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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Trevor May and possibly Alex Meyer to the bullpen, as well as the trade of Chih-Wei Hu, suggest they've attempted some win-now moves. Maintaining their commitment to Suzuki as the starting catcher is another potential one, as is retaining vets like Plouffe.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    This was addressed at length in a recent thread. That 2011 Trout season was actually pretty encouraging - reasonable K/BB rates and great power, especially after his first 3 week stint (47 PA). Despite a low .247 BABIP, he was almost league average with the bat (87 wRC+) thanks to his power and K/BB rates alone, a far cry from the MLB production Buxton was providing. Put another way, I'd be a lot less worried about Buxton if he had a 20% K rate and a .238 BABIP, even if it produced the same poor overall stat line. And he probably wouldn't be in AAA right now with that K rate, especially if it was trending in a better direction.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    To be fair, the big recent "Buxton is a flop" thread was actually an error of semantics, really -- the thread starter actually said "My prediction is that he will just be around league average at the plate but stellar in the field" which is quite different than a "flop" to most folks, but it is less than the star predictions that have been made about him over the past few years. Buxton's 1-30 start in rookie ball was just that -- 30 AB, with a modest K rate but an insanely low BABIP of .048. Yes, it was incredibly premature for anyone to be worried about that, given the sample size and BABIP weirdness. But his MLB start is something else, though -- a larger sample of nearly 200 PA with insanely bad K and BB rates. A perfectly normal BABIP of .308, respectable power with a .121 ISO, but a 48 wRC+. It's obviously still early in his career, he may turn out great, but I'm not sure there's much precedent for an elite prospect starting this poorly in MLB and still turning out great. Given that rocky start and his injury tendencies, his realistic upside might be a Carlos Gomez career path now, rather than the hoped-for Andrew McCutchen. Again, not a bust, but something less than what many predicted.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    A-Rod didn't fail a drug test. Actually, none of the Biogenesis guys (including Peralta and Cruz) failed a drug test.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    Some talent, perhaps, I don't know about "quite a bit", and I certainly don't know about getting that level of return for it in a fire-sale scenario. Plouffe is a decent player, but we all saw the market for 3B this winter, it's far from clear he will garner any more in-season. And the other guys on the list probably have even worse cases than that, due to health and performance concerns.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    Did you not follow the A-Rod case, the Braun case, the Josh Hamilton case, etc.? There are a lot of ways for teams to get involved without actually tainting the player's test. Does MLB go out of its way to purchase evidence about Biogenesis if their star client is Reynaldo Rodriguez rather than Alex Rodriguez? Do the Brewers try to obscure the chain of custody issues around Braun's failed test if they want out of his contract? (Or do they help to create chain of custody issues to begin with?) Hamilton wasn't PEDs, but again the team was taking some active stances. And all of this stuff happened WITHOUT the incentive to void $100+ million in future liabilities. If you give one side those kind of extreme incentives, you're just asking for trouble. It's a whole big can of worms that honestly isn't worth the trouble. A few players would definitely lose some money, but Jhonny Peralta did just fine after his failed test. Melky Cabrera and Nelson Cruz eventually did fine too. I suspect Ervin Santana would have probably gotten a similar payday on the open market after his suspension (especially if it came midseason -- can you imagine a FA pitcher hitting the market just before the trade deadline?). Add to it that it's still no deterrent for players on more modest contracts. And teams wouldn't decide whose contract to void based on any sense of fairness or culpability, but entirely on how it would affect their bottom line. What's the point of that?
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    Agreed on this. Average time of game, for only our 9 inning games so far this season, is 3 hours, 6 minutes. That's up 23 minutes from 1991, and up 36 minutes from our last full season at Met Stadium (1980). With a first pitch at 7:10 PM, that would mean our average 9 inning game would last until 10:16 PM. Even with an afternoon start time, 3+ hours is a lot of time to spend in a captive environment with kids. (But I digress, that's really not an issue with replay specifically but modern pacing in general and Target Field's kid-friendliness or lack thereof...)
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't know if 2013 was pretty much the same as 2012. We lost Span and Revere, two pretty low K hitters, and replaced them with Arcia, Hicks, and Clete Thomas. Our next lowest K guy, Jamey Carroll, also ceased to be a full-time player in 2013, and his at-bats effectively went to Florimon and Dozier. Our next lowest K guy beyond that in 2012 was Mauer, and he indeed saw a curious spike in K% in 2013 but I'm not sure how much Bruno had to do with that.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    It's a little more nuanced than that, but you are probably on to something. Chris Herrmann has a career .736 minor league OPS, obviously a little older as a college draftee, but that age-adjusting performance is a very different argument than "hit at every stage of his career." (And Murphy's first plus performance at AA came at age 22, versus age 23 for Herrmann, so it's not like their timelines were way off throughout.) Murphy's minor league success as a plus hitter is primarily limited to 2013, when he posted a 116 wRC+ split between AA and AAA. His MLB success with the Yankees seemed to support that, although there were some K% and BABIP issues.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    David McCarty, here we come!
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Let me know if you want to switch, I could run these numbers for every player/team/year/month/etc. which would give this analysis a lot more context.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    You can even look at it by month, for an even comparison to Seth's numbers: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=rel&lg=all&qual=0&type=3&season=2016&month=4&season1=2016&ind=0&team=8&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=15,d But as you can see, only 37 of our 77 relief appearances even met the threshold for SD/MD designation. Maybe there should be a "neutral" number in between?
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    Yeah, I could see Suzuki falling just short like Hughes did for his IP bonus a couple years ago, and then they pick up the option or negotiate an extension anyway.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    I get your general point, although Cervilli, Castillo, McCann, Vogt, Perez (for defense), etc. can probably make a case too.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Suzuki is currently on pace for only 376 PA, well short of the 485 needed for his option to vest. Suzuki could actually accumulate PA at his 2014 rate the rest of the season and still fall just short of vesting (he'd finish with 483 PA). And given that our 2014 team runs/game mark was higher than 2015 or 2016 so far, that might be a safe bet? In any case, the only way Suzuki's option vests is if we want it to vest (which is a real possibility, but one pretty much separate from the quality or playing time of our backup).
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    FYI, this was discussed a bit already on the main forum: http://twinsdaily.com/topic/22226-investing-in-duffey/ Don't players already have the option of buying "insurance" on their careers? That would cost more money upfront, but could cost a lot less long-term, and wouldn't involving duping naive fans via Fantex.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Yes, although more accurately, Fantex customers are out the money. Fantex's deal with the player is conditioned on them selling enough initial "shares" to cover the up-front payment. Although if post-playing coaching/managing/autograph/etc income counts too, there will still likely be a trickle of income going from the player to Fantex.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    From what I've read, it is for life, but only on baseball-related income. So if he becomes a minor league coach and/or he's doing autograph shows when he's 50 years old, he will owe a portion of that income to Fantex, but if he becomes a real estate agent, that income would be protected. (Presumably there is some "professional" baseball distinction made too, so a player could become a high school coach or something?)
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    I think a lot of fans dislike the challenge system, because it basically adds an extra layer of delay. First the manager gets to stand on the top step while someone watches the replay in the clubhouse, then if they decide to challenge, the umpires have to phone home and wait around for a decision too. It's painfully obvious that the better solution for the game would be to have an extra umpire, on site, who sits in the booth and has full replay access. And they become the arbiter of when to wait or overturn. For some obvious bad calls, they probably could buzz the home plate ump almost immediately and tell them to overturn. For others, they could request that the ump calls time and get an extra ~30 seconds to review while the ump brushes the plate, etc. A "booth ump" at the stadium would also presumably have easier/better/faster/more direct access to the broadcast feeds and production crew, so they could get the exact replay they want, faster. There should never be a delay of multiple minutes on these things. Umps would have to be willing to overturn other umps, but each ump would get a turn in the overturning role so hopefully they wouldn't worry about correcting their colleagues. And they'd get 15 extra umpiring jobs in the league, improving their own job security. Unfortunately, no one seems interested in making this happen. MLB probably loves the delays, gives them more time for commercials and concessions breaks, and the teams and players probably like having some control with the challenge system.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Seth, since you yourself have questioned the meaning and usefulness of your measurement, may I suggest switching to something more quantitative? So it is more easily tracked, understood, and compared across teams/years? For example, I just scanned the Fangraphs game logs for WPA/LI and noted who had positive/negative marks for each appearance, and came up with the following results for April: Pitcher, Positive-Negative Fien 8-4 May 7-5 Abad 10-1 Pressly 8-3 Tonkin 5-5 Jepsen 5-5 O’Rourke 5-2 Perkins 1-1 Rogers 1-0 Meyer 0-1 As you can see, it's a pretty darn close match to your system. The only differences are Perkins first outing (a scoreless mop-up inning for which you gave him a demerit), the one Abad appearance mentioned in my previous post, and two of Tonkin's appearances. One of those he pitched 3 innings in relief of a starter's early exit -- maybe we have a special rule for such games? And the other was allowing an inherited runner to score from second with one out, which could probably go either way. In any case, it would be pretty easy to pull this WPA/LI info for every reliever/team, if you are interested. Might make this analysis more interesting going forward. Strict WPA would be a pretty close match too, it would "forgive" Tonkin's 3 inning appearance but it would shift one appearance each on the ledgers of O'Rourke and Pressly, it appears. Maybe an average of the two (WPA and WPA/LI) could effectively allow for half-credit (or half-demerit)?
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    Abad inherited second and third with nobody out. He allowed an RBI groundout, and then a sac fly to score both runners (then Rosario dropped the sac fly, which put another runner on base that Tonkin allowed to score). Abad had to face two reasonably good, hard to K hitters too in Lindor and Brantley. Might be a spot where a simple +/- system doesn't work -- maybe this should be, at best, a neutral performance from Abad?
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    You're double-counting one game where Tonkin allowed an inherited runner and allowed a run of his own (the 16 inning one). Also, the other game where Tonkin allowed a run of his own, it was in a 3 inning long relief appearance. I think 1 run in 3 innings counts as doing his job, particularly under those circumstances. It appears Seth is dinging Tonkin for his first 3 inherited runner games, but not the most recent one vs Cleveland. He inherited a runner at second and only one out and let him score, but he otherwise got 5 outs that day without allowing another run (or leaving any inherited runners for others).
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    Almost, 5 hits at that point. Thr next 3 guys got hits and Nolasco finished with 8 hits allowed.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    Nope. This is only Meyer's second of three option years.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    Here's an interesting take on the Dee Gordon suspension, in the context of the $50 mil extension he signed over the winter: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/gordon-suspension-magnifies-concerns-for-league-players/ I tend to agree with that author, a system of voiding contracts wouldn't be beneficial.
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