Jump to content
Twins Daily
  • Create Account

Otto von Ballpark

Old-Timey Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    20,669

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    74

 Content Type 

Profiles

Minnesota Twins News, Rumors & Analysis

Minnesota Twins Videos

2026 Minnesota Twins Top Prospect Rankings

2022 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

Minnesota Twins Trade & Free Agent Rumors

Minnesota Twins Fan Guides & Resources

2023 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

The Minnesota Twins Players Project

2024 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

2025 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

2026 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

Forums

Blogs

Events

Store

Downloads

Gallery

Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Doesn't seem that overlooked, the words depth/deep have already been mentioned a few times in this thread, in reference to a Twins advantage over the White Sox. That said, we also shouldn't overrate the advantage of depth. The Twins had better rotation depth in 2015 too, but their rotation performance still trailed that of the White Sox. Just one of Sale, Quintana, or perhaps even Rodon pitching up to expectations probably neutralizes any wins gained by depth there, that's the power of star level talent. Position players are a different story, with Sano in the fold, the Twins might very well match the White Sox for plus talent on that side of the ball. It's a pretty close match, which should make things interesting!
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Who's freaking out? Fangraphs projects the White Sox at 81 wins right now, and the Twins at 78 but with 2-3 top 30 prospects breaking in. That's about as even as you can get. Heck, our whole division is about as even as you can get. And that pretty much mirrors the more pessimistic comments here so far. EDIT: PECOTA has the Indians at 92 wins. That seems like the closest thing to a fan/projection freak out in the AL Central right now.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    What's to call bull on? BABIP is among the factors to consider when trying to project future performance from past performance. There's nothing controversial about that, I am sure teams use it all the time. If you are just looking for a "stat geek" thing to pick on, there are a lot better targets than this application of BABIP.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    I'd probably take our pair too, but projecting 2016 involves a lot more than looking at 2015 stats. Cabrera and LaRoche are both just a year removed from ~125 OPS+ seasons.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    But if you add up all the projected team records, it exactly matches the league's actual winning percentage of .500.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    Barring injury (part of an useful definition of floor), elite prospects will almost always at least reach MLB. And the closer to MLB they are, like Berrios, the more likely they are to get extended MLB reps in the very near future. Jay and Stewart, though, I agree. They're not particularly close to elite or close to MLB right now, although the potential/pedigree is there.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    I'm not sure that skipping AA mattered all that much for Bass. First of all, I think minor league levels were a little more fluid and less defined in the past. Secondly, Bass didn't perform badly at AAA -- not great, considering it was the PCL, but he more than held his own there and showed steady progress. 28th in OPS his first year, 18th his second, and 5th at age 23 in his third year, right alongside some future MLB regulars.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    No, I had the same thought. (Of course, I am known for picking nits. ) Even putting aside injury risk, it's very hard to put a MLB floor on pitchers in A-ball who still have massive adjustments to make like Stewart and Jay. I think you pretty much have to be an elite prospect/performer in A-ball to get any kind MLB floor. Although, to be fair, "long reliever" floor from the article isn't that high, with as fleeting as long reliever careers can be, it could be interpreted as just a cup of coffee, which is probably a fair floor given their draft pedigree. Seth's "dominant reliever" floor comment is way too high, though -- Jay has 18 pro innings at A-ball and wasn't especially dominant in them yet either. He's definitely a good prospect, but it is just WAY too early to give him that kind of a floor.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    Every player is tested multiple times each year -- once in spring training and again at random dates throughout the year (including the offseason). Ervin Santana may see a performance decrease over the remaining years of his contract, but it would be virtually impossible to link that to PED use in any meaningful way. The fact that he came back from his suspension last year and performed in line with his career norms suggest PEDs were not a significant factor for him. (Why he and other athletes choose to use them, I don't know, but remember some of these guys also believe titanium necklaces improve their performance, so...)
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    I wonder if TD has seen a similar increase in site traffic from Korea?
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Thanks. Yeah, I wasn't thinking any kind of regular meetings. Maybe just when a news story breaks, after the news item is posted, maybe the writers could do an email blast to each other to better coordinate their opinion pieces or something. Love the different writers we have on this site, and I actually think this idea could help them (they'd be less likely to have their article potentislly overshadowed).
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    This has nothing to do with front page vs forums either. Right now on the front page, 3 of the top 4 articles listed are about Joe Mauer, two containing witty wordplay on his vision issues, all basically reporting and speculating on the same thing. (And the other article in the top 4 is notice of a podcast.) Regardless of whether people plan to stick around to comment, it's just a weird overload of duplicate content. Also, I don't think these duplicate article topics are that rare. Like I said, off the top of my head, it was done a month ago with a point/counterpoint duo of articles. You could probably look around any other times of big Twins news (Jepsen trade, maybe Suzuki extension) and probably find some similar duplication.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    Thanks for the response. I hope I am being clear here, I am not asking for any threads to be merged or comments to be closed or any such thing. This is a request to proactively consolidate articles before they are posted. It could be as simple as telling site contributors that if another article already exists about they same topic, don't post another one! But I don't mean to squash any voices, which is why I really like Craig's suggestion of a managing editor, at least for big news stories. They could notify the others of the intent to publish an opinion piece, then others could offer input or a counterpoint to be included in the article before it is published.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    I'm not really sure the Twins got especially hosed, though. - they saved some money - they had ready replacements (Pelfrey & May) who pitched effectively in Santana's absence, suggesting it didn't significantly affect their end-of-season win total - they got a very standard Ervin Santana performance in the second half, suggesting his previous record (and thus his contract) wasn't greatly inflated by PEDs - they ultimately didn't miss him for the postseason either
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Again, you're back to repeating that statement without accounting for its context, not sure why.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    This isn't about merging forum threads after they've been posted. It's about avoiding multiple front page *articles* being published simultaneously on the same topic.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Perhaps. But if it would be rare, then why advocate for the change? Can't it just continue to be a cost of doing business? Also, your examples are based off of who has been suspended under a system without the possibility of voiding contracts. My point is, if there exists a possibility to void a contract, teams could turn a blind eye to bad characters or situations. They obviously wouldn't or shouldn't under the current system. If the suspension was upheld, on what grounds could voiding the contract be appealed? If the team tried to void it but was denied, this would just make more situations as drawn-out and ugly as the A-Rod brouhaha from awhile back. Plus, a voided contract would mean MLB teams would immediately start bidding on the player again as a free agent. The player might get less money than before, but the optics of getting busted and then getting courted by multiple teams and signing another big contract are probably bad for the sport as a whole. (And the player might not get that much less money. Ervin Santana could tuned up in indy ball and hit the market just before the July trade deadline and would have had a decent argument for getting the same prorated contract, possibly without a draft pick attached.)
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    You could check it yourself, if you want. Perkins only had 21 games last year where he exceeded 15 pitches. http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.cgi?id=perkigl01&t=p&year=2015#pitching_gamelogs::21 Just eyeing some of those, his blown save against the Yankees, he gave up a HR to A-Rod on his first pitch, 2 singles, and then the 3 run HR to Murphy on his 14th pitch. Another loss to the Yankees, doubles to Bird and McCann on his 1st and 5th pitches, respectively. HR to Kang vs the Pirates on his 8th pitch. HR to Colabello vs the Blue Jays on his 8th pitch. HR to Cruz vs the Mariners on his 11th pitch. The bloop single to blow the save vs Oakland on his 12th pitch. Late season, double to Castellanos of the Tigers on his first pitch, then HR to Rajai Davis on his 18th pitch. Of course, he was probably struggling much earlier than that, allowing the Davis at-bat to reach 8 pitches. You might be on to something with progressively losing velocity and movement, but I don't think you will find it in a neat pattern with pitch count and results. I wonder if some of the PitchFX data might be better?
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    No one is taking them out of the equation in determining the player's overall contributions or value. It's only taking them out to help answer a very specific question: how likely is it that this player can repeat the portion of his contributions/value derived from batting average? Success due to BABIP has less predicting power than success via walks, limiting strikeouts, or home runs. A ton of Santana's success in 2014 was due to BABIP. Thus, it was very relevant in projecting his performance for 2015. Had Santana drawn more walks, struck out fewer times, or hit more home runs in 2014, his chances for success in 2015 would have been much better.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Love these Sunday notes columns at Fangraphs. Kinda forgot about them this winter, but this is good stuff. I definitely read them every Sunday during the season.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    Wait, if Arcia earned the starting RF spot, what exactly would happen to Sano? LF?
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    That post was a response to a quoted statement "We do not need the traditional LOOGY - we have Perkins." Given that context, plus the additional observations that "the slider not being sharp against LHBs and the FB losing a couple ticks", the statement "Perkins can't get lefties out" could just as easily be interpreted as "Perkins hasn't demonstrated a reliable ability to get lefties out lately." I certainly didn't interpret that post as such an absolute conclusion based only on stats.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    No way. Voiding entire contracts on suspension would open the door for massive shenanigans for teams looking to get out of bad deals. Probably not teams actively spiking a player's protein shake or whatever (although the way MLB behaved at times in the Biogenesis affair suggest it's not that far-fetched), but simply turning a blind eye to a suspect personal trainer, generally poor control efforts in the Dominican, etc. Teams should have a big incentive to help keep their players clean, and no potential "reward" greater than some forfeited salary for a positive test. Also, with how often players are tested now, making contracts voidable or allowing drug testing as a condition of signing really shouldn't matter. It's highly unlikely Ervin Santana was juicing in this manner for 10 years and just now got caught, meaning it's unlikely that the Twins bought "damaged goods" or that a drug test administered on his FA signing day would have any more significance in his market value than his other drug tests performed throughout the year.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    Others have said it, but Walker doesn't seem like the type you should be pushing aggressively. If he failed to effectively adjust at AA as his second half stats suggest, he probably needs to focus on completing that adjustment rather than moving up a level. And I doubt people here would be upset if he performed well at AA (meaning maintained good production while improving K/BB rates) and struggled upon his first promotion to AAA (meaning more adjustments would be necessary to reach MLB). That sounds standard/expected, not sure why you'd call that a "lose lose" situation or use that as a factor in determining his current level.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    In addition to the Mauer articles, another instance I noted recently was two articles on the same day about the same subject (Antonio Bastardo, jan. 15), one "The Case For" and the other "The Case Against." I think such immediate point-counterpoint articles about the same subject would be better combined into one article -- just thinking about it logically, if one disagreed with the first article but agreed with the second, where would you post that comment? It doesn't really work well to split the discussion across two articles. (And indeed it didn't, as one article generated 9 comments, and the other 110, and probably a lot of redundant comments where posters echoed points made in the other article.) Those two articles were actually posted by the same author too (Seth), so combining them should have been simple. But there should probably be a mechanism in place to handle multiple opinion pieces from separate authors too. It seems like the standard procedure for big Twins news items is an initial article breaking the news, then followed by at least one "pro" opinion piece and yet another skeptical opinion piece, and discussion might best flow if those immediate opinion pieces could be combined into one. There should be no need to rush those opinion articles out there if the news article is already posted, so waiting a day or so while a "managing editor" type solicits and compiles those contributions into one shouldn't be a problem. Again, not a big deal, just thinking about best practices here.
×
×
  • Create New...