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markos

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Everything posted by markos

  1. markos
    Regarding the trade tree, it is true that they get way into the weeds of hypotheticals, but it can still be fun to trace them back. For example, the Luis Castillo acquisition is still "paying dividends" for the Twins today. Castillo -> Drew Butera -> Miguel Sulburan -> Eduardo Nunez -> Adalberto Mejia. Does anyone know (or have guesses) for the active player with the oldest Twins "root"? For example, Castillo was acquired by trading Travis Bowyer and Scott Tyler - both Twins draft picks. So Mejia's oldest root would be Bowyer of the 1999 draft class.
  2. markos
    I often think about the "juiced" major league ball in the context of the prospect analysis from five-to-ten years ago. Specific to the Twins, I wonder how Dozier, Rosario and Sano would have been ranked from today's lens. I mean, today's analysis on batters focuses a lot on bat-to-ball skills, and much less on raw power. Analysts are now way more willing to bet that a player will develop power once they reach the big leagues, almost completely irrespective of their physiques. I know I was very critical of Rosario as he was coming up through the minors, mostly because I didn't think he would hit enough power to profile as a corner-outfielder. But now the baseball environment has changed in ways that perfectly complement his skills as a hitter. It makes me wonder who in the minors we are missing on because the game will change in ways we can't predict. Anyway, these are my deep thoughts for a Wednesday morning.
  3. markos
    I agree. But I think the changes you recommend have to be coupled with some kind of change to pitching. I do not think the increase in strikeouts is only because hitters are swinging for the fences all the time. Pitchers are throwing so much harder than they were just 10 years ago. If pitching isn't fixed somehow, than any ball/ballpark changes will just lead to more outs.
  4. markos
    Thanks for the correction. I misused Fangraphs new minor league leaderboards and inadvertently combined the 2018 and 2019 seasons when I thought I was looking up 2018. https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/minor-league?pos=all&lg=10&stats=bat&qual=50&type=1&team=59&season=2018&seasonEnd=2019&org=&ind=0&splitTeam=false&players= Combined between 2018 and 2019, he has a 117 wRC+, which I do think fits the "well above-average" descriptor. But of course, that's not what I said. Sorry for misleading people. That said, I'm still jumping on the bandwagon.
  5. markos
    Apologies for being away from the site for the past couple of weeks, but who is driving the Ben Rortvedt bandwagon? I'd like to hop on board! Is there still room? His .246/.368/.456 batting line looks unexciting, but one adjusts for the fact that the Florida State League is a terrible place for batters (only 12 batters have more than 2 home runs), he is: 1 - Of all the players 21 and younger in the league, he is 4th overall in batting. 2 - AS A CATCHER! 3 - And it is not a BABIP fluke either (only .273) 4 - AS A CATCHER! 5 - 1:1 BB:K ratio!!! 6 - AS A CATCHER! 7 - For all batters in the league, top 14th in SLG and 4th in ISO. 8 - AS A CATCHER! Anyway, future top-100 prospect? (Also, he was quietly well above-average for the league last year. This is now 250 above-average PAs at High-A with great peripherals.)
  6. markos
    I never meant to imply that they are equal players, which is why I explicitly worded my comment to say "paying in proportion to expected future performance". I do think Acuna is better, but Albies isn't that far off. To put it in the context of Twins players: if Acuna is Joe Mauer, then I think Albies is Morneau in this comparison - clearly the lesser player but also clearly well above average. This contract values Albies like Nick Punto in comparison. Do you really think that Albies is a slightly below-average player going forward? Anyway, I don't think Albies deserves the same contract as Acuna. But I think 70% is way closer to his future value relative to Acuna than the 30% that they implied with their offer.
  7. markos
    Considering they offered Albies 1/3 of what they offered Acuna, it certainly appears that the Braves are motivated less by paying in proportion to expected future performance and more by taking advantage of a player's relative desperation.
  8. markos
    Sure. I didn't mean to say anything about Acuna's agent specifically. I was more just thinking out-loud about the player-agent relationship and how their specific interests don't always align. Mike's comment spurred me to think about it in the context of pre-arb players, which isn't something I had spent a lot of time thinking about before.
  9. markos
    It isn't talked about enough how agents do not have the same incentive structure as players while the players are still pre-arbitration. In many ways, it is in the best interest of the agent to sign an extension now rather than wait until arbitration, much less free agency.
  10. markos
    I'm sure I'm the only person who cares at this point, but the White Sox released the terms of Jimenez's deal: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019/03/white-sox-nearing-extension-with-eloy-jimenez.html Large signing bonus and very reasonable arbitration costs, which is more or less what I expected the structure to look like. Some risk for the White Sox - certainly more than most early long-term deals - but it should have minimal financial impact should Jimenez fail to produce.
  11. markos
    Seth, I think you are overstating the risk and understating the potential team-friendliness of this deal. While the exact terms haven't been released yet, I think it is likely that $42M will be spread over the 6 years much more evenly than you suggested. Also, Jimenez would likely end up being super-2 eligible, so he would have 4 arbitration years rather than the 3 that you suggested. Anyway, my guess is that Jimenez gets a decent signing bonus as part of this deal, and that his salaries during what would have been his arbitration seasons average less than $10M / year. From a team standpoint, that is certainly preferable to what the Indians, Red Sox, Cubs, et al are dealing with as their young superstar players are getting $15M+ in arbitration. The White Sox have a ton of payroll space available right now - shifting future spending to the present makes a lot of sense for them.
  12. markos
    I think small-market teams specifically benefit from the ditching of the August waiver deadline. Good teams, who have a real need for a specific player, can easily get blocked by their opponents (with worse records or in the other league) making waiver claims on that specific player. But there is an asymmetry there, as small-market teams are probably more reluctant to make a defensive claim on an expensive player that would help their opponents because they can ill-afford to be saddled with the salary. Personally, I wish they would have just moved the regular trade deadline to August 31.
  13. markos
    I wonder if this is one of those things that might change back quickly. I can imagine that there might be a lot of pushback by fans if they have to watch their own pitcher implode for 3 batters. Is it really a good thing for the game if a pitcher walks the first batter on 4 pitches and then gets booed by his own fans for 2 more batters as he is struggling to find the zone? Does that speed up the game at all? A new pitcher will need to enter that game anyway. Also, it probably isn't a good look if a bunch of pitchers get "injured" mid-batter or something in order to get another pitcher in the game.
  14. markos
    LOOGY usage has been steadily deteriorating over the past few seasons anyway. Only 11% of LHP relief appearances lasted for only one batter last year, which is way down from the peak usage in the 1990s and 2000s when it was over 15%. My guess is that a combination of overall better relievers, higher strikeout rates, and shifting is rendering that role obsolete.
  15. markos
    In my opinion, capping the number of pitchers on the active roster is the biggest potential change. I'm really curious what they end up with for that cap. The cap, combined with 15-day DL, could really force teams to look for multi-inning relievers and encourage their starters to work deeper into games.
  16. markos
    Baseball-reference might have the bullpen stats you were looking for: https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/MIN/2018-pitching.shtml#all_players_reliever_pitching
  17. markos
    Beyond just the specific stats, it is pretty clear that most Fangraphs writers and analysts THINK about baseball the same way front offices do. If you go to any of the sports analytics conferences (like Sloan, SABR Analytics, Saberseminar) and listen to the front office folks talk about baseball, they speak in the same language as Fangraphs. Concepts like valuing every event in runs, replacement level, sample size, converting runs to wins, surplus value, competitive windows, projection systems and on and on are considered common knowledge. So while every team probably has their own (probably better) way of valuing events or making projections, the framework they use to fit all these pieces are very similar to the information that Fangraphs is presenting.
  18. markos
    I would argue that winning the division is more important now than it was prior to the WC play-in game. I'd rather win the division and see one of the Yankees/Red Sox have to survive the wildcard game than be matched up against one of them in the wildcard game.
  19. markos
    I'm pretty sure that the Orioles didn't send any actual money to the Twins. The Twins just acquired international bonus pool space, which allows them to legally (from a MLB-perspective) spend more of their own money on international free agents between now and June 30.
  20. markos
    Yeah, I agree with you, but at the same time I'm willing to give the front office the benefit of the doubt here. Hard to believe that they would take such a large chunk of money without having a plan for spending it on someone.
  21. markos
    Sure! I don't disagree with what you are saying. I'm just tempering my own expectations. The article was written to raise expectations. I'm not reacting much to this news in and of itself. There are enough other factors going on (early spring velocity is a product of the level of offseason conditioning, it was a planned short start, the exact velocity distribution wasn't given, etc) that there could be literally zero change in his overall average fastball velocity for this season. As a contrast, here are a couple things that would have caused me to sit up and pay attention: - if it was reported, as you speculated above, that 15 of his 25 fastballs were 94. - if it was reported that he was touching 96, which is significantly faster than any pitch he threw last year. Anyway, I'd really like to see Gonsalves ramp it up an notch or two - that would significantly raise his potential ceiling. I just haven't read enough evidence yet to believe that "it's happening".
  22. markos
    Two thoughts: 1 - Gonsalves hit 93-94 in 3 of his 7 games last year. So hitting 93 isn't that impressive in and of itself. http://www.brooksbaseball.net/velo.php?player=624427&b_hand=-1&time=game&minmax=ci&var=maxmph&s_type=2&gFilt=&pFilt=FA|SI|FC|CU|SL|CS|KN|CH|FS|SB&startDate=01/01/2018&endDate=01/01/2019 2 - It is a fairly common phenomenon for players on roster bubbles come into spring training at peak form, and there is at least some speculation that they wear out faster and are more prone to injury than players who ramp up to reach peak form on Opening Day.
  23. markos
    It will be interesting to see who ends up making more money over the remainder of their careers between Harper and Machado (with his 5yr opt out), and honestly Arenado as well.
  24. markos
    Just to add to what Tom said, you could make a strong case that by this offseason the Astros thought of him more as their left-fielder and less as a sub-sub: he started in LF every playoff game in both 2017 and 2018 until Altuve was hurt and moved to DH, in 2018 he started twice as often at LF than any other position and almost as much as every other position combined, he had 20 more LF starts than the second most guy (Tony Kemp), and they more or less replaced him (salary wise) by signing a full-time LF in Brantley.
  25. markos
    That was because there was typically four guys hurt/terrible/suspended, and Escobar could admirably fill the shoes of one of them. Gonzalez is likely going to play the same role as Escobar the past few seasons. Nice player to have, but he doesn't raise their ceiling very much, if at all, and frankly I don't think he is worth the money/commitment.
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