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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    I'd argue for Lenny Webster. May 31, 1991: Twins lose to fall to 23-25, 5th place, 5.5 games out of first; Junior Ortiz placed on DL after the game, Lenny Webster recalled June 1: Twins begin 15 game winning streak June 16: Ortiz activated, Webster sent down, Twins finish the day at 38-25, in first place June 17: Twins lose first game since May 31st Without that Webster magic, it's possible the Twins don't even win the division in 1991!
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    They measure different things. There's a stark difference between batting average and on-base percentage too.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    They have a literal river of fire! https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/63
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Anderson is already ahead of Dereck Rodriguez, in that the Marlins already flipped him for a better trade return and Anderson already contributed to a pennant race and postseason. Rodriguez had a nice run for the Giants in 2018 but ultimately didn't make much difference or generate much value in doing so.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    Remember how Marwin was the one who called the suspended Pineda on FaceTime during our division title celebration? Does seem like an interesting juxtaposition now!
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    No prob! And I'm not really trying to hint at or allege anything. Just saying, we don't know. I wouldn't say he cheated in 2019, but at the same time, since his 2017-2018 cheating had not yet been exposed, I'm not sure we can really conclude that he didn't try some level of cheating in 2019 either. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt starting in 2020, now that the cheating has been exposed, it's unlikely to be attempted again so soon!
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    Saying "we don't really know", in response to a declaration that he was 100% clean in 2019, is hardly an allegation.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    Yeah, those aren't the only two options. And if you want to characterize my position like that, we should just drop this line of conversation.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    First of all, how does that compare to every other player when throwing out their worst month? Secondly, do we really know that Marwin wasn't cheating last year? Obviously the Twins as a team weren't banging on trash cans together, but Marwin privately could have had a clubhouse guy watching a video feed and sending him signals somehow. Maybe he started a month into the season so he could hit .285 the rest of the way. I'm not saying he did it, but I'm not comfortable drawing a conclusion on way or the other. I am comfortable saying he won't be doing it in 2020, and I also agree with you and others generally that the Twins can't and don't need to do much of anything about him, other than let him play out his contract.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    A little, although Cleveland 2019-2020 hasn't traded anyone presently as good as Johan circa 2007. (Maybe not even Bartlett circa 2007, and certainly not prospects like Garza circa 2007.) And they've gotten back MLB players in those deals too. Cleveland is probably guilty of being a bit too conservative on the payroll side, but they haven't give up that much talent in trade yet. (Obviously that changes if they pull the trigger on a Lindor deal, although I suspect that won't happen at this time.)
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Of course, they won the World Series with a pretty awful pen, overall. (Looking at relievers the Twins added after winning the 1987 World Series... Jim Winn? Insert a Jim Winn joke here!)
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    I have to admit, I looked that up too -- but at the Baseball Cube: http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/profile.asp?ID=220593 More accurately, it was just 2018, as he didn't pitch in 2017 as a redshirt freshman. I wonder if 2018 was his first season back after Tommy John surgery?
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    I mean, yeah, it's their default for fWAR and thus gets referenced a lot. But I doubt many Fangraphs writers will go to their grave thinking Ricky Nolasco was a better pitcher than his bWAR suggests. I mean, I'm not even sure what the complaint means. Should fWAR default to RA9-WAR, and then Fangraphs could list "FIP-WAR" separately? Does it really matter? There isn't going to be one perfect number anyway.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    McMahon was on the Nationals instructional league roster last fall too, so they've had some opportunity to evaluate him. I suspect he's not *quite* the fast riser his pro debut numbers suggest, but he could still be an interesting guy going forward. https://www.masnsports.com/byron-kerr/2019/09/nats-instructional-league-underway-roster-attached.html
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    From a couple Nationals sites last summer: https://www.nationalsarmrace.com/?p=15883 And https://www.nbcsports.com/washington/nationals/recapping-washington-nationals-2019-mlb-draft-picks
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    How so? Extremely small sample, but his walk rate in pro ball was perfectly fine, as it was in college last year too (notably lower than his conference's walk rate). His HBP number in college seems high, but it was actually the same rate as his whole conference (which was almost 3 times the MLB rate).
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Let's pump the brakes here. It's a good deal, just because we didn't really need Harper and there's no cost to having McMahon around for the next few years. But McMahon was a college draftee, pitching about once a week in relief in short season A- (not even regular A). The Twins don't even have an A- affiliate, which suggests how valuable this level is for player development. Again, good trade, but there's not much of a trend to continue yet for McMahon. We have no idea at this point how he will fare in regular use against full season competition.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    Sure, but I don't think anyone suggests we should look solely at fWAR and FIP, especially as the sample size grows to multiple seasons. It's still interesting information -- I like being able to find FIP/ERA divergences, and track how those players perform.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    I mentioned in the above post, but Fangraphs actually publishes both their WAR based on FIP, as well as a RA9-WAR based on actual runs scored. I understand not fully endorsing FIP, but I like having both of those figures available over only have one.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Hasn't Fangraphs WAR always been FIP-based? At least, I can't remember using fWAR before that. And frankly, why would anyone? There's nothing particularly useful about two systems producing roughly the same figures. I think it's good to have different takes, as long as one understands the differences. And Fangraphs publishes both fWAR (based on FIP) and RA9-WAR (based on actual runs allowed) on their site too.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    TR let a few guys walk before -- nobody as big as Hunter or Santana, but still, I suspect he knew their contributions were important to a contending team (as we were at the time), and the draft pick compensation was valuable. If Smith had simply followed TR's example in that regard, things probably would have turned out better.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    A few problems with that: 1. Rosario has some value in general, but I don't think he has any real value to the Pirates right now, since they are non-contenders and he has only 2 years of control left at non-negligible salary. 2. Archer is basically a throw-in for that trade proposal -- doubtful the Pirates would do that, with his value at his lowest. Their payroll is low enough now they can afford to keep his salary and bet on a bounceback instead (in fact, the Pirates might start to get in trouble with the MLBPA for their low payroll).
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    What's weird is that we traded Garza (and Bartlett) for Delmon Young just a couple months earlier -- Delmon turned out to be a bust, of course, but that was still a "win now" type of move. Then we turned around and traded another pitcher, our ace Johan, away from the 2008 team in exchange for speculative (and mostly poor) future assets. It was such a weird combination of moves, and it led to our 2008 opening day starter being Livan Hernandez, in a season which featured prime Mauer and Morneau and other useful players. Kind of a waste of talent. Delmon was a bad baseball move, but I think Johan was a panic move by the Bill Smith front office -- they became so afraid they'd lose him "for nothing" like Torii that they ignored the value Johan could have brought the team in 2008 and in the 2009 draft (comp picks were a lot better back then).
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    Yup, I suspect that's what the OP meant by "setting the stage" rather than the Johan deal itself was our downfall (although it certainly didn't help in the 2008 season or in the 2009 draft).
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    That would be more of a breadth move, rather than depth.
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