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markos

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Everything posted by markos

  1. markos
    Yep. Average AA K% in 1986: 14% Maddux K% in 1986: 14% Average A+ K% in 2015: 19% Stewart K% in 2015: 13%
  2. markos
    I may be mis-remembering, but I got the impression leading up to the draft that Stewart's relative limited focus on baseball wasn't seen as negative but rather a positive. As in, "he is so good right now. Just think how good he'll be and how quickly he'll move once he focuses on baseball fulltime." For example, BA predicted Stewart to be the first HS pitcher to reach the majors. This contrasted with how scouts and analysts talked about fellow top-pick Trey Ball, who was constantly referred to as a long-term project. Does anyone else remember things that way?
  3. markos
    I guess Shields may still be "a player of consequence" in the sense that he is still an above-replacement player, but in the context of the trade market his value right now is either zero or negative (which was the point that I was trying to get across). He just passed through revocable waivers, so no team was willing to pick him up for free. http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/08/players-who-have-cleared-revocable-waivers-2.html Personally, I think it is unlikely that he opts out of his deal. After next year he will be 35, and I just don't think he will be able to find a new deal that will beat the $44MM that will be left on his current deal. As a free agent, he will probably be more in line for the kind of deals that Peavy, Lohse and Hudson have recently signed - ~$12MM AAV over 2-3 years - especially if he gets tagged with a Qualifying Offer.
  4. markos
    The only factor that makes this framework of a trade work is that the Twins would be essentially freeing the Padres from $40MM in future salary obligations. Personally, I think this specific trade would be a huge win for the Padres. They shed Shields' contract (3yrs, $65MM left) and get to buy low on 4 young players, 3 of which still have extremely high ceilings (Meyer, Arcia and Stewart). In exchange, the only player of consequence that they lose is Hedges, who has never really hit and may never hit enough to be an average catcher, even with his elite defensive skills.
  5. markos
    I can't think of any good reasons to end the rehab assignment and use the option either. My only thought, and this is a stretch, is that they are hoping to avoid wasting a year of service time if Buxton suffers a major injury (think Kubel tearing his ACL in the Arizona Fall League) while at AAA. As you mentioned, the service time and "super 2" issues are effectively moot at this point. Unless he is kept in AAA through June next year, Buxton is set to be a FA after the 2021 season regardless of how the rest of this season plays out. Also, Buxton does take a financial hit from this move, as he is no longer on the Major League roster, so he goes back to minor league pay.
  6. markos
    I don't think Royals fans minded making it to the wildcard game.
  7. markos
    I disagree with this. I think there is a real risk that the 2016 team will be worse (record-wise) than this year's team, mostly because I don't think this year's team is nearly as good as their record may indicate: - Fangraphs (using Baseruns estimate) and Baseball Prospectus (using their Adjusted Standings) both say that this team should be on a ~70 win pace. - Since they were 32-21 on June 4, they have been 22-30 - a ~70 win pace. - Just looking at April, June, July and August, they are 34-44 - a ~70 win pace. - Fangraphs and Baseball Prospectus both project a rest-of-season winning percentage that would be a ~70 win pace. Basically, this is a 70 win team that had an incredibly fortunate 27 games in May which allowed it to still be in contention, and their "success" will encourage the front office to just bring everyone back and try it again next year, even at positions (SS, C, bullpen) where the team desperately needs improvement. It certainly seems possible that the 2016 team could play better and still end up with a worse record.
  8. markos
    That is the price of a relief pitcher. Clippard, Papelbon, Lowe were all acquired for a SP prospect with some upside. And one could arguably make the case that Hu is the worst prospect to change hands in a RP trade this deadline.
  9. markos
    Seems like about the going price when one looks at the other deals involving relievers this deadline (Clippard, Lowe). Jepsen might be the worse of the relievers, but I don't think Hu is significantly better than any of the other arms dealt in those other deals (Meisner, Wells). I don't think this is a huge overpay.
  10. markos
    What would you give up for Lucroy? In an attempt to mimic the structure of the Shields/Myers deal, what would you say to a Lucroy/Will Smith for Sano/Stewart/Meyer/Cabbage swap?
  11. markos
    ~10% of the Twins's remaining games are against the Royals this year. So these moves hurt the Twins playoff chances this year. Additionally, if the Royals have another deep run in the playoffs, the payroll increase supported by their success could easily replace the potential value lost from these trades in the 2017+ seasons. I would rather have the Twins compete in 2017 against a cellar-dwelling payroll Royals with Finnegan, Manaea, et al rather than a mid-market payroll Royals without them.
  12. markos
    Baseball reference has a nifty table that shows where each team is ranked compared to the "average" WAR for each position, and how far away they are from average. SS is the worst position for the Twins. http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/AL/2015.shtml
  13. markos
    There are a lot of advanced batting stats that automatically adjust for ballpark. On fangraphs, it is wRC+, so we don't have a go around guessing how much his performance will change after moving out of Coor's field. The stat does that for us. For 2015 so far, Tulo's wRC+ is 122, which is the 3rd highest SS with 200 ABs (Peralta at 133, Crawford at 123). His ZIPS projection for the rest of season is 136, which is almost identical to Dozier's wRC+ (137). So one would expect him to hit as well as Dozier. Different hitting profile, obviously, but the overall value will be similar. Peak Tulo is more in the 140-150 range, which is just as good as Mauer has ever hit outside of 2009.
  14. markos
    I'm barely old enough to remember. Its kind of odd, but Gagne was my favorite player for a while growing up. I was an 8-year-old aspiring shortstop in 1991, so of course I gravitated to player on my favorite team that shared my position. Good times... ...unlike the recent times, with all the random misfits that have been sent out to man short.
  15. markos
    Gagne was definitely the best, and he doesn't belong on that list at all. In the last 30 Twins seasons, he has the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 8th, 11th and 17th best seasons at SS based on bWAR. He was a solidly above-average SS for 5 straight seasons, accumulating 18 bWAR in a Twins uniform.
  16. markos
    Update for Alex Meyer: After two shaky appearances in the big leagues, he was demoted back to the AAA bullpen. Since the demotion, the results have not been good. In 8.1 innings (facing 41 batters), he has allowed 14 hits and 7 runs. His ERA in that stretch is 7.56, and opponents have a .926 OPS against him. Underneath all the hits and runs, his peripherals are still decent - K% of 25% and BB% of 10% are not out of line - and this most recent stretch of bad performance has been partially fueled by a .500 BABIP. So some of his issues could just be due to a stretch of bad luck. But then again, Meyer has struggled limiting hits and runs almost all season. After a long enough time, it becomes more difficult to excuse poor performance on luck, and instead the blame shifts to the player. I'm not sure if we've reached that point with Meyer, but I starting to think we are close.
  17. markos
    I don't think the narrative is quite a clean as you make it seem. Jay did have a handful of mocks picking him above the #6 pick (notably Mayo and Sickels both had him at #3), but his ranking was almost universally well below #6 on the big boards (ESPN #9, BA #16, BP #10, MLB #9, FG #6). So I got the sense that Jay was an anticipated reach. Gordon may not have been picked ahead of #5 on many mocks, but he was ranked right around #5, at least by the major outlets (ESPN #4, BA #7, BP #4, MLB #5). So while I don't think drafting Jay was a huge overdraft, I do think it was a slight overdraft based on the industry consensus of his talent.
  18. markos
    Cherry-picking dates a little bit, but... ...since he came back from the DL on June 1st, he has as a 104 wRC+. ...since June 12, he has a 120 wRC+.
  19. markos
    I try not to read too much into a pitchers mannerisms. Some pitchers look a wreck out there (ex. Joe Nathan) but still manage to get the job done.
  20. markos
    I am very curious to see how they use him. I hope that it is high-leverage situations rather than long-relief work, but I could see them easing him into the role with mop-up work. A couple other random notes of interest: -This season Meyer has had some platoon issues, so it will be interesting to see how much confidence they have in his ability to get LHB out. -He has yet to pitch in back-to-back games, so he might have limited availability for a while. -Hopefully they continue to use him in multiple innings as necessary (ex. put out a fire in the 6th and then pitch the 7th).
  21. markos
    Alex Meyer has been called up to the big league bullpen. He will join the team in time for Friday's game. My thoughts: 1) Though this may not be the best way to get the most value out of Meyer in the long-term, there is no doubt that this is the best move for the current Twins team. They need bullpen help, and Meyer can definitely provide that. 2) It will be very interesting to see if they end up converting Meyer back to a starter next season. If he is successful, they may decide to leave him in the bullpen. Especially considering the starting pitching glut they have for 2016. 3) Meyer has had fairly extreme splits this season. Watch to see how he does against lefties, and how much confidence Molitor has with him against lefties. 4) Meyer has yet to pitch in back-to-back games. I wonder how much they will utilize him. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if they continue to monitor his usage for the first few weeks. Discussion is ongoing here: http://twinsdaily.com/topic/18866-tonkin-optioned-who-replaces-him-its-meyer/page-5 and here: http://twinsdaily.com/topic/18883-alex-meyer-called-up/
  22. markos
    Several adjustments are made that end up pulling Hosmer up to Fielders overall value: 1) Position adjustment: Hosmer has played the field, while Fielder is primarily a DH. Players are given a credit for playing the field (the value of the credit depends on the position). 2) Stadium adjustment: The park in Texas is one of the best hitters parks in all of baseball. The park in KC is roughly league average 3) Baserunning: Hosmer has been the better baserunner (taking extra bases, etc). 4) Defense: When playing 1B, Fielder is (and has been for several years now) pretty terrible, while Hosmer is (and has been for several years now) solidly above average. After adjusting for stadium differences, Fangraphs has Fielder ~10 runs better than Hosmer from their respective batting lines. However, Hosmer's superior defense (~5), baserunning (~3) and positional adjustment (~2) basically make up the difference. By the time I pressed "Post" this is basically just a copying what others have already said.
  23. markos
    I say this tongue-in-cheek, but I have to disagree. It would appear from Gonsalves's performance that the low to high A difference is more of a 3.9 K/9 to 11.3 K/9 jump.
  24. markos
    I think much of the recent research on pitching aging would argue otherwise. While the probability of him gaining velocity isn't zero, from (at least) age 21 onward, the average pitcher experiences a slow, steady decline in velocity over the rest of their career. http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/72512952/major-league-baseball-pitchers-velocity-peaks-at-an-early-age
  25. markos
    Long overdue update for Meyer: Since my last update, he has pitched in relief 8 times. Since his switch to the bullpen, they have kept him mostly stretched out for long relief, as he has pitched multiple innings 5 times, including one 4-inning game and two 3-inning games. He has yet to pitch in back-to-back games, and has averages about three days rest between appearances. So far the results have been outstanding. He has pitched a total of 16 1/3 innings and only allowed 3 runs. His strikeout rate (27.9%) and walk rate (8.8%) have taken significant steps in the right direction compared to when he was starting. Rhett Bollinger wrote a piece yesterday indicating that both Paul Molitor and Terry Ryan could see him getting called up to help in the bullpen. However, Ryan did stress that they aren't giving up on Meyer as a starter. http://m.twins.mlb.com/news/article/132295030/alex-meyer-emerging-as-option-for-twins-bullpen
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