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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    You can do the "player to be named later" thing. In fact, there have been several such minor deals so far. I suspect the restriction was to limit the number of players travelling this season, not to handcuff teams in making trades.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Actually your graphic makes 2 of the 3 pitches look even closer than Gameday or the TV broadcast. I wonder what the margin of error on those measurements would be...
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    Yes, and I'm saying the "evening out" of balls and strikes (via umpire performance) is comparable to the "evening out" of factors that we readily accept. We'll all have different places where we draw our subjective line, and some folks will accept the umpire performance and some won't, and that's fine -- but the principle of "evening out" in the sport is not unusual by itself.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Splits are tough to judge over a season or two because they are relatively small samples, and reliever splits especially because a reliever's normal workload is pretty small as it is. I don't doubt that pitchers would have reduced effectiveness on zero days rest, but MLB isn't quite like most other pro sports -- you can't avoid back-to-backs forever. Pennant race, postseason, eventually you're going to need to ask your best players to perform in these spots. So it's a bit of a balancing act, just like managing days off and pitcher workloads. So I wouldn't say Rocco should never do it again with Rogers, but hopefully everyone involved is trying different things and figuring out how to make things work best when it comes to crunch time.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    After a disastrous 2019, Curtiss has now had two encouraging appearances to start his Rays career. First game, 6 up, 6 down, 4 K's versus the Yankees while his team came back to tie before going on to win. Second game, he replaced an injured opener (the same guy Slegers is replacing on the roster today) with 1 out and 1 on in the first inning vs Boston, and Curtiss struck out JD Martinez in a strike 'em out / throw 'em out double play to end the inning. Gave up 4 hits over the next 2 innings, but ultimately pitched 2.2 innings only allowing 1 run and was awarded the win.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    Does it matter? He's pitching for Tampa, where relievers can technically be starters and vice versa.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    Dan Winkler was drafted by the Braves in Dec. 2014 and didn't hit 90 days active until 15 days into the 2018 season. I think that's the record. Burdi could surpass that mark now, drafted in Dec. 2017. He's at 68 days active since then, by my count, so he still needs 22 more. I'm sure he'd rather be pitching, but at least he's been racking up MLB service time, salaries, and benefits this whole time. (As an aside, Dec. 2019 Rule 5 picks only need 50 days active, due to the shortened season.)
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    I'm not claiming that pitcher performance should be equal between these splits, but I think they likely overstate the real magnitude of difference. Statistically, the smaller the sample, the more prone it is to variation, even without causation. Rogers had his worst game last year on zero days rest, and as it is the smaller of the two samples, that bad appearance is given more weight. There may also be other factors at play. Pitchers may be more likely to be asked to pitch on zero days rest in tougher circumstances. Of course, tougher circumstances could also include trying to pitch back-back against the same team like last night. Gyorko saw 4 pitches from Rogers on Monday night before hitting a deep fly, and that could have contributed to his second-pitch HR off Rogers on Tuesday night -- that would still be on Rocco if he pitched him back-to-back vs Milwaukee when he didn't have to, but it doesn't necessarily say much about Rogers' effectiveness pitching back-to-back versus two different clubs in the future.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    Unless one insists that every game should be played indoors, avoiding the effects of sun, wind, and rain, we're all accepting of the "even out" principle in some form. The players don't compete in a vacuum. Some folks just view human umpire performance on that same continuum, while others do not.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    Duffey was called up for a doubleheader as the designated "26th man." And because the 26th man is exempt from the 10-day minimum for optional assignments to the minors, the Twins knew they could pitch him in the doubleheader, option him back down the next day (when he wasn't likely to pitch on consecutive days anyway), and then recall him the day after that when he was fresh again. So no worries, I suspect he didn't actually fly to Rochester for just 1 day!
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Anderson wouldn't have been "entrenched" after a 2018 audition, but he most certainly would have stuck around longer than Drake. Drake (age 31) was out of options, so he was going to cost a 25-man spot going forward; Anderson (age 28) would have only cost a 40-man spot.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    I think a lot of teams wanted Drake in AAA, off their 40-man roster, but nobody really wanted to give him a MLB roster spot for very long. Even the Rays did that with him after his successful stint with the Twins (which was in extremely low-leverage situations, by the way) -- the Rays lost him on waivers less than a month after claiming him from the Twins, and later traded cash to get him back from Toronto, and finally put him through waivers again, only giving him a MLB look after he spent 2 months in AAA.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    Hendriks was a B grade prospect per Sickels circa 2011, reaching MLB at age 22, had comparisons to "prime" Kevin Slowey who had been a 2nd round draft pick. Hendriks certainly wasn't overpowering, but when I think "fringey" I imagine someone older or even less of a prospect. And it may have taken Hendriks five years to become a top closer, but it didn't take him nearly that long to find success in an MLB bullpen. Just one season removed from the Twins org, in his first action as a reliever, Hendriks posted a 1.5 fWAR relief season for Toronto in 2015, followed by a trade to Oakland and 1.4 and 1.0 fWAR years in their pen over 2016-2017. (Of course, he scuffled in 2018 and was available to the whole league on waivers before Oakland outrighted him to AAA for a few months, so it wasn't all smooth sailing!) Lesson there is, you probably should try a guy like that in the pen before casting him loose. And to our credit, we did that with Duffey more recently.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    FWIW, today is the 20th day of the Twins season. So any player called up for the first time in 2020, from here on out, won't get a full season of MLB service time, even if they spend the rest of the year on the roster. (The rule is normally 19 days or fewer on optional assignment and the player still gets credit for a full year, and I don't think that has been adjusted for 2020.) Not that I think that was really a factor with Duran, but maybe clubs will be more likely to try younger players now and going forward.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Looking at the video, I've got to say -- the pitcher Yardley was hitting his spots, and the catcher Pina did some excellent framing. The first and last strikes are maybe a quarter of a ball's width outside the box, so other factors like that could definitely come into play. The second strike was the biggest outlier. Looks like Meals was set up more behind Kepler, which must have impacted his sense of the outside edge of the zone. Then the pitch came in straight, the catcher didn't have to move, and he gently pulled his glove over the edge of the plate while receiving the pitch. I'm not excusing it or anything, but it's definitely easier to understand on video than on Gameday.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    Not all random events will be distributed evenly over any given sample, though. I don't think Meals was intentionally favoring the Brewers over the Twins. Could have still been random, but there are other factors which could have contributed. The Twins had 5 lefties or switch-hitters in the lineup vs. the Brewers 2, which means ump positioning would have varied. The Brewers catcher could have been framing differently than the Twins catcher, and the pitchers may had different angles/movement which could have influenced it too. Note the pitcher to Kepler was a side-armer.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    While I sympathize with your feelings about the ump in that situation, I don’t think we can infer that it should have been a walk. The pitcher may not have continued throwing it off the plate if he wasn’t getting the calls there. Correctly down 2-0, the pitcher likely tries to come into the zone — he came into the zone on 5 of 7 pitches to non-Kepler batters that inning, so it’s not like he was completely lost. As a rough barometer, last year Kepler was 10-41 with 34 BB in 77 PA which started 2-0, including 5 2B, 2 HR, and 7 Ks. So about a 60% chance of reaching base, but still 40% chance of an out (or two, like Polanco’s DP following). Not that I am defending the ump, just clarifying the probabilities!
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    Most prophecies don’t start with the word “if”.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    Gausman just turned in a very nice start vs the Dodgers on Sunday. He is up to 20 IP, 4.05 ERA, 2.27 FIP, 2 BB, 23 K for the season. Of course, San Fran, like many is teams, is still within a half a game of a playoff berth...
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    I think you can still trade any prospect in 2020, but you just have to do non-60-man guys as a “player to be named later” who won’t be officially named until after the season. There have been several such trades already in 2020.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    This is actually what happened in the 2019 postseason. First reliever to come in was Littell in the 5th in a tied game 1, then Duffey to get out of the inning, followed by Stashak to begin the 6th inning behind by 1. (And finally Gibson in the 7th down by 3.) Game 2, down 1 in the third, he went back to Duffey with disastrous results. Didn’t use Rogers until facing elimination in game 3, and inexplicably tried to stretch Romo out to 2 innings near the end of the game with a fully rested pen otherwise, extending our deficit from 2 to 4 runs before our last at-bat.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    Maybe the transactions are all processed on eastern time, so the Twins DFA’d Gearrin an hour ago to make room for Gearrin now?
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    Maybe we should have a separate thread for all of the ex-Twin Logans? Logan Darnell has pitched this year for the "Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions" of the Chinese Baseball League. Logan Schafer's Wikipedia page calls him a "free agent" but he apparently has not played professionally anywhere since 2017...
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    What you describe is outright assignment waivers. They could put a player on the current 25-man or 40-man roster on waivers behind the scenes, and then only announce it if he is claimed by another team, or if he clears and they outright him off the roster. (Even if he clears, they don’t have to outright him right away either, so there might be no announcement.) DFA is a little different. That actually removes the player from the roster immediately, so it can’t be done behind the scenes. Then you have up to 7 days to trade, waive, or release the player.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't know if it has to be "sad". It's just a daily regional sport, rather than a less frequent national spectacle, and it's been this way for most of its history. Doesn't mean fans can't follow the national game, of course. I suspect MLB news and highlights perform well on social media. And I think the MLB app offers "live look-ins" at close games? Those are more reasonable expectations for national fan content consumption than watching traditional game broadcasts, when their own local team already has a 3+ hour TV broadcast every day. Better than talking to a non-robot vacuum! http://cyberneticzoo.com/wp-content/uploads/file/rosie-the-robot-jetsons-vacuum.jpg
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