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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Cishek's BB rate is at his career average, and his HR rate is actually high this year, which might balance out some of his good BABIP/LOB luck. And while he may not be perfect, he's helped Seattle and is an asset to them as they either hang in the race or look to sell. Which was exactly the stated goal for trying to find a quality veteran bullpen arm last winter.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Okay. I've seen similar sentiments expressed before, about some of the players Ryan has managed to trade. Hard to tell if/when folks are serious...
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    It feels like teams dramatically de-prioritize items #2-#6 on your list midseason, especially as it relates to a non-elite player like Santana making decent cash. If they are thinking longer term, they're going to want Teheran, Odorizzi, Gray, etc. Short term, those guys would help too, as could Hill or Hellickson. Even with a weak market upcoming, most of those teams might rather look for a shorter term fix now, then take a one year flier this winter on a guy like Buchholz rather than lock in Santana at those terms. There have been weak offseason SP markets before (evidence used to excuse a few Twins past offseason decisions too) -- how many guys like Santana have been moved in season with multiple years remaining? Maybe someone might be willing to take his contract off ours hands for the above reasons, but they're not going to give up a decent prospect, so I'm not sure what the point of such a deal would be for the Twins. Are we going to find a better use of $27 mil over the next two seasons?
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Correia was traded in August, for virtually nothing in return except modest salary relief (~$1 mil left at that point?). Guys owed more than that can be better players but even harder to move, especially at this early date.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    Yup. The ~$11 mil total it would cost to move Santana in that scenario would be better "used" to dump Nolasco instead. We don't really need much more than 1 spot opened at the moment, and if we need a second, we could also cut Milone much more cheaply. Or use a fraction of that money to help move Plouffe and Suzuki early and clear their spots for others in 2016.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    By the Twins? Sure. By any other team in baseball, in terms of picking up his salary? Unlikely. Have we all not noticed that Mauer is back to a 106 OPS+ this year? His batting line, including ISO, K%, AVG, and BABIP, is almost exactly back to last year's levels, except for an extra +3% on his walk rate.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    Good question! Nunez is making $1.48 mil this year. While his good performance this year will boost it, arb increases seem relative to previous salary too. Probably $3-4 mil for Nunez next year, depending on his second half?
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    I know this is the part of the "find anything positive about Adam Brett Walker" joke/meme, but I'm not sure the evidence supports it anyway. Buxton has played both with and without Walker at only two levels: A+ without Walker (2013): 155 wRC+ A+ with Walker (2014): 106 wRC+ AAA without Walker (2015): 190 wRC+ AAA with Walker (2016): 189 wRC+
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    Yes, although his earlier game tying HR in July followed by John Ryan Murphy's HR off Perkins was probably worse. That started a home series loss and 5 game season losing streak vs the Yankees.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    2009 game 2 was Nathan's only blown save for us in the playoffs. He was actually quite effective against them in 2004 game 2 -- it's not his fault he was stretched to 3 innings -- and he helped us survive a bit longer in game 4 of 2004 too after Rincon blew the lead. As much as people try to point to Nathan, he was not the magic bullet that doomed the Twins against the Yankees. In fact, the frustrating thing is that there is no magic bullet -- our failure against the Yankees has been very much collective.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    When he was a free agent, Grossman was free to sign with anyone, at any terms. And he didn't do too bad on that front, eventually finding a team to give him a guaranteed MLB job for while, making $500k, getting health insurance, and collecting service time not only toward arb and free agency, but also toward his eventual MLB pension. While a free agent, it is quite possible Grossman could have signed for more money overseas (and then come back to a mild bidding war if he was successful, I suppose).
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    I think it is far from clear those guys are going to get similar deals. Kazmir only got 3/48 last winter (admittedly back loaded with with an opt out). Guys like Leake, Shark,and Kennedy got their salaries largely by being longtime innings eaters. That doesn't necessarily apply to Kazmir, or Hill, etc. Also, Santana does have a vesting option, so it wouldn't quite be a straight two year commitment.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    I believe Brock meant that Lucroy's half season in Minnesota in 2016 would be wasted, given our position in the standings. So the Twins would really just be getting one useful season of him (barring extension), but of course we would be bidding against teams that could get value out of him for the full season and a half. What would be an acceptable price, to you, to acquire Lucroy in trade right now? I suspect you might construct a low offer, like the other on this thread, which means you more or less agree on this specific case, despite your larger philosophical point.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Their stadium is air conditioned, so... maybe?
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    If this was the off season or next spring, I'd agree, but most of those names are irrelevant to Arcia's situation right now, how it has been for the past few months, and how it would have likely been for the next few months. It may not be exactly Santana vs Arcia, but it is very likely Santana/Park/Plouffe over Arcia at the moment. (Plouffe being a lame duck 3B, likely pushing Sano and even Nunez into the DH spot)
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    Has anyone disputed that Arcia's value is low right now? He was DFA'd, that rarely happens to players with decent value. The debate is, did the Twins do enough to try to improve his vale over the past year and a half? And if his value is this low right now, what's the point in casting him off while he is still making the league minimum? Seems to be the opposite of how they approach most low value players (of whom they have had many in recent years).
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Look at our lineups. 4 of his last 9 games here in 2015 before his injury, Arcia sat in favor of Robinson, Nunez, or Escobar. Arcia's numbers weren't great at the time, but he had a 97 OPS+ and the lowest K rate of his career. Coming off a strong finish in 2014, that is a curious way to deploy Arcia in early 2015. That, and keeping him down in June-July, suggests they were fairly clueless about how to best handle Arcia as an asset well before Arcia's performance became a problem.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    The second half of 2015, no doubt Arcia was bad, and was probably injured. But our esteemed manager was actually benching Arcia back in April and early May, before his injury, in favor of infielders and Shane Robinson. Then as you point out, Arcia was hitting just fine in AAA at the all star break. Just posting his career numbers, he probably could have helped the big club in June before Sano's arrival, and even after that by spelling Hunter, and maybe sitting Mauer a few extra times while Sano or Plouffe took over 1B on those days. Maybe the Twins were prescient about Arcia's second half slide, but considering how they treated him at the start of the 2015 season, coming off his big finish in 2014, I doubt it.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    So you believe there is a path to Arcia being a decent MLBer, yet you are comfortable with the Twins not even exploring that path at any time over the past 15 months? Poor asset management on the team with the worst record in baseball doesn't bother you in the slightest?
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    You sure about "nothing to earn it" in early 2015? Arcia had a really good finish to 2014, and was still getting benched for infielders in the outfield and Shane Robinson in the first month of 2015. Also, I have no idea how you justify Plouffe and especially Park remaining everyday players on this team right now, with Arcia dropped for virtually nothing, without invoking scholarships a bit. Both Park and Plouffe have more PA vs RHP the past 3 months than Arcia has MLB PA total the past 15 months.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    If Park went down and Plouffe was dealt as expected (or DL'd, I see he has missed a couple games), DH would have been wide open for Arcia for awhile, even with Sano back on the team.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    No way in the world that the Brewers would accept that package for Lucroy. At his current level, no way in the world anyone willingly pays Nolasco $7 mil next year either. If he was a free agent, he'd probably get $2 mil tops.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    Had he been claimed on waivers, the Twins would have received a nominal waiver fee, probably close to the cash considerations involved in this trade. Had he cleared waivers, we could have sent him outright to AAA like Milone. He would not have been able to become a free agent until after the season at least, although we would have had the option to add him back to the 40-man like Milone too.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    It remains to be seen whether we even get a player back -- I think the last few "PTBNL or cash" deals we have been a part of, have mostly been settled with a modest amount of cash. Furthermore, I suspect that the inclusion of cash as an option bodes poorly for whatever list of PTBNL we might get to choose from -- likely org filler if we need something later this year.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    Which one? Actually it would have been nice to get something like Lester Oliveros circa 2011 for Arcia... Selling on Arcia after 2014 might have been advisable, given how quickly we decided to start benching him in 2015 in favor of Hunter, Robinson, Schafer, various infielders, etc. It would have been an aggressive move, to be sure, but I think it might be better to make an aggressive move every once and a while rather than waiting on every single one of our assets...
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