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
    Mark Lowe?
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    True, but obviously both Sipp and Bastardo have had more success, more recent success, and better tools/components than Abad. They're don't offer equivalent upside or downside risk, no matter how much no player is a sure thing. Low ceiling? Lowe and Bastardo are both coming off a 10.0 K/9 and solid playoff performances. This team thought twice about promoting guys like Rogers over Aaron Thompson among others last year. I'd rather see a better Plan A now than hope they change their philosophy about when to go to Plan B down the road.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    I would have really liked to find out what Rogers in particular could offer our pen last year, but it didn't happen. It wasn't guys like Bastardo or Lowe blocking that, it was apparently Aaron Thompson, AJ Achter, Logan Darnell, innings for JR Graham, etc. I don't have any particular interest in finding out how much we can "fix" Abad for up to 2 arbitration seasons.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Not only that, but the Twins are starting for a baseline of "mediocre pen." We'll need minor leaguers to step up just to offset departures and maintain that over the next few years. If we want to have a serious shot at a good or even excellent pen one of these years, it would probably help to add high-ceiling talent in whatever way possible. FA, promotions, even trades. Probably not trying to "fix" Abad...
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    Those suspensions are unpaid, so I doubt it was a factor. If Bastardo gets suspended, the Mets would effectively have him on a 1/6 contract for one of the next two seasons, roughly the same as our current commitment to Jepsen (and without having to give up prospects to acquire him too).
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    Do you think the Twins minor league system will produce at least 4 MLB quality relievers by opening day 2017? Not only do the Twins easily have an opening or two right now, but Jepsen is a FA after 2016 and Fien will likely be too expensive for a "6th inning guy." And that's not even addressing Perkins or May, who have question marks themselves. I actually don't mind having confidence in youngsters, etc., but the excuse that the Twins don't have the flexibility to add a reliever on TWO YEAR CONTRACT is completely without basis in reality. Also, even with your one year contract limit, Benoit and K Rod (2017 team option) were salary dumps on one year contracts. Storen and Chapman were on one-year contracts. Lowe and Bastardo each signed 2 year deals that are largely the same as if we were somehow able to get an extra arbitration season out of Jepsen in 2017.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    I think they'd like that, and we'd obviously all like for those new guys to step up, but I'm not sure it's an honest evaluation of those chances that is driving our inactivity. In fact, their 2015 approach with Rogers and other past bullpen moves suggest they're content to count less on potential excellence from our youth, and more on mediocrity from vets. (Also, Melotakis hasn't thrown a competitive pitch in 17 months, with 16 innings at AA as his highest previous level of experience. No level of "secret weapon in our instructional leagues" could give him a meaningful chance to break camp with the club this spring.)
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    I think you're reading it wrong. It's about avoid situations where you have to act out of desperation. The Twins didn't do that from 2012-2014 with their rotation, they didn't do it with their 2015 bullpen, and they're not doing it now for 2016. The moves the Twins made in those situations weren't all bad -- I liked the original Hughes deal, and the Jepsen trade -- but when in desperate situations, the solutions you find are often a mixed bag or not enough. A 2/12 type reliever acquisition isn't a desperation move (yet), it's a prudent proactive move to reduce the likelihood of imminent desperate situations. That's the kind of activity I would like to see next from TR.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    I think it's possible the Twins had a payroll cap in mind this winter, and blew it all on Park. I'm not too concerned about payroll, but I am about priorities.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    Although Sale was pretty dominant otherwise, so it wound up being ~4 games over the course of the season, all against a single team. The Twins had his number, and no one else did, so the White Sox weren't able to successfully address the problem. Not sure how easily that theory translates to a reliever like Abad. He got lit up by all 4 of his divisional opponents last year, which suggests familiarity hurt him, but that would have to be a pretty obvious "tell" to be exploited by at least 4 different teams over the course of a full season, and in that case, why wasn't Oakland able to address it?
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Thanks. One thing to note about Samardzija and Abad, they've both had rather inconsistent results over their whole careers.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    So Price and Pettitte had single-game episodes of pitch-tipping. Do you know any examples where it was left unchecked to derail a pitcher's whole season? Obviously a reliever pitches fewer innings to begin with, but it seems like a long time if that was really the primary factor in his 2015 results. Even after the season, Oakland cut Abad over $1.5 mil which would seem unusual if the explanation for fixing him was relatively simple.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    Agreed here too. I'm all for using internal options, if you're going to actually use them, and aggressively. Preferring mediocre vets, minor league journeymen, and guys you're looking to cut from the 40-man roster anyway has been more the rule around here lately. I wanted them to acquire another good Jepsen-type reliever, to improve the pen but also as proof that the above state of affairs was over.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Agreed. Which makes it extra frustrating that, despite having no apparent interest in participating in the FA RP market, the team still didn't bother investigating some of their top internal options last year (i.e. Rogers). Also, I don't know if simply "more PA vs LH than RH" equals "used pretty well" for a guy like O'Rourke. Everything about his record screams extra strict LOOGY, sort of strange he was the one they promoted if they were looking for a reliever to, say, get some key outs vs RH in a game against the Yankees. (Once they finally get around to putting Rogers in the pen, he might be that guy, but probably never O'Rourke.)
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    O'Rourke managed a .261 wOBA and 38.8 K% vs LHB in his limited MLB duty last year. I'd say that's delivering some results, although as Nick points out, it's not clear that the Twins are willing to aggressively use a reliever in LOOGY fashion.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    The odds of Williams or Melotakis making the opening roster are about as good as me winning the lottery. Williams threw only 33 innings in 2015, with only 10 career IP above A-ball, and Melotakis threw zero innings last year, with 16 career IP above A-ball. And none of the FA pitchers on this list will sign for more than one year.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Does Abad really look fine on paper? Year - ERA+ - gmLI - wOBA vs LHB 2012 - 80 - 0.69 - .337 2013 - 114 - 0.60 - .346 2014 - 238 - 1.15 - 249 2015 - 97 - 0.72 - .364 For some context, MLB LHP wOBA vs LHB as a whole has been .286-.295 the last 4 years. Duensing for his career has been .273 vs LHB and .353 vs RHB. Even RHP JR Graham managed a .338 vs LHB last year. And Tim Stauffer had a 0.62 gmLI in mop-up work for the Twins last year. Outside of 2014, Abad has been a mop-up man the past 4 years, with results somewhere between awful and mediocre for a left-handed reliever
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    Mr. Goin, you may need to make more liberal use of emoticons in your posts here.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    Sure enough, Nick Blackburn's OPS against in 2010 was an exact match (.839) for David Ortiz's OPS in 2002!
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    The big question: if your day as GM had been today, would you have claimed Mike Strong?
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    I was just letting you know that real trades rarely work that way (acquiring 40-man roster players en masse). Rebuilding teams generally want 40-man flexibility too, so they can claim guys, make Rule 5 picks, etc.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    How do you define "old team"? That definitely feels stronger in your narrative than in the numbers. Their 2015 team had an average age of 28.3 on offense, and 28.7 on the pitching staff, versus 28.5 and 28.3 respectively for the whole league. They didn't really sign any older guys, except 2 years older at closer. Only 3 guys in their whole lineup, and 2 guys in their whole bullpen, will even be 30+ in 2016. Outside of Victor Martinez, the oldest guy on the team will be 34. Their rotation is headed by a 30 year old. They're not particularly young, but they're not particularly old either. They're basically average. I guess it's just not as interesting to say they're an average age team with an .500 projection? The narrative that is unreasonable to me is that they're so old that "they'll struggle to reach 75 wins unless everything goes right" in 2016. That seems based more on sticking with your pre-2015 prediction and the raw 74 win total than what has actually taken place in Detroit the past year.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    I'm definitely with you on acquiring a reliever. But would you add Polanco to your deal? Or Kepler? Or Gordon, or Jay? Smith is a good setup man now, and that's what your offer represents. But even if he stagnates, he's got 4 years of control left so the Brewers can still get that "good setup man" return 6-12 months from now. And there's a chance he breaks out in the closer role and his value goes way beyond that too. And Gonsalves is nice, but alone does very little for a desperate Brewers club. They need to take a chance at swinging for the fences here, something closer to the Ken Giles blockbuster return.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    And they were on pace for 82 wins when Cabrera went down, and even 79.5 when they waved the white flag at the trading deadline a month later. They didn't massively underperform across the board in 2015, they had a few big individual underperformers and then, as I said, they threw in the towel on the season. Acting like they already went all 2011 Twins is an exagerration that is coloring your outlook for them. You are free to predict that "they'll struggle to reach 75 wins unless everything goes right" -- but let's be clear, that is more based off your pessimistic feelings about them going forward than any neutral projection based on actual 2015 data. Simply put, you are letting your narrative select the numbers, rather than letting the numbers dictate the narrative.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    The 2011 Twins weren't particularly younger than the 2015 Tigers, judging by average ages on B-Ref. Remember Thome and Pavano were huge parts of that team, and I think you've been over-estimating the Tigers age in a couple discussions. 2015 Tigers OPS+: 106 2011 Twins OPS+: 85 Closer on pitching staff 2015 Tigers ERA+: 85 2011 Twins ERA+: 89 So even with their troubles, they were well ahead of the 2011 Twins. Of course, the Twins staff was pretty thoroughly mediocre too, while the Tigers staff was/is much more stars-and-scrubs. If they can replace the scrubs, which they seem to have done in the bullpen and as markos suggests they could do in the very back of the rotation, they should bounce back OK. The 2012 Twins staff was pretty much sunk when Scott Baker went down with an elbow injury in August 2011 (although they gamely tried to rest and rehab him back to spring training).
×
×
  • Create New...