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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    I think you and other posters and misinterpreting some of these posts. I don't think anyone (well, most anyone -- it is TD after all ) is actually claiming that Berrios would perform at that level immediately, just that it was a possibility worth investigating (and planning to investigate) given the circumstances that have been known for the past 2-3 months. If anything, the "don't call him up in 2015" crowd is the one making the most presumptions about Berrios' expected performance level, both in 2015 ("not good enough to help right now") and beyond ("this definitely makes us better from 2016-2022").
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    It should be noted that very few (if any?) pitchers have deliberately gotten the Kris Bryant or Carlos Correa treatment, in terms of a recall conveniently at a notable service time threshold. There is ample evidence that it just doesn't matter nearly as much for pitchers. I think we get too caught up in these things sometimes. Depending on how the offseason shakes out (if a SP or two gets moved), it wouldn't surprise me to see Berrios break camp with the big club or recalled well before the Super-2 date.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    Buxton was always part of TR's plan this year, as was Sano. Berrios never was. The evidence overwhelming points to TR simply sticking to his preseason plan for these guys, not some kind of magic bullet "nearing fatigue" evaluation of Berrios that somehow allows him a final "curtain call" start at Rochester. I am sure TR thinks this is best for Berrios and the team, but he made that decision last winter or perhaps even earlier than that. He just doesn't switch horses midstream, which is refreshing at times but also maddeningly frustrating at others.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    The Pirates are in a completely different spot than the Twins. 6 games out of the division lead, but 4.5 games up on the first wild card. Also they have one of the best pitching staffs in the league, with both top starters and relievers. The likelihood of rookie Glasnow giving them meaningful marginal wins is much, much lower than Berrios doing the same for the Twins, who have a mediocre staff in a very tight race on the edge of postseason qualification. The 2012 Pirates held back Gerrit Cole in a pennant race, although it was Cole's first pro season where he basically went from zero pro innings to 132, beginning in A-ball and not reaching AAA until a token appearance at the end of August (after some scuffles at AA earlier that month). Tampa also has one of the best staffs in the league this year, with studs in the rotation and pen. Their issue is undeniably offense. And they faded in July while the Twins were surging behind new hitting addition Sano. Their nonpromotion of Snell looks more like the Twins reticence to add Buxton back (or even Kepler) to the MLB lineup before Hicks got hurt again. I think the Rays history of promoting pitching prospects for pennant races basically every year from 2008-2013 is probably more indicative of their philosophy than the single case of Snell and their specific 2015 club. Very, VERY hard to find a team like the 2015 Twins holding back a prospect like 2015 Berrios. Plenty of clubs are conservative with pitching prospects, but I don't think any GM approaches certain situations quite like TR.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    I feel like you are refuting a lot of things I didn't say. The creative thing, on a team in a tight race as far back as June with a mediocre staff and one of the top MLB pitching prospects in the high minors, would be to plan for that prospect to potentially be able to help the MLB team. The uncreative thing would be to stick with your exact preseason plan for him the whole damn time, regardless of everything else. Go see the quotes from Ryan that he never really considered promoting Berrios this year, and that it was entirely about the innings. I really doubt there is any magic bullet indicating he is "nearing fatigue" or why would they have him make a final meaningless start in Rochester this weekend?
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    You forgot about Fryer. You also forgot about 3 other FA: Cotts, Pelfrey, and Hunter. And a couple more nontender candidates like Fien and Nunez. There are a lot more spots on the 40-man that can and will be opened than there are interesting marginal Rule 5 guys to protect.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    I do know some people whose interest in the Twins, waning since 2011, was renewed a bit last winter with the Hunter re-signing. Of course, of those people, I am not sure how many actually followed through with ticket or merchandise purchases. (Kind of a limitation of many non-blockbuster offseason moves, it's too removed from the season to generate much action from casual fans.) And of course, far more people I know have seen a far larger and perhaps more actionable interest spike since the recall of Miguel Sano. I question the need to superficially pique fan interest when a talent like that is just a couple months away.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    I want to try to win a World Series, by (at minimum) identifying and using the best 25-40 players already in our organization, every year. (Especially any year where we are contending and improving with 1 month to go -- service time and marginal Rule 5 candidates and rigid "plans" might have a place in April of any season, but not when contending with a month to go)
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    Did you miss my earlier post on Rule 5 history? http://twinsdaily.com/topic/19994-ryan-berrios-will-not-be-called-up-in-september/page-2?do=findComment&comment=397749 Long story short: the odds are extremely long that we will lose a good player in the Rule 5 draft because of having one less spot to protect someone. If Terry Ryan can't sort through 8 marginal candidates and pick the correct 7 to protect, or more realistically maybe 12 marginal guys counting some suspects already on the 40-man too, that's a fault with him. And it's NOT worth passing up adding a potentially elite pitching talent to a realistic playoff push just to give TR an extra spot to cover his Rule 5 butt.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    That's a clear error then. Berrios was a consensus top 20 prospect in MLB, pitching well at the highest level of the minor leagues. Why would they wait until he was within 25 innings of his known limit to consider this, then let him make multiple starts at AAA while they were considering? I don't think there was ever consideration, not by TR anyway. That's the problem.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Again, no. They have a few marginal guys becoming eligible, and plenty of spots coming open to protect them assuming they have any skill at identifying the likely selections. The marginal value of 1 more slot for Rule 5 purposes is almost zero, like last winter when we protected a pile of pitchers almost permanently stuck at the bottom of our relief pitcher depth chart and failed to protect Gilmartin. That wasn't a case of too few spots, it was a case of bad risk assessment and talent evaluation.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    Sounds like it was all about the innings: http://m.twins.mlb.com/news/article/146993632 And also that the Twins are buying into concerns about his size: So what exactly did the Twins think was going to happen, that they had to think about and debate this? Did they not realize that continuing to take his regular turn in the Rochester rotation would accumulate innings? Translation: "he wasn't in the plans, and I never deviate from my plans."
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    I think you and other posters are wildly overrating the importance and magnitude of the Rule 5 draft. Here are the players the Twins have lost (meaning, selected and not returned or traded before opening day) in the MLB portion of the Rule 5 draft, dating all the way back to 1997: 2014: Sean Gilmartin 2006: Kevin Cameron 2006: Levale Speigner That's it. Here are all the players the Twins have added (again, leaving off trades, notably Scott Diamond): 2014: JR Graham 2012: Ryan Pressly 1999: Johan Santana Keep in mind that the rules changed for the 2006 draft, making fewer players eligible. There is absolutely no reason the Twins can't protect virtually everyone they need to this winter, with or without Berrios. (There really was no reason they couldn't have also done so last winter -- losing Gilmartin was a result of poor calculation rather than a system overflowing with talent.)
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    We promoted Berrios to AAA on July 3rd. On that day, we held a wild card spot and were calling up Sano (and were getting Ervin Santana back and deploying May as a bullpen reinforcement). A month later, August 3rd, we were STILL in a wild card spot, Sano looked great at the plate, May looked great in the pen, and Berrios looked pretty comfortable at AAA. August clearly should have been the month to, if not call him up, then rest Berrios a bit, or even prep him for a bullpen role. Instead they treated it like it was any other pitcher, and any other month, just letting him take his regular turns at Rochester until his inevitable innings limit. Zero creativity, zero situational awareness.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    So wait a minute -- yesterday I read this story from Berardino headlined "Twins haven’t ruled out a promotion for Jose Berrios": http://blogs.twincities.com/twins/2015/09/01/twinsights-twins-havent-ruled-out-a-promotion-for-jose-berrios/ Then THE VERY NEXT DAY, they announce that he's out. What exactly did they discuss in those 24 hours? What finalizing was needed to seal this deal? And the worst part is, they didn't even shut him down immediately (which might indicate, we think he's fatiguing and want to protect him) -- they said, he'll get one more meaningless start at Rochester first, THEN we'll protect him.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    This isn't poker, and Berrios is not a chip you would "lose" by using him this season. Berrios' 2022 season isn't even a chip you would necessarily "lose" if you kept him down until mid-May next year. If you are within 1 game of a playoff spot in September, you almost certainly have a better chance to win the World Series, than with any record you might have in mid-May. There is tremendous value in staying in the race this long, plenty of teams who were supposed to be better than the 2015 Twins have failed to do it (and that group will probably include some "better" Twins teams from 2016-2022 too).
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    I am actually not sure this is about service time. TR has never seemed particularly concerned with service time, even when he could have been (Mauer, Liriano, Kubel). I wouldn't be surprised if Berrios was given an honest chance to make the team out of spring training next year (especially depending on how the offseason shakes out in regards to the pitching staff). It just seems an extension of TR's uncreative nature, and not deviating from plans. Berrios just wasn't in the plan this year, and a generally mediocre staff wasn't nearly enough to make TR consider budging from his plans.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    It's one thing to be worried about his arm, it's another to just not even bother working within the parameters of his innings limit to improve the team. Remember, this is the same TR that didn't bother signing many international prospects or picking up even cheap Pavano level guys mid season in his first tenure, because I think he is just perfectly content going to war with the army he assembled in the draft and offseason, with little regard for trying to improve his army mid-battle. I think that is coming out here: Berrios wasn't in the plans for 2015, so TR just doesn't consider deviating from the plan to work him in, regardless of its feasibility or potential benefits.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    Of course, they could have called him up 2 starts ago and gotten 20 innings out of him, probably the same number of innings that Trevor May will see during the same time span (meaning, they could be important and useful).
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    On a related note, I have spent some time long-reviling the Marlins owner.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    This stretch dates back to 2013 at AAA. He really found another level at the plate then. It has lasted long enough that there should be no question he is the everyday SS for this team, every day down the stretch and to begin 2016.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    Strasburg was worse -- the Nationals and Strasburg were expected to contend, they should have planned better. Start his season late, have him take a break, have a plan for the pen, something. In the sense of being inflexible, though, it is a close match for Berrios thus far. Not that the Twins should have anticipated contention early, but they could have adjusted a bit better mid season, definitely by August. Especially given how our pen looked, and that the pen has been a common place to ease young arms into MLB. We still don't have a long reliever in the pen, even with expanded rosters. That's almost inexcusable. A short start blowout loss will almost certainly rope in multiple good relievers right now, just to get thru the game. (Not that we'd want Berrios to be that guy, I was thinking Darnell).
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    In any case, they probably have room for a wild card protection like Wimmers if they want, and still have room for Berrios. The 40-man picture just isn't that crowded unless you view a lot of marginal guys as untouchable.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    It's rarely smart to bring back a guy who declines but doesn't quite fall of a cliff. It usually means he will fall off that cliff. Hence, why Torii falling off that cliff recently might have this silver lining.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't even mind the innings limit for Berrios. What frustrates me is the combination of the innings limit, the apparent refusal (so far) to use him out of the pen to lengthen his season within that innings limit, AND the apparent refusal to adjust his starting schedule (more rest, breaks) to lengthen his season within that innings limit. It's well beyond simply a prudent, cautious approach -- it's complete inflexibility with potentially our best chance at adding marginal wins post-Sano.
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