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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    I think you can pencil it in -- that's why pencils have erasers, my friend. Seriously, we're talking about single season projections. There are so many qualifiers to all of them that a generic "+5% TJ risk" or whatever in any random season due to pitching mechanics is pretty trivial when you are talking about a guy who is presently in good health and made his last 22 starts last year (and was superb in them). Now, if you want to say the White Sox can't count on an annual 5 WAR from Sale over the next 5+ years, I agree. But I would agree to almost the same degree for any pitcher of that level.
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    I am no pitching mechanics expert, so you may have a point on Sale, but this data does nothing to convince me. You've already cited Scherzer as a high risk in an above post, and now you're citing Adam Wainright, CJ Wilson, and AJ Burnett? These guys have proven to be some of the most durable in the league. You've got a long ways to go if you want to convince me that this pitching style is notably more prone to serious injury than the pitching population as a whole. At best, you might be looking at a couple percent increase in Sale's injury chances based on this alone, which is probably dwarfed by countless other factors.
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    Craig Kimbrel has never had TJ surgery, so your list is down to 1 in 10 over 3 years... or almost exactly equal to your guesstimate 3.3%. And that list was published May 10, 2012. Here are the number of regular season days missed due to ANY injury by each of those pitchers since that date (according to Baseball Prospectus): Mitchell Boggs - 2 (lower back) Kelvin Herrera - 0 Craig Kimbrel - 6 Tim Lincecum - 1 (general illness) Carlos Marmol - 22 (thigh) Jason Motte - 262 (230 due to TJ surgery) Pat Neshek - 0 Chris Sale - 62 Max Scherzer - 22 (13 arm) Jordan Walden - 123 (58 arm) So out of ~5000 regular season days since then, these guys missed 500 days due to injury (and only 369 due to arm issues), most of it due to the one TJ guy. (Baseball Prospectus didn't note Herrera's sprain, but so far it was just one ALDS game that he missed for it.) Not sure if this proves anything.
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Seems like a small sample. He's got 6.8 K/9 in both his pro seasons as a starter. Below league average K/9 at every stop (save for his 3 starts in Rochester).
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    Sickels has them both C+. Even the Detroit Tigers have 20 C+ or better guys in their system right now, so I'd hardly say these two would be clear top 10's everywhere else.
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    They did just get David Price midseason without giving up prospects. They've also been pretty good about knowing what prospects to deal (i.e. Jacob Turner for Anibal Sanchez a few years ago). Sickels said it well:
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    Escobar didn't suddenly become a good hitter out of nowhere in 2014. He actually hit VERY well at AAA in 2013, showed a much-improved MLB bat in September that year, and also an improved bat in winter league. And his chief improvement (power) was rather consistent through all of those stops. To my knowledge, Hicks has yet to really show any significant incremental improvement like that. Doesn't mean he can't improve in 2015, just that at this point, I feel the odds of it are somewhat lower than Escobar's 2014 improvement. Also, since you bring up minor league records, I think it's important to note that Escobar's core stats (BB%, K%, ISO) didn't change much even when he was struggling in his early MLB days. Hicks on the other hand has seen his K% explode and his ISO plummet. Again, not that he can't recover from it, but it suggests that he needs to make significant adjustments to improve his numbers, as opposed to Escobar who perhaps just needed time more than anything else.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    Ah yes, those halcyon days of Kevin Slowey pitching out of the bullpen. That 2011 rotation proved so solid, the only tweak it needed for 2012 was Jason Marquis!
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    Good point. Prior to Sano (or 2007, if you want to include Arcia etc.), the Twins by their own admission were really under-utilizing Latin America. So when they have a few bad drafts in the 2006-2011 window, it follows that there weren't international prospects ready to pick up the slack, not really until the last year or so. The same combination of busted first rounders and little significant international activity probably stalled the late 1990s rebuild an extra year or two too.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    Also, let's not forget that last year at this time, Alex Presley had a statistically very similar brief Twins audition to Jordan Schafer, and a better MLB track record to boot (league average bat over 821 PA!).
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Not sure if you are aware, but Schafer had over 1000 AB in Atlanta and Houston before coming to Minnesota. And the vast majority of it was not as a bench player -- he didn't hit the bench until he was 26 and in his 4th MLB season, about 900 PA into his career. And he batted .221 with a 66 OPS+ during that time. Actually, his best extended MLB hitting performance was not with the Twins, but rather over the first 3 months of 2013 when the Braves made him a bench player -- he batted .312 during that time, in about the same number of PA that he got with the Twins last year. Which shows how much stats can fluctuate in samples that small. Not suggesting cutting him or anything, but penciling him in as an everyday player would be foolish at this point.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    I think the high OBP and the low AVG/SLG are probably related. His approach lends itself to working a few walks at the expense of good contact. I think we're going to see that OBP drop, either by virtue of Hicks changing his approach or by pitchers increasingly exploiting that contact weakness. I hope its the former, and he recovers enough AVG/SLG to make it worthwhile.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    Agreed on Lawrie, but just noting that Andrew Cashner has come on strong the last two years.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    The Twins had some pretty disappointing first rounds from 1998-2000 too.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Not sure if that's all luck, though. Deron Johnson: "We were probably one of the last few teams that didn't really rely a lot on medical. We've gotten burned over the years."" Link: http://m.1500espn.com/pages/sportswire.php?sID=7534
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    League offense was lower in Hisle's day -- his OPS+ is virtually equal to Mack's (127 vs 130). Hisle graded out overall as a league-average defender in his Twins time, and he was pressed into more CF duty than Mack too. Mack is better, but it's very close by WAR (less than half a win difference per season). But I'm a "big hall" kind of guy, as far as team hall of fames go. I'd support Tovar, Mack, and possibly Hisle too in an effort to represent all eras -- it would make for a fun day and spark a little Twins history discussion. I'd probably draw the line before Guardado and Versailles, though (and definitely before Gladden) -- 5 strong seasons (perhaps more for relievers) with the club seems like a good minimum. Otherwise you may as well induct Jack Morris too.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    I like Battey too. But Tovar had the same number of seasons in Minnesota and basically never missed a game, which is pretty valuable too. The two had similarly valuable bats and gloves, and Tovar added base running value on top of it (Tovar beats Battey in WAR). Tovar even got comparable MVP consideration at the time too. What Tovar is missing is 1965 World Series credit (Tovar was not on the roster, although Battey did not hit well), and all-star appearances and gold gloves, primarily a function of him not having a regular position. Put Tovar at 2B for his whole career and he probably does better in this regard.
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    Totally agree that Shane Mack is/was underrated, but the problem with him in this context is career length. 5 years, even very good years, doesn't quite cut it. Larry Hisle had five very good years for the Twins. Roy Smalley probably had a similar Twins peak. Koskie would safely be in this group too. Wynegar and Castino might be on this bubble. Tapani? Erickson? Tovar has a few more seasons than most of these guys but still might be considered a bit on the short career side. Of course, the bar for the Twins hall of fame looks fairly low. Career length and value wise, Earl Battey is probably no better than Tovar. Gagne and Gaetti too. Zoilo Versalles got there on one season, basically. Guardado certainly didn't raise the bar. Given that, and since the numbers aren't retired or anything, I'd rather go ahead and put these shorter career guys in, rather than having a multi-season drought with no players inducted (or start treading into even more borderline players like Jacque Jones). Dan Gladden would still probably be a very poor choice. His case (5 playing seasons, 2 titles, post-retirement career around the club) isn't all that different than Al Newman.
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    Actually if Meyer spends less than 20 days in AAA, it would count as a full season of MLB service time, regardless of whether he gets 172 days. But yeah, it shouldn't really matter at this point.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Does a 6 man rotation guarantee a 13 man staff, though?
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    Gibson's competition was much weaker by March 2014 than May's will be this spring. Pelfrey and Milone if both healthy, Stauffer, the wildcard of Alex Meyer -- that's a lot tougher to beat than the March 2013 versions of Worley and Diamond (both demoted to AAA the previous summer) and Deduno (recent arm surgery, minor league deal previous year, had been removed from the 40-man just over a year prior). I think we all were WAY too pessimistic about Gibson's chances.
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    I'm generally with you -- May should be the leader to win the job at this point. But I don't think it would be "silly" if he wound up back in AAA. He's older and had a lot of AA innings, but they weren't exactly quality innings. His quality upper minors resume is, as you note, 98 innings long, with some stark and perhaps unsustainable differences from his previous record (just eyeballing, but his BABIP, HR/9, LOB% in that sample were his best in recent memory). He still has a lot to prove, and while I think that proving could be done in MLB right away, he could probably prove a few things with a little more AAA time too if necessary (namely, that those most recent 98 IP are more indicative of his talent going forward than the 300 so-so IP that immediately preceded it). That said, I wouldn't hand Pelfrey the job over him just because of his contract or whatever, but if someone legitimately performs much better than May this spring, I wouldn't be upset if May began the year in AAA.
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    I always thought that Lauder's 1988 All Star appearance must have been entirely patronage by Tom Kelly, but indeed Laudner was one of the better catchers in the league over the first half of 1988. Of course, he was hitting way over his career marks, his playing career effectively over a little more than a year later, and he was also helped by Carlton Fisk being injured and Ernie Whitt, Matt Nokes, and others having poor first halves. The All-Star starter (and eventual MVP, Steinbach) was actually a worse All-Star pick at the time. Eventual Gold Glove winner Bob Boone had a case, as did Don Slaught and Geno Petralli, but Laudner was an acceptable choice.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    MacPhail pretty much inherited the 1987 club. Gladden, Berenguer, and Reardon were the only notably above replacement level guys MacPhail brought in. 1991 was a different story, of course -- he assembled most of that roster. By the time he left in 1994 we were in a pretty bad position.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    So why don't we simply elect players to the HOF while they are active? I think the final career body of work is meant to be an important factor. Other factors disagreeing with this criteria being too important: the 5 year waiting period, up to 10 years of ballot eligibility (formerly 15), and the very-low 5% bar for continued eligibility. And face it: many players in the HOF, including several elected recently, were not considered all-time greats while active (i.e. Blyleven). Or may have been considered such only briefly/erroneously (Rice, Sutter).
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