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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Yup. "Instructional league" they call it. It's not an official minor league rehab assignment but it serves the same purpose. Off the top of my head, I recall that Nolasco did it in September 2015, before being activated and pitching at the very end of the MLB season.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    In September, with a full 40 man roster at our disposal, we can (and should) use relievers pretty much however we want. Currently active relievers at AAA include DJ Baxendale, Jeremy Bleich, and Preston Guilmet. Are they ready to help at the MLB level? If those guys are part of your AAA pen, I see no reason why Alcala can't be too, even after only 10 relief innings at AA. That said, it's certainly reasonable to prefer Hamilton on the 40-man over another reliever in September. But that hardly means promoting Alcala to AAA right now is unjustified.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    No, you were right. Alcala's ERA is lower since moving to relief. That "As reliever" split includes earlier games where he was the "primary" pitcher after an opener. Duran hasn't pitched in relief yet this season (aside from one appearance as a primary after an opener).
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    So we can only promote guys after a sufficient sample size of relief innings at AA? Personally l have no idea about Alcala's readiness, but it doesn't seem unreasonable at this point to promote him to the AAA bullpen, with an eye towards potentially promoting him to the MLB bullpen in September.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    That split includes 18.1 innings across 4 games from earlier in the season when Alcala was used as the "primary" pitcher after an opener. For the purposes of this discussion, those games should be considered part of his starting stats. Since his actual conversion to relief on July 26, Alcala has a 1.69 ERA. 6 G, 10.2 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 2 BB, 7 K
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    I assume most baseball radar guns would produce a decimal reading, but the scoreboard could simply drop the decimal part. So having a 103.8 value doesn't necessarily imply it was from Trackman. If they connected the new Trackman system to the stadium scoreboard, should they have programmed it to round 103.8 up to 104? Not trying to be conspiratorial, just curious about the setup. Obviously he is throwing hard, no one disputes that!
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    Can anyone comment on the other radar gun readings from this game? Those stadium ones aren't always the most accurate.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    Source? Was that from an accurate radar gun? I know some games, those velocity reports are pretty suspect, especially in spring training and the minors.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    They can add him to the 40-man roster the evening of August 31st, and promote him to MLB the morning of Sep. 1st with expanded rosters. Then he's eligible for postseason rosters with no hoops, and we don't need to make any 25-man roster moves to accommodate him either. That's still technically considered as a 9/1 callup too, since the roster move would come after the August 31st games (9/1 would be his first day/game on the 40-man roster).
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    There is no such thing as revocable waivers anymore. Not that it matters much in this case, I am sure KC would love it if someone claimed Hamilton and took on his last ~$2 mil salary/buyout obligations! If KC puts him on waivers and he is claimed, he and his contract will be assigned to the claiming team with the highest priority (meaning, worst record). If he goes unclaimed (which seems likely, given his performance and cost), KC will have to release him, eat the salary/buyout, and he will be a free agent available to anyone at league minimum salary / minor league deal.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    Haven't they done that with all of the AAA shuttle guys, except Littell and his relief conversion? Thorpe's only had one game with more than 42 pitches in the last 30 days, though, and that one was only 69 pitches, so he might need some further stretching before he could start in MLB again? But I guess most of our MLB starters only go ~85 pitches anyway...
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    It pretty much has to be Thorpe. He just started Tuesday but they limited him to 42 pitches, probably with a quick recall in mind. Stashak, Dobnak, and Stewart are all still ineligible to be recalled. Poppen is on the AAA injured list, as are Gonsalves and Hildenberger still. The only other options on the 40-man are Thorpe, Romero, and Diplan. They do have an open 40-man spot, but Graterol's probably not quite ready yet to provide the length or frequency of pitching they'd likely want.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Rodriguez's rookie performance wasn't very sustainable by the numbers, though -- low K%, low BABIP, low HR rate. He wasn't even a groundball pitcher like Nick Blackburn. If anything, Anderson has been under-performing his peripherals in MLB this year. He's got a real chance to stick around for awhile.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    In fairness, Wiel was "sneaky good" (albeit on the old side) at A, A+, and AA from 2016-2018 -- although the AA one was fueled by a .377 BABIP. But he hasn't been good, or sneaky good, at AAA in 2019. As a silver lining, though, this likely means he can take another shot at Rochester next year without costing us a 40-man spot.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    It's even worse if you look at how Wiel compares in wRC+ to the non-prospects, min. 50 PA: De Aza 153 Willin Rosario 119 (catcher) Maggi 117 (infielder) Kerrigan 106 (sent back to AA) Telis 104 (catcher) Sawyer 103 (catcher) Valdespin 99 (released) Wiel 98 Cesar 93 (released) Andreoli 78 (traded) Torreyes 76 Rosales 26 (traded) Schales 9 (inactive list)
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Are we talking about the same Zander Wiel? He's got a 98 wRC+ in AAA this year, behind a whole host of marginal guys. The .814 OPS looks solid, but the league OPS is .790. He's not even really trending any better -- yes, his August OPS is .853, but it was only .778 before his triple yesterday. July was his worst month at .727. His K% has been consistently around 30% all season, compared to a league rate of 22.8%. He's a 35% in August, with a paltry 5% BB%. As a 26 year old right-handed first baseman, this doesn't seem impressive in the least. Edit: Coke to jkcarew -- should have refreshed the page before posting!
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    Cleveland apparently had a Diaz-level baserunning mistake too: After hitting the game-tying double in the bottom of the 9th, Lindor was on 2nd base with only 1 out, Oscar Mercado at the plate and recent hero Carlos Santana on deck. And Lindor was caught stealing at third base for the 2nd out of the inning! https://cuts.diamond.mlb.com/FORGE/2019/2019-08/13/4f78187f-eb1c95a9-02d44a93-csvm-diamondx64-asset_1280x720_59_4000K.mp4
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    This under-sells Vlad Jr.'s case. He's got 2.0 bWAR to contrast with that lower fWAR. He's also been heating up -- he only has a 115 wRC+ on the season, but that figure is at 151 since the all-star break and 185 in August. He probably can't catch Yordan Alvarez in that department, but he may very well catch up to Arraez's 132 wRC+ by the end of the season.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    As far as I can tell, Fangraphs is incorrect on the rookie status of both Vogelbach and Tauchman -- both appear to have at least 45 days of non-September MLB service entering this season, so you are right to ignore them. Lowe is definitely a candidate, though. I'd venture to say he's very similar to Arraez: wRC+/OPS+, position, name recognition (or lack thereof), on a contending team. Lowe has an advantage in playing time, although he's currently on the IL. If he doesn't return in a timely manner, or his performance suffers after he returns, it could close the gap between them quite a bit.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    But in the playoffs, teams with home field advantage get home games first for a reason. If you are talking about spending the entire first month of a six month season completely at home or on the road, like some in this thread have suggested, I think it could have a competitive impact on the season. As an example, a team with more home games early can "bank" more wins and put themselves in a better position at the trade deadline. But yeah, there are many reasons why this will never happen, so I won't quibble with how one wants to rank them.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    Oh sure, that's part of it too. I didn't mean to imply it was "easier" at all. I should have said "more frequent." But I got the feeling that one (11.5 out) was being invoked to suggest the other (11.5 up on 2nd place) wasn't that big of a deal. I think either "achievement" counts as historic, without semantics.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    I know, and I don't think that's just semantics. It's historically/mathematically easier to come back from 11.5 out of first place than to blow an 11.5 lead over 2nd place. The former has the advantage of another good team (or more) battling the first place club as they make their comeback. But both are fairly historic occurrences. If you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to talk about it. But this is what a lot of fans talk about. People are going to talk about the implications of the Cleveland comeback / Twins collapse before it's official at the end of the season... they are going to talk about player performance before a certain sample size threshold has been reached...
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    I'd guess the longer/deeper his slump, the less we need to worry about losing him in the Rule 5 draft.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    Is it all semantics, though? It's easier to come back from an 11 1/2 game deficit than it is to blow an 11 1/2 game lead. Although it seems fairly historic to do either one (the 1978 Yankees, 1995 Mariners, and yes, even the 2006 Twins were notable comebacks in history too).
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