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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Royals still have something to play for too. They are tied with Toronto for home field, although they lose a head to head tiebreaker. Toronto's magic number for home field is 3, hopefully it is down to 1 by the end of the night Friday...
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    There's nothing remotely "self defense" related about throwing a pitch at a batter, or spanking a child.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    Berrios almost certainly would have improved the results. Even if his only appearance was the August 14 spot start and he lost it, Trevor May probably wins us at least a game staying in the pen that week. Any other benefit from Berrios would have been icing on the cake (and there was more potential benefit, most easily in the form of just being the first man out of the pen in close games ahead of Achter and Graham, not to mention other starts or even possibly forcing his way into later inning appearances).
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    How do you write this without mentioning Berrios? That's the biggest "what if" for me, and it's notable because it doesn't require hindsight, better health, a trade partner, unforeseeable circumstances, or anything really. He was right there, in the face of an obvious need on August 1st, ready and presumably very willing to be promoted or at least managed with an eye toward a later promotion.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    Still, when you are willing to give Pelfrey that level of leash, and the first guys up out of the pen are Graham and Duensing to pitch in multiple innings each, and our offense was silent and/or the other team's pitchers cruising, I don't think you can point to one play like that as a real difference-maker. You can make a good argument that Pelfrey should have been pulled before Lindor's plate appearance, and certainly after with 2 runners on and Carlos Santana due up. Could have gone with a higher-leverage arm like May to try getting out of the jam and maybe pitch another inning, and then let Hughes start an inning fresh as a "second starter" if you will. An out call there probably just means the trouble is shifted to the third inning from the second, but the same basic problems remained for the Twins.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    According to this tool, an out on that play would have reduced their chance by about 5%. http://gregstoll.dyndns.org/~gregstoll/baseball/stats.html#V.0.1.0.1
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    The "SABR crowd" generally doesn't think that much of WPA except as a fun toy as John uses it here, charting the path of a game. It's an opportunity stat, although one nice thing about it compared to RBI is it works negatively too. If Mauer grounded out there instead of doubling, he would have seen a tiny negative WPA penalty. But if Sano grounded out after Mauer's double, he would have seen a larger negative WPA penalty. In terms of WPA, with greater opportunity comes greater risks and greater rewards. Another benefit over RBI is setting up a run has some value, even if as we see in the Mauer example it's not as big as actually driving in the run (although in later innings the two events are probably closer in value).
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    Mauer's double was obviously nice, but in terms of WPA, no, he should not get credit for what followed. With 2 outs and nobody on, Mauer had very little risk of negative WPA in his plate appearance. Sano and Plouffe had the risk of stranding a runner at second. WPA is an opportunity stat, like RBI, just have to keep that in mind.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    7 innings / 100 pitches isn't innings/pitch management, that's just normal usage. I'll drop it since I just noticed the title of the thread.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    That's an argument to hold on to depth, not to do nothing (especially not to hold back potential plus players from a pennant race). In fact, the Twins did something with Tyler Duffey, limiting his pitches/innings in both of his August AAA starts, and giving him two MLB spot starts when they presented themselves (forcing the first on 3 days rest for Duffey). While it took an injury to get him up here, the Twins put him in that position and I give them some credit for that. The Twins had basically the exact same opportunity to do it with Berrios too, but chose not to. They did not limit his pitches/innings in any of his August AAA starts, and passed on an obvious opportunity to give him a MLB spot start audition on August 14 (which instead became a bullpen game, and loss with a bad bullpen, instead). Things have had a way of working themselves out in our bullpen since that point too, although not often for the better...
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    It's beyond silly to restrict the possible innings limitation to June and July. By the end of July, after those first 2 AAA starts you mention, he was breezing through AAA lineups, and he was still about 57 innings under his +20% limit. As an example of a young pitcher breaking into the bigs, Duffey has thrown 51 MLB innings since the beginning of August, with one start remaining. If the Twins wanted Berrios in the MLB rotation next to Duffey this year, with another starter sliding to the pen, or a spot start evaluation of Berrios for potential pen duty himself, it was easily accomplished beginning in August. (As an aside, I also hate automatically referring to scuffles in his first start or two as "growing pains" at a new level -- that is a possibility, but remember players are people that have to pack up and move when they are promoted too. Berrios also had his Futures Game start looming at that time as well. Judging from the stats we have surrounding his two career midseason promotions, Berrios has adjusted to new levels rather quickly.)
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    Also, credit to the Twins for developing Duffey so far and moving him up the AAA depth chart when they did, but remember they didn't even promote him until first Milone got injured for a spot start, and then later after Hughes got injured. Some evidence suggests that moving May back to the rotation may have been their preferred plan when Hughes got hurt too, until Duffey shined in his second spot start. Ultimately, unlike with Berrios they didn't leave much excess value in AAA with Duffey, but we're kinda lucky Milone and Hughes got hurt when they did, or we may not have seen Duffey until it was too late (or wouldn't have seen him in a significant role).
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    First of all, the poster said "he doesn't have much trade value", not "no trade value." It's the arbitration system. Any starter with his service time is going to cost ~$4 mil in arb, but Milone doesn't have the upside to suggest a lot of potential excess value at that price. Remember, Milone was traded straight up for Sam Fuld not long ago when he still making the minimum and hadn't yet experienced the injuries of his Twins career. The Twins could probably do better than Fuld in trade return for Milone now, but still satisfy the statement "he doesn't have much trade value."
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Carrying over my observation from the game thread: Weird time to have Perkins basically equal his season high pitch count (he threw 28 tonight, and only topped it with a 29 pitch 4 out save against St Louis back in June). What exactly was Molitor thinking? Not only does it cost us the game, it probably sets Perkins confidence level back a bit. Given that everyone pretty much agreed he wasn't 100% or ready to assume his closer duties right away, that usage felt criminal.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Weird time to have Perkins basically equal his season high pitch count (he threw 28 tonight, and only topped it with a 29 pitch 4 out save against St Louis back in June). What exactly was Molitor thinking? Not only does it cost us the game, it probably sets Perkins confidence level back a bit.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    Weird time to hand the game over to Perkins for multiple innings...
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Is May unavailable?
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    Uh, spoiler alert!
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    Key things you left out of that stat line -- Rosario 2015 has a higher ISO (isolated power, SLG - AVG) than Santana 2014, and a much lower BABIP (batting average on balls in play). His overall results aren't as good but they look A LOT more repeatable (in other words, less flukey), well within the expected range based on his minor league numbers too. Rosario is also set in the field. Nothing is guaranteed, of course, but I would be shocked if Rosario crashed next year anything close to the degree than Danny Santana has.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    If there is a chance of us developing a starter that would fit in Nick's list above, I think we have to try it. We're not adding such a starter by trade or FA at this point, and the veterans Hughes, Santana, and Nolasco have had difficulty reaching that standard even in their primes. I would be surprised if none of May, Duffey, or Berrios was in the MLB rotation at the start of next season.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    Interestingly, Trevor May also met that criteria when he was sent to the bullpen earlier this season (if you round up his 7.95 K/9 at the time). Hope we don't see either him or Duffey in next year's pen!
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    Actually Sano wasn't called up until 3 weeks after the Super 2 threshold. Might have cost us a win or two during a rough month of June.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    I think Graham has already had his quota of ill-advised grand slam opportunities this year.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    Nope. Gotta give the 6th starter a rehab start at the MLB level first.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    People weren't calling for Achter specifically as much as saying the Twins needed bullpen reinforcements. Barring an acquisition or a starter conversion, Achter was an easy one to try, which they finally did in August and I thought he more or less failed the audition in low-leverage situations. Not sure why he's first out of the pen and stretched multiple innings twice in very winnable games this week. And it's not like that void on our staff is sudden and unexpected either.
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