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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    For the sake of our projected playoff series winning percentage, they are more or less interchangeable. Gibson does not stand out from that group to the degree you claim.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    I like Gibson, but I am pretty sure he has very little effect on our projected playoff series winning percentage over Trevor May.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    "More money" relative to league minimum. It's still just a couple million. Mike Trout is making $6 mil this year, in basically his fourth full season, and he's the best all-around player in the game.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    So the 2003 Twins shouldn't have traded Lohse for A-Rod either, right? Oh, the horror! Only two adequate playoff starters! The Twins have a pile of similar starters for this year's and/or future year's playoffs. None of them are aces. I guess if you want to argue the Twins should hand out a Scherzer contract in FA, I could get behind that, but I think that's less likely than the remote possibility we take on Tulo's remaining deal.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    Can this please be put to rest, once and for all? Sano and Buxton will not even be arbitration eligible until the current Mauer, Santana, Nolasco, Perkins, and Dozier contracts are all complete (and Plouffe will be well into FA by then too). Well, I guess Santana has one vesting option year that might coincide with their first arb season. Hughes also overlaps that first arb season by 1 year. Big whoop. And even the option year on Tulo's contract precedes any potential Buxton or Sano free agency years. And all this assumes Buxton and Sano don't spend any more time in the minors. For any prospects who have yet to appear in MLB -- Berrios, Kepler, etc. -- the timeline is even further out. There is absolutely no internal financial reason the Twins couldn't support the entirety of Tulo's remaining contract.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    The Twins have 6 starters right now, all but one under contract/control for 3+ more seasons after this one, plus Berrios in AAA and the ghost of Ricky Nolasco still roaming the halls of Target Field. The Twins don't appear to trust any of our internal shortstop candidates (and that mistrust appears justified, even if they haven't been ranking those options optimally). Obviously it would be even better if Tulo was a catcher, but he's not, and there doesn't seem to be a comparable catching acquisition on the horizon.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    League context -- Gibson's K/9 compared to the 2015 league rate is not as good as Radke's in the late 1990's. Gibson's ERA+ now trails two full Radke seasons, and his FIP- trails NINE full Radke seasons.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    The A's probably didn't anticipate Donaldson being even better (by WAR) than 2013, no. I doubt anyone did. But if you have any evidence that the A's thought Donaldson and Lawrie would be remotely equal, other than the fact that they play the same position and were pieces of the same trade, I'd like to hear it. Beane's record suggests he's not afraid to trade the better player. You said you found the moves "baffling." I explained how they were generally in line with Beane's past history and strategy, while making perfectly clear I don't endorse the moves and some of the moves were likely bad. Now I'm labeled a "Beane fan" and you're bringing up their poor recent record which I never disputed. I'll keep this in mind should another Oakland thread arise.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    I think you are misreading the trade if you assume Lawrie was supposed to be Donaldson's near equal. Just because he plays the same position doesn't make it so. The A's willingly downgraded at 3B to get the 3 other players from the Jays (and save a few bucks as a side effect). It is certainly debatable whether those 3 players and cost savings were worth the downgrade, but I don't know that there is any evidence that suggests Beane thought Donaldson and Lawrie were near equals.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    Squandered value on Samardzija? They got their stretch drive rental period from him and flipped him for other assets too. Given Samardzija's inconsistency, that seemed like the smart play.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    The OPS is solid, but Tulo's ISO and BB% are down, his K% is up, and he's more reliant on BABIP than before... could be signs of decline, although it could be relatively painless if it's gradual and not sudden like Mauer's 2014.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    Good point, but I don't think that lineup is THAT good. The 2014 Dodgers, who had a pretty good lineup, survived the Ellis/Butera tandem at catcher but opted to replace it in the offseason. Jeff Mathis was that kind of catcher on a few Angels teams, but even he only once topped 300 plate appearances.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    Gibson is on a real nice run, but I think you could make a package around him too, no? I mean, I know it's disruptive to our MLB season, but if Colorado was willing to accept Gibson plus prospects (not Berrios, Sano, or Buxton), you'd have to consider it just as much as a Berrios-led package. More likely, Colorado would demand Gibson AND Berrios and that would give me pause.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Perhaps, but I think this is a slight mischaracterization. That wasn't a proposal by Luhnow, it was a "a headliner like Giolito" mentioned in response to an inquiry on Harrell. Hard to say what it was exactly, without more context -- maybe Luhnow knew Washington was looking to get Harrell basically for free (he was struggling) but Luhnow wasn't interested in giving him away yet, and was just trying to use the opportunity to spark a larger deal discussion, maybe not even for Giolito but a lesser Washington prospect who could still fit his term "headliner." Heck, Giolito was just 9 innings into his pro career at that point, maybe they were just trying to gauge how Washington saw his value. Interestingly, 5 days after telling Baltimore that a Bud Norris deal was unlikely without Dylan Bundy, the Astros traded Bud Norris to Baltimore for much, much less than Dylan Bundy. So who really knows how actual deals start and end.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Not just Lucroy, but basically all of our potential catching targets have this risk. Derek Norris has a 91 OPS+ this year. Plawecki hasn't done anything yet. Phegley is 27 years old and was deemed expendable by the White Sox. Susac has been good but far from great, and he'd probably be the hardest to get because his team is very much in contention and has an asset at catcher they want to protect. Tulowitzki is guaranteed to be a very good MLB player right now and for the immediate future, with a demonstrated potential for spikes of greatness too. If a Berrios led package could do it, I think you'd have to pull the trigger rather than save him and wait for a good young catcher that may not exist.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    It's thoroughly ridiculous, but at least one of those players would probably be a headliner in an actual Lucroy trade. Unlike the Twins Daily proposals, which seemingly all start with Arcia these days, or Plouffe if we're lucky. (In fairness, the most unrealistic trade proposals here seem to come from the least frequent / less veteran members. If only there was a filter that could detect outlandish trade proposals and block those posts...)
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    You know Sean Bergman was only claimed by the Twins at age 30, right? After 5 full seasons in MLB with other teams? We have plenty of failed (non) prospects of our own, no need to sully the legacy of Mr. Bergman (who I saw defeat the Yankees in New York that season!).
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    They got a (lesser) MLB talent back in Lawrie, plus both Graveman and Nolin were MLB ready, plus they got a rising SS prospect to help offset the earlier loss of Russell (and future loss of Robertson in the Zobrist deal). Still designed to continue to contend, they were projected to be in the thick of things at 82-83 wins. Not designed to try winning 95+ games or steamrolling to the WS, but I don't think the A's have built to try doing that at all for the past 10 years (except in July last year, with half the season results already known, they made some stretch run moves). I heard the reports of a clash with Donaldson too, but as with most easiest explanations, I am not sure it's really true. At the time of the trade, Beane said that Donaldson was his best player. I doubt he thought the same was remotely true of Lawrie. If the return was poor, it may be because Beane was adhering too close to his "trade player at arbitration" strategy. Trading early has the advantage of more flexibility over trading late, but part of that flexibility is the ability to walk away which Beane generally hasn't done. Trading a star entering arbitration is perhaps even more predictable for Beane now than trading expiring contracts is for most other teams. Given Beane's history, there's nothing really puzzling about it, though.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    I think a Tulo trade should be easier. With the money owed and their record, the Rockies have some incentive to move him (not give him away, but motivation to actually consummate a deal). There are only a handful of catchers that meet your criteria out there, and their teams don't necessarily have strong incentive to move them. You might have to give up the same players you'd give up for Tulo to make something happen today, and you'd likely get a lesser player than Tulo in return.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    We have a team option on Perkins for 2018. Mauer and Perkins will both be 36 years old in the 2019 season. I doubt we have to worry much about extending them for that season. They might be lucky to finish their current contracts as effective players (particularly Mauer).
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    We can't let past bad contracts prevent us from adding good players, though. If we are seriously debating acquiring Troy Tulowitzki, we should not shrug and say "if only we hadn't signed Nolasco..."
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    Much easier said than done.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    I'm with Dave here. Berrios is a very nice prospect, but he probably doesn't belong in the same group as Sano or Buxton (very few pitching prospects probably do).
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    You're not going to ever be able to sign a similar player for 5/94 with a 6th year option. That's Ramirez/Sandoval money from this past winter. That's why I am not opposed to spending even more for the right player, but I don't think many big time shortstops are set to hit the market either.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    That's not that unusual, is it? Matt Holliday had a 1.072/.810 home/road OPS split in Colorado (ages 24-29). Since then? .911/.842 split in St. Louis, ages 30-35.
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