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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    I wasn't making any equivalency, I just shared one specific example. There are obviously different degrees of errors, and the most benign errors may not be any worse than simply failing to record the out. (FYI, I edited my post above to show the error breakdown of UZR at Fangraphs, if you are interested.) Errors are judged by the official scorer, which is an entirely different system than DRS/UZR/Statcast judging probability of outs. Not sure anything is wrong with that, but they tell us different things and they may not always line up. If the superhero fielder drops everything, obviously he's worthless. But what about a superhero fielder who only drops a few more than the average player? Then the superhero may have, say, 5 more errors by the official scorer, but you wouldn't replace him based on that if he was responsible for a net reduction in baserunners/advancement compared to the average fielder. In reality, with non-superhero players, these seem like marginal concerns compared to offensive outcomes. But when 90% of plays are routine like you say, the marginal concerns around the remaining 10% are magnified. And it takes a lot longer to amass a meaningful sample from those 10% of plays too.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    DRS and UZR are both defensive metrics that include errors. OAA is just one that doesn't. They tell us different things, just like AVG and SLG, etc. Fangraphs even breaks UZR down into component parts Range Runs ("RngR") and Error Runs ("ErrR" -- that's a lot of R's!) and Double Play Runs (DPR) (plus ARM for outfielders). Indeed, Simmons is doing much worse in ErrR than RngR so far this season, although it's still a pretty small/unreliable sample: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=ss&stats=fld&lg=all&qual=220&type=1&season=2021&month=0&season1=2021&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2021-01-01&enddate=2021-12-31&sort=25,d Also, not all errors are equal. If a player makes an 1-base error on a ball that only 10% of his peers can normally convert into an out anyway, then it's not remotely close in impact to either of Celestino's errors last night, for example.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    Oh man, I hadn't even thought about this yet. Unless some guys get healthy quick, we might be one of those teams with a token all-star selection again, huh?
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Yankees gave up 3 decent prospects to Oakland to get Gray in 2017 -- all 3 were ranked in top 100 overall lists either before or after the 2017 season. Two have moved on to other orgs already but Kaprielian is in Oakland's rotation now. Yankees got some value back in the Gray trade to Cincinnati too -- primarily the #38 overall pick in the 2019 draft.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    That's what defensive metrics already do. Notice that the metric here is "Outs Above Average" -- the average is the ~90% of plays converted into outs.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    Yes, that sounds about right. The higher K% reduces the benefit of a higher BABIP. And on the other splits, the high K% and low BABIP are kind of a double-whammy.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    Twins aren't alone on the injury front:
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    Sano's trade value is indeed negative at the moment. I was commenting on the willingness of other teams (and not just contending teams) to pick him up if the Twins were to release him. Although I could see some club giving us a marginal prospect if we'd eat cash in trade too, just to jump the line.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    Historically, I think pitchers have been more up-front about things like this than other positions: Weird Yankee History: The Wife Swap
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    I was curious, so I looked at some numbers. Overall, the Twins have a 107 wRC+, 10th among MLB teams (not including pitchers). K% is 15th at 23.6%. BABIP is 22nd at .283. (League average is 23.6% K% and .289 BABIP) With runners on base, we are still 10th with a 113 wRC+, although we fall to 23rd in K% (although the rate itself is virtually the same, 23.7%). Our BABIP climbs to 9th at .309. (League average is 107 wRC+, 22.4% K%, and .297 BABIP) With runners in scoring position, we fall to 19th at 99 wRC+, and 23rd again with a 24.4% K%. Our BABIP in these situations is tied for 25th at .272. (League average is 105 wRC+, 23.0% K%, and .295 BABIP)
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    Plenty of other teams would take Sano at league minimum salary right now -- but the Twins don't have that option. Cutting Sano right now, given the current state of our roster, should be off the table. Buxton and Kepler would both have to return and establish they are fully healthy to remotely justify it (sliding Kirilloff to first base), although by then other circumstances may change too (i.e. another injury, or a potential Cruz trade).
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    Alex Colomé and the 2021 Twins: bringing families together...
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Archer also had two reasonable team option years beyond that.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Not official yet, but sounds like Garver to the IL with Jeffers replacing him, as well as Refsynder to the concussion IL with Celestino replacing him:
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    Off the top of my head, the Twins did it with Rick Aguilera in 1995-1996. The Cubs did it with Jason Hammel in 2014-2015. It's not common, but the sample is fairly small and biased against re-signing -- usually the team trading the player has a replacement ready, or no longer desires the player's services (i.e. a rebuilding club). No surprise that the handful of examples are pitchers, since teams usually need an abundance of pitchers. Edit: just remembered the Mets did it with Jeurys Familia in 2018-2019, and the Brewers with K-Rod in 2013-2014. Edit 2: not deadline deals, but Cliff Lee and JA Happ were traded in one offseason, then re-signed with those clubs the next offseason.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Really? It seems like the Twins 2021 season has largely been characterized by a failure to drive in baserunners, untimely fielding errors, plus some bullpen struggles. Those seem like interesting ways to lose, no? As compared to falling behind early and never mounting a serious challenge to even the score.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    Wrong Pedro.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    Noting that the Twins have largely refused to use him in close games the past month is “extreme lengths”? May appearances in tie/hold/save situations: Rogers 11, Robles 11, Duffey 8, Thielbar 4, Alcala 4, Colomé 3 It’s not just random luck that Colomé hasn’t been in many close games, it has been a deliberate decision — one of many that I have no control over. And Colomé gave up all 3 of his runs (and left 2 inherited runners for the next pitcher) in those 3 tie/hold games too. It is hard to accumulate much value in relief, given those circumstances and performances. He has absolutely performed better in May than April, but I would not rank his May performance ahead of Polanco, Garver, Larnach, Refsynder, or Berrios, and probably a few other guys too.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    The Twins have been pretty upfront about reducing Colomé’s leverage, so that’s not really an accident. He was generally 4th or 5th on the RP depth chart, which his leverage index reflects. Like I said before, that other poster was mistakenly referring to full season stats rather than just May. Colomé clearly does not belong on a 5 worst list for May, you are correct about that. But Colomé should not be considered among the 5 best Twins in May either. His RA9-WAR of 0.2 for the month would rank 4th among just pitchers, but overall it would only be tied for 11th on the team. We actually had a handful of hitters do pretty well this past month, even if you penalize a few for situational hitting (although it would seem a bit contradictory to simultaneously boost Colomé despite his meager situational value for the month).
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    5+ runs would be crazy low leverage. Late innings, down by 2-3 runs or more is generally considered low leverage (and the pitchers teams generally use in those situations confirms that). It wasn't exclusively a low-leverage month for him, but Colomé's average game-entering leverage index (gmLI) for May was 0.73: https://www.fangraphs.com/players/alex-colome/6661/game-log?type=5&gds=2021-05-01&gde=2021-05-31&season=&position=P That indeed qualifies as "low leverage" per Fangraphs: An LI of 1 is average. Anything above 1 is above average and anything below it is below average. We bin the situations into three groups (Low: 0-0.85, Medium: 0.85-2.0, High: 2.0+) 7 of Colomé's May appearance were "low leverage" by this definition, 3 were medium, and 1 was high. The White Sox game you mention was his 3rd highest at 0.99, so it was right about average leverage. He was followed in that game by Thielbar and Alcala, with the score unchanged, to give you an idea about how the Twins approached that situation.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    I think the other poster was quoting full season numbers rather than just May. Although Colomé has been a lower leverage pitcher this past month. His only high leverage appearance was that walk off loss in Cleveland.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    That's fair, although the same could be said about a few of our wins vs Baltimore too. For me, nothing wrong with winning 5 out of 7 (or 8 of 11, going back further) even if the play is sloppy -- although yes, improvement will be needed to survive beyond BAL/KC.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    2019 careers years were actually a minority of the lineup -- likely only Cruz, Polanco, Garver, and Kepler. (And Garver was a part-time player by virtue of his position, and Kepler's "career year" wasn't that far above his performance since.) And likely no meaningful "career years" among our 2019 SP -- Berrios was pretty much just as good in 2018, Odorizzi was very similar in 2014-2015 for Tampa, and Pineda has been even better since 2019 (small sample, of course). There's some luck and good fortune in almost any 100 win season, but even at 95 wins, the 2019 Twins performance would still be far from a fluke based on our personnel.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    It was disappointing to lose 2 of 3 to KC for sure, but I don't know if flipping the result of one of those games would result in a meaningfully different outlook for me. What if we had gone 3-1 vs Baltimore and 2-1 vs KC in this stretch so far? I mean, sweeps are definitely preferred at this point but that would be the same 5-2 overall record in this stretch. They've still got 6 games vs BAL and KC here to rack up more wins or more disappointing losses.
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