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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    One 3 year contract for a weak bullpen with no new internal options immediately ready is hardly an onerous commitment. Note that Jepsen himself is only controlled for one more season -- a multi-year FA RP signing now would nicely overlap with Jepsen in 2016 while our younger internal options are still working to reach MLB, and could effectively take Jepsen's place in 2017 if we wanted. If you are really concerned about 3 years, MLBTR predicts Shawn Kelley to only get 2 years, and likely Mark Lowe too. Or heck, you could probably give Sipp or Bastardo or whomever the same $12-15 mil total guarantee, just over 2 years instead of 3, if you are more concerned with years than AAV.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    You mean for 2017? Holland just had the surgery, so I don't think he is pitching in 2016.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    I was about to make a joke about how relatively lame this deadline is, then realized I was still regularly checking this site for updates. I guess I too am relatively lame.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    3/15 type contracts are for Jepsen types, and he sure helped last summer. Why not add another one of those guys in FA this winter? It's not a 100% guarantee of anything, of course, but I don't know why people are applying that threshold to a $5 mil AAV signing anyway. I'd like our chances at putting up a good to great pen a lot more with that acquisition rather than a continuation of recently failed cheaper strategies.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    To be fair, while the Mariners obviously are not high on John Hicks anymore, they may have been trying to sneak him through waivers, at arguably a slightly better time than the Twins attempts with Achter and Pinto. I don't mind the Hicks claim at all, as long as we are willing to drop other guys from the 40 man roster yet this winter.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    Fien does have an option remaining. Why do you put "mediocre" in quotes? And your bullpen plan sounds exactly like their 2015 approach. How did that work out?
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    Yes.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    Awesome post, Ashbury. Agree 100%.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    That "snapshot" was from prior to last season. All I said was that his 2015 season was brutal at the plate in AAA (and MLB), which is undoubtedly true. Maybe he can recover from it, but the Mariners just acquired two other catchers and waived Hicks, and at least 15 teams (those with higher waiver priority than the Twins) did not put in a claim for him, despite Hicks having 2 more option years remaining.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    The suggestion wasn't that it would be for the Twins benefit, but for the player's benefit. Which is undoubtedly true. Of course, it would be for Sano's benefit to secure his outright release too, among other things.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    That is particularly brutal for the PCL. Fangraphs has it pegged as a wRC+ of 68: http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=12547&position=C The only Rochester player with a lower mark last season was Ryan Wheeler: http://www.fangraphs.com/minorleaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=1&season=2015&team=16&players=0 Dan Rohlfing never had that low of a wRC+ for Rochester. Butera has had lower marks, but he also has his magic pixie dust.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    I do love how we traded outfielder Aaron Hicks for catcher John Ryan Murphy, then went ahead and claimed catcher John Hicks as some kind of weird mash-up of the two.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    Not sure about that. Through the same age, he's about a dead-ringer for Eric Fryer -- decent numbers in the lower minors, dreadful performance at AAA, and a cup of coffee in MLB. Hicks did have an AFL appearance last year, but a lot of catchers go to the AFL more out of positional need rather than prospect merit (Dan Rohlfing a few years back). He might eventually get his AAA bearings like Fryer, but without knowledge of his defense, this guy absolutely looks like 3rd catcher material, mostly in AAA with a tenuous grip on a 40-man spot.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    That would imply a serious FA RP upgrade should be expected too, no?
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Yeah, I wouldn't force a signing of a LHP for this reason. If they like Sipp or Bastardo, great, but if they prefer Lowe or Madson, I've got no problem. Of course, I'd also be more aggressive in deploying O'Rourke and/or Rogers in MLB too.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    Thornton was part of Seth's proposed bullpen plan, but Doogie Wolfson reported the Twins were not interested in him: http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/11/al-central-notes-thornton-rondon-tribe-tigers.html
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Fair enough. I am actually not a Trumbo fan, although that's probably influenced largely by not being a fan of the trades he has been involved in. I didn't really see the need to add him or Park for the 2016 Twins, but it is fun to see a new guy with potential.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    But I am pretty sure you can unload Milone and his salary in spring training, or early in the season, or basically whenever you need to. So you can still have your 5th starter competition, look to call up Berrios early, etc, and Milone's lack of options really shouldn't matter. If Milone sticks around the rotation longer than that and blocks anyone, I suspect it would be the effect of locking May into the pen rather than the cause. Which would be bad too, but again, the root cause of that situation, or first domino if you will, would be locking up mediocre relievers like Fien and Cotts and passing on real relief upgrades in the FA market.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    I much prefer Park at 4/25 than Trumbo at 1/9. My pessimistic side, though, notes that they are the same age. It might be difficult to not only ask Park to make the transition to MLB, but to also put up Trumbo's age 25-27 numbers at ages 30-33...
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Two very flawed 40-man players aren't that valuable. In Twins terms, those are the kind of deals that usually net you a month of a late-career Justin Morneau, or two months of a long-scuffling Francisco Liriano. And in this case, while one of the very flawed players is a MLB vet with 30 HR potential, he is also owed $9 million and only controlled for 1 more season. This deal wasn't about the value of Clevenger the catcher, it was about salary relief and possibly 40-man roster spots.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    Trumbo has been worth more than that -- remember when he fetched Tyler Skaggs and Hector Santiago for the Angels? Of course, that was coming off healthy full seasons of 29, 32, and 34 HR, with 3 years of control remaining, and was generally regarded as a poor trade by Arizona nonetheless.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    Rzepczynski is projected to make $3 mil in arbitration, and wasn't that good against LHB last season (.255/.321/.340). He's better than Duensing, but having him on the roster presents the same issues as having Duensing, Fien, Boyer, Cotts, Thornton, etc. -- you're locking in mediocrity to fill a less important role, when you really need to add another quality arm capable of filling a more important role if needed (i.e. Jepsen, Sipp, Bastardo, etc.).
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    Technically, Milone is out of options, and with over 3 years service time, he can now refuse an outright assignment to AAA even if he clears waivers (although maybe that's what you wish was different "in a perfect world"). I know I've made this non-tender argument about Fien, but I'm not quite sure I'd extend it to Milone yet. We're not likely to sign or acquire another SP this winter, so Milone's presence isn't preventing that, and while his value isn't high, I think he's easily tradeable as a LHSP making only $4.5 mil coming off a 106 ERA+, should we need to move him. (And I would be looking at trading a starter, especially if we can sign a reliever and give May another shot in the rotation.) I fear Fien, like Duensing before him, might simply be untradeable for awhile.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    By BA, Garza only reached #21. Liriano did indeed rocket to #6.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    They may have inked a few regrettable deals last winter, but the Red Sox are hardly close to becoming the present-day Phillies. Swihart, Bogaerts, and Betts are among the better young position players in the game, plus Rodriguez and Owens as young SP, and even after the Kimbrel trade, they still have the #8, #13, and #40 prospects on MLB.com's current top 100 list. (And the already canned the GM that signed those regrettable deals last winter.) And I suspect that Price's opt out will have nothing to do with the state of the franchise at the time, and entirely to do with the market for Price's services.
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