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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    If you are including Baddoo (who never actually played in MLB for the Twins), then you need to include Huascar Ynoa who has been fantastic in the Atlanta rotation this year. Or, drop Baddoo from the team and replace him with Aaron Hicks and/or Robbie Grossman. Liam Hendriks needs to be on this fantasy team; Curtiss has probably earned it too. Slegers, Kinley, Kintzler, and Hildenberger are all currently active too. No catchers? Jason Castro, Kurt Suzuki, Alex Avila. (René Rivera is back too!) (Others qualifying under the Baddoo rule would be Tyler Wells, Deolis Guerra, and Brooks Raley.)
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Following up on my previous post, here are the correct Fangraphs positional WAR values and ranks for the 2021 Twins: C: 0.2 WAR, 9th in the AL 1B: 0.4, 7th 2B: 0.0, 13th SS: 0.7, 7th 3B: 1.2, 2nd RF: 0.1, 11th CF: 2.2, 2nd LF: -0.2, 11th DH: 0.9, 3rd As you can see, Cody's erroneous numbers were wildly inflating our 2B and LF performance, while under-rating our C performance.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    Don't blame WAR here, blame the messenger (sorry, Cody). Cody was looking at the combined overall numbers of everyone who has appeared in LF (from the horizontal position list at Fangraphs). So his quoted number covers 297 PA, 2nd most in the AL (over 10 PA per game!), and includes Arraez's full 0.9 WAR, plus 0.5 WAR for Kirilloff and Garlick. https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=lf&stats=bat&lg=al&qual=0&type=8&season=2021&month=0&season1=2021&ind=0&team=0,ts&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2021-01-01&enddate=2021-12-31&sort=21,d But what he should have been looking at is the vertical drop-down "LF" split -- that will only show the stats accumulated by guys while playing LF. That covers 116 PA (a much more reasonable 4 PA per game), and only 0.2 of Arraez's WAR has been accumulated in LF (and -0.3 WAR for Kirilloff and Garlick). https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=al&qual=0&type=6&season=2021&month=42&season1=2021&ind=0&team=0,ts&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2021-01-01&enddate=2021-12-31&sort=11,d As you can see, Cody's figure is heavily distorted to favor teams who rotate a lot of guys through the spot (like the Twins). It might be interesting when reviewing individual LF options within a team, but it's worthless for comparisons between teams. Our correct LF WAR rank per Fangraphs is 11th in the AL, and 24th in MLB. Twins left fielders to date have performed below replacement level (-0.2 WAR).
  4. Otto von Ballpark

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  7. Otto von Ballpark
    The Rangers made back-to-back trips to the World Series 10 years ago, very nearly winning one of them, with Levine as assistant GM.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    I'm sure Colomé was more valuable than Span at the time, but I don't think you can characterize anyone in this deal as a "free add-on." The Mariners were simply willing to pay a combined $6.45 mil (plus two minor leaguers) for Colomé and Span. I don't think this transaction, or his subsequent trade to Chicago, offers any evidence about Colomé's personality. It's not unusual for non-dominant closers to bounce around a bit once their salaries get high.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    Colomé and Span were set to earn about $11.2 mil in salary for the rest of 2018. So even though the Rays sent $4.75 mil to Seattle, they still saved about $6.45 mil by making that trade.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    Good catch on Colomé, although it was late May (May 25, 2018 to be exact). Colomé was still pretty good back then, but he was making $5 mil, in his first season of non-minimum salary, with increasing arb awards expected in the following two seasons. So the frugal Rays sent him with another salary dump (Denard Span) to Seattle. I'm guessing most pitchers in similar situations are traded (or non-tendered) before the season begins. The Rays don't have a reliever making that much money right now, and neither do the Marlins. I don't know if any other organization would be so money-insensitive to make such a move with an effective reliever at the moment.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Actually 10 runs was pretty close to average. MLB average was 0.52 runs per 1st inning, which would be 11.4 for our 22 games entering today. (The 3 teams ranked ahead of us with 11 runs had each played 1-3 more games than us so far.) The broadcast today noted that we led all of MLB with a .360 AVG in the first inning. But second-fewest first inning HR and walk totals meant those hits didn't translate into above-average run scoring. That sure changed today!
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    To be fair, the Strib eventually published a separate story that was specifically about the Colomé appearance, which is probably why they didn't address it in the game story: https://www.startribune.com/twins-alex-colome-setback/600050989/ Technically, the situation Colomé entered last night was a "low-leverage" situation, as defined by game-entering leverage index. It had a value of 0.55, compared to average/neutral leverage of 1.0 or top reliever leverage of 1.5+. I would have guessed higher, with only a 1-run deficit, but as the road team entering the bottom of the 8th, we had only 1 more chance on offense and our opponent had 2 more. (Also, not factored into leverage index but something Baldelli could consider, but the top 4 in our batting order had just batted in the 8th, so they were unlikely to bat again in the 9th.) But it still felt a little weird, using him in that situation immediately after he lost the game Monday, and while we were trying to stop a losing streak.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    Also: "The Willie Eyre Fixation" could be a good band name!
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Thankfully Astudillo makes his triumphant return to the lineup tonight! (Also that Buxton guy.)
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    On the flip side: - the 2003 Twins were 10-14 on this date, 8 games behind the red-hot Royals - the 2006 Twins were 9-12, 5 games behind the White Sox Those Twins teams had the advantage of Johan, but I feel like the current 2021 roster quality is still closer to those years than to 2011 or 2016. I mean, you'd always rather win than lose, and we definitely need to start winning again soon, but I'm not too pessimistic about 2021 yet.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    I have heard really good things about Lin defensively, suggesting he could be a defensive super-sub. And we were protecting a 1-run lead, and Arraez had already contributed to blowing a 2 run lead in LF. And Arraez’s spot in the order never even came up again, so it didn’t ultimately hurt us at all.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    I’ve seen some speculation that Rocco was intending to remove him, with Berrios lobbying to stay in — then the lobbying was for naught when they were reminded of the rule. Seth suggested that Rocco bought time for a few more warmup pitches for Robles. No official story that I have seen yet.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    I found this reference of players who made their MLB debut in the cleanup spot: https://prestonjg.wordpress.com/2013/03/23/they-batted-cleanup-in-their-first-major-league-game/ Looks like Kris Bryant went 0-for-4 in his 2015 debut (infamously just past the first week of the season ), for a .000/.000/.000 line. And he was back in the cleanup spot the next game. Obviously there could be others meeting your criteria, but this was a quick and easy way to verify that Kirilloff won't be the first.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    Tonight's lineup is posted already -- no Tortuga:
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    In the right context, like if Astudillo was playing catcher competently and posting a 89 wRC+ / 99 OPS+, that would be fine. Or even if he's just filling in somewhere for a game or two a week. But as an everyday 1B right now, I agree with the "uninspiring" description.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    Buxton is sitting out Monday night, unfortunately:
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    By name, Tortuga might be closest thing we have to a Trout. Can't breathe underwater but can hold his breath for a long time.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    These comparisons don't really work for 2020. I mean, they are tricky normally because of unbalanced schedules, but in 2020 teams in different divisions had *completely* unbalanced schedules. Like, zero common opponents. Add to that, the AL Central and NL Central, the Twins' only opponents, were easily the two worst hitting divisions in baseball. So it may have been much easier for Twins pitchers to post a league-average ERA, as compared to Rays or Dodgers pitchers.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    The comment about "worst team" was in the context of Happ's pitching performance, and it might be accurate referring to the Pirates offense. Over 2020-2021, the Pirates are tied with Colorado for the worst team wRC+ in MLB at 76, and right now the Pirates are without by far their best hitter in that time frame (Ke'Bryan Hayes, 196). I don't know that looking at the 20 game sample of 2021 in isolation would be too meaningful yet for this kind of measure. If you want to expand it to overall, keep in mind the Pirates recent pitching and run prevention probably look better than they really are too -- in 2020, the Pirates got to exclusively face the two worst hitting divisions in MLB (the AL & NL Central). The Tigers and Rangers are also very bad teams, so it's definitely debatable overall, but the Pirates still have the worst cumulative W-L record over 2020-2021. FWIW, the Pirates took 2 of 3 in Detroit this week, but both teams scored 9 runs over the series, so it was probably a draw by Pythag.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    The Twins are signing Mike Pelfrey again?
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