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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Another thing is to consider how the "bust" periods happen. I think the Twins "bust" periods have initially been the result of some big mistakes, rather than a deliberate part of some master plan to return to "boom" periods. So all I am really doing is giving the White Sox a little extra credit for avoiding those kind of mistakes (or at least minimizing their long-term effects, if they indeed recover from their 2013-2014 performances). Obviously the two teams still rank pretty close together by most measures, below the perennial contenders and ahead of the perennial losers.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Actually, I kinda like "full out bust" too (no raunchy jokes please ) because the tickets are cheap and plentiful. But from a fan standpoint, I find it an odd preference. The majority of White Sox seasons weren't just "hope for contention" -- they actually were in contention to varying degrees, from preseason probably into August if not later. Just to put them into some more numbers. Last 25 season finishes Twins - 2 ALCS appearances, 1 WS win White Sox - 2 ALCS appearances, 1 WS win Twins 1st - 7 White Sox 1st - 5 Twins 2nd - 3 White Sox 2nd - 11 Twins 3rd - 2 White Sox 3rd - 6 Twins 4th or 5th (last) - 13, or 52% White Sox 4th or 5th (last) - 3, or 12% Plenty of room to improve either approach, of course, but preferring the Twins result is taking on an awful lot of terrible baseball for just two more first place finishes (and first round exits). (FWIW, the White Sox also have the higher single-season "peak" at 99 wins, plus another season (1994) equalling the Twins best winning percentage of the period.) Now, the last 2 seasons have closed the gap a little bit, and future seasons will too, but I am trying to stay out of forecasting and avoid too much recency bias in this exercise.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    But the White Sox moves to stay afloat and near contention most seasons aren't really the reasons they drift out of contention the following year. It's not like they have traded a lot of future stars or signing crippling free agent contracts. They're not perfect, but that would be a pretty high bar to attain. I think they know you can win with holes in your team and roster. This idea that their short-term vision has left them with too many holes to sustain success sounds cute, but I don't know that it reflects reality. Heck, the Twins from 2002-2010 had tons of holes too -- Jason Tyner was our playoff starting DH in our best season, with our offense at full health, for crying out loud. The White Sox aren't great every year because very few baseball teams are, not because their approach is obviously lacking some grand vision of sustained success. I am actually pretty agnostic on the White Sox, but I just realized they haven't bottomed out for a long time, which is fairly notable. For Twins comparisons, I worry a lot about what happens to the Twins without TR, a problem the White Sox don't seem to have (multiple seamless GM transitions in recent memory). Also because the Twins success was so concentrated in the 2002-2010 seasons, was it more a result of timing (post-Indians, pre-Tigers) than great franchise building? For what it's worth, the White Sox seem to have been doing their shtick for 25 years now. It will be interesting to see how they come out of their mini-rebuild next year.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't know if that's an accurate characterization of Twins results vs White Sox results, though. The White Sox basically "boomed" as much as the Twins, just spread out rather than concentrated. They haven't "busted" nearly as much.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    That's tomorrow (Thursday Dec. 11), at 12 noon ET, or 11 AM Central, 9 AM Pacific. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2294514-mlb-rule-5-draft-2014-date-start-time-format-and-top-prospects
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    Confidence that they can achieve notable on-field improvement right away, not just a few years from now. Remember, sports are a zero-sum game, and basically two MLB franchises seem to have a real "sustainable winning track" by this narrow definition. Alternating between 78 and 88 wins isn't that bad of an outcome for the vast majority of MLB teams. And outside of 2013 the White Sox yo-yoing hasn't swung that "awful" -- their second worse performance in the last 25 years is 72 wins -- the Twins have nine seasons below that mark in the same span. Personally, I think being "awful for a decent stretch" is something to avoid. It should almost never be part of the plan. It's just not that necessary or valuable in baseball to stockpile multiple high draft picks, if you are using all of the resources at your disposable and you're willing to take even a modicum of risk. It's pretty much an admission the you made major mistakes and/or are too passive. And I've seen too many clubs where that awfulness stretches for an awfully long time... In some ways, the White Sox method and performance seem more sustainable. They've been alternating like this for awhile, balancing risk etc. TR pulled the team up from the bottom of the well once, and we're all hoping he does it again, but it's not an easy thing to do. If Sano and Buxton don't become stars... or if TR is forced to step aside... I won't quibble much with your last paragraph, though. I'd probably rank the Twins and White Sox pretty close in MLB performance the last 25 years. The Twins got to a couple more postseasons, the Sox had more competitive seasons. Both won a WS if you stretch back that far, otherwise the 2005 White Sox championship would probably break the tie in just the TR era. The next few years should break the tie one way or the other. Last 25 seasons: Twins 1st - 7 2nd - 3 3rd - 2 10 times under 10 GB White Sox 1st - 5 2nd - 11 3rd - 6 16 times under 10 GB
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    We offered Santana something like 3/33 last March. Any reason to think that offer would change now? I don't see that offer getting it done.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    Is it necessarily impatience, or just realism/confidence that with their abilities and resources, they don't need to lose for 3-4 seasons and wait for their farm system to build a winner again? Or recognizing that letting the MLB roster stagnate over several poor years carries risks of its own, like falling into a KC style rut? Furthermore, the start of this solid modern White Sox era was adding a HOF level bat in Frank Thomas in 1990. I think being unwilling to go long-term rebuild during his tenure makes some sense, as long as you go about it fairly smartly. And by the end of his Sox career, they won a WS with a pretty solid roster, another good reason to look more year-to-year for awhile than full rebuild. You could even argue that they have been rebuilding a little lately, just with an accelerated timeline -- and why not, when you find talents like Sale and Quintana? I am not sure that waiting to add players/payroll until their farm system ranking improves would be in their best interest. I guess they may be a little less likely to have a juggernaut, dynasty type team 3-4 years from now, but aiming for that as the end product of a rebuild is probably a fool's errand anyway in present day MLB. I know being a fan of any team is a source of frustration, and I do not mean to imply that I am jumping ship for the "dark side" , but I have some grudging respect for what the White Sox have been able to accomplish, modest as it may be. The fact that they have been able to maintain it through 3-4 GMs is interesting too.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    Sounds right -- a big part of making deals and taking risks is a willingness to sell high. Sometimes even to "buy high" like a Holliday (or drafting a JD Drew).
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    Obviously the White Sox have quite the historical reputation as losers, but the fact of the matter is that the last quarter-century, they've basically been a steady runner-up with a handful of playoff appearances and one glorious October run. A White Sox fan who started following baseball when I did (1990) would have yet to experience consecutive seasons with a winning percentage as bad or worse than the 2014 Twins, much less the 2011-2013 or 1997-2000 Twins. Heck, the last two years are the first time since the 1980s that the White Sox have been notably under .500 for consecutive seasons. I can't speak to their numbers of fans or their mindset, but what fans they have almost certainly haven't been lost at any point over the last 25 years (unless they were among the many groups offended by their former manager ).
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    In my years of fandom (since 1990), off the top of my head, the Cardinals have pulled off major deals for McGwire, Edmonds, Rolen, Mulder (whoops!), and Holliday (and extended him). Terry Ryan has basically never traded a prospect for MLB talent except the Luis Castillo deal, despite a number of seasons at the top of the "success cycle." There is a greater expectation of winning in St. Louis too -- I think if they had some bad luck and their farm system didn't produce for a couple years, they would try to get out of that funk quicker, perhaps like the White Sox are doing today, rather than enter multi-season rebuild/waiting mode like the Twins have done.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    I didn't mean to hang my hat on anything. I'm not a White Sox fan, in fact I've usually disliked their manager and style of play, but I've got to hand it to them, they've had a pretty decent run in the modern era. Often second banana to Cleveland, Twins, and Detroit, but almost every single year of the last 25 they have given their fans legitimate hope, which isn't easy to do.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    Using the yearly payrolls at Cot's, the White Sox are roughly within 10% of the Twins payroll every year since 2003, with the exception of the three years after their World Series victory (2006-2008). And according to B-Ref, their payroll still projects within 10% going forward too, even after their most recent additions. And the obvious "basically the same as us" doesn't include the World Series, it also doesn't include the fact that the White Sox entered the season as a realistic contender almost every season for 25 years, and have never been out of that for more than a year or two at a time. That's got value.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    My post said "mostly" and I stand by it. Sickels has Meyer and Berrios (and Stewart) as the only Twins pitching prospects above a B- grade. What was weird about the 5 year horizon is that Sale and Quintana are two of the youngest, best starters in MLB, both controlled cheaply for next 5-6 years. This isn't even a Verlander (expensive) or Price (expensive or gone soon) situation. A Sale-Quintana (plus Samardzija) situation anytime in the next few years would pretty much be a best-case scenario for the Twins plan -- how can another team, having achieved that best-case scenario, somehow ranked behind the Twins who have achieved virtually none of it yet? Looking at the White Sox record as a franchise the last 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 years, it's hard to see how their approach is less sustainable than that of the Twins.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Just scanning their yearly rosters at B-Ref, I don't see many boneheaded moves. The Nick Swisher fiasco in 2008 was obviously the big one, losing Gio Gonzalez in the process. Carlos Quention was a loss in 2012, although his subsequent salaries and health greatly reduce the level of boneheadedness. I've seen the Peavy trade cited a few times in this thread, but it didn't really hurt them (actually netted them Avisail Garcia in the end). Edwin Jackson for Daniel Hudson? Signing Dunn wasn't a good move, but it was only cash and not a crippling amount (Nolasco money). This is a team that hasn't bottomed out much or for very long since I became a baseball fan (1990).
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    As you say, that may not be an accurate assumption. Plus, they could let Samardzija walk and still project to have a better staff than the Twins for awhile. Sale and Quintana are really that valuable right now. Further, the White Sox shed almost $40 mil per year after 2016 in just three mostly supporting players: Ramirez, Laroche, and Danks. Also, the Twins might be very close to a similar extension crunch with Hughes, only it could be a lot tighter if we don't quickly develop some other high-level starters to fall back on.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    They're probably looking to improve at the spot anyway, but the White Sox starting catcher actually bested ours in 2014 rWAR (and is younger and cheaper with only year-to-year commitments for the next 3 seasons). Similarly, their third baseman's stats actually look not dissimilar to our 3B at the same age (Plouffe two years ago, although I will grant Gillaspie looks less likely to improve defensively). They've got an exciting young free swinging Venezuelan in one of the outfield corners... sound like anyone else we know? (Admittedly they need their own Torii Hunter for the other corner and/or DH.) And they've already dropped the 3 worst performers from last year's bullpen and replaced them with two guys from the top of last year's K/9 leaderboards. Again, they are far from perfect, and I imagine they are still looking to add a bat or two (or three!). But they've got a WAY better pitching staff in the immediate future, and roughly equal total future contractual commitments. The main Twins advantage is indeed "farm system" which is important but feels a lot less dependable than an existing MLB talent advantage. In a hypothetical world where a genie offers a complete organizational trade, you'd have to be tempted, right? Sale, Quintana, Abreu, and Eaton are four of the best in the game right now, and all cheap and controlled for 4-6 seasons. Seems like the Twins, even with the farm system advantage, would be lucky to be in a similar situation as far as top-end talent and control in the near future.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    The White Sox are actually at about $104 million estimated for 2015 right now. Before trading for Samardzija and signing Robertson, B-Ref actually had their projected payrolls lower than those of the Twins for 2015, 2017, and 2018. http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/CHW/2014-payroll-salaries.shtml http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/MIN/2014-payroll-salaries.shtml Even with the latest acquisitions, they are still within ~10% of the Twins projected payroll for those seasons, and it is less concentrated than that of the Twins (Mauer).
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    First of all -- the five-year plan seems an odd way to put this. Sale and Quintana were top 10 pitchers in MLB fWAR last year, and they're both young and signed cheaply for the next 5-6 seasons. Depth is nice, but I'm not sure compiling a list of mostly B-/C+ prospects from the low minors really closes that huge gap. Not to mention that there isn't anything precluding the White Sox from adding to that plan over the next five years, just like they did yesterday (adding #15 pitcher in 2014 MLB fWAR).
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Dunn. And if we're counting Zach Duke's ~$5 mil AAV on one side of the ledger, it seems only fair to include similar yearly salaries they are shedding in the form of Lindstrom, Beckham, De Aza, and Downs, not to mention Bellisario and Konerko close to ~$3 mil each.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    They don't really need future luck to have a meaningfully strong rotation -- they've got one at present. Sale, Quintana, and now Samardzija. I'd argue that even with TR's guidance, the Twins draft-and-develop approach is probably more dependent on "luck" (with less yearly breakout potential) than the White Sox more aggressive approach.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    The White Sox obviously aren't perfect, but I like that they are never content to accept 4-5 year rebuilding plans (even if they are unlikely to win a pennant in that 4-5 year window anyway). They've been really aggressive, even in the draft (Sale, Rodon), and while not every move has worked out for them, I have never gotten the impression that any of their failed moves have really prevented any other significant moves.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    Comparing relievers by W-L, ERA, Saves, and FIP is almost certainly worse than paying $40 million for a relief pitcher. I probably wouldn't have done it, but the Robertson deal looks much better than the Nathan extension from 2008. Heck, many of us (probably not you ) consider the Perkins deal to be team-friendly, and he's guaranteed almost $25 mil over the next 4 years (albeit with an option). I wouldn't make a practice of paying big money to relievers, but making an exception to target a fairly young, big K guy like Robertson in a year when your first round pick is protected doesn't look crazy to me.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't know if the Swihart nugget is particularly meaningful -- he's the Red Sox top "prospect" now only because Betts and Bogaerts recently graduated from that status. If the Phillies were still demanding one of those two and not Swihart, that isn't a lowering of demands at all. This trade talk about Hamels and speculation that the Phillies will need to cut payroll has been going on forever. Same with Cliff Lee before he got hurt. I think the Phillies asking price is still quite high (as it should be) and I have my doubts he will be moved. Certainly not to a team that has zero interest in ace-level FA options anyway (Twins) -- the ultimate cost in prospects + Hamels contract will probably end up similar.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    In your opinion, was handing the reins to Bill Smith "just fine" too? I have no doubt that the next-in-line is a hard worker and gets along great with other Twins personnel, but we have very recent evidence that isn't all it takes to be a successful MLB GM (and that the Twins haven't earned much benefit of the doubt that they are properly considering those other factors).
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