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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Pretty sure the Twins don't need or want anything to do with contraction in the Twins hall of fame -- that was a self-created mess. As was much of the 1990s malaise (Don Beaver, Dave St Peter's cancer kid ad). We are all glad that the 2001-2002 teams put most of that nonsense in the rear view mirror, but the Twins organization bringing it up as some sort of hurdle they overcame would be the height of hypocrisy.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Charlie Morton traded by the Pirates to the Phillies; Philadelphia DFAs AJ Achter to make room...
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    He didn't say MPH. He could have touched 1000 of something else that put his baseball future in doubt.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    This it? http://news.yahoo.com/mlb-lobby-trades-disappear-winter-meetings-014700664--spt.html
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    Actually Milone has 3 years of control. He was a "Super 2" player like Plouffe, so he will have 4 arbitration seasons (and 2015 was only his first).
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    I get defending Ryan and saying he's done a good job, but even relative to his constraints, but I can't say that he's done a better job than the Cubs and Astros GMs. Also, for the Twins to be better than the Cubs and Astros over the next 5 years, you have to do a lot of projecting to have the Twins not only catch up (assuming we all agree they're decidedly behind them at the moment) but pass those teams enough to make up for that. Correa? Russell? Bryant? Keuchel? Arrieta? This isn't like catching up to the creaky Tigers or shaky White Sox, these are some damn good clubs. The Twins might have to be the best team in baseball over the next 5 years to be better than them.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    Nobody is taking on 4 marginal 40-man guys in one trade, especially two out of options (Guerra and Pinto).
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't think McGee was really that available in July. The Rays were trying to move Jepsen, who was older, more expensive, had less team control remaining, and wasn't left-handed. I suspect the McGee price then is similar to the price now (high).
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    Not sure what the point of that is. Dean is the worst of that group, and quite likely did not require Rule 5 protection. Also, I am sure there are plenty of busts that had numbers similar to Jones, and Jones will probably join that group. Still not sure what that has to do with Jones vs. Dean for a 40-man spot this winter.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    What year do you think the winter meetings saw much bigger moves? I am curious, might be fun to read about.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Aguilera was actually re-signed to be a starting pitcher. The others you list pitched multiple seasons for the Twins, but actually originally signed here as minor league free agents. Swindell: https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1683&dat=19961219&id=E6UaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Bi4EAAAAIBAJ&pg=2808,3479678&hl=en Bob Wells: http://apple.ease.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-PLUTO.exe?A2=ind9901&L=TWINS&P=28688 And Mulholland was on a minor league deal with Seattle, and "purchased" by the Twins on April 2, 2004: http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/mulhote01.shtml I also found no record of Bob Wells ever being traded. I suspect he re-signed for 2 years (2000-2001), and did find this record of an additional year extension being signed: http://minnesota.twins.mlb.com/team/transactions.jsp?c_id=min&year=2001&month=2 So I think the original claim stands.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    We're not really "linked" to McGee. There are general reports of trade discussions about him, but no one knows the teams involved. MLBTR then lists the Twins as "known to be looking for left-handed relief help" and not likely "to make a play for top-of-the-market free agent lefties." http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/12/rays-jake-mcgee-trade.html From the source of the rumor, it sounds like the Twins would be competing against the Dodgers at least for McGee's services...
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    For the record, I'm more upset with protecting Dean than losing Jones. Jones's selection is just a reminder about Dean's questionable protection, as well as a further possible miscalculation if we really did like him but misjudged his odds of selection. I would have liked to see Dean's 40-man spot go to (or kept open for) a higher-upside potential bullpen option this winter. It could have been a quality MLB free agent (Lowe, Sipp, etc.), a waiver claim (Danny Hultzen?), a Rule 5 pick, or just even just treating Jones like that waiver claim or Rule 5 pick -- you could always DFA him in the spring if you wanted, if he didn't show the progress you wanted to see by then. Or heck, release him outright this winter if a better option came along. Dean was unlikely to be claimed or missed, and is now a lock to stay on the 40-man until March 15th, at least, and I suspect beyond that too. So he's another roadblock at the present time, without providing much present or future benefit to the Twins. That bugs me.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Dean has value as org depth, sure -- but teams don't keep guys in Rule 5 for org depth! A claiming team would have had to give Dean a 25 man roster spot for a full season. If the Twins hadn't protected Dean, and he went unclaimed, they still would have retained him as org depth for at least one more season (Dean would have been eligible for minor league free agency after the 2016 season, at which point I'd actually be more receptive to protecting him on the 40-man to keep him from signing somewhere else.)
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Sorry, that was my poor choice of words when I said they "gave up" on him. Obviously the Twins didn't DFA Jones, but they had some level of comfort with not giving him any more opportunities in the organization (either misjudging his chances at selection, and/or preferring an org depth guy like Dean). I'd also quibble with lumping him in with 5-7 other guys. Sickels had Jones (#19) and Harrison (#16) as the two highest ranked Rule 5 eligibles on his Twins prospect list: http://www.minorleagueball.com/2015/11/5/9677606/minnesota-twins-top-20-prospects-for-2016 And given the needs of our MLB team, I'm not sure why you wouldn't at least guarantee one more spring for Jones, especially since we apparently were not planning on being aggressive with MLB bullpen acquisitions. The cost was potentially losing Pat Dean. Would anyone here be concerned if we lost Pat Dean in the Rule 5?
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't know, there seemed to plenty of moves this week, even some pretty big ones. A quick scan of MLBTR shows 21 different teams making MLB trades or signings over the 3 days of the winter meetings, and that's not counting a few that made moves just before. A lot of relievers came off the board too.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Storen is controlled for one more season, projected to make $8.8 mil in arbitration by MLBTR. If you were willing to pay that, I'm not sure why you wouldn't have simply pursued a FA reliever. It's not like our budget is so tight that we have to shed Plouffe's salary to take on Storen's.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    It was a justification for leaving him unprotected, was it not? I didn't mean to attribute it to you, reading it again you were probably just trying to justify the team's decision, but in any case, as a justification, it leaves something lacking. After seeing our 2015 bullpen, and the lack of additions to it since the season ended, no one in the organization with any potential should be that far down the pecking order. Not enough guys have been good enough to establish a clear order, that's sort of the problem with the pen.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    Yes, that's what the Twins did with the Mets. But I doubt it would matter for Storen, if we wanted a longer-term guy we would have pursued a free agent.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    So you named one for sure MLB reliever a year away from free agency, one possible MLB starter, a guy who wasn't worth a September call-up in 2015, a guy the same age/level as Jones, two more guys from the same level last year who aren't on the 40-man roster yet.... and a guy who has yet to pitch at high-A. With question marks on all of them, not sure how you can conclude it was time to give up on Jones, at least not without first finding a better reliever.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    I'm not sure TR is trying to make the jump, the things you cite all seem to be a continuation of the last few years...
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    On that note... Terry Ryan explaining his 2016 bullpen plan to Jim Pohlad
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    Yeah, I'd say Group 5 and Group 3 look largely the same to me.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    Actually, because we added Dean to the 40-man when we did, he can't be passed through waivers (for the purposes of removing him from the 40-man and sending him to AAA) until 20 days before the 2016 season, or roughly March 15. See the section here about "Draft Excluded Players": http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:F1XRaX9XeYAJ:www.thecubreporter.com/draft-excluded-player+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari The only way we can get Dean off the 40-man roster in the meantime is releasing him (making him a free agent) or trading him. So if you really rate Dean that lowly, but want to keep him around for depth in 2016, you can make the argument the Twins would have been better off NOT protecting him. (That's actually the argument I'm making -- I may have protected Jones over Dean, or kept Achter/Pinto longer, or just left the spot open for a potential waiver claim, free agent, etc.)
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    Jepsen's in the group that did it in 2 of those 3 seasons, albeit only partially for the Twins. I don't like looking at such things with a hard cut-off, though -- Jepsen would have just missed on both accounts for 2012, but still was a useful and leveraged reliever for the Angels that season. Also having a fixed 3 year window leaves out guys like Giles, who didn't debut until halfway through that window. Should be looking at 3 year stretches over a longer sample.
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