Jump to content
Twins Daily
  • Create Account

Otto von Ballpark

Old-Timey Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    20,662

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    74

 Content Type 

Profiles

News

Minnesota Twins Videos

2026 Minnesota Twins Top Prospects Ranking

2022 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

Minnesota Twins Free Agent & Trade Rumors, Notes, & Tidbits

Guides & Resources

2023 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

The Minnesota Twins Players Project

2024 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

2025 Minnesota Twins Draft Pick Tracker

Forums

Blogs

Events

Store

Downloads

Gallery

Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    I've got nothing against Milone, but if both he and Sean Burnett get added to the roster, then someone has to get cut from the 40-man in addition to Perkins going on the 60-day DL. I imagine Nolasco would go to the pen before getting released. Might imbalance the 25-man to drop Mastro right now. And two guys would have to get dropped from the 25-man too to make room for Milone and Burnett -- if not Mastro, probably two from Gibson, Duffey, Dean, May, Pressly, and Rogers, since they are the only pitchers with options remaining. Those guys probably need the reps in a lost season more than Milone, who could be due ~$6 mil next year in arbitration again.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    This is extreme cherry-picking. Yes, Milone had 3 inherited runners score in one game, but relievers also stranded 4 of his inherited runners in other starts. Also, in the game where the 3 inherited runners scored, Milone actually had a runner at first with two outs, before he walked consecutive batters to reach 102 pitches and bring up the heart of the Brewers order, of which Braun was already 2-for-2 vs Milone that day, and Lucroy had a fly ball caught at the fence in dead center, and another caught at the opposite field warning track in right. If you're past 100 pitches and not out of the 5th inning yet, it's hard to muster much sympathy for you. And what game this year did Milone not get pulled soon enough? Was it April 15th vs the Angels? He was at 68 pitches through 6 innings, his only remotely efficient start of the year. Letting him face 3 batters in the 7th inning was hardly keeping him in too long -- it wasn't Molitor's fault that Milone gave up a HR, a walk, and another HR to those 3 batters. Every other start of the year, Milone failed to complete 5 innings due to his own poor and inefficient performance.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    I was actually wondering that about Park (getting some outfield reps), although the last week suggests maybe he's not quite fully established offensively yet to go messing around with his position...
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Considering no one claimed him for free on waivers a few weeks ago, I don't think he has any real trade value for the foreseeable future.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    I'd guess he thinks it's our people, our baseball minds, our years of experience, our "no shortcuts" philosophy, "doing it the right way"... While those aren't necessarily bad, I'd want a new GM who recognizes the limitations of relying exclusively on those qualities in modern pro sports.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    The Twins couldn't potentially afford a $20 million per year player, beginning in 2017, if they had wanted? The Twins committed $97 million for 7 pitcher seasons, the month that they signed Ervin Santana and extended Phil Hughes. $100 million for 5 years, for a pitcher they like with a better track record than either Ervin or Hughes circa 2014, was absolutely possible for this club. I think the mistake was deciding, in 2014, that they had to keep Phil Hughes for 2017-2019, to the point they were willing to sacrifice a very nice below-market contract to do it. Once Ervin was signed, they had a ton of veteran starters under contract for the next few years. But when they also extended Hughes, they basically removed all the flexibility from that group, and their best shot at getting any excess value from one of those veterans too. Giving all that up because you have a fear of paying $100 mil for 5 years for a pitcher down the road is probably a bad decision.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't think it should have anything to do with the quantity of "statheads". It's about the quality. And odds are, the most quality "stathead", and the one most capable of leading and directing that department to actually gain a competitive advantage over other teams, may not have emerged from your ticket call center a few years ago. Do the Twins even have a barometer for judging the effectiveness of their current stat department? Have they ever employed or even interviewed an outside stats person? At the very least, they should aggressively hire a new outside stat guy or two now, and let them work semi-independently for a while to judge their respective performances and compare them to the performance of the current department.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    We've been over this before. There were a lot of interesting catchers available during that time, some quite cheaply. Francisco Cervelli and Welington Castillo are the first two names that come to mind. Neither was perfect, obviously, but both were cheap and both would have been perfect partner candidates for Suzuki, and potential replacements, but evidence suggests the Twins didn't even entertain the idea of augmenting Suzuki at the position until a full year after signing his extension. For a rebuilding team to commit so fully to Suzuki after an outlier performance, early (months before the open market that winter), with nothing but Fryer/Herrmann/Pinto in reserve, with an eye toward waiting ~3 years for the likes of Turner or Garver to emerge -- it doesn't take hindsight to tell you that's a bad strategy.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    FWIW, Mauer was awful while we were winning in May 2015 too, 63 wRC+. His overall line this year (101 wRC+) is pretty much identical to his 2014-2015 production (99 wRC+), so whoever expected him to produce like a core player in 2016 is probably more to blame than Mauer himself. Likewise, Dozier is at 66 wRC+ so far for 2016, which isn't far from his 73 wRC+ mark from the second half of last year. Again, the problem might be the expectations than the player himself. Plouffe has played the least of these three, thanks to injury in April, so while his 76 wRC+ appears to be well below his career average of 99, or even his second half mark of 92 from last year, it is mostly a function of the Toronto series so far. After last Wednesday's game, Plouffe's wRC+ still stood at 110.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    If you want to strip out other factors, perhaps using something other than runs would be better -- luck and sequencing can be especially big factors in a small sample like 2016 so far. Here are the Twins wRC+ figures by year: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2016&month=0&season1=1961&ind=1&team=8,ts&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=17,a 81 wRC+ this year. Bad, but the team had worse marks in 1999 and 1981. Very hard to make a case that the 2016 offense is worse than the 1999 one, relative to league. 1981 is probably pretty much equal or worse too. Pitching-wise, Santana missed 2 starts, and Gibson maybe 4 so far. Replaced by Duffey, Dean, Berrios, and Meyer, they are probably not far off Gibson's 6.10 ERA performance anyway. Perkins has been the only injury in the pen, and again his absence might be a positive considering how he began the season. The effect of the defense is harder to quantify, but Sano appears to be the most "out of position" player, and it wasn't an emergency decision to put him out there, so they've had ample opportunities to mitigate it (spotting him at 3B or DH, defensive replacements, positioning, etc.). Fangraphs currently pegs us at 21st in fielding runs for the season, not far off last year's 18th rank when our ERA and FIP were a near match. In absolute terms, we're negative but still ahead of our 2013-2014 fielding runs numbers.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    If this is a "historically" bad offense, what does that make the pitching/defense? I just ran the numbers of runs allowed per game for the Twins vs. the league since 1961 (MLB 1961-1972, AL 1973-present), and our 2016 runs allowed per game is the worst, 23.1% worse than the league. 1995 was next, 22.0% worse than the league, both of which were considerably worse than our next worst mark (2012 at 16.7%). For offense, runs scored, we're at 21.1% below league average for 2016. Our worst mark ever was 1999 at 21.5% below. 1981 wasn't far behind at 19.6%, and then comes the drop-off down to 2011 (16.7%) and 2000 (14.7%). So while both are bad, runs allowed seems to be worse historically. If you want to add our relative runs scored and runs allowed percentages, 2016 represents by far our worst combined season in franchise history at 44.3, which is rather historic. Obviously that should normalize a bit by season's end, as our previous worst was 2011 at 28.9, followed by 2013 at 27.5. In franchise history (1961-2016), 6 of our worst 10 seasons, and 9 of our worst 16 seasons in this measure have come under TR as GM. Rounding out the top 16 is the last season of Bill Smith (2011), the last two seasons of Andy MacPhail (1993-1994), the last 3 full seasons of Calvin Griffith (1981-1983), and the first full season of MacPhail (1986).
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    I know you are looking at May to compare to last year's May success, but I'm not sure it's the best way to highlight the 2016 team's offensive struggles, especially in the context of these 3 players. It's still not good, but the 2016 team is actually scoring more runs per game in May (3.8 RS/G) than they did in April (3.3 RS/G), despite the May struggles of the above 3 players. If the Twins run scoring rate of May continues for the rest of the season, we will finish with 603 runs, which would be 86.9% of the average team's current pace, again still not good, but ahead of 2011 relative to league, and comparable to 2013 too. The big difference in team performance between April and May 2016 is runs allowed -- a bad mark of 4.6 RA/G in April has somehow become an even worse mark of 6.1 RA/G in May! Even comparing May 2016 to May 2015, our runs scored have dropped by ~25%, but our runs allowed have skyrocketed by ~60%!
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    Just eyeballing other years, the 1981 team was on a 557 run pace for 162 games, which is lower than our 2016 pace of 573 runs too, although the 1981 team average was again lower than 2016 so far, so 1999 is still the champ relative to league.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    For this to be meaningful, you've got to use runs per game (to account for season length) and adjust for AL/MLB average. 1968 was the legendary "year of the pitcher" with Yaz's .301 batting title, Gibson's 1.12 ERA, etc. The 1968 Twins were actually above MLB average in run scoring that year. The 1972 Twins were only a hair below league average too, scoring 94.5% of the average MLB team's runs (and 1972 was, of course, the year where offense was so bad that it finally prompted adoption of the DH rule.) The 2016 Twins have thus far scored 82.6% of the average AL team's runs. The 1999 Twins scored 686 runs, which was only 81.8% of the average AL team (839 runs), so that was actually a worse performing offense relative to league, even if the absolute total was higher than the 2016 pace.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Brian stated it more simply and eloquently, but this just isn't true. Almost everyone advocated signing a veteran outfielder in the 2014-2015 offseason -- no one wanted Hicks penciled in as the opening day CF again. The general disagreement was with signing a corner OF on his last legs in Hunter, which meant the only alternative to Hicks as opening day CF was Schafer, which wasn't really a move for the present or the future. And once Buxton struggled in MLB last year and Hicks was traded, there were a lot of sensible arguments this past winter for similarly signing a veteran outfielder so we'd have an alternative to Buxton/Santana/Rosario as opening day CF. The rest of your examples are similarly distorted. Folks may have wanted Buxton up to get a look last year, but that doesn't mean they wanted him to be the opening day CF this year after he struggled last year, etc.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    Duffey and Sano have generally played well. Polanco in very tiny doses....
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    I figured Dean would get a starting shot before Meyer and May, which he basically did (Meyer's one-off start excepted). Notice how everyone is already assuming Dean will get multiple starts, until Gibson returns? Why didn't that happen with Meyer when we called him up? Oh right, we had to get Tommy Milone one last start before waiving him, then we had to get JR Graham up for a day, and let Phil Hughes average 60-some pitches per start. Priorities! Berrios did get a shot ahead of Dean which I did not predict, although perhaps only due to the retirement of David Murphy...
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    It was just an example. I think Seth's plan of "play all the vets, hope to trade them in July, and then call up youngsters in August" is rather under-thinking it, that's all. It doesn't take a lot of thinking to know these vets and their contracts aren't going to bring much if anything in July -- just look at past trade deadline results. So why let that be such a big part of the equation?
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    I understand the theory of supply and demand. How does any of that apply to most of the Twins veteran trade candidates, who are guaranteed money well beyond 2016? Teams don't trade for multiple expensive years of average-ish players in July. Again, if you have any historical examples that say otherwise, please share, but textbook definitions of supply and demand don't say much about the real-world example of Twins players/contracts that we are discussing. Isn't this the most salient point? The magnitude of the theoretical increase, balanced against costs of salary and less playing time for prospect, is far more important than the simple academic question of whether it is higher in absolute terms. Maybe Plouffe could net an organization's #15 prospect on July 31st, while he could only net a #20-25 today. But it will cost the Twins an additional ~$2.5 mil in salary to keep Plouffe until July 31st, and it will cost them 2 months MLB playing time for their own #6 prospect (Polanco) who is out of options next spring. (Not to mention that there is risk in market factors not improving by July 31st, if more 3B solutions emerge around the league than new 3B problems develop, or if Plouffe tails off or gets injured -- a better return, or even any return, on July 31st is likely but not guaranteed.) It's much more complicated than you or Seth are suggesting.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    You're assuming that players don't change their approach (intentionally or unintentionally) due to the conditions. In the FSL, power hitters might try selling out more in a futile attempt to hit HR and increase their K's; other hitters might try to hit the ball on the ground more rather than in the air. Pitchers too can throw differently to get K's and groundouts without the fear of the HR. I wouldn't be opposed to promoting a few of the better Ft Myers starters right now, but I'm also not totally sold on their numbers either.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    I bet they don't care that much. By the time he can leave, they may have gotten ~4 years of Cy Young level pitching from Arrieta for ~$27 mil, 2+ no-hitters, potentially 3 postseasons (or the chance to deal him for an excellent return if they happen to fall well short of the postseason his final year), and possibly a comp pick. Somebody else paying $200+ mil for his age 32-38 seasons probably won't be that troubling to them (although they could afford it if they wanted to). Likewise, if the Twins had gotten 2-3 seasons of 2014 Phil Hughes for $24 mil, plus a decent trade return or a comp pick, seeing him go somewhere else for his age 31-35 seasons for ~$100 mil or whatever probably would not have been too troubling either. Although we too could probably afford that level of contract if we wanted too, we don't have that much committed to players from 2017-2021. Sano and others won't be eligible for free agency until after 2021.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    Good point! Seth's plan seems to be, play all the veterans to prepare for a July trade -- but not is their trade value questionable, it seems particularly unlikely that more than 1 or 2 of them could actually be dealt. (Even if we wanted to deal more, doing so would signal fire sale and probably lower our leverage quite drastically.) The better plan is probably betting now on which vets you think can be dealt and need to play in the meantime, and then still working young players in around them. For all I know, maybe the Twins think they are doing that, but to me it seems they are doing a pretty poor job so far.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    And as always, I welcome past examples of players with similar contract/performance getting dealt in July. I think you will find your theories about demand and return being a lot higher for these guys to be untrue in reality.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    This is Polanco's last option year. Which makes it especially odd why you'd want to restrict his potential MLB opportunity to August and September...
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    Even teams trading for "hot" players don't want guys with 2-3 guaranteed big money seasons remaining. Our three veteran SP are more likely to be August waiver trades than have LOTS of demand in July. Although I also think you are overrating the value of hotness. Plouffe doesn't have a long-term guaranteed deal, but he is 30 years old, has over 2600 MLB PA, and has been largely the same hitter throughout. No one is going to pay "a lot more" based on his next two months of performance (~200 PA). And of course, having 20 HR in late July will hardly be an indication that these guys are out-performing their career numbers anyway. Dozier or Plouffe might have 20 HR at that point with no more than a 110 OPS+, within their established range of performance. And the chance that these players will turn in such a superlative performance over the next 2 months (130 OPS+/ERA+) is probably so slim that it's not worth shutting out most of your young players until August to find out.
×
×
  • Create New...