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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Buxton is sitting out Monday night, unfortunately:
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Worth noting that league offense is down quite a bit in 2021. Teams are averaging only 4.31 runs per game, down from 4.65 in 2020. The Twins specifically are just shy of that average figure at 4.25 runs per game in 2021, down from 4.48 in 2020. But that doesn't factor in the distribution of runs, and of course the expectation for the Twins offensively was to rebound from 2020 rather than repeat it.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    Gordon optioned, and Simmons activated today (Monday).
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    I echo Chief's concern with this characterization of Garver's offense. Among Fangraphs qualified catchers, top 15 by PA in the AL, Garver's wRC+ ranks 12th. Closer to the bottom than the middle in terms of rank. Garver's is 52 is closer to 14th than to the median of this group (89). https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=c&stats=bat&lg=al&qual=40&type=8&season=2021&month=0&season1=2021&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2021-01-01&enddate=2021-12-31&sort=18,d Expand that to all of MLB, and Garver is 25th among the top 30 catchers by PA. Median jumps to 99 wRC+ too. If you expand that lists to include backups, Garver's relative rank rises a bit: 40th out of the top 60 in MLB. But his 52 wRC+ is actually closer to 51st than to the median 87 of that group.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    That's fair. I was primarily looking at offense, but also, Garver was already in MLB and set to get 225+ PA in 2018 even before Castro went down. (Gimenez collected 225 PA the previous season, as Castro's backup.) Garver's role expanded to 335 PA after Castro's injury, but "Promoted to majors by necessity, trial by fire" didn't seem like an accurate description his role that season.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    The original poster in this thread wasn't suggesting "let's run him out of town" -- just giving him a break and a chance to get back on track outside of MLB game action. It's one thing to slump, and the small sample sizes of 2020 and 2021 can magnify any slump, even if unremarkable otherwise. But Garver's K rate has been crazy. 45.5% over 2020-2021. I've read that a player's K rate should be one of the stats to stabilize, around 60 PA. Garver's 2020-2021 sample is at 134 PA already. It's the highest K rate in MLB over 2020-2021, minimum 50 PA. Next highest is Akil Baddoo, a guy promoted straight from A-ball this year. It's drastic enough that I'm not sure "let him play through it a couple more months" is necessarily the best path.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    You're missing a year! 2017 was his brief debut, and 2018 he was perfectly competent at the plate (104 wRC+) in 335 PA, even before his 2019 monster season.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    By name, Tortuga might be closest thing we have to a Trout. Can't breathe underwater but can hold his breath for a long time.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    Yesterday (Saturday), Farrell was returned to the alternate site (and removed from the 40-man roster) while Thielbar was activated. Today (Sunday), Smeltzer was optioned, Stashak was recalled.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    So Odorizzi left his start today after 1 batter, which isn’t good... But amazingly, the next Astros pitcher finished the game. And even more amazingly, it was a 28 year old making his MLB debut, Kent Emanuel. His final line was 8.2 innings, allowing only 2 runs on 90 pitches, as the Astros destroyed the Angels 16-2.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Jake Odorizzi left his start today after 1 batter with an apparent injury.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    These comparisons don't really work for 2020. I mean, they are tricky normally because of unbalanced schedules, but in 2020 teams in different divisions had *completely* unbalanced schedules. Like, zero common opponents. Add to that, the AL Central and NL Central, the Twins' only opponents, were easily the two worst hitting divisions in baseball. So it may have been much easier for Twins pitchers to post a league-average ERA, as compared to Rays or Dodgers pitchers.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    FWIW, Cahill shut down the Padres 12 days ago. Matched Darvish for 5 innings before the Pittsburgh pen took over. Admittedly the Padres were without Tatis that game, but Cahill notched 8 K's that day in just 5 innings, compared to 2 in 6 IP today: https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PIT/PIT202104120.shtml Of course, the Padres may have been embarrassed too.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    The comment about "worst team" was in the context of Happ's pitching performance, and it might be accurate referring to the Pirates offense. Over 2020-2021, the Pirates are tied with Colorado for the worst team wRC+ in MLB at 76, and right now the Pirates are without by far their best hitter in that time frame (Ke'Bryan Hayes, 196). I don't know that looking at the 20 game sample of 2021 in isolation would be too meaningful yet for this kind of measure. If you want to expand it to overall, keep in mind the Pirates recent pitching and run prevention probably look better than they really are too -- in 2020, the Pirates got to exclusively face the two worst hitting divisions in MLB (the AL & NL Central). The Tigers and Rangers are also very bad teams, so it's definitely debatable overall, but the Pirates still have the worst cumulative W-L record over 2020-2021. FWIW, the Pirates took 2 of 3 in Detroit this week, but both teams scored 9 runs over the series, so it was probably a draw by Pythag.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    The Twins are signing Mike Pelfrey again?
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    It was only 51 yards before the 12 men in the huddle penalty! But yeah, the "easy field goal" example is the Blair Walsh playoff game, not the Saints NFC title game. I suppose they can all blur together after awhile...
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    The "outbreak" rules are new this year. Last year, there was a lot of DFA action when teams had a bunch of COVID cases. Seems doubtful that they would be claimed, unless some other team was simultaneously experiencing a COVID outbreak of their own. Telis has hit about the same at AAA since 2014, yet he cleared waivers in 2018 and has been freely available each offseason since then, re-signing with Minnesota to be our 4th or 5th string catcher each time. Riddle is a bit more of a wild card -- this is only his first season on a minor league deal. But his previous MLB experience was with some pretty bad teams, and he's almost 30 now. Again, maybe a guy you'd like to plug in during your own COVID outbreak, but not someone you'd want to give a 40-man spot to otherwise.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    I haven't seen anything about players being sent to particular minor league levels yet, since no minor league season has started -- all of the official transactions just say the generic "alternate training site." If you still see Blankenhorn's name on a AA roster or something, it might be because that was the last minor league level he played at in 2019. That's not uncommon. After his 125 wRC+ at AA in 2019, I'd be surprised if they ultimately sent him back to that level to begin 2021, whenever the minor league season gets underway.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    Expanding on my previous post: Gordon is erroneously listed twice on the Twins 40-man roster page right now, so it's actually 44. With Colina on the 60-day IL, we only need to get that number down to 41 after the COVID IL activations. One of the COVID IL guys is Riddle, who will probably be activated straight off the roster back to the alternate site like Telis. That would reduce the roster to 43, with 4 COVID IL guys left to activate. Farrell and Lin could be returned to the alternate site at that point, getting us down to our target number of 41 without any further cuts.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Yes, COVID IL players don't count against the 40-man. Also, since we had an "outbreak" (and not just an isolated case), it appears that MLB is allowing us to remove any COVID replacements without needing to DFA them or send them through waivers. That's what we did with Telis today: "C Tomas Telis returned to Twins Alternate Training Site from Minnesota Twins." I think we can eventually do the same with Riddle, Farrell, and Lin when the COVID IL guys are ready to return.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    All the moves are official now. Added to the 26-man roster today: Kirilloff Gordon Tzu-Wei Lin (also added to 40-man roster) Placed on the 10-day IL: Sano Sent to alternate site: Blankenhorn Telis (also removed from 40-man roster)
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    Added to the 26-man roster today: Kirilloff Gordon Tzu-Wei Lin (also added to 40-man roster) Placed on the 10-day IL: Sano Sent to alternate site: Blankenhorn Telis (also removed from 40-man roster)
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    Considering it was one day, and they knew they were returning him to the minors immediately after, I'm not sure if we can read too much into it. Although I wouldn't be surprised if he was eased back into regular play with some platoon rest now too.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    Nope, it is today. He just needed 21 non-consecutive days in the minors this year, counting from opening day April 1st. So after his one-day MLB appearance in the doubleheader last week, yesterday April 22nd he hit that threshold of 21.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    This was the magic date, since his doubleheader appearance last week. Kirilloff has now spent exactly 21 days on "optional assignment" to the minors this season, which was the minimum required to assure he won't get credit for a full year of service time in 2021.
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