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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Actually, it might. If their interest is modest (i.e. they want him, but only for a marginal PTBNL or cash), and they know that the Twins will reject that offer right now and pull Suzuki back from waivers, it is actually in the other team's best interest to pass on making a claim now. That gives them more time to convince the Twins to accept that return. It also moves any potential acquisition closer to the expanded rosters of Sep. 1st, making it easier to roster an additional player (i.e. if they want to keep their current two catchers, acquiring Suzuki near August 31 means they don't have to carry 3 catchers on their 25 man roster for very long). If they are frugal, delaying the trade also saves them a bit of cash (two weeks of Suzuki is about $500k). Obviously, this all assumes that the "interested" team could take him or leave him, and the trade return would be very low, so it's not a great sign for the Twins, but it's still possible there is a bit on interest and a trade could still happen. I probably shouldn't have posted this, as it will only encourage more exaggerated trade speculation for the rest of the month!
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Well, we have 3 years of the Twins plus Suzuki to evaluate. And only once in that time did the Twins make a move to really threaten Suzuki's starting job, with the acquisition of Murphy after Suzuki's poor *offensive* 2015 season. (I also don't think they planned on Murphy starting at any point in 2016, although he could have worked toward a more equitable split.) They also demoted Murphy fairly quickly this year, and waived John Hicks who has a pretty good defensive rep in the minors, and instead went to Centeno who was zero threat to take away Suzuki's starting job (much like our other MLB catchers in 2014-2015). For that matter, they originally paired Suzuki with Pinto, suggesting they thought Suzuki would provide the defensive value in that arrangement. Obviously we will never know for sure, but I think it's fair to speculate that the Twins evaluation of Suzuki's defense hasn't matched the league's evaluation of his defense. (Not to dwell on the extension, but that might have been another benefit of letting him hit the open market that offseason -- we could have seen more clearly how other teams valued his defense.) Hopefully by generating such little trade interest despite a solid 103 OPS+, it serves as a bit of a wake-up call in their planning at the position for 2017.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    It's sort of a bad thing, in that it will lead to more trade speculation for the rest of the month when clearly no one wants him.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Maybe they ran him through a second time, just to be safe.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    I tend to agree, but it will be a bit of a test. I wonder if a Mauer election would spark renewed interest in inducting Thurman Munson?
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    I was going off of another poster's earlier comment, that he could be in AA given his age. The Twins protected both Yorman Landa and Randy Rosario off the Cedar Rapids staff last year, so there's that. Also, FWIW, Wei-Chung Wang was a Rule 5 selection out of rookie ball, below full season A.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    Good point. Although if interest is really that low, while his ax-bat offense is peaking, maybe it should be time for us to look elsewhere too? It doesn't look like Suzuki has had much positive impact on our pitching staff, or on his fellow Twins catchers. Maybe it would be better to roll the dice on some other vet for a change?
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    To be fair, while that's a listing of catchers, their WAR isn't broken down by position. When his catching career ended, Mauer was behind a number of those guys in total WAR -- Munson, Simmons, Tenace (Tenace also split time at 1B), Freehan, and someone called Wally Schang. He also would have trailed Munson and Simmons in JAWS at that time. True, Mauer did it in 10 years, which speaks to his peak (although Munson did it in 11, the first of which was only a September call-up), but his "career catcher" case isn't so clear-cut. Also, despite "10 years catching", Mauer only had 885 career starts at catcher, barely more than contemporary Victor Martinez (828). Will he be seen as a catcher by the voters?
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    Actually the Twins already found out midday Sunday. If he was claimed, they had another 48 hours to try to trade him to the claiming team, which would expire about now. So I am guessing he wasn't claimed, or something would have been reported by now, either by the Twins or the team that claimed him. Which also suggests that there is very little interest on Suzuki.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't know that this season, or more like it, will do anything to boost Mauer's chances. He's got a 112 wRC+, which is probably within the margin of error for his disappointing 2014 season (106). Mauer's walks and power are up a bit this year, but guess what? Walks and power are up across MLB. Year - Mauer ISO - League ISO 2014 - .096 - .138 2015 - .115 - .153 2016 - .127 - .166 His walk rate increase this year outpaces the league's, and his K's have dropped slightly while increasing slightly across the league, so there is some progress. But nothing that is really going to come up in a future discussion of his HOF chances -- that's basically going to come down to one's personal opinion whether his first 10 years were enough.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Sounds more like a personal opinion, than a judgement on whether he actually makes it. A lot of people (especially stats folks) seem to prefer a smaller, more exclusive HOF.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    What's different, other than the results? I'm not much of a scout, so I am genuinely curious if you see something notable there.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    Hunter never struggled like this. His rookie season, he had a 71 wRC+, which isn't good, but it's not overwhelmingly poor either (Buxton is at 49 for his career to date, and it was going down, with a 54 last year and a 46 this year). Hunter's rookie K and BB rates were both within 1 percentage point of his career marks in both categories. The key difference was power, which came during the following season after something clicked at AAA. Hunter was a 1.5 years older at the start of his rookie season than Buxton was this year, but the gap between their rookie performances can't be explained by age alone. Gomez matches Buxton better for age, and Gomez posted a 52 wRC+ in his first taste of MLB. But it was again largely a function of having no power -- Gomez's K rate during that first 52 wRC+ season was actually his MLB career best. And Gomez followed it up with something like Hunter's poor but viable 74 wRC+, still lacking power but largely having the same K/BB foundation as his later productive seasons. There is still plenty of time for Buxton to have Carlos Gomez's eventual career, but I suspect that might be the reasonable upside to Buxton at this point. He's got some work to do just to catch up to what Gomez was achieving in MLB at the same age, never mind the slow adjustments that Gomez had to make over the next several years to improve upon that himself.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Williams Ramirez will also be Rule 5 eligible this winter. I wonder if teams don't hold back such players a bit, to make it harder for other teams to select them? If Ramirez went to AA and held his own, we'd probably have to protect him or potentially lose him, but if we let him finish the year in A-ball, maybe other teams won't have enough data to pick him in Rule 5?
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Here's another site that seems to cover waiver rules pretty comprehensively, and which also lists the 30 day requirement (note that they refer to trade waivers as "Major League Waivers"): http://wiki.soxprospects.com/Rule+10 Unfortunately MLB does not publish their full and complete transaction rules. (I guess they figure, what would be the fun in that? )
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    Interesting example, thanks. However, no contemporary source says it was Chamberlain's second time on trade waivers that month. Rather, they only say he was mistakenly put on irrevocable waivers (which would include other types of waivers, such as release waivers and outright assignment waivers). They also say the mistake was made while the GM "juggled his 40-man roster" which suggests maybe it was indeed the wrong type of waivers requested -- trade assignment waivers have nothing to do with the 40-man roster. http://articles.philly.com/1990-08-31/sports/25931994_1_phillies-scouts-outfielder-wes-chamberlain-waiver-claims It could also be the 30 day rule was quietly added after the Chamberlain incident, to prevent other teams from making the same mistake. Either way, whether it is forbidden by rule or not, as a practical matter a player pulled back from trade waivers will not get traded within the next 30 days.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    See my reply above. I'm not sure it made any practical difference to do it another way. As for Light, I'd guess the Twins saw their needs shift between Thursday afternoon and Saturday. As of midday Thursday they needed another pitcher, but not necessarily a multi-inning guy -- they still had Albers who hadn't pitched yet, and Milone was still healthy and set to rejoin the pen after his spot start, plus Dean was rested and ready in AAA if needed. By Saturday, they had exhausted both Albers and Dean, and the injured Milone was no longer an option either. (Of course, we've spent much of the season without a real "multi-inning guy", and whether O'Rourke is really an appropriate or worthwhile long reliever is a separate matter of debate...)
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    Fair enough, sorry for the tangent!
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    While you are both correct that once Albers lost his "26th man" status, he had to clear optional assignment waivers to be optioned back to AAA, it wouldn't have made any practical difference. He could be (and was) DFA'd before we requested optional assignment waivers, so he was no longer on the roster while we waited for him to clear said waivers. If they waited until after the second game, they would have optioned Albers to get back to 25 guys, and then DL'ed Boshers and replaced him with Dean. But they still would have been waiting on Milone's health status before they could add another player, and Milone's health status wasn't confirmed until later in the day Friday.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't know if the reporting was off, but the rules are so weird that it's hard to make sense of the reporting. This is what we know, and basically what was reported (although generally without the full technical explanation!): 1. Albers was added as the 26th man for the second game of the doubleheader Thursday 2. Boshers was DL'ed after the first game of the doubleheader, Thursday in attempt to add another pitcher for the second game, but a delayed flight meant that pitcher would be unable to arrive in Minneapolis in time. 3. Unable to replace Boshers in time for the second game, Albers apparently lost his 26th man status. (Correction from my earlier post: optional assignment waivers would not be required to option the 26th man.) 4. While the team waited to see if Milone had to go on the DL, Pat Dean flew to Minneapolis early Friday to be ready for that night's game, either in place of Milone or Albers. 5. Milone was DL'ed Friday afternoon, and as expected, Dean took his spot for that night's game. 6. Now that Dean was able to replace Milone, Albers was DFA'd Saturday and O'Rourke took his spot for that night's game. 7. Albers was reinstated to the 40-man roster and optioned on Sunday. Everything was in accordance with standard procedures and practices (even if the players they chose left something to be desired!).
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    Doesn't that ultimately make it matter more right now? If it's a forgone conclusion that Albers will be outrighted after the season and may elect free agency, why keep him on the roster beyond what was necessary (the doubleheader)? And what does it say about Dean and O'Rourke that they were both effectively behind the "designated man walking" Albers on the depth chart? And what does it say about the Twins that we are investing August innings / roster openings in a lost season on 3 pitchers, ages 27, 28, and 30, all of whom have had opportunities before, have very low upsides, and are very likely to be gone for nothing when the season ends?
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    No, the DFA has been officially reported by the team too: http://m.twins.mlb.com/news/article/195293586/twins-call-up-orourke-as-albers-dfad/
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    While you are right to be skeptical of a one-year positive outlier, you can't necessarily expect a negative outlier to follow, as what appeared to happen to Jepsen. I think a reasonable expectation for Jepsen would have been something like his 3 previous seasons prior to coming to the Twins, a collective 116 ERA+ (individually, 84, 127, 137). If he did that, he'd still be on the team (although to be fair, the team probably wouldn't be in that different of a position today). Kintzler only really has 2 full seasons, but he had a career 116 ERA+ before coming to the Twins. His 2 full seasons were 117 and 144. He pitched in slightly lower leverage than Jepsen, but not dramatically so. I think it would be safe to pencil Kintzler in for a 100-115 ERA+ in modest leverage for next year. It's not super valuable, but useful, and there are still enough question marks in our pen that we'd probably have a place for it. If a Pat Light type player was offered for him at the deadline, I would have leaned toward accepting, but I'm not so sure. Fangraphs had this to say about Light: "He has a bit of a command problem, which manifests itself in his 13% walk rate. He’s also 25, which suggests he’ll likely never become much more than the iffy reliever he is right now."
  24. Otto von Ballpark
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    No, he was designated for assignment first. Which means technically he was removed from the 40-man roster (and by extension, the 25-man roster) on Saturday, immediately replaced by O'Rourke, then added back to the 40-man roster and optioned on Sunday. http://www.thecubreporter.com/book/export/html/3535
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