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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    I think having Salad in the clubhouse could also benefit Sano.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Maybe Santiago could fetch an Alex Meyer type?
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    Still, you may want to enlist now, before you could be drafted in June.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Hughes at that point in his career on a 5/55 deal is interesting and not bank-breaking, but it is not super valuable. Hughes at that point in his career on a 2/16 deal is super valuable. Virtually zero risk.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    Welcome to the board! Napoli looked pretty toasty in the 2016 postseason: .173/.232/.288. As well as in a tiny sample in the 2015 postseason. And Napoli actually was traded in August 2015 (meaning he cleared waivers), with cash, for a PTBNL or cash. Unless he shows a massive improvement over the 101 OPS+ he's recorded over the last 2 years, he is unlikely to have any meaningful trade value.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    Twins were at 4.46 runs per game. 5 per game would have easily the second-best in the AL, trailing only the Red Sox offensive juggernaut. 4.25 ERA would be basically AL average. The Twins had by far the worst ERA in the AL last year at 5.08. So yeah, if they have league-average pitching and league-leading hitting, they should be pretty good. Not sure of the likelihood of both of those things fully coming true, given the minimal roster changes so far...
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    Not to sidetrack the thread further, but part of a GM's job (maybe a huge part) is knowing who to listen to within the organization, and when to listen to them. Smith wasn't good at that, apparently.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    Yeah, part of keeping Dozier has to be a pivot towards winning in 2017-2018 and that hasn't happened. And without a credible threat of it happening, it probably reduces the Dodgers urgency of finalizing a deal with Minnesota.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    The Dodgers SP depth chart has Ryu (missed virtually all of 2015-2016), McCarthy (missed most of 2015-2016), and Kazmir whom the Dodgers would probably prefer to unload. Not to mention Hill who has had some trouble staying on the field too. It's not unreasonable that they would resist trading both of their top 2 MLB ready SP prospects right now, but would be willing to move similarly ranked guys like Calhoun, just from a strategic standpoint for 2017. It's not clear that the teams have engaged in much real negotiation on pieces beyond De Leon. If the Twins have shown no willingness to accept less than De Leon + Bellinger/Alvarez, then it doesn't make sense for the Dodgers to even offer a guy like Calhoun right now. It doesn't get a deal done now, and just increases the baseline expectation for future negotiations.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    Stewart's exclusion is based less on his prospect ranking, and more on the fact that his absense would weaken the exact same area as De Leon's absense. Imagine if the Twins were willing to move Berrios to make a big upgrade somewhere on the field -- it sorta makes sense that we might want to hold on to Mejia, so we can still maintain some MLB ready SP reinforcements. Or Garza circa 2007 but we wanted to keep Baker... I won't argue with this list of exclusions too much except Calhoun, although Verdugo has oddly been excluded from most reports that meanwhile bothered to name Bellinger and Alvarez. And from your earlier list, De Jong. It's not clear to me that those guys are off the table, or that talks even progressed to the point where the Dodgers felt it was worth offering them up (if the Twins made it clear that they would accept nothing less than Bellinger/Alvarez as the second piece, the Dodgers don't have much to gain from making a counteroffer that is unlikely to be accepted).
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    But I am not sure Preller's problem was early aggressiveness, that would have been cured with waiting a half season before making major moves. I think he has just exhibited suspect judgement, period. It's not like Stearns is a better GM because he waited half a season to familiarize himself with Lucroy and other Brewers assets before trading him -- Lucroy was at a low value point when Stearns took over, so it wouldn't have been smart to deal him then. If he had been coming off a career year like Dozier, it doesn't make sense to pump the brakes extra hard before a potential deal just because he's new in town.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    Look at the context of my post. Sure they need more data on some guys and will welcome it, but that doesn't really mean they need to be extra cautious with how they approach Dozier this winter, which was the other poster's claim. And before anyone jumps in, that doesn't mean they should exercise no caution in trading Dozier -- just the standard amount of caution for assessing any transaction is warranted, no real extra caution because they are unfamiliar with him or Kohl Stewart, etc.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    I just think you are setting parameters so strict as to be almost meaningless. How often do teams trade their best player at all? How frequently do teams hire a new GM from outside the organization? I don't think it tells us much that these already rare circumstances overlap infrequently. It's already an important situation for the Twins, no one is disputing that. But I don't think it gains any special importance by this reasoning. Furthermore, stepping into a MLB GM spot isn't like you or I taking over a private business, where you quite literally don't know who people are. Falvey and Levine, in their former posts, likely dealt with collecting and reviewing data on every player in the Twins org, including 5 years of such data on Dozier at the MLB level specifically. I think you are selling them short by suggesting they need an extended period of inactivity just to familiarize themselves with the Twins org. (Not to mention, virtually every other part of the Twins org below them is unchanged -- every internal opinion they seek about Dozier, our pitching prospects, etc. are exactly the same opinions that would have been provided to TR.)
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Matt Klentak made the Ken Giles trade about a month and a half after being hired in Philadelphia. Do you have a lot of examples of new GMs hired from outside organizations who made bad trades dealing their best players within 3-5 months? It doesn't seem a real common occurrence either way.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Javier Vasquez racked up 20.8 bWAR over his first 6 seasons of club control. He was extended reasonably beyond that and racked up another 20.3 bWAR in the next 5 seasons. He spent the bulk of his career (10 seasons, age 23-32) averaging 4.2 bWAR per season, barely indistinguishable from Dozier's average of 4.5 bWAR per season over his last 4 years.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    This is not clear at all. Are you just going by prospect ranking, and assuming everyone above Stewart was unavailable? First of all, the Dodgers may have different rankings, and second of all, they were resisting giving up Stewart with De Leon specifically because they didn't want to give up two MLB ready SP who could contribute in 2017. You may ultimately be proven right, but there is no real evidence to make this conclusion now. In fact, it is not even clear if discussions progressed to the point where those names could have been included -- if the Twins were insisting on Bellinger, maybe the Dodgers never felt it was worth making their best counteroffer. Even guys they are ultimately willing to deal, I think teams tend to resist offering them toward unlikely deals because once offered, it seems to affect the players value and their leverage.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    The new CBA says a player can't receive a second QO anymore. So we couldn't offer him one next winter.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    The "bad clubhouse" stuff around Bautista is all pretty vague, so it's hard to draw many conclusions from it.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    As for July trade prospects -- I don't think Bautista would fetch a top prospect, but he could fetch some interesting packages. Even some modest non-prospect returns, like a buy-low SP candidate and former top prospect (i.e. Nolasco and Meyer) could be interesting to the Twins under the right circumstances. Might also give us more ammunition to package with Ervin Santana midseason too -- I'm thinking something like the A's-Dodgers trade last July, where they packaged Hill and Reddick together. Could improve the returns, and/or just make us a better trade partner than a team with only a SP to offer.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    I suspect Bautista will have to settle for less than his $17.2 mil asking price, which changes the calculation. He might also be ultimately more willing to settle for less than past qualifying offer holdouts, because under the new CBA he can't be subject to another qualifying offer next winter (although that also removes another avenue of recouping the value of the lost pick). I don't necessarily endorse it myself, but I'm willing to give Falvey and company the freedom to make their own determination. If they really think a Bautista bounceback is likely, are pessimistic about Vargas/Park/Mauer (or even Grossman/Rosario), and can still execute their desired draft strategy, they should be able to do it.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    Depends on how you define "passable", I suppose. Is a Grossman level defender really "passable" considering our already precarious pitching? FWIW, TotalZone has never really liked Grossman (-12 and -19 Rtot/yr figures preceding his -29 with the Twins last year). Combined with observation, I wouldn't be surprised if his overall metrics are finally trending toward his true talent level in the field, even if he's not quite as bad as 2016 suggested. Over his career, just in LF, he now averages -12 UZR/150, -13 Rtot/yr, and -15 Rdrs/yr.. Given the current roster, I guess I still might roll with him and hope he has another hot start and maybe you can flip him to an aggressive team at the trade deadline for something interesting like we did with Nunez and Abad. Although if another interesting outfield candidate comes available, I might rather drop Grossman and put Rosario more in the 4th OF role.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    Polanco had to be added to the 40-man roster and was using options anyway (players on the 40 man have to be optioned just to be assigned to the minors out of spring training) -- the Twins didn't burn them with those brief call-ups. They actually bungled the timing of his minor league assignments during the 2010 season which left him ineligible for a 4th option year, but that is a different issue. I suppose you could also make the argument that they should have given him more MLB time during his option years, but I suspect they felt they already knew what they had in him so it wasn't a big concern.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    There are other stats besides HR, you know. Dozier was worse in 2015 than 2014 in most categories, including critical K and BB rates.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    So they are very different players, with very different contract situations -- but somehow they are analogous? There are plenty of valid arguments that Dozier is a fine player worthy of strong valuation in trade -- but Harmon Killebrew and 1964 don't figure into any of them.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    How did he improve in 2015? Mind you, I am not denigrating Dozier, but you're resorting to some suspect arguments here. To the extent that folks seem to be denigrating him, remember no one here is endorsing giving him away for De Leon alone. We just don't have anything else to talk about.
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