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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    But beating your BaseRuns record means (on the pitching/defense side) you are giving up base runners but not allowing them to score. Not sure why that would apply to the 2014 Royals to any great degree -- their top relievers allowed very few base runners, although their relief staff overall was average in WHIP, and their relievers as a whole had the lowest number of inherited runners in the league (and allowed them to score at a league average rate). And good defense should mean they allow fewer baserunners too, as well as stranding them. Not sure it would be the dominant factor for Perkins and the Twins this year either. Perk has been relatively stingy with base runners (1.083 WHIP), and only 5 inherited runners too. The team has 3rd most inherited runners in the AL, but they are stranding them at about a league average rate, average WHIP, and the 5th worst bullpen ERA in the league. I guess the Twins relievers (and starters too) have so few strikeouts, maybe that is a factor? Obviously runners are more likely to advance/score on outs that aren't strikeouts. Royals pitchers did not have huge strikeout totals last year either (although their bullpen was near the top, their starters were near the bottom).
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    By Fan graphs BsR base running runs, which I believe incorporates stealing as well as ROE, advancement, taking extra bases, etc, we are 20th in MLB at -2 runs. We were first in MLB by the same measure in 2014, with +21.2 runs over the season.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    According to B-Ref, Mauer's OPS started with a 5 after 55 PA. Arcia's last did so after 54 PA. And it's not like a .700-something OPS was a fluke for Arcia, he has been in the range each of the last two seasons, over 850 PA. And unfortunately, Mauer is right there with him over his past 720 PA and he hasn't been trending up.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    And Mauer raised his 130 points over 6 games the same week. Point being?
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    If we're still talking BaseRuns, it's not really about players over- or under-performing. It's just overall team event distribution. The idea is, we're not going to keep getting so many of our hits with RISP (and not giving up hits in the same situations), etc.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    Yeah, that 2001 Twins team in a reminder how quickly you can go from postseason lock to not. Even 4-5 games up on both the wild card and the division lead at the all-star break wasn't safe -- in under 2 weeks, both of those leads were gone.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    It would be interesting to see more BaseRun breakdowns, but I think that's more Pythag effect. At least, I don't think we were particularly unlucky on our hit distributions that first week, we just scored little and gave up a ton.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    Yeah, it's one reason I'd like to see historical comps over a partial season sample. Did, say, the 2008 Angels have a big stretch of BaseRun over-performance, but still settle in as a good team? On that train of thought -- what key clubhouse component do the 2008 Angels and the 2015 Twins have in common?
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    Yeah, it would probably take 3 SP injuries before they should even consider someone like Aaron Harang. Probably three OF/DH injuries before considering Marlon Byrd too. That said, there really aren't many "very good" players at Rochester (yet). Milone is one of the few guys down there that currently profiles as helping this team win this year. Not that others can't contribute, they just don't look too likely. The best are still another hop away, in AA. And the article and projection already takes into account your point #3. Even with a fairly poor projection going forward, we are still projected to finish .500 with a ~25% or whatever of postseason play.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    I honestly don't even read posts like the one you quoted, that take such a tone. They're pretty easy to identify quickly by a variety of factors, and it seems our community does a pretty good job of controlling them. They're not representative of this board at all, to me, anyway.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Or any year. But yeah, I'm not worried about TR giving up good prospects to try to win this year. He could keep some good prospects down too long, though, and muddy the waters going into the offseason and 2016.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    The 1987 Twins *were* pretty dismal. 85 wins, actually got outscored during the regular season (79-83 Pythag record). Although I'll take that level of "dismal" team with those stars on offense and that great playoff 1-2 in the rotation over most of the other teams we've assembled in Twins history!
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    He offer some historical (2002-present) perspective on BaseRuns: I noted that those three teams similarly over-performed their Pythag. I left some comments there -- it would be interesting to see what teams had the biggest BaseRun/Pythag discrepancies too.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    To be fair, I don't think anyone has reported any kind of Twins interest in Howard at all. All I have seen is speculation that he's available and we have an open DH spot. Theoretically, if they are near the end of their rope with Arcia and if Howard came as cheaply as Morales last year (read: marginal prospect, most of the contract covered by Philly), it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility to see some interest from the Twins. But I wouldn't endorse it. Even as he has struggled, overall Arcia has performed just as well as (or better than) Howard recently. And Howard would muddy up the 2016 picture too.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    It's interesting that Rosario is actually the fourth Twin to come up in the last few years who has swung (and missed) a lot, walked very little, but nonetheless actually hit well initially. Arcia, Santana, and Vargas being the other three. (Pinto actually was close to that profile too.) Seems like they've rode the good streak and then had a fairly quick demotion trigger for Arcia (in 2013, anyway) and Vargas, while Santana has thus far gotten a much longer leash thanks to his defense-first position (although it's debatable whether he's providing much defense). Wonder which camp Rosario will fall into? Maybe one of these guys will finally be the one to "sustain the unsustainable dream"?
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't like cherry-picking endpoints, but Vargas had a stretch of 31 PAs with only 4 Ks during his good run. At which point, Molitor benched him for 4 of the next 7 games, while Escobar and Santana started over him at DH (and Escobar started another in LF with Bernier at 3B, Hunter at DH, and Vargas/Robinson on the bench). The K rate wasn't driving the team's handling of Vargas. And if you think Vargas's recent performance wasn't enough from a full-time DH, I could be persuaded -- it is nice to do better than a Kubel-style ~110 OPS+ at the position. But that's an argument to invest more in a better full-time DH, something the Twins have rarely done. It's not an argument that rotating utility infielders through the spot is necessarily better (especially when there is a glaring weakness among your starting infielders).
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Looking at our lineup and roster decisions around that time, it's fairly clear what happened when they started benching Vargas the week of May 10 -- Hicks came up and had to play everyday, and they were already committed to playing Escobar, Santana, and Rosario basically everyday too (not to mention Hunter and Mauer, plus occasional starts for Robinson). Vargas got the short end of the stick so we could continue starting Escobar everyday in LF (want to talk bad defense?) or DH, instead of just letting Escobar replace the struggling Santana at SS (want to talk terrible K/BB ratios?). It's far from clear whether the team's statements about Vargas working on things at AAA were honestly the cause of his demotion, or just an effect of it.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    You don't demote a guy two weeks before you think his replacement might be healthy. And actually a third week, if you count Vargas' last week in MLB where he was mostly on the bench. I think this has mostly been about getting Escobar everyday at bats, and resisting a demotion for Santana (and getting Nunez regular starts too). It seems Molitor is like Gardy in that he loves some fellow infielders.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    Actually Vargas was lowering his K rate during his hot streak. And it wasn't just a couple HR -- he had 7 multi-hit games in a span of 10 starts (not even counting the pinch hit HR), so there wasn't t a lot of room for strikeouts. And then he was immediately benched in favor of Escobar and Santana at DH, then demoted a few days later.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    I think their ideal is Escobar as an everyday player. Which might be fine if they weren't so committed to Santana at SS or they didn't have lineup linchpins at 2B and 3B.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    Nunez has played zero innings in the field since he came back. But hey, theoretical utility. Kinda like the theoretical depth of an 8 man bullpen, where you go a whole week and only use 6 guys.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    Hunter has had 2 games at DH since Vargas went down. Nunez 4, and Escobar 3. And you don't need to get rid of the DH to get Rosario and Hicks in the lineup. Robinson has 5 starts and Escobar 2 more in the OF since Vargas went down.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    But who was demoted from Twitter to make room for him?
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    I'd agree if we were talking about a stopgap FA, but Colabello still offers years of cost control. If he can perform, I don't care about his age, he can be an asset.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't know if sustaining a .720 OPS at an offense first position is really an advantage, though.
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