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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    There are 30 teams, 15 with the DH. I don't think you can count on getting a dangerous bat every offseason on a one-year commitment. Some years you'll get Nelson Cruz, some years Logan Morrison, some years not even that.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Didn't the Twins sign Marwin at basically the same point they signed Morrison last year? I think both chemistry and ST are more convenient excuses than they are vital concerns. (Not that you shouldn't aim for good chemistry and ST readiness too, but ultimately I think these moves can be fairly judged based on talent/evaluation.)
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    Don't these two statements contradict each other somewhat? Lance Lynn turned out to be a pretty marginal pitcher/signing last year.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    That money is pocket change to the Twins. I think service time while on the MLB DL is a potentially bigger concern -- a pitching prospect on the 40-man who hurts his elbow in big league camp could get a year of service time just for surgery and rehab. Although even that's probably not a big deal for Stewart/Vasquez level prospects. Probably just clearing opportunities for those more likely to make the team. (And it appears they want Stewart to start in AAA rather than compete for the MLB pen right now.)
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    A player has to spend 20 MLB regular season days on optional assignment in order to burn an option year. So yes, this could effectively be "undone" anytime between now and April 15th or so. Stewart and Vasquez each have all 3 of their option years remaining at this point, though, so I don't think it's much of a concern.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    I hope you mean more funny articles, and not more articles with "injury" in the title!
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    Warning: the gods won't necessarily hold up their end of the deal either. Like when we traded Aaron Hicks to the devil, and he promised an MLB catcher in return...
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    The gods demand more than a 40-man roster spot!
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    If Astudillo gets hurt, I don't think the fans here could take it, so don't tell us. Just tell us that he's much happier now playing at a farm with other tortugas.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    FWIW, Thome was under the Bill Smith regime...
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    You can't make a QO to a player you had for less than a full season. Hence why the Dodgers couldn't extend a QO to Machado this winter.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    No. The $50 mil threshold only applies to what level of comp pick his old team receives. The signing team gives up the same pick regardless.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    I think what you are claiming is more or less "garbage in, garbage out" which I addressed in my post. I'm not sure how you think defensive metrics are calculated, but the foundation of them is stringers recording what actually happened. Is there some subjectivity involved? Sure -- I remember one issue was classifying fly balls vs liners (Statcast can help with that now). But that doesn't mean the data is worthless. There's subjectivity in scouting too but that data isn't worthless, and can gain some reliability if you get a large enough sample.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Granite was DFA'd to add Marwin Gonzalez. So the 40-man is still full.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Yup. And I'm also comfortable saying that defensive stats (at least as we know them right now) can probably never take on the same meaningfulness as their offensive counterparts. Most notably, whereas K and BB rates might stabilize around 150 PA or whatever, once you're looking at 3 years of defensive stats, you essentially have to start accounting for age too, not to mention other factors (coaching and personnel changes?). That's not to say that they're meaningless, or fully unreliable. Maybe the conclusions drawn from them have to be a little less specific. Maybe they have more value looking backward than forward, etc.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    Hopefully this story eventually diverges from Pipp-Gehrig, though! *dark humor warning* Astudillo, 2033: "Today, I consider myself, the luckiest tortuga on the face of the earth..."
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Isn't this a pretty foundational concept of statistics? That the larger the sample, the more reliable it can be? 1000 plate appearances doesn't have the exact same reliability as each 10 PA chunk. Collectively, it basically sums the meager reliability of each of those small samples, and after awhile, it has meaningfully more reliability. You're never going to reach perfect 100% reliability in this field, and where you draw the line at "reliable enough" can be a little fuzzy/subjective/context-dependent, but the basic idea that a larger sample (3 seasons of defensive data) is more reliable than a smaller sample (1 season) is certainly true. Edit: obviously if you're measuring something meaningless, you're never going to get a meaningful conclusion no matter how large the measurement sample. "Garbage in, garbage out" as they say. But I don't think it's fair to characterize the inputs of defensive metrics as meaningless, as imperfect as they might be. Even without Statcast, the inputs are basically just recorded scouting observations -- the location of the ball, the position of the fielder, the result of the play, etc. It's less reliable than offensive measurement, which is why we have the "three season" rule of thumb, but it's not meaningless.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    These numbers make sense, because Sano hasn't been that good yet. Here are his bWAR totals: 2015: 2.3 2016: 0.7 2017: 2.5 2018: -0.5 Granted, those are all partial seasons, to some extent, but they are all within a range where they can easily be wiped out by other factors on the roster, and they won't be readily apparent in our overall W-L records. Where it hurts the Twins is that Sano has more *potential* for a 4-5 WAR season than a lot of other guys on the roster, so we're losing some of our upside odds. But we can absolutely stay in the range of our 83 win median projection in 2019, with or without Sano (I think Fangraphs projected Sano at 2.4 WAR for a full season at 3B).
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    I think you could put Astudillo at 3B, and move Marwin over to 2B/SS when those guys need a day off. But I agree, I suspect Adrianza will stick around.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    But then we're just letting the millenials win! How about this compromise: just play an instrumental version on the ballpark organ?
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    First of all, it's SHERYL Crow, and c'mon! If not P.P. Arnold (the original performer), then Cat Stevens (the songwriter). Sheryl Crow's version is barely ahead of Rod Stewart's. And both of those might be behind Swedish rap, ragga and dancehall musician Papa Dee's version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7Kd7VvkEG0
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    Has JoJo not performed a version of this song?
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    Which version? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo__EIXzAco
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    How many hotel rooms usually get occupied during an early April MLB series in Minneapolis? Even if it was the home opener, I suspect most of those fans are local (and if fewer out of town fans came, local fans would buy those tickets instead). And for a whole week? The Final Four is Saturday and Monday. Even for the Super Bowl, I don't think Atlanta hotels filled up until a couple days before. I could see an argument for sending the Twins on road Thursday until Sunday, with Monday off, but I really don't see why they need to be on the road from the *previous* Tuesday through the *following* Thursday. (Not that any of those dates forecast appreciably different weather from March 28.)
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    I'm not so sure. A lot of folks were already applauding the Gonzalez move because he was going to fill in all over. Now it's brilliant because he's going to be our primary 3B instead? Wouldn't that sap some of his perceived super-sub value? Not that it means the Gonzalez deal is bad or anything. In fact, I argued at the time he was as much Sano insurance as a supersub, and that wasn't a bad thing.
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