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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    That would be fun to see. Add Buehrle, cut Danks?
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    Who are some other left handed relievers that you'd be comfortable with in the 8th or 9th innings, below Smith, Perkins, and vintage Thornton? Bastardo? Not sure why you use the term "floor", it rather seems like you are describing his reliever upside when you are invoking names like Smith, Perkins, and vintage Thornton. Those guys are/were 11-12 K/9 all-star setup men and closers. Unless you honestly think his upside is all-time great like Chapman or Miller, in which case his #9 rank seems WAY too low.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    FYI, by that criteria, John Hicks is also still eligible. Given that he is only a year older than Garver, has already reached MLB with apparently well regarded defense, and has also matched Garver's offensive performance in AFL, I might have expected him in your expansive honorable mention list.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Jay seems too low on your list based on your own comments. "Floor appears to be a dominant left-handed reliever with the best slider in the organization" but you have him 9th? Just ahead of Walker, and behind Polanco, Burdi, Gonsalves, and Park? You must think Jay has near zero potential to start or something, to rank him that low with that floor. For clarification, what exactly do you mean by "dominant left-handed reliever"? Is there a MLB comp for what you call Jay's floor?
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    Is there a source that updates those numbers year to year? Kepler is still listed at 205 everywhere.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't know about the willowy part, but Kepler has definitely been a doubles/triples guy in the minors. Not unlike Aaron Hicks' minor league power numbers, although he did rack up doubles/triples at a pretty high rate last year.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    The way the lineups performed in 2015, Sano and Abreu were probably equally important to their clubs. Buxton could lessen that, of course, as could Park, but those two are fairly big question marks for 2016 in their own right.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't know if Latos, Danks, and Johnson are that much worse than Duffey, Milone, and Nolasco (our commonly projected 4-6 right now). Latos has the upside, Danks brings the health (although that could be a bad thing given his performance!), and Johnson has a 96 ERA+ across 3 seasons, and had a great bounceback campaign at AAA last year. Of course, I am a bit more pessimistic on Duffey as a starter than most around here (looking at his 2nd and 3rd time through the order splits). Your "deep reserve" of Dean, Darnell, and Rogers frankly isn't all that different than what the Sox have in deep reserve too, all basically replacement level. I don't see the Twins taking May out of the pen this year, so that leaves Berrios as the biggest difference, which is slightly neutralized by likely being 7th on the depth chart and not on the 40-man roster yet. It would obviously hurt the Sox a lot to lose one of their top 3, but I don't see the Twins depth mattering all that much in that calculation. I wouldn't be on any group of 3 pitchers staying healthy for 6 months, but Sale has only missed about 5 starts in 4 seasons. Quintana hasn't missed any. Rodon has the makings of a workhorse too. Hughes and Milone might have the biggest health/durability question marks of either team's top 5 right now (assuming Latos is #6 per the MLB.com depth chart).
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    I just read a better mind than me say that 6 wins off actually may not be bad, given all the variables involved: "Even if you had perfect information about playing time and performance level of every player the standard error on team level projections can't be lower than 5-6 wins." http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/newsstand/discussion/pecota_hates_the_royals_part_ii/#5157584
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    No, you're right. The Twins have depth, and more than the Sox at most spots. I don't disagree there. It's just been referenced as a "huge" advantage, but that doesn't seem to hold up on closer inspection.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    This is true. Back then, posters here claimed our rotation would be OK but they were pretty much just stretching and squinting at the same 5 guys the rest of us were worried about. There wasn't really 7-8 guys in the mix like today.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    The Twins could have just as much trouble replacing Sano, and while their rotation is deeper, I'm not sure it's that much deeper to make a huge difference. Judging by current projected rosters, if a Twins starter went down early, Nolasco probably takes his place. At some point that should be Berrios which would be great, although I think there is a decent chance he might be needed to help cover Duffey's sophomore slump instead. Aside from them, our depth is May who probably isn't moving from the pen (they seem to have built it around him), and then Dean and Rogers. Meyer is an interesting wild card, but you probably can't count on him as rotation depth right now. The White Sox depth chart currently has Latos at #6, and it looks like they have a few guys who could approximate Dean and Rogers likely starting contributions (Carroll, Beck, etc.). EDIT TO ADD: They also have Carson Fullmer and have shown a willingness to promote aggressively. Not great, but in practical terms, I'm not sure it's likely to be a huge difference.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    All I've heard this winter is how bad it is to sign FA relievers, not sure why we'd do that for Jepsen. If they wanted a 30 something FA reliever beyond 2016, seems like the smart thing would have been to sign one this winter, let him overlap with Jepsen in 2016 while the kids work their way up, and let a youngster replace Jepsen in 2017.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    Adam Eaton, who played 153 games last season? And who has played a similar number in 3 of his 5 full pro seasons to date? Is there something I am missing about him?
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Hmmm... I don't read USA Today. I haven't gotten that impression. I've heard about the White Sox having a good offseason before, but more just about improving their team, not "running away with the division."
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    Doesn't seem that overlooked, the words depth/deep have already been mentioned a few times in this thread, in reference to a Twins advantage over the White Sox. That said, we also shouldn't overrate the advantage of depth. The Twins had better rotation depth in 2015 too, but their rotation performance still trailed that of the White Sox. Just one of Sale, Quintana, or perhaps even Rodon pitching up to expectations probably neutralizes any wins gained by depth there, that's the power of star level talent. Position players are a different story, with Sano in the fold, the Twins might very well match the White Sox for plus talent on that side of the ball. It's a pretty close match, which should make things interesting!
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Who's freaking out? Fangraphs projects the White Sox at 81 wins right now, and the Twins at 78 but with 2-3 top 30 prospects breaking in. That's about as even as you can get. Heck, our whole division is about as even as you can get. And that pretty much mirrors the more pessimistic comments here so far. EDIT: PECOTA has the Indians at 92 wins. That seems like the closest thing to a fan/projection freak out in the AL Central right now.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    What's to call bull on? BABIP is among the factors to consider when trying to project future performance from past performance. There's nothing controversial about that, I am sure teams use it all the time. If you are just looking for a "stat geek" thing to pick on, there are a lot better targets than this application of BABIP.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    I'd probably take our pair too, but projecting 2016 involves a lot more than looking at 2015 stats. Cabrera and LaRoche are both just a year removed from ~125 OPS+ seasons.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Barring injury (part of an useful definition of floor), elite prospects will almost always at least reach MLB. And the closer to MLB they are, like Berrios, the more likely they are to get extended MLB reps in the very near future. Jay and Stewart, though, I agree. They're not particularly close to elite or close to MLB right now, although the potential/pedigree is there.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    No, I had the same thought. (Of course, I am known for picking nits. ) Even putting aside injury risk, it's very hard to put a MLB floor on pitchers in A-ball who still have massive adjustments to make like Stewart and Jay. I think you pretty much have to be an elite prospect/performer in A-ball to get any kind MLB floor. Although, to be fair, "long reliever" floor from the article isn't that high, with as fleeting as long reliever careers can be, it could be interpreted as just a cup of coffee, which is probably a fair floor given their draft pedigree. Seth's "dominant reliever" floor comment is way too high, though -- Jay has 18 pro innings at A-ball and wasn't especially dominant in them yet either. He's definitely a good prospect, but it is just WAY too early to give him that kind of a floor.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    Again, you're back to repeating that statement without accounting for its context, not sure why.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    You could check it yourself, if you want. Perkins only had 21 games last year where he exceeded 15 pitches. http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.cgi?id=perkigl01&t=p&year=2015#pitching_gamelogs::21 Just eyeing some of those, his blown save against the Yankees, he gave up a HR to A-Rod on his first pitch, 2 singles, and then the 3 run HR to Murphy on his 14th pitch. Another loss to the Yankees, doubles to Bird and McCann on his 1st and 5th pitches, respectively. HR to Kang vs the Pirates on his 8th pitch. HR to Colabello vs the Blue Jays on his 8th pitch. HR to Cruz vs the Mariners on his 11th pitch. The bloop single to blow the save vs Oakland on his 12th pitch. Late season, double to Castellanos of the Tigers on his first pitch, then HR to Rajai Davis on his 18th pitch. Of course, he was probably struggling much earlier than that, allowing the Davis at-bat to reach 8 pitches. You might be on to something with progressively losing velocity and movement, but I don't think you will find it in a neat pattern with pitch count and results. I wonder if some of the PitchFX data might be better?
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    No one is taking them out of the equation in determining the player's overall contributions or value. It's only taking them out to help answer a very specific question: how likely is it that this player can repeat the portion of his contributions/value derived from batting average? Success due to BABIP has less predicting power than success via walks, limiting strikeouts, or home runs. A ton of Santana's success in 2014 was due to BABIP. Thus, it was very relevant in projecting his performance for 2015. Had Santana drawn more walks, struck out fewer times, or hit more home runs in 2014, his chances for success in 2015 would have been much better.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    That post was a response to a quoted statement "We do not need the traditional LOOGY - we have Perkins." Given that context, plus the additional observations that "the slider not being sharp against LHBs and the FB losing a couple ticks", the statement "Perkins can't get lefties out" could just as easily be interpreted as "Perkins hasn't demonstrated a reliable ability to get lefties out lately." I certainly didn't interpret that post as such an absolute conclusion based only on stats.
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