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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    I was curious, so I looked at some numbers. Overall, the Twins have a 107 wRC+, 10th among MLB teams (not including pitchers). K% is 15th at 23.6%. BABIP is 22nd at .283. (League average is 23.6% K% and .289 BABIP) With runners on base, we are still 10th with a 113 wRC+, although we fall to 23rd in K% (although the rate itself is virtually the same, 23.7%). Our BABIP climbs to 9th at .309. (League average is 107 wRC+, 22.4% K%, and .297 BABIP) With runners in scoring position, we fall to 19th at 99 wRC+, and 23rd again with a 24.4% K%. Our BABIP in these situations is tied for 25th at .272. (League average is 105 wRC+, 23.0% K%, and .295 BABIP)
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Plenty of other teams would take Sano at league minimum salary right now -- but the Twins don't have that option. Cutting Sano right now, given the current state of our roster, should be off the table. Buxton and Kepler would both have to return and establish they are fully healthy to remotely justify it (sliding Kirilloff to first base), although by then other circumstances may change too (i.e. another injury, or a potential Cruz trade).
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    Alex Colomé and the 2021 Twins: bringing families together...
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Archer also had two reasonable team option years beyond that.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    Off the top of my head, the Twins did it with Rick Aguilera in 1995-1996. The Cubs did it with Jason Hammel in 2014-2015. It's not common, but the sample is fairly small and biased against re-signing -- usually the team trading the player has a replacement ready, or no longer desires the player's services (i.e. a rebuilding club). No surprise that the handful of examples are pitchers, since teams usually need an abundance of pitchers. Edit: just remembered the Mets did it with Jeurys Familia in 2018-2019, and the Brewers with K-Rod in 2013-2014. Edit 2: not deadline deals, but Cliff Lee and JA Happ were traded in one offseason, then re-signed with those clubs the next offseason.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    Really? It seems like the Twins 2021 season has largely been characterized by a failure to drive in baserunners, untimely fielding errors, plus some bullpen struggles. Those seem like interesting ways to lose, no? As compared to falling behind early and never mounting a serious challenge to even the score.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    Wrong Pedro.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    Noting that the Twins have largely refused to use him in close games the past month is “extreme lengths”? May appearances in tie/hold/save situations: Rogers 11, Robles 11, Duffey 8, Thielbar 4, Alcala 4, Colomé 3 It’s not just random luck that Colomé hasn’t been in many close games, it has been a deliberate decision — one of many that I have no control over. And Colomé gave up all 3 of his runs (and left 2 inherited runners for the next pitcher) in those 3 tie/hold games too. It is hard to accumulate much value in relief, given those circumstances and performances. He has absolutely performed better in May than April, but I would not rank his May performance ahead of Polanco, Garver, Larnach, Refsynder, or Berrios, and probably a few other guys too.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    The Twins have been pretty upfront about reducing Colomé’s leverage, so that’s not really an accident. He was generally 4th or 5th on the RP depth chart, which his leverage index reflects. Like I said before, that other poster was mistakenly referring to full season stats rather than just May. Colomé clearly does not belong on a 5 worst list for May, you are correct about that. But Colomé should not be considered among the 5 best Twins in May either. His RA9-WAR of 0.2 for the month would rank 4th among just pitchers, but overall it would only be tied for 11th on the team. We actually had a handful of hitters do pretty well this past month, even if you penalize a few for situational hitting (although it would seem a bit contradictory to simultaneously boost Colomé despite his meager situational value for the month).
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    5+ runs would be crazy low leverage. Late innings, down by 2-3 runs or more is generally considered low leverage (and the pitchers teams generally use in those situations confirms that). It wasn't exclusively a low-leverage month for him, but Colomé's average game-entering leverage index (gmLI) for May was 0.73: https://www.fangraphs.com/players/alex-colome/6661/game-log?type=5&gds=2021-05-01&gde=2021-05-31&season=&position=P That indeed qualifies as "low leverage" per Fangraphs: An LI of 1 is average. Anything above 1 is above average and anything below it is below average. We bin the situations into three groups (Low: 0-0.85, Medium: 0.85-2.0, High: 2.0+) 7 of Colomé's May appearance were "low leverage" by this definition, 3 were medium, and 1 was high. The White Sox game you mention was his 3rd highest at 0.99, so it was right about average leverage. He was followed in that game by Thielbar and Alcala, with the score unchanged, to give you an idea about how the Twins approached that situation.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    I think the other poster was quoting full season numbers rather than just May. Although Colomé has been a lower leverage pitcher this past month. His only high leverage appearance was that walk off loss in Cleveland.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    Sano missed 13 games while on the injured list. Otherwise, he's started 35 of 40 games (and 3 of those games off came in his first 10 days off the IL). By comparison, Donaldson has started 39 of 43 games when he hasn't been on the IL, Kepler 35 of 42, and Simmons 40 of 43. For guys that were hurt but didn't go on the IL, Polanco has started 46 of 49 games and Cruz 42 of 44 (but never in the field). So, pretty close to Sano's usage.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    Looks like he didn’t miss bats in the 5th. Here is the xBA of the 5th inning PA: .520 single, .400 single, .080 RBI groundout, .420 single, .180 single, walk
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    The comp pick has value, although it wouldn’t be selected until 2023 and probably wouldn’t be ready for MLB until 2025-2026 at least. Even a top 150 prospect, who’s ready in the next ~2 years, could be more valuable for a team, just due to being further along the development schedule. See what the Jays did with Stroman.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Gray had 2.5 years of control when traded, and Quintana had 2.5 plus a team option for 3.5. Berrios is already down to 1.5.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    I think most acquiring teams would want to keep the player through 2022, although a few frugal/fringe ones could change course — think Milwaukee trading Greinke, or the A’s dealing Samardzija. But I think in both of those cases, the second trade return was considered less than the first, although Addison Russell eventually turned into a bust and the A’s got more value out of Semien/Bassitt.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Twins Pythag: 23-26 (BaseRuns 24-25) KC Pythag: 21-26 (BaseRuns same) Baltimore Pythag: 19-30 (BaseRuns 20-29) Yes, we're missing Buxton now, but KC is missing Duffy as noted above. We've also dropped our worst 4 offensive performers of the season so far (Cave, Jeffers, Rortvedt, and Rooker, all wRC+ at 43 or below) and replaced them with 98-112 wRC+ performers (not even counting Refsynder).
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    Also note that KC's leading performer by both bWAR and fWAR has been pitcher Danny Duffy, who is currently sidelined indefinitely. The Twins may also miss their #2 pitcher by fWAR (Brady Singer) the next two weekends.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    Thanks for doing the research, Matthew. Another factor is going to be supply. One team to watch is the Giants -- they are currently in the race but are widely predicted to fall back at some point, and they have 4-5 pending FA SP who are doing pretty well, including arguably the best in Gausman. If the Nationals fall back, Scherzer would be an elite SP target too. I'm sure Berrios would have suitors too, but teams looking to go all-in and give up top prospects may have other, better targets.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Arraez to the IL.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    First *road* series win since April 7. We won 2 out of 3 with the Royals at home in a series which concluded on May 2nd (actually our only home series win of the season so far).
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    It's exceptionally challenging to throw the ball onto the tee!
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    Your description of "it wasn't even close" isn't very close itself. Keep in mind the zone is three-dimensional (and the box you see on TV isn't "official"). In fact, on closer inspection, it looks like the umpire deserves credit for calling it where it crossed the front of the plate, not where it hit the catcher's glove. Here's that pitch crossing the front of the plate on TV: Here's a 3-D illustration of that pitch up to the front of the plate from Baseball Savant: Here's how it was recorded clipping the zone on Gameday: And finally, Karinchak's whole strikezone plot from BrooksBaseball.net (which shows a wider "effective" zone as oppose to the strict rulebook zones above) -- the called strike to Sano is the red square on the bottom border, setting up the lower swinging strike: Really a well-executed pitch/sequence by Karinchak too.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    Duffey spent time in the minors in 2016, 2018, and 2019. So by opening day 2020, even though Duffey had played in 5 MLB seasons by that point, he only had about 3 and a half years of MLB service time.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    Yes, Maeda was hurt:
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