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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    I'm right with you. I like this team, and I like these guys, but it just seems like they usually default to their most veteran alignment coming out of spring. I don't think they are trying to outsmart anyone. I think they just give a lot of deference to MLB experience and veteran status, and barring unusual circumstances they are going to give those guys the first crack to make this their team and their season, and the young guys can get their chance later. (And on those occasions where a young guy has to take a role on the team out of spring training, they apply perhaps a bit too much pressure/scrutiny? They don't always seem too careful about what young guys they throw into the fire too -- part of what makes the Hicks saga so confounding.) Deference to veterans in roster decisions is certainly not uncommon around MLB, but it's a little more unusual to consistently see it in a rebuilding team like the Twins. And they often don't show much urgency to deviate from it (usually waiting 2-3 months to make any moves), or much selectivity in what veterans they bring aboard, again particularly for a rebuilding club (note that we're something like 5-for-5 in avoiding veteran opt-outs the last two years, if you count Guerrier's delayed start to 2014 which was at least partially due to surgery he had the previous August). Interesting that it's happening with Molitor at the helm too, as this was a frequent area of concern about Gardy. I think it goes a lot deeper than just the manager though (although hopefully TR/Molitor are more judicious about it than Gardy/Antony/Smith seemed at times).
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Guys with opt-outs must love the Twins these days. Pelfrey wishes he would have had an opt-out if he didn't make the rotation. Then he would have made the rotation for sure.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    Those guys were younger than Boyer with more team control, usually a lot more team control (Fien and Guerrier, 6 years each). Not a whole lot of future value for Boyer. That said, he seems like a cool dude, and I look forward to seeing his family around Target Field!
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    True, thanks.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    He was briefly property of the Twins back in 1998-1999. Acquired from the Cubs for Mike Morgan, then shipped back to the Cubs a few months later with Aguilera for Lohse. Wow, he is old!
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    Actually, this specific timing doesn't happen THAT often. Most prospects are delayed midseason for a bit to miss the Super-2 arb threshold. I think it's very rare to hold off on an obvious call up one season (arguably Bryant 2014) and then keep them down for just 10 days the next season (likely Bryant 2015). Evan Longoria 2008 is the other example that springs to mind.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    I too assume it will be available. It should be no different than those Saturday games that are on FS1 rather than FSN -- those are not blacked out.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    Well, none of the players have any AAA experience, and you don't really want much "organizational filler" at lower levels. AA in particular is pretty stocked with good prospects right now. Also, perhaps the Twins wanted to retain the players, told them it was likely at a lower level than AAA, and the players wanted the opportunity to chase their MLB dreams elsewhere. Either way, I'm not really going to quibble about what guys are best as organizational filler. It has been fun following these guys, and I wish them the best. I hope to hear more from them.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    His last couple spring appearances have been scoreless, FWIW. Also, given his likely LOOGY status, his overall spring numbers are probably less important his splits (I have no idea what his spring splits are like, but his 2014 and career splits show LOOGY potential).
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    Sorry, that makes more sense. But I still doubt they thought OF defense was that big of a problem, then or now.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Sorry, sometimes folks mis-remember how much playing time these folks actually got. Nunez had basically as much playing time in 2014 as Colabello (and pretty much Parmelee too), for example. And he's still on the team. Hicks too, and he's been a pretty comparable performer to Schafer/Robinson. Hendriks and Worley are a couple more examples where their impact has been exaggerated since their departure. Neither threw many innings for us, and Hendriks was never even projected to be in the opening day rotation (he filled in for Diamond to open 2013). All of which seems relevant when you're making an "addition by subtraction" argument for improved performance. We're just not subtracting that much with these guys.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    I wasn't setting a goalpost. Where in post was I setting a goalpost? I said if your goalpost and the teams's goalpost is ".500ish" that's not terribly ambitious. But I guess neither is putting the primary blame for 2012-2014 on Parmelee, Colabello, Hendriks, Diamond, and Worley either...
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    I wasn't trying to compare positions. You can leave off the 2015 comparable stats if you want. You singled out two "bad players who got 300 AB" (only one of whom once reached that threshold, back in 2013, BTW), and said we don't have them anymore. But guess what? We "didn't have them" in 2014 too, when both were projected to bench and AAA depth duty. Same with the pitchers. (Actually none of the pitchers you cited as weaknesses threw a single regular season pitch for the 2014 Twins.) Almost no team in baseball thinks they will give playing time to guys like that, or thinks that their current projected opening day starters will fall to that level. You could have made the same post in March of 2012, 2013, or 2014, just changing the names of the various "bad players" we were leaving behind.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Look at the post I was responding to before putting words into my mouth, please. The point was that the "bad players" the original poster cited had little or nothing to do with our recent poor records (neither of the two batters were projected as starters in 2014, and none of the pitchers cited threw a single pitch for us in 2014 and some threw very few innings for us before that too). It took a lot of injury and underperformance by other players (some still on the team) to be that bad. And even some of those "bad players" cited weren't forecast to be such "bad players" (hence looking at their career ERA+ numbers).
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    I'm actually less upset with Pelfrey, and more upset that the Twins management failed to foresee and defuse this very obvious outcome.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    Hawkins was a full-time set-up man at age 27. Pelfrey is apparently going to be a long reliever (and probable spot starter) at age 31.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Funny that the Braves should project worse, when they are the team that cut our primary CF (Schafer) a few months ago.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    I'd argue that Schafer is likewise not up to that task. (Career -14 Rdrs/yr, -5.4 UZR/150 in CF.) Also, at the same time they were penciling in Schafer/Robinson this winter, they signed one of those "defensive red flags" in Hunter and moved the other to the other side of the field. (And presumably Hunter takes away DH opportunities from Arcia too.)
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    Of course, 80% of games started went to each team's top 5. 87% went to each team's top 6. Each team had an average of 20.6 starts for pitchers outside their top 6. Nobody here doubts that May and probably even Meyer will start a game in MLB in 2015. The question is, how many? And, what's the benefit of giving priority to Milone and likely Pelfrey?
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Parmelee, career: 96 OPS+ Colabello: 80 (Neither in the opening day 2014 lineup, BTW) Schafer: 72 Robinson: 69 Suzuki: 89 (All 3 at the top of our 2015 opening day depth chart) Hendriks, career high IP: 85 Worley: only 48 IP with the Twins Those two guys weren't sinking our rotations. Furthermore: Worley, career ERA+: 103 Diamond: 92 (And none of the above in our 2014 rotation, BTW) Santana: 99 Hughes: 95 Nolasco: 91 Milone: 97 Pelfrey: 88 Gibson: 81 And not quoting 2014 numbers is being favorable to everyone here but Hughes and Gibson (88 ERA+). Now, I like our current group better than any rotation we've fielded since 2011, but that's more of a condemnation of the 2012-2014 rotation plans than an endorsement of the current group. And there's still plenty of downside risk here, especially when considering guaranteed contractual commitments. No doubt they can be a ".500ish" team, but even that might not be much of an improvement. They had 75 pythag wins in 2014. There's no reason we shouldn't have been shooting for "above .500".
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    I think people are overlooking how potentially bad this CF combo is. Together, they probably rank among the worst opening-day Twins starters of the TR era, in terms of age, track record, and lack of options. Given that their former teams recently deemed them unfit for even a bench spot, this is Juan Castro territory... And what worries me is that as a "platoon," the Twins might take longer to call upon a new player to take over the position. They might simply shift playing time toward the "hot hand" (which may still only be an ~85 OPS+). I still support Hicks to AAA, but they didn't really give themselves much of a fallback option, for the third year in a row...
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    In addition to tobi's comments above, I'll say this: everyone has known we'd be willing to deal a starter since at least December 13th (the date of the Ervin Santana signing, on the heels of tendering Milone an arbitration contract). And that Pelfrey would be the easiest for us to part with (shortest contract, worst recent health/performance-to-salary ratio). The theatrics are completely superfluous in this case. In fact, maybe they even slightly lessen what precious little leverage we may have had in trying to trade him, since it is now abundantly clear the Twins had no particular desire to convert Pelfrey into a reliever.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    Obviously the Twins aren't losing sleep over Benson, but this is incorrect. He only became a minor league free agent because we (and Texas) removed him from the 40-man roster in 2013. Had we not removed him from the 40-man when we did in 2013 (to add PJ Walters, for a second time!), and waited until March 2014, we likely could have kept Benson in the organization at least as long as we did Parmelee (so, until after the 2014 season). At which point we could have added him back to the 40-man roster to keep him through March 2015, or possibly re-signed him as a minor league free agent too.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    Also, in 2014, 80% of our games started and 82% of our total innings went to pitchers on the opening day roster. Only 32 starts went to other guys, 265 innings TOTAL between starters and relievers not on the opening day roster. And that's despite the fact that one of our starters missed virtually the entire season with injury, another spent over a month on the DL, and another was traded with two months remaining. That's why who makes the opening day roster is important.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    With a 5th starter candidate reluctantly placed in the pen, the Twins didn't call up a new SP (non-doubleheader) until game 71 last year. That would be June 23rd this year. And that was with fantastically bad performance from that spot - 13 starts at 7.08 ERA, AND a long-term injury. Nolasco lasted with a 5.90 ERA until almost the all-star break before hitting the DL himself, and Correia lasted into August with his 4.94 mark. And to those that think an early-season trade will clear the deck, Kendrys Morales' July 24th trade last year was the EARLIEST we dealt a player in-season from our MLB roster since 2006 when we traded Juan Castro on June 15. In the TR era, only once has he traded an MLB player before June (Rick Aguilera, May 21, 1999). The Twins have been a little more fluid about replacing position players lately, but almost always they have options (Hicks, Arcia, Florimon). Players without options invariably seem to last until at least June (Kubel, Tony Batista, the aforementioned Juan Castro, etc.).
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