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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    I see the other side of it too -- having a relief ace available every game is a nice weapon, but in practical terms it's unlikely to work out that well. A starter is always a factor -- a reliever may or may not be, due to circumstances entirely out of his control. In the conference tournament this year, which Illinois entered as the #1 seed, they went 2-2 and lost in the semifinals, with Jay making only 2 appearances in 4 games -- a 1 inning, 1 run save, and the last 1.1 innings of the final game (a 2-run loss). In the regional tournament, Jay appeared only once and it was impressive (4 shutout innings) but it ultimately wasn't critical as they swept their double-elimination bracket in 3 games. In the super regional, they lost 13-0 in the opener to face elimination. Then, in the elimination game, they asked Jay to make only his second career start (his first being a non conference tune-up on Feb. 15), and asked him to pitch a career high 6.1 innings. And he lost it by giving up 5 hits and the 2 go-ahead runs in the 6th and 7th inning, before departing with 1 out and 2 runners on in the 7th. It doesn't look like the greatest management of resources.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    One of the Illinois starters only had a 2.4 K/BB ratio this past season (although he also pitched 5 games in relief). That same starter also led the team in unearned runs allowed, which would have raised his ERA by more than a full run -- and he lost the semifinal game knocking them out of the conference tournament (after being the #1 seed) by allowing 5 unearned runs (a game Tyler Jay mopped up in). Another starter gave up 7 runs in 4 innings to lose their super-regional opener, before they turned to Tyler to start the next game facing elimination (where he lost, giving up 10 hits and 4 runs in 6.1 innings). Looks like a team that could have benefitted from developing and deploying another SP ace, if they had one available. And why was Jay relegated to the bullpen the previous season? Looks like that team gave 16 starts to league average or worse pitchers, finished in 3rd place, and lost in the 2nd round of the Big Ten tournament, thanks to a blowup by other relievers in the 8th inning. Again, not a result that looks particularly smart if they kept one of the best pitchers in the nation in reserve.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't think that's really what the author is suggesting here. Just that Correa was probably the most similar prospect to Buxton in terms of age/level/rank, and his promotion likely means that Buxton won't be far behind. It's just a matter of time, and that time might be short. By Baseball America, 4 of their top 6 prospects have already made their MLB debuts in 2015, the only holdouts being Buxton and Seager (who has spent most the year in AAA). Of their top 12 position player prospects, only Buxton, Sano, and 2013 draftee JP Crawford have yet to even play in AAA.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Does anybody have a list of successful college reliever to MLB starter conversions? Honest question, I just don't know.
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    I think someone else referenced this upthread, but apparently the Illinois coach wanted to use Jay more frequently, which is why he was in the bullpen. His team did have a few pretty good starters, and Jay pitched almost as many innings this year as their 3-4 starters. That said, he was pretty clearly the best pitcher on the team, especially in their previous season.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    Springer had almost double Walker's minor league BB rate (12.5% vs 6.9%). Despite some similarities in K% and ISO, I think Springer was a very different type of hitter. (And player overall -- Springer also stole bases at over 4x the rate of Walker, with a better success rate, and played CF throughout his minor league career. By my estimate, Springer also tops Walker in career MILB wRC+ 155 to 124.) Steven Moya might be an interesting current comp? Walker's minor league offensive performance to date is actually not unlike Arcia's MLB offensive performance to date. Similar BB%, K%, BABIP, AVG/OBP, although generally much more SLG/ISO. It will be interesting to see how that translates to AAA and MLB -- if it can hold, with solid defense, he could be a useful piece.
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    Probably just luck.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    Why can't folks simply disagree? Just like the recent Cameron thread, generally these "national writers" are not unaware of what we see as major factors behind the Twins success/projection, they simply disagree with them. There's nothing wrong with disagreement. You don't always have to characterize the person you're disagreeing with as having some failure of effort (i.e. not watching every game).
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    But if it only a surplus because we are stuck with an underperforming and untradeable vet at 1B, that's not as good of a problem.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    That struck me as an odd juxtaposition too. I also don't like the general attitude that certain opinions are invalid simply because the experiences behind them aren't identical to yours. I see that attitude used to justify a lot of unjustifiable things far too often, not that TR is employing it for those ends here. But I feel like he would make similar defensive statements even if the Twins record matched the underlying stats, or if the opinion was from a local scribe or a fan here who indeed had watched the team a lot, so how meaningful are these statements, really? And what's wrong with being humble? If a national writer says the Twins are all luck and are likely to be the worst in the league going forward, obviously disagree with that, but say that there are certainly areas where we need to improve to stay on top -- after all, that is simply what much of the recent stat analysis is saying. Then say we feel like we are addressing them and already seeing evidence of improvement. All that said, I am enjoying the ride and discussing all facets of it. Just not necessarily the "us vs the haters" type mentality on display here.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    This is a misuse of defensive metrics. Tulo has been solidly above average by both metrics in the past, no reason to throw that out for a 2 month sample. Still wouldn't endorse a trade, though.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    Again, I don't think that is particularly likely. Arcia has 850 MLB PA at or above that level of production, it wasn't some small sample fluke.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    According to B-Ref, Mauer's OPS started with a 5 after 55 PA. Arcia's last did so after 54 PA. And it's not like a .700-something OPS was a fluke for Arcia, he has been in the range each of the last two seasons, over 850 PA. And unfortunately, Mauer is right there with him over his past 720 PA and he hasn't been trending up.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    And Mauer raised his 130 points over 6 games the same week. Point being?
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    I don't know if sustaining a .720 OPS at an offense first position is really an advantage, though.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    "Very attractive" in that someone might take him off our hands and pay his remaining salary, but at this point, it's doubtful anyone would surrender much in the way of a meaningful prospect to rent Pelfrey for 2 months. Much like how the Dodgers gave up three guys for Nolasco two years ago, all 3 of which were DFA'd within a year, I think. If we're anywhere near contention, and Pelfrey is still managing decent results, he will probably be more useful to us in August and September than as deadline trade bait.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Why aren't fans allowed to vote for pitchers? Seems strange, especially now that they employ all sorts of mechanisms for selecting alternates anyway (so no problem if fans elect the SP who pitched two days earlier). You don't have to have each fan fill a 10 or 12-man staff this way, but I see no harm in letting fans vote for one SP and one RP from each league, just like they do for the starting 9. Then take the top 3 vote-getters from each category and fill in the rest like they do with alternates and bench players.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    Yup. 16 days: http://www.twincities.com/sports/ci_27844942/twins-ervin-santana-suspended-80-games-after-testing
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    Milone himself had fairly eye-popping numbers in AAA four years ago. If he can parlay that into 100 ERA+ seasons again like he had in Oakland, he probably should be in our top 5.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Also, it should be noted that Durham (Milone's opponent last night) is second worst in the IL in batter K's. Milone struck out Corey Brown alone 4 times, and he's a LHB with a career ~30% K rate in AAA. (Another pair came against JP Arencibia.) His previous two opponents are both in the bottom half of the league by total batter K's too.
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    That said, if they think Milone could reliably deliver 6 IP per start with a 100 ERA+, as he did in Oakland, it might be good to swap him into the rotation for someone. Pelfrey to the bullpen, pushing out a scuffling reliever, is probably the best use of resources at the moment -- see if Pelf can become a more consistent plus contributor out of the pen, and further develop May (who probably doesn't have a whole lot to gain with more AAA time, given his ceiling probably isn't much higher than Milone's, honestly).
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    Honestly, Milone's current AAA performance is more or less what you should expect from a healthy 28 year old with almost 100 MLB starts and who excelled in this same league four years ago (1.0 BB/9, 9.4 K/9, 2.28 FIP). I guess it is encouraging to know that he's healthy, but I don't we can expect him to be significantly improved upon his return to MLB, or suddenly more able to fill a bullpen role.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    Also, according to B-Ref, he will be just the second high schooler from the 2012 draft to make it to MLB (Addison Russell was the first, just last month).
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    He is a RHP, and it is to start initially. He's had a very good AA debut this season, Berrios-type numbers.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    On the Buxton-Correa front, the Astros are promoting one of their 2012 over-slot draft signings Lance McCullers Jr to MLB, direct from AA (after a shaky season at high-A last year): http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/05/astros-to-promote-lance-mccullers-jr.html
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