Otto von Ballpark

Interestingly, Trevor May also met that criteria when he was sent to the bullpen earlier this season (if you round up his 7.95 K/9 at the time). Hope we don't see either him or Duffey in next year's pen!

Actually Sano wasn't called up until 3 weeks after the Super 2 threshold. Might have cost us a win or two during a rough month of June.

I think Graham has already had his quota of ill-advised grand slam opportunities this year.

Nope. Gotta give the 6th starter a rehab start at the MLB level first.

People weren't calling for Achter specifically as much as saying the Twins needed bullpen reinforcements. Barring an acquisition or a starter conversion, Achter was an easy one to try, which they finally did in August and I thought he more or less failed the audition in low-leverage situations. Not sure why he's first out of the pen and stretched multiple innings twice in very winnable games this week. And it's not like that void on our staff is sudden and unexpected either.

Although to be fair, while Escobar's plate record was pedestrian before then, it looks like he made the most important of those adjustments at age 24 in his third season at AAA (arguably his second "season" there by PA, due to a mostly lost age 23 season on MLB benches), which he carried over to MLB that September and even somewhat into winter ball. It wasn't really statistically projectable as you say, but that's the kind of adjustment opportunity that's more plausible for him at that age and level than for Florimon who didn't even appear in AAA until age 25. (Florimon's unusually slow advancement seemed to indicate a decided lack of such potential in the eyes of talent evaluators.) I also just noticed that Escobar had a strong AFL batting line at age 21 before sneaking into BA's top 100 for 2011, primarily for his glove I am sure but again points in his favor. Still, very pleasantly surprised by Escobar at the plate the past 2+ years, and kudos to the Twins for finding him (and finally committing to him!).

Teams generally use 4 starters in the playoffs now anyway, even with the travel days. If a manager wants to stick his neck out and try to ride a horse like Kershaw on 3 days rest, I find that interesting and not a practice worth squashing.

And there you save 2 days. If that's the biggest problem, that the postseason is 2 days too long, it's probably a pretty good setup. It is a different dynamic than a 162 game season, and there's nothing wrong with that. You get to enjoy the 162 game season with 5 man rotations and backup catchers, then you get to enjoy a postseason tournament focused more on aces and starters. As a Twins fan, I am pleased as punch that Allan Anderson and Joe Niekro didn't have to start postseason games in 1991 and 1987.

Don't know about GB data, but his K rate has drops from 18.4% to 11.6% in DP situations (runner on 1st, less than 2 out). His slash line in such situations, .260/.339/.438, .777 OPS, is pretty similar to his overall numbers of .250/.312/.443, .755 OPS.

Even adjusting for opportunity, Plouffe has been bad at DP avoidance this year. He's "delivered" on 24% of DP opportunities, according to John. League average is 11%. More meaningfully, you would want to look at who the baserunners are. Plouffe has hit behind Vargas, then mostly Mauer, and now Sano. I don't know if that is notably worse than who he has hit behind previously, though.

Yeah, I don't mind most of Selig's schedule/postseason changes, except this one (and its cousin interleague play). I really liked seeing league teams more often in the regular season, and enjoyed extra late-night west coast baseball as well as earlier-evening east coast baseball. The interleague novelty, and tons of division "rivalry" games have just never appealed to me.

To MLB's credit, they have eliminated the silly mid-series, non-travel off days in recent years. Again, this has never been done in baseball, dating back to the start of divisional play in 1969. It's not really a matter of sharing stadiums, or even TV (although TV has plenty of control), it's the logistics of trying to plan and carry out major events. You need more than 1 day advance notice to staff a stadium, for example. Imagine the Twins finishing off an ALCS sweep on Oct. 20 this year, knowing they are going to host World Series Game 1... but not yet knowing whether it will be Oct. 23, 24, 25, 26, or 27 (or possibly later, depending on NLCS weather), and only getting 1 day notice when the date is final. It's just not practical. As it is, the Twins already know exactly which days they will host potential games for the entire postseason (aside from weather delays, which they deal with in the regular season too). They can make all of the arrangements now, contingent only on their postseason qualification and advancement (and "if necessary" games are much easier to deal with than "we don't know if OR when the heck this is happening" games). (And yes, I have worked in stadium concessions, so I am the world's foremost expert on this subject )

The one-game playoff doesn't determine the champion, it determines the wild card from two teams, based on their 162 game season record, that gets to participate in the postseason championship tournament. I can't see how the "ruins the integrity" line could logically be drawn between having a wild-card in the postseason, and having two teams play one game to determine the wild-card in the postseason. The 1969 and 1994 postseason realignments were orders of magnitude larger than the 2012 one.

Oh, I haven't forgotten it (or Griffey's throw to the plate -- arg), but in terms of national importance as a factor in adding the wild card game for 2012 as Seth suggested, I think the 2008 tiebreaker's contribution is about zero.

Sure, but there is nothing magic about those dates. The odds of a major snowstorm hitting Minneapolis are about the same on Oct. 27, 31, and Nov. 4. The fact that the postseason has shifted by a week at its most extreme (late season start) since then has not meaningfully increased the chances of cold-weather or snow baseball. You'd probably have to go back to pre-division play (pre-1969), or shorten the regular season, to get a meaningful reduction in the chances of cold-weather or snow baseball. I, for one, would not make that trade. More baseball, please!

Not a fatal flaw, but DP avoidance can certainly be a skill and/or a mark of good performance. At B-Ref right now, Plouffe is 6 runs above average with the bat, but that gets wiped out by him being 2 runs below average on the bases and 4 runs below in DP avoidance. It matters.

And as I mentioned above, a 3 game series completely misses the point of the wild card game. It guarantees a "win or go home" game (actually two, one for each league) every year. Despite having 7 series, the MLB postseason is not immune to droughts of such excitement. 2005-2010, over 6 postseasons, there were only 5 such games, and no more than 1 per year (with none in 2009). Even adding in the 3 tiebreaker games during that time, there was a lot of unmemorable October baseball those years. The excitement of the 2011 regular season finish and postseason showed how exciting (and profitable) those kind of games can be, and I still think that was the primary reason for the change.

I am sure TV has a hand in it, but having a predetermined schedule is actually beneficial to everybody. (Imagine how hard it is to arrange staff to work in the stadium when every future game could occur on one of 4 possible dates, and you won't know which date until maybe 1-2 days beforehand.) It's not new to baseball either -- looking all the way back to 1969, the first year of divisional play, the World Series started 5 days after the conclusion of both LCS's (which were both sweeps). The long layoffs are potentially multiplied with longer playoffs, but there really isn't a practical way to do it otherwise.

The 1991 World Series ended on October 27, and the 2015 World Series -- the latest ever, I think, due in part to a late start to the regular season -- is scheduled to run through Nov. 4. There isn't a meaningful difference in expected/predicted weather between those two dates. Day games might be nice, especially on weekends, although I admit it would be harder for me to watch them on TV. I honestly don't care about the temperature, though -- it's more baseball!

The 2009 game was a contributing factor, perhaps, as well as the Padres-Rockies tiebreaker in 2007, although I think the Twins 2008 tiebreaker is largely forgotten. And note that there wasn't much of a push to add the wild card game before the 2010 or 2011 seasons. I think the primary impetus was the ultra-exciting final day of the 2011 season, with a number of teams in win-or-go-home games. (Although ironically, the drama of that day would have been severely lessened if the wild card game had been in effect that year.) Plus the 2011 World Series game 7, the first of its kind in 9 years, showed again how captivating the "win or go home" game can be. I think MLB wanted to guarantee that kind of a day every year, regardless of how the regular season finished or the rest of the postseason unfolded.

Not necessarily at that frequency. It is a real skill for some players. Relates to speed, contact, GB/FB.... heck, some guys can probably change their approach in DP situations just like they can in sac fly situations.

Logan Darnell still exists, right? I don't mean to bring up Berrios again, but this is another situation where he could have potentially been helpful. (Allowing us a short hook for any scuffling/injured/rehabbing starter.)

Think you are underestimating how much it would push the playoffs back. Right now, they have 3 scheduled days off between the end of the regular season and start of the division series. That covers a day for travel/tiebreakers/weather, a day for the wild card game, and then an extra failsafe day for travel/tiebreakers/weather. Your "best of 3" would take up all 3 days with no allowance for travel/tiebreakers/weather. Short version: it would add 2 games, but it would almost certainly add more than 2 days to the postseason if you want to keep the rest of the postseason schedule intact. And one of those games/days would be "if necessary" which would be a silly way to hold up the rest of the postseason. I think you are generally missing the point of the wildcard game if you think it should be best of 3. That's not a wild card game anymore, that is an extra round of the postseason.

No worries, the 2015 Vikings are just following the 2015 Twins blueprint. Remember that opening week for the Twins?

Not really during the regular season. Davis is clearly the "8th inning guy" rather than a strategically deployed Bullpen Ace as Brock described. Their closer is considered a worse pitcher than their setup guy, but that's more an accident of seniority and isn't uncommon around the league. Of course, KC's "7th inning guys" are so strong right now, it probably doesn't matter all that much to them. But the Bullpen Ace model could benefit teams with a weaker pen, where you don't necessarily want to rely on Fien/Boyer to get critical outs, nor do you want to waste perhaps your only shutdown guy on a lot of garden-variety 9th inning, bases empty save situations.