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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Thanks for the clarification. I feel like you might now be under-rating the difficulty of actually landing free agents by targeting a combination of two. The Cobb plus Lynn plan has more moving parts outside the Twins control -- if you only manage to land one but not the other, you will be suboptimally using your resources anyway. Imagine a fantasy draft, and you have 50 dollars to spend, you might think you are being smart by passing on the 40 dollar guy and planning to draft two 20 dollar guys instead, but if someone else swoops in and drafts the 2nd guy before you can, you may wind up with $20 that you are unable to allocate on anything useful.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Worth noting that Correia and Pelfrey met the expectations of their modest contracts -- the problem was the front office was aiming too low. Failing to make even a competitive offer for Darvish would seem to increase the likelihood of that problem reoccurring (with greater negative effects now given the rest of our roster).
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    Given we are talking about a potential contract about half the length and value of Pujols' deal, and we don't have an equivalent of 2009 Mauer to extend to avoid impending FA, I am not sure if this statement is particularly relevant. The options are: sign Darvish, sign an arguably lesser FA pitcher for less (but still probably $60-70 mil), trade a lot of talent for a SP (Lewis+ for Archer?), or do nothing. Those are your options. You can't just hide behind the fantasy of finding another player or contract that doesn't exist. There is a very real chance that Darvish is your best chance at a net improvement for the Twins in the near future, even at 5/125 or whatever. You may not like Darvish, or free agency, or the economic structure of baseball in general, but that doesn't change that basic fact.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    So... should we give back Ervin Santana?
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    The first blog post you link is pretty vague, but I notice it doesn't cover pitchers at all, only position players. And using averages across a group of players seems like a terrible methodology for this -- if 10 free agents sign, and 9 of them perform exactly as expected and 1 crashes like Chone Figgins, guess what? The average of the whole group of 10 will show a decline. Does that mean all free agent contracts are bad? And ultimately, how does the fact that Chone Figgins flopped on a free agent deal 10 years ago really affect the Twins pursuit of Yu Darvish today? The second article you reference was judging those signings on the first 4 months. Justin Upton and Zack Greinke were both judged as flops at that time, and both were ~6 WAR all stars the next year. I don't think the author of that article would at all endorse your interpretation of it (which seems to be, never sign free agents, ever).
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    This describes both the Brewers and the Twins, it appears. Susac was only DFA'd to make room for a FA signing, so they would need a non-40-man guy in return if they were to make a trade.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    MLBTR says Susac has 1 option left, which I think is correct -- in 2015, he was called up only 12 days into the season, and stayed on the MLB roster or DL the rest of the way, thus spending fewer than 20 days on optional assigment. So I think 2016-2017 are his only 2 option years so far. If Pinto was claimed without options, it sure seems like Susac would get claimed quickly if he goes on waivers. The Brewers are probably trying to push a trade instead.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    I think you are over-rating how easy it is to project 3 years from now. There isn't much confidence in projections 3 years out, so I wouldn't strategize too much around them. If you have a good team today, and a need, and resources available, you should probably just address that need. For that matter, you can't project that the FA options will be better in 3 years than Darvish today, or even equally willing to sign with us. Also keep in mind while peak age was found to be roughly 27, that was in the aggregate over thousands of players. Over the Twins cohort of 5-6 players, that may not be true. For all we know, Rosario already hit his peak in 2017, Kepler may never achieve a meaningfully higher peak, Sano's peak could continue to be plagued by injuries, etc. Why weaken your team while you still have Dozier, Santana, etc. for a future that may never come?
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    I was actually referring to month to month performance variation as well. I don't see anything in Vargas's 2017 monthly splits to suggest he was more "inconsistent" than, say, Grossman or Napoli by the same criteria. Check out their monthly tOPS+ numbers at B-Ref (monthly OPS relative to seasob OPS) -- the 3 worst months for each: Vargas: 50, 86, 87 Grossman: 47, 84, 89 Napoli: 44, 83, 91 Heck, Mauer had 37, 86, 91. Players aren't robots, their performance is variable, so it struck me as an odd criticism to pin on Vargas alone in this article.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    I assure you, I am "settled down", the strong language came from the poster I was quoting. The current rule is 12 seconds between pitches, with no one on base. Here's a study of similar games from 1984 and 2014: https://www.sbnation.com/a/mlb-2017-season-preview/game-length Its conclusion: An extra 10 seconds between every pitch really adds up.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    I am not so sure. Cain just got 5/80. Sounds like JD Martinez has a 5/125 offer from Boston, but he doesn't want to DH. Hosmer has a 7 year offer of probably at least $120 mil from San Diego. And Darvish has a 5 year offer from someone too, if not the Twins. Seems like the players aren't getting the variety of 5-7 year offers they wanted (perhaps because the Yankees, Dodgers, and others are sitting out for luxury tax purposes), and they are still holding out for their preferred teams/situations, but they are still getting 5-7 year offers at comparable dollars as before.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    How so? Unless you mean he hasn't gotten consistent playing time, with which I'd agree. Otherwise, the variations in his performance seem consistent with his established talent level and comparable to the variations of other players, including the others you mention in this article (Grossman, Napoli, etc.).
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    Unless you think the Twins would be up against the luxury tax threshold in year 5, any "competitive reason" would be entirely self-imposed.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Actually, there are pitch times specified in the rule book that player and umpire routines conformed to for all of Major League baseball history up until very recently (last 20 years?).I am not sure why some people consider the last 20 years of MLB to be more "real baseball" than the previous ~125 of MLB, or all ~145 of all other levels of baseball (which is simply what the pitch clock would train modern MLB player and umpire routines to follow). Another way to put the above: "There's no 40 second break between pitches in baseball. No 40 second break. I don't give a @$% what they've done in MLB since 2000. There's No. Effing. 40. Second. Break."
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    If that was true, wouldn't the inverse apply to the Twins? If the Twins "invested modestly" in the meantime, wouldn't a fifth year for Darvish be essentially free?
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    I suspect Cobb and Lynn aren't moving much in negotiations either.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    I think you answered your own question when you brought up Steamer projections. Nobody expects Cain to post the same WAR rates from ages 32-36 as he did from 29-31. His Steamer projection for 2018 is 2.9 WAR, and a rule of thumb is to subtract a half a win per year for aging. That's 9.5 WAR over the life of the deal, or $8.4 mil per win. Now, I suspect the Brewers expect a bit better of him that that, but a realistic median projection might fall in the $7 mil per win range over the life of the deal, especially when you factor in health (he's likely to miss more time as he ages). A guy like Cozart muddies the water further because so much of his WAR has been in one outlier season, it adds a lot of uncertainty to his projection. He's only once reached that 2.97 WAR figure in his entire career, can you really expect him to average that over the next 3 (ages 32-34)? I too am not sure about the $10 mil per win estimate (maybe around relievers? the post was from almost a month ago), but it seems like $7 mil is still going strong.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    5-4, actually. The Cardinals were 3-4 in Lynn's postseason starts, the Rays were 2-0 behind Cobb. Although none of that is recent: Lynn's last postseason start was 2014, and Cobb's was 2013 (and his K/9 has fallen by 2 since then).
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    Almost -- the player would also have to clear waivers first, to remove the Rule 5 restrictions.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    I feel like you and others in the "don't sign Darvish" camp are letting the "perfect" be the enemy of the "good". Do we wish Darvish was a few years younger, or was coming off a Cy Young season? Sure. But then he wouldn't be available, certainly not for 5/125 and zero prospect cost. And it's just not realistic to expect that the Twins group of SP prospects will produce a Darvish level performer within the next 2 years, at least, just because of their inexperience. So what's your alternative? Do nothing? Sign a lesser player (who might still cost $60-75 mil) and hope to get lucky? Keep in mind Cobb and Lynn are essentially the same age as Darvish, and while each has been effective in the past, starting at 6.5-7.5 K/9 doesn't give them as much room to fall and remain effective as they age compared to Darvish at 10 K/9. There are rarely if ever perfect players or deals in baseball. If you want a good team, you're going to have to make some good (but not perfect) deals for some good (but not perfect) players.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    Not sure when he would have started using, but he was definitely in the class of player you would expect might try PEDs -- a fringe guy with nothing to lose (circa 2016). And he got 48 days in MLB last year, or ~$142,000 salary. I think Turley is now out of options, so being on the 40-man roster of a rebuilding club in Pittsburgh, he would have stood a decent chance of making the opening day roster in some capacity. This probably throws a wrench into that and his future earnings.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    It's hardly a "fetish" or "moving heaven and earth" to offer a market rate contract, for likely the best player available at a contending team's biggest position of need. Also, your list of Darvish negatives is misleading or at best double-counting. Thus far, his "arm trouble" has been limited to TJ surgery (hardly disqualifying by itself), which cut short his 2014 season, wiped out his 2015, and delayed the start of his 2016 (the 3 seasons you also ding him for not exceeding 10 wins or 150 innings). His surgery recovery time was no different than that of Lynn or Cobb. Also, the Rangers were ultimately NOT contenders in 2 of those seasons (2014 and 2017). On the positive side, Darvish has had 6 seasons in MLB. TJ surgery wiped out the first half of two of those seasons; the other 4, Darvish has been named to the all-star team, including last season. I think he's a worthy target of the Twins right now.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    Keep in mind that Darvish turned in excellent starts for the Dodgers in both the NLDS and NLCS. And the Dodgers offense only scored a combined 4 runs in his two WS starts. And this was the first full season back from TJ for Darvish, as well as for Lynn and Cobb. Who's to say they all wouldn't have faded similarly if asked to pitch into November!
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    True, but for the purposes of comparing Darvish to these pitchers, K/9 is a decent approximation, and it is more readily available.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    Setting aside that you are still ignoring all context, $80 mil for 11.6 fWAR = $6.9 mil per win $49 mil for 5 fWAR = $9.8 mil per win Sanchez's actual fWAR, at Nolasco's $ per win average, would have cost the Tigers $33.7 mil more than they actually spent. I wouldn't call a difference of $33.7 mil as "more or less" the same.
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