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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    No, he was designated for assignment first. Which means technically he was removed from the 40-man roster (and by extension, the 25-man roster) on Saturday, immediately replaced by O'Rourke, then added back to the 40-man roster and optioned on Sunday. http://www.thecubreporter.com/book/export/html/3535
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    It is not that they were waiting for him to clear -- once he was DFA, he was off the roster. It is important to note that the entire bullpen was not taxed, just the low leverage portion. So they called up Dean for Friday, and intended to keep Albers around longer. That meant they played "a man short" Friday but no more than they do at other times when a reliever or two get rested. But when Dean too had to pitch a ton on Friday, that is when they realized they had to get another fresh low leverage arm. So Saturday they DFA'd Albers and recalled O'Rourke. You can certainly quibble with the choices -- why are we investing innings and 40-man roster spots to two pitchers practically guaranteed to be dropped for nothing after the season (Dean and Albers)? Why do we keep treating O'Rourke like a long reliever, a dead-end role for him too? But there is some logic to the choice and timing of the transactions.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    "Meh" results? Pre-2015, his entire pro career was pretty darn good in terms of results. He wasn't an elite prospect, but consistent double digit K/9 rates at most every rung of the minor league ladder from a SP prospect is hardly "meh." Obviously the odds are stacked against any prospect, and even moreso Meyer given the past 2 years, but I just don't see the upside in an org like the current Twins essentially selling Meyer for a few million cash, especially if that cash is nominally earmarked for Hector Santiago. It is not as bad as dealing Hardy for Hoey as another poster suggested, but it has a similar feeling of just dumping an asset for the sake of dumping it because you're not sure what else to do with it. It likely won't burn the Twins in this specific instance, but it seems like a suboptimal way to run an MLB club.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    I genuinely didn't know what he was trying to say. He already was mistaken about Meyer's AAA experience, so it didn't seem out of character to be mistaken about his age. I'll drop it for now, we have hashed all this out before.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    The reality of him being 27? He's still 26. And your earlier post seemed confused about what level he pitched at in 2014. See what I mean about perhaps viewing the situation through an overly pessimistic lens? As much as you want to imply that Meyer is a baseball afterthought and we should all move on to discussing his post-baseball teaching career, all the evidence we have suggests he is still worth several million dollars in value to MLB teams as a potential baseball playing asset. Let's just let it play out and wish him the best.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    2014 he was pretty good in AAA, his first go-around there. I think he was among the league's top starters that year, appeared in the Futures Game, etc. His first pro struggles came when he tried to repeat the level in 2015, which suggests maybe it was just a bad adjustment they had him make, to ease the shoulder concerns? I don't pretend he is some great bet anymore, but I think we Twins fans are letting our frustration color our perception of him a bit. (Much like how many posters exaggerated the depths of Nolasco's value too.)
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    Well, it is just one data point, and we already have others that cause us to wonder about our coaching staffs. Which is why I may have preferred the long view and reassessed these assets in the winter (barring surgery for Meyer, both he and Nolasco were unlikely to lose value in the next few months). If I were the Angels, I might take a 2 year view of Meyer right now. True, he will likely be out of minor league options in spring 2018, but they could easily approach Meyer 2018 like we have done Tonkin 2016 or various Rule 5 picks, if necessary.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't know, even if #3 winds up true, it's not like #1 and #2 are some fantastic benefit. I did the math upthread, and it seemed like Nolasco's and Meyer's combined absolute market value was probably around $8 mil. So it's not an unreasonable trade from our perspective, but I don't get the accolades either. I'd easily rank it behind our Nunez and Abad deals.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    I doubt it. If anything, the Twins may have been extra cautious with him in an effort to hold off surgery until they could trade him. I do wonder if he will get back any service time for his DL stint. Not that it should matter much to Meyer's value either way.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    In the universe of baseball prospects, Meyer is nowhere the leaders in hype/production differential. He obviously wasn't perfect, but Meyer really did produce through 2014. And he hasn't really failed on the field yet outside 8 starts at AAA in 2015, sandwiched around much better results at the same level. No guarantee they would get him on the right track, but Meyer is absolutely someone I wanted a new front office (and potentially new field staff, etc.) to be able to evaluate through 2017, more so than giving the new front office an $8 mil option for 2017 on Hector Santiago.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    I hope that is not an attitude shared by our next head of baseball ops. If the Twins could basically spend a couple million and a 40-man roster spot for a year and a half chance to get some other organization's Meyer on the right track, I sure hope we'd take that chance.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    Meyer returned to game action in the Angels system a few days ago: http://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/news/angels-alex-meyer-makes-debut-with-angels-affiliate-friday/
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    Yes. Meyer was added to the 40-man roster after 2014, so he was optioned in only 2015 and 2016 so far.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    I understand not liking Meyer's chances. But let's be honest that he still has a lot more performance potential than Alan Busenitz, has thus far avoided surgery, and hasn't yet had a chance to fail in MLB. (For that matter, his shoulder also has yet to fail outside the context of the Twins treatment and program for him, which might color our current perceptions of his health, so I'd caution against going to extreme judgements on that front quite yet.) I have to imagine we could have sold Meyer for a few million bucks to any number of teams, if we hadn't used him to inject a few million of value into this trade instead. He's still far from a sure thing, but his potential still has some value. Like Nolasco, he was going nowhere fast in this organization so it's not unreasonable to ship him out, even if I wouldn't have done it (I think leaving him for the new head of baseball ops might have been prudent).
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    FYI, Meyer has an option remaining for next year.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't think anyone was limiting the argument fot Meyer solely to team control? I am not sure what the point of that would be. He is an interesting prospect / lotto ticket with 6 years control. Busenitz and a million other players also have team control, but they are not necessarily Meyer's equal in terms of interesting prospect / lotto ticket.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    I really question any analysis that suggests Busenitz is the equivalent of Meyer.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    That isn't a fai comparison, because it lumps in the first starts of May's MLB career in 2014 (remember his debut?), and compared them to veterans (except for Duffey of course, who had an unusually good rookie season which hadn't happened yet at the time of May's demotion). Looking at just 2015, the difference is negligible. Especially considering May was actually given less leash / pitch count than the veterans.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    What the heck happened to Pat Light, the rumored right handed call up whose flight was delayed? Heck, if they didn't want to call up Light or Melotakis or any of their internal options, make a waiver claim like Patrick Schuster. Instead we're treading water with guys guaranteed to get dropped after the season - Milone, Albers, Dean...
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't think anyone was really making that claim, although one could question whether the bullpen assignment exacerbated the injuries which were ultimately responsible for derailing his career.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    And he may not have an OPS much higher than that going forward. He's at .759 since June 1st, .729 since July 1st... Relative to league, that recent performance is actually not much different than his earlier career numbers. MLB non-pitcher OPS was .725 back when Grossman posted his .702, and the average is at .749 this year...
  22. Otto von Ballpark
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    Pretty much. If his OPS+ stabilizes somewhere north of 110 or so, a desperate team might not mind him as a cheap high-OBP DH option. Like post-catching John Jaso. But with his OPS still steadily dropping, nobody is going to bite quite yet (at least not for any return the Twins would find meaningful).
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    Even if it made some sense from the Twins perspective (not sure that it does, of course), how in the world would this make sense from A-Rod's perspective? He almost certainly will have multiple offers to join better teams in a limited role in September, if he wants. The only way the Twins could get him would be to add him now before roster expansion (which most agree would be a bad idea, it would necessitate dropping someone from the 25-man roster), and/or to promise him more playing time, which most agree would also be a bad idea. Thus invalidating the reasons why he might have been interesting to the Twins in the first place...
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    Kintzler and Abad are not remotely equivalent assets to Will Smith -- career 11.9 K/9 in relief, controlled through 2019.
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