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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Brock was discussing debates prior to this season -- as I mention in my post, 2010-2011 was epically bad in terms of catcher depth. This season, depth wasn't much of a concern.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    That's the part that makes it take 6+ years, particularly if you're not willing or able to sign FA wisely.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    But you're not talking about the rotation now, you're talking about 1-2 guys. I like Meyer better than Gibson too, and I like May too (although I think you're reading a little much into his early season results?). But the AAA rotation, overall, is pretty much the same as before. The Twins aren't the Atlanta Braves of recent vintage, with 4-5 legit SP prospects rounding out the AAA rotation. They've got 1-2 prospects on normal promotion schedules who you'd like to see in MLB at some point, and then a bunch of filler who can hopefully keep your AAA team competitive but you don't want to see too much at the MLB level. That's standard for AAA rotations rather than any special credit to the front office. (Although I liked both the Meyer/May trades, they were really just patches for years of bad luck and failure in SP drafting/development. We'd still just be waiting around for A-ball pitchers if it wasn't for those two.)
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't think this is accurate -- I don't think "catcher depth" was ever really a concern. Maybe before we signed Suzuki? After that, catcher quality was definitely a concern, especially with Suzuki starting or if Pinto had gone to AAA. (Which was still somewhat wrong, although we'll see how Suzuki's season plays out.) Just having two guys who can approximate MLB catcher/backup catcher already has us above the 2010-2011 Twins in terms of catcher depth.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    I thought the Twins already built the good minor league system? They're ranked #1 or 2, right? Building the MLB winner is the challenge, and I'm not seeing much from this front office that suggests they are capable of doing that (or even willing to do it, in some cases), sooner than the 6+ years it will take waiting for those minor leaguers to shake out, like back in the late 90's.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    I think the FA SP signings were a bit of a change in strategy. And the early returns on it aren't very good, and if that continues, it could lead to a change in leadership. As loyal as ownership is, they won't be very excited about an $11 million lemon in Pelfrey, or even just an underwhelming Nolasco.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    Well, in that context, I agree, but on terms of scale, it's about one or two gold stars on the positive side of the front office ledger, which is where you brought it up. (And most of that is due to Meyer.) This club's MLB rotation work has been about negative ten gold stars annually, it seems. Hard to make that up in AAA rotation depth, or interesting A-ball pitchers... Also, wasn't the Rochester rotation comparable last year? I like the Meyer/May upside better but generally this kind of "very good AAA rotation with depth" gives you a competitive AAA club, not great MLB options (outside the top guy): Gibson -> Meyer Hendriks -> May Albers -> Darnell (actually Darnell was there last year too) Walters, Hernandez, etc -> Johnson, Pino, etc.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    In fairness, I think the 14 pitchers is the more egregious part. How many teams have had 14 pitchers on their 25 man roster at any given time?
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    But then, what to do with Pelfrey? I guess you can get pretty esoteric about your DL excuses, but I'm not sure how well "missing 2 MPH off his heater" would fly with the league and/or player. That happens to plenty of otherwise healthy pitchers all the time (they usually aren't under brand-new, multi-year contracts though, and/or they were coming from a better starting point than Pelfrey). That's why I thought, swap Pelfrey and Deduno, ideally before yesterday's games. Let Pelf figure things out in the pen as a mop-up man, then DL/demote/release from there (or keep him in the pen or promote him back to the rotation if things go well).
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    It's better than in the past, for sure, but I think you're over-selling it. Any future benefit from that rotation is almost entirely from Meyer. May is the other interesting guy although he's still quite a project. Darnell looks to have Andrew Albers upside to me, which isn't bad but would be fringe MLB. Johnson we know is fringe. Diamond is worse than fringe right now. And given how poor of a job they've done with the MLB rotation, they still have to count on Meyer (and May) way too much for my liking.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    But the lyrics of that new Twins ad jingle promised "more Kubel", right?
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    Are you suggesting we should have signed Bartolo Colon?
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    Memo to Dick Bremer: we should all be grateful that Pelfrey hasn't pitched deeper into games this season...
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    As I mentioned before, Dozier actually graded out fairly decently by metrics in his half season as a MLB SS in 2012. Not great, but certainly not "must move off the position" either. The errors seem high, but then again, he was a rookie and we all know how rough his bat looked that year. Plouffe graded a lot worse in 2011, but it was a smaller sample (just 1/3 of a season), it wasn't really a regular gig, and like Dozier, he was a rookie at the time who looked fairly bad at the plate too. Would have been interesting to see if Sano could have pushed him off this year, and if we would have given him another look at SS (I suspect not).
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    That's my preferred scenario -- no Dozier move without an interesting 2B replacement. (Meaning, no move right now, probably not until later this year or next year at the earliest.) I'd hesitate to leave the decision fully up to the player, though -- that's how we get abominations like Joe Mauer's choice of walk-up song. Knowing baseball players, 90% of them would probably resist the move based on superstition alone. A good manager/executive should be able to gauge the move's potential effect on Dozier without giving him full veto power.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    For those outside the blackout area, this is also the MLB.tv free game of the day: http://mlb.mlb.com/mediacenter/index.jsp?c_id=mlb&affiliateId=mlbMENU
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Two of the article's suggestions (Lowrie and Cabrera) both scored very poorly in defense last year (and early this year), according to B-Ref. Cabrera -1.6 wins, and Lowrie -2.1. Between their bats and the positional adjustment, they were still both roughly average players, but could be suspect long-term solutions at short. I have to imagine Hanley Ramirez will get a big payday somewhere -- he's been phenomenal in LA, and even his defense has graded out better there. If he doesn't re-sign with LA, the Yankees will be looking for a shortstop too, right? Hardy is, of course, the one that got away, and has the best rep with the glove. His early season hitting and injuries are a little worrisome (not least because he's on my fantasy team!). In addition to any odd feeling that may exist from his earlier stint and departure here, Target Field may have been a contributor in sapping his power in 2010, which is generally his chief offensive weapon. I still think Dozier deserves another crack at it. His defensive numbers weren't that bad at SS in 2012, and he looks a lot more comfortable in the bigs now. Probably not worth it until we get an interesting option to play 2B in his place -- maybe Rosario? Would have liked adding one of those Cubans.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    Still doesn't excuse a straight salary dump of a MLB starting shortstop. (And over what? $5-6 million?) And how soon did we begin saying his replacement needed to move to 2B anyway? ARG! There's a reason Nick didn't want to rehash this topic, people! No good can come from this.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    That bugs me too. And acknowledging that doesn't necessarily mean you endorse Drew. We give Pelfrey a bigger pass on his 2013 all the time, despite the fact that he put up an almost identical ERA+ in the full season before his surgery too.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Wouldn't necessarily have to trade Correia, just shift him to the pen. Tonkin is being under-utilized there at the moment anyway. So you wouldn't lose any starting options (which I agree are good to have), just re-shuffle them to try to get the best ones in positions to contribute to the MLB club.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    Without an extra starter Thursday, they would be facing a short rest situation on both Sunday AND Monday, unless they were also ready to insert Deduno by Sunday. I think the official pronouncements are pretty clear now: Johnson to start the nightcap Thursday, and the rotation is staying the same (for now).
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    It was a four-year deal, and it began in 2010. So when they DFA'd him in August 2012, it was near the completion of the third season, with just a little over one season remaining. There was a fifth-year club option for 2014, if that is what you are thinking of: http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2010/03/twins-sign-nick-blackburn-to-extension.html
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    Thanks for the input. From the game logs, his in-game pitch limit seems to be exactly the same as the other Rochester starters so far. As to the shoulder, I too would exercise caution, but if he's throwing 100 pitches every 5th day, I don't see how it's better for his shoulder to do that in AAA rather than MLB. And if he's on a season inning limit, letting him log the first bulk of that limit at AAA when he is otherwise healthy and effective also seems of dubious value (see Gibson, Kyle).
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    Actually, they didn't get around to that until there was just over one season and ~$6.5 mil left on Blackburn's deal (in August 2012).
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    I wonder if, theoretically, a player just added to the 40 man roster could be the 26th man without burning an option year...?
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