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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    After today (Monday May 1), Sano will have played 23 games over 29 days. Plenty of off days so far, I am glad Molitor hasn't sat him yet. Looking ahead at the schedule, he honestly may not need one until June, and we will have a better idea of where we stand in the race by then too.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Not necessarily two "bigger" but they could land one big contract, and still have room to lure a promising bounceback guy at favorable terms. Probably harder to do that if a spot is effectively committed to Santiago via extension. Sort of like how the Twins should have been in great position to lure a closer like Holland here over the winter. Had they committed an extension to Kintzler, for example, that may have been a more difficult sell. I don't know how likely it is to play out like that, but I would like to keep options open. If that means I have to pay a few more bucks to re-up Santiago this winter, or even potentially losing Santiago to a crazy big bidding team, I think those are acceptable risks when we are still 5 months out from the open market.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    While I suspect Santiago's market may eventually land in that range, I don't know if he would be eager to sign an extension now for 2/20. And I still don't know why signing it now would be meaningfully beneficial to the Twins.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    They can do both, but there is very little gained by making that commitment to Santiago now. You would preclude even the possibility of flipping him at the deadline, just to potentially save a few bucks next winter. They could sign both Santiago and a bigger ticket FA next winter if they want to.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    Then it seems like nitpicking to me, to dismiss the example of Storen as a hindsight complaint. We all knew the Twins has this need. Whether Storen was at the top of your list or not, he was among a group that the Twins should have been pursuing and obviously failed to land anyone from it. If they ranked Holland #1 like you, but waited on him and had to settle for Belisle, that would be a failure too.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    Now that the season has started and these guys are only 5 months away from FA, it would be pretty unlikely that many or even any would sign extensions before hitting the open market. Arrieta, Cueto, Darvish, and Tanaka would be the big ones, although there are a few other names that could be interesting pending 2017 results (Hellickson, Lynn, Pineda, Tillman, etc.): https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2016/08/2017-18-mlb-free-agent-list.html
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't know. The Twins have passed on a lot of higher upside bullpen guys over the years. Sure, some of them failed, but I don't think the Twins get off the hook by saying that. Some of them didn't fail, and it's the job of the Twins front office to find those guys and acquire them when they could help the pen/team. I actually wouldn't hold it against the Twins if they dropped $3 mil on Storen, or $7 mil or whatever on Holland, and it didn't work out.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    Bump! These 50% ($56.49) offers have started going out again for 2017.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    Shouldn't be too hard to check on this. One could do some filtering over at Fangraphs by age. With a very simple search, it looks like there was a lull from 1987-1999 where no age-20 or younger pitchers hit 100 IP in a season. Since then, there have been 9, or roughly one every other season. http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2016&month=0&season1=1976&ind=1&team=0&rost=0&age=14,20&filter=&players=0&sort=1,d&page=1_123 Of course, there were a bunch right before 1987 too -- Gooden, Saberhagen, and Valenzuela most notably. Perhaps there was a lull in the 1990s where teams were being cautious with young pitchers because player compensation was exploding, but they were still not fully understanding aging curves?
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    That sounds like a tough sell. Alex Meyer almost certainly had a stronger case for service time credit last year, when the Twins optioned him to AAA and he didn't pitch again for several months, but nothing came of it. (And Meyer's agent is Scott Boras!) Like Meyer, Chargois doesn't really have a track record that you could automatically assume better performance and thus no option, absent injury. We may suspect that, or have a "hunch", but the burden of proof is generally much higher than that for successful grievances. I certainly wouldn't blame anyone for looking into this case, but I would be pretty surprised if anything came of it. (And while I am sure Chargois would rather get the MLB service time and salary right now, at least he has the silver lining of burning an option year, so 2018 will be his last. Had he been on the MLB DL, the Twins may have retained the ability to option him in 2019 too.)
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Tyler Goeddel actually has all 3 of his option years remaining, but nobody seems to want them. After claiming him and optioning him, Cincinnati passed him through waivers themselves and outrighted him off the 40-man roster a few days later. Kirby Yates is actually a pretty good comp for Tonkin, just a few years older. Solid K rates, not terrible BB rates, but gets battered around quite a bit, especially in the HR department. Evan Marshall is a weird one -- his K rate plummeted at all levels since 2014. I wouldn't quite say Nick Franklin is "really struggling" in 2017, he has barely played. He has 4 starts all season, and non-consecutive, interspersed among 10 pinch hitting appearances.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    Usually those kind of deals only go to veterans later in their careers:
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    In addition to Parker, Dominic Leone has done pretty well too, and actually has an option year remaining. Campos and Bonilla are projects, but both have 2017 options as well.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Hunter Greene is having a pretty underwhelming season at the plate, according to Max Preps: http://www.maxpreps.com/athlete/hunter-greene/uMJm9ZrFEeOzMAAmVebBJg/gendersport/baseball-stats.htm He was better in previous seasons, though. Would he really be a top-10 draft pick if he didn't pitch? Admittedly I'm not a HS baseball or draft follower....
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Bump! Below are the 2017 MLB stats for recent waiver claims with MLB experience -- the ones who get listed in the Fox Sports transactions log: http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/transactions?type=14 Pitchers: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2017&month=0&season1=2017&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=3397,12756,11468,13763,12297,5224,9073,11240,12253,11266,13394,11378,11928,10044,8402,12854,13762,13796,10337,12277,14857,10330,11681,10529,10946,11580,13339,10160,12962,13166&sort=8,d Batters: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2017&month=0&season1=2017&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=10166,10339,11342,9399,13075,10711,12957,12956,7740,13355,13180,13419,8418,5277,13271,5398,14282,4779&sort=4,d
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    But when you've already exhausted your evaluation and development opportunities, it takes a lot of luster out of that warm body reliever. This is Tonkin's fifth year on the 40-man roster, and he's been in the upper minors or MLB that entire time -- not even a single DL stint! And we didn't even have a pitching or bullpen coach change this winter. There are worse uses of a roster spot, and the Twins have been guilty of that at times too, but that doesn't mean this was a good use of one, knowing what we know.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    The new management didn't need to drag this out that long, it's not like Tonkin was some great unknown whom they had never seen in person. They cut Adam Brett Walker before they even got their office furniture moved in. I'm glad they didn't just cut him in favor of unnecessarily adding a no-upside guy like Wimmers, as some were suggesting in spring training. But it still boggles the mind that they've thought so little of him for so long that they haven't found a better use of that roster spot in all this time.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    I won't argue this too much more, because I don't really care, but the first two months of 2016, Tonkin was rather effective. How did the Twins respond? By continuing to throw him out there for multiple innings in low leverage situations...
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    And at this point, it's not even about making excuses for Tonkin -- if he's this bad, why is he still on the team, in his second year out of options? Why didn't we give his roster spot to a new reliever over the offseason, or at least roll the dice on a waiver claim? Either way you look at it, the Twins seem to be bungling this one 100%. I guess I don't care how you apportion that between mis-using Tonkin or waiting too long to cut him.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    So you make a reliever prove himself in a role he's ill-suited for, before you put him in a role that better matches his abilities? Got it. You also endorse repeatedly letting Ryan O'Rourke fail against RHB before you are willing to use him as a strict LOOGY? I made it pretty clear I don't think Tonkin is any great talent, and I am sure he stood a decent chance to fail regardless of role, but the Twins haven't exactly helped him or much of anyone in the pen. Look at their whole bullpen construction, it's consistently a mess. In addition to the sins of past years, now we have Duffey in to face 3 batters, installing Kintzler as the closer and bringing in Belisle and Breslow to set up, etc.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    I won't vigorously defend Tonkin, but I think the argument is less about the leverage messing with his confidence, and more about the role he's been asked to fill having a different set of objectives which seem at odds with his strengths. The last year-plus, Tonkin has been consistently asked to be a long reliever. I do wonder if he has tried to economize his pitches in those appearances, and if it has held him back a bit. That said, I am far, far more disappointed in our overall bullpen construction than I am in any potential mishandling of Tonkin.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    I wonder if there is any discretion from the league about allowing this? Seems odd and perhaps inappropriate to request a roster replacement for a starting pitcher between starts in this manner. It reminds me of various new roster rule proposals -- there generally has to be some different rules regarding starting pitchers since they are pretty much inactive in 80% of games anyway, by definition.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    Ervin had 17 starts over 80 team games in 2015, when the Twins had incentive to do so. That's a 34 start full season pace, which would have tied him for the league lead that year. Ervin had 30 starts last year, plus one lost to rain, plus two more missed when he was on the DL. That's 33, only one less that every non-Price pitcher in the league. I am sure if the Twins had any incentive to do so, Ervin could have had 34 starting opportunities last year. And now the Twins are apparently skipping the 5th starter this turn. I'm really not sure of your basis for this line of criticism.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    Perhaps not? That's Hit Probability, and it's based solely on launch angle and exit velocity: http://m.mlb.com/glossary/statcast/hit-probability Catch Probability would involve distance and hangtime, so it takes into account the location/direction of the ball and the fielder: http://m.mlb.com/glossary/statcast/catch-probability
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    I think that is pretty standard now. Last year, David Price was the first to reach 35 starts since 2010.
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