Beckham returning?

[sportsfan8703]

25 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Beckham has had a positive WAR every year for the the last four.    He’s no great player and I freely admit his flaws, but he’s far from the worst player around.   I don’t know why he draws such a disproportionate amount of ire.   Fine with me if they sign him to a MiL deal so long as it’s cheap.    

I don’t get the Beckham criticism. We traded for him at the 2017 trade deadline and I think he won AL player of the month in August. Can’t ask for much more than that. 

The guy is a heck of an athlete. I’ll take that in a Util role when we have no IF depth. 

[MongoBoy]

He'll play where Mancini is.  Cause we all know Mancini will play 1st when Davis pulls something.  And we know Davis WILL pull something.  The question is: what will he pull this time?  I vote a bicep.

[VaBird1]

2 hours ago, atomic said:

Yeah anyone can play a lot of positions badly.  You could put Chris Davis at Shortstop if you wanted for example.   And Beckham is even worse at Third than at Shortstop.  His high strike out rate and his low OBP make him very un-fun player to watch.  Add that to his upcoming suspension and he might be an even worse hitter if he stops taking PEDs.  

I don't see the need to bring Beckham even on a minor league deal.  It is like rubbing salt into our wounds.  If you are going to get someone awful at least have someone who we haven't seen before.   

Like Steve Wilkerson?

[Frobby]

3 hours ago, sportsfan8703 said:

I don’t get the Beckham criticism. We traded for him at the 2017 trade deadline and I think he won AL player of the month in August. Can’t ask for much more than that. 

Well, you could ask that he be good for more than one month out of the 8 months he was on the Orioles over two seasons.   

2018 was about the worst offensive year of his career and people forget he missed a bunch of time with an injury that may have continued to hamper him, plus he was moved to 3B for several months to allow Manny to play SS.     So, I don’t think we really got a representative season from Beckham that year.     
 

[sportsfan8703]

9 hours ago, Frobby said:

Well, you could ask that he be good for more than one month out of the 8 months he was on the Orioles over two seasons.   

2018 was about the worst offensive year of his career and people forget he missed a bunch of time with an injury that may have continued to hamper him, plus he was moved to 3B for several months to allow Manny to play SS.     So, I don’t think we really got a representative season from Beckham that year.     
 

2018 he had a groin “core” injury. I think it’s safe to say that he gritted that season out when we had hopes of “contending”. 

I’m not the biggest Beckham fan. He still has 32 games left on his PED suspension. 

What frustrates me is that this seems to be a direct reaction to losing Pat Valaika. I could go on about complaining about Wynns being on the 40 man but maybe the team wants him to catch and not Sisco?  

Beckham could be very similar to Bill Hall

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/hallbi03.shtml

[wildbillhiccup]

16 hours ago, Frobby said:

Beckham has had a positive WAR every year for the the last four.    He’s no great player and I freely admit his flaws, but he’s far from the worst player around.   I don’t know why he draws such a disproportionate amount of ire.   Fine with me if they sign him to a MiL deal so long as it’s cheap.    

I don't really get why people are upvoting your reply. Beckham is a below average player coming off a PED suspension so his ceiling (if he's clean now) is probably even lower than it's been in the past. Best case scenario he'll hit 20 HRs and bat .250 if you give him 500+ ABs. Are those really worthwhile numbers, in the juiced ball era, to bring back a known cheater who's also been labeled as a bit of a head case and "me first" type of guy throughout his career? I mean, his self-proclaimed nickname is "Swaggy" for god's sake. Why would you want to bring that type of mojo into a young easily influenced clubhouse. The ends don't justify the very limited means. I'm fine with the team looking for cheap needles in haystacks, while they rebuild, but Beckham isn't one of them. 

[wildbillhiccup]

16 hours ago, sportsfan8703 said:

I don’t get the Beckham criticism. We traded for him at the 2017 trade deadline and I think he won AL player of the month in August. Can’t ask for much more than that. 

The guy is a heck of an athlete. I’ll take that in a Util role when we have no IF depth. 

There are plenty of athletes/high draft picks that never ban out. There's also a very fine line between confidence and arrogance. The Beckham quotes I've read paint him an arrogant ego maniac and "me first" type of player. Also, let's not forget his was also suspended for 50 games in 2012 for testing positive for marijuana. Why would we want to bring that kind of mojo into our clubhouse? 

[Frobby]

3 minutes ago, wildbillhiccup said:

I don't really get why people are upvoting your reply. Beckham is a below average player coming off a PED suspension so his ceiling (if he's clean now) is probably even lower than it's been in the past. Best case scenario he'll hit 20 HRs and bat .250 if you give him 500+ ABs. Are those really worthwhile numbers, in the juiced ball era, to bring back a known cheater who's also been labeled as a bit of a head case and "me first" type of guy throughout his career? I mean, his self-proclaimed nickname is "Swaggy" for god's sake. Why would you want to bring that type of mojo into a young easily influenced clubhouse. The ends don't justify the very limited means. I'm fine with the team looking for cheap needles in haystacks, while they rebuild, but Beckham isn't one of them. 

Frankly I don’t remember reading a single negative thing about his personality or any clubhouse issues during his stint with the Orioles.    I don’t see that as a risk at all.  

We’re talking about bringing a guy in on a minor league deal to compete for a spot held by Stevie (.669 OPS, -0.8 rWAR) Wilkerson and for which Richard Urena also will compete.    It’s not like we’re expecting him to be a starting infielder, or paying him millions of dollars, or using a spot on our 40-man roster until such time, if any, as he makes the major league team.   It’s simply not a very big deal.    
 

[wildbillhiccup]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

Frankly I don’t remember reading a single negative thing about his personality or any clubhouse issues during his stint with the Orioles.    I don’t see that as a risk at all.  

We’re talking about bringing a guy in on a minor league deal to compete for a spot held by Stevie (.669 OPS, -0.8 rWAR) Wilkerson and for which Richard Urena also will compete.    It’s not like we’re expecting him to be a starting infielder, or paying him millions of dollars, or using a spot on our 40-man roster until such time, if any, as he makes the major league team.   It’s simply not a very big deal.    
 

I'm not willing to give him a pass for his actions over 5+ seasons just because he managed to keep his sh*t together for 3/4 of a season. There are plenty of unsigned players who can do what Beckham can do and the majority of them don't come with the same baggage. And if you think that Beckham will be able to humble himself enough to be relegated to a bench role for a full season then you truly haven't followed him or his career. It would just be a matter of time before he started chirping that he should be playing everyday, just like he did with Tampa Bay. This is a guy who still thinks he's an all-star shortstop (and has said as much). And if the first suspension didn't humble him then I why should we think the second one will? There's zero reason to to bring someone like that into this clubhouse, and it is a big deal. We already have dead weight Davis on the roster who isn't setting the best example for our younger players, we don't need another one. 

[Redskins Rick]

4 minutes ago, wildbillhiccup said:

I'm not willing to give him a pass for his actions over 5+ seasons just because he managed to keep his sh*t together for 3/4 of a season. There are plenty of unsigned players who can do what Beckham can do and the majority of them don't come with the same baggage. And if you think that Beckham will be able to humble himself enough to be relegated to a bench role for a full season then you truly haven't followed him or his career. It would just be a matter of time before he started chirping that he should be playing everyday, just like he did with Tampa Bay. This is a guy who still thinks he's an all-star shortstop (and has said as much). And if the first suspension didn't humble him then I why should we think the second one will? There's zero reason to to bring someone like that into this clubhouse, and it is a big deal. We already have dead weight Davis on the roster who isn't setting the best example for our younger players, we don't need another one. 

You are one hard arse arent you?

There are plenty of ball players with real drama and much more of a pain than Beckham is.

Something about him rubs you the wrong way, so be it.

Personally, he doesnt move the meter too much one way or another, at least for me.

If you think Elias is the man to make the movement to make this team Great again, then give him room and time to go do.

Beckham is just a stop gap and 25 man roster player if that.

 

[wildbillhiccup]

11 minutes ago, Redskins Rick said:

You are one hard arse arent you?

There are plenty of ball players with real drama and much more of a pain than Beckham is.

Something about him rubs you the wrong way, so be it.

Personally, he doesnt move the meter too much one way or another, at least for me.

If you think Elias is the man to make the movement to make this team Great again, then give him room and time to go do.

Beckham is just a stop gap and 25 man roster player if that.

 

I mean, he's been suspended twice for drugs. That makes him a member of a pretty small and elite club. Couple that with all the buzz / negativity surrounding his time with Rays and I think it's pretty safe to assume where there's smoke there's fire. Am I really being that much of a hard arse in not wanting  him back? I feel like half of you don't want him either, you're just playing the contrarian and/or getting on board just because you know the name from his first stint with the team. Trying to latch back onto Oriole retreads hasn't exactly worked out well for us in the past. Exhibit A: Chris Tillman. 

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, wildbillhiccup said:

I mean, he's been suspended twice for drugs. That makes him a member of a pretty small and elite club. Couple that with all the buzz / negativity surrounding his time with Rays and I think it's pretty safe to assume where there's smoke there's fire. Am I really being that much of a hard arse in not wanting  him back? I feel like half of you don't want him either, you're just playing the contrarian and/or getting on board just because you know the name from his first stint with the team. Trying to latch back onto Oriole retreads hasn't exactly worked out well for us in the past. Exhibit A: Chris Tillman. 

There really wasn’t much negative buzz about Beckham when he was with Tampa. We discussed this at nauseating length when we acquired him.   I’m not saying his reputation was spotless, but I didn’t have big character concerns about him then and I don’t now.    My much bigger concerns are his limitations as a baseball player.    And I’m far less concerned about those if the job he’s competing for is a bench spot.

In any event, we haven’t signed him yet, and if I’m guessing, I’d say the odds that we sign him are well under 50%.     Roch has managed to stir the pot here like he did with Caleb Joseph and a few other guys.   
 

 

[sportsfan8703]

2 hours ago, wildbillhiccup said:

I mean, he's been suspended twice for drugs. That makes him a member of a pretty small and elite club. Couple that with all the buzz / negativity surrounding his time with Rays and I think it's pretty safe to assume where there's smoke there's fire. Am I really being that much of a hard arse in not wanting  him back? I feel like half of you don't want him either, you're just playing the contrarian and/or getting on board just because you know the name from his first stint with the team. Trying to latch back onto Oriole retreads hasn't exactly worked out well for us in the past. Exhibit A: Chris Tillman. 

Beckham is simply a depth replacement since we lost Valaika on waivers.  I've never seen someone so against a milb signing.  

[wildbillhiccup]

19 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

Beckham is simply a depth replacement since we lost Valaika on waivers.  I've never seen someone so against a milb signing.  

I just don't think we'd even be mentioning his name if he hadn't played for the O's for a brief minute. And not to pile on, but Beckham didn't even own his suspension. Does this seem like a quote from a man who's taking responsibility for his actions? 

“I was given a product from a trusted source who had advised me that it was safe to take,” said Beckham, who presented his case to an independent arbitrator.

Anyway, I'm done writing about Beckham. Any news Roch breaks from unnamed sources get filed in the wild speculation folder. I already invested way too much time in thinking about something that will probably never happen. 

[Camden_yardbird]

On 1/23/2020 at 4:51 PM, wildbillhiccup said:

Just because Beckham can play all those positions doesn't mean he should be. The only reason any team would sign him at this point in his career is if they were actively trying to lose. Maybe I need to rethink my position...

The same could have been said about Danny Santana (career negative wRC+) going into last year.