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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Great post, and this was also one of the reasons to question the Span trade in real-time.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Suzuki's wasn't on a winning team last year. Oakland was never above .500 with him as the starter. The Nationals were hovering at or below .500 when they replaced Suzuki as starter in 2013 too.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    Yeah, Fangraphs projections haven't changed much since opening day. Every team's rest-of-season winning percentage projection is within 3.7 wins (prorated over 162 games) of their opening day projection. But it's hard to project more aggressively than that at the team level. For every guy that would benefit from a more aggressive projection based on recent results (Dozier, Hicks), there is probably another who would suffer (Suzuki, Danny Santana). The Twins roster just hasn't changed that much to make a huge difference either way (keep in mind, their preseason projection already included time for May, Rosario, Sano, etc.) Projections aren't supposed to be that sexy. Results and *predictions* are the interesting part.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Any projection is essentially using BaseRuns, in that you wouldn't project a team to bunch together their hits and/or spread out their hits allowed. BaseRuns just lets you look back and see what teams seemed to do that.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    That makes some sense, thanks. Although I think that leverage factor ties into sensing the Twins desperation (if they inquire about the player in both May and July) rather than trying to squeeze more because Susac has established himself recently. I think if you called the Giants about Susac for the first time today, their asking price might be identical to an alternate universe where you called them in May instead. (Either way, the price is sufficiently high to effectively prevent a deal, although that same price could be perceived as higher in May than in July.)
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    It's a two-way street, though. Lucroy's performance had been poor, but other teams were still looking at Lucroy because of his very real 126 OPS+ potential. The Brewers aren't going to meaningfully lower their asking price, and suddenly sell him as closer to a ~100 OPS+ player, after just a month of 55 OPS+. As far as the trade market is concerned, Lucroy is basically the same asset before and after the short time period in question. (That's another factor -- the Brewers have 2.5 years of cheap control for Lucroy, the Giants had virtually 6+ years for Susac earlier this year. There is no pressure to make a deal on either of them, so 1-2 months of almost any performance, positive or negative, isn't going to move their trade value needle.)
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    As I noted above, I doubt Susac's value is meaningfully higher to the Giants now than on June 1st or whatever. He's more or less doing what they expected him to do, and getting the opportunities they expected him to get at some point. When a prospect is that close, his value is more or less the same as it is just a little further down the line in his development. But agreed on your other points. Actually the big variable isn't the Giants value of Susac, which has almost certainly been consistently high, but the Giants need(s) at other positions. McGehee was terrible at 3B early for them, but they weren't desperate -- it was early, they were doing well at other positions, they still had Duffy to try at 3B, if not others, and in fact Duffy has filled the spot quite well for them. I don't know if any team has really been desperate enough just 2 months into the season to move the needle on trade market approaches.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    Based on what we know, I doubt Susac's value has changed since that time. Given his track record and inexperience, the Giants likely projected him to his current performance, and his stat line in limited time, while not good, didn't invalidate that projection at all. (They also probably expected he would have greater opportunities at some point.) By the same token, so little time has passed since that point that Susac's value likely hasn't risen either, at least not enough to actually make a difference in trade considerations. Would the trade value of Berrios change if he came up for a bullpen duty over 2 months and scuffled a bit? And if he then joined the rotation for a month and held his own? I am sure teams are always collecting more data on these players, but these time frames and variability of performances are just so slight as to not mean anything on the trade market.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    I am sure the Giants GM considered the information, but I doubt they let it affect his trade valuation at all because it was an incredibly small sample. Susac's season low OPS was on June 11, at which point he had 64 PAs and had only started 14 of 49 games.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    Fangraphs has us projected to 83 wins. That's the 49 wins in the bank, plus .463 the rest of the season, which is more or less the same as their preseason .457 projection. It's hard to move the projection needle quickly.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    The metric doesn't say that at all, so I don't really see how it's a problem with the metric. Fangraphs doesn't even say that -- their updated projections assume neutral luck for the rest of the season (more or less the preseason projections with some tweaks). Nobody that I am aware of is simply assuming future bad luck to balance the ledger.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    I think that's been the case for awhile now (BaseRuns winning % close to projected rest-of-season winning %, which in turn is pretty much just the preseason projected winning percentage over the remaining games). At least, that was the case the previous time I looked at BaseRuns, after May.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    In regards to Base Runs: The Twins rank 12th in the league in wRC+, and 11th in baserunning runs at Fangraphs, but somehow we rank 7th in runs per game. On the pitching side, we rank 12th in FIP and 13th in xFIP, but 8th in runs allowed per game. We also rank 8th in the league in pythag win percentage. This is not a team you would expect to have the 2nd best record in the league! And Base Runs isn't saying it's all "luck" either -- it could be just a few games luck, plus a few games skewed by early season blowouts, etc. We're actually 2 games up on our Pythag, which is in turn 7 games up on our Base Runs record. Also, it's not necessarily evenly distributed -- I think the two points in the season when we've really appeared to be a Base Runs outlier was after our 20-7 May and right now on a 6-1 run -- and it wouldn't surprise me if the most extreme Base Runs / Pythag outliers occurred on the heels of such winning (or losing) streaks. Basically by definition, it's hard to fully support such such extreme records with underlying peripherals and run distributions. Finally, I wouldn't read too much into our Base Runs record relative to the league ("2nd worst") as measures like Base Runs, Pythag, and projections tend to bunch teams together (and the AL is rather bunched up this year anyway). With our Pythag luck, we would still be right around .500 and in the thick of things even with much more modest Base Runs "luck".
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    It was not an innings cap, the minor league season is just shorter. (And last year he missed a month or so to injury) IIRC, May was on a 167 IP pace for 2015 recently before the demotion. They definitely didn't need to worry about his total innings.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    What doesn't work that way? The Atchison part has nothing to do with Felix, but I think Texas could have traded Felix rather than ask him to accept a minor league assignment.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    If we had simply claimed him on waivers, we could have probably had him for ~$2 mil, plus effectively an option on his services next year too.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Looks like Valencia and Smoak are doing quite well too, which could limit Cola's opportunities. And Ezequiel Carrera hasn't been embarrassing with the bat, and presumably he's a real OF.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    To be fair, Ramos was a year-plus younger than Arcia is now, with virtually zero MLB service time. He was more valuable in July 2010 than Arcia is now. Arcia is still worth more than a Matt Capps type, but I could see him being flipped for a good reliever who doesn't quite fit your criteria (not necessarily young, and maybe only 1.5 years of control).
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    That average debut age is inflated by guys like Bernier. Guys who stick in MLB usually debut well under that average age unless perhaps they are college draftees.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    The odd thing is, you dismiss Benoit for his 8.3 K/9 and FIP under 4, then say we can get any number of better pitchers with 10+ K/9 and lower FIPs just by dangling Rogers and his 6.3 K/9 and sub-4 ERA/FIP at AAA. I'm out.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    I said nothing about AAA ERA (and IP if you restrict it to ERA qualifiers), that was your chosen criteria. I think you make a claim about Jake Thompson (Soria trade) being out of baseball that you have yet to retract too. Also, rebuilding teams don't necessarily sell their best assets for pennies on the dollar.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    I am sorry I engaged you on this point. Every team has C grade prospects like Rogers. I don't really care whether they are AAA ERA qualifiers and I doubt the Phillies do either. I notice you have yet to present a similar trade from past history too.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    Lots of teams can give up a 24 year old AAA starter with zero MLB experience and 6.3 K/9 for one of the best closers in the league. Find me a player of Papelbon's quality, traded for an equivalent prospect to Rogers.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    If I were the Phillies, no I would not be ecstatic about trading Papelbon for Taylor Rogers. Think about it. Every team in baseball has a pitcher in AAA of Rogers quality or better. And certainly we are not the only team that would want Papelbon. It makes no sense that the Phillies would settle for that return. History doesn't support it, logic doesn't support it... I don't think I can continue this discussion with you.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    Miller was performing insanely -- 14.7 K/9. And he got 4/36 on the free agent market without being a closer. That's why he was expensive. Soria was a longtime closer sporting a 11.3 K/9, and he was owed less than Benoit. Both were much younger too. I think Benoit could be had for significantly less -- how much less, I have no idea. Here are Sickels preseason B-/C+ prospects who aren't on our 40-man roster: Lewis Thorpe, LHP Nick Burdi, RHP Stephen Gonsalves, LHP Travis Harrison, OF Stuart Turner, C Adam Brett Walker, OF Michael Cederoth, RHP Jake Reed, RHP Amaurys Minier, 1B Chih-Wei Hu, RHP Lewin Diaz, 1B Tyler Duffey, RHP Mason Melotakis, LHP Levi Michael, INF
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