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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Granite was DFA'd to add Marwin Gonzalez. So the 40-man is still full.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Yup. And I'm also comfortable saying that defensive stats (at least as we know them right now) can probably never take on the same meaningfulness as their offensive counterparts. Most notably, whereas K and BB rates might stabilize around 150 PA or whatever, once you're looking at 3 years of defensive stats, you essentially have to start accounting for age too, not to mention other factors (coaching and personnel changes?). That's not to say that they're meaningless, or fully unreliable. Maybe the conclusions drawn from them have to be a little less specific. Maybe they have more value looking backward than forward, etc.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    Hopefully this story eventually diverges from Pipp-Gehrig, though! *dark humor warning* Astudillo, 2033: "Today, I consider myself, the luckiest tortuga on the face of the earth..."
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    FWIW, the Wall Street Journal lets subscribers share full articles on Facebook, and all it does is prepend "http://facebook.com/l.php?u=" in front of the WSJ URL. So the Facebook shared version of this one is as follows: http://facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/articles/la-tortuga-is-here-to-save-baseball-11551877201 Caveat that Mark Zuckerberg may think you're interested in turtles now.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    Isn't this a pretty foundational concept of statistics? That the larger the sample, the more reliable it can be? 1000 plate appearances doesn't have the exact same reliability as each 10 PA chunk. Collectively, it basically sums the meager reliability of each of those small samples, and after awhile, it has meaningfully more reliability. You're never going to reach perfect 100% reliability in this field, and where you draw the line at "reliable enough" can be a little fuzzy/subjective/context-dependent, but the basic idea that a larger sample (3 seasons of defensive data) is more reliable than a smaller sample (1 season) is certainly true. Edit: obviously if you're measuring something meaningless, you're never going to get a meaningful conclusion no matter how large the measurement sample. "Garbage in, garbage out" as they say. But I don't think it's fair to characterize the inputs of defensive metrics as meaningless, as imperfect as they might be. Even without Statcast, the inputs are basically just recorded scouting observations -- the location of the ball, the position of the fielder, the result of the play, etc. It's less reliable than offensive measurement, which is why we have the "three season" rule of thumb, but it's not meaningless.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    These numbers make sense, because Sano hasn't been that good yet. Here are his bWAR totals: 2015: 2.3 2016: 0.7 2017: 2.5 2018: -0.5 Granted, those are all partial seasons, to some extent, but they are all within a range where they can easily be wiped out by other factors on the roster, and they won't be readily apparent in our overall W-L records. Where it hurts the Twins is that Sano has more *potential* for a 4-5 WAR season than a lot of other guys on the roster, so we're losing some of our upside odds. But we can absolutely stay in the range of our 83 win median projection in 2019, with or without Sano (I think Fangraphs projected Sano at 2.4 WAR for a full season at 3B).
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    FYI, if anyone is looking for an easy, ad-free way to view/link highlight videos, the Baseball Theater site has highlights active for 2019 now: https://baseball.theater/ Eventually they'll have recaps and condensed games again too.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    I think you could put Astudillo at 3B, and move Marwin over to 2B/SS when those guys need a day off. But I agree, I suspect Adrianza will stick around.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    But then we're just letting the millenials win! How about this compromise: just play an instrumental version on the ballpark organ?
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    First of all, it's SHERYL Crow, and c'mon! If not P.P. Arnold (the original performer), then Cat Stevens (the songwriter). Sheryl Crow's version is barely ahead of Rod Stewart's. And both of those might be behind Swedish rap, ragga and dancehall musician Papa Dee's version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7Kd7VvkEG0
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Has JoJo not performed a version of this song?
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    Which version? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo__EIXzAco
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    Surely you can't be serious?
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    I get that the Cards may have messed up by signing Fowler and trading other outfielders -- but no, good defensive CFers with a .771+ OPS projection don't just grow on trees. Otherwise, a lot of MLB teams have a lot of explaining to do -- only 7 MLB teams exceeded that OPS at CF in 2018, to say nothing of defense. $10 mil annually is a pretty modest investment in modern MLB, to lessen the risk that you'll be stuck without such a player, that you'll have to give up talent to acquire such a player, or that you'll have to pay more on the FA market for potentially lesser options (like Fowler). Like any contract, it's not without risk of its own, but pretty much any MLB team can shoulder the risk of a 7/70 deal for an up-the-middle age 29 player with Hicks's performance record the past two seasons.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    How many hotel rooms usually get occupied during an early April MLB series in Minneapolis? Even if it was the home opener, I suspect most of those fans are local (and if fewer out of town fans came, local fans would buy those tickets instead). And for a whole week? The Final Four is Saturday and Monday. Even for the Super Bowl, I don't think Atlanta hotels filled up until a couple days before. I could see an argument for sending the Twins on road Thursday until Sunday, with Monday off, but I really don't see why they need to be on the road from the *previous* Tuesday through the *following* Thursday. (Not that any of those dates forecast appreciably different weather from March 28.)
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    I'm not so sure. A lot of folks were already applauding the Gonzalez move because he was going to fill in all over. Now it's brilliant because he's going to be our primary 3B instead? Wouldn't that sap some of his perceived super-sub value? Not that it means the Gonzalez deal is bad or anything. In fact, I argued at the time he was as much Sano insurance as a supersub, and that wasn't a bad thing.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    "What happens in the DR, stays in the DR" Until spring training.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't quite understand this. A whole week? At best, the Twins might want to be out of town Saturday April 6 (semifinal night). Monday April 8 (final) is a Twins off day anyway.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    I'm not quite sure what your point is here. FWIW, Fowler was never considered a consistently good defender in CF, which puts him behind Cain and Hicks in that regard. And Fowler signed with St. Louis when he was 2 years older than Hicks is now. If Hicks performs like Fowler at age 29-30 (to say nothing of Cain at the same ages), this could likely be a good deal for the Yankees regardless of if or how he finishes the contract. Age 31-35, Fowler is guaranteed $82.5 mil. Hicks is only getting $53 mil those same ages, plus $17 mil for age 29-30. Cain is getting $80 mil for ages 32-36. Obviously, no contract is without risk, but the Hicks deal doesn't seem out of line.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    You realize the MLB league non-pitcher batting average was only .252 last year? Historically low. Hicks's .248 is basically average, no different relative to league than .270 was as recently as 2006.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    Regardless of where you think you saw it, it's still not true.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    Oh, I know. The Twins just had regularly bad postseason "luck" from 2002-2010.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    No worries! Obviously the whole thing is what-ifs, but to me, Kubel seems to stack two separate what-ifs -- health and performance. But I also remember getting excited for Kubel after this game in 2006 -- I guess I've sobered up since then https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/MIN/MIN200606130.shtml Doesn't help that Kubel is on the negative side of one of my own personal what-ifs -- what if we had started (or at least pinch-hit) Lew Ford instead of Kubel in 2004 ALDS Game 2? (Ideally, putting Ford in LF ahead of Stewart.) Which leads to another injury what-if from the same time period: what if Mauer stayed healthy in 2004? I don't know if that rookie power was real, but darn he looked good, and we actually played the Yankees pretty close that postseason. Henry Blanco actually did hit a dinger in game 4, but Pat Borders played in both of our extra inning losses too...
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't know. I mean, Kubel tore up the minors in 2004 -- but plenty of guys tear up the minors, and even have a good MLB debut, and don't ultimately go on to become "offensive forces" in MLB. Kubel was ranked #17 by BA after 2004 -- his first top 100 ranking there. That's very good, but it doesn't strike me as can't-miss-elite-in-the-absence-of-injury or anything. Kubel put up a 117 OPS+ from ages 25-30, which seems a perfectly appropriate outcome for that ranking and his minor league record. Beyond DH'ing during his 2004 MLB debut, he was also used in a strict platoon (61 PA vs RHP, 6 vs LHP), which suggests that platoon concerns were already apparent. Kubel ultimately had a 114 wRC+ vs RHP and a 82 wRC+ vs LHP in MLB. I don't like to read too much into small samples, but sometimes it's all we have -- and Kubel seemed pretty exploitable in the postseason too (2 hits, 3 BB, 13 K's, in 32 career PA), with his worst showing coming immediately after the best regular season of his career (2009). Obviously the injury set back his timeline -- he lost 2005, and probably needed 2006 just to get back into form. But how much did it hold him back beyond that? I'm no ACL expert, but Moustakas and Eaton have both recently had ACL surgeries, and returned to hitting form the following seasons. I could understand a notable effect on speed, defense, and durability / games played, but just pure hitting? I don't know.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    Liriano would have improved the staff, no doubt, but would that have been enough pitching to actually win a title? Maybe if they go Schilling-Johnson circa 2001. Otherwise, even with Liriano, the playoff rotation still includes rookie Boof Bonser and Brad Radke's arm duct-taped to his shoulder. We had a few more relievers, but even they weren't a dominant group -- 8 runs allowed in 8 IP during the Oakland series (granted, 2 of those runs were on the inside-the-park HR that Torii allowed). Rondell White actually hit in the second half of 2006 -- 130 wRC+. (After a wRC+ of 4 in the first half!) But my great what-if for that team, beyond Liriano staying healthy, is acquiring Jim Thome before the 2006 season...
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