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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    Update: looks like Seth is doing this now, at least he did it for today's Minor League Starters article. Works great! Particularly valuable when browsing via mobile device where it's not always easy to copy and paste player names, and I don't want to learn to spell "Stuifbergen" quite yet....
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Thanks Seth for the BB-Ref links! Especially now the BB-Ref has minor league splits and game logs, it's a really great tool to follow prospects.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    Brock: nice feature! Thanks for anticipating my suggestion! Although like snepp, I too see the blank selection by default -- but only when I'm logged in (which I usually am). If I look at the site in a new browser, not logged in, I see "Twins Daily 3.0" as the default. Although it's probably more important to switch the other way, and I do indeed see the "Full Site" link at the bottom of the mobile pages.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Cristian Guzman and Lew Ford may have missed some boo's the same way.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    You might be right. Liriano was very frustrating the past two years, with a 79 ERA+. But Correia's career mark since switching to starting is 83 (before this season), and 2 of Pelfrey's last 3 full seasons were 78 and 81. The difference is style -- Liriano was posting a 5 BB/9 rate while tanking, the other guys were just giving up hits -- and upside, although I'm pretty receptive to the idea that Liriano wasn't going to reach that upside with the Twins again, for whatever reason.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    Pinto: a slower-developing Wilson Ramos? That would help Bill Smith sleep better at night, I think. Also, no matter how many times I read "Florida State League" I think Florida State Prison, or at best a prison baseball league...
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    Could there be tiny "Standard" and "Mobile" links at the top of the site to override the default skin and also set a cookie to remember the user's preference? Don't know the details of the site's software, and I don't have a tablet so it hasn't been an issue for me, but perhaps that way a user could easily circumvent default skinning if they wanted to.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    It would be great if articles would link player names to their BB-Ref pages, something like they do at MLB Trade Rumors: Automatic Player Linker - Baseball-Reference.com Would come in real handy for the minor-league write-ups! I know a lot of them (Seth) put player names in boldface anyway, so perhaps it could be done without any extra work for the author, just clicking a different button.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    Whoops. I posted in the blog entry before I saw it promoted to an article.... Twins Daily - Alex Meyer's "Rough" Start
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    Too bad most of the big league club didn't get the memo about hot hitting starts! Off-topic, but it would be fantastic if articles at this site could link to player's BB-Ref pages, like MLB Trade Rumors and other sites do. I find that I'm always opening new tabs to search BB-Ref, particularly for these minor league write-ups.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Great report. I think this is why I love pro baseball (and this site): there is so much more action and so many more stories with the minor leagues added in.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't know if the White Sox really need Escobar or Hernandez right now -- they seem to be set at those spots on the roster -- but obviously they got very little, probably negative value, out of Liriano. And Escobar and Hernandez have both been small but positive contributors to the Twins so far, which not only helps the Twins but hurts the White Sox in the standings. Definitely advantage Twins. I'm kinda surprised that Liriano fetched two MLB ready contributors, even if neither has much upside. So kudos to Terry Ryan for that. Pavano was a better pitcher back in 2009 and the Twins got him for one fairly marginal minor league arm (Yohan Pino?). I guess Liriano had more theoretical "upside" but he was pretty far removed from that... and Pavano proved to have similar upside in 2010 anyway. (Kudos to Bill Smith on that one, one of his few moves that actually worked out.)
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    Stew: what about pop-ups that drop due to the confusion of just one fielder, rather than multiple fielders? Losing track of a flyball, mainly. Don't think I've ever seen one scored an error, no matter how close the ball landed to fielder's original position (and we all know this came up in the Metrodome a lot!). Also, this is a pretty awesome thread. Thanks Stew for sharing and the Johns for making it happen. If there is a way this thread can be stickied, or otherwise featured prominently for reference, please do it -- I could see us coming back to this all season long.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Preseason projections had Escobar around a .600 OPS. I know his little hot streak with the bat won't last, but if some of it sticks and he can legitimately be a .650 OPS guy, that's a big boost to his career outlook. Punto is a career .650 OPS hitter (admittedly with some wild swings around that number), although Punto is a strong OBP guy. For Escobar to hit that mark, he'd probably need to be more like Jamey Carroll without the walks (.277 AVG, .344 slugging). Might be more difficult to maintain those levels consistently without the ability to draw walks.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Gardy's use of Pelfrey on Monday night was very similar to his use of Correia exactly three weeks earlier: trying to squeeze a few extra outs from a tiring starter in a jam in game 1 of a series, to marginally reduce the load on a bullpen that was already well-rested. That time, we wound up getting swept by KC and our best relievers never even got into a meaningful game until 4-5 days later. This time, Worley imploded in the following game (last night), and even if Diamond helps us avoid a sweep today, a scheduled off-day Thursday suggests it was doubtful all along that we'd ever see any benefit from those ~3 extra outs of reliever rest Monday.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    That's a .148 isolated power average (slugging minus batting average). Buxton is at .292 right now. He has more HR than Castellanos had, in less than half as many PAs so far (plus more steals and almost as many walks). Castellanos performance wasn't bad, but it was a classic "batting average on balls in play" spike, with little value in plate discipline or power. I think the premise here is that Buxton could be promoted aggressively if he keeps up his early displays of plate discipline and power.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Really? You watched Delmon Young for four seasons here and you're going to hitch yourself to his wagon? I assume your beef here isn't with Delmon. He had an above-average offensive season in 2010 but played the field like he should have been a DH. And sure enough, his OPS+/WAR are almost a perfect match for full-time DH Hideki Matsui that year. I think WAR pegs him pretty accurately in that regard. Your beef seems to be with Punto, who accumulated defensive WAR at a career-best rate in 2010. But the rate itself doesn't seem out of whack -- in 2010, per 1200 innings, he saved 28 runs at 3B and 19 runs at SS, but at other times in his career he posted rates of ranging from 19-24 over similar samples at 2B, 3B, and SS. Can a defensive player not have a career year like that? In fact, isn't Punto's career best defensive rates in 2010 not materially different than Young's career best offensive rates that same season? And can a defensive player, having a career year like that at tough defensive positions, not have a half-season equal in overall value to a full season from a modestly above average hitting DH? Some of it could certainly be small sample -- Young certainly would have been better off in 2010 if his season had ended after July when he was OPSing .916, so why couldn't the same apply to a sample of Punto's defense?
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    I'm not necessarily calling for Gardy's firing like the original poster, but here are the guys who have been in the Twins bullpen all year and their current games and innings pitched paces: [TABLE=class: grid, width: 200] Pitcher G IP Glen Perkins 63 58 Josh Roenicke 56 85 Jared Burton 70 64 Casey Fien 77 63 Brian Duensing 70 57 Ryan Pressly 49 72 [/TABLE] This is not yet a bullpen that desperately needs three extra outs from Mike Pelfrey to avoid overuse. In fact, our relief ace Perkins is on pace for career lows in games and innings. When you factor in his late start, Swarzak is on a bit of a high pace right now, but he's also the long man and spot starter so it's not really comparable to the core bullpen guys.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    I'm pretty sure both Escobar and Hernandez will see significant performance drops soon, but the fact that TR got two cheap, MLB-ready serviceable backups for an enigma like Liriano is pretty impressive. To top it off, he plucked those players from a division rival, no less! The Span and Revere trades look pretty solid too. Trader Terry is back!
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    One of the less-acknowledged effects of modern pitch count watching is that not only are starters usually pulled around 100 pitches, they are very rarely pulled before 80 or 90 pitches. Last night, Pelfrey wasn't dominating, but he survived 5 innings with under 80 pitches and I'm sure Gardy was shooting for 90+ before pulling him. Look at Pelfrey's pitch counts this year: 96 62 (his disastrous start against KC) 96 94 90 Also Gardy was probably aiming to get Pelfrey through the 6th inning for the first time this year, so he could bring in his "7th inning guys" the following inning. It's all kinda silly, when Pelfrey's been so shaky lately, your bullpen is fully rested, you've got a lead in the 6th inning against a good team, and the heart of their order is due up in the 6th. At the very least, he should have a leash, and any kind of non-pitch-count leash in that scenario results in him getting pulled once two men are on, nobody's out, and a lefty slugger is at the plate. Maybe this is part of why Gardy is generally a good in-season manager (at least through 2010, anyway) and not a very good playoff manager?
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    Sano had a solid year, certainly, but the strikeouts and low average didn't help. (And poor defense.) He was basically a one-trick pony, although that one trick was done pretty well (and is always desperately needed by the big league club!). But you don't want him looking like a power-only prospect in the low minors -- that doesn't translate well to big-league success.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    Danny Ortiz was 2 years older than Buxton is now, wasn't stealing bases, wasn't drawing many walks, and I'm not sure about his defense, but he was playing more in RF/LF than CF. Obviously time will tell if Buxton is just having a hot month or is on his way to cementing his status as a top prospect league-wide. Hopefully, given his pedigree and all-around skills, it will be the latter. And if we're going to discuss minor league players around here, there's really no way to do it right now without being excited about Buxton. Most folks aren't advocating instant promotions, however.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    Actually, I seem to recall hearing "Buck" somewhere, not sure though.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    After striking out 20 times in his first 46 PA, Hicks has only struck out twice in his last 24 PA. That's very encouraging. ZiPS projected him at .232/.314/.358 before the season. The ZiPS update has him down to .206/.299/.310 which isn't surprising, given his horrific start in the average and power departments. He's currently walking more than that, but if he doesn't start generating even a little bit of power, I could see the walk rate falling to those levels.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    I hesitate to compare him to Trout yet, as it is still a small sample, but it's obviously a very encouraging start. Even if Buxton comes back to earth a little, if he shows solid defense and a reasonable K rate (Sano's two big flaws right now), I think a promotion to high-A will be warranted at midseason. If his number continue at video game crazy levels, obviously he could be promoted sooner, and if he continued raking after the promotion, hopefully they would re-evaluate his timeline. While the Twins have been very conservative about promotions, they also haven't had a guy posting numbers quite like this for awhile (if ever). Mauer was very good but wasn't showing power, Sano has flaws, etc. It would be great to finally witness a meteoric rise through the minors! Make it happen, Byron! (Also, does Buxton have an official nickname yet? Hopefully not "Buxie"?)
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