Jump to content
Our free agent ranking is up to 100 names, and now you can filter by player position! Click here to check it out! ×
Twins Daily
  • Create Account

Otto von Ballpark

Old-Timey Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    20,669

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    74

 Content Type 

Profiles

Minnesota Twins News, Rumors & Analysis

Minnesota Twins Videos

2026 Minnesota Twins Top Prospect Rankings

2022 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

Minnesota Twins Trade & Free Agent Rumors

Minnesota Twins Fan Guides & Resources

2023 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

The Minnesota Twins Players Project

2024 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

2025 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

2026 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses

Forums

Blogs

Events

Store

Downloads

Gallery

Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    I agree with you that the Twins SS depth is fine compared to the rest of the league, even without Lewis. But I will caution that this Dodgers note is misleading since the Dodgers backup SS has been a supersub (Taylor) on a very position-flexible roster. Just because he is technically listed as an outfielder on their 40-man doesn't reduce his SS ability or the team's depth there -- I'm sure Miguel Sano was once technically listed as an outfielder on our 40-man too, it doesn't mean anything. (Plus the Dodgers 3rd-string SS may more accurately be Kenosha, Wisconsin's own Gavin Lux, who was a top 5 prospect before last season and primarily a SS in the minors, while McKinstry was not. Lux is still an unproven commodity himself, of course!)
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    I'm not sure I understand. Under Jeremy's proposal, the Royals would have controlled Beltran through age 29 instead of age 27 -- two additional seasons. And the Orioles would *still* have control over Machado for 2021, 3 seasons beyond when they lost control of him under the current system.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    I think this is the source of some confusion. Nick wasn't arguing that Maeda was the #2 pitcher in the AL, just that he was possibly the second-best #1 SP among AL contenders (in response to a post that said we needed an ace to go toe-to-toe with competitor's aces to break the 0-18 streak). Presumably Nick is eliminating Bieber, as Cleveland seems committed to leaving contention (although there's more parity in the AL than the NL -- the 2nd best Fangraphs projected team win total in the AL right now is only 88). Fangraphs projections would put Giolito behind Cole in such a ranking, and Ryu would edge Maeda too. A few others might be close. But yeah, while aces are always nice to have, I don't think lack of an "ace" better than Maeda is a big issue. Unfortunately, the 0-18 thing isn't so easily explained by any one factor!
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    That's fair. I joined the discussion late and it appears the stronger statements about Maeda were from others originally.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    Looks like Fangraphs projections are clustered right around 3 WAR for Maeda in 2021. And by bWAR in 2020, taking opponent offense quality into account to some degree, Maeda would have been a ~4.5 bWAR pitcher over 33 starts. So maybe 3-4 bWAR is a good range to expect in 2021?
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    None of those stats/metrics/measurements account for the extreme unbalanced schedule of 2020, though. The central division teams exclusively played each other, and featured many of the worst hitting clubs in the game. Check out RA9opp (Opponents' Runs Scored Per 9 Innings) at B-Ref. For the two central divisions, it was 4.38. For the rest of MLB, it was 5.13. And I don't think the central division pitchers were *that* much better than their east and west counterparts to explain that huge gap! That's not to say Bauer, Maeda, Bieber, Darvish, etc. are bad pitchers, of course, or that they're no better than Keuchel or Kwang Hyun Kim (central division starters with 1.99 and 1.62 ERAs in 2020, respectively), or that they didn't make real improvements in 2020. But I think we have to take their 2020 performances with a healthy grain of salt right now.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    I'm not so sure. Beltran and Machado are going to be much more valuable at age 23-24 under this proposed system, than they are at age 25-27 under the current system. Hence, low-revenue teams will have less incentive to trade them, and/or the ability to demand greater trade returns.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    Agreed that there would have to be give-and-take, but Service Time Manipulation primarily just affects a small subset of players, with Bryant being the poster boy. I think any proposal that pushes free agency way back for members of that high-profile subgroup is probably a non-starter.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    With hard caps on draft and international spending, there's no real benefit to doing that anymore. You could prefer 18 year old high school draftees to 21 year old college draftees, I suppose (and I'm sure some teams already do in some situations), but most of those high school guys aren't going to contribute much in MLB before age 23 anyway. And this ignores your point about extended arbitration. Yes, drafting a 22 year old Brent Rooker gets you fewer years of control if he's a free agent at age 29, but with fewer opportunities for arbitration, they're potentially cheaper overall. And his pre-arb years will be closer to his projected "prime" age seasons.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    Both Hill and Bailey were signed well before we acquired Maeda. (And Hill wasn’t going to require a rotation or roster spot until midseason.)
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Bryant will be a free agent 8.5 years after signing. The best players aren’t always using all of their options or minor league years.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    And your proposal suggests it should be pushed back to age 32?
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    I like the idea, although I agree with the others that these particular parameters seem harsh on college draftees. Maybe just make it universally age-based, so free agency at age 29?
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Thanks, this actually makes more sense than what Reusse said! Reusse described Dozier as "a player who in a former time would have been signing a contract extension in the spring of 2018 to stick around into the next decade at sizable dollars". I'm sure a few guys did this, but I don't think this was ever the general rule -- the Twins certainly didn't sign a lot of extensions like that, and we weren't unique in that regard. Plenty of Dozier-like veterans still reached free agency every winter, where their most recent production was a big (now declining) factor in their next contract. Dozier just had the unfortunate timing of having a mediocre walk year. Jack's point is a little more interesting. Perhaps in a past era, the Twins would have been more willing to pony up for a 5th year or an option on his original contract. Although another factor is the qualifying offer, which was much closer to a "5th year option" for the Twins than past free agency compensation schemes. And on the player side, once they've secured ~$20 mil or whatever, it's still probably not a bad idea to put a high price on that extra year, as a good walk year can still pay off pretty well (if not quite as well as in the past). At the very least, it can get the QO out of the way a little earlier, which can broaden their market.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    An illustration of how much we overpaid: Rauch was a few years older but largely the same pitcher in terms of 2010/career performance as Capps (see my previous post). We got 1+ years of team control of Rauch during the 2009 August waiver trade period for basically nothing (sorry, Kevin Mulvey!). During those 1+ years, we paid Rauch about $3.5 mil in salary. To get 1+ years of team control of Capps in 2010, we gave up Ramos (MLB-ready catcher prospect, #58 on BA's preseason list) AND we had to pay Capps over $8 mil for his services during that time. Now, they were both useful pitchers in 2010 and there's nothing wrong with having useful pitchers, and not every useful pitcher can be acquired as cheaply as another, but that wide gulf in cost is problematic. Heck, a month after we got Capps, we got Brian Fuentes for basically nothing too (sorry, Loek Van Mil!). Fuentes was near the end of his line but still quite useful -- 11 games, 12.1 shutout innings for his Twins career -- and only cost us about $1.5 mil for the month/playoffs.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    An opinion supported by what? Here's a fun game -- see if you can distinguish between Rauch and Capps' 2010 overall stat lines: 3.12 RA9, 2.94 FIP, 1.301 WHIP, 9.5 H/9, 0.5 HR/9, 2.2 BB/9, 7.2 K/9 3.33 RA9, 3.23 FIP, 1.260 WHIP, 9.2 H/9, 0.7 HR/9, 2.1 BB/9, 7.3 K/9 Your opinion is that one of those pitchers may have been 6+ wins worse than the other, over a two month span? Their relief careers 2005-2010 look similarly interchangeable: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=rel&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2010&month=0&season1=2005&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=4788,1475&startdate=&enddate=
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    All that said, Ramos wasn't really good enough with Washington to make this super-regrettable, although our organization was exposed as embarrassingly thin at catcher, just a few baseball months after trading him, so that was kinda bad. Then Ramos went on to have arguably his best year in 2016, still under team control, the exact same season where we swapped Aaron HIcks for John Ryan Murphy to shore up our catching...
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    Happ is a decent pitcher, and every team needs those on its staff -- but it's worth noting how little the Yankees regarded Happ in the postseason (and how much Happ's own performance reinforced that). The Yankees played 21 postseason games over Happ's 3 seasons there, and Happ only got 1 start (for 2 innings). Only 4 relief appearances too, suggesting he may have been somewhere around 7th or 8th on the bullpen depth chart. All of this while Happ was fully healthy, and the rest of the staff often had notable limitations and absences. Happ's postseason line with the Yankees: 5 G, 8.1 IP, 11 H, 10 ER, 6 BB, 7 K, 4 HR, 10.80 ERA
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    I'm not so sure about that. I'd say the pre-Capps bullpen wasn't that far behind the post-Morneau lineup, or the fully healthy rotation which featured Brian Duensing as our third starter in the postseason.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    There is no evidence to support that latter claim, Seth. On the surface, it seems doubtful, since we won the division by 6 games and Capps, while good, was still just 2 months of a mostly 1-inning reliever, whose numbers weren't appreciably different than the guy he bumped down the depth chart (Rauch). But it actually looks worse when you examine it closely. Our only real competitor for the playoffs late that season was the White Sox, and indeed we were 1.5 games behind them when we acquired Capps. Maybe Capps' performance against the White Sox was responsible for our turnaround? Nope -- here's Capps first 4 games as a Twins against them: 1. the last inning of a 5-run loss 2. the last inning of a 5-run win 3. blown save, we still won in extras (Jim Thome game) 4. gave up a run in the 9th, putting the tying run in scoring position, but escaped with a save At this point, the Twins had already opened up a 5-game lead on the White Sox and were already in the driver's seat in the division -- the lead would never be smaller than 3.5 after that, and in fact grew to as many as 12 games in mid-September as the White Sox spiraled downward. Maybe Capps was clutch in our other games, to get to that point? Not really -- in his first 7 save opportunities for the Twins, Capps actually allowed runs in 4 of them. Only one of those outings was a scoreless 1-run save, and he only came into a tied game once in that period too. He wasn't bad or anything, but there just wasn't the opportunity or performance for him to be considered a main factor behind our 7-game swing in the standings over 3 weeks.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    538 pegs our playoff odds at 2% now. Our only scenario requires us to win 2, Arizona to lose 2, and the Bears to lose at least 1. Sounds unlikely, and is unlikely -- but not impossible! The biggest hurdle will actually be the first one, this Friday (Christmas Day) -- Vikings at Saints. Saints are 82% likely to win that game, per 538. If we can pull off that upset, our playoff odds improve to 10%. The next biggest hurdle would be the following day, Saturday -- Arizona is 66% to win at home vs 49ers. If the 49ers can pull off that upset too, the Vikings would be back to 33% playoff odds -- basically the same as the Cardinals and Bears at that point. (Bears would get a little edge if they beat the Jaguars as expected this weekend, though.) The rest of the forecasted outcomes are currently favorable to the Vikings -- in week 17, the Bears are 65% to lose vs Green Bay, Arizona is 61% to lose on the road to the Rams, and the Vikings are 64% to win vs the Lions.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    Romero had a 4th option for 2020. The criteria is objective and fairly clear. I suspect we simply don’t hear it announced sometimes if it isn’t relevant (like Romero wasn’t even active, or Kepler in 2017 was in no danger of being sent down). And since he wasn’t even on an active roster for the entirety of 2020, it should carry over to 2021 regardless of if/how MLB counts 2020 as a full active season.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    There's not much creativity in the original DH rule itself, of course! But pitchers were so bad at hitting that many didn't care. If the smart/creative path within the current rules is a less entertaining product to watch, we don't necessarily have to accept it going forward. Like pre-shot clock basketball. (Of course, I don't think this rule proposal is the best way forward either, but I thought it was interesting to consider. There should be easier ways to reduce K's and increase balls in play again.)
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    Romero should have an option remaining in 2021. You have to spend 20 days during the season on optional assignment to burn an option year, and Romero didn't do that in 2020. In fact, he was never even optioned, because he was never active -- he went straight onto the restricted list back in March and stayed there all year. I suspect players who opted out in time will also keep the option year they otherwise would have expended in 2020. Michael Kopech of the White Sox, for example -- he was optioned in March but he was placed on the restricted list in July before any games were played, so I don't think his 20 day count ever started.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    For sale: 1 robe, lightly used. No COVID exposure, but has a light smell of postseason failure.
×
×
  • Create New...