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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    We all know that teams make deals in July. But what's the likely return for mediocre veterans? Find me a guy (and contract) in the class of Hughes, Santana, Nolasco, Plouffe, Dozier, Nunez, etc. who fetched a meaningful return in July. And even if they fetch something modest -- how much does that modest return have to do with their playing time in June & July? The above names are all very much veteran known quantities -- we can't exactly predict their performance, but we know the range pretty well. And they're mostly controlled for multiple years, so short-term streaks are much less meaningful to their July trade value. Put simply: guys like Hughes, Santana, Nolasco, Plouffe, Dozier, Nunez, etc. aren't going to fetch a top 100 prospect in July, and they're not going to fetch a meaningfully different class of prospect due to their playing time and likely performance range in the 2 months leading up to the deadline either. Similarly, especially for those starting pitchers, teams aren't going to pick up 100% of their salary in July, and they're not going to pick up a meaningfully larger portion of their salary due to their playing time in the 2 months leading up to the leading either.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    And I don't know if Hoyer would really be all that great, I'm sure his record has flaws, but he is going on 5 years as GM of the team which won 97 games (3rd best in MLB) and a playoff series last year, and has the best record in baseball so far this year. He would be an elite GM candidate this winter, probably regardless of whether the Cubs win the world series.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    Good point. Even if TR retires in September like Reusse says, everybody else is still in place -- Molitor, Antony, St. Peter, Gardy, Smith, everyone. And not only is it hard to Pohlad firing all those people, it's also hard to see an elite GM candidate wanting to come in and have to fire all those people as the first order of business. (Back to my mom & pop store analogy, it would be like the mom & pop hiring you to be the manager to fire all of their kids who have been working there 20+ years, because mom & pop are too afraid to...)
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Yeah, I understand saying stuff like that publicly, but your actions have to reflect otherwise. You can play Polanco a lot, start Berrios, Meyer, and/or May, and still give lip service to trying to win today, it's not like he has to field the full AAA lineup.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    Apparently, yes. 24.9 K/9. And I thought his start at AA was pretty good --- 9 K's in 5 perfect innings to start the year. Looked much more mortal over his next 6 games, but his results at AAA suggest he was still worthy of promotion. If he continues pitching well, I think he could/should be up around June 1st.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    Seth, it should probably be noted that since that report, Rochester has announced starters through Saturday and Meyer isn't among them. Berrios is rejoining the team too and would be in line to start Sunday, before an off day Monday. Unless he works out of the pen, Meyer is unlikely to appear before Tuesday May 24 at the earliest. According to this report, Meyer was supposed to throw sometime over the past couple days with an eye toward returning sooner: http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/sports/baseball/blogs/extra-bases/2016/05/16/meyer-should-rejoin-wings-rotation-trip-south/84449392/ I wonder if he's still having shoulder problems?
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    I think Vargas would get claimed. He can still be optioned this season, and he's getting back to his usual solid minor league hitting this month (1.086 OPS). I see a few teams around the league who could use a 1B/DH, and a few more who could stash one in AAA for the low cost of a 40-man roster spot. Of course, I don't think anyone would give up much for Vargas in trade. He still doesn't have great odds of MLB success, it's his last option year, and he's totally blocked with the Twins -- the Twins are very likely to drop him from the 40-man by October/November, so teams will just wait it out rather than give up anything to get him. But I would guess there would be takers on a waiver claim -- you'd get 4+ months to audition him this year, and if you could later pass him through waivers yourself, you could outright him to AAA and keep him for another year too.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    Yeah, I am not sure what a complete "shut down" would accomplish. Hughes has been effectively "shut down" for 4+ months each of the last two offseasons. As long as he can still pitch, but he's just getting less velocity and getting fatigued faster, it's probably best for him to try learning how to pitch through it. Perhaps out of the pen.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    Still has a high K rate, but he has generated some power in the early going. BABIP in a normal range too...
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    Can you please spare us your theories about our posting motivations? That doesn't seem to be great for the discussion. Thanks in advance. I think I answered your last question in my above post. Given his issues with command and control prior to his callup, I expected a longer leash than 1 disaster start, if the alternative was Pat Dean. I also expected Meyer to have a longer leash than 1 start. Polanco and Kepler are obviously different particulars, but I think the lack of planning and trust around their promotions are similar to Meyer and now Berrios.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Berrios showed the same issues with control and command this spring and in his first few AAA games this year. When they called him up early despite that, I expected him to have a longer leash than one disaster start, assuming a rotation spot was readily available.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    Why call him up to MLB then, when they did? See my post above -- desperately hoping for a home run, but not willing to trust the developmental process.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    We've been down this discussion path before. Obviously the Twins want their players to succeed. But that doesn't mean much if they don't demonstrate trust that they can succeed. The Twins would have loved nothing more than Alex Meyer to throw a complete game shutout, but calling up Meyer to sit on the bench, yanking him in the third inning of his first start, and demoting him immediately after the game for JR Graham who was DFA'd a day later, was a textbook example of not showing trust. Berrios is a bit different, he did get four starts, and they didn't have much choice but to remove him from the game yesterday, but I think optioning him now for Dean/Rogers, with at least 3 more rotation turns before Gibson returns, strikes me as showing a lack of trust too. Polanco rarely starting two consecutive games is another example. Add in rostering Buxton before he looked ready, and Kepler before they were ready to play him, strikes me as a team that is desperately hoping to hit a home run with one of these promotions but not terribly willing to trust the development process.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    That's kinda what I was getting at -- I think that ship has sailed. I'm not sure there's anything that the Pohlads can say or do in the next 6 months that will satisfy all of the conditions required to get an elite hire like Hoyer: - clear out the old stale regime for Hoyer to start anew - look more proactive and aggressive, rather than reactive and desperate - convince anyone they will be willing to spend more aggressively The Cubs, for example, changed ownership in 2009 before hiring Epstein and Hoyer in 2011, and had been a top 10 payroll team for a decade (#3 before the 2009 sale, even). Selling the team is probably what Pohlad would have to do to bring a comparable hire to the Twins this year. Now, Pohlad could probably bring in a worthy lesser hire, like assistants from St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and Oakland that have been mentioned by others. Someone whose primary concern is a promotion, an incremental step up from their current job, and not the market or the optics. Just probably not someone like Hoyer, who would be a Maddon-level GM prospect this winter.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    If the alternative is playing Polanco once a week, sure send him to AAA. Is that the only alternative, though? Couldn't your plan just as simply say, Polanco should start most days at SS while Escobar is out, and spell Dozier or Plouffe once or twice a week too? If you are sending down Rosario anyway, it should be pretty easy for Nunez to pick up at-bats in the outfield. I don't know why Polanco, who has looked pretty good, is getting lumped in with Rosario, who hasn't. I may not call Kepler up right now, but I don't know why Max, who started 2 games in 2 weeks (after 2 career games at AAA), is getting lumped in with Buxton already. And I'm not sure why Meyer's 1 start earned him the same banishment as Berrios' four starts. Or why your "plan" seems to omit Trevor May entirely -- wouldn't starting him over the next two month be instructive for planning our future, especially if you want to call up a bunch of other starters in August? I swear I've read you time and again saying how prospects are all different and can't be treated the same, yet you create a "plan" that very explicitly does just that.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    Darin Mastroianni was once a 26 year old Twin too, and here we are, 4 years later...
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Four OF spots? Is Rochester trying some new radical defensive alignment?
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't doubt Meyer has/had shoulder fatigue. I fear it could be worse, though. Remember his 2013 was cut short with shoulder issues, and 2014 ended on a shoulder scare too.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    Thanks, it's good to read something about it. Although the headline -- "should" -- belies the first sentence: "There's a chance..." Also, that article was from yesterday, and as I mentioned upthread, Rochester has since officially announced starters for the first 6 of the 7 game road trip, and Meyer isn't among them. The finale Sunday is still TBD. I like that the Rochester writer took this well-deserved shot: "The Twins certainly did him no favors. He started for the Wings on April 20, then joined the Twins five days later and did a lot of nothing until the April 29 relief appearance."
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Any sign? 20 Ks in 15 innings is a sign, as is 5 runs over 10 innings including a win (his previous two starts). Not perfect conclusive signs, but signs nonetheless. The post to which I was responding (and quoted) said optioning Berrios was a necessity due to the needs of the roster. That's the part with which I disagreed most strongly. Even if you wanted to change something after his most recent performance, sending Berrios to the pen for a bit, or skipping a start, would have been other options, if we had built a more flexible roster. Optioning him, after an admittedly bad game, in favor of Rogers/Dean seems as knee jerk as parking Meyer on the bench after an extra inning game in Washington. Or optioning Meyer in favor of Graham after 1 start, then DFA'ing Graham a day later to open a 40-man roster spot that has yet to be filled...
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    Sounds nice in theory, but Polanco -- what has he done to deserve to be buried at AAA until August 1st? Which of Meyer's 4 innings convinced you he wasn't ready? Which of Kepler's 2 starts did the same? I'm all for demoting a prospect who looks overmatched, like Buxton and others, but you and Seth are applying blanket rules to everybody. It's not a cookie-cutter process. If we have a rotation opening for the next 3 weeks, there is probably a more useful way to fill it than Pat Dean. If not Berrios, then perhaps Trevor May? If Escobar is on the DL, you should be able to find some significant at-bats for Polanco. If you don't see Meyer as a starting pitcher, is there a place where you can work with him in our MLB bullpen?
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    And how best to get past that? With more time in Rochester? Or maybe trying to calm him down and set realistic expectations at the big league level?
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    Arcia and Escobar, sure, maybe Danny Santana and a couple relievers, but the veteran starting pitchers? Plouffe? Dozier? Jepsen? Suzuki? Nunez? Mastroianni? Pat Dean? Almost nothing those guys do in the next two months will have any affect on their July trade value or long-term projections/expectations. In fact, cromulent performances by those guys are more likely to buy more playing time in August, September, and beyond than they are to help us make a final decision on them by August 1st. Will August and September be enough time to collect useful data on the new young players in advance of 2017? Many of those veterans would be August waiver trade candidates too. Should we push it back to September 1st if necessary? Will September be enough to evaluate anybody? Parmelee, Pinto...
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    Al Avila shrugged.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    Here is the original post you responded to on the subject: Nowhere does it say that Graham is 100% responsible. A couple of games COULD have made a difference, and rostering Graham quite possibly COULD have cost us those games, in a far more predictable and avoidable fashion than, say, random player X performing poorly for Y number of games. You seem to be only one who interpreted that to mean 100% blame. Which is distracting from the issue that the Twins appear to have mismanaged the Graham situation to negative effect, if not this year then last year.
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