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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Partial season platoon splits are a ridiculously small sample size -- it's 55 PA. His K% and BB% are virtually the same from both sides this season. Last year he had a monster 1.262 OPS in 52 PA vs LHP. And he had a 3 run HR and a walk against Derek Holland earlier this very season, on June 20. To the extent that maybe he has "looked" worse against LHP this season, maybe seeing Holland again would help him get back on track in that regard. When the alternative is starting Gimenez, Granite, Adrianza, and Garver (plus Escobar at DH), all in the same lineup, I sure as heck wouldn't want to sit Vargas vs Derek Holland because of small sample platoon splits. Actually the best order almost certainly should have had Vargas and Mauer and 1B/DH (let Mauer DH if you're concerned about rest), and Escobar at 3B -- Adrianza is pretty inexperienced over there too.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    We actually didn't "have" to chase down Detroit that September. We were basically tied for the wild card spot at the start of the month, and finished up 6 games in that race. An important month for sure, and one that Santana excelled in, but not clear to me that it was more important/impressive than June, when our season was basically on the line and we rescued it, with large help from Santana -- the team was 6-0 in his June starts, with Santana only allowing 6 runs TOTAL that month, versus 3-2 in his September starts, with 4 runs charged to Santana in each of the two losses. (In fairness, he also had a very nice start on August 31st ).
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    While I probably would have preferred Mauer to Garver at 1B last night -- why didn't Vargas start? He's no Mauer but he seems like a fair glove at 1B -- he's certainly no novice like Garver -- and he's got pretty even splits for his career. 3 career PA against Holland, with a walk, strikeout, and 3 run HR (talk about three true outcomes!). That would have improved the 1B defense and probably improved the lineup offensively too, given Garver's inexperience. And since we pinch-hit for Garver with Mauer late in the game anyway, starting Vargas instead would have kept Garver on the bench and allowed Mauer to pinch-hit for someone else, possibly even Gimenez if necessary.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    I think the poster was just confused about the timeline. The bad stretch for Rogers was the week before Kintzler was traded, 10 runs allowed in 5 games.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    But Koufax also pitched in a smaller league with less talent dilution. And also slightly lower strikeout rates? It gets pretty complicated trying to make cross-era comparisons. Best to just compare them relative to their contemporaries (which ERA+ and WAR are doing).
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    Piranhas are not known as picky eaters.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    Actually, I think it is only the second bullpen loss since the trade.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    I was trying to combine a Twins and Star Wars reference... perhaps unsuccessfully, In retrospect, I should have gone with "Bombo Yett":
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    Pretty sure Melville will be a minor league free agent for the fourth offseason in a row in a couple months. Not sure if Monday's start was particularly urgent, from an evaluation perspective.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    Well, then some other enterprising Twins fan would just disguise themselves as the bounty hunter Bombo Fett and free him.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    I read them! That's how I knew who Melville was before yesterday. I personally am not dying to see more of Slegers, but he is 3 years younger than Melville and in his first taste of AAA (Melville is in his 3rd go-around). Melville has also been a minor league free agent after each of the last 3 seasons, and will be again if we remove him from the 40-man. Maybe that will be Slegers fate someday too, but for now I can see how he offers a bit more upside/control (albeit modest).
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    Melville was still pitching in Reds system at this time last year, albeit on a rehab assignment. 2017 was his first indy ball experience.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    Yeah, I think non-elite pitching prospects in general are pretty immune to service time considerations. Just too many other factors in their health and development.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    It's quite possible they were keeping him in AA for non-critical reasons because they didn't expect to be in contention at this late point in the season. The same thing that drove their selling at the deadline, last offseason's bullpen plans, etc. Could have been non-critical refinements, waiting until they could provide Chattanooga with strong reinforcements (i.e. Littell and Thorpe?), sorting through AAA SP options, etc. And while 10 starts vs 3 might not make a huge difference to you, I was responding to a poster who suggested that 3 was too few. And I think if you project a guy as a possible contributor, you should aim for more than 3 by the time you may need him to step in. Especially for non-elite guys. Duffey stepped into the rotation after ~12 AAA starts in 2015. I would guess there would have been more hesitation about making that move if he had only 3 AAA starts at the time (after a solid debut, Duffey's next 3 AAA starts were a little shaky). Berrios was an option that August too, and he finished 2015 with 12 AAA starts. I suspect he would have been considered even less with only 3 AAA starts, although ultimately his innings limit and non-40-man status (and maybe Duffey's success) prevailed in that decision anyway. Hard to tell how a guy is going to respond in just 3 starts.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Yeah, I wouldn't call them incompetent over it; I don't think Gonsalves is any great savior either. But to be fair, he only has "a few starts at AAA" because of other front office decisions. Not sure if he needed 28 starts at AA. Promote him after 8 starts at AA this year, and he'd have 10 under his belt at AAA already. Not that we'd necessarily count on him this last month, but he could have been an option.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    Tovar and Gladden were apparently runner ups to Cuddyer this year. And Jerry Bell was runner up to MacPhail...
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    I am not using "one tiny bit of information" here. I have considered not only Bosher's platoon splits, but also his overall quality (he's a fringe MLBer), the batter's platoon splits (neutral career), the size and composition of the Twins pen, how rested the pen was, the likelihood of a game the next day, etc. Throw in that we had 3 offensive innings left, at home, Salazar was dominating but probably only had 1 inning left, and Andrew Miller was still on the DL which meant their pen wasn't at full strength. And that we already cut Busenitz's appearance somewhat short, so we already invested something in this game. Even if we lost, the outcome of that PA could have had more informational value too -- can a RHP do the job? That seems like a more valuable question to work toward answering than, can Boshers wriggle out of his own jam that I would never trust him to do in a more important game anyway? A lot of factors informed my conclusion that our win probability at that point wasn't worth risking to squeeze one out from Buddy Boshers. Feel free to disagree, but please don't mischaracterize my argument and evidence.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    There is no such thing as guaranteed results. Doesn't mean you ignore the process. And if Pressly came in and gave up a HR to Jackson in the game Tuesday instead of Boshers, then maybe Molitor tries a different RHP in the Thursday game with better results.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    Again, no, you were looking at the wrong plate appearance. 0.33 was 2 outs, nobody on. When Boshers was allowed to face Jackson with 2 on, that was 1.30 leverage. That's not low, it's above average, fairly close to the average game entering leverage index of Pressly, Duffey, and Belisle.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Not really. It was 21% when Molitor bothered to go for the platoon match up with 2 outs and nobody on. Is that something you do in "low leverage"? Tigers had basically the same ~20% chance of winning at the end of their 8th and start of their 9th down 1 run last Saturday. At that point, you are a "bloop and a blast" from a tie or a win. Note the Tigers used their best reliever to pitch the 9th to preserve that ~20% win probability, clearly not playing it like it was low leverage. Low leverage would be when the Tigers were down 4 earlier in that game, or the Twins were down 5 after the Jackson HR Tuesday, about a 4% chance of winning. You hope for a comeback at that point, but there is not much you can do. Still plenty you can do around 20%, though. If you look around the league, I doubt you will see a lot of strategic priorities changing just because of ~20% win probability. You don't have to go all "elimination game" in your reliever usage, but you sure as heck don't shrug and leave your scuffling LOOGY out to dry vs RHB with a rested pen in reserve.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    Gonsalves has to be added by November anyway, so if they can make room for him now, by moving Santiago to the 60-day DL or outrighting Recker or DFA'ing Boshers or whatever -- there is no real cost to promoting Gonsalves this season. If they have an extra spot, they could certainly add Park back. Worst case, he doesn't show anything and we can outright him off the roster again after the season. I'm not sure if they'll bother, although Grossman being out presents a bit of an opportunity. I agree Turley should get a look, but probably in a pen role at this point. Maybe if we fall further out of the race, he could try starting again.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    It's an interesting strategy, but I'm not sure the marginal gains from Vargas are worth it. Their OPS+ figures are virtually identical this season and for their careers. You'd also lose Vargas from pinch-hitting and deprive Castro of a chance to see the pitcher before his later plate appearances too. Also, if you don't push the rest of the lineup down a spot, Castro might come up in an unusual position, and if you do push the rest of the lineup down a spot, you are potentially losing a PA for a guy like Sano by inserting a new guy at the top. If Vargas is good enough for this to benefit us, he'd be good enough to start at DH or 1B, probably.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    Again: the next day's game was fairly unlikely. (I should know, I was hoping to attend Wednesday night, so I was following the weather pretty closely, and there was a major storm rolling in.) And even with the uncertainty inherent in any weather forecast, the rest of the 8 MAN pen was completely rested. following the off day on Monday. Keeping Busenitz available was hardly necessary. Even so, whether Busenitz gets 5 or 6 outs on Tuesday, or throws 21 or ~26 pitches, doesn't seem like a particularly meaningful distinction to that end anyway. Busenitz has only thrown on consecutive days once all season, and it was after only 15 pitches the day before. And that was in a stretch where the Twins had 21 consecutive days without a day off. Half of Busenitz's MLB appearances this season have seen him throw more than the 21 pitches he threw Tuesday. When Molitor pulled Busenitz, it was pretty clear he was playing matchups to keep the Tuesday game close, not trying to stretch his pen. And two batters latter, it was pretty clear he abandoned matchups, even though the game was still just as close. I don't think the pen options were good enough to warrant that sudden change in strategy.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    Everybody and his dog knew the game on Wednesday was a likely postponement. And if you are squeezing outs from RPs, why pull Busenitz with 2 outs and nobody on? Let him get out of the inning and then see what our bats can do to inform your next pitching move. Busenitz was already pretty much unavailable for Wednesday anyway. And the limited deck of options actually means you have less to gain from saving marginal pitchers for later. Was Pressly really going to be any better or more reliable with 2-3 days rest? All of these guys are optionable too if you really need a fresh arm. It obviously isn't what cost us the game Tuesday, but it is the kind of move sequence I just don't get with Molitor.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    So the standard you are applying here is that a move has to have a virtual 100% success rate for a manager to be criticized for not making it? I don't get it. Everybody here is fine with bringing in Boshers to face the LHB, even though it has far less than 100% success rate. Why do we suddenly get so stringent when analyzing the follow up move? It was the 7th inning. We needed 7 more outs, win or lose. Boshers was never likely to finish the game. He hasn't gotten 7 outs in a game since his season debut, when he came in during the 3rd inning of a 14-3 loss to Detroit. He hasn't faced 9+ batters in a season except when he came in during the FIRST inning of a 9-0 loss to the White Sox. Molitor already decided to pull Busenitz with 2 out and nobody on to play matchups, and nothing had really changed with our win expectancy since then, but the leverage had gone way up. Molitor was playing matchups, until suddenly, he wasn't? I don't fault Molitor based on the results so much as the internal inconsistencies of his logic.
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