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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    I think part of being "assumed HOFer's while they were playing" was their postseason performances. Give Oliva multiple notable postseasons instead of zero and he too may have been similarly assumed. Take away Koufax and Puckett's notable postseason and they're probably not first-balloters. I doubt Oliva's final three average seasons hurt his HOF case as much as his fairly inconsequential postseason record (admittedly not all his fault). Puckett was no doubt a famous and a star (in part due to his postseason presence as noted above), but his actual career performance is probably pretty close to the Hall of Fame borderline as far as quality. The only modern batters really below him in WAR are Brock and Rice. Even if Puckett more or less repeated his final season a few more times, that gets him past Tony Perez and probably close to Willie Stargell but still clearly lower than a lot of his contemporaries. No doubt a heck of a player, and he would have had my vote, but still closer to the bottom of the modern HOF than even the middle.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    The context was post-injury. Oliva was almost exactly a league average hitter after that.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't think so. Puckett was fairly borderline on quality but had an exceptional postseason record and weird injury. Koufax also had an exceptional postseason record and was an all-time great during his peak too. Johan Santana actually had an 8-year peak similar to Oliva's in terms of fWAR. Don't think he will even get the consideration that Oliva has.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    "Pretty good" on the level of Ryan Doumit or Pedro Munoz or something. Post-injury, Oliva was exactly a league-average hitter that exclusively played DH.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    I can think of a few more pitchers, in addition to Kershaw (or perhaps even more than Kershaw, given their salaries). Chris Sale and Corey Kluber come to mind. Would never happen in a million years, though, not within the same division, unless we parted with at least 2 of those top 4 prospects and then some.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    I was thinking some rule, especially since the process isn't fully complete. (I don't think the losing bids ever officially become public, right?) But now that you mention it, I'm not sure why teams would volunteer the information. Both teams are simply waiting for something out of their hands at this point. Meanwhile, the Twins and Rangers might be bidding against each other for other players right now. The Yang bid may ultimately be pretty inconsequential, but so is satisfying one's curiosity in advance of the Korean team's decision.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    We agree then -- TR should absolutely wait for a team to call offering a top-of-the-rotation pitcher with team control for something less than our top 4 prospects. So, now that we're not making any trades, what do you think we should do?
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    Folks will get this page now.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    If a guy you like is a FA next winter and can't/won't sign an extension with his current team, why not just keep your prospects and aggressively try to buy him next winter? I'm not against trading prospects for MLB talent -- it's something I'd like to see TR try at some point -- but I have yet to see such a proposal that makes sense, at least concerning the 2015 Twins and top-of-the-rotation starters.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't think any such pitchers are available for less than $100+ mil in FA or a king's ransom in prospects, and I am thoroughly against paying the latter price.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Might be rules against teams sharing bid amounts? I don't blame anyone for these conflicting reports, really -- the Asian posting stuff always gets pretty weird. Possibly more so in Korea since they do less of it, and when the player isn't that great there is probably less interest and less bothering to accurately share information or correct published reports.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    I have no idea what "replacement level" is for inherited runner scored percentage, but yes, they were below average in that measure for a month and a half. For the season, Burton was actually the best on the team by that measure, with a percentage better than the best team bullpen in the league. And Duensing was within one run of league average by this measure too. There's a case to be made that these relievers are worth replacing, but it's not in their below-average inherited runners scored percentage over one-fourth of the season.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    But if you hypothetically outscore your opponent 15-14 only because you won one game 14-2 against a bad starter, mopup guys, and a position player pitcher, I really don't know if you're underperforming with a 1-2 record that series. Over a larger sample, those things tend to even out, but when you take a one-quarter slice of the season containing our two biggest run differential games, you're still dealing with pretty big error bars.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    I doubt the Twins beat writers have many good Korean contacts (or if they did, they probably don't have specific knowledge of this situation). And the US news agencies with the right contacts probably don't care enough to get involved -- it does seem to be a pretty minor transaction.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    The situations are very different. One decision is being made by complete strangers behind closed doors in a foreign language and a foreign country. The other decision is coming from known associates and has been closely monitored and reported right here in Minneapolis. The fact that the pitching coach job has been reported for a few days as down to 2 finalists, and now one of them is out of the running, makes it pretty clear, I think. If either of those prior reports was egregiously wrong, I think there would have been a correction by now. The Yang situation, on the other hand, has no prior reports and nobody interested or available to set the record straight.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    I think Molitor's major league coaching experience is far less than 2 decades -- more like 5 years? He was minor league baserunning coach for 9 seasons there...
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    That is weird, what is going on in Tampa...
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    But it's not like we would lose Trevor May if we brought in Masterson or Anderson. Depending on how things shake out, there still might be a rotation spot up for grabs even with a FA SP addition. And there will probably be some important spots open in the bullpen too, if May has no further business in AAA. Taking a one-year risk on Masterson or Anderson, while Trevor May continues his MLB acclimation as a reliever and 6th starter, might be a better use of resources for the 2015 Twins than a longer-term deal (and loss of 2nd round pick) for Ervin Santana. Even if Masterson/Anderson are "riskier" than Santana in terms of median projected health/performance for 2015. Given all the other factors, "riskier" in that context does not necessarily equal "worse."
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    I didn't say they weren't a risk. Every transaction has some level of risk. I said I am not convinced that Masterson or Anderson on one-year deals are TOO risky.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    But even then, they weren't "extra" runs over what a replacement would allow. Even the very best bullpen in the league would have allowed 8 inherited runners to score, vs the 16 from this group. It will be interesting to see what happens with these guys -- it might be best for us to move on, but that would be commiting to a pretty massive bullpen overhaul, not sure if the Twins would actually do that.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    But I think pythag record breaks down a bit as a meaningful predictor when it is used over small samples of games containing major outlier run differentials, no?
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    I shouldn't have waded into the years comparison, it wasn't really my intent, sorry. Although after 2012 there was some similar optimism around here -- Hendriks, Deduno, and Devries were the three starters of note (with Gibson returning from injury), Parmelee was getting props for his September steadiness, and people were plugging in Hicks' ZIPS projections and saying, "hey! this might get better!" Obviously I like our current team better, but just some words of caution. I do think perhaps this 2014 Twins lineup was more prone to feast or famine, and I'm not sure that's all due to luck. As I mention above, the author made some specific claims about our 2nd half pythagorean wins, but almost all of that underperformance was due to the extreme run differentials in those two games.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    Thanks for the explanation. The Twins scored the most runs and had the highest wRC+ in the league in the 2nd half last year -- there were definitely some encouraging performances, but luck probably played a positive role in that. Basically every returning hitter in the lineup except Mauer and Suzuki roughly equaled or exceeded their career BEST hitting performances by wRC+ (over any similar size sample) in that second half. And even Mauer and Suzuki roughly equaled their career marks over the second half. While I am encouraged by this group, I'd argue that their good luck is probably just as "unrepeatable" as some of the bad luck you cite. (Hughes' 0.51 BB/9 is another one that sticks out to me!)
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    It should be noted, if you take out our blowout wins on August 3 and August 22, our August-September run differential is -44, identical to 2012.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    If you think the Twins W-L record will be better off by signing Scherzer or Lester rather than Masterson or Anderson, I don't think you will find much disagreement here. Still doesn't mean that Masterson or Anderson are bad deals or too risky.
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