Otto von Ballpark

David Freese, .964 WPA for 2011 WS Game 6 is pretty impressive too!

25 man spot? Poppen will be back down before July 1st, likely when Parker is back. 40 man spot? I am sure they didn't add Poppen now to DFA him in 2 weeks. There are still a few other candidates -- Moya, Vasquez. Actually Gonsalves could get "promoted" to the 60 day DL too. Or a trade could move someone off.

Yes, the 60 day DL stint is retroactive to when he last pitched in MLB. And yes, this is just a procedural move that means he's out until at least July 1st, and we'll have to clear a spot when his rehab ends after that.

Mejia is already pitching in rehab, so this is just a procedural move. We'll have to drop someone from the 40-man once his rehab is done.

It's an interesting idea, to be sure. The thing about Machado was, the Orioles had very little leverage. Zero chance to re-sign him, and zero need/interest too. Potential suitors could start out just beating the value of the comp pick. If the Machado deal is your valuation basis of your offer for Rendon, Washington is very likely to turn it down, I think. And I'm not sure if 2 years of Sano at 1B (and with arb-2 and arb-3 salaries based on him playing 3B) brings that much value either. Find another Adams, or Kendrick, or Cron? They don't really need to spend assets like rental Rendon or even Doolittle to get their 2020-2021 first baseman.

The Nationals? With his strikeouts/defense/position/health, it feels like Sano might be capped at about a 125 OPS+, 3 WAR type player right now. Maybe a team can get him to unlock more potential, but that takes time, and Sano only has 2 years of team control left after 2019. That player profile isn't bad, but for just 2 seasons of that at arb salaries for a NL team (no DH option), that's probably a light return for Rendon, no? Especially if they are also giving up the inside track at re-signing Rendon -- if they want to compete in 2020-2021, they're probably better off keeping Doolittle and doing their best to sign Rendon.

See 2 posts above yours: Rule 6.06 (a) states that a batter is out for illegal action if, "he hits a ball with one or both feet on the ground entirely outside the batter's box." In real time, with the chalk worn away, it certainly looked like either one of Rosario's feet could have been outside of the box. He took multiple steps during the pitch!

Thanks for sharing. Looks like they dropped off some 2019 graduates, but haven't added any new 2019 draftees/signees yet. I always hate when prospect rankers do that, because it makes it harder to compare lists!

Not to make excuses for him, but it was extremely late! I know my judgement wasn't good after midnight, as I was still listening to this game. And it must have seemed pretty egregious at the time -- Gladden also seemed to think he was out of the box on the radio broadcast. And it's a much different kind of call than balls & strikes too.

The Extended Dance Version, hopefully? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkAE5RN_8Xs

Balazovic will be on more of an innings limit than Duran this season. Duran threw 100 IP last year, Balazovic only 61. Also, Duran needs a 40-man spot this winter anyway, so he'd have an outside shot of getting on the MLB roster yet this season as a bullpen reinforcement.

I wonder if they were aided a bit by some poor Red Sox batter approaches as the game went to extras. Of course, the Red Sox relievers got similar benefits from a few Twins batters (but not Kepler, thankfully!). Boston's a good team and we've matched up perfectly well with them the past two nights/mornings, so that is encouraging!

Christian Vasquez beat that for the Red Sox last night / this morning (-.474), albeit while catching 15 innings. And I'd say J.D. Martinez virtually matched it (-.423).

Re: "clearly not good this year and probably next" The Nationals are currently 15th in non-pitcher wRC+, and likewise 15th in runs scored per game, ahead of their rival Phillies and Mets. (For Statcast types, they're 12th in xwOBA too.) The Nationals are 8th in starting pitcher ERA, and 4th in FIP and 5th in xFIP. (Also 5th best xwOBA by Statcast.) But the Nationals are dead last in reliever ERA, 22nd in FIP, and 29th in xFIP. (29th in xwOBA as well.) Even with that awful pen, they're still tied with Philadelphia for 2nd place the division in Pythag record, and they're even 5 games ahead of Philly by BaseRuns record. Looking at wild card competition, the Nationals are tied with Milwaukee in both Pythag and BaseRuns record. The Nationals are currently running a $197 mil payroll, but they could shed $70 mil in departing free agents this winter, giving them more than enough room to make an aggressive bid to retain Rendon plus add other pieces or rein in payroll a bit, if they so desire, and go forward with their great SP and young controlled hitters like Soto and Turner. The Nationals are clearly not perfect and will face challenges, for sure, but this doesn't look like a recipe for aggressively shopping a guy like Scherzer right now. MLB bullpens can and do get turned around quickly. The Nationals actually led the division in reliever ERA just last year (and were 15th in MLB). The whole division ranks 20th through 24th, respectively, in 2019 bullpen FIP. Unless they are absolutely blown away by an offer -- like, 3 elite prospects and all the salary relief, sending Scherzer to an AL team -- I can't see them moving Scherzer now. Strasburg is actually the more interesting case -- he has an opt out after this season with 4/100 remaining, and a limited no-trade clause right now. Although if they think he's likely to opt out, that would obviously drop his trade value to rental territory too, assuming they could even navigate the no-trade. (Given his health history and the recent FA markets, he might stick with the 4/100, or maybe just use the opt out to negotiate a further extension like Sabathia did a few years back.)

Do you guys expect that Larnach and Diaz will join Pensacola when they start their second half on Thursday?

An ex-Twins pitcher from the other Jaime Garcia trade (Huascar Ynoa) just made his MLB debut this past Sunday, with two scoreless innings in a blowout. Ynoa hasn't pitched particularly well in the minor leagues, but he sure has marched up the ladder this year -- he started the year in high-A!

Interestingly, a pitcher from the other Jaime Garcia trade (Huascar Ynoa) just made his MLB debut this past Sunday, with two scoreless innings in a blowout. Ynoa hasn't pitched particularly well in the minor leagues, but he sure has marched up the ladder this year -- he started the year in high-A!

Meh. Pineda only managed to pitch 35% of the innings last night.

Are his wrists extra bulky too?

If you really believe Scherzer is still "immensely effective" and you'd "take him a heartbeat", maybe it's not so "dumb" that the Nats don't want to deal him. It's hard to get fair value return on really good players -- that's why so few of them are dealt by teams with plausible arguments for current or near-future contention.

Worth noting that there's a big difference between being a "post hype" elite prospect and other "post hype" prospects. Glasnow and Meadows were only a year removed from being top 10-15 overall prospects, and Meadows himself was still top 40-50 entering 2018 and certainly hadn't fallen off much with his MLB debut (116 OPS+ with Pittsburgh). Glasnow probably could have still been top 50 or so preseason 2018 too if he hadn't graduated off the list due to innings in 2017 -- his MLB debut was pretty bad, but his upper minors performances were still electrifying. Romero and Gonsalves were only at best a borderline top 100 guys, and Gordon was towards the end of most top 100 lists before falling off this year entirely. Not to say they don't have some value, but I wouldn't compare their names now with Glasnow and Meadows circa July 2018. (And I mentioned on another thread, but Archer was a quite a bit "post hype" himself by July 2018, in the middle of his third straight season of ~100 ERA+. So our lesser post-hype prospects might only be buying a lesser version of an average-ish pitcher too...)

Pineda has never appeared out of the bullpen in a MLB game. (Edit: coke to yarnivek!) Aside from a rehab appearance at Rochester last year, in which Pineda pitched 4 innings following an opener, his last professional appearance out of the bullpen was over 10 years ago, on May 16th, 2009. I think it may have been health related, because he began that season starting and was doing quite well, but then missed a few turns, made 2 pen appearances, and then missed about 3 months.

From that link, I think you want the "on 1st, lt 2 out" category (on first, less than 2 out -- that includes first only, first and second, first and third, and bases loaded -- basically any potential GDP situation). https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/split.cgi?t=b&team=MIN&year=2019#bases::none Twins have 40 GDP in 489 PA this season, with 4 sacrifices. Polanco has 3 GDP in 49 PA this season, with 1 sacrifice now. Career 18 in 270 PA, with 8 sacrifices.

Or as Paul Hogan said, "Call that a knife? This is a knife."

Gant has 3.5 seasons of team control, vs. 1.5 for Pressly last summer. Not that the Pressly trade was a common move among non-rebuilding teams either...