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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Service time should be a non-issue. I haven't found a single pitcher who ever got the "Kris Bryant" treatment (held back for ~2 weeks to get an extra year of control). Even finding a pitcher who got the "Wil Myers" treatment (called up immediately after the super-2 threshold date) is difficult -- Gerrit Cole is the only one who comes to mind. Teams just don't seem to care about service time games with pitchers. Berrios is a fine prospect, but I'm not sure he's the guy to break the mold. EDIT: I found one pitcher, David Price -- he was called up in September 2008, then kept down until late May 2009, and wound up 8 days short of free agency after the 2014 season. Of course, he was the #1 overall pick and #2 prospect in baseball at the time, and was under some serious pitch count restrictions in early 2009 as the Rays were pacing him for his first full pro season (a season in which he wasn't super effective anyway).
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Well, Fangraphs projects Park to be #33 in MLB by wRC+. If he's eligible for your prospect list, and you agree with that projection, you pretty much have to treat him as an elite prospect, regardless of age/position.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    The floor for that article is apparently not making it out of the "draft" stage...
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Also, if you have to call MLB, your cable provider, or any company and you are dreading the experience, I've had great luck recently with a free service called getservice.com https://getservice.com You give them your account name/number (nothing sensitive like credit cards or passwords), tell them who to call and what resolution you desire, and they take care of it on your behalf. I imagine it will eventually be a paid service, but they just started recently so they are still free.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    I haven't had any billing issues with them, but otherwise they've been very responsive. I called them on a holiday weekend once, because they were mistakenly blacking out games where I was staying (just outside of "Twins territory"). Talked to a rep right away, who knew exactly how to fix it, and I re-opened the app, and it worked. Only took a couple minutes. I've also seen them be very responsive on Twitter. Compared to other streamers like Fox Sports Go, who often don't have to maintain a subscriber base, MLB service is pretty darn good.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    Yeah, he might retire again -- last year, Quentin retired after 6 days at AAA, so maybe it's not his cup of tea. If he doesn't retire, though, he has to accept any AAA assignment, at least through June 1st (his opt out date).
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    I experienced the same a bit yesterday, on mobile Chrome with no adblock.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    One thing all of Twins Daily can agree on: if your extension candidate list includes Kurt Suzuki circa 2016, you should probably just shorten your list.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    Well, a lot of folks disagree that Nunez is a great "solution", that's kind of the crux of this discussion. Especially when we may potentially have a number of OF/DH/1B fighting for playing time, the option to stick Sano at 3B from time to time could be handy. Forgoing that option, before spring training even starts, for the vague benefits of Sano "concentrating" on his new RF duties, seems sub-optimal, to say the least. Especially when we've passed on opportunities to let Sano play the outfield before. And while Molitor listed "a rash of injuries" as one of his possible conditions for change, at some point, keeping Sano away from 3B is going to impact those decisions too. If it's July and Plouffe goes down, are we going to immediately put Sano back at 3B or will he be deemed too "rusty"? Will Plouffe try to play injured if that's the case? If we're not sure how long Plouffe will be out, will we try to patch for a month with Nunez first? What if Plouffe is healthy, but Nunez gets hurt -- does Escobar become the occasional starter at 3B, so we see more Danny Santana starts at shortstop? Again, it just seems sub-optimal to close the book on an obvious solution to all those contingencies before spring training even begins. And that's not even getting into the question whether this is just an early indicator that the Twins don't want Sano playing 3B ever again...
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    In the comparison I made of their stats, I was throwing out Gordon's first 2 months at Cedar Rapids. Is that not enough of an adjustment period? At that point Gordon had almost as many career pro plate appearances as Polanco did in rookie league ball. (And it wasn't as if Gordon was just a random high school player before then, he was going to elite national tournaments and showcases since his sophomore year.) And like I showed, going forward from that point, Gordon still under-performed Polanco at the plate, particularly in power and plate approach. I'm not saying that Gordon is destined to be a worse hitter than Polanco or anything, but right now, there is very little evidence to suggest he will clearly overtake Polanco in all 3 of those offensive categories (average, power, and plate approach) as Seth predicted. I don't think most qualitative scouting reports are even predicting that at this point. (Not that he has to overtake Polanco to be more valuable, with his presumed defensive advantage, but that was not the point being discussed.)
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    That all makes sense... if you're only talking about the opening day lineup. And that's all been known since November. But what about when Plouffe needs a day off? Or if he's nicked up and sits out a series? Or if we have another outfielder like Arcia or Kepler forcing his way into more playing time? That's the new statement, that Molitor will not use Sano at 3B in those situations, or anything short of "a rash of injuries" / emergency duty.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    I like Rosario, and he might not regress much, but I have a feeling he could be a bit of a stagnation candidate offensively. If he's repeating his 2015 season at the plate, and either Arcia bounces back or Kepler adapts quickly to AAA, I would absolutely reduce Rosario's playing time to make room. Having 4 healthy and contributing outfielders is a good problem to have! Especially if 2 of those outfielders are capable in CF (Buxton, Rosario, maybe Kepler), and up to 2 (Sano, Arcia) should get some games at DH too. (And another reason why getting Sano some games at 3B could help the team as well, but I digress.)
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    It wouldn't be that interesting, because it would be 99% player salary and bonuses. Scouts and minor league coaches earn very little, and their job responsibilities cover many players. Even the "big" development costs, the facilities at Ft Myers and elsewhere, are of course leveraged over many players and many years.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Normal scouting and development expenses are negligible (scouts and minor league coaches get paid very little). Sano's bonus was 26% of Park's posting fee. Revere's bonus was 6%. And both of those figures bought 10+ years of team control (~3.5 minor leagues, ~6.5 years MLB), making the potential annualized value even lower. Park's posting fee was a much greater amount, and our control of him limited to 4 years. (Also, post-2012, draft/international bonuses are much more fixed and less discretionary than a posting fee.) If you are doing Park's taxes, the $12 million total, $3 million average figure is appropriate. If you are talking about the Twins short-term financial investment in Park, the $24 million total, $6 million average figure is much more appropriate.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Park gets $3 mil a year from us, but the team averages a $6 mil yearly commitment to him when you include the posting fee. I think the latter is more fair way to represent it. Of course, the first $12 mil was paid upfront almost like a signing bonus, so if we get to the point where we are considering trading him, other teams would only have to pay him $3 mil a year going forward. But we're probably nowhere near that point yet.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    Local broadcast stations have very little money. Way behind a mid-market RSN.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Agreed. It's certainly possible he develops like that offensively, I'm just not sold yet. Fortunately, we don't have to be sold yet, he's got plenty of time to develop.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    Actually BA and BP each bumped Gordon up by 8 spots in their top 100 lists this year. MLB dropped him 58 spots.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    Actually, given some of Kepler's health history, Brantley might be a good ceiling comp across the board.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Oh, definitely on the defensive side. I was just responding to Seth's ranking of future offense.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    No problem. I was there in the front lines of Twins message boards in that era, though, so I am intimately familiar with the litany of names brought up in Santana trade talks. (Please don't go find any of my past posts now. ) I think "flukiest perfect game ever" and "making the majors 7 years later" do not contribute meaningfully to a judgement of our Santana trade return. Thanks to Gomez, it wasn't anywhere close to the disaster trades of history (or even the Twins disaster trade that offseason ). Although it's still quite likely we would have been better off with 2008 Santana plus the comp picks.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    FYI, Defensive WAR contains the positional adjustment. You don't want that if you are comparing him to other 3B. His Rfield at B-Ref, or "Fielding" run value at Fangraphs, is more appropriate. And he has been above average in both of those marks too for the past two seasons, so your point stands regardless.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    We heard the same thing about the free agent 3B market this offseason, but the demand just wasn't there. David Freese might still be unsigned by next winter. The Twins might be able to get by with successive ~$10 mil one-year contracts for Plouffe until his performance drops or they no longer want him. That's not bad.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    Span was a pretty weak prospect at that point in time, and Hunter was out of our price range. I think we just zero'd in on using Santana to get our CF replacement (not unlike we probably zero'd in on using Garza to replace Hunter's RH "power bat" with Delmon). I think we were still in bargain-bin free agent mode, unfortunately, or we could have bid on Mike Cameron that winter (who ultimately signed a fantastic deal for 2/16 with Milwaukee). I don't think we ever really left that mode until Willingham and then of course the Nolasco offseason.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    Remember, Milledge was ranked #9 before the 2006 season. Santana wasn't traded until after the 2007 season, 2 whole years later. By that time, Milledge had a somewhat pedestrian season in AAA in 2006, an uninspiring MLB debut that same year, and then a average-ish MLB follow-up in 2007 shortened by injury. He was not the higher rated, better prospect after 2007. It's possible that the Mets tried to offer him initially, but I can't give the Twins any credit for refusing. Milledge was quickly dealt for Ryan Church and Brian Schneider that winter. Fernando Martinez was the higher rated prospect after 2007, and he washed out even worse than Milledge. Not sure if the Twins had the chance to add Martinez, the Mets seemed very protective of him, but it's quite possible we would have chosen Gomez anyway given our desire for an immediate CF option.
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