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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Shields wasn't a 3 or 4. Ventura didn't pitch like one last year either. Both of those guys had a better ERA+ than any Twins starter since Baker's partial season in 2011, or before that, Johan. And Cueto, despite his mixed results for KC, definitely wasn't acquired to be a 3 or 4 either.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    I like Berrios, but comparisons of minor league numbers rarely indicate a "damn good chance" of anything. Too many guys succeed in the minors but struggle in the majors, or post pedestrian numbers in the minors but eventually prove capable of making the adjustments necessary to succeed in MLB.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    In regards to Sparky and the DH, I stumbled upon this at Wikipedia, referencing a game just before the Twins-Tigers series in 1987: That was the last Toronto victory of the 1987 season. It put the Tigers 3.5 games back with 8 to play -- and they wound up finishing in first, 2 games ahead, thanks to the Blue Jays 7 game losing streak!
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    They would only lose the DH if they moved Herndon to a defensive position. Grubb, Heath, Madlock, and Morrison would have still been on the bench when Morris pinch-ran. Morris also had 2 pinch running appearances during the 1987 season, and 7 in 1983 and 8 in 1980! But only one other pinch running appearance outside those 3 seasons that I can identify (1979) from B-Ref (although it wouldn't surprise me if those records weren't complete). The Tigers did lose the DH late in Game 2 that series, with starting catcher Mike Heath being removed for pinch hitter Johnny Grubb, and DH Matt Nokes shifting to catcher in the 8th inning. Interestingly, since no relief pitcher was used, starter Jack Morris was simply inserted into the lineup in Heath/Grubb's spot in the middle of the 8th inning (and did not wind up taking a turn at bat).
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    According to Fangraphs, he hit 16 of his 28 HR that year to the opposite field: http://www.fangraphs.com/statsplits.aspx?playerid=1857&position=C&season=0&split=4.9 Not exactly a recipe for sustaining that level of power. (Surprisingly, he did almost equal that opposite field ISO/wRC+ rate performance in 2013, although fueled by more doubles over fewer balls in play, due to more strikeouts.) Mauer actually had as many pull HR in 2009 (5) as he did in 2015. Upon moving to Target Field in 2010, his pull ISO and wRC+ actually improved a hair over 2009. http://www.fangraphs.com/statsplits.aspx?playerid=1857&position=C&season=0&split=4.7
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    Morneau was a month away from free agency (and a $8 mil AAV pay cut) when he was traded. It would have been almost unprecedented for a team to extend such a player before his contract was up, and even re-signing him that winter seemed unlikely, simply due to pride (guys tend not to re-sign with the same team for a huge pay cut). And Mauer was still on pace to catch 100 games in 2013 when he got the concussion just days before the Morneau trade. It wasn't at all clear yet that he needed to move to 1B full time.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    I think Morneau's own injury and 3 "meh" seasons at high salary were pretty much 100% responsible for the Twins not re-signing him. The DH spot was also still wide open for either player if the Twins wanted to keep both for 2014.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    The key isn't just trying to sign him longer, it's to sign him earlier. The Twins didn't ink him for 4/33 until Mauer already had a ton of leverage, having just won a batting title and guaranteed at least a $3.3 mil arbitration award. Maybe the Twins tried to lock him up earlier, but all the evidence we have suggests otherwise -- the length and timing of Joe's deal is virtually identical to that of Milton, Guzman, Mays, Radke, Hunter, and Santana. Despite Target Field getting approved in 2005, they didn't begin committing any of their future windfall to players until at least 2008. I believe the Twins approached Joe with a Metrodome-era-budget mindset, and it doesn't take hindsight to suggest that was the wrong approach.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    Using RA9-WAR, the K/9 leading rotations that you noted ranked 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, and 28. Using ERA- as I used, 2, 6, 8, 10, 12, 25 By either measure, they were 5 good starting staffs plus the Padres. What you claimed offered a better correlation with success than K/9 was BB/9. The top 6 teams in BB/9 for 2015 ranked 2, 3, 7, 8, 13, 14 in RA9-WAR. Outside the Padres (who had some notable defensive issues), that's not a materially different correlation than that of K/9. How about BB/9 in 2014? The Twins starters ranked 6th in MLB, and 30th (dead last) in RA9-WAR.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    Not sure why, but Fangraphs only shows 33 recorded pitches for Blackburn, total, under the PitchF/X tab. So I wouldn't exactly trust those speed readings.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Not really. It was pretty clear from the get-go that Mauer was both a budding superstar and a likely Twin for life. I think you can absolutely make a case they should have been more aggressive in locking him up longer and earlier, especially once he returned from his knee injury and Target Field funding was secured in May 2005. Now, maybe Mauer wasn't willing to sign earlier or longer, but given TR's established conservatism and his similar 4-year contract terms from that era (Santana, Hunter, Mays, Guzman, Milton, Radke), I'm inclined to think that TR and the Twins didn't approach Mauer as aggressively as they could have.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    Actually, the Twins bungled Mauer's contract by not signing him earlier. TR waited until AFTER Joe had won a batting title and was arbitration-eligible to sign him to his first multi-year deal, at which point he was only able to secure him through his age-27 season (buying out just one FA year). Then Smith was forced to overpay in years for the right to extend him beyond that. Given that Mauer was a young homegrown cornerstone player, with only 69 games MLB experience and a full year and a half away from arbitration when the Target Field bill was formally approved, he was an obvious candidate for a more aggressive original contract. (FWIW, a 10-year contract signed that year, to begin in 2006, would be expiring right now.)
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    Were a lot of posters claiming that velocity by itself was "it", to the extent that it was "myth" worth busting? As I recall, most complaints about the Twins staff here have focused on K rate. In fact, one of the more common criticisms of the Twins staff this year was that Pelfrey should be tried in the pen specifically because he had good velocity but failed to generate strikeouts as a starter.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    And here are their MLB ranks for starter ERA- (ERA relative to league/park): 10, 2, 8, 25, 6, 12. All top-half in rotation run prevention except for the Padres. Try to filter the effects of defense (FIP-) and it looks even better, with even the Padres jumping up into the top half too. Also, as a group these are not bad teams, and their rotations generally weren't the reason for any missed expectations. Go to Fangraphs and sort team starter performance by FIP- or ERA- and then by K% -- they're not perfect matches, but they're close. BB% is a good match too, but also note that high K% seems to correlate pretty well with low BB% too. http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=sta&lg=all&qual=0&type=1&season=2015&month=0&season1=2015&ind=0&team=0,ts&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=13,a If you're focusing too much on the BB% side of that correlation, as it seems the Twins have done at times, you are probably leaving a lot of effectiveness/predictability/stability on the table.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    I bet Dozier didn't say this at midseason, when people's evaluation of his first half performance landed him in the all-star game.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    In terms of strikeouts relative to league, young Radke was probably better at that than Gibson so far. Also, Radke pitched a lot of innings, even for his era. Combining innings and run prevention, Radke was a legit ace for about 5 years there.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Yup, and like Trevor May in 2014, Buxton only spent about 20 healthy days on the active roster during the time of the 25 player limit in 2015, well short of the 45 day requirement to lose rookie status by that method. http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/official_info/about_mlb/rules_regulations.jsp
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    By WAR, Sano basically equalled Rosario in 2015, despite playing only half the season AND getting a positional DH penalty during that time. Sano accumulated batting runs (Rbat) at basically an equal or higher rate than anyone in the league with that level of playing time not named Trout, Cabrera, Cruz, or Donaldson. Plus, like the Escobar SS decision, much of Sano's lower playing time was out of his control. If Sano had simply been called up on June 8 like Correa, that would have cut the Rosario-Sano games played gap in half. I don't like to reward really small sample guys, like Brett Lawrie 2011, but I think half a season is past that threshold.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    Hicks is a great choice, as evidenced by his near-unananimous selection. Gibson was improved too, although less dramatically than Hicks. Milone obviously improved over his brief 2014 Twins debut, although his actual 2015 performance was more or less in line with his Oakland career. Pelfrey obviously deserves some recognition for his injury comeback, although interestingly his rate stats (including innings per start) and FIP were pretty much identical to his 2013 Twins season. But he finally got his run prevention to be a rough match for his peripherals, as he did in 2 of his 4 full Mets seasons too.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Just to clarify, these numbers aren't WAR (Wins Above Replacement), they are on a runs scale (where roughly 10 runs = 1 win) and they are actually runs above *average*, not replacement. That is an important distinction, because Hicks was roughly replacement level in 2013-2014 (around zero WAR), and roughly average in 2015 (about 1.5 WAR in his partial season). That's the Fangraphs "WAR" evidence of his improvement. Also, note that these are counting stats -- his 2014 season really didn't indicate any "year to year significant improvement" in his game, particularly defensively. His numbers just look better than 2013 because he had less playing time, but he was still pretty bad. His UZR prorated to 150 games in CF was almost identically poor in both 2013 and 2014. The first Fangraphs "WAR" evidence of his defensive improvement was in 2015 (and arguably the same for offense, although his 2014 was boosted by a crazy high walk rate).
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    How does Eduardo Escobar post virtually the same OPS+/wRC+ as 2014, in virtually the same number of games and plate appearances, and get votes for "Most Improved Player"? His defensive metrics didn't change a lot overall at SS between the two seasons either. I guess he did offset a modest drop in BABIP with a spike in power, which is nice, but he was a most improved candidate for 2014, not 2015. Still a good player for 2015, and probably improved a bit further, but I just can't see him anywhere near "most improved." He was already pretty darn good, it's not his fault the Twins buried him behind Danny Santana for awhile.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    What is especially strange is how Perk became option #1 to enter a game with runners on base. That obviously wasn't part of his job as a closer, and it seems like the last place you'd want to deploy him in his current volatile, erratic state. I posted this in the Molitor thread too, but his over-reliance on Perk has been perhaps his most glaring mistake late in the year.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    We know because we needed Duffey to start August 15th regardless of what we did with Berrios, and that is when Duffey staked his claim to further starts. Berrios was needed on August 14th. The only start Berrios could have taken from Duffey would have been his debut start in Toronto. Actually I think most posters assume little more than Berrios getting the August 14th start, keeping May in the pen that week, and perhaps assuming some long relief or more spot start work after that. Berrios didn't need to be a full-time starter or replace anyone (except that bullpen game) to have a tangible impact.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    Hu was fantastic in a playoff start for Charlotte, unfortunately that doesn't show up in the official stat line.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    Ventura might be their ALDS game 1 starter, with Cueto following in game 2.
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