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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Saturday, Oct. 19 7:08 pm CST Yankees at Astros (ALCS Game 6, Astros lead 3-2) TV: FS1
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Pressly did have a nice showing last night. Protecting a 2 run lead, with 2 on and only 1 out in 5th, he walked Hicks but struck out Torres and Encarnacion.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    Wednesday Oct. 16 Sadly, no game today as the NLCS is over and ALCS Game 4 has been postponed. The latter development means we'll be spared from a full-on Astros-Yankees bullpen game for now (although most Yankee games resemble bullpen games these days).
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    I think there has to be a huge difference in wiring, just to achieve the goal of becoming a pro athlete. It's a special ambition, one that starts pretty early for these guys and pretty much dominates their teenage years. And by that point, the goals of being a pro athlete often supersedes fan goals like playing for a hometown team or even sometimes winning a championship. If you did a survey of free agents in pro sports, I suspect you'd find very few who signed where they already lived, even among those with families. Charlie Morton was last offseason's "sign where he lives" guy -- but two years earlier, he signed somewhere else, so who knows? Maybe it becomes a bigger deal the older a guy gets -- but those guys are generally less desirable anyway, with fewer suitors and more comparable offers across the board. (And generally not the subject of this tangent.) We still hear this and that about free agents, but I'm not sure how much of it is actually meaningful. Apparently Patrick Corbin wasn't willing to sacrifice ~$40 mil or whatever to return to his home state. I doubt Manny Machado had much interest in playing beside his brother-in-law with the White Sox either.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    If Pineda doesn't mind coming back to Minnesota, the QO is clearly his best bet. Even with the suspension, he gets a 1 year, ~$14 mil deal, and a guarantee that he'll be a free agent again next winter with no possibility of ever getting another QO. That's probably better for him than a lot of the 2 year deal ideas floated around here. (If he actually had a chance at a longer-term, big-money deal this winter, he wouldn't want the QO -- but I don't think he really has that chance right now, given the circumstances.) Obviously, if he doesn't want to come back to Minnesota for some reason, he wouldn't want a QO from us either, but I have no reason to believe that he would want to get out of Minnesota that badly.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    I get where you are coming from, but I suspect us "regular Joes" are wired quite a bit differently than most pro athletes. I'm sure some cities still have an advantage, but I wouldn't want to overrate that advantage, especially since the actual difference in home cities (~90 working days a year, spread out over 6 months) is relatively small compared to the other family sacrifices they are already making regardless of where they play their home games (road trips, spring training, night games, etc.).
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    FWIW, Baseball-Reference "similarity scores" aren't necessarily "similar pitchers" in anyone's opinion -- they just have similar career counting stats. So they can easily mislead across eras (especially with pitchers and innings pitched), and they're calculated cumulatively for careers, so Corbin is getting compared based more on his admittedly pedestrian ages 22-27 (104 ERA+, 7.9 K/9) than his much-improved age 28-29 (137 ERA+, 10.8 K/9). A similar case would be Charlie Morton -- the guys in his similarity scores are pretty marginal, but Morton's been fantastic the past few seasons since re-inventing himself. It would be foolish to consider these similarity scores as anything more than trivia in any case, but it would be especially foolish to do so while ignoring the shape of a particular player's career. And that said, I would have preferred taking our chances in the postseason behind Darvish or Corbin, rather than Dobnak or "TBA".
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    Here's the current JDA: http://www.mlb.com/pa/pdf/jda.pdf He gets up to 15 days in the minors, since his suspension was 51+ games (see page 46). And given the Cody Stanley example and the lack of any specificity in the current JDA, I assume that part is still the same and unsigned games would still count in this case.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    As I've posted elsewhere before, the game 1 pitching decisions make a certain amount of sense. Littell/Duffey in a tie game in the 5th, and using Stashak and Gibson when behind -- I don't necessarily agree, but I get it, save the best arms. But the game 2 decision, to bring in Duffey first, makes zero sense in the context of those game 1 decisions. And what's troubling is that it's not even hindsight, or requires any deep reflection to understand -- Duffey was our most taxed reliever from game 1, and he was going to be facing the same batters again less than 24 hours later. Gregorious even cited that -- having seen him so recently -- as a factor in his grand slam. I'm really troubled by how that decision came to be. The other odd decision was game 3, Sergio Romo's second inning -- our season was on the line, in the 9th inning. There was zero point to getting "length" from Romo there (season high in pitches!). I mean, I know our odds of coming back were low at that point -- but Baldelli should still be trying to maximize those odds, not just giving up, or praying that Romo's veteran magic will see us through. Fully rested bullpen, all hands on deck -- get Romo out of there, probably at the beginning of the inning, but especially after the HR and the double. Even Romo basically quit paying attention and let Torres take third.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    I'm not sure of the rules of that -- I thought that players and teams couldn't make such "no QO" agreements
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Like I said upthread, I think Pineda will get suspension credit starting opening day, even if he doesn't sign a contract before then (see Cody Stanley, 2015-2016). So he could be active immediately upon signing in June, although he'd miss out on spring training and the 15 day minor league assignment which isn't insignificant.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    Although, assuming Pineda's suspension will suppress his market quite a bit on its own, would the Twins be better off trying to sign him for a similar amount *without* the QO? Then we'd have the option to QO him after 2020 instead, if his performance warrants it, of course. (Or we could leverage a second year option or something?) Of course, Pineda might play hardball and try to draw the QO this offseason, so it would be off the table when he hits FA again next winter.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    At least this time, the runs were allowed in the bottom of the first -- previously, the Braves were down 10-0 before they even got a turn at bat! Last night the Cardinals at least made it a little interesting after that too -- got the tying run on base in 8th inning, although not much beyond that.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    So the Nationals win the NL pennant, and will have 6 days of rest before World Series game 1. Time to plan their rotation, and rest their starters (for likely more relief duty too) -- but hopefully not develop too much rust! If they can get in a game today, and win out, the Astros will have no more than 4 days rest; the Yankees, no more than 2.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    I had the radio broadcast on, and I was a little confused. They seemed to be talking a lot about various umpires for awhile! There were some jokes about another umpire catching a subway train to the stadium. Not really sure why it took so long. Edit: from reading up on it, I guess he came out to start the next inning, but then got looked at again and decided to leave. Only then did the other ump go inside to change equipment. So that probably lengthened the proceedings. I wasn't listening too closely, though. Hope the ump is OK.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    I haven't participated much at Twinkie Town, so I can't judge their moderation -- but I really don't like the site format over there. Nested comments, no forum view -- I don't think it would even be possible for me to participate over there, like I do here. But everyone will be different in that regard.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    I wouldn't say "lucky" -- but those were very much moves that TR could have made. So far, we've seen more aggressiveness with the quantity of moves from the new FO, but no indications -- yet -- that they are willing/able to commit more years or dollars to moves. Hopefully they get a good chance to demonstrate that this winter.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    That said, I don't think Pineda will hold out this offseason. (But I also don't think he'll get a QO either.) From the JDA, Pineda would still be eligible to participate in spring training games because he had his suspension reduced. And players suspended 51+ games can also have a 15 day minor league assignment before they are eligible to return. See pages 45-46 here: http://www.mlb.com/pa/pdf/jda.pdf So Pineda could be pretty active for a club next spring, despite the suspension.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    Good question! But I don't think that's true. Here's an article on Cody Stanley from a few years ago, who got suspended in September 2015 and the Cardinals non-tendered him a few months later, during his suspension, and he did not re-sign with any club: https://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/cody-stanley-162-game-ped-suspension-turinabol-ken-rosenthal-070916 The JDA doesn't explicitly say what happens in these circumstances. All it seems to say is: A Player whose suspension begins during (or extends into) the off-season shall begin (or resume) serving his suspension with the next “game” for which he otherwise would have been eligible to play. Perhaps the player can't retire like Manny Ramirez tried a few years back, but otherwise, I don't think release or free agency pauses the suspension. If it was determined that Stanley "otherwise would have been eligible to play" for the Cardinals on opening day 2016, even though he was no longer under contract, then the same would apply to Pineda in 2020. But it's an interesting question, and I'll see if I can dig up some more info. Examples of late-season suspensions are pretty scarce!
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Because of the remaining suspension, it would be easier for Pineda to decline the QO and wait until June to sign. Also, the Fangraphs dollar value is based on something like $8 mil per WAR, which isn't necessarily a great deal for a team with the Twins payroll. (Isn't necessarily bad either.)
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    FWIW, although they had lost their previous 4 division series, they were competitive in all of them -- 3 five gamers and the other a very close 4 gamer with the eventual champ Giants. And while they've had good pitchers, they didn't always have *elite* postseason SP -- Strasburg missed the first division series, and Scherzer the first two. There was a lot of Jordan Zimmermann, Gio Gonzalez, Doug Fister, etc. Who were good in their time but ultimately maybe closer to Odorizzi/Berrios level than Scherzer/Strasburg level.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    Tuesday, Oct. 15 With the Cardinals on the verge of elimination, plus a heavy rain predicted for NY tomorrow, this could be the last "doubleheader" of MLB games this year. 3:08 pm CST Astros at Yankees (ALCS Game 3, series tied 1-1) TV: FS1 7:05 pm CST Cardinals at Nationals (NLCS Game 4, Nats lead 3-0) TV: TBS
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    To be fair, they ran into 4 good teams in their 4 playoff trips with Harper, and they were very close losses (3 of them going the full 5 games, and the other was 3-1 to the eventual champ Giants in 2014, featuring 3 one run losses -- the Nats and Giants actually tied at 9 runs for the series!) And they didn't have Strasburg or Rendon for the first one of those, or Scherzer for the first two, so there are more key differences than just Harper. They certainly are playing well this year, though! And to think, they not only started the year 19-31, they've also been on the brink of playoff elimination twice -- trailed the wild card game by 2 runs with only 4 outs to go, and game 5 of the NLDS by 2 runs with 6 outs to go.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    Monday, Oct. 14 6:38 pm CST Cardinals at Nationals (NLCS Game 3, Nats lead 2-0) TV: TBS
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    Very interesting sequence in the Yankees final half inning of the night: Sanchez strikes out swinging, except the ump agrees it was a phantom foul tip -- then he rings up Sanchez looking on a ball clearly outside on the next pitch: https://cuts.diamond.mlb.com/FORGE/2019/2019-10/13/6ef29e40-6fd7ec3a-983588a2-csvm-diamondx64-asset_1280x720_59_4000K.mp4
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