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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Yes. The team and player are still free to negotiate other deals.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    This is incorrect. Waiver claims are strictly record-based now, not league. (Although league is a tiebreaker if two claiming teams have the same record.) https://www.thecubreporter.com/book/export/html/3527 "If more than one club makes a claim, the club with the lowest winning percentage (regardless of league) ... is awarded the claim. If two clubs with the same winning percentage make a claim, the club in the player's own league is awarded the claim." The only recent time where league had waiver priority over record was during August trade waivers (I guess to block moves by your league competitors?), but those waivers no longer exist. Outright assignment waivers, like in Wisler's case, have been strictly record-based for some time. So Wisler went unclaimed by everyone but MIN and possibly NYY, LAD, or HOU.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    Soroka was limited in 2018 (56.1 IP combined AAA/MLB), but he threw 143 and 153.2 innings in 2016 and 2017, respectively. All told, Soroka wound up throwing 191 innings in 2019, combined between AAA/MLB and the postseason. By comparison, Graterol only has 224.2 innings for his entire pro career to date, barely more than Soroka's 2019 output. Graterol's single season high is 102, significantly less than TWO pre-2019 Soroka seasons. Also, while both guys had shoulder issues, Graterol has also had Tommy John surgery already, suggesting even further caution.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Slightly weird article, because Soroka didn't actually start 2019 in the Braves rotation -- although he made only 2 starts at AAA before getting promoted.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    What's the evidence of that drastic landscape alteration, at this point? It doesn't seem apparent in playoff results so far...
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    It was a steep price, but the alternative would have been steep in a way too -- Luzardo, Giolito, Lopez, and Dunning have all missed seasons / had awful seasons since leaving Washington. Their forecasts were a lot more variable / speculative than the players Washington took back, and perhaps most importantly, the players Washington already assembled. Keeping those prospects may have offered more long-term individual player upside, but it also would have increased the risk of jeopardizing the investments Washington already made in Scherzer, Strasburg, Rendon, etc. Teams can't and shouldn't always prioritize 4 years from now ahead of the present.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    I hear you, but Wisler's upside is likely only available because he is out of options. Don't pass on upside just for flexibility. The guys to avoid are Breslow types, or Justin Haley "Rule 5" types, where the flexibility *and* upside is fairly low. (And to the Twins credit, they seem to be learning that?)
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    That sounds about right. I'd like to see something like the Lance McCullers Jr. plan circa 2015 -- he's going to start in the minors, so just give him shorter starts and a lot of time between starts down there early in the season. If he's really good, bring him up -- but be ready to ease back on him as needed, maybe even sending him back down again for rest or putting him on the IL. I don't know if that's enough to keep him under 140 (McCullers finished with 164, including postseason), but we don't really need a firm 140 limit anyway. That said, given his health history (Graterol has already had TJ surgery, plus shoulder trouble), he may be on the IL enough -- or we may find ourselves backing off enough -- to keep him under 140 anyway.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    No, I haven't seen anything official -- but I don't think they generally announce anything official about these things either. (And with good reason -- they don't want to box themselves in.) FWIW, while he didn't directly cite any sources, Lavelle recently wrote "Even if he’s stretched out to start next season, he would be on an innings limit": http://www.startribune.com/twins-thinking-aggressively-when-assessing-roster-needs-free-agent-market/562665252/ Given his career to date, I'd be pretty surprised if Graterol exceeded 140 inning in 2020.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    We heard that for years about the Rays and Chris Archer too, and it took them awhile to sell. I think both Paddack and Snell are good enough, and both teams are in an aggressive enough position, that I don't think those financials make too much difference. Neither is likely available for less than a king's ransom right now.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    At some point, if you're too generous in grading "potential", it's not so meaningful. Graterol has promise, but he isn't quite Mackenzie Gore either, and it sure looks like Graterol is going to be limited to 140 IP max in 2020, which restricts his immediate utility to the Twins a bit. That said, I don't advocate trading him with reckless abandon either. But he's not untouchable.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    Boston needs SP too. I don't think they'd throw in cash with Price unless they got some good prospects / cheap talent in return.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    I'll add that Darvish was basically solid across his first 4 career postseason starts. The Astros figured out he was tipping pitches and picked him apart in his last 2. Presumably he's corrected that since, like countless others have done before him. The Astros did the same to Tyler Glasnow in the playoffs this year, but I'd love to have him going forward too!
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Darvish really turned things around at midseason this year. Second half 2019, he was basically among the elite SP performers in all of MLB. In the context of the post to which you were responding, about who would have been our top starters entering the 2019 postseason, it makes sense to say Darvish would have been there.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Actually, the Samardzija trade worked out pretty well for Oakland. They obviously didn't advance in the 2014 playoffs because, well, they're Oakland, but Samardzija had another year of control. So they flipped him for a great return from the White Sox (Semien, Bassitt, etc.), and after a hot start, Russell has fizzled out for the Cubs. Ideally you'd like a pitcher better than Samardzija and a deeper playoff run to show for it, but this isn't necessarily a bad trade for a team in the Twins position.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    The Yankees didn't use a pitcher 3 straight days all season -- the only team in MLB to avoid that. And they didn't do it in the postseason either until game 6 of the ALCS, and that was only due to a rainout which eliminated their off day between games 5 and 6. None of their top 4 relievers threw more than 66 innings during the regular season, and each of them averaged less than 1 inning per appearance. To the extent their bullpen ultimately caused them to lose the ALCS, it was primarily their choice of the rested Chad Green as the opener for game 6 (allowing 3 runs) -- although Kahnle (1) and Chapman (2) both allowed runs on zero days rest (due to the rainout) in that game too. And they only had to rely on their bullpen that much because they unexpectedly lost Domingo German just before the playoffs -- otherwise they could have had 4 traditional (more or less) starters. (There's an argument that they should have just used Happ as a traditional starter at that point, but I'm not sure the results would have been any different.) The Yankees were remarkably conservative with their pen all year. They had some bad luck with their starters. They ran into a very strong opponent, and almost took them to the limit. I'm not sure we can pin any "doom" result upon their pen.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Cole is a pretty rare pitcher. At any given moment, there many not be any with the imminent potential of Cole, available for the price the Astros paid. Maybe you get Cole, or Sonny Gray, or even Odorizzi -- but maybe you wind up with Drew Smyly, Ivan Nova, or Tanner Roark -- or maybe you have to deal with Matt Harvey, or even Martín Pérez (who, after much fanfare in these parts, turned out more rough than diamond, even with magic of Wes Johnson). And while the cost seems low, there's a real risk to pursuing too much of a "diamond in the rough" strategy. With as thin as the Twins rotation looks at the moment, if the new pitcher doesn't immediately excel, you may have just helped punt a season of your core. It's worth remembering the Astros landed Cole when their rotation was already Verlander, Morton, Keuchel, McCullers, and Peacock (plus Musgrove, McHugh, etc. for depth), a group that just won them the World Series. They didn't even need a top FA SP or for Cole to pitch like one to stay near the top of MLB teams.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    I'd take such reports with a huge grain of salt, especially coming from players or agents. Puckett signed the second largest contract ever at the time (5 years, $30 mil), just behind Ripken (5 years, $32.5 mil). It's self-serving for players and agents to claim they could have gotten more money. Perhaps Puckett received a larger offer elsewhere, but I doubt it was significantly larger. (And even a larger offer on paper could have effectively been equal or less than the Twins offer, considering related moving / real estate / tax expenses.)
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    If Pineda doesn't mind coming back to Minnesota, the QO is clearly his best bet. Even with the suspension, he gets a 1 year, ~$14 mil deal, and a guarantee that he'll be a free agent again next winter with no possibility of ever getting another QO. That's probably better for him than a lot of the 2 year deal ideas floated around here. (If he actually had a chance at a longer-term, big-money deal this winter, he wouldn't want the QO -- but I don't think he really has that chance right now, given the circumstances.) Obviously, if he doesn't want to come back to Minnesota for some reason, he wouldn't want a QO from us either, but I have no reason to believe that he would want to get out of Minnesota that badly.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Here's the current JDA: http://www.mlb.com/pa/pdf/jda.pdf He gets up to 15 days in the minors, since his suspension was 51+ games (see page 46). And given the Cody Stanley example and the lack of any specificity in the current JDA, I assume that part is still the same and unsigned games would still count in this case.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    As I've posted elsewhere before, the game 1 pitching decisions make a certain amount of sense. Littell/Duffey in a tie game in the 5th, and using Stashak and Gibson when behind -- I don't necessarily agree, but I get it, save the best arms. But the game 2 decision, to bring in Duffey first, makes zero sense in the context of those game 1 decisions. And what's troubling is that it's not even hindsight, or requires any deep reflection to understand -- Duffey was our most taxed reliever from game 1, and he was going to be facing the same batters again less than 24 hours later. Gregorious even cited that -- having seen him so recently -- as a factor in his grand slam. I'm really troubled by how that decision came to be. The other odd decision was game 3, Sergio Romo's second inning -- our season was on the line, in the 9th inning. There was zero point to getting "length" from Romo there (season high in pitches!). I mean, I know our odds of coming back were low at that point -- but Baldelli should still be trying to maximize those odds, not just giving up, or praying that Romo's veteran magic will see us through. Fully rested bullpen, all hands on deck -- get Romo out of there, probably at the beginning of the inning, but especially after the HR and the double. Even Romo basically quit paying attention and let Torres take third.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    I'm not sure of the rules of that -- I thought that players and teams couldn't make such "no QO" agreements
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    Like I said upthread, I think Pineda will get suspension credit starting opening day, even if he doesn't sign a contract before then (see Cody Stanley, 2015-2016). So he could be active immediately upon signing in June, although he'd miss out on spring training and the 15 day minor league assignment which isn't insignificant.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    Although, assuming Pineda's suspension will suppress his market quite a bit on its own, would the Twins be better off trying to sign him for a similar amount *without* the QO? Then we'd have the option to QO him after 2020 instead, if his performance warrants it, of course. (Or we could leverage a second year option or something?) Of course, Pineda might play hardball and try to draw the QO this offseason, so it would be off the table when he hits FA again next winter.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    That said, I don't think Pineda will hold out this offseason. (But I also don't think he'll get a QO either.) From the JDA, Pineda would still be eligible to participate in spring training games because he had his suspension reduced. And players suspended 51+ games can also have a 15 day minor league assignment before they are eligible to return. See pages 45-46 here: http://www.mlb.com/pa/pdf/jda.pdf So Pineda could be pretty active for a club next spring, despite the suspension.
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