Jump to content
Twins Daily
  • Create Account

Otto von Ballpark

Old-Timey Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    20,662

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    74

 Content Type 

Profiles

News

Minnesota Twins Videos

2026 Minnesota Twins Top Prospects Ranking

2022 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

Minnesota Twins Free Agent & Trade Rumors, Notes, & Tidbits

Guides & Resources

2023 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

The Minnesota Twins Players Project

2024 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

2025 Minnesota Twins Draft Pick Tracker

Forums

Blogs

Events

Store

Downloads

Gallery

Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Wow, that's harsh. I suppose Melotakis will get claimed, he's left-handed and breathing (with options). Would have been nice to push him a little bit at AAA or even MLB earlier this year. I guess a silver lining to this cloud is it opens another spot in Rochester's pen, would be nice to see Bard or Curtiss move up.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Wimmers is all but guaranteed to be one of them (I sure hope he didn't see Wolfson's erroneous tweet that said he was getting called up last night!). Maybe we should set some probabilities for the second 40-man cut? 20% Palka 20% Haley 5% Murphy 1% Chargois 60-day DL voodoo? 54% something else that no one here was even considering... EDIT: I typed this before Seth's post, and I was right!
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    The record? You're looking at it! (Assuming you are looking at Chris Gimenez right now ) The Twins really should be doing more to promote this thing. History is unfolding before our very eyes!
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Primarily, the Angels probably think (correctly) that they don't have any better options. (Which is also deja vu to various Twins seasons )
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    In small samples, you shouldn't have much confidence in it. Gee has given up 4 unearned runs in just 13 innings this year. Even with ERA+ figures below 100 (actually 95 is more like average for starting pitchers), Gee was fairly useful through 2014. He got hit hard in a few games in 2015 to get DFA'd, then started serving up HR with the Royals in 2016, and both of those trends have continued in his small MLB sample in 2017 so far. In previous posts, I may have been overrating his 2017 usefulness vis-à-vis Nick Tepesch.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    Palka wouldn't be that surprising. Remember, he was not highly regarded before, he's got a modest 108 wRC+ at AAA this year, and he's been on the DL for about a month with a hand injury. Seems like a pretty good confluence of factors that could slip him through waivers? There isn't much of a path to MLB playing time for him in Minnesota this season, and he could easily be a waiver casualty next winter anyway.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    I believe that was one poster's idea/suggestion, not actual transactions. Pretty sure Granite is still in AAA and Breslow still on the MLB staff, at least for today!
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    Why did they need Vogelsong as "day 1 insurance" if they had a "pretty clear first 7"? The Rangers had a pretty clear first 7 or so. They got Gee rather than Tepesch. The Angels had a pretty clear first 7 or so this spring too (before injuries took their toll) -- they got Petit rather than Tepesch. Maybe not having Vogelsong lurking as "day 1 insurance" helped their cases? The Angels were probably helped additionally by not having a Rule 5 pick taking a spot, especially considering Petit's experience in relief. (Texas did have a Rule 5 pick on their staff, although they returned him about two and half weeks into the season.) Hopefully the time when Gee would have beneficial to this club is nearly over. We'll get Santiago back, we've got a couple interesting relievers with options on the 25-man now, and Breslow's days must be numbered (right?).
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    That's all fine and likely true, but it's also all likely meaningless in terms of MLB rules and roster status. The first stages of injury are often not retroactively actionable.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    While the returns are generally modest and often non-existent, I think there is some skill involved in minor league free agency. If Vogelsong was uninterested in any kind of minor league assignment, he was probably a bad idea from day 1. People often say how "low risk" such moves are, because they don't involve much money or actual regular season roster spots, but minor league signings/invites are not truly unlimited. Vogelsong's spot could have gone to a better player (Yusmeiro Petit?) or at least one who offered more flexibility for a minor league assignment like Gee. And I think Gee was a better option than Tepesch, considering the role they were asked to fill. Gee has been consistently mediocre for awhile now, while Tepesch has less experience, had a 4.0 K/9 in his last MLB season of 2014, missed all of 2015, and returned with a 4.8 K/9 in AAA in 2016. And of course Breslow, whose signing I supported at the time, but probably not if I knew they were fine with him sucking up a short relief mop-up spot indefinitely...
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Those appearances came before he hit the minor league DL, just as I stated. I also admitted his missed the first ~12 days of the minor league season -- Rochester's first game played was April 8, and Chargois debuted on April 20 -- but he did not hit the DL during that time so it's quite possible the injury was still changing/developing. I'm not familiar with the timeline of his health reports from March 24 through April 28 -- there could be evidence there for a grievance, but I'm not sure the presence of such evidence is likely. Players don't undergo medical evaluations when they are optioned -- if he pitched at all in minor league camp after that, he probably wouldn't have a case, even if he hadn't appeared in those two AAA games. We all know that "injured" isn't really a binary status in real-world actual health, but for the purposes of rosters and transactions, it pretty much is.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    I was already assuming Wimmers was gone, and I mentioned Haley (I get cutting losses, but wasting all these months on him for absolutely nothing would hurt a bit). Turley would get claimed, which might not be a big deal, but I think it would be premature before we've given him a real bullpen trial at Rochester first. Breslow is the obvious guy to everybody but the FO, but beyond that, we don't have quite as many obvious cut candidates as two months ago (Danny Santana and Michael Tonkin, plus O'Rourke to the 60-day DL). Although Palka is moving toward that point, for me. Not enough of a need yet to call the league office about weird DL machinations with Chargois, of course!
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    They could have done like the Rangers -- sign Gee to a minor league deal around opening day and call him up for long relief or a spot start later. Then cut him or keep him as needed going forward. Frankly he could have been on the roster for the last 2 months and been more useful than Breslow (admittedly a low bar to clear). Seems like we hitched our cart to the wrong horses a bit in Vogelsong and Tepesch (and of course Breslow).
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    It's not really clear. Chargois was optioned on March 24. He was inactive for the first ~10 days of the minor league season, can't remember the exact timeline and reporting on his health from that period, but he made two relatively successful appearances there before his current malady was confirmed on April 28. If that met the standard of a grievance, I think we'd see a whole ton of them. I thought Alex Meyer had a much better case last year, when he was optioned and was never deemed healthy enough to pitch until he was traded almost 3 months later.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    True. Although in relative terms, it's a slightly greater need now than before, but yeah, if not Haley, then Breslow is still a pretty obvious cut candidate. And Gee likely will be too after our doubleheader next Saturday.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    It wasn't clear that Chargois was injured when they optioned him. He even made a couple appearances in AAA before he hit the DL there. That's a bit different case than most guys who have options rescinded. I wouldn't jump to blame the Twins here, it may not really be possible to do this. I don't think it's likely, but hypothetically, if Chargois did get service time for the entire 2017 season, he still wouldn't be arbitration eligible until after the 2019 season at the earliest. And he would still have 2 minor league options years remaining after this season, meaning we could option him back to the minors in 2018 and even 2019 if we so desired and potentially push back that arb timeline further (although he'd be 27-28 years old by then, and his arb salary is likely negligible if he's getting optioned those seasons).
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Obviously, yes, it's a bigger deal for the Twins. But it wasn't clear that Chargois' injury was serious until the last couple weeks. And the team arguably didn't have as much need for the 40-man spot in April.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    I think they are better off without Haley. First, it's not clear yet that Haley can even be effective enough to eat multiple innings in MLB long relief on any given day. Second, he can never be optioned out for a fresh arm.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    I'm not so sure. If the Twins had really been rotating minor league pitchers with options at the back of the pen, Gimenez's mop-up relief would be pretty meaningless. (At times perhaps counter-productive, if it's taking a development opportunity away from an actual pitcher who could help later.) That said, it's a very minor effect compared to rostering Breslow all season, or giving Alex Wimmers 6 games, etc. And I am enjoying the statistical oddity of it! I do perhaps wish we didn't have so many games where Gimenez is needed, though...
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Options can be rescinded. Here's a few examples: http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/red_sox/clubhouse_insider/2017/06/robbie_ross_jr_added_to_big_league_disabled_list_after http://m.mlb.com/news/article/123392352/seattle-mariners-tyler-olson-placed-on-15-day-dl-option-rescinded/ http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/rockies-rescind-option-on-chacin-who-goes-on-dl-34243235-050712 Obviously Chargois was optioned a while ago, so I'm not sure it would be quite so straightforward, and it would be the 60-day DL rather than the 15-day DL, but I'm also not finding any language anywhere yet that strictly prohibits it. It's an odd area of transactional rules, to be sure! It seems that, as long as their is no dispute about his health and timeline for return, he and the player's union would welcome the MLB back pay and service time (plus freeing up a spot for an additional union member?). Otherwise, you are correct that there doesn't appear to be a direct mechanism for moving a player from a minor league DL to the MLB 60-day DL. Per Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disabled_list#Minor_League_Baseball
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    Not sure. If Gee avoids implosion (and his record says that is likely), I think his service time status might keep him on the roster a while. The first ones to go will probably be any strugglers among Boshers, Busenitz, and Hildenberger. But hopefully they all do well, and perhaps that would finally shift the heat to Breslow.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    My first guess was that Gee would be replaced by Santiago in a few days, then be recalled as the 26th man to start in next Saturday's doubleheader. But while Gee has options remaining, he also has over 5 years of MLB service time so he has to consent to being optioned. He consented to being optioned by the Rangers already this spring, so perhaps he could consent again for us. Or we could release him and re-sign him, I suppose.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    One 40-man spot is easy: DFA Wimmers. The other, not as easy. Haley back to Boston? Or maybe Palka gets DFA'd?
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    Perhaps. Would Carlson have told them that? Would the Mariners? You are making a lot of assumptions about perfect information there. Lots of variables and competing motivations. In any case, I thought the Carlson news was interesting.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    I wasn't asking for your personal rankings. My point was, we don't really know if the draft unfolded according to their scouting/process. They passed on both Enlow and Carlson at 35/37, and only one was available when they picked next. They may have had Carlson ahead of Enlow but they would never admit that now.
×
×
  • Create New...