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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    ESPN game tonight. Probably not quite as big of deal in the MLB.TV era, but still, national TV.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Which dudes do you mean -- the Astros or the Twins?
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    Ryan O'Rourke called up by the Mets: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019/05/mets-jeurys-familia-injured-list-shoulder-ryan-orourke.html
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Here's the Fangraphs Twins minor league leaderboard for 2019, sorted by wRC+ (so, hitting adjusted for league): https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/minor-league/?pos=all&lg=2,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,14,12,13,15,17,18,30,32,33&stats=bat&qual=y&type=1&team=&season=2019&seasonEnd=2019&org=8&ind=0&splitTeam=false&players= Cabbage still comes out on top; Chris Williams is #2. Cesar is the highest ranked AAA player at #8. This metric really doesn't like Wiel, as he drops to #12, behind Wade surprisingly -- I guess Wade's .436 OBP outranks Wiel's .600 SLG? It might include SB value too, which would help Wade.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    The International League is going crazy with offense, though. .782 league OPS this year. That's closer to the PCL (.824) than the IL league OPS last year (.709), or any other Twins affiliate league this year: AA: .678 A+: .654 A: .683
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    Eduardo Escobar is staying hot in Arizona, with a 2 HR game and another 3 hit game. His season OPS is up to .920 now. 134 OPS+, 140 wRC+.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    Probably not right now. At best, maybe you could find a similar struggling "project" but even that might be a challenge. I notice Arizona demoted Zach Godley to the bullpen, for example, but they wouldn't really have a place to play Sano right now either (they're getting good production at 1B and 3B, and no DH).
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't know about that -- Reed's minor league numbers seem pretty marginal. I suspect he might be in the same class as Bard and Curtiss before him.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    That's not quite fair either -- Sano was definitely good to open the 2017 season. Maybe not sustainably good, but then again, maybe his rookie season wasn't either (35.5% K rate, .396 BABIP).
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    Anecdotally, I think you can come up with examples that did just fine coming over to the AL (Hamels), or at least provided value to their teams (regular season / postseason). I'm sure there are examples the other way too, but the samples so small, and the players so different, I'm not sure it really rises above the anecdotal level when we consider how it might affect one specific player, in one specific season. I'm not saying there wouldn't be risk. But there's risk with everyone. And we wouldn't need him to be great forever, just looking for a solid partial season / postseason. You can pass him up, but there's not likely to be a better guy available. (And obviously the risk would depend on the cost, which I admit might be prohibitive, especially this early in the season.)
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Actually, not that many strikeouts, relative to other teams. We've got the 3rd lowest K% in baseball. Polanco, Rosario, and Kepler all project as better than average in K%. (Astudillo too, obviously!) Cruz, Schoop, Cron, and Marwin are all right around average. Garver, Castro, and Buxton project as worse than average, but not egregiously so. Sano will get his K's, I am sure, but it's not necessarily a big problem for this club.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    Fangraphs has us winning 90 now too. Basically, they still have us very near their preseason projection going forward (.539 rest-of-season winning percentage, versus .527 preseason) -- but as the title of this thread suggests, we've "banked" 3-4 wins above that level already. And a projection is always based on neutral luck going forward -- not bad luck to balance out any good luck we've already received. Of course, we know a bad luck month can happen in real life, just like a good luck one. The 2015 Twins were mentioned already; I think that also happened to the 2017 Royals after their big winning streak around the trade deadline, and the 2018 Mariners during the season too.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    It's the thought (or lack thereof) that counts!
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Ah yes, who can forget it? The walk off hit scoring Dan Gladden in extra innings... sealing the win for the legendary Gary Wayne... pulling us within 2 games of 6th place... so many memories to choose from! https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/MIN/MIN199009190.shtml
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Well, Bumgarner isn't even 30 years old yet, so you figure there would be some chance of a renaissance. Although we wouldn't need him to be an ace to be valuable.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    A little context: "MLB seeing continued surge in home runs" https://mlb.nbcsports.com/2019/04/29/mlb-seeing-continued-surge-in-home-runs/ Still impressive that the Twins are at/near the top right now.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Looks the percent chance of rain drops notably after 5 PM, so I'd guess there is no postponement.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    I'd love it, but Graterol's K rate has been roughly league average at AA this year (and last year at high-A). Not saying he can't be successful with that profile, but it might be hard to count on him being successful in MLB right out of the gate if he's relying more on balls in play. Especially if he's also blowing past his career high for innings (102) while moving up multiple levels.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    It's 2019 -- they probably don't even have to pick up the phone! Falvine: "Siri, call Farhan Zaidi." Siri: "I could not find any restaurants that serve a far-out baked ziti." Okay, maybe they do have to pick up the phone...
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    "If this is anyone but Ric Flair, you're stealing my bit!"
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    I'd love that in theory, but I think a Bumgarner trade would be largely unprecedented this early in the season. I might be afraid of what we'd have to give up to make it happen so early. A reliever is more attainable, although it's probably still early to find a really good one. The Mariners got Alex Colome on May 25th last year, along with Denard Span in a salary dump type move. Maybe the Giants give us Melancon? Or pair a cheaper reliever with Samardzija? (I think they'd want talent more than just salary relief in a Bumgarner trade.)
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    Thanks for sharing. Fangraphs concurs -- they had us at 35.8% playoff odds before the season, versus 70.4% today. https://www.fangraphs.com/standings/playoff-odds?date=2019-04-30&dateDelta= The Rays have experienced an even bigger jump so far -- 28% preseason, up to 78% today.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    I think the Yankees series will be a bit of a test, beyond team quality. It will be interesting to see the mindset/approach/attitude of this team vs the Yankees, under Baldelli as opposed to Gardenhire and Molitor. Although it might be hard to tell right away -- we actually rocked the Yankees in Molitor's debut against them, and almost won the next game too until Glen Perkins met John Ryan Murphy... Of course, the next 3 games with Houston might set the tone entering the Yankees series too!
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    Obviously, but we're probably not going to finish with 312 HR for the season like our current pace suggests. I think the poster is saying that eventually we'll need to find other ways to score if we want to maintain this winning percentage -- but I think we should be capable of doing that. Our BB% is low, but so is our K%, and we're not getting any BABIP luck right now either.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    No worries. Bandwagons are fun. For me, it's still just such a small sample for 2019 -- a single HR, or two doubles, is worth a full .070 of SLG (or ~28 points of wRC+) for Rortvedt right now on his 2019 line. A single 0-for-4 would drop his season OPS by .046, or ~18 points of wRC+. But if he can keep it up, especially with a promotion to AA, he could really jump. I don't know about top 100 quite yet, although Jason Castro was top 100 with a 139 wRC+ at high-A and a 107 wRC+ at AA (although he was top 100 before that too, the pedigree of a 10th overall pick from Stanford).
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