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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Machado wasn't far from the bag, so maybe fake a bunt on the first pitch, get the third baseman to charge in a bit, and let Buxton steal it more easily behind him? That wouldn't be bad -- but yeah, that's not what Dozier did at all. Both team's announcers called it as a beautiful bunt when Dozier laid it down, but both the pitcher and third baseman were in position to field it and throw him out without too much trouble. That tells me it was clearly a bad time to try bunting for a hit, he didn't catch anybody unaware. It seems pretty clear Dozier overrated his chances of a hit and/or overrated the importance of a sacrifice there, either case being worth some criticism.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    He's a leadoff hitter. He has lots of chances to show bunt that don't involve our fastest runner already in scoring position.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    Not even complain about Dozier's decision? I mean, Buxton is our fastest runner, he's already in scoring position, and Dozier is one of our better hitters. And I'm not sure he's a particularly good or experienced bunter. There was a very good chance that he wouldn't get a hit and that Buxton's advancement on the play would be mostly meaningless (he could have advanced on a lot of different balls hit in play, or even stolen or advanced on the mildest of passed balls in a longer at-bat).
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    My second grade teacher having a crush on Jeff Reardon is my primary memory of the 1987 team. Maybe that crush was a rebound from a fan relationship gone sour with Ron Davis?
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    Thanks. I think I remember this happening before, and no one could change it after the fact, but I seem to recall it was possible to change of during the initial posting process? Or perhaps I am mis-remembering. In any case, thanks for the change here. And thanks Matt for the article!
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    John Bonnes, this article is fully credited to you on the forum view -- I didn't realize Matt wrote it until he started commenting! I think Brock has said there is a way to change forum authorship when you create a new article...
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    Not true. He signed a major league deal with Boston for $1.25 million. His next deal with Boston was for 1 year, $4.6 mil the following winter. He didn't get his first multiyear deal until partway through 2004, signing for 2/12.5 covering 2005-2006. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=1499 Also, while his playing time didn't pick up until he heated up that summer, he was hardly a strict bench player at the outset, starting 4 of Boston's first 6 games that season, for example. I find it odd that people keep trying to dismiss Ortiz's gripes by trotting out falsehoods about career. And you wonder why he might still feel disrespected...
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    I obviously wasn't trying to completely disprove it with a one-to-one comparison. I just picked the Thome comparison at random as an illustration to cast some doubt on the theory. Frankly I think the burden of proof lies with Seth and others who constantly trot out this assertion that Ortiz's success took special advantage of the ability to go the other way that the Twins tried to teach him. Have you seen any evidence to support that? We can toss my little Thome exercise out the window if you like, but that doesn't mean there is any more evidence to the support it. Without evidence, it just sounds like creating our own sour grapes to combat the perceived sour grapes from Ortiz on the subject.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    I didn't mean those are the only numbers we should be interested in, or that it should trump qualitative evaluation. Only that it was more informative than his inherited runner numbers from the same sample, which was the context of my post.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    Thanks John and Parker, I was too young for the 1987 team so it is fun to read some context around Gladden's arrival.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    I wonder how Gladden the announcer would describe that home run.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    Raw inherited runner numbers are pretty suspect. But you can adjust each opportunity based on a run expectancy matrix. I think Baseball Prospectus used to publish this, and Fangraphs has RE24 which is sort of similar, but they might be more trouble than they are worth -- there generally exist much better indicators of reliever effectiveness. In Tonkin's case, he allowed 8 of 22 inherited runners to score last year, basically 1 more than team or league average. For his career, he's exactly at league average - 30% - the same as Kevin Jepsen's career mark. Maybe a dissection like I described above would add some separation, but it's still not going to mean a whole lot. I'm more interested in Tonkin's 5.02 FIP last season, especially considering he was working in low-leverage situations.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    I'm not quite sure that is so obvious. Guess we'll see.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Yes, a bit. Last paragraph here: http://twinsdaily.com/topic/21681-article-friday-minor-league-report/?p=450505
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Well, of our 2015 opening day 25 man roster roster, only two players from it were actually out of the organization before season's end (Stauffer and Schafer), and both involved epically bad performances and injuries (and both were relative newcomers to the organization too, probably shortening their leash). Not counting Ervin Santana's "replacement" Aaron Thompson, only 5 guys from the 2015 opening roster even got optioned out during the season, and 3 of those guys are back with no options left, and 1 more was just the backup catcher. And if not for Santana's suspension, our 25 man roster at the beginning of the season would have been responsible for starting all but 10, or 94%, of our games. Depth is nice and can be useful, of course, but let's not overstate its importance compared to the talent of, and (perhaps more importantly) the club's expectations for, the initial "top 25."
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    I'd be curious what those systems are based on. There are so few guys coming over here from Korea, I'm not sure these projections are any more meaningful than our guesstimates on this thread.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Actually, the Red Sox signed Ortiz in January 2003. And Millar was primarily an outfielder in his career up to that point, and was again in 2004, and was never really a platoon player -- for his career, he was better vs RHP and his percentage of RHP faced was pretty much equal to the league's. So I doubt the team was primarily intending Ortiz to be his platoon partner. I think Ortiz was more Jeremy Giambi insurance than anything, although Ortiz still started 4 of the team's first 6 games so they were giving him opportunity (obviously his playing time really picked up as he heated up in June). Probably a smart move to bring in both Ortiz and Giambi -- neither one was that expensive, and the team could afford to later pick whichever one was healthy and effective.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    Has anybody asked Sano? Not sure if we should be blaming Ortiz when people ask for his opinions and he provides them. It's not like he's call his own news conference to address the Kennys Vargas situation.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    This gets repeated a lot, but I'm not sure if it is particularly true. Take a look at Ortiz's hit locations and performance scompared to a non-Fenway LH power hitter like, say, Jim Thome. http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?id=ortizda01&year=Career&t=b#hitlo http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?id=thomeji01&year=Career&t=b#hitlo Thome had basically the same percentage of at-bats going to the opposite field (~17%), and was actually a better opposite field hitter than Ortiz relative to their overall performance (tOPS+ of 163, versus Ortiz's 99). Their career home/away tOPS+ marks are virtually identical too. Maybe there is some more granular data that suggests Ortiz took special advantage of the Green Monster over his career, but I haven't seen that case made yet
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Which player took up axe-grinding as an off season hobby?
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    I believe May still has an option. He was optioned at the beginning of 2015, but was recalled right away, and if you spend less than 20 days on optional assignment, you don't burn the option year.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    And not only that -- but the Twins tend to target pitchers for their health, reducing the likelihood of injury. If a couple of our opening day veterans were injury fliers, that would be a different story.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    Wasn't that the argument for Pelfrey last year? And how much did he help us? He was league average, we went 14-16 in his starts, and we actually skipped his turn in September rather than trust him in a pennant race.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    I think Fien has an option too.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    I think it's fair to suggest they already knew the market for Plouffe.
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