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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Best wishes to him -- I am really rooting to see that mustache in MLB someday!
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Abiatel Avelino, 19 y.o. shortstop. This is his first year of full-season ball, although he missed 2 months with injury. His early stats suggest some similarities with Danny Santana offensively: decent average, some speed/SB value, less power although perhaps better contact and patience. Sickels had him C+ on the edge of the Yankees top 20 preseason. Also referenced two other C+ international Yankee farmhands, Thairo Estrada (a year younger) and Avelino's 3B teammate Miguel Andujar (who has more pop).
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    Berry is already on the 40-man roster (must have been added last winter to protect him from the Rule 5), which could be a reason for Baltimore to move him in trade. This is the first of his three option years. (50th round draft pick from 2009!) Sickels had him at C+, #10 for Baltimore preseason, "potential fourth starter." He is a LHP, and his stats remind me a bit of Logan Darnell, although Darnell needed to repeat AA at age 24 to get that K rate up to respectable levels. Berry's K rate has been pretty consistent his whole career.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Just noticed Seth's "Trade Candidate: Brian Duensing" article in the sidebar... but it isn't listed in the Minnesota Twins Talk forum, despite being from today and having several replies within the past few hours. I saw (and still see) articles from Monday in the forum ("Monday Morning Madness" and Gleeman & the Geek podcast), so maybe it's something about how this particular article is classified? (EDIT: Now I see the Duensing article in the forums, just took an hour or so?) I LOVE how the full "Monday Morning Madness" and Gleeman & the Geek articles show up in the forum view! I use the forum as my gateway to the site, and it was always a pain having to leave a forum thread to read an article, then find my way back to the forum.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    Hey, you're the one who brought up Mauer and Nolasco, in your first post of this thread. I don't think every "key piece" in the rebuild has had major setbacks. The only major pitcher setback (for a guy key to the rebuild) was Gibson's surgery, which he's been back from for almost 2 years now. (Next would be Meyer missing 2 months last summer, pretty tame as far as setbacks go.) On offense, Buxton and Sano have been set back, but only after rocketing through the minor leagues to the tune of age 20-21 projected MLB debuts. While they both still have to re-establish themselves somewhat after injury, their current age 22 projected debuts are probably more normal than any kind of major setback. Now, if you open up the term "major setback" to including poor MLB performances to date, you could add Hicks and Arcia, but something feels wrong attributing that to luck. We're still waiting on most of the pitchers and other position players, but not due to setbacks or any kind.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    Yup. It's no substitute for a bona fide good MLB performance, but Arcia has been not-disastrous with the bat (97 career OPS+ despite all of his troubles), unlike a certain other 2013-2014 Twins outfielder who shall not be named. Would be nice if it was trending up, though, and/or accompanied by any defensive value.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    Part of it is context and perception: Plouffe certainly feels like no more than a starter on a 90+ loss team, because he's only ever been a starter on a 90+ loss team. Stick him on the '87 or '91 Twins and he might not look so bad. Then again, after being a first-round draft pick, everything else about Plouffe's career screams "mediocre." Repeating AAA for 4 years, mediocre batting lines every minor league season up to his 4th AAA year, couldn't force his way into some very spotty infields on the 2008-2010 Twins... even his one good MLB hitting stretch only lasted a month or two. Not to mention defense -- 6+ pro years at shortstop but couldn't stick in the middle infield, got bad reviews in the corner OF, took a couple years to adapt to 3B (although statistically, it does appear that he has adapted).
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    There is certainly some bad luck, but I don't know if it's more or less than other clubs. Pitching-wise, I don't see much of any bad luck, outside of some weirdness around our big innings eater investment right now (Nolasco). Pretty much everyone else has stayed healthy and met or exceeded expectations. It's not really bad luck that most of the interesting ones are still in the lower minors (or inexplicably stuck in AAA). The hitting side is worse, as Buxton and Sano are tough cases, to a lesser extent Rosario, but I don't know that any of them were expected to play a lot in MLB this year. So then you're basically down to 1 out of 9 hitters (Mauer) who isn't living up to expectations and recent past season performances. It just wasn't a very good lineup to begin with.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    Hypothetical: would you have accepted Vidal Nuno in return for Willingham? Or how about Rafael DePaula? I think I would have taken the latter, for sure. Any comparables? Sickels had DePaula C+ preseason, most of the Yankee guys in that range are upper minors (or even MLB) at this point...
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    I mostly agree, I don't think we need to do anything with Plouffe at the moment. I enjoy Halsey's semi-irrational dislike of him, though! If Plouffe is heading into his prime, it sure isn't showing in his batting statistics, which have been more or less steady since 2011. Also, while Plouffe does seem to rank ~15th in OPS+/wRC+ among qualified 3rd basemen, he ranks in the lower third (20-25) if you lower the "qualified" threshold just a little to account for injuries, call-ups, etc. I did some research in another thread, and Twins 3B production in the "Plouffe era" was not notably different from our 3B production in the 2005-2011 quagmire years at that position. He's probably a lower third MLB third baseman, generally regarded as incapable of moving higher on the defensive spectrum, due $3-4-5 million or so over the next 3 years. Probably more immediately useful to us than valuable to others.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Is that true, about the options? Hicks was optioned in 2013 and 2014, so it would appear he only has 1 left (I don't think he qualifies for the 4th option year, as he played in a full-season league in his first full season).
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    Obviously, I'd feel a lot better about Arcia's poor line if he preceded it with 200 PA of .850 OPS like Dozier did (not to mention Dozier's strong finish to 2013, or his good defense at an up-the-middle position.) Also, Arcia's BABIP is .295 so there's no way he's just on the bad end of some luck. (Dozier's is .221 in that stretch, although he's probably established himself as a low BA/BABIP kind of guy anyway.) Arcia is K'ing in over 30% of his PA. Dozier is under 20%, even in that cherry picked stretch. I'm all for continuing to play Arcia, but there is no question he has not performed well to date.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    I wouldn't be surprised if Morales was retained, had he been hitting better, even if our overall team W-L record was the same. There is some value in having a mildly productive vet in the lineup, particularly if they have a much higher floor than the suspects that might replace them (i.e. Colabello and Parmelee). That's kind of where Willingham is now. Getting a prospect back would be great, but if it's just a roster spot or salary relief, who cares? As long as Arcia and Santana are playing everyday, I don't see anybody else who needs to get into the lineup right away. As it was, Morales was more like Kubel -- showing a really low floor. So it was worth it to unload him (or in Kubel's modest salary case, cut him). Willingham isn't great, but he's better than that right now.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Thanks for the info, missed the interview. I still feel like May should have been more of a priority in May-June, before the injury was even an issue. Was really weird to see him promised for the Futures Game AFTER Deduno was bounced from his spot. Frankly, it was weird seeing Meyer promised to the Futures Game too. He had already been to the Futures Game once, and now he was in AAA and on the cusp on MLB. If not mid-June when the Deduno/Pino stuff was going down, Meyer could have easily been placed in the rotation after the all-star break but we chose Pino and Johnson. He could have also been held back and slotted into the Saturday start as soon as we sent Johnson down.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Two of them have basically been career minor leaguers, up to age 29/30. Pino has been a minor league free agent the past 3 offseasons (and was also simply sold outright 4 seasons ago). Yet we decided he was our #1 priority for a rotation audition this season? Johnson was a minor league free agent as recently as September 2012, and was traded straight-up for a RHP AAAA reliever turning 28 y.o. last winter. And he has been the #2 priority? I don't mind that they are pitching with the Twins, I like to see new faces. But they shouldn't be the top priorities, taking the first two rotation openings (post-Deduno). We can sort these guys in the bullpen (Guerrier's spot), in August after a trade, if another guys gets injured, or just in September when rosters expand. We can't rely on either of these guys for the 2015 MLB rotation almost regardless of what they do this summer, due to their track records. I would much rather get a good preview of Meyer and May, so we can make some informed decisions about the roster this offseason (do we need to pursue another starter? or two starters?). Otherwise, I fear we are going to have so little info on the MLB transition abilities of Meyer and May that we will either over-commit to them and lack good depth, or over-commit to FA starters like Correia/Pelfrey again, and wind up continuing our rotation woes into yet another season.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    Seth, they have known about this Saturday opening for the past week, and there should have been no rush to get Gibson back, just let him sit until his next scheduled turn. They could have easily held Meyer back from his last AAA start and had him plan for Saturday instead. Heck, they could have just had Meyer take Johnson's spot last Monday coming out of the all star break too. It has been 3 weeks since Nolasco has been out, and over a month since Deduno was bumped out. They have had plenty of chances to get Meyer in the rotation but have chosen not to, it is as simple as that. (May is a little more defensible due to his injury, but even he was further delayed by assigning him to the futures game.)
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Doc, we're probably mostly in agreement. My point about shortstop depth was we had an incumbent starter who didn't need AAA time (but did have an option to be sent down), a young utility infielder we liked who had yet to get a chance to start, and our only position player prospect at AAA also played shortstop (and hit fairly well in spring training). It was far from our best position, but we had a few options. The invite was fine, but there was no real need to guarantee a roster spot to the longest of long shots in Bartlett after the spring he had. Basically, they focused way too hard on salvaging Bartlett and Kubel. Not only were their spring performances bad, but they were mostly redundant on the roster. And I think this fixation stretched back to their minor league deals, and precluded potential Fuld/Bonifacio additions in February (since we obviously didn't trust Mastro or Presley, and shouldn't have trusted Hicks either). Guerrier actually wasn't that bad to me -- I guess I was never too impressed with our AAA relief options, although given Guerrier's lack of upside, after his AAA stint was done, I would have preferred auditioning Pino/Johnson in that mop-up role and given starts to Meyer/May.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    Meyer's turn doesn't line up with our openings, until next May.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    True, but even in that case, he'll just have to stick in MLB at age 27 in 2017, which is not unreasonable at all. Although I don't advocate burning his option year this year. Call him up now (or a month ago!) and either keep him up or keep his days on optional assignment in AAA under 20 the rest of the way. Shouldn't be hard now that we're only ~36 days from Sep. 1 roster expansion anyway. Then he won't have to "stick" in MLB until age 28 regardless of injury, which should be plenty of time!
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    True, he is optioned, but it doesn't necessarily count as an "option year" if the player spends less than 20 days on optional assignment during a given season. Some examples discussed here: http://www.purplerow.com/2014/3/18/5520036/options-baseball-explanation-mlb For example, Oswaldo Arcia will not burn an option this year since he was optioned on May 14 and recalled May 25 (just 11 days), assuming he's not sent down again. 20 days in the minors also seems to be the cutoff for not getting credit a full season's service time (see JJ Hardy optioned by Brewers for 20 days in August 2009, delaying his free agency by an extra year).
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    Pretty sure that's the case. Assuming Meyer takes Guerrier's spot, they should be pretty much set until the offseason, unless they want to open an additional spot to audition a reliever (Achter, Guerra, Oliveros) or Gilmartin. And they will need to clear someone from the mostly-out-of-options MLB staff to do that anyway (until September, I suppose). Otherwise, virtually all of the worthwhile promotion candidates are already on the 40-man (or are too far away from MLB to matter at this point). The winter roster decisions will be interesting for sure -- lots of Rule 5 eligible guys.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    Actually I think a lot of the overpayment has waned, if it was ever a serious problem. Papelbon is kind of the gold standard for closer FA contracts, right? And he only got 4/50 a couple years ago -- that's Nolasco or Edwin Jackson money. Most guys since then are settling for far less in years and/or dollars. Closer trade returns seem fairly modest too, and limited to serious contenders. And using them more effectively is largely unnecessary with the proliferation of other dominant bullpen arms. Often, the more flexible setup men are better pitchers than the closer! And in the postseason, many teams have been more aggressive about using their closers too (see the article I linked upthread).
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    Agreed, don't use them unnecessarily, although I'm not sure if TJ surgery is any great culprit (actually getting injured in a particular year is likely to prevent you from being optioned that year). Also, like I said, they could send him back down for up to 20 days and not use an option this year. Which means it would be easy to give him a MLB spot start (actually multiple ones) before a spot is permanently opened -- just send him back down just before his AAA start, then recall him just after a later AAA start to minimize the days he spends on "optional assignment".
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    I think $15 million would the absolute top limit of savings here. Most likely, it is significantly less. A quick search turned up this post: http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2012/04/how-much-is-super-two-status-worth.html With inflation, that suggests $5-10 mil of extra "super 2" value for healthy instant superstars. If he's anything less than that (and he could still be very good and valuable while less than that), it's obviously much less. Also, you are ignoring the possibility that the Twins could hold back Meyer's service time later. They could have brought him up July 1st or whatever this year, saw what they have in him going into their offseason planning, then start him in AAA next year for a month to achieve the same effect. (Heck, they could easily send him to extended spring training under the pretense that they want to limit his innings but avoid any kind of late season shutdown in 2015.)
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    I think so too. Of course, I just combined the trade returns of two other well-regarded closers. Pretty sure we won't be seeing that offered for Perkins alone anytime soon! (Maybe paired with Duensing? ) Just a hypothetical example of a good trade return that doesn't feature "elite" prospects, I guess.
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