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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Generally agree, but you probably want to leave Blackburn off this list -- it was over 6 years between his draft and his debut at age 25 and a half.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Remember, though, this is the same Twins front office that "shook up" a stagnant MLB coaching staff in recent years by bringing aboard three former Twins players (including two Minnesota natives who already made their homes here). I don't disagree that fresh perspectives and experience can come from within the organization or within the state, but I'm not sure this Twins front office deserves the benefit of the doubt that they can successfully identify those individuals, at least not quite yet. Still very interested in that pitching coach hire.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    St. Louis has a pretty good reputation in scouting and evaluation. If they were willing to accept Arcia as the headliner in return for Miller, one or both of the following statements would be true: 1) St. Louis is confident Arcia can be an acceptable OF (he'd have to be, in St. Louis), or at least that he will eventually hit enough to mask any defensive deficiencies 2) St. Louis is not confident in Miller Their own reputation of success might make it hard for me to pull the trigger on a trade with them! (Remember when TR had the trading rep, back in his heyday?) Also, I'd worry that Miller -- a guy who has out-performed his FIP on a really solid St. Louis staff and surrounding team -- might not be a good bet to replicate those performances on the Twins, considering our overall recent record with pitchers and FIP. (Similar to how I'd be skeptical of a hitter coming from Colorado, or a pitcher coming from Oakland like Milone.)
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Interestingly, the thing that may prevent us from landing a high-upside FA pitcher -- lack of capable outfielders -- may be the thing that helps us land Rasmus. Minnesota has to look like the closest thing to a guaranteed CF job in 2015, which might be important to him after losing such a job in Toronto. Might it even be enough to land him on a reasonable 3 year deal, like Hughes last offseason? Honestly, looking at our outfielders, there's probably a starting job for the taking over the next 3 years.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    Glynn definitely has a variety of pro baseball experience... although I see he was born and raised in Minnesota, including college, and has already made a home here for some time. I like the "local boy" storyline as much as anyone, but it does seem like the Twins trot it out a bit more frequently than other organizations.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    On the other hand, this promotion does remove one Latin American coach from the minors. And if Gene Glynn speaks Spanish (I know he managed in Venezuela too), his promotion removes him from the minors too. Hopefully the Twins make it a priority to fill those spots with Spanish speakers -- probably should have at least one at every level of the minors.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    Not hard at all: injury. Heck, Nolasco was injured for much of 2014, to the tune of over a month on the DL and a ~67 ERA+ at midseason. Phil Hughes last winter wouldn't have met those qualifications. The Twins last winter also tried to add another veteran starter for $30-40 mil guaranteed late in the offseason. When you consider everything that's happened since then, improvements and injuries, and see our league-worst rotation IP and ERA ranks in 2014, I don't think the overall rotation picture has improved that much in the past 9 months. Considering the Twins failed to land such a starter at $30-40 mil late last offseason (even willing to surrender a pick for Ervin Santana), your preference would seem to be another Nolasco-type guarantee ($50 mil or more) or standing pat. I really don't see the harm in the third choice of taking another shot at a Hughes type performance for a modest one-year FA outlay (as reflected in the title and subject of this article )
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    I didn't mean everybody in my list was a "sputterer" but there are a couple in there, which you picked up on. Correia and Liriano got dealt in July or early August. Liriano even got bounced from the rotation in May of that same year. Why would those not be options for a sputtering Masterson? And even then, sputtering Masterson would only be blocking someone if we had FIVE or more healthy starters better than him at that point. You really want THAT scenario to be dictating our offseason strategy? (Not to mention, if we have 5 healthy starters better than that, and our offense hasn't collapsed, we are almost certainly somewhere in the playoff hunt and likely one or more of those starting options could be fortifying our bullpen.)
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    I'm not going to defend the Pelfrey re-sign, but in the summer of 2013 there was zero need to dump him just to claim his spot. We already had such luminaries as Pedro Hernandez, Andrew Albers, Deduno, Hendricks, etc. in the rotation around that time.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    Your three "locks" include two guys who need to improve fairly significantly from 2014 (Gibson and Nolasco), not to mention the other "lock" who is a year removed from a 77 ERA+, 5.0 IP/GS season. There's a decent chance that one of those three will not be deserving of a rotation spot at some point during the 2015 season. And the three other guys that "need innings", two of them posted ERAs over 7 in their Twins auditions in late 2014, and two of them saw their 2014 seasons end prematurely due to "inflammation". And one of them has yet to pitch in MLB and just posted a pro season high of 130 IP. If Hughes, Gibson, Nolasco, Milone, and the FA acquisition are all healthy at the end of spring training, pushing May/Meyer to the pen or perhaps AAA, that's a good problem to have. If they are all still healthy and performing well after a couple months, that's an even better problem to have. If Meyer and May are also healthy and performing well at that point, that almost guarantees a good bullpen if we want to break them in that way, and gives us rotation reinforcements down the stretch in case of injury or trade opportunities. And it almost guarantees that no 2015 starts will go to Swarzak, Johnson, Pino, Darnell, Deduno types, which might feel like a bigger advancement over the 2012-2014 rotation quagmire than even last offseason's FA signings.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    It's not that risky. Look at my examples again -- the Twins have repeatedly traded "sputterers" at the end of July or beginning of August in their last contract year. In the case of Liriano 2012, we didn't even have a ready replacement, but we dealt him anyway.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't like the implication that a player can simply "will" themselves to be better defensive players. Even average MLB defenders are playing the game at its highest level -- the idea that Arcia can't achieve that only because he lacks focus and effort seems a bit demeaning.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    Berrios is irrelevant if we are discussing a short-term (i.e. 1 year guaranteed) deals for 2015. He K'd 6.2 per 9 at AA last year, and is almost certainly ticketed to begin 2015 there again. If everything breaks right for him, he can get a September call-up regardless of our MLB rotation, although his pro career high is 140 IP. Unless he misses time earlier in the year, my guess is Berrios doesn't pitch anywhere in September 2015. Meyer's pro career high is only 130 IP. I have no problem using him out of the pen until a spot opens up. I posted this elsewhere recently, but the Twins have a decent record of cutting bait on starting pitchers on one-year contracts (or in the last year of a multi-year deal). Ramon Ortiz was sent to the pen quickly, then traded; Ponson and Marquis cut, Hernandez and Correia traded... I think the argument that the Twins should sign a short-term bounceback candidate is predicated on the idea the Twins can fairly quickly cut/trade/demote him if he's not providing value to the MLB club and a better alternative is ready.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    FWIW, I believe Johnson was the only one from this list that was a free agent last offseason, and he didn't throw a pitch in 2014 due to injury. (I'd have to imagine his deal will be incentive-laden, due to the vagaries of TJ recovery times.) Villanueva is the only other guy on this list to have been a free agent before, two years ago. Although he wasn't really a "bounceback" guy then or now -- looks like he's pretty much always been a modest swingman. It's possible someone will target him to be a full time starter (or full-time reliever) but probably more to fill the back end of a rotation than to be the next Hughes (which suggests upside to me).
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Having too many bounceback candidates in our rotation is part of the reason we may want to add another -- the odds are low that they all return to form, so adding another is a cheap way to mitigate some of that risk. Also, some of the guys in this list actually have much higher upsides than our internal bounceback candidates. If we are hoping for a top of the rotation partner for Hughes (or replacement for Hughes if he regresses), it's probably not coming from inside the organization in 2015. (I will say that this list is probably stretching the definition of "bounceback candidate" -- Villanueva? Morales? What exactly would they be bouncing back to?) Pelfrey himself may not make such a list -- not only has he been injured or bad for 3 seasons now, he also had pretty mediocre peripherals before that too. Not saying he wouldn't be signed, but he couldn't realistically be view as having "next Phil Hughes" upside, if that's what we're looking for. Nolasco would be a better fit for that, but even he seems to have a pretty modest upside.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    It was reported last winter that Masterson proposed some pretty reasonable extension deals that the Indians rejected -- 2/35 and 3/51 were the two I saw. Obviously even if he rebounds, his 2014 and older age could discount him further from those numbers, but he seems willing to forgo maximizing his earnings on the FA market in return for some security (like Hughes did?).
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Guys on 4/32 contracts generally have much lower upside (that was Jason Vargas' deal last winter), and much higher downside given the length of the deal. I certainly wouldn't mandate a 1/8 bounceback contract every winter, but if you are not going to be a big FA spender, I see nothing wrong with some aggressiveness in that range. (And some bounceback guys come even cheaper than 1/8 -- Liriano was 2/12, Kazmir 1/1 or something.)
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    You are leaving off some options, notably: 3) The player performs well enough in his 1 year deal to be worth a qualifying offer next winter, either giving the Twins an extra draft pick if he signs elsewhere (and could have the domino effect of helping us to trade a competitive balance pick), or a good pitcher on a one-year deal if he accepts the QO.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    If you are not willing to deal Kepler, a modest corner outfield prospect very far from MLB, for an average to above MLBer at a position of need, you're basically never going to be willing to deal a prospect ever. Would be interesting to see how other teams value Kepler at this point.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Because not all 69 OPS+ hitters through age 24 become 110 OPS+ hitters at age 25? I know nothing about Saunders and would not necessarily recommend a trade for him or casting aside Hicks quite yet, but one of my pet peeves is applying somewhat dramatic/unlikely development paths to your own players as if they are standard/inevitable.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    In the hypothetical world where the Twins sign a $100+ mil ace, I am pretty sure they would not see themselves limited by a 95-100 mil payroll cap and could address the OF as they saw fit. The payroll cap presumes a frugal, conservative, stil rebuilding organization. Signing a FA ace would invalidate that presumption.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    For those that don't know, Baseball Prospectus keeps incredibly detailed injury information (injury type, dates, days/games missed, etc.) in the "Injury History" section of their player pages. Sure beats using Google! Here is Mauer's page, scroll down below the stats to find the injury history: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=31759 I should add, access to this info is all free -- you don't have to be a subscriber to Prospectus.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    Good point. Heck, Joe Girardi got fired after winning Manager of the Year.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    One challenge is apparently avoiding obnoxious Yankee phrases like "Core Four".
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    Every situation is different, certainly. And I wouldn't have wanted Little as my manager. But Little was pushed aside on October 30, after the World Series, and Torre was hired almost immediately as his replacement. The parting came late, and the replacement came quick, much like Renteria. Frankly it is incredibly rare for a top manager to become an active free agent. You can't use the history of such rare occurrences to cast aspersions on teams or people just because they're participating in a rare event. Heck, the Twins apparently called on Maddon too, even after a month's worth of interviews with other candidates, including their hometown manager-in-waiting -- does that nudge them into the "cutthroat" and "ugly" group too? I felt a little bad for Molitor about the circumstances, but I certainly am not going to blame the Twins or Maddon -- that's the business, the same business where TR has to quickly flip-flop on his public word.
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