Jump to content
Twins Daily
  • Create Account

Otto von Ballpark

Old-Timey Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    20,662

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    74

 Content Type 

Profiles

News

Minnesota Twins Videos

2026 Minnesota Twins Top Prospects Ranking

2022 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

Minnesota Twins Free Agent & Trade Rumors, Notes, & Tidbits

Guides & Resources

2023 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

The Minnesota Twins Players Project

2024 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks

2025 Minnesota Twins Draft Pick Tracker

Forums

Blogs

Events

Store

Downloads

Gallery

Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Pretty sure Nick Nelson's not a troll. It's a small sample, to be sure, but wouldn't you also expect the effects to get worse over time? It's not a binary thing. If he noticed the problem in the COL series, it may have affected his performance more later. In which case, the most recent results would seem to be most relevant to the discussion. Has he had other streaks of 1 swinging strike out of 42 pitches? How normal is that? (I honestly don't know.)
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    I appreciate the attempt to look on the brighter side, but isn't this a "good teams should beat up on bad teams" situation too, like the Twins recent successes? It's not like Clevinger's track record of success is limited to the last 6 games. He should be a tough opponent (although certainly not impossible to beat).
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    Sac flies count in the denominator of OBP, but not in AVG. So Cave likely has a SF in that sample, but zero BB or HBP.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Dyson had two poor months with the Rangers to begin 2017 (April and May), and his time with the Giants that year was better but not really very impressive -- 4.03 ERA, 4.08 FIP, only 6.4 K/9. I'm comfortable saying his entire 2017 season was sub-par. (His 2015 with the Marlins was pretty mediocre too, especially considering his relatively low leverage use.) But otherwise, you are correct -- Dyson had excellent, high-leverage seasons in 2015 after he left the Marlins, 2016, 2018, and 2019 (before coming to the Twins ). That's more like 3 seasons of really good performance.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't think so. Returns weren't much higher around the league -- Wood, Kolarek, and Phelps each returned a single non-top-30 guy; Diekman, two. Daniel Hudson returned the Jays current #30. Strickland and Elias combined returned the Mariners current #22 and #27, but the Mariners system quality might be suspect? There really isn't that much difference between 20-30 and 30-40 rankings in most systems either (or at least, different evaluators could easily flip guys between the the two ranges). Add to it that Dyson was heading towards a ~$7 mil arb award for 2020, and the return looks to be in line with the market.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    I suppose many MLB success stories have some part inspiration and some part desperation. The 1990 and 1995 teams certainly had some pitching weaknesses, but they also didn't have too much urgency to rush anyone -- neither club was contending. Same for 1998 and Eric Milton, also straight from AA. When I think of true desperation, I think of Brad Thomas straight from AA in 2001, as part of a merry-go-round to find 1-2 acceptable starters in a contending season. This year's pitching promotions have felt a little different than that so far, thankfully!
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    Liriano had 14 starts at AAA before his first call-up. Radke and Erickson skipped AAA, though.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    Berrios is still very good, but one does wonder if he is really kicking his performance into a higher gear quite yet. His ERA looks good this year but his FIP/xFIP still lag behind: ERA/FIP/xFIP 2017: 3.89/3.84/4.51 2018: 3.84/3.90/3.89 2019: 3.24/3.76/4.34
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    Over .500 as of now: 6-9
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    Seems quite a bit different than the Strasburg situation to me, I guess. Strasburg was dominating MLB, and these guys aren't exactly doing all that great at AA (not poorly, but modest enough to question their MLB readiness).
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Of course, Kubel had just hit for a 1.119 OPS at AA, then .958 at AAA before his call-up. Larnach has a .773 so far at AA.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    Even with Buxton out, though, we've got Marwin for corner OF duty, plus we've put Arraez out there, and it wouldn't kill us to do the same with Adrianza as long as his bat is solid. We may only need to play Cave when we give Kepler or Rosario a day off.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    I'd be all for bringing them up, but Larnach is striking out 33% of the time in AA, and Kirilloff isn't exactly doing great down there either. So I'd anticipate scuffles in MLB from them that could likely last through September and October, which sort of nullifies the value of calling them up now. Given our roster, I don't think Cave needs to play all that much anyway. So I'm not that desperate to find someone better than Cave at the moment.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    You know, with Sano walking slowly out of the batter's box, the pitcher hunching over as if he dared not look back to see where the ball would land... I really doubt that Acuña will get singled out for his reaction on that play.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Correct. Rooker isn't Rule 5 eligible until after 2020. Now, he's old enough and close enough that I don't necessarily think they will wait that long, but obviously an injury has delayed him. Even if he comes back in August, he might be due for a bit of an adjustment period if promoted to MLB. Perhaps we'll have a big enough lead in September to check him out, for potential postseason inclusion?
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    Thanks for the info. Here's the tweet: https://twitter.com/ParkerHageman/status/1158123550315831301?s=20 It's cool to say he's similar to Verlander, but that's not much context for how useful "Bauer units" are. Below is the top 45 in 4-seam fastball BU for 2019, per Baseball Savant (apologies for the image quality). Some good pitchers, some bad pitchers. (Luke Bard!) The 2019 Twins leader would be Mejia. Cody Allen makes an appearance. Jerad Eickhoff and Tyson Ross are right there with similar velocity and spin as Smeltzer -- but very different results.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    From my head? As a general comp, I thought it wasn't bad -- Duensing was a non-overpowering LH SP who had a nice run for two Twins playoff teams. And while it's unlikely, Smeltzer isn't that far from being in our top 4 SP which would set him up for a playoff start. Some folks here want him to be top 5 even when Pineda comes back, which would mean he's only an injury away.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    I'm not picking on Smeltzer, or the Dozier trade, or trying to project him to Duensing type career. And obviously Smeltzer only has 27 MLB IP so far, so we're not at a great confidence level with any of these stats. Just noting the similarities, and pumping the brakes in my head on the thought that he should be a permanent rotation member right now, especially in the postseason. Here's another stat look, K% vs league SP K% 2009 Duensing 15.3% vs 16.6% 2019 Smeltzer 20.4% vs 21.9% Same comparison for first AAA season 2007 Duensing 17.8% vs 18.2% (age 24) 2019 Smeltzer 23.1% vs 22.7% (age 23)
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    Smeltzer has certainly impressed so far. But does anyone get a 2009-2010 Duensing vibe from Smeltzer? Down the stretch in 2009, Duensing was pretty strong as a SP -- 5-1, 2.73 ERA in 9 starts -- before he finished with an uninspiring start vs NYY in the playoffs. 2010, Duensing was moved to the rotation again just before the trade deadline and almost certainly contributed more to our division title (7-2, 3.05 ERA in 13 starts) than Matt Capps. But Duensing then capped it off with another poor start in the postseason vs NYY. I guess Smeltzer did neutralize NYY once already, albeit in a mop-up appearance. Cleveland should be an interesting test, he gave up 4 HR to them last time. ERA-/FIP-/xFIP- 2009 Duensing 62/88/99 (as a SP) 2010 Duensing 73/95/93 (as a SP) 2019 Smeltzer 49/98/100 https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=sta&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2010&month=0&season1=2009&ind=1&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=4064&startdate=&enddate=
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    I know it's just one factor, but Colina isn't Rule 5 eligible until after the 2020 season. So I'd imagine that Graterol, Duran, and even Alcala would all get preference for a 2019 MLB relief audition.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    The $5.99/11.99 plans are just for Hulu's video on demand library, similar to Netflix. The $44.99 Hulu + Live TV plan includes live TV channels like Fox Sports North too. And it should have a 7 day free trial -- maybe you have to provide a credit card, but they shouldn't bill you if you cancel within 7 days. But yeah, any Fox Sports Go credentials should work. Glad you got it working!
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    Theoretically, it could be something that bothered him a little on Thursday, and didn't go away / get better on Friday/Saturday as expected, which prompted the IL move.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    If you're not quite ready to switch from Dish, but you don't want to miss any games, you can just sign up for a free trial of streaming service that carries Fox Sports North. I see 3 services with FSN that offer free one week trials: Hulu with Live TV YouTube TV Fubo TV There's also Sony's Vue service which offers a 5 day trial. I think all of these services also support logging in through the Fox Sports Go site/app, so you don't have to change apps every week -- you can simply log out of Fox Sports Go with one service, and log in with the next. https://www.foxsportsgo.com/ Maybe I should start a new topic on this, it seems to be affecting quite a few people!
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    Cleveland vs the Royals this year: 10-6 Twins vs the Royals this year: 7-3 The Royals seem to be rolling over just fine for us, relative to Cleveland.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    "Twins GM Predicts Busy August Waiver Period" https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019/08/twins-gm-predicts-busy-august-waiver-period.html
×
×
  • Create New...