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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    I think "vastly" is the problematic word here. In baseball, "vastly superior" is the difference between Kershaw and Correia for one game. The difference between Gibson and May/Pelfrey/Milone for 25% of a playoff rotation cannot be described as "vast."
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    It doesn't appear anywhere except Twins Daily. Jeremy, could doubts about your source be holding this back from, say, MLBTR? Looking back at Jeremy's article, the Rockies' "top target" is Gibson and "they've also asked for" Sano. I interpret that as meaning they would want both for Tulo. That's a high price, but it's mostly on the Sano side, as he still has superstar upside (and still potentially at 3B). I think it was mentioned upthread, but if the Twins offered Gibson + stuff for Tulo, with no Sano/Berrios/Buxton, it might be difficult for the Colorado GM to keep his composure long enough to politely end the conversation and hang up the phone. The idea that the TWINS would be the ones to walk away from such a deal is crazy. EDITED: to add "+ stuff"
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    For the sake of our projected playoff series winning percentage, they are more or less interchangeable. Gibson does not stand out from that group to the degree you claim.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    I like Gibson, but I am pretty sure he has very little effect on our projected playoff series winning percentage over Trevor May.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    "More money" relative to league minimum. It's still just a couple million. Mike Trout is making $6 mil this year, in basically his fourth full season, and he's the best all-around player in the game.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    So the 2003 Twins shouldn't have traded Lohse for A-Rod either, right? Oh, the horror! Only two adequate playoff starters! The Twins have a pile of similar starters for this year's and/or future year's playoffs. None of them are aces. I guess if you want to argue the Twins should hand out a Scherzer contract in FA, I could get behind that, but I think that's less likely than the remote possibility we take on Tulo's remaining deal.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    Can this please be put to rest, once and for all? Sano and Buxton will not even be arbitration eligible until the current Mauer, Santana, Nolasco, Perkins, and Dozier contracts are all complete (and Plouffe will be well into FA by then too). Well, I guess Santana has one vesting option year that might coincide with their first arb season. Hughes also overlaps that first arb season by 1 year. Big whoop. And even the option year on Tulo's contract precedes any potential Buxton or Sano free agency years. And all this assumes Buxton and Sano don't spend any more time in the minors. For any prospects who have yet to appear in MLB -- Berrios, Kepler, etc. -- the timeline is even further out. There is absolutely no internal financial reason the Twins couldn't support the entirety of Tulo's remaining contract.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    The Twins have 6 starters right now, all but one under contract/control for 3+ more seasons after this one, plus Berrios in AAA and the ghost of Ricky Nolasco still roaming the halls of Target Field. The Twins don't appear to trust any of our internal shortstop candidates (and that mistrust appears justified, even if they haven't been ranking those options optimally). Obviously it would be even better if Tulo was a catcher, but he's not, and there doesn't seem to be a comparable catching acquisition on the horizon.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    League context -- Gibson's K/9 compared to the 2015 league rate is not as good as Radke's in the late 1990's. Gibson's ERA+ now trails two full Radke seasons, and his FIP- trails NINE full Radke seasons.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    The OPS is solid, but Tulo's ISO and BB% are down, his K% is up, and he's more reliant on BABIP than before... could be signs of decline, although it could be relatively painless if it's gradual and not sudden like Mauer's 2014.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Good point, but I don't think that lineup is THAT good. The 2014 Dodgers, who had a pretty good lineup, survived the Ellis/Butera tandem at catcher but opted to replace it in the offseason. Jeff Mathis was that kind of catcher on a few Angels teams, but even he only once topped 300 plate appearances.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    Gibson is on a real nice run, but I think you could make a package around him too, no? I mean, I know it's disruptive to our MLB season, but if Colorado was willing to accept Gibson plus prospects (not Berrios, Sano, or Buxton), you'd have to consider it just as much as a Berrios-led package. More likely, Colorado would demand Gibson AND Berrios and that would give me pause.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    Perhaps, but I think this is a slight mischaracterization. That wasn't a proposal by Luhnow, it was a "a headliner like Giolito" mentioned in response to an inquiry on Harrell. Hard to say what it was exactly, without more context -- maybe Luhnow knew Washington was looking to get Harrell basically for free (he was struggling) but Luhnow wasn't interested in giving him away yet, and was just trying to use the opportunity to spark a larger deal discussion, maybe not even for Giolito but a lesser Washington prospect who could still fit his term "headliner." Heck, Giolito was just 9 innings into his pro career at that point, maybe they were just trying to gauge how Washington saw his value. Interestingly, 5 days after telling Baltimore that a Bud Norris deal was unlikely without Dylan Bundy, the Astros traded Bud Norris to Baltimore for much, much less than Dylan Bundy. So who really knows how actual deals start and end.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Not just Lucroy, but basically all of our potential catching targets have this risk. Derek Norris has a 91 OPS+ this year. Plawecki hasn't done anything yet. Phegley is 27 years old and was deemed expendable by the White Sox. Susac has been good but far from great, and he'd probably be the hardest to get because his team is very much in contention and has an asset at catcher they want to protect. Tulowitzki is guaranteed to be a very good MLB player right now and for the immediate future, with a demonstrated potential for spikes of greatness too. If a Berrios led package could do it, I think you'd have to pull the trigger rather than save him and wait for a good young catcher that may not exist.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    It's thoroughly ridiculous, but at least one of those players would probably be a headliner in an actual Lucroy trade. Unlike the Twins Daily proposals, which seemingly all start with Arcia these days, or Plouffe if we're lucky. (In fairness, the most unrealistic trade proposals here seem to come from the least frequent / less veteran members. If only there was a filter that could detect outlandish trade proposals and block those posts...)
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    I think a Tulo trade should be easier. With the money owed and their record, the Rockies have some incentive to move him (not give him away, but motivation to actually consummate a deal). There are only a handful of catchers that meet your criteria out there, and their teams don't necessarily have strong incentive to move them. You might have to give up the same players you'd give up for Tulo to make something happen today, and you'd likely get a lesser player than Tulo in return.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    We have a team option on Perkins for 2018. Mauer and Perkins will both be 36 years old in the 2019 season. I doubt we have to worry much about extending them for that season. They might be lucky to finish their current contracts as effective players (particularly Mauer).
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    We can't let past bad contracts prevent us from adding good players, though. If we are seriously debating acquiring Troy Tulowitzki, we should not shrug and say "if only we hadn't signed Nolasco..."
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    Much easier said than done.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    I'm with Dave here. Berrios is a very nice prospect, but he probably doesn't belong in the same group as Sano or Buxton (very few pitching prospects probably do).
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    You're not going to ever be able to sign a similar player for 5/94 with a 6th year option. That's Ramirez/Sandoval money from this past winter. That's why I am not opposed to spending even more for the right player, but I don't think many big time shortstops are set to hit the market either.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    That's not that unusual, is it? Matt Holliday had a 1.072/.810 home/road OPS split in Colorado (ages 24-29). Since then? .911/.842 split in St. Louis, ages 30-35.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    A player with great raw HR power can still be a near-replacement level player. A team trading for Arcia now, or in a year if he's still treading water near replacement level, will indeed only offer "next to nothing", as you say. That's the very definition of Arcia's trade value approaching zero.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    So we're really talking about different things then. You're projecting Arcia to improve, which is fine, but it doesn't change the fact that he has more or less stagnated as a nearly average hitter (and nearly replacement level player) from age 21-24. Thus, his trade value has been steadily dropping. And unless he shows some improvement in the next 1.5 years, his value is going to be darn near zero entering his arbitration seasons. Might still be worth keeping around depending on our roster construction (i.e. we don't have better DH options). Either way, not much we can do now but wait and hope he starts showing some more of that talent.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    He hits, but roughly around league average so far. If he sticks in this league as a starter, it will be because of significant improvement in some facet of his game (hitting or defense) that he has yet to show.
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