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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Seth Stohs, any clarification here? Lewin Diaz indeed did not play pro ball in 2013, and his MLB page lists a signing date in November 2013, which seems consistent with that. That would mean he would not be Rule 5 eligible until after the 2018 season. Did he agree to a deal earlier, but it wasn't official until later?
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Looks like someone needs to familiarize oneself with emoticons, to indicate humor.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    We can't do that with Hughes. With 5+ years service time, he has the right to refuse any outright assignment. So you can expect him stay on the 40-man roster barring release, trade, or retirement. (Blackburn was 16 days shy of 5 years service when we outrighted him.)
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    No, Polanco was not an "early add" either -- he was added to the 40-man in November 2013 to protect him from the Rule 5 draft, just like Kepler and Vargas that same year. (Polanco's lack of an option this year, as compared to Vargas, relates to him spending ~3 too many days on a rookie league roster in 2010...)
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    Today from MLBTR: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/08/8-impending-free-agent-hitters-with-slipping-stock.html
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    They didn't need any information from the previous administration to see the weaknesses in the pitching staff, both pen and rotation. Or to see that depth options in the high minors were either sparse or had already demonstrated high volatility. And for high-level MLB FA, they likely brought their own information. It's enough to make one wonder if they weren't under some relatively steep financial constraints. I would hope they would have been given enough wiggle room to add more than just Castro from the mid-level FA tier, but it's possible they were not. But would they have accepted the job under those conditions? From this vantage point, though, I see no reason to parse blame between the FO and ownership.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    Pretty sure a Greg Holland signing would have been regarded well. A couple names from my FA SP list posted earlier would have too (Ivan Nova, plus Charlie Morton's increased velocity chief among them). Not that "board support" is required or even indicates the best course of action (which I freely admit as I criticize their actual course of action ).
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    But it's not like Falvey and Levine were new to the sport, or even the league. They were familiar with MLB free agents, and probably already had some in mind for their previous organizations. And it didn't take a full offseason to see that the Twins pitching staff could benefit from some outside reinforcement, beyond warm bodies like Breslow and Tepesch. I'm fine that they kept prospects, Molitor, coaches, scouts, front office staff, etc. for an evaluation period. But it doesn't really excuse their almost complete inactivity on the FA pitching market last winter. (A quick search on MLBTR suggests they weren't even in pursuit of anyone, aside from the warm bodies they signed -- the only other offseason pitching rumors that mention us were scouting reclamation projects Justin Masterson and Seth Maness.)
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    You're missing my point, sorry. We ran out of viable starters AND relievers within about a month. With Duffey out of the SP mix after spring training, we only had a 6 deep remotely viable SP depth chart -- and yes, May was hurt, but Hughes ostensibly wasn't, so that's a health wash. And we saw how quickly Duffey became our best pen option, despite a pen at pretty much full health (O'Rourke was out, but I hope to goodness they weren't expecting more from Perk, and don't get met started on relying on Burdi, Chargois, and Jay again). We seem to have under-bought our depth for both SP and RP. To the extent that our offense was pretty well set and had some upside potential, it was pretty odd to do nothing with that pitching staff, even if we weren't going to be aiming for the world series in 2017.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    I think that was speculation rather than confirmed. Insurance is pretty expensive for pitchers, I imagine. Who knows what they have and what it covers and to what extent. Also, if he officially retired, he wouldn't get any more salary (the Gil Meche situation). He might have to stay on the roster for the Twins to collect insurance? Not sure how a buyout would work either. I suppose if things don't improve, we'll be hearing about these details, but I suspect it might wait until next year.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Calhoun has a 131 wRC+ at AAA, which is relative to league. Not bad for a 22 year old, although it is most promising for that low K rate. Could be a bit of a Victor Martinez type, although he might need more batting average to make that work (or failing that, more power? I won't bother suggesting more defense ). Arcia has a 182 wRC+, so it's no guarantee, of course! To be fair though Arcia is 26 and in his 5th season hitting against that level of pitching or better...
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    Got it. FWIW, Buxton wasn't sent down promptly either (although maybe he should have been ) -- he got injured after 2 weeks, then did a rehab stint at AAA, and was only optioned for like a week after that rehab stint. Didn't burn an option year in 2015.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    This isn't to get into a great debate about Duffey specifically, but it is a general illustration of how the widely acknowledged RP problem is related to the SP problem. And moreover, on the frequent defense of "the new FO needed a year to evaluate" -- really? In regards to the MLB roster? Duffey, for example, was not some great unknown. Our new FO wasn't new to the sport of baseball. Not to say cut him, but it should be expected that the new FO could reasonably forecast his future without needing to reserve spots for him on both the SP and RP depth charts that are meaningful to our contention status.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Not the handful of spring starts alone -- but BOTH pulling double duty as starter depth and supposedly one of our top relievers. That was the clear early result of the FO's plan, whether they intended it or not. If they weren't committed to him as a starter -- they should have moved him down that chart over the winter. If they weren't committed to him as a reliever -- they should have added something better than Belisle and Breslow. If they weren't committed to him in either role quite yet, they could have added a SP and a RP. Still would have had plenty of opportunity to experiment/evaluate him this season, without handicapping the team.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Well, this FO gave him a bunch of starts in spring training, then apparently made him the centerpiece of our 2017 bullpen plan. Seemed like an overkill investment of evaluation for a 2016 suspect, but you tell me.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    For that matter, one of our primary starters in spring training (Duffey) has apparently been off-limits for starting during the regular season. Even after the injuries to May, Hughes, and Santiago. Now, whether that is evidence of a SP problem, or a carryover from the RP problem, the effect is pretty much the same. (Although the two look intertwined to me.) The team brought back pretty much all the exact same pitching suspects from 2016, and too few of them had much reason to expect improvement. The situation screamed for some outside help (not unlike the FO situation itself, frankly). And some such help was available at modest cost. Instead we got the bare minimum: a FA catcher and a couple warm bodies for the pen. It was pretty much the pitching staff equivalent of hiring Rob Antony as full-time GM -- it could get better on its own, probably can't get much worse, but really? That's all you got to offer? You don't have any names in your rolodex better than Craig Breslow and Nick Tepesch?
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    You tell them no? If Rob Antony suggested we try to talk Jason Bartlett out of retirement again, I would hope any executive -- no matter how new to the organization -- would overrule him too. If you can't tell the difference between ceiling and floor (which is the only way to equate Thorpe with the guys the Braves dealt for Garcia), then you probably aren't long for the job anyway. In any case, trading for Garcia was just one example. If they weren't comfortable with that or couldn't come to an agreement with St Louis, there was a whole offseason to negotiate with the FA list I posted above instead.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    Did you see my list of FA SP above? Forecasting contention in the offseason isn't a binary proposition, 0 or 1. There are degrees. There are a variety of moves we could have made to improve our chances for 2017 without sacrificing the future. (And if we failed to contend, they could have potentially improved our future by giving us an asset to flip like Garcia.)
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    Arcia wasn't technically an "early add" -- he was added in November 2011 to protect him from that year's Rule 5 draft. (Although his selection would have perhaps been unlikely that year.)
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Here are the biggest SP FA contracts from last winter, everybody who got a $8 mil or better guarantee: Rich Hill, 17 GS, 125 ERA+ Ivan Nova, 21 GS, 113 ERA+ Edinson Volquez, 17 GS, 97 ERA+ Jason Hammel, 21 GS, 96 ERA+ Charlie Morton, 15 GS, 105 ERA+ Bartolo Colon Andrew Cashner, 17 GS, 133 ERA+ R.A. Dickey, 21 GS, 105 ERA+ I don't know how we are defining "legit" but the market seemed to correctly peg guys who could help in 2017.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    Agreed, although look at it this way: how would you feel if the Twins grabbed a Burdi from someone else in Rule 5? But I agree with the others too, that there shouldn't be much of a meaningful crunch.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    None of this was unforeseeable. May was hurt and scuffling in the pen all of 2016, Gibson had struggled, and Santiago had struggled. Plus Hughes, and that rotation plan needed more mitigation than just Berrios and Mejia.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    Re: Garcia, we're not talking about the top minor league assets here. They probably knew as much about most of those guys 8 months ago as they do today. And okay, if they weren't ready to commit player assets, there were FA too. Nothing exciting, but exactly the cheap investments that can potentially mitigate problems in rotations like that of the 2016 Twins, or even turn into deadline assets. I didn't have any illusions of World Series trophies -- but doing nothing after 2016 was an odd approach, to me.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    No one claims that it would have been a guarantee to result in a decent pitching staff. But that doesn't mean the correct course of action is to do nothing, especially when the costs of some actions are relatively low. And there is nothing "hindsight bias" about doubting the strategy to rely on Gibson, Hughes, Santiago, and May as much they did for 2017, not to mention the bullpen. Or we can forget about ever discussing baseball on the Internet again.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    It's not specific advocacy, it's an example of how meaningful rotation reinforcements weren't so unattainable last winter, as often claimed around here. Look at the 2017 rotation. The two prospects -- Berrios and Mejia -- improved/advanced, but otherwise it was almost a perfect repeat of 2016, and mostly not in a good way.
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