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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Mr. Goin, you may need to make more liberal use of emoticons in your posts here.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Well, if it's worse than Plouffe's, that subtracts potential wins. Now, Sano's offense should more than offset the defensive difference at 3B, but that still doesn't mean Sano at 3B is necessarily optimal roster construction.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    But Sano isn't an elite talent defensively. I don't really think DH, part time 3B until Plouffe is traded or leaves as a free agent is really "displacing". What's displacing him is signing another DH (Park) and pushing Sano to learn a brand new position in the outfield.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    For reference, this would be about an 84 win team. Fangraphs has us projected to win 78 right now, you can see their player-by-player WAR breakdown here: http://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=ALL&teamid=8 Biggest difference between yours and Fangraphs right now is Buxton (they have him at 1.6 WAR, versus your 4.7). Also Kepler (they have him at 0.2). I notice Fangraphs doesn't have Park projected yet either.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    Well, the risk is we don't know if Sano is MLB level competent at the position. Not that he is in the OF either, but that's an argument for not signing Park rather than dealing Plouffe, in my opinion.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    Maybe the debate should have been Jackson vs Park earlier in the offseason? Losing Plouffe now would leave us awfully thin at 3B (Sano weight pun not intended). And trading a guy like Plouffe for the best available offer right now sounds like a disaster waiting to happen, maybe JJ Hardy redux.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    Sure enough, Nick Blackburn's OPS against in 2010 was an exact match (.839) for David Ortiz's OPS in 2002!
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    They changed the rule, draft picks can be traded after only 6 months now. Also, Smith has 4 years of team control left. It sure looks like we could easily squander a lot of Polanco's value over the next 2 years anyway, buried on the bench or at AAA. Probably still need another solid piece to get Milwaukee to agree right now (Gonsalves was mentioned in Jeremy's GM article), with maybe a relief prospect or lotto ticket tacked on too. Personally, I probably would have just signed a FA reliever. 2 years, $12 mil, plus you keep your prospects, only immediate cost in org talent would be losing a fringe 40 man guy like Darnell/Strong or Dean.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    Agreed that Darnell will have a job, although it will be at a lower salary if he is off the 40-man roster. Still not sure about your last point. Obviously these aren't perfect ballplayers, but 2/12 for relievers like Lowe and Bastardo hardly seems like overpaying mediocre options. Similar cost to Jepsen for pitchers who stand a solid chance at equaling Jepsen's value in 2016-2017. And Jepsen gets a lot of credit for helping salvage our 2015 season. Do the Twins have a better use of $12 mil over the next 2 years? This winter, it sure doesn't seem like it. As John Bonnes pointed out, we seem to have committed ~$5 mil this winter for a fairly long shot in Abad, a utility player in Nunez that may be redundant with Santana, and re-upping a reliever in Fien who no one seems to trust beyond the 6th inning. We also seem to have committed $6.2 mil annually over the next 4 years for a DH, when our roster already had Sano, Vargas, and Arcia. Not saying either of those investments were bad -- just showing you the value of $5-6 mil in modern MLB. In modern MLB, it's awfully hard for $5-6 mil to be an overpay for anything, it certainly doesn't feel like an overpay for adding guys like Jepsen, Lowe, or Bastardo to a bullpen that struggled like the 2015 Twins'.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    I know you are mostly joking with your comments now, but I still think this is a reach even for the basis of a joke. As bad as posters can be around here, they are quite capable of seeing that an 8.9 K/9 from a 26 year old reliever in AA in modern baseball isn't all that impressive, particularly not a LHP with a worse OPS against LHB behind O'Rourke and Rogers. I mean, Lester Oliveros got a lot of the kind of fan support here as you describe, and he was 26 years old a year ago, but he was also coming off a 13.2 K/9 at AAA, with a career MiLB mark of 11.2. Generally, to become a fan favorite here, you either need performance or youth, and Strong was fairly obviously lacking on both counts. We may be irrational cranks around here, but we have SOME standards for our irrational crank-dom.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Small sample size or not, no one here would have been calling for his promotion to MLB like you claimed. Darnell himself had a 9.4 K/9 in relief at AAA thru June last year, that is better than what Strong did and few were advocating for his promotion.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    A 26 year old with a 8.9 K/9 at AA who struggled at AAA? Yeah, no. Nice try, though
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    The big question: if your day as GM had been today, would you have claimed Mike Strong?
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Yeah, with Abad and now Strong, we seem to be amassing options for second lefty, and not too eager to deploy our potential LOOGY weapons O'Rourke and Rogers in that role. Maybe the Twins are valuing "versatility" more than platoon match ups? A weird position to take in the modern game with 7-8 man bullpens but that feels like what we're doing. EDIT: As well as not too eager to make Perkins the top lefty setup guy, which could be another potential solution...
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    And like Abad, Strong is a lefty who has actually been worse against LHB in each of the past 3 seasons...
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    Great name, but he's actually slightly older than Logan Darnell, who himself was already pretty old for a "prospect". 27 years old, 12 career IP at AAA... hmmm. 8.9 K/9 at AA last year isn't bad, but he was a 26 year old at AA. http://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.cgi?id=strong001mic Darnell had an 8.6 K/9 in his first taste of relief at AAA last season, although he was otherwise more effective as a starter. I notice Darnell did manage a 9.4 K/9 and 3.27 ERA as a short reliever from April through June, before being switched back to long relief and starting in July. And it's great that 2 of the only guys we called upon as pitching reinforcements in our pennant race late last season (Achter and Darnell) are also two of the first guys to get DFA'd this winter...
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    I was just letting you know that real trades rarely work that way (acquiring 40-man roster players en masse). Rebuilding teams generally want 40-man flexibility too, so they can claim guys, make Rule 5 picks, etc.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    How do you define "old team"? That definitely feels stronger in your narrative than in the numbers. Their 2015 team had an average age of 28.3 on offense, and 28.7 on the pitching staff, versus 28.5 and 28.3 respectively for the whole league. They didn't really sign any older guys, except 2 years older at closer. Only 3 guys in their whole lineup, and 2 guys in their whole bullpen, will even be 30+ in 2016. Outside of Victor Martinez, the oldest guy on the team will be 34. Their rotation is headed by a 30 year old. They're not particularly young, but they're not particularly old either. They're basically average. I guess it's just not as interesting to say they're an average age team with an .500 projection? The narrative that is unreasonable to me is that they're so old that "they'll struggle to reach 75 wins unless everything goes right" in 2016. That seems based more on sticking with your pre-2015 prediction and the raw 74 win total than what has actually taken place in Detroit the past year.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    That is controversial. Their 2015 xFIPs are similar, but Bastardo has a better history of out-performing his xFIP. Also note that Abad's numbers have generally been accumulated in very low-leverage work. Also note Abad's reverse split is not limited to 2015, he has been worse against LHB in each of the last 3 seasons.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    I'm definitely with you on acquiring a reliever. But would you add Polanco to your deal? Or Kepler? Or Gordon, or Jay? Smith is a good setup man now, and that's what your offer represents. But even if he stagnates, he's got 4 years of control left so the Brewers can still get that "good setup man" return 6-12 months from now. And there's a chance he breaks out in the closer role and his value goes way beyond that too. And Gonsalves is nice, but alone does very little for a desperate Brewers club. They need to take a chance at swinging for the fences here, something closer to the Ken Giles blockbuster return.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    And they were on pace for 82 wins when Cabrera went down, and even 79.5 when they waved the white flag at the trading deadline a month later. They didn't massively underperform across the board in 2015, they had a few big individual underperformers and then, as I said, they threw in the towel on the season. Acting like they already went all 2011 Twins is an exagerration that is coloring your outlook for them. You are free to predict that "they'll struggle to reach 75 wins unless everything goes right" -- but let's be clear, that is more based off your pessimistic feelings about them going forward than any neutral projection based on actual 2015 data. Simply put, you are letting your narrative select the numbers, rather than letting the numbers dictate the narrative.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    The 2011 Twins weren't particularly younger than the 2015 Tigers, judging by average ages on B-Ref. Remember Thome and Pavano were huge parts of that team, and I think you've been over-estimating the Tigers age in a couple discussions. 2015 Tigers OPS+: 106 2011 Twins OPS+: 85 Closer on pitching staff 2015 Tigers ERA+: 85 2011 Twins ERA+: 89 So even with their troubles, they were well ahead of the 2011 Twins. Of course, the Twins staff was pretty thoroughly mediocre too, while the Tigers staff was/is much more stars-and-scrubs. If they can replace the scrubs, which they seem to have done in the bullpen and as markos suggests they could do in the very back of the rotation, they should bounce back OK. The 2012 Twins staff was pretty much sunk when Scott Baker went down with an elbow injury in August 2011 (although they gamely tried to rest and rehab him back to spring training).
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    Projections already account for age and regression (and somewhat for injury, in terms of past playing time). Here's Fangraphs take on them right now: http://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=ALL&teamid=6 That's a projected 82 win team, most of it on offense. That's with Miguel Cabrera having his worst WAR season since 2008. That's with Kinsler having the worst season of his career. That's JD Martinez's WAR dropping by half in his age 28 season. That's with a pitching staff projected to be 4th worst by WAR in all of MLB, including Jordan Zimmermann projected to have the worst season of his career, prospect Michael Fulmer contributing only 9 innings, and their 3 new bullpen acquisitions dropping from 3.7 WAR in 2015 to 1.6 for 2016. Sometimes, it feels like you are double-counting the regression here...
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    Someone else noted this in another thread, but Detroit actually had strong offensive components last year. OPS+ of 106 (2nd in the AL), 1st in AVG, 2nd in OBP, 5th in SLG. But only 11th in runs per game. Not sure how or why it happened, but I suspect they could score more runs in 2016 even if they wind up with worse components. (So to Brock's point, Cabrera could regress and Victor Martinez fail to bounce back, and they could still score more runs.) Run prevention will be the bigger challenge, particularly in the back half of their rotation. Will they get "good Pelf"? Can Norris, Fulmer, etc. effectively fill it out?
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    See markos' post and my previous posts. They were basically .500 at the end of July, and had already suffered a lot of blows by that time (Victor Martinez, Simon, and Sanchez were all terrible, Cabrera had missed a month, Verlander was missing and/or bad up until that point, their bullpen was a mess, etc.). You want to pile more bad luck on top of that? It could happen, that can be your pessimistic projection, but it's nothing like a neutral luck projection right now, which has to be close to .500. At that point, getting a few games above .500 doesn't take much -- a dead cat bounce from V-Mart, or Cabrera staying a little ahead of his aging curve, etc. Not a return to 2011-2014 greatness, but definitely projects to be relevant in the division and/or wild card races.
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