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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    8 of 10 would be 5.5 games back. not 4.5.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    I don’t think it’s a conspiracy, and I have no doubt the weather is kind of crappy there as it has been here, but I am guessing they may have attempted to play in these conditions on other days, just like the Twins on Saturday. It’s natural for biases to come into play. I doubt LaRussa or any manager or front office just defers the decision entirely to some weather watcher. And the league wouldn’t have to do it centrally from New York either — they could contract with local weather services in each city. Give them the drainage parameters of each field and a weather station at the ballpark, if there isn’t one already. That would still be local and more objective than a team manager or FO.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    Are you near the stadium? Just curious, I don't see anything on radar over the stadium right now. There's some precipitation to the west but the "futurecast" has it largely breaking up by the time it gets near the stadium. ~50% chance of precip. https://www.accuweather.com/en/us/guaranteed-rate-field/60609/hourly-weather-forecast/18118_poi Here's a current webcam shot from the Field Museum, just a few miles NE:
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Also, Jose Abreu got hit in the knee with a pitch yesterday (from old friend JT Chargois!), so this buys him an extra day of rest too. And perhaps more time to work an Eduardo Escobar trade?
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    Also, worth noting that the Padres expect Clevinger back next year too, so the extra year of control on Berrios may not be quite so valuable to them.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't know the Padres prospects, but baseballtradevalues.com doesn't think this trade is particularly close, even if we ate Sano's salary: FWIW, Gore looks like a match for Berrios, and Hassell for Buxton.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    Also, the Monday July 19 doubleheader would seem to favor the White Sox. They have an off day that week on Thursday July 22 while the Twins do not, and in fact the Twins already have a doubleheader a few days earlier (Friday July 16 in Detroit). Also, it seems like it is hard to sweep a doubleheader? So a team like the White Sox, who just need to salvage some head-to-head splits to keep the Twins at bay, may not mind exchanging a single game for a doubleheader.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    Home team gets to decide on delays or postponements before first pitch. In this case, I bet Chicago wanted a day off after they played 13 innings yesterday, just like the Twins wanted Saturday off after the Friday bullpen game. I don't know the Chicago weather today, but I wouldn't mind if the league took over the power to delay or postpone due to weather (or delegated it to the umpires, who have the power to delay once the game is underway).
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    Chicago's offense? Their team OPS+ is worse than the Twins. They've scored 27 runs the last 9 games. They've got injuries just like the Twins, but worse depth and Mercedes is turning back into a pumpkin. Their starting pitching has been much better, I'll grant that, but I don't think they're invincible (probably performing a bit over their head so far) -- and in the modern game, you still need to score more than 3 runs a game and have a deeper pen, or the SP advantage can easily vanish. They've given up 53 runs the past 9 games. Not that the Twins will dominate, but nothing particularly unlikely about a split. (At least not before game 1 was rained out )
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    FWIW, Doolittle had potentially 3.5 years of affordable control when he was traded. (Was also bundled with Ryan Madson who had 1.5 affordable years left.)
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Haven’t really looked at the Padres prospects, but I’m not sure what they would do with Sano. (Not that Hosmer is very good but they are already stuck with him.) Buxton is also a little tricky to fit in — they already have Grisham in CF and he’s been pretty awesome. I guess they’d bench Myers this year and put either Grisham or Buxton in a corner, but they could maybe trade for a cheaper corner rental instead. FWIW, Myers is still under contract for 2022 too, although I guess Pham will be a FA after the season.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    I mean, no one disputes that it will take a lot of luck (plus improved play) to come back at this point. Your 10-0 vs Chicago, with 7 of those games on the road, would represent an incredible concentration of luck and improved play. It would be great if they can do it, and they should obviously try to win as many as possible, but no, they don't "need" to do that unless you just mean to say a comeback is impossible. Very few 3 month comebacks in history have had that concentration of luck and improved play. I think 7-3 over those 10 games represents the *minimum* amount of luck and improved play (and poor play, from Chicago's perspective) necessary to give us a fighting chance. That would leave a deficit of 7.5 for the remaining 76 games, or the need to make up 1 game on average per 10 games. If we can do that through August 11 (the end of our season series with Chicago), we'll be 4.5 games behind them with 46 to play. We've already made up 4.5 games over our last 8. Cleveland will be another hurdle, but like I said, fighting chance. I've heard Chicago announcers making the same argument in reverse -- they really want to split the 4 game series this week to keep the Twins down and put a stop to their recent slide. They'll still be the favorite regardless, but they're not going to be comforted if they only win 1 out of 4 at home.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    We're 11.5 games back with 86 remaining. If we can go 7-3 vs Chicago, then we have 76 games to make up the other 7.5. Still a tall order, like I said, but if these Twins actually have it in them to take 7 of 10 from Chicago (with 7 of those 10 games *in* Chicago), and Chicago has it in them to lose those games, then a 7.5 game swing over the other 76 games is not insurmountable. (Not likely, of course, but we're well beyond the point where a comeback is likely. We just have to chip away.)
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    I'm not sure the point of the .500 framing? We need to gain ground on Chicago, not on .500 (.500 is just a marker along the way). Twins moving up 2 games and the White Sox simultaneously moving down 2 games is a 4 game swing. The Twins are 11.5 games back of Chicago with 86 games to play. It's a tall order any way you slice it, but it's simply not reasonable to demand they must make up 87% of their deficit over just 12% of the remaining games. Comebacks like this generally don't happen all at once. 2006 Twins were 11 games back on this date, and went 6-4 in their remaining 10 games with 1st place Detroit, and 8-4 vs 2nd place Chicago. (And before anyone chimes in that the 2006 Twins were better than the 2021 club, sure they were, but the point is their standing relative to 1st and 2nd place, not absolute team quality. FWIW, 2006 Detroit and Chicago were better than their 2021 counterparts Chicago and Cleveland too.) 7-3 is simply a baseline for this 10 game slice, to get back in the hunt. (More wins are always better, of course.) If you set the bar at 10-0, just save us all the time and say it's impossible -- you wouldn't be the only one saying that.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Just a general warning: politics will be considered off-topic here. If you want to discuss politics further, please avail yourself of the clubs at Twins Daily: https://twinsdaily.com/clubs/
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    Because it's head to head, moving up 2 games from 5-5 to 7-3 would be a net 4 game gain in the standings. 11.5 out now, so we'd still need to make up an additional 7.5 games outside the head-to-head games, which won't be easy. But if CHW is struggling enough to lose 7 of 10 to us (with 7 of those games in Chicago), it's possible. (FWIW, we've made up 4.5 games over our last 8.)
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    The last report on Refsynder was 6 days ago: Twins' Rob Refsnyder: Close to running Hopefully he found better motivation to start running than I usually do.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    According to the Dave St. Peter tweet I posted upthread, the Twins decided to do just that.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    Is it different at NFL stadiums, or NBA/NHL arenas? Or even MLS? To the extent that this is an issue, it seems to be an issue across all major sports.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    You'd need helmets and more importantly supervision, more than a bat and a ball, to make this a meaningful gesture. And that supervision element is almost impossible to achieve in a school setting (I'm sure most schools would decline the offer of a bat ). Hence why MLB and its teams support youth baseball through equipment donations and building youth ballfields, where there is already volunteer supervision in place. Youth baseball is never going to be as popular or accessible as it was decades ago, or as much as some other youth sports, but that's more about how the world has changed than any mistake baseball has made.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    "Means" may not equal willingness. The Mets will already be paying $20.25 mil to Cano in both 2022 and 2023, so they might be reticent about adding a similar commitment to another older player and squeezing out younger/cheaper options like McNeil. (The DH coming to the NL would help them!) Donaldson could also take up most of their room under the luxury tax threshold in 2021, if they are thinking of making other moves this summer. Not that they shouldn't upgrade their offense this year, but they might rather go for someone like Escobar if they can or one of the many rental outfielders available. Or insist the Twins pay some of Donaldson's salary.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    On Saturday, you can probably justify the postponement, but it sounds like the Twins handled it poorly. First pitch was scheduled for 1:10 but no players came out for pre-game stretching etc. which suggests the teams already knew about the delay. However, they still went ahead with the national anthem at the usual time (with no players present), and no public delay announcement was made until 1:18 -- 8 minutes after scheduled first pitch. And that's just about the delay, not the postponement. If they knew at 12:30 that they weren't starting on time, they should have announced it then -- it doesn't help everyone, but maybe some folks don't rush to get there by 1, or others hold off on sitting down for a meal at the stadium. FWIW, in a departure from normal rainout policy, fans can exchange Saturday tickets for any other game, and also get tickets for the Sep. 14 makeup. Not sure if this is in recognition of the delay announcement mistakes noted above, or the more general suspicion of the "phantom" postponement, or some combination thereof:
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    You are correct! http://mlb.mlb.com/documents/0/4/0/224919040/2017_Official_Baseball_Rules_dbt69t59.pdf 4.04 (3.10) Weather and Field Conditions (a) The home team shall be the sole judge as to whether a game shall not be started because of unsuitable weather conditions or the unfit condition of the playing field, except for the second game of a conventional or split doubleheader.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    From an article posted Friday June 25th: https://www.mlb.com/news/mitch-garver-working-his-way-back-to-action
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    Longoria is expected back around the all-star break. McNeil hasn't actually played an inning at 3B for the Mets this year -- he's at 2B in place of Cano (who is still under contract for 2022-2023). Their primary 3B have been Villar and Davis, both injured at the moment but expected back soon. They haven't been bad, and Donaldson would represent a 2021 upgrade especially defensively, but the Mets roster is a hard thing to figure out...
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