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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    I'm intrigued by the data and the discussion, but does anyone really think MLB could keep a lid on something like this? It's not quite JFK conspiracy level, but the MLB central office isn't exactly staffed by trained agents of espionage either. Enough people would be involved to make me skeptical. It's not like Manfred personally goes into a storage facility alone and emerges with the box of baseballs to use for each game.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    From the Peanuts Wiki: https://peanuts.fandom.com/wiki/Football_gag I guess that's equivalent to the Twins assorted regular-season wins over the Yankees -- considered non-canonical.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    FWIW, the two names mentioned by Lavelle in the article are Bumgarner and Wheeler, in the context of, "will the Twins be willing to give up a draft pick to sign one of these guys?" I think that's the level of "impact pitching" we're realistically talking about here, on the FA market anyway. We ain't getting Cole. (Well, maybe Hamels )
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Those are both very shallow -- impressive! I think your reason #2 is also quite petty. Since Minnesota took Washington's team once upon a time, I think the least we could do is root for them now. And honestly, would you rather see St. Louis, the Yankees, or even Houston win yet again? I'd put the Twins chances at Strasburg at near zero anyway, so #1 should be a non-factor.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    A-Rod, Sabathia, Kershaw, Cespedes, and Upton all opted out and re-signed with the same team (or agreed to an extension in lieu of opting out).
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    Thursday, Oct. 10 Another winner-take-all game today! Starts relatively early too, so it might make for good evening viewing. 6:07 pm CST Rays at Astros (ALDS Game 5, series tied 2-2) TV: FS1
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    Wow, two very interesting games yesterday, in very different ways! Lost in the shuffle of the Nationals comeback over the Dodgers, Patrick Corbin redeemed himself a bit with a very nice relief performance. Hopefully Kurt Suzuki is okay after taking a pitch off his wrist.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    I'm not sure game 3 was really "there for the taking" but this was another inexplicable Rocco blunder. Elimination game, 9th inning, all hands on deck, everybody but Odo and Rogers still available -- and he decides this is the time to stretch out Romo for multiple innings? To a season high pitch count?
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    That's the kind on intensity I'd like to see from Baldelli! He should be throwing sneakers in the dugout, and throwing loafers at the press conference...
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    You mean the following thread? Still up for me: http://twinsdaily.com/topic/35201-front-page-reflection-provides-solace-for-2019-minnesota-twins/ Mods, I suppose this post could be moved there?
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    To be fair, Martín Pérez often provided a certain kind of impact.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    I'm not sure players would entirely agree? I mean, they play postseason games for a reason, and they're pretty important. Postseason failure doesn't completely invalidate regular season success, of course, but back to my original point, there are different levels of postseason failure, and the Twins hit just about the worst one this year. Which probably makes a bigger dent than whatever the remaining teams to be eliminated will experience.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    Thanks. I found a direct link, from https://baseball.theater/game/20191004/599342 https://cuts.diamond.mlb.com/FORGE/2019/2019-10/04/d87e7d97-1fb84cd4-bd85a0f3-csvm-diamondx64-asset_1280x720_59_4000K.mp4 It was a pretty quick play, and Arraez is no speed demon -- I wouldn't expect it to be that close. If he seems to be running gingerly, it's mostly after he's stretched to touch the bag. In any case, I don't think I would have expected anything meaningfully better from Schoop there. And Garver was due up next and didn't get the ball out of the infield all night. At least Arraez used the experience to double and score a run off Paxton his next time up, so it wasn't a complete loss.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    May I ask why? Postseason game 1 seems like the most pointless time to try to extend your starting pitcher. Your full pen is the most rested it will ever be. Berrios was already at 88 pitches. Last 2 months of the season his average was 96 with a high of 101. Judge was leading off, with Encarnacion (2 doubles already) due up third. With as patient as the Yankees were, does he even get more than a batter or two in the inning? FWIW, Berrios this season goes from .675 OPS the first two times through the order up to .750 the third time. OPS .850 from 76-100 pitches, .960 at 101+. It seems like people are putting a lot of stock into his smooth 4th inning, but it was the bottom of the order, only 2nd time though, and he started two of them with balls and didn't have a swinging strike in the inning. Letting Littell start a clean inning in the 5th, with Duffey ready in case of trouble, was a reasonable alternative. (Things start getting murkier with Stashak and Gibson, and Duffey again the next day...) Again, not saying sending Berrios out for the 5th would have been a mistake, but pulling him doesn't seem like much of a mistake either. At least not comparable to the game 2 Duffey move.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Well, we've disagreed about calling it a "routine popup" before. It was more of a looper that went pretty deep into the outfield. If it had actually reached popup height, it's Rosario's catch given where it landed. And Berrios followed it up by allowing a single, a deep fly (advancing the runner), a hard-hit double, and a walk before the Cron play, so I have a hard time absolving him of too much responsibility for the inning.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    Was there a good camera shot of Arraez running down the line? I don't recall one, but I might have to go back and look. Although it isn't a permanent binary condition either. Maybe he ran fine the day before or in warm-ups, but landed on it weird coming out of the box on that particular play. The defensive play seemed less of an issue with a limp and more of an issue with trying to judge a looping ball behind him. I think it's fair to question the decision, but a lot of people are putting this firmly in the "mistake" column, even above the Duffey game 2 thing. I just don't see that.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Does not covering 2nd have anything to do with his ankle? Arraez did ground into a DP in his first PA, but you know what? Schoop had a higher GIDP rate vs LHP this season anyway. I'm not saying Schoop would have been the wrong choice, but I don't think Arraez was necessarily either. And the evidence we have from the series doesn't really suggest otherwise -- even if you dock Arraez in the field for game 1, he was 5-for-11 with four doubles in the series. Schoop got carved up in his two PAs, including one vs the lefty Happ.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    Game 1 was competitive, for quite a while. It was 3-3 in the 5th with a full pen, and still 5-4 in the 6th with the same pen minus only Littell and Duffey. The bats certainly disappeared after that, for most of the rest of the series. (Although it certainly didn't help matters that manager decisions put that game out of reach in the 6th and 7th, and the next one in the 3rd.)
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    I guess in a long view, no, an absolute measure of the 2019 Twins talent doesn't really change between an uncompetitive sweep and any other series-losing outcome. But by that logic, a series win or even a World Series run might not have changed it either. The playoffs aren't about long-term absolute measures. If you don't think a single Twins win would have mattered this postseason, you either have to be oblivious to a lot of real-world context or you just don't care about the playoffs.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Wednesday Oct. 9 Two all-or-nothing NLDS Game 5's -- should be interesting! 4:02 pm CST Cardinals at Braves (Flaherty vs Foltynewicz) TV: TBS 7:37 pm CST Nationals at Dodgers (Strasburg vs Buehler) TV: TBS
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    Not all bad moves are created equal. This one was bad from conception -- is there any valid argument to lean on Duffey again there? -- and it completely gave the game away in the 3rd inning, putting us in 0-2 series hole. (Plus the trickle-down effect, that using Duffey again in that spot largely contradicts/invalidates the Stashak/Gibson strategy of game 1, maybe even the Dobnak decision too.) Compared to something like the Arraez vs Schoop decision -- even if one disagrees, I think one can see a valid argument for the other side. For all we know, Arraez's ankle was indeed fine and he simply misread the looper in game 1. And of course, that misplay alone wasn't all that meaningful, and was only magnified by the single, deep fly (advancing runner), double, and walk that Berrios surrendered to the subsequent 4 batters (the same 4 batters folks seem to want Berrios to have faced a third time, at 88 pitches, in the 5th inning), even before the Cron misplay on the potential double play. Not to mention that Arraez provided a run at the plate in the same game too.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    As far as Baldelli being a rookie manager: Cash, Shildt, and Martinez are all rookie *playoff* managers this year. And they seem to be doing all right. (Shildt was in his first full regular season too.) Counsell and Snitker were rookie playoff managers last year. (I'll leave out the larger market first years too.) Counsell's team had a deep run, and Snitker's team at least managed a win versus the mighty Dodgers.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    What do you mean, it didn't make a huge difference? It took the game from 1-0 to 8-0. We had Rogers, Romo, and May *fully rested*, and we turn first to our most-taxed reliever from game 1. Did you read the link? Duffey's velo was down from game 1 (not surprising). And Gregorious specifically said he was seeing his pitches better, having already seen him in game 1 (not surprising). I totally get Littell/Duffey in game 1. I'm not crazy about the Stashak/Gibson moves in game 1, but I can see a justification for that too -- but not if you're just going to go to Duffey again like that in game 2. The point of using Stashak/Gibson was to save Rogers/May/Romo so you wouldn't *have* to use Duffey like that again in game 2.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    How could you not be strongly opposed to Duffey being the 1st guy out of the pen, in a jam, in game 2? See the evidence from Fangraphs here: http://twinsdaily.com/topic/35173-front-page-twins-alds-game-2-recap-nothing-works-twins-lose-12th-straight-to-yankees/?p=929648 That mistake was so obvious, it goes beyond "rookie manager learning the ropes" to me.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    Not true -- 11 teams ended their season with a victory already. I guess among playoff teams, only 1 will end with a victory, but how many will end with 3 straight (one-sided) postseason losses?
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