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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Keep in mind, 2019 was the crazy rabbit ball year at AAA. Gordon's 2019 performance, relative to league, was only a 102 wRC+. A lot of uninspiring AAA teammates posted much higher wRC+ marks that year: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/minor-league?pos=all&lg=2,4&stats=bat&qual=0&type=1&team=16&season=2019&seasonEnd=2019&org=&ind=0&splitTeam=false&players=&sort=19,1 Gordon is certainly off to a good start in 2021, so hopefully he is taking a step forward right now. I think we could give him more than 6 games at AAA to show it's a real improvement, though.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Also, as expected, Thorpe has been announced as the "27th man" for Thursday's doubleheader:
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    Pineda to the 10-day IL, and Luke Farrell has been added back to the roster (taking the 40-man spot vacated by the Derek Law DFA yesterday).
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Yeah, I think Dobnak is stretched out as much, if not more than Thorpe. Dobnak was regularly throwing 40+ pitches in relief throughout April, and now in May has thrown 59, 81, and 87 pitches in regular turns through the AAA rotation. Thorpe had a 60 pitch start and a 10 pitch relief appearance in April -- that's it. Now in May, he's had an 80 pitch start in MLB, followed by relief appearances of 46 and 32 pitches at AAA. Not sure what the plan is for him, but they don't seem too eager to give him a regular turn.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    Correct, Law is out of options. He used them up in 2015, 2017, and 2018. So there was no way to keep him on the 40-man while also removing him from the 26-man.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    Could they offer some kind of vaccine to fans to make us immune to the Twins recent play? Perhaps they already do, in beer. Not free, though...
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    Dobnak just started for St Paul today, so we’d presumably choose Thorpe for Thursday’s doubleheader.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    Overall run scoring is down this year. Using a relative measure like ERA-, I estimate that he's around 127 after today's start. Here's his ERA- after 8 starts in those previous seasons you mention: 2019: 96 ERA- 2018: 101 ERA- 2017: 122 ERA- The only one that's really comparable is 2017, and Maeda finished that year with a career-worst 105 ERA- as a starter before getting moved to the pen. And far from recovering, his 2018 and 2019 final SP ERA- (100 and 99, respectively) was pretty much the same as his first 8 starts (before he finished both of those seasons in the pen too). Maeda's SP ERA- matched the NL league averages each year from 2017-2019 quite closely (league was 103, 100, and 99. vs Maeda's 105, 100, and 99).
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    Duffey did well, although this is part of the reason pitchers really want strikeouts instead of balls in play. Duffey faced 5 batters that inning and didn’t get a single K (although he struck out the side the following inning).
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    From the article: Refsnyder "was chosen, Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said, because the Twins believe he is a better balance of offense and defense than another Saints outfielder, Keon Broxton."
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    While relatively minor in terms of WAR, it's a very interesting trade to analyze. There are a couple other factors worth considering: 1. The Twins traded Pressly in 2018, but then turned around and traded minor league assets for relief help at the 2019 deadline. Had they kept Pressly, maybe those assets could have gone toward bolstering the lineup and rotation instead. Hard to imagine what would break the playoff curse at this point, but a different approach in 2019 (and 2020) could have helped. 2. Alcala and Celestino could easily out-produce Pressly over the span of their team control years -- but if those performances come in seasons when the rest of the team is poor, they may be less valuable than Pressly's 2019 could have been to a postseason team. 3. I'm not sure how to phrase it, but piggybacking on #2, I think future WAR can often be "discounted" a little bit compared to present WAR. Maybe "opportunity cost"? If Alcala contributes 1 WAR to the 2022 pen, that's nice -- but it's not as if we would have been 1 WAR worse in 2022 if we hadn't made the Pressly trade. Four years of FA, trade, and development decisions would have all changed a bit in that alternate scenario, and we probably could have come up with a 2022 alternative that provided some percentage of Alcala's contribution. Enough that a slight edge in WAR may not be enough to tip the scales toward the Twins side of the ledger -- some plus performances from Alcala and Celestino might be necessary for that.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    Refsnyder has consistently posted 120-130 wRC+ figures in the upper minors since 2014, but that hasn't translated to MLB so far: career 66 wRC+ in 457 PA. Refsnyder used to be a second baseman, but has only appeared in a single game at the position at any level since 2017.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    There are some details about Cave's injury at the Star Tribune: https://www.startribune.com/another-outfielder-hurt-cave-out-with-back-injury-twins-call-up-refsnyder-to-replace-him/600057645/
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Law’s “scoreless streak” with 5 out of 5 inherited runners allowed to score seems like a fitting distinction for the 2021 Twins. (5 hits and 4 walks in 3 innings over his 3 appearances prior to last night.) Law’s current 5.51 FIP is the third-worst among active Twins relievers, ahead of only Alcala and Anderson.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Sounds like this rule is pretty easy to work around — promote them to AAA for one day, then promote to MLB. Even easier for the Twins than most teams, with their AAA club often playing next door to the MLB club. On Cano, he is intriguing but it doesn’t take much to generate Ks these days — and I imagine that is even easier when you are way older than the other guys at your level. Remember Nik Turley’s crazy K numbers in the minors a few years ago? Still, probably worth pushing to AAA at his age and going from there, but I won’t try to project too much from his minor league K numbers at this point.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    I don’t think the Twins would have any leverage to ask other teams to absorb much of Sano’s salary, in that case. And if the Twins are DFAing Sano, that means he’s nearly unplayable at the MLB level, so any interested teams would probably prefer he clears waivers first before trying to sign him on a minor league deal with an opt-out date. (Trading for him or claiming him off waivers would make another team responsible for his salary and preclude the possibility of any minor league assignment.)
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Thanks! This is going to be very helpful.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    Looks a little weird on mobile — screenshots attached.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    More like 73-55 now, to reach .525 overall (85-77). But to the original poster's point, that's only 6 games ahead of simply going .525 over the remaining games. (In other words, we've been 6 games under a .525 pace so far, through 34 games.) Of course, that gulf only widens until they actually play at a .525 pace over a stretch of games...
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    I've got to hand it to the White Sox -- they're kind of fun to watch right now. As a Twins fan, I had hoped/expected them to be fun in a trainwreck kind of way when they hired LaRussa and spent big money on a closer. But as a baseball fan, I can appreciate that they have a very interesting mix of players -- of different styles, from different backgrounds. They're far from perfect, but they're coming together in an effective way at the moment.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    A couple things: 1. Seems like it was a reasonable decision to delay the minor league season in 2021. Look at all the protocols and hoops that teams and facilities had to jump through -- it would have been a lot to ask organizations to simultaneously make those arrangements for minor league parks while spring training was going on, and to have them ready around MLB opening day. 2. All other teams had to deal with it too. 3. How much does it matter? Yes, pen reinforcements often come from the minor leagues, but not always. The Twins added 3 effective relievers in 2020 without any minor league season (Wisler, Alcala, Thielbar). Ryne Harper made the team for opening day in 2019. The far bigger problem is that most every reliever on the MLB roster has performed poorly in 2021. I don't see how MLB is particularly culpable for this issue the Twins are facing.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    I think you may be right. Donaldson still has about $65 mil guaranteed due to him over the next 2.75 seasons including the buyout. (He also has a 5 team no-trade clause, would be interesting to see who's on that.) Nothing against Donaldson, but a team shopping for help on that side of the infield would probably look to pure rentals like Bryant first, or even Story or Baez. And if they failed to get those guys by the deadline, they could still bid on them as free agents, as well as Seager, Correa, and others in a potentially deep market this winter.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    I think this could be a sample size issue too. If Rocco's not using his SP past 5 innings in most games, then the effects of each bad 6th inning performance are magnified. Plus some of those runs charged to SP were inherited runners allowed to score by the bullpen. And the bullpen collectively gets to soak up easier low-leverage innings beyond the 5th, while SP can't do that -- if they're in after the 5th, it's usually a more competitive game. (Witness the collective 6.2 shutout innings from Smeltzer, Farrell, and Astudillo this season.) Twins SP rank only 24th in IP and 23rd in batters faced after the 6th inning (and I recognize at least a couple teams behind them that have used openers -- Tampa and Toronto): https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/splits-leaderboards?splitArr=42,49,50,51,52,53&splitArrPitch=&position=P&autoPt=false&splitTeams=false&statType=team&statgroup=2&startDate=2021-03-01&endDate=2021-11-01&players=&filter=&groupBy=season&sort=2,1
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't think it's a major issue, but considering the 2021 Twins have: - not used openers - only 3 games without the DH (first 3 games of the season, when SP are often more restricted anyway) - excellent SP health - one of the most experienced rotations in baseball I would expect them to rank a bit higher in SP utilization.
  25. Otto von Ballpark

    Currently crushing spammers

    1. Squirrel

      Squirrel

      Good!

    2. Brock Beauchamp

      Brock Beauchamp

      season 4 GIF

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