Jump to content
Twins Daily
  • Create Account

Otto von Ballpark

Old-Timey Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    20,669

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    74

 Content Type 

Profiles

Minnesota Twins News, Rumors & Analysis

Minnesota Twins Videos

2026 Minnesota Twins Top Prospect Rankings

2022 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

Minnesota Twins Trade & Free Agent Rumors

Minnesota Twins Fan Guides & Resources

2023 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

The Minnesota Twins Players Project

2024 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

2025 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

2026 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

Forums

Blogs

Events

Store

Downloads

Gallery

Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Just like the Metrodome burned when Torii left? Sure, it would have been bad PR, but you're exagerrating the effects of not trading him.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Yes, I have noticed. But prior to this recent use, I think they squandered a couple games without using May. (And "8th inning guy" may still be holding him back a bit, no reason he can't be a multi-inning reliever when the situation warrants. I'd rather pitch May for a couple innings in a close game and get by the next game without him, than need another reliever to help in addition to May in every close game.)
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    In the short term (i.e. this year), fine. But if May spends two *years* in the bullpen before his next attempt at starting, I am pretty confident that the Twins will be fielding a sub-optimal roster over that time for the reasons I've laid out above.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Agreed. But they needed to be more aggressive with May in the bullpen to really justify it, and/or more willing to move May back to the rotation when needed. They've failed on both counts so far, and it's cost us games in the former. Hopefully Duffey steps up and saves them from the latter.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    Hunter was a 110 OPS+ hitter the previous 7 seasons. Tough player to lose in CF, but nothing that required franchise-altering moves to adjust for. Mike Cameron had a 112 OPS+ over the same time frame, and signed a 1 year $7 mil deal (with team option!) with a small market team in a roofed stadium about 300 miles from Minneapolis. Given the contract he received, letting Hunter walk and collecting two draft picks was the smart move. And there was no change necessary involved with Johan. He was still under contract for another season. Hell, just keep him OR Garza, and there's no need to sign Livan and you've already covered over 70% of Cameron's salary. (Keep Bartlett too, and Adam Everett's salary covers more than the rest of the difference.) The situation wasn't the problem. The problem was Smith and his extreme over-reaction to the situation (a theme which would re-occur later in Smith's tenure).
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    When the decision was made: May: 5.4 IP/GS, 4.59 runs per 9 innings Pelfrey: 5.7 IP/GS, 4.14 runs per 9 innings Less than a third of a inning difference, less than a half a run difference per nine innings. I doubt these numbers were involved with the decision, except as an after-the-fact justification.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    Yankees called up Luis Severino, who has been neck-and-neck with Berrios in age, level, and prospect rankings, to start Wednesday, the same day that Duffey is now scheduled. I guess the Yankees did let a lesser guy get a spot start first after Pineda's injury, although that other guy was also already on the 40-man roster and had already burned his option this year. I somehow doubt the Twins plan on a similar one & done for Duffey.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    So they're going to drop someone from the 40-man on Thursday so they can add Berrios and option Duffey (and burn an option year on Duffey if he's not recalled before Sep. 1st)? Just to have Berrios avoid the Blue Jays lineup? Doesn't sound likely. Duffey's next turn lines up with the Monday off day, so maybe they just want to skip him that turn. Although with 8 relievers already, the benefit of having the 5th starter in the pen for a couple games is pretty small. I think I'd rather just insert Berrios into the rotation and be done with it for a while. There's no guarantee that we're going to want Milone to immediately return to the rotation later this month anyway.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    The Twins could easily be hurt by such a decision too. To use your example numbers, if May is good enough to be a $14 million starter, but we're using him to fill the spot of a $4 mil reliever, that's a lot of excess value we are leaving on the table. We'll have other starting options, but it's highly questionable whether there will be five better than May. And just keeping extra starters and starting prospects for depth, in the event that May is needed in the pen, will have a cost. From re-signing Pelfrey with money that could instead be used on a reliever like Neshek, or passing on a trade of Milone, or protecting untested arms like Duffey, Rogers, etc. And May's success in the pen may lead to us being even less aggressive on the FA relief market than we were in the July trade market, regardless of whether our team would be better with May starting and a FA reliever added to the pen. May being a bullpen weapon certainly has some upside. But I'm not sure I trust TR to properly use it as an option to improve the team overall, rather than as an excuse to avoid making certain improvements.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    Fine, let's say May had exactly the same leash as Pelfrey. Still, on average, tossing aside that one injury shortened start, Pelfrey lasted less than two-thirds of an OUT longer than May. Not two-thirds of an inning -- less than two-thirds of one OUT. 20% of one inning.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    I edited my post to clarify that beyond picking Smith as his successor, and maybe not being more involved in the transition, there really isn't any blame to be had for TR that winter. He left Smith with one fairly standard decision (trade Santana or ride him out), and the same basic roster that was competitive the previous few seasons with the addition of one new hole in CF. It wasn't remotely a mess or a difficult situation, as some have claimed.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    See above. Leverage was not destroyed and options weren't crippled. The 2008 Twins could have signed Mike Cameron to replace Torii (Cameron signed a one-year deal for $2 mil more than Livan Hernandez, with Milwaukee of all places), and held on to Johan in lieu of an overwhelming offer while we presumably contended in 2008 for the 8th consecutive season. There's really no valid justification for Smith's first offseason that offloads even a shred of blame onto TR. EDIT TO ADD: except the obvious, that TR picked/allowed Smith to be his replacement. And presumably didn't stick his head back in the office to say, "guys, what's going on here?" enough.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't think ransoms have ever been normally reaped by trading top players. For every Knoblauch or RA Dickey trade, there's been a clunker like Sabathia or one of the Cliff Lee deals, etc. It is certainly not a ransom for players of Hunter's level. Even Johan is better for a contending team than the speculative "ransom" you will likely receive for him. Actually, Target Field was formally approved in 2005. TR should have been much more aggressive in locking up / extending players after that point, but wasn't (waited until Mauer won a batting title, then only bought out 1 FA year, did not sign Morneau or Cuddy, and probably didn't aggressively try to extend Torii and Johan while they were still 2-3 years away from FA). That's on TR. But by 2008, there's no reason the Twins couldn't afford to sign a Mike Cameron level FA to replace Torii, and hold on to Johan for his last season unless they were overwhelmed by an offer.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    To be fair, May was injured in spring training, and had a bit on an absence before his first start (remember, he was sent to minor league camp to begin the season, then recalled to replace Nolasco I think). So he was eased into things this year. May has had a few outings that could have easily been longer if he had Pelfrey's leash. He was removed from games where he has generally been effective with pitch counts in the 80's three times over June/July; Pelfrey has had no such games since early April, he has basically been allowed to throw 90+ pitches every game he's been reasonably effective. May also had the one start I can recall where a Twins starter was removed prematurely due to injury and not performance (April 25 vs Seattle). At the time of the decision, May was averaging 5.5 innings outside that injury start, and Pelfrey 5.7 innings. The difference was less than two-thirds of an out. Even with the injury start, the difference was 0.35 innings, or one out per start.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Shields FA deal was actually pretty fair, given the market. It's backloaded a bit so that skews things looking forward, but it's not an albatross yet. (Just noticed that Shields has an opt-out after 2016 too.)
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    Yup. And we're going to give several starts to Duffey almost regardless of his performance (there's no other starter on the 40-man other than May), and then we're probably going to let Milone come off a DL stint directly back to the MLB rotation (and perhaps before he's ready, if we are in a rush to replace Duffey). All in a pennant race, and all apparently because of our reticence to take on salary or part with Hu-level prospects during said pennant race in July...
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Yup. Heck, if TR had been aggressive enough to secure another (better?) reliever first, Tampa probably wouldn't have had the leverage to even demand a Hu-level prospect for Jepsen in the waning hours of the deadline. There's no way that penny-pinching Tampa, with several much better/younger bullpen arms in place, should have had the leverage advantage when shopping an older/declining reliever due ~$5 mil in arbitration this winter. But it appears that they did with the Twins on July 31st, such was the state of our bullpen.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    To be fair, it wasn't that difficult of a situation. If Smith had been paying attention to TR's work the previous few years, he would have realized there was no shame in keeping a quality player on your contending team and getting the compensation draft picks. The mistake wasn't taking action on Torii and Johan earlier; the mistake was panicking when Torii left and Johan was a year away from leaving, and thinking that Delmon + Gomez circa 2008 was a substitute worth its high price (Garza + Bartlett + Santana - comp picks). Nothing in TR's record says he would make or even recommend those moves.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    Because MLB debuting Duffey, then having Milone work his way back from injury, is a much better way to use that rotation spot in a MLB pennant race? Another reason we should have acquired another/better bullpen arm: our rotation isn't that deep/strong at the moment if May isn't an option (or Berrios).
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Generally I agree, but it's weird how the cloud of being a good reliever can hang over a pitcher. I could see May moved back to the pen prematurely in 2016, or kept in the pen beyond 2015 (long enough to impact him long-term) just because we refuse to get better bullpen alternatives.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    Actually Toronto and Colorado had discussed Tulo before, and the Rockies had previously been unwilling to accept Reyes. Not sure quite what that means, but it suggests there wasn't anything really special about the Toronto offer that other teams couldn't match. I think they were just aggressive enough to be in the right place at the right time. Not suggesting anything crazy like we could have fobbed off Nolasco on them, but a willingness to simply eat Tulo's contract probably would have enabled us to land him with a fairly modest prospect package.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    Yeah, they haven't really looked at middle tier relievers for a few years (or ever, really). When you're not developing good relievers, or giving chances to high upside guys, that's not good. Actually, the bullpen is kinda like the rotation a couple years ago -- they let it atrophy by failing to develop quality options while more or less ignoring FA options, then arguably had to overpay/over-commit to middle tier starters just to catch up. A mild deadline overpay for Jepsen is a gentler version of that catch-up.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    Last winter, Neshek signed for 2/12, and Gregerson for 3/18. I am not sure that Jepsen's extra year of control at ~$5 mil is all that valuable. (Why didn't we sign one of those guys rather than completely dumpster diving our whole bullpen?) Heck, we probably could have acquired Mark Lowe for a similar prospect haul, he's owed $1 mil less than Jepsen in 2015 and can probably be resigned at a Neshek like price.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    Kielty was two weeks shy of his 27th birthday when we traded him for Stewart, with 750 MLB PA. He was no longer a prospect.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    Ackley's career arc reminds me of Gordon Beckham's.
×
×
  • Create New...