Otto von Ballpark

Thanks for sharing! Are you able to use Baseball Reference's "Stathead" or some other tool to easily list these pitchers? https://stathead.com/

It's fair to want more innings, but Berrios only threw 88 and 75 pitches in those two starts. 88 in 4 IP (vs NYY) isn't great but he set down the side in order on 12 pitches in his final inning -- it's not like he forced the Twins to remove him after 4 (although he likely wasn't going 6). And 75 in 5 IP (vs HOU) is pretty normal for any good pitcher -- his last inning saw a leadoff single stranded, 14 pitches thrown. It's certainly not Berrios's fault that he was removed at that point in that particular game. I'm not arguing Berrios is an ace -- I co-sign the Radke comp, a quality starting pitcher but ideally more of a postseason #2 -- but I'm also not sure how much his postseason record to date should be held against him.

Berrios left his last two playoff appearances (and his only 2 playoff starts) with the game tied, and left no baserunners either. No decision in both. His first playoff appearance, he did leave while trailing and was credited with the loss, although it was in long relief of Ervin Santana, rather than a start. (FWIW, Berrios also started that 2017 season in the minors too. Not sure how much it should count against him, relative to the later appearances and accomplishments.)

Webster's defines "ace" as "a combat pilot who has brought down at least five enemy airplanes." So no, I don't consider Berrios an "ace" -- although I would be very interested to see any evidence otherwise!

Here's Sabato, age 22 this year in high-A: # Name Team Level Age PA BB% K% BB/K AVG OBP SLG OPS ISO Spd BABIP wSB wRC wRAA wOBA wRC+ 1 Aaron Sabato MIN A+ — 97 19.6% 33.0% 0.59 .253 .402 .613 1.015 .360 2.2 .297 -0.2 21 8.1 .431 165 Here's Brent Rooker, age 22 in 2017 in high-A: # Name Team Level Age PA BB% K% BB/K AVG OBP SLG OPS ISO Spd BABIP wSB wRC wRAA wOBA wRC+ 1 Brent Rooker MIN A+ 22 162 9.9% 29.0% 0.34 .280 .364 .552 .917 .273 1.2 .341 0.0 29 11.4 .415 166 Note that due to the minor league reorganization, Rooker's high-A experience was for Fort Myers in the Florida State League which is generally regarded as pitcher-friendly, while Sabato is in Cedar Rapids instead. Thus Fangraphs calculates their wRC+ as virtually the same despite Sabato having a 100 point advantage in OPS. Rooker's K% was about 7.5 above the league rate; Sabato's, about 6.4. Sabato's league BB% is about 2.1 higher than Rooker's league too, although Sabato to his credit is blowing that difference away! And while Sabato had a one year layoff due to the pandemic, he had 367 PA at A-ball this year to prepare for high-A. Rooker skipped A-ball in 2017, going directly from 99 PA in rookie ball to high-A.

Scott Erickson flirts with a dubious record as he loses his 19th game of the season, with 2 scheduled starts remaining. (Spoiler alert: Erickson bravely takes the ball in his next 2 starts and escapes each with a no-decision.) After the Twins loss, the Metrodome is converted from baseball to football so the Gophers can play on the same field later the same day. (Another spoiler alert: the Gophers lost too.) Also witness a fan in Atlanta using a fishing pole to retrieve a foul ball. See that day's complete newscast here. Presented in partnership with TC Media Now. View full video

FWIW, here's the strike zone plot for that PA in Gameday right now (cue up conspiracy theories):

It appears you guys are correct, good job! For the record, MLB's own site currently says the extra player for doubleheaders rule doesn't apply after August 31st, and I wasn't able to find a rule or announcement stating otherwise, so that's what I based my earlier post on. Here's the link and text (emphasis mine): https://www.mlb.com/glossary/transactions/27th-man clubs have a 26-man active Major League roster but are allowed to recall one additional player who is on the 40-man roster to serve as the 27th member for the day of a doubleheader. That player accrues one day of MLB service time and is returned to the Minor Leagues following the completion of the doubleheader. This rule is in effect from Opening Day through Aug. 31. From Sept. 1 through the end of the regular season, all clubs must carry 28 players. The active roster reverts back to 26 players during the postseason. But apparently the August 31st part of the rule got waived for 2020 -- teams were allowed a "29th man" for doubleheaders in Sep. 2020 -- and I guess it's been quietly waived again for September 2021. If it's COVID-related, perhaps the "29th man" will go away in Sep. 2022.

That was a special kind of waivers, called "trade assignment waivers", and clearing them didn't remove a player from the 40-man, it just made the player eligible to be traded after the deadline. But in any case, those waivers don't exist anymore. So the August 1st deadline is pretty firm now. Basically the only guys who can get traded after that point are guys on minor league deals who haven't been on a 40-man roster this season. So Vasquez was eligible, but Shoemaker was not. Around the league, the only August trades were pretty much guys like Brad Peacock and Delino Deshields, guys playing on minor league deals who had failed to make it back to MLB yet in 2021.

Just to add: trading players after the deadline requires that the players aren't on the 40-man, and that they haven't been outrighted off the 40-man this year. (So clearing waivers and getting outrighted wasn't a loophole for post-deadline trade eligibility.) That also explains why no one traded for Matt Shoemaker in August.

Yes. And just in case anyone is wondering (like I did), the "27th man" doubleheader rule ends on August 31st, since active rosters are at 28 beyond that point anyway.

In this series of promotional shorts leading up to the 1985 Minnesota Twins season, we're offered a throwback to some classic faces that contributed to the 1987 World Championship team: Kirby Puckett, Kent Hrbek, Tom Brunansky, and Gary Gaetti's mustache. But despite these iconic players taking the stage, the real star of the show ends up being the free tube socks. Presented in partnership with TC Media Now. View full video

I don't know that the Dodgers philosophy is particularly different, or that Urías is a good example of any differences. First of all, it says Urías is in his first season without any sort of limits -- well, it's his 6th season in MLB! It's taken a long time to get to this point, and the Dodgers have been fairly cautious with him throughout his career. He averaged close to 4 innings per start in the minors, before any surgery. Second, some of those numbers are misleading -- his previous MLB regular-season career high in innings was only 77, but combined MLB + minors + postseason, he actually reached 127 that year (2016). So 2021 is a jump, but not quite as dramatic as this excerpt implies. And the following year (2017), the Dodgers actually left him at extended spring training for the first month of the MLB season, in a further effort to control his innings. He later spent virtually the entire 2019 season on the Dodgers MLB roster, pitching relatively sparingly out of the pen (37 games, 79.2 IP). They were pretty aggressive in promoting Urías before his 20th birthday, but then again, they signed him as a top international prospect on his 16th birthday, and he didn't get hurt until he was almost 21, so he was likely going to debut fairly young.

Another data point for the volatility of relievers: the Blue Jays just DFA'd Brad Hand. Hand wasn't without his concerns, but he got a nice one-year contract last winter and posted excellent numbers for the first 3 months of the season, and was still assumed to be a solid acquisition at the trade deadline just 1 month ago.

I mentioned elsewhere that Maeda to the 60-day IL makes sense as a corresponding 40-man move for Dobnak on Friday. And they could potentially leave the 28th expanded active roster spot open for Dobnak to claim Friday too -- they have an off day Thursday. I too am rather surprised that Albers is getting bumped. Ryan could have started today in place of Gant with +1 day of rest, with Albers going on normal rest tomorrow. Would have required squeezing Ryan onto the 26-man roster for a day, but Gibaut is still here, so it's not like a huge challenge!

From MLB's transactions glossary: Clubs are not limited to how many pitchers they may carry on the 26-man roster, and clubs typically will roster 12 to 13 pitchers vs. 13 to 14 position players (for a total of 26 active players), though the breakdown varies from team to team throughout a season. .... Prior to the 2020 season, a rule was enacted to limit the number of pitchers a club can carry to 13, but the rule was not put into effect last year and continues to be on hold for 2021. The aforementioned two-player rule, whereby all players qualify as a hitter, a pitcher, or a two-way player, was placed on hold for 2021. As a result, there are no rules limiting when a position player may pitch in 2021.

No limit on pitchers right now. When active rosters were expanded to 26 before the 2020 season, there was also going to be a 13 pitcher maximum. And 28-man September rosters would have had a 14 pitcher maximum. However, those pitcher maximums have been suspended for the 2020 and 2021 seasons, ostensibly due to COVID so perhaps they'll try to re-implement them in 2022.

Interesting info, thanks. The one thing that gives me hope is that Jason Garcia is new to the Saints, and not a regular starter -- he's been coming out of the pen for Wichita this month. Joe Ryan could have easily started for the Saints today (Aug. 31) -- actually it was his "normal rest" day yesterday, but the Saints were off. So the Saints went out of their way to push Ryan back to Sep. 1st, the roster expansion date. And of course, the Twins starter Wednesday is still TBD. Of course, a slight complication is that the Twins are at home and the Saints are in Columbus this week, so it's not as easy as hopping the light rail.

Yeah, that would be my guess. Wednesday's starter is still TBD, and presumably if they were going to use Albers again they would have just announced it already. So best guess is that Joe Ryan will be recalled to start when rosters expand Wednesday, taking the 40-man spot vacated by Garcia here. And then on Friday, when Dobnak is activated from the 60-day IL to start, they will transfer Maeda to the 60-day IL to make room.

Not sure what you mean by "when the team was exposed to COVID-19" but the Twins didn't have their first positive COVID test of the season until April 14th, at which point we had already lost 3 straight games at home (including a Colomé implosion) to fall to 5-5. Also, the only player we lost on April 14th was Simmons, while we actually activated Donaldson and called up Kirilloff that same day. We still got swept in a non-COVID doubleheader at home by Boston, then after salvaging a win on April 15th, we lost decisively 10-3 in a road series opener vs the Angels on April 16th, dropping to 6-8 before any further COVID dominoes fell (Kepler, Garlick, Thiebar). Oh, and Buxton had already missed the last 4 games at that point due to his hamstring, unrelated to COVID. I think the 2021 Twins weaknesses were already on display.

Randy Dobnak will be activated from the IL to start this coming Friday (Sep. 3rd) vs Tampa Bay, taking the rotation spot of Charlie Barnes who was optioned yesterday. The Twins still haven't announced a starter for Wednesday this week, which would have been Maeda's turn. Albers would be in line to do it, otherwise so could Joe Ryan. Wednesday is also Sep. 1st so rosters will expand to 28 that day.

If a guy was clearly ready to be in next year's rotation, it wouldn't be much of an experiment now, would it?