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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    For the Twins, though, it's not an "either-or", it's an "and". They probably need Pineda AND another good starter or two. I've got no qualms if you prefer Bumgarner at 4/72, etc., but for every pitcher you pass on, it increases the chance you'll wind up fishing in the Martín Pérez waters again. The Twins probably can't afford to be that choosy about FA SP this winter when we're talking about estimated market rate contracts.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    I think "I told you so" type discussions are a kind of snark, definitionally. If you think a better/younger/controllable starter will get dealt cheaper than that this winter (in terms of money + talent), and will be available to the Twins at that price, do I get to say "I told you so" when that doesn't happen?
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    So let me get this straight: The market estimate for Wheeler of 5/100 is an overpay... which means teams can expect to find better value options in trade? I think you've got that backwards. The market estimate for Wheeler is 5/100 precisely *because* it's so difficult to find better options in trade. FWIW, I wouldn't necessarily sign him to 5/100 today (although I'd be tempted too, if my scouts/coaches really liked him). But he'd be in the mix at that figure, along with other FA options. I don't expect a better (younger/controllable) pitcher to get dealt in trade, at least not any more cheaply (in terms of talent).
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Wheeler had TJ surgery, and a setback in his initial return from it. He hasn't been missing random seasons here and there.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    I'm still not sure that's a particularly useful way to look at it. If a team has good SP, even a non-playoff team, their 3rd best SP could still be pretty good. 2019 Cleveland, 2018 Cardinals, etc. Team rank is pretty inconsequential, compared to overall rank (as well as cost/control/availability, in this discussion from the Twins perspective -- no sense preferring to wait for players you can't have). And I'll ask again: what do you think Wheeler will get paid? That's kind of a key component to saying he won't be worth it. If you think he'll get 6/140, that's a lot different than MLBTR's 5/100 or Doogie's 5/89.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    To be fair to the Twins, we didn't really have a prospect that matches up with Jazz Chisholm. Royce Lewis would have been closest, and that's probably an overpay. Kirilloff and Graterol might have been comparable in prospect rank, but neither is an up-the-middle position player either, so I'm not sure Miami would view them as equivalent to Chisholm.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    You heard it here first: the Twins will re-sign Martín Pérez on Cyber Monday!
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    Unfortunately, Doogie didn't say you could do it yesterday. Only RIGHT NOW. (Which I guess has already passed too? )
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    Well, his team has the 2-time reigning Cy Young winner on the staff, so there's no shame being behind him. Not sure how you get "3rd at best" -- Wheeler had the 2nd best bWAR, 2nd best fWAR, 2nd best FIP, even including Stroman's numbers from Toronto. Admittedly he's closer to Stroman/Syndergaard in those categories than to deGrom, but again, no shame in that either -- the Twins could benefit from that level of pitcher too. (If Wheeler was closer to deGrom's numbers, he'd be in the Cole-Strasburg group for expected contract.) Edit: I guess I should ask, what do you think he will get paid? MLBTR predicted 5/100. Doogie Wolfson said it could get done for 5/89 (5 years at the current QO rate).
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    Edit: he clarified in a follow-up that he meant 5 years, $89 mil (5 years at the current QO rate of $17.8 mil).
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    I haven't seen a team breakdown, but this article listed some league-wide numbers: https://www.mlb.com/news/how-3-batter-minimum-will-change-baseball (emphasis mine) In terms of pace / time of game, I think this is closer in effect to the automatic intentional walk and mound visit limits than people think. MLB has yet to address the elephant in the room, which is all of the extra idle time between pitches.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    Well, just about anything could improve the pace more than the pointless "mound visit limits" or "automatic intentional walks", so that's a pretty low bar.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    There is no limit to how many people you have in the dugout, but as you note there is a limit to the active roster size. And in order to have a "daily active 28" in September from among the whole 40-man roster, you'd need a pretty big change to the rules -- allowing teams to call up players, but not put them on the active roster. That's not currently allowed, and it could affect options, service time, benefits, postseason eligibility, etc. I'm not so sure that's part of the deal here, but official details have been scant so far.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Yeah, Wheeler and Bumgarner are pretty close to the same age. Bumgarner has more innings on his arm, of course -- but Wheeler's already had TJ surgery too, so he's not without his risks. MLBTR predicts 5/100 for Wheeler and 4/72 for Bumgarner, so that's a difference, but really just 1 year at roughly the same AAV.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    I've got to give you credit here: this is a legit trade proposal! Even passes the trade simulator: https://www.baseballtradevalues.com/trade-simulator/ That said, no guarantee that the Marlins would accept it. They'd be taking on an extra ~$5 mil for 2020 (per MLBTR's arbitration estimates), and it might be pretty hard for them to flip a corner outfielder like Rosario. They may just want prospects? What if they want to sub Rooker or Wallner for Rosario? Duffey might also work, per the trade simulator above.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    It's not that hard to stash a Rule 5 reliever on a ML roster, especially with a 26-man roster next year. You can also DL them for up to half the season (leaving 90 days active) and still remove Rule 5 restrictions by the end of the year.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    The only way this works for Odorizzi is if he doesn't think he can beat a 3/42 deal on the open market this winter with the loss of a draft pick attached, or beat a 2/24 deal next offseason with no draft pick compensation. That calculation might make sense for guy who's a little older like Gibson, but Odorizzi is 2.5 years younger than Gibson. I think it will take a little more to sign Odorizzi to a 3 year deal right now. MLBTR predicted 3/51 which sounds about right. Edit to add: reading closer, it looks like you assume he declines the QO, in which case a slow market could lead to a further discount for him. I think he might just accept the QO, though, if he can't get 3/51+ from the Twins today.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    I get that point, in theory, but it doesn't seem to have played out that way in 2019, so I'm not sure it's relevant to this discussion about Boone. Encarnacion was literally the only in-season reinforcement that NY brought in with its excess resources in 2019, and he didn't even have that much of an impact for them -- 197 PA of 0.7 bWAR (he missed most of the last 2 months of the season for NY too!). As Brian alludes to, the bigger reinforcements were Ford, Urshela, Tauchman, and Maybin -- they contributed 9.5 bWAR over 1204 PA. Oakland and Tampa could have just as easily acquired and deployed those players instead of NYY. (And in fact, Oakland and Tampa often do get good performances from unheralded players like that, and we give their managers and front offices credit for doing so.)
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    I've got no problems dropping pitcher PA, I suppose, but if you really want to drill it down, you'll want to adjust for all opposition PAs. For example, Odorizzi had the 3 worst offenses in the AL as divisional opponents and got to accumulate 10 starts against them; Wheeler only had the Marlins as such a team in his division, for 3 starts. Not to mention adjustments for parks, defense, etc. Over 700-800+ PAs, there are all kind of factors that might be as big as ~50 pitcher PAs. FWIW, bWAR already includes some adjustment for opponent offenses, "RA9opp", although I think it's just on a team level rather than PA level. And it looks like, based on that, and park and defense, Odorizzi beats Wheeler in bWAR 3.6 to 3.5 for 2019 despite one fewer start and 36 fewer innings. So you might be right to give a slight advantage to Odorizzi. (Although Wheeler has a higher bWAR -- 4.1 -- listed in his summary at the top of the page, but I suspect the table value is most up-to-date.)
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Did they pick up anyone of note besides Encarnacion? And Encarnacion isn't versatile at all, so it's going to take some skill to deploy him properly.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    Yeah, 5.2 isn't bad anymore, but I'd be curious how much openers might be shifting the average too. I seem to recall a site that had an opener/primary split but I can't find it now....
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    Not too much better -- AL DHs only had a 105 wRC+ last year. And 111 and 94 the two years prior -- which demonstrates the volatility of looking at something like this. Even beyond the DH, it's really going to depend on who a guy faces, and when -- a pitcher facing the current Detroit squad a few times a year might still face a few pitcher-level bats.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't know if it's any particular valuation of SPs that causes that result -- I suspect it's just too many qualifiers. There aren't that many trades period, so can't expect to find many traded players, meeting specific criteria, on a small sample of teams in a single year. I mean, using your same criteria but looking at position players, you'd only find, what, two matches? (Yelich and Eaton?) Is that meaningful, compared to Cole/Paxton? And there are twice as many position players per team as SP. If you look at last year's playoff teams, there was Sale, Quintana, and perhaps Alex Wood meeting your criteria. Plus Sonny Gray had 2.5 years of control when traded to NYY, and of course signed a reasonable extension when traded to CIN. In any case, I agree it's not easy to get a young controlled SP in trade -- but it's not easy to get a young controlled anything in trade. Edit: just realized this post was 4 days old. Man, I am slow.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    Kepler has always had a fairly low BABIP in MLB. It may just be who he is, not unlike Brian Dozier? (Dozier did sneak in one .300 BABIP season, and I suppose if Kepler ever does that with this power, he could be a beast!) FWIW, Steamer projects Kepler to gain back some BABIP (+.026), lose some power (-.037 ISO), and stay roughly as effective at the plate in 2020 (117 wRC+, compared to 2019's 121).
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    Cutting commercials is hardly the "only way" to speed up the game, and likely not even the most significant way either. The most prominent is likely the pitch clock -- which, to the extent that it would be a change, it would really just be enforcing rules that are already on the books. But in general, I agree that the 3 batter minimum won't do too much to speed up the game, just like the automatic intentional walk and mound visit limits before it. I'd rather see how much the pace / time of game could be improved with a pitch clock before I would have tinkered with this other stuff.
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