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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Edit: he clarified in a follow-up that he meant 5 years, $89 mil (5 years at the current QO rate of $17.8 mil).
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    In the Fangraphs "Split" drop down menu, you can select a position and it will show only the stats the player or team accumulated at that position: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=0&season=2019&month=35&season1=2019&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2019-01-01&enddate=2019-12-31&sort=5,d
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    Not quite -- Grandal will turn 35 in Nov. 2023, after this contract is over. Age 31-34 seasons.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    FWIW, Grandal's had a lighter workload than some other catchers: Plus, Grandal's been as solid as ever with the bat at age 29-30 -- I don't know if you should really compare him to, say, Lucroy, who had a big down year at 29, or Brian McCann, who had a down year at age 30, or Wieters, who wasn't particularly good at either 29 or 30. Those guys may have already been showing signs of an early 30s decline by the age Grandal is now. No guarantees, of course, but it would appear the White Sox have good reason to bet on him for a few years at least. (And they don't necessarily need him to still be a stud catcher at age 34 -- that season may just have been the price required to get his age 31-32-33 seasons.)
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    I think "managers might ask for a third catcher" is an exaggerated problem (even Gardy didn't have a 3rd catcher that often), but it doesn't seem to apply here at all. Grandal played some 1B last year, and the Brewers had exactly 1 day of 3 catchers on their roster before September. And there aren't often "top level DH/1B" on the FA market, at least not ones that separate themselves in value from the next tier at that position. And the White Sox already got arguably the best 2019 FA DH/1B under contract for 2020 (Abreu).
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    ? Grandal caught in 137 games last year (124 starts). And Grandal's K rate last year was 22.0%, below the MLB non-pitcher average of 22.4%.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    This is correct -- Colina is not eligible this winter. His first pro assignment was to the DSL Twins in 2016, and he signed in 2015 after the DSL season ended. So 2016 counted as his first Rule 5 draft, and he's protected until his 5th, which will be in December 2020.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    Considering Vue is ending on Jan. 30, 2020, I'm not sure it matters anymore! Edit to add: I've heard nothing but good things about YouTubeTV, if you need a streaming TV package. Good quality, unlimited DVR, and some account sharing.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    I haven't seen a team breakdown, but this article listed some league-wide numbers: https://www.mlb.com/news/how-3-batter-minimum-will-change-baseball (emphasis mine) In terms of pace / time of game, I think this is closer in effect to the automatic intentional walk and mound visit limits than people think. MLB has yet to address the elephant in the room, which is all of the extra idle time between pitches.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    Well, just about anything could improve the pace more than the pointless "mound visit limits" or "automatic intentional walks", so that's a pretty low bar.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    There is no limit to how many people you have in the dugout, but as you note there is a limit to the active roster size. And in order to have a "daily active 28" in September from among the whole 40-man roster, you'd need a pretty big change to the rules -- allowing teams to call up players, but not put them on the active roster. That's not currently allowed, and it could affect options, service time, benefits, postseason eligibility, etc. I'm not so sure that's part of the deal here, but official details have been scant so far.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    If you were in his shoes, you'd also already have $21 mil in career earnings in the bank, even before the $17.8 mil QO. He can afford to bet on getting better than 2/24 next winter with too much risk to his security.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    Yeah, Wheeler and Bumgarner are pretty close to the same age. Bumgarner has more innings on his arm, of course -- but Wheeler's already had TJ surgery too, so he's not without his risks. MLBTR predicts 5/100 for Wheeler and 4/72 for Bumgarner, so that's a difference, but really just 1 year at roughly the same AAV.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    I've got to give you credit here: this is a legit trade proposal! Even passes the trade simulator: https://www.baseballtradevalues.com/trade-simulator/ That said, no guarantee that the Marlins would accept it. They'd be taking on an extra ~$5 mil for 2020 (per MLBTR's arbitration estimates), and it might be pretty hard for them to flip a corner outfielder like Rosario. They may just want prospects? What if they want to sub Rooker or Wallner for Rosario? Duffey might also work, per the trade simulator above.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    It's not that hard to stash a Rule 5 reliever on a ML roster, especially with a 26-man roster next year. You can also DL them for up to half the season (leaving 90 days active) and still remove Rule 5 restrictions by the end of the year.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    The only way this works for Odorizzi is if he doesn't think he can beat a 3/42 deal on the open market this winter with the loss of a draft pick attached, or beat a 2/24 deal next offseason with no draft pick compensation. That calculation might make sense for guy who's a little older like Gibson, but Odorizzi is 2.5 years younger than Gibson. I think it will take a little more to sign Odorizzi to a 3 year deal right now. MLBTR predicted 3/51 which sounds about right. Edit to add: reading closer, it looks like you assume he declines the QO, in which case a slow market could lead to a further discount for him. I think he might just accept the QO, though, if he can't get 3/51+ from the Twins today.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    I get that point, in theory, but it doesn't seem to have played out that way in 2019, so I'm not sure it's relevant to this discussion about Boone. Encarnacion was literally the only in-season reinforcement that NY brought in with its excess resources in 2019, and he didn't even have that much of an impact for them -- 197 PA of 0.7 bWAR (he missed most of the last 2 months of the season for NY too!). As Brian alludes to, the bigger reinforcements were Ford, Urshela, Tauchman, and Maybin -- they contributed 9.5 bWAR over 1204 PA. Oakland and Tampa could have just as easily acquired and deployed those players instead of NYY. (And in fact, Oakland and Tampa often do get good performances from unheralded players like that, and we give their managers and front offices credit for doing so.)
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    I've got no problems dropping pitcher PA, I suppose, but if you really want to drill it down, you'll want to adjust for all opposition PAs. For example, Odorizzi had the 3 worst offenses in the AL as divisional opponents and got to accumulate 10 starts against them; Wheeler only had the Marlins as such a team in his division, for 3 starts. Not to mention adjustments for parks, defense, etc. Over 700-800+ PAs, there are all kind of factors that might be as big as ~50 pitcher PAs. FWIW, bWAR already includes some adjustment for opponent offenses, "RA9opp", although I think it's just on a team level rather than PA level. And it looks like, based on that, and park and defense, Odorizzi beats Wheeler in bWAR 3.6 to 3.5 for 2019 despite one fewer start and 36 fewer innings. So you might be right to give a slight advantage to Odorizzi. (Although Wheeler has a higher bWAR -- 4.1 -- listed in his summary at the top of the page, but I suspect the table value is most up-to-date.)
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    That's fWAR (Fangraphs WAR), which is based on FIP. I would expect whoever leads in FIP would lead in fWAR. Verlander led in RA9, so he has the edge in bWAR (B-Ref WAR). Cole has a slight edge in ERA but allowed more unearned runs, in fewer innings. They both had a heck of a season.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Did they pick up anyone of note besides Encarnacion? And Encarnacion isn't versatile at all, so it's going to take some skill to deploy him properly.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    Yeah, 5.2 isn't bad anymore, but I'd be curious how much openers might be shifting the average too. I seem to recall a site that had an opener/primary split but I can't find it now....
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    Not too much better -- AL DHs only had a 105 wRC+ last year. And 111 and 94 the two years prior -- which demonstrates the volatility of looking at something like this. Even beyond the DH, it's really going to depend on who a guy faces, and when -- a pitcher facing the current Detroit squad a few times a year might still face a few pitcher-level bats.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't know if it's any particular valuation of SPs that causes that result -- I suspect it's just too many qualifiers. There aren't that many trades period, so can't expect to find many traded players, meeting specific criteria, on a small sample of teams in a single year. I mean, using your same criteria but looking at position players, you'd only find, what, two matches? (Yelich and Eaton?) Is that meaningful, compared to Cole/Paxton? And there are twice as many position players per team as SP. If you look at last year's playoff teams, there was Sale, Quintana, and perhaps Alex Wood meeting your criteria. Plus Sonny Gray had 2.5 years of control when traded to NYY, and of course signed a reasonable extension when traded to CIN. In any case, I agree it's not easy to get a young controlled SP in trade -- but it's not easy to get a young controlled anything in trade. Edit: just realized this post was 4 days old. Man, I am slow.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    Kepler has always had a fairly low BABIP in MLB. It may just be who he is, not unlike Brian Dozier? (Dozier did sneak in one .300 BABIP season, and I suppose if Kepler ever does that with this power, he could be a beast!) FWIW, Steamer projects Kepler to gain back some BABIP (+.026), lose some power (-.037 ISO), and stay roughly as effective at the plate in 2020 (117 wRC+, compared to 2019's 121).
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    That might be right, but at the same time, virtually every team in MLB could offer him that same deal. So to actually get the player, you might have to set your offer apart. Or, perhaps more likely, Salazar will just pick his preferred destination from the pile of comparable offers. Minnesota could be an attractive destination, given our 2019 season, rotation openings, and potential run support. Although he'd probably have a shorter leash here too, given our expectations for success -- he might see better opportunity to re-establish himself somewhere like Miami, especially if he prefers starting over relief work, and then look to get traded to a contender at the deadline.
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