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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Nope, it is today. He just needed 21 non-consecutive days in the minors this year, counting from opening day April 1st. So after his one-day MLB appearance in the doubleheader last week, yesterday April 22nd he hit that threshold of 21.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    This was the magic date, since his doubleheader appearance last week. Kirilloff has now spent exactly 21 days on "optional assignment" to the minors this season, which was the minimum required to assure he won't get credit for a full year of service time in 2021.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    Telis was added a couple days ago, when Riddle went on the COVID IL. This was likely just because Telis was on the taxi squad in Oakland (and may have been the last position player left on the taxi squad at that time?). I would expect Telis to be removed from the roster today.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    But Cave actually scored the tying run in the 8th, in a sequence when Cruz would have been unlikely to do so. So if you left Cruz in, we lose before it even goes to extras.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    That is what they said initially, but it sounds like they are backing off that statement now: https://twitter.com/DanHayesMLB/status/1383656194301067265?s=20
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    They did even more insane makeup schedules last year — the Cardinals and Marlins spring to mind. But they also left a few games unplayed, as long as those games didn’t affect who made the playoffs. (Those games weren’t made up if they only affected playoff seeding.)
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    As others have mentioned, infield fly wasn’t called. It was the intentional drop rule: https://www.closecallsports.com/2017/09/phillips-dp-attempt-reversed-by.html
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    Tight hamstring. The info came out in the media between games of the doubleheader.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    Actually I made a mistake! If a player finishes the season with 20 or fewer days on "optional assignment" to the minors, then those days count toward MLB service time (and the team doesn't lose an option year). This applies to guys already on the 40-man like Kirilloff (and not to guys who haven't been added to the 40-man yet, like Kris Bryant in 2015). With opening day (April 1st) counting as the first day of optional assignment, Kirilloff could potentially get credit for a full season of service time if we call him up before April 22nd.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    Blown saves are highly context-dependent. Save opportunities, as well as the margin of lead in those opportunities, are dependent on your team's offense, starting pitching, etc. No one would say Oakland's or PIttsburgh's pen has out-performed the Twins pen this year, even though those teams have zero blown saves compared to the Twins 2. No one would say the Twins pen performance so far is equal to that of Detroit, even though the two teams have an equal number of blown saves. Save percentage isn't much better either. If you want to derive any meaning from these particular stats, the best way is to add saves plus holds (because blown holds also count as blown saves), divided by save opportunities. And also account for raw total opportunities (converting 19 out of 20 is more difficult, and likely a better measure of pen success, than converting 2 out of 2). The Twins are tied for 12th in save + hold percentage, but we're also 4th in total opportunities. That seems to track well with being tied for 6th in bullpen fWAR, and 3rd in bullpen WPA/LI. That's not to say there isn't room for improvement -- 16th in RE24, which is like WPA/LI but based on run expectancy rather that win expectancy.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    FWIW, if they promote Kirilloff this Friday April 16, he will finish the 2021 season with no more than 171 days of service time, 1 short of the current threshold for a full season. (Assuming the regular season doesn't somehow extend beyond Oct. 3, of course.) Correction: April 22nd is the first day we could call up Kirilloff, since he's already on the 40-man and finishing the season with 20 or fewer days on optional assignment would mean those days count as MLB service time days.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    That's what the Astros did against us in the playoffs last year (with game 1 following an off day too), and it worked for them.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    Problem is, Astudillo isn't selective about his contact at all. He swings at everything, so a decent pitcher can pitch to him in a way that's going to prevent him from advancing the runner. Like the playoff game last year -- first pitch swinging, he grounded out to third. And yesterday, he swung at all 3 pitches and popped them all up.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    You mean contact? We're tied for the 4th worst (non-pitcher) K rate in baseball so far. But, 129 (non-pitcher) wRC+ is the 4th best too.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Not quite like a coin toss — in the scenario you describe, the visiting team already failed to do something (score in top of inning) and the home team succeeded at something (preventing a run in the top of the inning). It is not a random event that advantages the home team in that scenario, it is their own good play. That’s like saying the advantage shifts to the offense after a lead off triple — of course it does, they did something good! Also while it may seem advantageous to be able to play for 1 run, some of that is neutralized by the defense being able to play for preventing 1 run too. In the top of the 10th, there is a real downside for the home team on defense to issue intentional walks, play the infield in, etc. But those strategies become acceptable— recommended, even — for the visitors playing defense in the bottom of the inning. The home team may still get a slight net advantage but it could be rather small and easily dwarfed by other factors. Would be interesting to see a study on this, if we have enough data.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    Perhaps, but I don't know how big the advantage is. 1. The home team only gets that advantage if they stop the visiting team from plating the same runner in the top of the inning. So it's not a neutral advantage in that scenario. 2. If it happens, the visiting team can tune their strategy 100% toward preventing that one run. Bring in the best strikeout pitcher, adjust defensive positioning, and even intentionally walking a batter to put the double play in order -- things the home team can't or won't necessarily do in the top of the inning.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    It's not easy to maintain offensive value with Cave's K rates either. In 2018-2019, he had ~.360 BABIPs to help prop up his offense. In 2020, his BABIP was still above average at .323 but his overall offensive performance was below average (his BB% and ISO also dropped, and the ISO may be hard to recover to 2019 levels if the ball has changed since then).
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    Rooker has some exciting skills, but also some serious weaknesses. Let's not forget he had a 34.7% K rate at AAA in 2019. Yes, some hitters can still do some damage even with a high K rate in the modern game -- but others can get carved up too. I had expected Rooker to get an opportunity to sink or swim, but I guess if he looked bad enough at the end of the spring, maybe all signs were pointing to "sink" and there wasn't much point to it. Garlick doesn't do much for me either, but I suppose he could wind up an average-ish stop gap / placeholder. Hopefully we can use LF to get Arraez's bat in the lineup (maybe even at the top of the lineup), while our starting infielders are healthy and productive too.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    Not saying anything like that at all. Just that while there is definitely value in Happ-like signings, there are still limits to that value come October and it's important to keep that in mind too. For the Twins, that doesn't mean they have to sign elite FA instead of guys like Happ -- they may just need to calibrate their trade deadline and prospect promotion strategies a little differently.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    At the same time, there are still lingering questions about how bargain shopping can influence postseason results. A guy like Happ is useful to almost every team to get through the regular season -- but the Yankees were pretty deliberate to minimize his use/exposure in the postseason. Can/will the Twins do that?
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    This makes all the sense in the world for Dobnak. His signing bonus back in 2017 was just $500, and he's still 2 full seasons away from arbitration. The $9.25 mil guaranteed in this deal has an incredible marginal utility for him!
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    Thielbar has an option year remaining too, so he wouldn't have be waived (unless they needed the 40-man spot).
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    You can't option injured players, so it's just a question of whether Colina is healthy enough to option (unlikely at this point) or he goes on the MLB 10-day or 60-day IL. I expect Colina will go to the MLB 60-day IL to open a 40-man spot for Law. Then if Colina is ready to pitch before the 60th day of the MLB season (but after the minor league season starts in early May), he can simply be sent to AAA on a rehab assignment until he is healthy enough to option.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    Happ to the IL wouldn't make much sense, as he wouldn't be able to ramp up in a rehab assignment -- just simulated games. They've already announced Dobnak is starting the year in the bullpen, so unless some new injury/condition develops with Happ, he's not going to the IL. The Twins have a large staff with enough flexibility that they don't need Happ to throw more than 75 pitches his first time out anyway.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    Dobnak's defining stats this year seem to be a super-low WHIP (0.44) and more K's (18) than innings pitched (13.2). Let's take a look at the regular season SP results for some similar recent spring performers. To explain, I went to MLB.com and looked at their spring training stat registers for the past few years. I set it to all pitchers (not just "qualifiers") and sorted by lowest WHIP, then eyeballed the list to find SP who pitched a decent number of innings and then were primarily SP during the season. 2019: Sonny Gray -- great season! Eric Lauer -- meh season Marcus Stroman -- great season! Trevor Richards -- meh season 2018: Jacob deGrom -- great season! Lance Lynn -- meh season Luke Weaver -- bad season Jakob Junis -- meh season 2017: Dylan Unsworth -- did not pitch in the majors? Masahiro Tanaka -- meh season Felix Hernandez -- meh season Clayton Kershaw -- great season! This is by no means scientific, and league WHIP has dropped and K's have spiked the past couple years, so it gets harder to find comps the further you go back. But it seems pretty clear that the sample is too small to warrant reading too much into Dobnak's spring line so far.
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