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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    That's my suspicion too, although it doesn't particularly matter how Greinke felt about his time in KC and MIL. His current salary is high enough that it acts as a de facto no trade clause for a lot of teams near the luxury tax threshold. For example, per this list at Cot's, roughly 12 teams had less "tax space" in 2018 than Greinke's current annual salary: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRghSG2xROOkgctuzj56pUSP6zCxUUQ1i7LND0jnficQ0TPtIY8OhNl3AN_StqMvBCHnO_qOXKZeTbE/pubhtml Not sure how that list will look for 2018, or when/how Greinke's list of 15 teams is set, but it's possible that his no-trade blocks every non-warm-weather team that could take on his salary without too much trouble (like the Twins). The only thing I have read about the clause is that apparently Texas was not included on it last winter, which would conform with this theory (Texas is warm weather and not too close to the luxury tax threshold).
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    I think fans / talk radio are quick to discuss extremes like a rebuild in reaction to factors like a poor farm system and falling short of the playoffs, but in practice most teams don't pursue those paths without stronger conditions (like the MLB roster falling apart too). Fans / talk radio seem to underrate the "middle ground" of having a decent MLB roster and being in the contention mix. Their division isn't that loaded -- there is LA, but COL and SF are flawed and SD is still rebuilding. And MIL and STL aren't that scary as wild card competitors either. I could perhaps see them re-signing Corbin, and turning around and offloading Greinke to balance the books. But that's a tricky balancing act -- Corbin might be getting an inflated contract based on this career year, and once they have a deal with Corbin, they will lose a lot of leverage in moving Greinke. And the no-trade clause could really mess with their leverage further -- 15 teams (perhaps including the Twins) might be off the table right away. If they can get nothing back but salary relief for Greinke, or even have to eat some cash, it may not be the best course of action anymore -- letting Corbin walk and keeping Greinke might be better both for their farm system (comp picks for Corbin) and for their long-term financial outlook (Greinke's remaining deal may be shorter than what Corbin gets, and maybe even cheaper in total dollars). I know people have been talking about moving Greinke, but a more realistic target for that kind of salary dump move would proably be a Mike Leake circa 2017 or AJ Burnett circa 2011 type. If I get a moment, I'll look around for some candidates.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    Greinke might be a long shot, but Scherzer is a virtual impossibility. Arguably the best pitcher in MLB, could win a 3rd consecutive Cy Young -- I can't even begin to imagine what kind of package they would demand in trade, even if they somehow decided they didn't want to pair him with a young talent like Juan Soto for the foreseeable future. (FWIW, Scherzer also earns full no-trade rights at the end of the 2019 season.)
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    The Diamondbacks top 4 position players in bWAR right now are controlled for 2019 (and all but Goldschmidt for 2020 or beyond too). On the pitching side, Corbin would be a definite loss, but they've built a pretty deep staff with Greinke too -- they are right next to the Cubs for the top team ERA+ in the NL. I'd be pretty surprised if they went full rebuild right now.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    I was just cautioning that getting Greinke right now might look deceptively simple, but in fact it probably has comparable difficulty as signing Machado (especially with that no-trade clause looming). I think that's worth noting, as opposed to a plan that, say, targets a group of 4 mid-tier FA or something.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    Was Aldi last offseason? Maybe the Twins need to aim for Lunds and Byerlys this offseason. I wonder if TR still pops into Dollar General every winter, out of habit.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    I suspect they may have just told Sano privately: "don't slide" That may not play well publicly, though.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    Sounds like Morton may retire, or just return to the Astros for another year (maybe on a qualifying offer?). Seems doubtful he'd want to come here.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    Methinks Detroit is gunning for a top-3 pick next June -- they are only 1.5 games out of that spot now: http://www.tankathon.com/mlb
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    Corbin is a FA this winter, and if MLBTR's $150 mil estimate is remotely correct, Arizona may be unable to retain him with or without Greinke, or may decide to let him go -- and Greinke wouldn't seem so bad of an alternative at 3/100. Pollock is going to be 31 next year and is 3 years removed from being a star, so I'm not sure he will get that much. And Goldschmidt isn't a FA until after 2019 -- seems like they could keep Greinke at least for one more year, and of course the 2 remaining years may not be too onerous by that point if they decide to keep him beyond that. FWIW, Greinke has a limited no-trade, able to block deals to 15 clubs, and if the Twins are on that, I'd guess the idea is moot as well. I like the idea in theory, but in practice these deals seem hard to actually pull off. How many good players are salary dumped by good teams? When the Phillies traded Hamels, they were pretty bad and clearly rebuilding. A competitive team may not be so eager to try that maneuver. I like the idea of investigating Greinke, but we should probably be prepared to enact a plan B instead.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Odorizzi has started all 30 of his games this year. He has not been used as a "primary" after an opener yet.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    Hyperbolic much? Fangraphs gives Cleveland a 42.4% chance of winning the division series, 21.1% of also winning the ALCS, and a 13.1% of also winning the World Series. I'm not sure what odds I would give them, but it would be a lot closer to those than to your zero.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    No, he's on the 40-man roster. Players are only eligible for minor league free agency after they've had their contracts renewed 6 times (so played in 7 pro seasons) and aren't currrently on a 40-man roster. Drafted in 2013, Stewart would not have been eligible until after the 2019 season anyway. He still could be eligible after 2019 if we remove him from the 40-man before that time (and assuming another team wouldn't claim him on waivers for their own 40-man).
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Of course, Torrez had durability that Stewart has yet to demonstrate (and may not be able to, in the modern game). Torrez was top-14 for inning pitched in the AL for 5 straight seasons, reaching as high as 6th. Without the durability, I'm not sure how valuable that performance would generally be. It might be more like Jake Odorizzi's 2017-2018 in the modern game in terms of value.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Perhaps. Still not sure how much of that was simply due to repeating the level (3rd year at AA), plus of course rising K rates all over pro baseball. Stewart's K rate was only average this year in his 3rd go-around at AA (23.1% vs league 23.0%), and it was well below average at AAA (17.5% vs 22.0%), and of course again in MLB (13.8% vs 22.2%).
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    And streaming at btn2go.com
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Definitely fun to see Astudillo, although for me it comes with a tinge of regret too -- there was absolutely an opening to see if he could have provided this team with a spark back in May/June. (Similar story with Cave, who could/should have been up when Buxton first hit the DL way back in April.)
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    Way too many variables, and way too small of a sample, to quantify Hunter's leadership from this data. Just an example, your analysis implies we should give Hunter's leadership partial credit for Victor Martinez being +7.1 bWAR better in 2014 than in 2015, or Pujols being +3.3 bWAR better in 2012 than he was in 2013, or Verlander staying healthy in 2014 but getting hurt in 2015, or Anibal Sanchez starting +17 games for the 2013 Tigers over 2012, or Ervin Santana being +5.5 bWAR in 2008 over 2007, etc. (Beyond any defensive credit behind the pitchers, of course.) I'm open to the idea of leadership as a meaningful factor, but it's this kind of analysis and conclusions that would actually turn me the other way on the issue.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    He's in Detroit! Gardy's pitching coach again: http://m.tigers.mlb.com/roster/coaches/ Steve Liddle and Joe Vavra on that staff too...
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Pretty good results last year, but not peripherals. Busenitz had a 19% K rate in MLB last year. The Twins didn't bring back any reliever with a lower mark in 2017. Similarly, I wonder how good his Rochester performance was this year, in context. 28.7% K rate looks good, but it was below that of Anderson, Harper, and Eades at the same level. Good reliever performances like this don't seem to be predictive of much, if anything.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    Interesting, but Gimenez has a massive self-interest in stressing the importance of "veteran presence", leadership, etc. It would be similar to me stressing the importance of cheap, nerdy fans.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't know about "star". They could just view him as a 3+ WAR guy when healthy, even with the questionable offense. An extra year of that still has value. In which case, the Sep. 1st decision had little to do with fixing his 2015-2017 offensive output.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    I wasn't suggesting anything about their belief in Buxton's future. I was just saying, it's hard to spin their Sep. 1st decision to be about his 2015-2017 performance, given they made a very different decision with virtually all of that same data fairly recently. I'd say it's more likely that they're actually pretty comfortable with his defense-first, streaky-offense profile, but they saw a window to manipulate his service time in 2018 and took it. (Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that -- but it could have been handled much better than dropping the hammer with a laundry list of excuses on Sep. 1st.)
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    And 43 healthy MLB PA ago, the Twins looked at that same career line and thought it was worth an opening day job and an extension offer (although who knows for how much). 43 healthy MLB PA later, and the same career line apparently deserves to get sent home, even with expanded rosters and the minor league season complete. That's the juxtaposition that bothers me. I have no qualms about a Sano-to-Ft.-Myers-style rebuild project for Buxton, but it's a little suspicious and/or poor planning to not announce that until Sep. 1st. (Heck, given that the Sano thing clearly wasn't about service time -- he was sent down a few days *after* reaching 3 full years service -- I think linking his situation to Buxton's no later than August 1st or so could have spared the Twins some grief.)
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't think that was the argument. I think the argument was, nothing has really changed in his performance since we offered him an extension and made him our opening day CF for the 3rd straight year. (The hot week at AAA was really just evidence to support his current health.)
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