhile and stay the hell out of it. These divisions are thousands of years old, based on deep-seeded hatred of the other's ideology. The big ol' super-powered US of A ain't gonna do jack to fix how the people view one another.
  4. Brock Beauchamp
    1. Agreed. 2. Nothing should be banned. If Washington wants to keep their name, so be it. Nothing should force them to change it... On the other hand, I will encourage those who wish to protest the name endlessly and make the owner's life a non-stop PR disaster. Stuff like this should be handled by conscience and societal shift, not government interference.
  5. Brock Beauchamp
    You know how you feel about Nolasco? I feel that way about Santana. Times two. I think he's going to be a dreadful signing. Too old, too inconsistent, coming off a very good year. He's going to be a bad value. I'd rather give four years to Hughes than four years to Santana.
  6. Brock Beauchamp
    Eh, no thanks. But a Kubel/Plouffe RF platoon in the short-term might be pretty effective. For the faint of heart, I apologize in advance for using the "P" word.
  7. Brock Beauchamp
    Thanks. That's how I remember it as well. At the very least, it's an improvement to hear them connected to names like Ubaldo and Santana.
  8. Brock Beauchamp
    Maybe it's selective memory in my attempts to wash away last offseason but were there reports of the front office targeting specific (good) pitching last season? I don't remember it. Then again, I don't remember much from offseason other than unbridled, overwhelming disappointment.
  9. Brock Beauchamp
    I know it's a "pics or it didn't happen" scenario but at least news of this kind is encouraging. Twins plan to be aggressive in free agency, have targeted starters | 1500 ESPN Twin Cities ? Minnesota Sports News & Opinion (Twins, Vikings, Wolves, Wild, Gophers) | Sportswire: Minnesota Twins
  10. Brock Beauchamp
    Baker got a raw deal from Minnesota fans. When he was healthy, he was really underrated. The problem is that he's rarely healthy. If he manages to post a 200 inning season in 2014, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest to see him post a better season than Ervin Santana. In fact, put a couple drinks in me and I'd actually make that bet. Baker is a great buy-low candidate. I'd be infuriated if he is the only pitching free agent pick-up this offseason but if we entered 2014 with Hughes and Baker fronting the rotation, I'd be pretty damned pleased with Ryan.
  11. Brock Beauchamp
    I'm gagging on the irony of this post from a user whose signature reads "Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains." (and yes, I know it's a Rosseau quote)
  12. Brock Beauchamp
    Agreed. The only guy I see calling out Obama on this is a freakin' comedian (John Stewart). This single issue alone has taken me from "generally, kinda positive" on Obama to "he's barely any ****ing better than the last guy".
  13. Brock Beauchamp
    And you know what? NWA is a totally legitimate name for a bunch of black dudes to call their hip hop band. A bunch of white guys whose ancestors were slave owners? Maybe not so much. It's the same reason "Fighting Irish" is perfectly fine as Notre Dame's mascot and nickname. I doubt we'd feel that way about it if the school was populated with Protestant English students who hated the Irish. It's just not that hard to be decent about this and change the names of these teams. Instead, we have white establishment holding on to silly nicknames and mascots for purely selfish reasons... Who cares if the name and mascot are holdovers from an oppressive, horrible time in American history? What really matters is that my team name stays the same because I like it, damn your opinions and "insecurities".
  14. Brock Beauchamp
    To be clear, I'm not saying the Braves and Chiefs are okay names to use for a sports team... But at least they're not intentionally taking a dig at the culture, a la the Washington Redskins. We start walking a fine line when every cultural name is off-limits. I'm not saying it would be a bad thing to change the Braves and Chiefs name, I actually think for the sake of decency and history it should be done, but at least an argument can be made for the validity of those names as a positive toward the culture, not a negative.
  15. Brock Beauchamp
    Indians is a borderline name. It's a hijacked word that was never used by Native American culture to describe themselves. Chiefs and Braves, at least those are positions of honor within Native American culture. You can argue that those names are paying homage to the culture. But Redskins? Nah, man. That was never a term of respect for Native American culture. It's pejorative slang for the people as a whole. How would you feel about a team called the Detroit Jigaboos? Because I can't see a difference between the two when you get right down to it.
  16. Brock Beauchamp
    Good job by ownership. Wahoo needed to go away years ago and thankfully, Cleveland is doing it quietly while everyone is distracted by the horrible, awful Redskins team name.
  17. Brock Beauchamp
    I don't disagree with much of this post. Again, I'm not agreeing with the decision for Correia to be the "big FA move last season". I hated it then and hate it today. But the Correia signing itself was a pretty good move, one that paid off in relation to most other FA pitchers available last offseason, particularly once you factor in price. As for the Willingham comment, this is the easiest rebuttal that so many fans seem to ignore: Why would a contending team trade significant prospects for Willingham when his value was peaking? It's a two-way street. If you can recognize that a 34 year old OF is having a career year, a guy that was available to every team for $21m just five months earlier, a guy that has 2 1/2 years left on his contract, why would you give up significant value to acquire him? Ryan rolled the dice in hopes that Willingham would cement himself as a plus-bat in 2013, at which point general managers would be more willing to trade for him. He'd have a longer track record, less time remaining on his contract, and might actually return a player that would rate somewhere (anywhere) in the top 15 Twins prospects. I know that if I was a GM in 2012, there's no way I'd give up value for Willingham at the deadline. Why do fans assume they're so much smarter than general managers, guys who actually do this for a living? If you won't give up value for a guy because you think he's smoke and mirrors, it's more than a little presumptuous to expect a professional to do the same.
  18. Brock Beauchamp
    People have brought up the fact that the Twins should have $60m in open budget and strongly implied that they should spend it... all of it. I'm not saying you are advocating that strategy but there are certainly people who have advocated it. Obviously, pretty much everyone here agrees that the Twins need better players and they're not going to fill all the holes via the farm system in the next 24 months. My belief is that it's better to get there slowly; a smart pick-up this offseason, another 1-2 next season, maybe a final piece the third. I want to see improvement, for sure... But I don't need a playoff run in 2014 if it hamstrings the team in 2015-2017 when the team should be a legitimate contender if the prospects pan out.
  19. Brock Beauchamp
    Yep, that's pretty much exactly what I'm saying. Though I'm not even saying the Twins shouldn't be looking for an Ellsbury-type (I don't think Ellsbury is a great fit but that's just my opinion). I'm only suggesting that spending money just because it exists and is available is a bad idea. That doesn't mean you go out and spend no money; it means you leave yourself some room for when the team actually has the potential to get good and you need another player or two to push it to the playoffs. And that's why I'm pushing for the Twins to go after Hughes this offseason. I think he has a significant upside, won't break the bank, and won't require 1-2 decline-phase years to get him.
  20. Brock Beauchamp
    Maybe I wasn't entirely clear but I'm not advocating fielding this same roster in 2014. I mentioned Phil Hughes in the post, which suggests that I'm all for spending money this offseason to pick up quality players. But I think running up to the theoretical $120m ceiling just because you can is a mistake. When a team is this bad and is relying on prospects so heavily to succeed, you simply don't know what holes you'll have in 2015. At that point, the prudent move is to spend some money this year (maybe $20m), spend a little more next season (maybe another $10-15m), then make a big push when you know what you need to become a playoff team.
  21. Brock Beauchamp
    I mentioned that I didn't (and don't) like that Correia was "the big pick-up" last offseason. I'm not absolving the front office of not making another move, just pointing out that particular move was a pretty good one given price vs. performance. I go back and forth on Deduno. If Ryan is planning to pencil him in at #5, Correia at #3, and Gibson at #4 with the intent of picking up two more (good) pitchers, I'm pretty okay with it. But, like you said, I'm not so okay with counting on Worley, Diamond, and Deduno to field a competent rotation out of Spring Training.
  22. Brock Beauchamp
    When I say "wiggle room", I don't only mean player raises. What if the current crop of Twins prospects come up and churn out an 85 win season despite a guy like Phil Hughes falling on his face? At that point, wouldn't you like an extra $15-20m to go find a good starter in the offseason? What if the pitching succeeds but the middle infield is a disaster? Wouldn't you want some available cash to shore up that deficiency? This team can spend plenty and not go anywhere near their theoretical ceiling of $120m. And at this point, I see no reason for them to push anywhere close to that number. Leave space to add necessary pieces down the road as you get closer to competitive baseball.
  23. Brock Beauchamp
    Oh, and thanks Jack for taking the time to visit our forums! It takes some courage to step into the middle of a bunch of disgruntled fans coming off a third consecutive losing season...
  24. Brock Beauchamp
    This is probably my biggest pet peeve with forum posters. They play up the times they were right about a player and conveniently brush the mistakes under the rug. Well, the front office of the Twins can't do that. We see their successes and failures on a daily basis. For example, almost everyone here was wrong about Correia, myself included. He was a league average pitcher at something close to a league average price. He was a good value. Most of us despised the move and, well, we were wrong (at least for the first year of the deal). On the other hand, I was cautiously optimistic about Pelfrey. That, uh, didn't turn out so well as a one-year deal. I still have issues with the fact that Kevin Correia and Mike Pelfrey were the only significant MLB pick-ups last offseason but on the other hand, I couldn't have been more wrong about which would succeed and which would fail. It's something I wish more posters would keep in mind before hollering about how "right" they were about a single player... Because most of the time, they're flat-out ignoring the three players they were horribly, completely wrong about.
  25. Brock Beauchamp
    I think you're going to be very unpleasantly surprised by the mad money that is thrown around MLB this offseason. Every team, and I mean every team, has extra money to spend that they did not have 12 months ago. I have the feeling we're going to spend the entire offseason saying "WHO got HOW MUCH? ARE THEY CRAZY?!?!?" Personally, I wouldn't touch Santana with a ten foot pole. He's the type of signing a team inevitably regrets in 12-24 months. You don't sign a guy coming off a career year. You just don't do it. A guy like Phil Hughes is a far better value and has upside for your dollar. Santana has no upside, as he just came off his upside career year in 2013. The only direction he's going is down and the best you can hope for is a repeat of 2013. And even hoping for that over a 4+ year contract is a bit like hoping to win the lottery three times in a row.
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