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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Wouldn't Derek Norris be a poor man's Lucroy? He's been hot lately too -- .821 OPS, 11 HR in last 190 PA, according to the article. (The article also says Norris is the most likely to be moved, because he is blocking Hedges.) Suzuki would be a even poorer man's Lucroy, I guess. (And I know poor refers to prospect cost, but interesting to note that Suzuki is actually paid more in annual salary than Lucroy as well as Norris right now.)
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Nope, no relation: http://www.pressherald.com/2014/05/14/steve_solloway__joe_cronin_lives_with_joe_cronin_/
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    Interesting how? You realize the Royals and Tigers (and White Sox) each had at least one drafted SP in that time period who blew way past that 10 WAR threshold? While the Twins dealt one of their 10 WAR SP (Garza) before he even reached 1 WAR for us (for marginal or negative return)? You also realize that over the time period in question, the Royals were mostly terrible? And the Tigers have spent and traded a lot? And the Indians and White Sox had successful holdover SP who stuck around longer than Radke? Even if our SP drafting was equal to them (it's not), it wouldn't exactly be a mark of success.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Are we all pretty universally disappointed that Berrios isn't getting the call? Looks like Nolasco is listed for Monday's game, and Milone for Tuesday's, while Berrios is scheduled for Sunday in Rochester, so it will be at least another turn before we can see him in MLB again...
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    Hildenberger doesn't need to be protected from Rule 5 this winter, so I could see them waiting until 2017 to promote him to MLB. Would be nice to see him in AAA yet this year, though. He wasn't drafted until he was almost 24 years old, so making his MLB debut shortly after turning 26 shouldn't be a big deal.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    Actually, if you are going back in time anyway, wouldn't it be better to go back to before the 2015 season, and just sign someone like Neshek? You could still have pursued Jepsen at the deadline, but maybe Tampa settles for something less than Hu knowing the Twins aren't quite so desperate. (And once the 2015 season was over, I feel Tampa would have been the one more desperate to deal Jepsen, to avoid his 2016 salary obligation.) Heck, knowing how quickly we were willing to bury Arcia, you could quite possibly have dealt Arcia to the Angels for Jepsen before the 2015 season, if you had your eye on Jepsen back then.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    What exactly did Oakland lose by going all-in? They turned around and traded Samardzija right away themselves -- Addison Russell is a nice young player, but Marcus Semien has been just as valuable the past two years, plus they got a couple other spare parts in that deal. Cespedes for Lester also didn't create any long term issues. Oakland's current predicament is probably the result of selling Donaldson and maybe even Norris, with an assist from a later bad FA buy in Butler, and of course iffy player development and maybe trading Drew Pomeranz too early. Has nothing to do with the aggressive midseason moves in 2014.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    Fair point. I thought I remembered the prospect price for Mark Lowe being higher, but looking back it wasn't. A complicating factor was the Padres had a couple arms (Kelley and Benoit) but weren't selling. Other teams seemed to hold on to some relief arms to include in package deals (Hawkins and Diekman). I guess the rentals we could have gotten were Soria, Clippard, or Cishek?
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    See my numbers above -- Jepsen was basically his solid but unspectacular self overall in his Twins tenure. It's just that he way over performed for two months, then underperformed for three. For all we know, he probably would have settled in to that solid but unspectacular groove over his final 3 months if we had given him a chance, but it didn't really matter anymore. Were the Twins really expecting that he'd be so great to finish 2015? Or did they get a bit lucky in that? Otherwise, if we go by expectations based on his career numbers, we probably would have lost an extra game or two in the final two months of 2015 (Jepsen not quite so good), and won an extra game or two or three in the first half of 2016 (Jepsen not quite so bad). Without the luck/randomness/variation, the trade looks even worse.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    The Twins actually did do that with Mauer -- just without Ramos in the equation. Age 27, Mauer only started 107 games at catcher. Age 29 he only started 72, and age 30 he was on a full season pace of 96 when he got his concussion. Outside of his "lost season" at age 28, there were no DL stints suppressing those numbers, he just wasn't starting that frequently at catcher anymore after signing his mega-deal.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Wait, so we're giving credit to the Twins for foreseeing Jepsen's two months of dominance, and giving them a pass because they couldn't have foreseen his 2016 performance? Jepsen's career ERA- was 96 when he came to the Twins. His ERA- in his 5 months with the Twins was actually slightly better than that, 93.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    That's fair. For what it's worth, I don't think anyone in this thread has called him a murderer either, or even a racist. I think most of the critical statements here have been aimed at the system that produces this bad situation, rather than the individual officer. I would honestly be surprised if the officer is ultimately punished. If he is charged, it will probably be more symbolic than specific. Hopefully whatever the result, people are less likely to choose sides/teams and more likely to band together to simply say "we don't want these situations to happen anymore." I should add, I'm grateful for this conversation here, because what I've read elsewhere is absolutely toxic. Lots of "side choosing" and I'm not sure where we go from there. The same sides crop up in politics, but honestly that's mostly a game akin to our precious baseball. I hate to see those same "sides" line up when the issue is a man's life.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    Ah, okay. I hadn't really read much of that Lynx tangent yet, so I didn't connect it your post. The police union leader Kroll has come off pretty badly in his statements at times, but in general, it seems police and protesters have been well-behaved over the past few years in Minnesota. I hope this latest animosity isn't a trend, it doesn't help with the actual issues.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    There have been other recent highway protests in Minnesota without incident. Usually the protesters have had police protection, in fact, and have let through emergency vehicles, etc. I don't see any problem with that, in theory. Not sure what happened the other night -- sounds like maybe the St Paul Police didn't approve of the protester's highway shutdown this time, but that's no excuse for throwing objects at police, of course.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    I haven't been able to follow the protest situation too closely. But I'd be very careful of mixing that discussion -- the actions of the protesters, just like the actions of the insane person in Dallas, are really unrelated from the Castile case. I've seen far too many people imply that overzealous protests effectively nullify any wrong that happened to Castile, or even further, turn the tables the other way and say that police are the only real victims through all of this. If you want to discuss protesters, feel free, but it's a separate discussion that should have no bearing on Castile-specific discussion.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    Obviously this is an informal discussion, and I think we are all prepared to re-assess as more information comes out. But based on what we know, even from statements by the officer's attorney and the department, it is very hard for me to come up with a scenario around those facts that justifies the use of lethal force. The victim was not remotely an immediate danger to the general public; it was a routine traffic stop, with suspicion stemming from a robbery 4 days prior. If the officer felt he was an immediate danger to him, the officer was not backed into a corner either. I don't know how or why that situation should become a "it's either him or me" one -- as I've noted, there was a second officer on the scene, a safe distance from the action. What's the point of having that second officer if the first one is willing to use deadly force if there is a mere presence of a gun and the individual isn't completely following orders? And a lot of the unknowns beyond that could favor the victim's side too -- how much of the danger felt by the officer was of his own making? Did he approach the situation like this was his armed robber? I should also add, I am not necessarily pinning this all on the officer. Sounds like it might be the police procedures to blame, if indeed this is how police are trained to deal with traffic stops of a potential robbery suspects from 4 days prior.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Berardino tweets that the Twins have released Jepsen. https://twitter.com/MikeBerardino/status/752588868734509056
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    Meaningless, but probably the most likely change. (Although less likely than no change.)
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    While it wasn't a successful outing in the Futures Game, it looks like a similar situation to his MLB debut -- a few base runners and little chance to clean up his own mess: http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/index.jsp?gid=2016_07_10_wftmin_uftmin_1#game=2016_07_10_wftmin_uftmin_1,game_state=Wrapup,game_tab=play-by-play A full count walk, a single to right, and then an RBI single to left. The next reliever went single-walk-double to plate the last two of Chargois' baserunners (and then some). I guess Chargois hit the rough pitch limit, thanks to the walk and the 3 ball count to the next batter, although it would have been nice to see him face another guy or two. The first two guys he faced, who worked the count, are both hitting .320-.340 on the year with good contact skills. The third guy, who has MLB experience too, only saw 2 pitches, and he struck one hard to left but it possibly should have been stopped by the 3B: http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/188659034/v920873283/wldusa-herrera-increases-world-lead-with-rbi/ He may continue struggling in MLB or when facing top prospects, but I'm not sure that continuing to pitch in Rochester is going to help him address those issues either.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    It does feel like the Twins took some pride in avoid 100 losses in each of the last four Gardy years -- who can forget those final 2 wins with our backs up against the wall at 99 losses in 2011? So if anything were to happen (most likely TR retirement), I think we'd have to hit 100 losses. Silly as it sounds to pin it on a round number, that would look like a step below those last Gardy years, rather than a 90-some loss even step back. Although TR may want another year to turn it around too, like Tom Kelly circa 2001.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    Not sure. I'd probably shy away from Brock's 38+ options (meaning, finishing with 70+ wins), seems like it would be fairly rare historically to do that. Avoiding 100 losses seems like a more realistic/attainable goal than 70 wins. Especially considering it's already taken a nice 7-2 run just to improve our record to this point. I honestly haven't even thought about record too much lately, it's going to be the performances of Kepler, Sano, Buxton, Berrios, Chargois, and Murphy that give meaning to our second half.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    Not sure who you are responding to -- I don't think anybody here at least is suggesting the officer was a closet Klansman. (Although you don't have to go back to the 1930s to find examples of "see black guy, stop black guy" -- Minneapolis still had official racial covenants in housing later than that, I can imagine that black motorists got stopped much more recently than that too.) Again, I don't care if the officer really wanted to check an ID in this situation. But given the result, it does seem like the officer applied more urgency to it than that. It will be interesting to hear detailed accounts of the incident.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    The robbery was 4 days prior. I don't mind them pulling him over for the taillight if it helps them get some more information about a potential suspect, but there was no real sense of urgency. They could have just noted the car and followed him for a bit too if that was their goal. I'm probably not comfortable with them taking him into custody at that traffic stop, based on the vague-ness of the suspect description, and the time elapsed since the robbery (suggesting a minimal danger to the public if the potential suspect wasn't apprehended immediately). If they do decide to stop him, I think having the first officer approach unarmed, with the second officer waiting nearby, could be a good way to prevent the situation from escalating beyond what's appropriate for the circumstances. Serious question: are police ever trained to back away from a situation? We're still not exactly sure what happened in the build-up to this shooting, and we may never be, but no one's life ever seemed to be in danger other than the victim (obviously) and the officer. If he was really concerned about the victim's gun, and he no longer considered his position safe, should the officer have backed away to re-group, call in backup, etc. rather than fire? Can police do that? I really don't know, but it seems preferable to lethal force in situations like these.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    For the expansion era (since 1961): Started exactly 32-56: 19 teams 1 finished with 70+ wins (1986 Oakland at 76 wins) Average finish: 62-100 Started 32-56 or worse: 73 teams 3 finished with 70+ wins (1986 Oakland again, 2000 Houston at 72, 1973 Cleveland at 71) Average finish: 59-103 Started 33-55 or worse: 95 teams 4 finished with 70+ wins (the aforementioned 3, plus 1969 Angels at 71 wins) Average finish: 60-102 Started 34-54 or worse: 114 teams 6 finished with 70+ wins (the previously mentioned 4, plus 2012 Padres at 76 wins, and 1971 Expos at 71 wins) Average finish: 61-101 Started 35-53 or worse: 140 teams 15 finished with 70+ wins (none reached .500) Average finish: 62-100 Started 36-52 or worse: Average finish: 64-98
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    Well, the Twins did get a new hitting coach to coincide with Arcia's promotion to the majors in 2013, and have produced some notable pull/power/strikeout hitters since then, like Dozier. It wouldn't be crazy to suggest the modern Twins perhaps focused too much on harnessing Arcia's pull power, to the detriment of his overall hitting. But I am far from an expert in such matters, and it's far too early to draw any conclusions about his post-Twins production.
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