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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Yes. Small sample size and all, but it's encouraging to see him 3-9 against both lefties and righties, with zero Ks against LHP too. He looked pretty bad against LHP this year, and still hasn't shown much power against them in the minor league career.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    But young pro athletes are often the "early peakers" in size, particularly height -- that's how they get to be the young pro athletes! I don't know anything about it really, but I suspect they are less likely to grow late (particularly height and any natural muscle/weight). I was just skimming through past GCL seasons for Thorpe comparables, and I noticed that Clayton Kershaw put up similar stats in that league at age 18. But Kershaw was already 6'3" and 215 lbs at that point, and he's basically the same size now at age 25.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    It should be noted that TR's aversion to risk extends well beyond traditional free agency. He's also never inked a significant international free agent (at least, not before the spending limits were put in place), never went above-slot on a draft choice (again, before the spending caps were adopted), and as much as he was called "Trader Terry" and indeed made some good ones, he has a fairly conservative trade history too -- generally only trading from surplus for modest returns. I'm starting to think it goes beyond risk aversion. I think TR and the Twins staff/ownership in general approach the team almost like a high school or amateur team: we'll do our best to build a team with the players we're given, and we don't mind taking some lumps because that's the cyclical nature of the game. In some ways, it's refreshing compared to the win-at-all-costs attitude, but it's also frustrating when there is obvious talent here (both on the field, as in 2002-2010, and in the front office) but they seemingly limit themselves to only the most basic methods of player acquisition.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Don't mean to stomp on your optimism, but leaving aside Wood, how often has a near-100% unproven projected rotation ever come to fruition? I mean, that is rebuilding in the extreme. Even the late-90s Twins had Radke established before adding Milton etc.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    Haven't followed this thread, but I think the Twins-Gardy related complaints about Punto stemmed from playing time and role, not that he was simply on the roster. (You'd have to look at Butera for the latter complaint) Punto got a lot of playing time with the Dodgers this season, largely due to the Hanley Ramirez injury, but he still has 5 Twins seasons with more PA (sometimes a lot more) than 2013. He was in our opening day lineup 3 times, was a playoff starter in both of his healthy Twins postseasons, and when healthy, was basically an everyday player (either as a starter or supersub) for 6 full seasons with the Twins, during which time he posted a 74 OPS+ overall. Oh, and the Twins also gave him his top 4 single season salaries, several by a very large margin. He's actually performed better the past 3 years since leaving the Twins (90 OPS+) when he's been getting less playing time at a much lower salary. Don't get me wrong: an MLB team can do worse than Nick Punto, and I think we've seen a few worse guys on Twins rosters the last few years. But him seeing so much regular duty from 2005-2010 was seemingly another symptom of the Twins passive nature in improving their teams. Not sure what any of this has to do with libraries, but there you go.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    Since I see myself coming back here on a regular basis, I am going to re-post my suggestions from the end of the 2013 comments: Love the page -- but is there any chance the site's right sidebar could be disabled for it? Lots of good info on the right side of the charts, but it gets obscured unless you scroll each table over... and then you can't see the left side of the chart! If the right sidebar has to stay, maybe some kind of "mini-scroll" feature like the Baseball-Reference mobile site would be more workable (i.e. the left column(s) stay fixed as you "scroll" right to see more columns). Either way, it's an awesome data source, and I applaud your efforts!
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    This team doesn't need to trade anybody before it can spend $10 million on free agents. Clearing the spots on the roster / in the lineup might help entice other free agents to come here, but I don't have a lot of confidence that this front office will pursue them or pursue the correct ones.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    Hold up. First of all, Oakland is the team with the case for "bad luck" in the postseason. 6 division series, all going the full 5 games, with Oakland on the losing end each time. That's where a bad break or a smaller budget can make a difference. The Twins have been blown out of the water in the playoffs -- even before the sweeps started (in 2006, by Oakland, going against Minnesota home field advantage), the Twins were winning the first game of a series and then getting swept. This franchise has been nowhere near macro-competitive in the playoffs. And in the regular season, Oakland has never won fewer than 74 games in the Beane era, only once finished last (with 75 wins), and have 4 seasons equaling or exceeding the Twins best 96 wins. No question that Oakland has been the better organization over the last 15 years overall, and going forward for at least the next few seasons if not more. If you take out the Billy Smith years, maybe the Twins avoid their current trough or at least keep it in 75 win range, but then we don't have Buxton or Sano on the farm either, and that doesn't even address our serious playoff problems.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    I was just looking at B-Ref, so yeah, DRS. I guess prorating his 2011 numbers gets close to 2012 too -- I forgot he missed half of 2011.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    I'd hesitate to say .800 is in his range -- gotta use a very selective endpoint to get close to that, and he isn't exactly young. Looks his new approach traded some AVG and Ks to maintain/improve his minor league walk rate and SLG. Still, his .726 OPS overall was good for a 100 OPS+. That's not bad at all from a solid defensive 2B (or dare I say, SS).
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Unfortunately, that's also the biggest reason why they won't bring much back in return. Want another Duke Welker?
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    shs_59, Bumgarner or Wood wouldn't be traded to us for anything less than Buxton or Sano, I think. Both are already quality left-handed MLB starters, and both are locked up cheaply for the next 6 years. (Wood is less proven, of course, but ultra-cheap for the next few years too). I'd throw Cain in that group too -- even though he had a down year and makes more money, his long-term contract still has value and I don't see why the Giants would care about shedding salary right now. And if you're willing to flip great prospects like Buxton and/or Sano for an ace, or 4+ good prospects like Rosario and Meyer, you may as well just sign an ace free agent when you have the chance. Sign Greinke or even Sanchez last winter and you don't have to give up any players, and both contracts will probably expire before any of these prospects hit arbitration much less free agency.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    "Fraud" isn't the word I would use. But that playoff record was off-the-charts bad. Not just the streak of sweeps, but even the streak of "one-win-then-lose-the-rest" before that. That's not luck or a curse, that suggests something fundamentally wrong with how you approach the playoffs. Even with a similar frequency of early exits, Oakland and Tampa have generally been pretty competitive in their playoff series -- one break here or there and they could have advanced (and Tampa did actually advance to the World Series one year). Most of the time, the Twins needed that one break just to win a game. Obviously, first and foremost the Twins need to get back to contention first. But that playoff record is the "elephant just outside the room" so to speak.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Span was traded just before his 29th birthday, was a lot more expensive than Dozier, and projected to provide similar value to Dozier's just-completed 2013 season (discounting Span's flukey high defensive numbers from 2012 a bit!). Now, Span obviously had a longer track record, and thus there was more confidence in his projections going forward (although he did have some injury issues that Dozier has not yet had). But if scouts generally think Dozier's 2013 improvement will stick, he could fetch a top 100 prospect, no? Something better than Gilmartin, I would hope That said, if the Twins think Dozier's improvement will stick, they should probably hold onto him unless they are overwhelmed by an offer. Stockpiling pitching prospects is nice, but they do need SOME good players on this team! And counting on Rosario, Sano, Buxton, etc. years ahead of time probably isn't the wisest path. (An aside: that's why free agency looks so attractive. It can get you good players without having to give up any players of your own.)
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Did you run the numbers with all of MLB? The Twins are competing with the NL for this talent too, and that would avoid the issues with the limited MIL and HOU data in your sample. I still think you should move Santana out of the trades category -- that is probably skewing the numbers. It was trading down in the draft. I think 2003 was the only other recent draft that featured a similar swap and it was between two nobodys, so I don't think you have to worry about it affecting other clubs results. You can browse the results for yourself easily at Wikipedia: Rule 5 draft results - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    Also, IIRC, the day after the Sorrento trade, Hrbek injured himself and missed the first couple weeks of the season. Not a good omen.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Duke Welker is at least a much better name than Jim Hoey. Sounds like he should be a jazz horn player of some kind...
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    Balfour for the A's, Luis Ayala for the Braves...
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    Jones hit his career average OPS+ at age 24. Morneau did it at 23. Cuddyer was basically a league-average hitter in his limited time at ages 23-24. What I keep coming back to is, if Kepler is good enough for the AFL now, he's probably good enough to protect on the 40-man now, and should reasonably be expected to "stick" as an average MLB hitter by 2017 if he is ever going to.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Cahill was a second round draft pick out of high school, he was rated the #11 prospect prior to his rookie season, and his three years in Oakland were ages 21-23. And his K rate was double that of Blackburn in the minors, and it trending up at that time of his trade. The "Blackburn mistake" was not passing on trading him, but rather signing him to that contract. I think Bill Smith thought he had another Joe Mays on his hands... and I guess he did.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    No doubt. I guess I was thinking front office and coaching staff also (and ownership too). And those guys certainly prefer dealing with their "own" players. I had hoped that recent lousy play and roster turnover would force them out of that comfort zone a little, but maybe the Revere/Span trades and Willingham/Correia signings are the extent of that? I guess this offseason will tell...
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    Great point. It would be an awesome study to look at past guys left unprotected and see if there were any notables (high draft picks, big bonuses, future MLB success). I might try this. The tricky part might be finding past 40 man rosters... looks like the Internet Archive has some of those. For example, a quick glance shows November 40-mans for the Twins there back to 2007, but it skips 2009-2010. The fact that Kepler is in the Arizona Fall League suggests he is still highly regarded, and might be more "ready" than Low-A would normally indicate. Also, his full name is Maximilian.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    I think the Twins front office, as much as they like to compete and win, also are fully aware this is a game and they are playing it. They want to play it with people they know and like. They don't like to play with a lot of outsiders like agents or even sometimes other GMs. They want to keep it low-stakes so they can continue playing it even if they lose. I think that's the "country club" atmosphere that others have mentioned. And it does have some appeal to fans -- no matter how much they suck, you know who the Twins are and who they have always been. This Twins organization has really maintained its old-school identity in the modern era better than most others. Now, most of pro sports (and even many "amateur" sports) don't operate that way, and we all know many cases where teams take it to the other extreme and we generally don't like that. However, it would be nice to see the club be a little more aggressive about identifying and adopting quality "outsiders" into the club every once and while. For example, Thome was a great guy -- but why weren't the Twins aggressive about acquiring him before age 40? Brad Radke was another great fit here -- have there really been no quality pitchers like him worth a free agent overpay? Australia and the Netherlands are fun, but why haven't the Twins tried being early adopters of other (better) emerging international baseball markets? The Legend of Tony Oliva has long expired...
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    I just don't get this. If the guy is incapable of being a quality major league starter without his slider, you're not doing him or yourself any favors by prolonging his career. I've read this about Liriano before, and I have to believe it's just an over-simplification. Because even the risk-averse Twins shouldn't be THAT averse to pitching injuries, especially if they don't even have a long-term commitment to a guy.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    Rauch was better than Mulvey, but he was and still is a very fungible commodity. There was no need to trade Santana. Even after losing Hunter and trading Garza/Bartlett that team was still fully capable of contending. I suspect TR wouldn't have done it, certainly not for that package. Bill Smith's trades almost always followed the same obvious pattern: "what player do I have to replace?" That offseason, he needed a CF and RH power bat (losing Hunter), so he dealt two pitchers and a shortstop and got back Gomez, Young, plus an alleged replacements at SS (Harris) and pitchers (Humber and Mulvey). You can see similar patterns elsewhere: have a CF, need a SS? Gomez for Hardy. Have a catcher, lost a closer? Ramos for Capps. Lost a few relievers? Hardy for alleged relievers and sign an alleged replacement (Nishioka). To be fair, he had success in dealing low-level prospects (for Pavano, Cabrera, etc) but those were pretty low-risk moves (although maybe not low-risk enough for TR?). It was all very maddening. Just thinking of it makes me glad TR is back, even if TR has his own maddening tendencies.
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