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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    That's fair. By OPS+, Castro is at 89 and Gimenez 85. That's not good but it's not quite a black hole either, especially not if it means risking putting Garver behind the plate. Maybe picking up a vet would have been a better way to address the third catcher? I suppose Anthony Recker could still be an option. Where's Pat Borders these days? The Mets did have 3 catchers on their 2016 wild card game roster, although their season OPS+ figures were 71, 70, and 55. The Mets gave up 3 runs in the 9th to lose 3-0 to Bumgarner, and did not pinch hit for their starting catcher Rene Rivera in that game. (They did PH for 1B Loney and their pitcher.)
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Mejia did use an option year this year (he spent about a month on optional assignment in late April and May), but you are correct, he still has one remaining, which can be used in 2018.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    Which has pretty much been all of the Twins recent sac bunt attempts, right?
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Seth, I have no idea how you came to this conclusion about a guy averaging less than 5 innings per start. He wasn't even trending up that much -- 18.2 IP in the 4 starts preceding his injury start (in which he was also on pace to probably fall short of 5 IP). His ERA was nice in recent stretches, but it wasn't really supported by his components (which also ties into why he wasn't pitching many innings, too many hits and walks even when he wasn't allowing many runs). Not picking on him at all, I'm glad to get Mejia back and he should be a useful guy now and going forward, but I don't see how you can say he has "proved himself as a mid-rotation type of starter" already, or put him as part of a franchise core 7.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    Yup. On the roster as stated in the first post, Garver could be the 4th or 5th best RH pinch hitting option. I know it seems like overkill for one game, but I'd rather go with an 11 man staff. Moya, Gee, or perhaps even Colon (depending on SP usage leading up to that game) probably wouldn't be needed, but would almost certainly see meaningful wild card game action before Garver. Maybe we have to go crazy with reliever matchups, maybe we have an aggressive hook for the starter, maybe we get into extra innings.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    FYI, B-Ref's injury report dates don't correlate with the actual dates of DL assignments. The dates usually just mean when that report was updated. Sano's date listed there is Sep. 11, for example, even though he has been on the DL since August 21st and his roster status has not changed since that date. I usually look at the player pages at MLB.com for exact dates when players were added. A simple Google News search shows plenty of hits for Hughes from July 18 too, like this one: "Season’s over for Twins righty Phil Hughes, put on 60-day DL" http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/season-s-over-for-twins-righty-phil-hughes-put-on-60-day-dl-071817 To be fair, I had already completely forgotten about Hughes anyway.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    That's fair. I didn't jump into the discussion to pick on the current starters! Just defending Bert's record that year. Also, I read the comment as referring to the top 2 starters collectively as "dominant" in which case they are helped a lot by VIola's 159 ERA+ as compared to Ervin's 133 leading the way. And if you consider "dominant" beyond just that single season, Blyleven came into 1987 with a career 125 ERA+, versus Ervin's career 103 mark as of today. But it gets pretty subjective. In any case, that analysis of 1987 isn't going to work for 2017 because of the changes in pitcher usage and expanded playoffs. Even if Ervin and Berrios are approximate equivalents, I'd guess now you would need to look beyond 2 starters.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    71% chance of making the playoffs, with 16 to play, and given our remaining schedule (Toronto, Detroit, and perhaps even Cleveland and the Yankees with not much to play for), they are definitely in "choke" territory if they blow this (unless the Angels win out or something crazy). I'm trying to stay positive, though, so I wasn't going to point that out!
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    Twins postseason odds up to 71.3% on Fangraphs now.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    Hughes went on the 60-day DL on July 18, so his spot would be eligible for replacement. Technically, days spent on the 10-day MLB DL prior to being transferred to the 60-day DL count toward the 60 day requirement, so I would guess that Santiago's spot would be eligible for replacement as well. I'd guess the source quoted here just worded it poorly. But it's a moot point with Hughes, May, and O'Rourke also eligible -- Moya is really the only plausible candidate for addition by this method, barring some catastrophic sequence of injuries. You are correct on Chargois, he was placed on the MLB DL on September 5th, and prior to that had been on the minor league DL.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    FWIW, on last year's wild card rosters, the Orioles and Blue Jays each had 10 pitchers, the Giants 11, the Mets 9 (although maybe Bartolo Colon counted for 2).
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    The playoff roster has nothing to do with who sits on the bench. Everybody can be there. Most teams only include 2 starting pitchers (one to start, and one for emergency use). Bartolo was actually the Mets 2nd starter last year.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    When you consider that Ervin Santana won a playoff game (in relief!) in 2005, the actual proposed Santana vs. Sabathia match-up isn't that far off in terms of vintage. Ervin is only ~2 years older than Sabathia.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Remember 1987 was a high-scoring year. Blyleven's 4.01 ERA was much better than league average, good for a 115 ERA+, ranking 22nd in MLB among qualifiers. 2nd in games started, 4th in IP. The W-L looks a lot better too when you consider the team was 23-14 in Blyleven's starts, I think Bert's trademark luck was on display in that regard. He wasn't elite like Clemens or even Viola, but he was pretty darn good, and I wouldn't quibble with saying he was part of a "dominant pair" when paired with one of those guys.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Well, that and the fact that we already had/have a head start of 1-3 games on those clubs. That's a pretty big deal with under 20 to play.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    Did he say anything about sample size, or standard deviations?
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Radke ranks among MLB qualifiers: 1996, 29th in ERA-, 14th in IP. 1997, 27th in ERA-, and 9th in IP. 1998, 40th in ERA-, 33rd in IP. 1999, 9th in ERA-, 5th in IP. 2000, 35th in ERA-, 11th in IP. 2001, 29th in ERA-, 15th in IP. ... 2004, 10th in ERA-, 12th in IP.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    Some takes on Gibson over at Fangraphs : http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/pitcher-spotlight-kyle-gibson-and-robert-stephenson/
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    Wow, Vielma posted a 31 wRC+ at AAA. That's rough. Related, why no Palka call-up?
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Actually, they changed it back in 2014: http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/just-a-bit-outside/story/more-players-to-choose-from-for-postseason-roster-090114 Moya was not on the 40-man prior to today, so he would have to be a DL replacement to make the postseason roster. Santiago, May, and O'Rourke would allow us up to 3 potential DL replacements (Chargois won't accumulate 60 MLB DL days).
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    Yeah, 25 man is meaningless now for determining postseason rosters.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    Sure. That would mean he's mostly mop-up, in which case I already stipulated that it doesn't much matter. But the suspect performance of our other pen options wasn't exactly a surprise. I mean, if I think I need another lefty to pair with Rogers, I don't think I wait for Boshers and Turley and Perkins to disappoint for another 10 games before I consider Moya, not when there were only 30 games to go anyway. Not that you cut the other guys, but we could have Moya's "feet wet" appearances out of the way now, and we could have tried him in a Boshers type spot tonight if we wanted.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    The "terms of the debate" didn't change. More evidence came in. This isn't about me scouting Moya and thinking he's great, now or Sep. 1st. It's about seeing the new evidence that Moya is getting called up to maybe give a suspect pen a shot in the arm, and wondering if that is the case, should we have done that Sep. 1st instead of waiting until Sep. 12? We already knew the pen was suspect back then, and this sort of confirms that the 40-man, lack of AAA experience, or Moya's workload did not disqualify him from a call-up in the front office's eyes. And please don't think of every post here as part of scoring debate points. We are all fans having a discussion. I just thought it was interesting that we delayed this promotion for 10 games. You can disagree without suggesting I am doing something improper.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    Not just pension, but also lifetime health insurance for his spouse. Which can be important, as Doug Mientkiewicz would attest. http://articles.latimes.com/2009/mar/28/sports/sp-dodgers-fyi28
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    I am sure you think this is some kind of gotcha, but if the team thinks Moya has a shot at contributing this month, then I think it's fair to question the timing of this. The MLB pennant race was more important than the AA playoffs, and getting some experience for Moya in the lower stakes of early September was probably more important than getting yet another look at, say, Tonkin. If he's just another mop-up arm, obviously it doesn't matter much. Although with a full 40-man roster, I am not sure they try to squeeze in Moya now without some hope that he can do more than mop-up work. (Also, how many mop-up guys do we need?)
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