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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Ramos missed 10 days in late June, so I doubt it was a significant factor. His .625 OPS for Rochester was probably a much bigger deal -- he simply wasn't an elite prospect.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Well, there were two clear opportunities, and a fairly obvious/immediate need to get Stauffer back up to speed after his layoff. If they are not willing to use him then, and they are likewise not willing to use him in close games, I guess I am just not sure why he is on the team.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    If he is a strict, extreme mop-up man, that kinda limits his upside and utility, no? He is like the pitching version of Bernier.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    I do wonder if we didn't hesitate or blink -- we don't have much if any history of blockbusters. And if our upgrade target was Cliff Lee, settling for Matt Capps was strange.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    Stauffer in SD was pitching very low leverage. He was basically their Swarzak.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    And he wasn't healthy the past week? When we had 5 and 7 run leads?
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    At his usage rate from the past week (or month if you count his time on the DL), Stauffer may be with us all season and not reach the 15 games bonus.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    I agree that prospects can be over-rated too. I said I would have endorsed Hicks/Ramos for Cliff Lee in 2010, and I am actually warm to idea of dealing Sano if we are not completely sold on him, similarly guys like Alex Meyer in the past. But in general, I think it's tougher to make a blockbuster trade to your liking than a blockbuster FA signing. If you don't even talk to FA SP of the Greinke, Scherzer, Lester level, you probably have no business dealing top prospects for one later. Interestingly, Montero was flipped for another young player in Pineda -- a challenge trade I could get behind. Likewise Delmon Young for Matt Garza, although I obviously wish we were on the other end of that one...
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    We're probably mostly in agreement, I'm no fan of 13 pitchers, although I think you could also send down Santana to get that bat up here at this point (or Herrmann, if the bat is Pinto). I'm not crazy about our AAA relievers either, but I was a little uninspired by our opening day bullpen. And our current bullpen. I feel like we are going to be scrambling to find quality bullpen arms at some point, and I'd like to look through some more options now. Drop Stauffer and use his spot to rotate Tonkin, Oliveros, Achter, Darnell, Thielbar -- maybe one of them catches lighting in a bottle like Boyer and Thompson. None should be worse or more worthless than Stauffer has been thus far this season.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    That was the thought process on opening day too. At what point do you move on from maximizing available options to actually trying to maximize talent? And what kind of option is Stauffer now anyway? He was given a chance to start in spring, was terrible, made the bullpen and was quickly ushered into a mop-up role where he performed poorly, was hurt, and now has been buried for the last week even in mop-up situations. Anthony Swarzak was freely available recently if you need another pitcher like that, you don't have to waste a 25-man roster spot holding on to one in reserve.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Tonkin may be no great shakes, but we've had to throw him into some pretty tight spots the past week, and we basically run out of trusted right handed relief arms once we've used Boyer. I'm glad Fien is back, but they need to try finding another solid RHP, whether they want to keep trying Tonkin or someone else. Keeping Stauffer under glass to break in case of emergency doesn't really do anything for this team.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't know if many people are advocating Oliveros over Pressly, Tonkin, or Graham. I certainly am not, at this point. I think it was suspect not to take any of those guys north to begin with (except the Rule 5'er), and I think it is suspect to retain the one that has failed and clearly been relegated to extreme mop-up duty (Stauffer).
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    Boo. We just demoted the guy we brought in mid-inning to face Hanley Ramirez and David Ortiz with a runner on base and a two-run lead in our last game (not to mention entering mid-inning with runners on in a tie and 1-run game the previous week). All so we could keep a guy who hasn't pitched the last week, not even with 5 and 7 run leads.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Carlos Zambrano was an extension, not a free agent. (Technically Johan was too.) And Zito and Hampton had major red flags when they signed their deals. What about long-term deals for Maddux, Pedro, Brown, Johnson, Schilling? Greinke currently? Even the presently injured Cliff Lee has been a pretty good return on investment for the Phillies. This is an argument for a smarter, more selective approach to free agency, not that trades are always preferable. Frankly, I'm not sure if avoiding the 3.5 "lost years" of Johan Santana's effective 7 year Mets deal would be worth surrendering 3 strong, near MLB ready prospects (which is what the Brewers gave up for Greinke). I think you are way over-rating the potential costs of a free agent deal, and under-rating the benefits of multiple quality cost-controlled players. That's not to say trades are never a good deal, but I think the stars have to align for them much more than a straight FA signing. You really need to have some over-valued prospects at the same time a player is available and you have a very strong 2 year window of contention. Even if you are getting better seasons and risking less money, your margin for error is much smaller for a 2-3 year window than a 7 year one. I would have probably endorsed Hicks/Ramos for Lee in July 2010, but if Lee was unable to lift us over the Yankees that October, the Twins would have been net losers from the deal. Whereas had we signing Sabathia or Santana earlier, they could have aided our pennant pursuit multiple times by that point, and cost us only money by 2013-2014.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    The Giants will not do this, for many reasons. Their OF "littered with 31-33 year olds" (Pagan, Aoki, and Pence) is currently sporting OPS+ figures of 109, 133, and 136 this season (with similar quality marks last season), and are all signed through at least 2016. Their rotation isn't performing as well, but they have 4 SP signed through 2016, plus Lincecum and Hudson making $30 million yet in 2015. Not to mention Vogelsong and Petit to fill in. They also have a history of trading for solid veteran MLB players midseason (Peavy, Pence, Beltran, Sanchez), not guys like Rosario and Kepler (or even Milone and Pelfrey). And outside of Zach Wheeler, they've generally only surrendered marginal/iffy prospects themselves in such trades (and Wheeler was only dealt for Carlos Betran in the middle of a career best OPS+ campaign). And they have a history of aggressively signing and retaining free agents, making them less likely to be interested in a midseason overpay. I would guess they wouldn't seriously consider any Twins offer for Susac that didn't involve Plouffe or one of our "untouchable" prospects.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    So you'd be open to trading Lorenzo Cain, Alcides Escobar, and Jake Odorizzi for two years of Zach Greinke. But you'd never consider keeping those players, and just signing Zach Greinke (or whatever good to elite pitcher is available) to a 7 year contract. I think I'd rather just spend the cash. The Brewers certainly saved money by acquiring the pitcher via trade rather than free agency, but no amount of money allows them to buy back cost-controlled talent like Cain, Escobar, and Odorizzi.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    In Santana's case this year, yes. But this rule absolutely would have lessened the postseason attention on Melky Cabrera in 2012, as well as Jhonny Peralta and Nelson Cruz in 2013.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    It would be an interesting question if Santana returned today. (Sadly May would probably be the odd man out due to seniority -- hopefully he can bolster his case against such a move in June.) Of course, two of our starters have dramatically under-performed their FIPs so far (and two others have dramatically out-performed theirs). So I wouldn't expect the exact same rotation performance by early July.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    By your measure, pitcher per game, the Twins were likewise 8th in MLB for 2014, and 7th in MLB for 2012. Seems mostly like a rough proxy for BB rate...?
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    By pitches per plate appearance, the Twins are currently #1 in MLB. Although we were also #2 in MLB by that measure in both 2012 and 2014, and #2 in the AL for it in 2011. (Only #6 in the AL in 2013.) http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2015-pitches-pitching.shtml#teams_pitches_pitching::4
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    We should wait to bring back Arcia until he substantially heats up in his AAA rehab stint, and even optioning him for a little while after if that's what it takes (much like we did with him in May 2014). As much potential as he has, he brings so little else to the table that we can't really afford to give him a long, slow re-acclimation process at the MLB level. But if we are heck-bent on playing Escobar every day, we might as well send Danny Santana down now and make Escobar the primary shortstop. Leave outfield to the outfielders, and get another bat back here who has a legit chance of being an asset at DH (Vargas, Pinto, or eventually even Arcia if the outfield is full upon his return).
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    Among corner OF qualifiers at Fangraphs for 2014 and 2015, median wRC+ has been in the 115-120 range. Admittedly, there's usually only about 20 qualifiers out of 30 teams, but expanding the sample would probably just add more part-time/fill-in type players (like Eduardo Escobar), who I don't think are all that instructive in a comparison with Arcia. Of course, average still has value, albeit much less so when it is paired with bad defense. At this point, Arcia is still a lot closer in overall value to Dayan Viciedo than present-day Torii Hunter.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    I'm not sure if the Twins recent win streak has raised prices on the secondary market as much as the calendar -- I saw similar effects last year (got a bunch of great deals in April/May, but only saw scattered such deals until September). Of course, if they keep up this pace, I am sure secondary prices won't fall in September either! It also depends on where you sit. The cheap seats on Seatgeek are still at least ~25% below face value for most remaining non-premium games (Brewers, Cubs, Yankees). Premium seating prices don't fall until much closer to the game date, regardless of team record.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    What conventional SABR wisdom is that? The league as a whole hits better in those situations, and other batters have similar career split differentials as Mauer too -- Freeman and Goldschmidt, to name two from earlier in this thread with big 2014-2015 differentials too. Randomly looking at a batter with similar career length to Mauer, Morneau also has similar differentials: +.077 with RISP, +.106 with men on base (as compared to bases empty). I don't know if it's really that absurd at all.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't think the entire rotation is exceeding Santana's expected performance, unless you cherry-pick their best recent starts, particularly for May, Nolasco, and Hughes. It's rather unlikely that all five of the current group remain fully healthy AND average that high level of performance (7 innings, 3 runs or less) for the next month-plus.
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