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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Those FA starters may have cost more, leaving less room for other additions, and/or been not as good in the team's eyes. I mean, there's a finite number of these guys -- it's possible the team liked Sonny Gray more than the comparably priced FA starters (Alex Cobb? Alex Wood? Yusei Kikuchi?).
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    How would we feel about this trade if we were Reds fans? The Reds aren't a great team, but they've been in the hunt the last 2 years. They have the reigning 2021 NL Rookie of the Year (Jonathan India), plus an elite prospect on the cusp of MLB (Hunter Greene). They don't have anyone significant who is in their walk year in 2022, and Joey Votto looks like he may have some baseball life left. And they were already an estimated $10 mil below their 2021 payroll, and $14 mil below 2019. I think many of their fans would have wanted an immediate addition to the roster, and would be be frustrated that instead they shed further payroll in exchange for a guy that they passed on in the last draft (Reds picked 17th, Petty was chosen 26th), with no track record, who is at least 3-4 years away from contributing anything (if he contributes anything).
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    Just above mediocre? Gray's WAA (Wins Above Average) ranked 30th among all MLB pitchers last year. He ranked 6th by that measure in 2019. Gray's WAA has been higher than that of Berrios in each of the last 3 seasons.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Gray will be 34 years old by then. We should be able to extend him or re-sign him, if we want — he’s unlikely to get a big long-term offer from anyone at that age.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    I take it you don't like replay challenges to see if a guy came off the base. I agree, but "allowing for a short lack of contact" wouldn't fix it -- it would just change the criteria from "did he come off the base?" to "did he come off the base enough?". The only way to address that would be to change the replay rules. If we could get rid of the challenge system, and replace it with an extra replay ump on a short time limit, that would probably take care of it -- just overturn the obviously wrong calls, but don't spend a few minutes looking at a runner's contact with a base in slow-motion.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    Rumor of Twins interest in Johnny Cueto:
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    One falafel with a side of garv sauce, coming right up!
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    I think I understand — GMs are less likely to get invited to offseason player birthday parties, right?
  9. Otto von Ballpark
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    Interesting note: the Rangers organization used Kiner-Falefa for 30-some games at catcher each year from 2016-2019.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    But, Garver only has 2 more years of team control (same as Kiner-Falefa). And he’s already 31 years old. That looks like “short FA contract” value, rather than good trade value.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    Baseball Trade Values thinks this is pretty close to even:
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    The players union never even proposed a salary floor, and their top proposal for a minimum salary (the de facto salary floor) was only ~$800k or so -- roughly $21 mil for a 26-man roster. The frugal A's have been through several cycles of trading established players for prospects, and haven't picked higher than #6 overall since 1998. All of these new draft rules seem to be a solution in search of a problem.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Waiver claim rules are getting a tweak too:
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    The Twins play the NL West this year, including August 26-28 vs San Francisco. Although Rodon may be on the IL by then anyway.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    Per MLBTR, there have been ~7 FA deals in the first 24 hours since the lockout officially ended.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Correa, Story, Iglesias, and Villar are the remaining FA shortstops.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    Part of me feels relief, but part of me also feels bad for Cubs fans. At least they have low expectations.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    The Mets have Robinson Cano returning this year -- and they still owe him $20.25 mil this year and next. I don't know that the Mets would let Davis go cheaply, but they signed Escobar, Marte, and Canha before the lockout, pushing Davis toward irrelevance on their depth chart.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Good point. 10 day minimum MLB roster stint after being recalled would be a nice complement to the 10 day minimum a player has to spend in the minors after they are optioned. And making it affect the actual roster, and not just money, would prevent free-spending teams from taking a big advantage over frugal teams in this area.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    Some of those 1-day call-ups only exist because of the doubleheader roster expansion rule. Does the union view that as a problem, or as a new MLB job they created? What you could do is give players a minimum of X days salary/service time for each call-up. (Further increases in minimum salary would help here too.) 5 days might be a logical level, considering the standard starting rotation — SPs may be at a disadvantage as the most likely 1-day guys? That way, players could still only be on the roster for 1 day if that is all the MLB team needs, but they would get 5 times the compensation for it (~$18.8k instead of ~$3.7k at the new minimum salary). Maybe cheap teams would keep them up for the duration too, to get their money’s worth.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    Too low and it could be a negative for a certain class of players. For some guys, their availability to be called up and sent down freely is a decent chunk of their value to the team. Take away that flexibility, and they are more likely to get DFA’d and/or lose out on service time/salary/benefits. Of course, someone else will still take the roster spot, although they may not be a union member until that time, or they may not have the seniority of the cut player. Gets into the tricky question of whether the union has an interest in spreading out call-ups among more AAA guys, or maxing out the call-ups for the best ones.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    You may be right. Just eyeballing some recent Twins, it looks like Gordon was called up 5 times last year. In 2019, Littell and Smeltzer were both called up 5 times; depending on how they count things, Cave was on the opening day roster and then optioned and recalled 4 times after that. That’s as far as I have looked so far. But, perhaps an official limit of 5 may cause teams to be a little more judicious with them? Not a huge effect, but even if it’s rare to need 6, teams may try to maximize flexibility by avoiding maxing out at 5 until it’s late enough or absolutely necessary. And knowing that they are being counted, teams may be a little less inclined to “waste” one of the call-ups on a short-term stay? We could see teams spread out their call-ups, especially the short-term ones, a little bit further down the depth chart — for example, 1 of Littell’s 2019 call-ups could have gone to a different pitcher.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    We could use an immediate DH. If the cost in trade isn’t very high, Davis could be a useful addition for us.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    2019-2020 was a long time ago?
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