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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    The Twins probably don't need him right now, but Granite probably did have some value to various rebuilding clubs. Obviously 2018 was a lost year for him, but a strong defensive CF with speed *and* who rarely strikes out at the plate (and is MLB ready) is an interesting asset. Not an upside prospect, but possibly a guy with a high floor who you can plug in at CF right away for a cheap 1-2 WAR regular. Just in the Twins division, I could see the Royals and especially White Sox both being interested in a player like that. The White Sox depth chart shows Adam Engel at #1 in CF right now, and not much better in the corners either. Both the Royals and White Sox were ahead of the Rangers in waiver priority too, which may have prompted this deal from the Rangers perspective.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Usually we don't find out, and I suspect that in those cases it's a pretty nominal amount (basically the waiver fee?). I doubt it's anywhere near $750k here. As for brokering, while the deals were announced in order as Twins-Rangers followed by Twins-Orioles, it seems likely that much of the brokering here already occurred directly between the Orioles and Rangers. Just a week ago, those two clubs made a trade involving another Rangers minor league pitcher and Orioles international bonus pool cash: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019/02/rangers-acquire-international-bonus-money-from-orioles.html Credit to the Twins for inserting themselves in the process, of course, if the alternative at this point was losing Granite for nothing.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    Obviously it's not a bad trade or anything, but it's hard to judge it too much without knowing the front office's intent too. It's possible that they would have preferred to send Granite to Rochester, and they thought this was a good time to pass him through waivers, but then realized that wasn't going to happen after they DFA'd him and confirmed other teams interest. They'd still get some credit for pivoting and getting something, of course -- and we know this front office can pivot quickly (i.e. the Jaime Garcia trades).
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Is it that hard to believe, though? Once they DFA'd Granite, they may have discovered they were going to lose him, and had their choice of the following returns: 1. nothing (lost on waivers) 2. Xavier Moore 3. $750k international bonus money I could see them preferring option #3 at that point, even without a specific plan on how to spend it. Given they only had $80k before, this gives them some wiggle room in case their scouts find an overlooked player this spring, and they can possibly sign them in the current period rather than taking out of their 2019-2020 pool come July.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    From MLBTR: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019/03/twins-acquire-international-bonus-money-from-orioles.html Perhaps why the Orioles were willing to trade it:
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    Could be, but this money is for the current international signing period, which is fairly close to ending. (Trades of future international bonus money are prohibited.) I'm not even sure if there would be 5 Graterol level signings available anymore? FWIW, Graterol signed near the start of his signing period (August), albeit just after his 16th birthday -- but any interesting prospects who turn 16 now might be waiting until July when a lot more teams have a lot more money to bid. Should be interesting to see what we do with the money. Probably better than the minor leaguer we traded away, but it's hard to get too excited about extra international bonus money this time of year. (And that's probably why were able to get as much as $700k for a guy like Xavier Moore -- the utility of $700k is lower this time of year.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    Of course this is breaking news. This trade was only a few letters away from involving Zack Greinke!
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    Steroids?
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    Padres sign reliever Adam Warren, $2.5 mil plus an option for 2020
  10. Otto von Ballpark
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Here you go: I know you said you don't care for context, but you're assuming a fairly specific context when you interpret "and that's where it's going to stay" to mean that he doesn't like coaching of hitting. And judging by the many media reports containing this quote (at MLB.com, Pioneer Press, Star Tribune, etc.), it seems unlikely that the context of Buxton's discussion with this group of reporters was anything as remotely controversial as a general rejection of coaching of hitting.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    The "in general" was not meant to replace "in hitting" -- you can put "in hitting" back into my post and it has the same point. It was meant to reflect that you are interpreting this one sentence to have *general* meaning, when it was surrounded by a discussion about fairly specific things and timeframes (this spring and past offseason). I think it's far more likely that the sentence simply applied to this spring and past offseason, like pretty much every other statement he made in the article and how every publication reported it, rather than he casually slipped in one sentence that applied generally and no one detected it (except a few intrepid TD posters ).
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    Absolutely. I'm assuming Philadelphia did their homework in this regard. It would be odd for a player to collapse defensively at age 25, so I tend to think he will bounce back and be a viable RF, at least for the next 5 years or so. I've seen it suggested that Harper's defensive metrics suffered in 2018 because he was overly cautious, ensuring his health in a contract year. Not exactly the kind of approach a team wants to reward -- but at least Philadelphia won't have to worry about that factor!
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Corbin's salary is comparable to Harper's. But they probably net similar projected wins by signing either player, so I wouldn't say they're better off without him. Harper probably fits better with the Phillies, but that's no knock on Harper or the Phillies here.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    1.3 WAR is based on some outlier defensive data at B-Ref. 3.5 WAR at Fangraphs, although even that is dragged down by defense which isn't as predictive as offense in a one-year sample. Harper's 135 wRC+ ranked 15th among qualified batters in MLB last year. There's obviously risk to the Phillies, but there was also risk in them relying on Nick Williams as a starting outfielder on a contending team again (0.3 fWAR, -1.0 bWAR in 2018).
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    The Nats didn't go "up" by losing Harper. They definitely lost projected wins by losing Harper, but made up some of that by improved projections from Soto, Eaton, Dozier, and the catcher position.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Yup! Just read that one too. ZiPS has the Phillies jumping from 84 wins to 88 with Harper, just 1 win behind the Nationals at 89.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    Blue Jays sign Bud Norris to a minor league deal, worth $3 mil plus incentives if he makes the team. Blue Jays also sign Clay Buchholz to a major league deal, worth $3 mil plus incentives. Mets sign Carlos Gomez to a minor league deal.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    Thanks for sharing. Google Cache tells me that Fangraphs had the Phillies projected at 81 wins before Harper -- 2 wins below the Twins (albeit in a stronger division). Now they have them at 86 wins, leaping over the Braves and Mets in their division, projecting as the top NL wild card team, and wiping out over half of their deficit behind the Nationals (projected 90 wins). They basically swapped out a projected 1.3 WAR outfield spot for the projected 4.8 WAR Harper. And that's on top of swapping out a projected 0.9 WAR catcher for the projected 4.3 WAR Realmuto earlier in the offseason. Philly must have been a projected ~78 win team before that? That's a nice aggressive offseason.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    I agree, I would have a hard time endorsing the Harper deal for my team. (Thankfully, my team spares me from such considerations ) But it's not quite right to simply take away Harper's MVP season -- that's part of his record too. His career mark is a 139 OPS+. Obviously his one season of 198 has a big impact there, but even so, he's at 143 over just the past 2 seasons, and only entering his age-26 season. There's more to player value than just OPS+, of course, but Harper looks to be in the range of MLB's top hitters. Stanton was at 144 career OPS+ when he signed his deal (and his deal included an opt out and a few arbitration seasons, so Harper's is actually "cheaper" in a way). I prefer Arendao's and Machado's position and defense, but their career mark are only 121 OPS+. Cano had a 126 OPS+ when he signed his contract. A-Rod was at 136 when he signed his first big deal, and 147 when he signed his second. Teixeira, 134. Mauer, 136. (Through that lens, you can sort of see why Pujols got his deal, despite his age and positional limitations -- he had an incredible 170 OPS+ for his career at the time!) If Harper had ever repeated that career season, he probably could have gotten $400 million or more. As it is, $330 mil doesn't seem too out of line.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    I know you said you don't care for context, but you're assuming a fairly specific context when you interpret "and that's where it's going to stay" to mean that he doesn't like coaching in general. And judging by the many media reports containing this quote (at MLB.com, Pioneer Press, Star Tribune, etc.), it seems unlikely that the context of Buxton's discussion with this group of reporters was anything as remotely controversial as a general rejection of coaching.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    Is Philly really out of the picture? They're still $18 mil under the luxury tax threshold, and I think they can go over that a bit without any draft/international penalties (only paying a tax). Edit to add: looks like Philly could spend quite a bit more, if they wanted. http://m.mlb.com/glossary/transactions/competitive-balance-tax
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    It's a bit apples and oranges, though. Harper is already a RF, and perhaps not a good one if 2018 metrics are to be believed. He'd be less likely to get another big money deal around age 31 than Machado or Arenado.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    But taking a short term deal at $33 mil AAV is far from a guarantee he'd eventually average $33 mil over the next 13 years. This was probably his best chance to cash in, due to his age. It would be a big risk to punt that and hope he'd be healthy and coming off a big season when his short term deal would end.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    A lot, relative to $330 million?
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