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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    In both the Dominican (Sano) and Venezuelan (Arcia) dialects, no less.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    True, but this discussion is about more than Walker. He's not the only data point.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    I have no doubt the coaches have "worked on it" with these players, but isn't that kind of the bare minimum? If they didn't work on it, that would be grounds for firing on the spot. At some point, we have to consider whether their "working on it" is producing sufficient results.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    And if it was just Walker, it could perhaps be excused as relating to a unique player. But pretty much every guy the Twins have promoted the past few years has some serious issues in this department.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    In addition to what the other poster said about DRS being relative to position, also note it is a counting stat, and based on opportunity. Buxton might be the greatest outfielder who ever lived, but he has only played half of our games, and it's quite possible he hasn't seen a lot of challenging opportunities yet, the kind of challenging plays that are needed to score big positive marks on a defensive metric like this. Unlike offense, where you are pretty much guaranteed at least 4 fairly standardized plate appearances each game, defensive opportunities are much more variable. It's also possible that Grossman has seen an excess of challenging plays in his time here, driving his rating down (even if most tend to agree he is probably below average). Neither figure is reliable in this sample size, so at this point we should be regressing based on past numbers, scouting, etc. too. Buxton is still probably at least a mild plus in CF, and Grossman a slight minus in a corner.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    Especially if you're not using any young promising SP right now, who might get discouraged by bad defense. (Although even then, you're unlikely to need Arcia in CF -- most folks advocating more playing time for Arcia are also advocating a starting job for one of Buxton or Kepler, or perhaps Grossman or even Nunez or Escobar if their bats remain hot and they get forced out of the infield by Polanco.)
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    All that said, I have thought for some time that Arcia might wind up a left-handed hitting version of Dayan Viciedo. I'm not that upset that it has come to this, although it would have been nice to give him a bit better priority the past year and a half.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    I think this is a valid complaint. Even before Arcia got injured in 2015, he wasn't getting as much playing time as his record and numbers warranted. He only started 18 of 25 games, and was trending down, getting benched in 4 of his 9 games up here. And it wasn't as if Arcia was being forced out in a crowded outfield -- his 7 games sitting at that point were to Escobar 4 times, Nunez twice, and Robinson once. And this was with Jordan Schafer starting in CF. Arcia also got zero starts at DH up to that point, while Escobar got one and Nunez 3, so getting cut for Danny Santana now isn't the first time he's been replaced by utility players. And Arcia wasn't struggling that much at that point -- the power was a bit light, but his K% was the lowest it had ever been. Then, flash forward to his rehab stint, where he started 0-for-11 and was then optioned. Despite that rough start, he was up to an .830 AAA OPS at the all-star break, but by that point, Rosario, Hicks, and Buxton had entered or re-entered our outfield picture, plus Sano at DH, and he was mostly crowded out. Although I will note that had we activated Arcia from his rehab assignment just to be a bench bat last year, in place of Shane Robinson, we'd still have a minor league option on Arcia for 2016, albeit in his first year of "super two" arbitration eligibility.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    Maybe this has been corrected already too, but Kepler is not out of options next year -- he is eligible for a fourth option year. The earliest he will be out of options will be spring 2018.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    Not sure if this has been corrected yet, but Ortiz compiled that OPS at the height of the "sillyball" era (or "steroid era" as some like to say). That .809 OPS was good for a 108 OPS+, the same as Arcia at his peak to date in 2014. Arcia is also two years younger than Ortiz when he was released by the Twins. At the same age as Arcia is today, Ortiz had an identical career OPS+ of 101. Now, I agree Ortiz was better than Arcia, and this move is far more defensible than the Ortiz release, but these aren't the numbers to show it.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    FTFY. Gardy, 28-76 vs the Yankees overall. Started with a 13 game losing streak against them (2002-2003), and had another 12 game losing streak against them later (2009-2010). https://twitter.com/aarongleeman/status/520646779822694400 And Molitor is now 2-8 against them.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    Yeah, an anticipated waiver claim. But not an actual one. The Paredes case was interesting because the Phillies claimed him earlier, but the Blue Jays won the claim. Then when Blue Jays DFA'd him, the Phillies did a trade rather than risk losing him on waivers. How Arcia would fare on waivers would be less predictable, seeing that he has never been exposed to them.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    That is not what I was saying. I said IF he hits waivers, they can't trade him (unless he goes unclaimed, of course). Unlike what the other poster said, we can't leverage a waiver claim on him in trade talks with another team. (We could leverage a likely hypothetical waiver claim, but not an actual one.) Obviously they can trade him before he hits waivers. And that is almost certainly what they are trying to do right now.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Don't think it works like that. If Arcia hits waivers, the claiming team with the highest priority gets him. The Twins can't retract those waivers or use them as leverage in a trade.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    They have zero long relievers. They could get by with 7 relievers including a long man just as well as 8 one inning guys.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    How so? We would have had to draft Giolito instead of Buxton, no? Seems like we could have still gotten Berrios at #32.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    True, and wRC+ at FanGraphs tries to correct for that. Still, Arcia's career OPS+ and wRC+ are the same, 101.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    Or, just put Ramirez back on waivers again. The 7 worst teams in MLB passed on him just two weeks ago. And as we know, the 8th worst team claimed him, only to waive him again about 10 days later. Decent odds he might have cleared this time and could have been outrighted to AAA. (And if he didn't, obviously our interest in him wasn't too great since we passed on him the first time around too.)
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    Well said. I probably came off as a little hard on Perkins in the other thread, but shoulder injuries suck. If it was an elbow, one could make a case they waited too long -- that surgery is generally not a career-ended in modern baseball. Shoulders are a different animal, though. Does seem like someone should have forced more rest and rehab earlier, namely the second half of last season, and of course we should have added another reliever in the offseason so both Perkins and the team wouldn't have felt as much pressure to not open 2016 with Perkins on the DL. He had enough issues last year and in the spring that we would have been justified in doing so, if the ultimate goal was to avoid shoulder surgery.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Doesn't have a great eye at the plate? Sounds like he is a perfect fit on this team, unfortunately.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    It's hard to get too worked up about this right now, like the Perkins surgery, it's been a long time coming. Not a lot of strong parallels to the Ortiz situation, except it does seem to be another example of the Twins having trouble developing or relating to young Latin American players (and young sluggers in general). And we cut both to add a second utility player to our bench. Ortiz was obviously a better performer at the time we cut him, I believe Ortiz had a minor league option left, and his second year arb salary made it more likely we could pass him through waivers if we wanted him off the roster but still in the org for depth.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    Good point on the pitching staff. I attended a game last week where Molitor used 3 consecutive relievers to face 1 batter each, throwing a total of 6 pitches: http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/MIN/MIN201606080.shtml Having a 13 man pitching staff in a lost season is far from a necessity (same for multiple bench players whose primary positive attribute is positional flexibility). God forbid we fall below .300 winning percentage again because we can't use multiple relievers for one batter each, or someone has to play out of position for a few innings...
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    Tangential question about Nunez: what happens if his helmet comes off and interferes with a fielder or a ball in play? I noticed this possibility on a couple plays recently, one where his helmet bounced in front of the first baseman fielding a throw while Nunez was trying to beat out a grounder, and again last night where it bounced in front of the second baseman while Nunez was running to second on a Mauer groundout to second. This link suggests it would remain a live ball unless the umpires rule there was intent to interfere: https://m.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/2sdded/becoming_an_umpire_need_help_with_a_question/ But it happens so consistently with Nunez, even on routine plays, that losing his helmet seems to be an intentional act, and I think an umpire or the league would be warranted in warning the player and team that any interference from his helmet would be ruled intentional. I hope the issue comes up during a pennant race this year.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    Not to pile on, but another thought occurred to me while pondering transactions recently: I think Ortiz still had a minor league option available when we released him. Best as I can tell, he was added to the 40-man after the 1996 season, and was subsequently optioned in only two years, 1997 and 1999. (In 1998 and 2001, his minor league appearances were only for rehab while he was on the 60-day DL.) http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/david-ortiz-player-transactions Teams get at least 3 option years on players, though, and Ortiz was still short of 5 years service time so he couldn't refuse an optional assignment. I don't think those rules have changed since 2003 -- I know 3 option years was still the standard at the time because LeCroy was out of options (having used them in 2000-2002), and not long after the Twins optioned Rivas and Lohse in 2005 and 2006, respectively, when both players had over 4 but under 5 years of service time like Ortiz circa 2003 and couldn't refuse the assignment. Even accepting that the 2003 Twins were on a tighter budget in the Metrodome era, Ortiz's projected arbitration salary in 2003 was not a materially larger portion of our 2003 opening day payroll than, say, Milone's salary relative to our 2015 payroll. So it appears this was another path to retain him. (Also, the fact that Ortiz won a MLB roster spot on a contending club in Boston, despite having a minor league option remaining, implies his value was a touch higher than his part-time role in Boston originally suggested.) Regardless of budget, it has been exceedingly rare for TR and the Twins to cast aside a healthy pre-FA player for absolutely nothing when they are meeting an average performance threshold (which Ortiz was clearly doing). TR and the Twins have always viewed such players as potential assets, even if they have to get a little creative to retain them near the end, like Lohse, Rivas, and Milone. It appears the decision to release Ortiz, when we still had $2 mil to spend later on Kenny Rogers, and to release rather than non-tender so we couldn't even try to re-sign him at a lower rate -- it appears it was influenced more by culture and personality than the Twins have ever admitted. And it's probably related to the trouble the Twins had in Latin American markets prior to Sano, and difficulties developing such players and sluggers in general that seem to persist to this day.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    You are correct -- Kepler qualifies for a 4th option year in 2017. Polanco does not, unfortunately, by the slim margin of 3 days in 2010. Would be interesting to hear exactly why the Twins split up Polanco's rookie league season in 2010. It shouldn't have been an oversight, he was a notable signing in 2009, and he wasn't on any fast track either (didn't reach full season ball until 2013). Like Kepler, he's exactly the kind of guy you keep in rookie league ball and under 90 active days for a few years. Even if they wanted to move him out of the DOSL and into the GCL for a while that first summer, I think they could have shut him down 3-7 days early and assigned him back to the DOSL on paper to keep him under 90 days.
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