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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    FYI, by that criteria, John Hicks is also still eligible. Given that he is only a year older than Garver, has already reached MLB with apparently well regarded defense, and has also matched Garver's offensive performance in AFL, I might have expected him in your expansive honorable mention list.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Jay seems too low on your list based on your own comments. "Floor appears to be a dominant left-handed reliever with the best slider in the organization" but you have him 9th? Just ahead of Walker, and behind Polanco, Burdi, Gonsalves, and Park? You must think Jay has near zero potential to start or something, to rank him that low with that floor. For clarification, what exactly do you mean by "dominant left-handed reliever"? Is there a MLB comp for what you call Jay's floor?
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    Is there a source that updates those numbers year to year? Kepler is still listed at 205 everywhere.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't know about the willowy part, but Kepler has definitely been a doubles/triples guy in the minors. Not unlike Aaron Hicks' minor league power numbers, although he did rack up doubles/triples at a pretty high rate last year.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    The market pretty much started out this winter with Lowe and the trades of K Rod and Benoit. Then it ended with Bastardo and Clippard. What did you expect those guys to get?
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    Yes. Probably not that much. We've been hearing about "too high" reliever deals for awhile now. I don't think this year's crop exceeded anyone's contract expectations, in aggregate. And I doubt any collective pay increase they received notably outstripped other positions -- did you see what Ian Kennedy got? Chris Davis? Ben Zobrist at his age? Mike Pelfrey?
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    Verducci used Lowe as one of his top examples. That Verducci article is all over the place, and lacks relevant comparisons. Of course relievers are getting more money than in the past, everybody is (in MLB anyway). That Verducci argument sounds a lot like the posts here that say "$11 million is a lot of money for a guy like Mark Lowe." Also note that article is from December, before guys like Clippard and Bastardo settled for smaller deals. I am sure there were articles from early recent offseasons bemoaning the crazy SP market based on Ervin Santana's expectation of a $100 mil or even $75 mil contract that never actually materialized.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    2/11 isn't pricey anything in modern MLB.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    How did it blow up? Lowe, Clippard, Bastardo, and Kelley, to name a few, signed around or below common expectations. Frankly, O'Day did too, and Soria and Sipp didn't get that much more than most estimates either. K Rod and Benoit were traded rather cheaply too. Seems like an exagerration to say the market exploded based primarily on Ryan Madson, or the Kimbrel & Giles trades.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    Look, I agree we'll never know exactly. But no team is so tight-lipped that they can publicly identify an area of need, and go all offseason with as little activity as the Twins had in the FA reliever market. Combined with the laser-like focus of May to the pen, and public focus on lefthanders, I think it's safe to conclude the Twins sat out the FA reliever market. In this case, with the information we have, there is no other conclusion than they made a conscious but firm decision to stay on the sidelines. Many here on this board have been applauding them for that decision, so I think I am being rather charitable by assuming it was part of their deliberate strategy. If the Twins were intesested in Lowe, but failed to get him and instead let him go early in the offseason to a division rival for 2/11, that's almost even worse than not pursuing any FA reliever.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Obviously plenty of guys have that chance, but assembling a roster is often about getting the guys with the best chances, or at least notably better chances. The Twins have no internal youngsters who have nearly as good a chance as Lowe to be good in 2016, much less on opening day.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    Lowe seemed pretty eager to sign, and I don't think he has a connection to Detroit. He isn't even likely to be their closer. The Twins showed absolutely no inclination to sign him, or any of Bastardo, Clippard, or Kelley at similar rates. Had they made a competitive offer to Lowe, I am pretty certain we would have heard about it somehow.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    I think adding a guy like Lowe is more than just incremental improvement over Fien, it gives us a legit chance at a dominant bullpen from day 1. Or a chance at a solid pen even if we had to take out May. That's not trivial. Maybe not a D-, although if they really think Lowe at 2/11 (to a division rival) was too steep a price to pay, they might earn most of that D- right there.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    The way the lineups performed in 2015, Sano and Abreu were probably equally important to their clubs. Buxton could lessen that, of course, as could Park, but those two are fairly big question marks for 2016 in their own right.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't know if Latos, Danks, and Johnson are that much worse than Duffey, Milone, and Nolasco (our commonly projected 4-6 right now). Latos has the upside, Danks brings the health (although that could be a bad thing given his performance!), and Johnson has a 96 ERA+ across 3 seasons, and had a great bounceback campaign at AAA last year. Of course, I am a bit more pessimistic on Duffey as a starter than most around here (looking at his 2nd and 3rd time through the order splits). Your "deep reserve" of Dean, Darnell, and Rogers frankly isn't all that different than what the Sox have in deep reserve too, all basically replacement level. I don't see the Twins taking May out of the pen this year, so that leaves Berrios as the biggest difference, which is slightly neutralized by likely being 7th on the depth chart and not on the 40-man roster yet. It would obviously hurt the Sox a lot to lose one of their top 3, but I don't see the Twins depth mattering all that much in that calculation. I wouldn't be on any group of 3 pitchers staying healthy for 6 months, but Sale has only missed about 5 starts in 4 seasons. Quintana hasn't missed any. Rodon has the makings of a workhorse too. Hughes and Milone might have the biggest health/durability question marks of either team's top 5 right now (assuming Latos is #6 per the MLB.com depth chart).
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    I just read a better mind than me say that 6 wins off actually may not be bad, given all the variables involved: "Even if you had perfect information about playing time and performance level of every player the standard error on team level projections can't be lower than 5-6 wins." http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/newsstand/discussion/pecota_hates_the_royals_part_ii/#5157584
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    No, you're right. The Twins have depth, and more than the Sox at most spots. I don't disagree there. It's just been referenced as a "huge" advantage, but that doesn't seem to hold up on closer inspection.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    This is true. Back then, posters here claimed our rotation would be OK but they were pretty much just stretching and squinting at the same 5 guys the rest of us were worried about. There wasn't really 7-8 guys in the mix like today.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    The Twins could have just as much trouble replacing Sano, and while their rotation is deeper, I'm not sure it's that much deeper to make a huge difference. Judging by current projected rosters, if a Twins starter went down early, Nolasco probably takes his place. At some point that should be Berrios which would be great, although I think there is a decent chance he might be needed to help cover Duffey's sophomore slump instead. Aside from them, our depth is May who probably isn't moving from the pen (they seem to have built it around him), and then Dean and Rogers. Meyer is an interesting wild card, but you probably can't count on him as rotation depth right now. The White Sox depth chart currently has Latos at #6, and it looks like they have a few guys who could approximate Dean and Rogers likely starting contributions (Carroll, Beck, etc.). EDIT TO ADD: They also have Carson Fullmer and have shown a willingness to promote aggressively. Not great, but in practical terms, I'm not sure it's likely to be a huge difference.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    All I've heard this winter is how bad it is to sign FA relievers, not sure why we'd do that for Jepsen. If they wanted a 30 something FA reliever beyond 2016, seems like the smart thing would have been to sign one this winter, let him overlap with Jepsen in 2016 while the kids work their way up, and let a youngster replace Jepsen in 2017.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    Adam Eaton, who played 153 games last season? And who has played a similar number in 3 of his 5 full pro seasons to date? Is there something I am missing about him?
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    No, "way off" would be predicting they win 163.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    Shouldn't this be in the Twins forum, rather than the minor league forum? Wait, I guess someone also posted it in the Twins forum...
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    Hmmm... I don't read USA Today. I haven't gotten that impression. I've heard about the White Sox having a good offseason before, but more just about improving their team, not "running away with the division."
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    The Major League?
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