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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    I think the replacement has to be on the 40-man as of Sep. 1.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Turns out Reusse had a nosebleed, and the Hunter thing is still just a rumor: https://mobile.twitter.com/1500ESPN_Reusse/status/635666406181175296
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    That sounds like a good summary, John. Although I will note that your back-of-napkin method becomes a lot less elegant as the competitors get more spaced out. If there is a leader and one team 2 GB and another 4 GB, I really wouldn't know how to assign percentage odds to them all. Also, at 40 games out it doesn't matter as much, but a 2 game lead will become increasingly significant, and it is hard to tell exactly how much with just an eyeball glance at the standings.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    I think sample size deserves a place. It is frustrating to see an unfamiliar player, .300 AVG, 2 HR, 14 RBI, and have no idea if he is a new guy with a hot start, or a bench guy with decent numbers in part time play, or a full-timer with few RBI opportunities. Drop RBI for PA (or even AB) would be nice. And as much as RBI is an interesting story stat, I find it is pretty meaningless during the season for the vast majority of players. Top and bottom of the order guys, even middle of the order guys like Mauer or Plouffe, or even partial season mashers like Sano -- what exactly is a "good" RBI total for these guys, at various points in the season? AVG and HR aren't perfect but at least I understand better what they are measuring without much context.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    To be fair, even I sometimes use AB as a shorthand for PA, depending on who I am talking to.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    I love the RISP stats they show: AVG, HR... and RBI. Like really, this guy gets most of his RBI with runners on base? Wow, very informative.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    Well, except that Bryant is scheduled to hit arb a year before Sano (as a Super 2)... but they could kind of one-up each other through the years, as each might have a claim to more than the other guy.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    Yup. For those wondering, "The Sports Show" is a local Sunday night roundtable discussion in which Reusse participates with other local sportswriters. This was almost certainly just Reusse's conjecture, as a direct on-the-record quote from Torii on the subject would have made Reusse's newspaper column or regular weekday afternoon radio show. Unfortunately I can't watch/listen to confirm anything as the show's web site seems mostly abandoned: http://sportsshowonline.com/ It would be highly unusual for a player to say, at this point in the season, that he's not re-signing with his current team but he's not necessarily retiring either.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    The post was: "I haven't reviewed these projections. But I'm curious about this:the percentages listed for each team should add to 500%. If that is not the case their methodology is flawed." To me it was the equivalent of: "I haven't checked the roster. But I'm curious about this: a healthy Aaron Hicks should be in the starting lineup for this team right now. If that's not the case, they are making a serious mistake." When the allegation can be checked so easily, I'm not sure there is any point to such posts other than to be inflammatory and unfairly cast doubt on the target. I'll drop it now, though. Unless warning points can be exchanged for prizes.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    It's an allegation when you suggest they may not be following that simple mathematical truth.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    The effect might be: Bryant, an elite comparable going year-to-year, could inflate the arb market. Meaning Sano could see a further bump in his pay, beyond what he'd normally receive those years.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    My worst nightmare is Rob Manfred, in his role as MLB commissioner/moderator, bans the Twins from the postseason despite their qualifying record, for "baiting and trolling" the MLB regular season.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    Would have been nice to finally slay the Yankee dragon, but following it with a 4 game road sweep in Baltimore is a nice consolation for the moment. It's a weird year -- at times, they seem to fall apart (in Oakland, Toronto, and New York since the break), but each time they've bounced back to win some more, although never quite at a sustained dominant clip so you never know if more wins are forthcoming. But either way, they've hung in there!
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    He's right, though, the playoff percentages should add up to 500%, the wild card to 200%, and each division to 100%. And they do. So it was a pretty pointless post.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    So rather than take two minutes to add them up yourself and see if this very simple but potentially very damning allegation is true, you just state the allegation instead? Nice. For the record, the division (100%), wild card (200%), and playoff (500%) percentages all add up like they should.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    Someone at Twins Daily should tweet at the Twins and MLB and ask why they don't they use the Fangraphs season-to-date or even coin flip playoff odds. I can't imagine the Twins would be too happy that MLB is advertising playoff odds on their site that severely downgrade the Twins chances based on PECOTA or BaseRuns or whatever. I find those things interesting to discuss, but I don't think they should be a major factor in computing playoff odds at this late point in the season. The Twins should be able to advertise a 1-in-5 or even 1-in-4 chance at postseason play right now, based on their overall 2015 performance to date, and instead MLB is effectively saying it is only 1 in 10 because of PECOTA presumably.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Did you see my reply to you? When you take out the roster/performance component (which is easily done at Fangraphs), these are absolutely very useful. It's like at the start of the season in 1993, the Twins had a basic 1-in-7 chance of making the playoffs. Then at the beginning of 1994, they had a basic 1-in-5 chance (plus wild card) simply due to realignment. That's good to know. Same concept here, with the Fangraphs season-to-date or coin-flip playoff odds, except instead of season-to-season it's in-season and some teams simply have a head start over others.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't know about that. It's kinda like the Nick Punto situation. Punto was great in 2006/2008, was given the starting job in 2007/2009 and struggled, and we went out and acquired new starting options at his position(s) for the following seasons. They liked Punto a lot, liked giving him a role on the team, even paid him close to what they are paying Suzuki now with inflation -- but they also had no problem bringing in another option to start when he struggled like Suzuki has in 2015. You're right that it won't necessarily be a young guy or major acquisition, maybe the catching equivalent of the Lamb/Harris/Hudson/Hardy types who replaced Punto, but I'd kinda be surprised if the Twins do nothing at the position -- the internal options are just way too far away right now. And Suzuki was a backup and paid accordingly when we acquired him a year and half ago, so it's not like the Twins should feel obligated to keep running him out there as primary starter after a year like 2015.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    You're right, the projected performance of the current roster appears to be the biggest questionable variable, although it's not a complete black box. Here are Baseball Prospectus rest of season projected standings: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/fantasy/dc/ The Twins have the worst projected record in the league, although only by a game (as with any projection, the teams are pretty bunched up). But that's probably holding the Twins playoff odds back more, as compared to Tampa, and it's probably the biggest source of disagreement on this board. And unfortunately, unless you pay for a Prospectus subscription, you can't see any more detail on this projection I don't think. That's why I prefer the Fangraphs playoff odds. They have a "Fangraphs Projections Mode" which is like the Baseball Prospectus version except you can actually click on the team and see how they project each player for free (and the Twins again have the worst rest-of-season projected record in the league). But in the headers at the top, you can also select "season-to-date stats mode" (which helps the Twins a lot) or coin-flip mode if you just want to know the rough mathematical likelihoods: http://www.fangraphs.com/coolstandings.aspx I find that set-up to be far more informative than the Baseball Prospectus one. Not sure why MLB partners with Prospectus rather than Fangraphs in this endeavor. And if that's the objection, I agree. But projected standings by themselves are not worthless, nor do they necessarily require complete documentation and error bars etc. if they are simply extrapolating current season performance or doing coin flips.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Walk me through how you get any kind of useful playoff probability just through looking at the standings? If there is some kind of trick to it, I'd like to know. I look at the standings and I guess I can put teams in a couple generic buckets - "has a chance" vs "no chance" -- but I don't know exactly where that line is, based on games back, teams trailing, and games remaining. And I know there should be shades/gradients of chances within those buckets too -- how much is a 2 game deficit worth with 10 to play, maybe relative to 1 game deficit but with 2 teams to pass, etc. So, I look at the standings to get the situation, then the probabilities to help quantify what that situation roughly means for all the teams involved. I get that you don't care for that second step for some reason, but that doesn't mean there is anything inherently wrong with it.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't know about error bars, but it would be interesting to see a breakdown of the projection. For example, how much is it strength of schedule, home/road, strength of current roster? I think Fangraphs projected standings had some of that (coin flip mode vs depth chart mode).
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    No one is suggesting that these odds replace looking at the standings. I am not sure why you keep pitting the two things against each other. These odds augment looking at the standings.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    Eyeballing the standings will give you a vague idea, but there is a meaningful difference between being, say, 2 games out with 3 teams to pass and 40 games left, and 3 games out with 1 team to pass and 20 games left, that you can't quantify by eyeballing. Especially when you can be different numbers of games behind different numbers of teams in different races all at the same time. Nobody is claiming that a team with 8.5% odds has a definitively better shot than a team with a 7% chance or anything crazy like that. These numbers are just an interesting way to quantify the implications of the standings and games remaining that is often difficult to do just by eyeballing.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    Funny thing, that was the Mariners insanely awesome season, and that comeback helped Cleveland topple the Twins in the division that year too...
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    The Twins had won 3 in a row. Two teams previously in the lead for the 2nd wild card (LA, BAL) lost 3 in a row. Another team with a previously identical record to the Twins (DET) also lost 3 in a row. Why shouldn't that move the Twins chances from 4 to 7.5%?
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