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Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat – 10/15/18

12:00
Dan Szymborski: Noon: A Time for Chats

12:00
Bear32: Buxton?  What’s going on?

12:01
Dan Szymborski: Well, besides injuries, I don’t have the foggiest clue.

12:01
Jim Leyland Palmer: With taking a step back in his second year and his colossal struggles this postseason, has your outlook on Cody Bellinger changed?

12:02
Dan Szymborski: Tempered slightly (the year, not the small sample of six specific games), but not really changed.

12:02
Dan Szymborski: Nobody thought that 143 OPS+ was a baseline that he’d only go up from. A step back was expected.

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Elegy for ’18 – Philadelphia Phillies

“I love September, especially when we’re in it.”

Willie Stargell

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”

– Albert Camus

“@*%(#*&%.”

— Phillies fans, 9/18

The Setup

What precisely makes a dynasty is a point of some contention. Many believe that, however strong a run a team produces, if that run ends in something less than multiples titles, then the result can’t possibly be considered dynastic. I’m a little more liberal with the term than most, however, and I think the late-00s and early-10s version of the Phillies can rightly be regarded as a dynasty, simply for the length of time for which they remained one of the best clubs in the league. As for championships, they claimed just the one, but it’s also a lot easier to win the World Series when only two teams qualify for the playoffs, as was the case in baseball for a long time.

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Elegy for ’18 – San Francisco Giants

With the Giants’ core likely entering its decline phase, a rebuild may be in the cards.
(Photo: Ian D’Andrea)

Goodnight, moon. Goodnight, even-year World Series wins. Goodnight, bowl of mush. Goodnight, even-year playoff appearances. Goodnight, Jeff Samardzija’s arm…

In 2018, the Giants beat out the Padres in the NL West. Unfortunately, they didn’t do much else.

The Setup

With three World Series championships over the decade and a fourth playoff appearance, it’s hard to have that much pity for the Giants, who have won more than their share of trophies.

Having aggressively spent after the 2015 season, signing Johnny Cueto and Samardzija in free agency just a week apart, the Giants can’t be blamed for lack of effort. The $251 million invested in the team that offseason was third in baseball. And it paid off, too, with Cueto and Samardzija combining for over 400 innings and 8.1 WAR, in addition to Madison Bumgarner, who had yet to start suffering a freak injury at the start of consecutive seasons.

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Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat – 10/8/18

11:59
Dan Szymborski: Noon: A Time for Chats

12:00
Dan Szymborski: Let’s have some fun travelling an hour farther on the road between the cradle and the grave.

12:00
J: Wander Franco: the next Juan Soto?

12:00
Dan Szymborski: How did this Wander Franco meme start?

12:00
Matthew: What teams do you think do the best scouting amatuer talent?

12:01
Dan Szymborski: It’s a difficult question as I’d be judging more results than the individual abilities of the scouts on each team. I’m not as connected with individual scouts, I think that’s a McDongenhagen question.

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Elegy for ’18 – Toronto Blue Jays

The Blue Jays’ future is about to become the Blue Jays’ present.
(Photo: Tricia Hall)

Toronto flirted with contention in the early stages of the season, staying on the edges of the AL East race through the end of April. But then April showers brought May flowers — lilies — to the pitching staff and while the Jays never lost at the amusing rate of the Orioles, the patient was already in rigor mortis by midseason.

The Setup

The Blue Jays had high expectations going into the 2017 season. Not even expectations I can make fun of, given that the ZiPS projection system had them at 87 wins going into the regular season. Even with the benefit of hindsight, it still doesn’t seem like thinking the Jays had a good shot at the playoffs in 2017 was all that ludicrous a proposition.

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Elegy for ’18 – New York Mets

The Mets had expectations coming into the season, but they whiffed on most of them.
(Photo: Arturo Pardavila III)

Some fanbases regard themselves as the best in baseball. Others pride themselves on their ability to hate anything, including Santa Claus. Still others are just a group of eight people cowering in the shadows of a creaky, nightmare-inducing home-run feature. But no fanbase does self-immolation like Mets fans, whose experience is one mostly of mind-numbing frustration peppered by only the occasional highlight.

That staring-into-middle-distance sadness is, of course, justified given the team’s history — and, more relevant to this post, the ups and downs and ups of 2018.

The Setup

New York’s 70-92 record in 2017, during which almost everything went wrong, was bleak enough to obscure the club’s recent success, including a World Series appearance in 2015 and return to playoffs in 2016.

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Elegy for ’18 – Minnesota Twins

It was a rough season for the former No. 1 pick, but the talent remains clear.
(Photo: Andy Witchger)

With nothing expected of the majority of the AL Central teams in 2018, the Twins were the main hope for making Cleveland’s season inconvenient. Like a Star Wars prequel, this new hope failed to materialize in a satisfying way.

The Setup

The Twins were one of the more successful regular-season teams in baseball during the aughts, making the playoffs in six of nine seasons, but also going 6-21 in the actual postseason. With the core of the team fading quickly after 2010, Minnesota spent several years wandering around as one of baseball’s few remaining (relatively) “pure” old-school franchises.

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Elegy for ’18 – Los Angeles Angels

Mike Trout isn’t merely the face of the franchise, but the back of it, too.
(Photo: Ian D’Andrea)

Thanks to the feats of the Astros and AL Wild Card winners, we get to a legitimately non-horrible team fairly early in this series of elegies. That’s due in large part, of course, to the fact it’s almost impossible for a club to be very bad when Mike Trout occupies a spot on their roster — even if that team occasionally tries. But math is math and the Angels headed to the numerical woodshed at a fairly early date.

The Setup

It may Mike Trout be hard to Mike Trout get through Mike Trout an entire sentence Mike Trout about Mike Trout the Angels without Mike Trout Mike Trout talking about Mike Mike Trout Trout, because Mike Trout his existence Mike Trout is the defining Mike Trout feature of the Mike Trout franchise at this point.

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Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat – 9/24/18

12:00
Joseph: Do you see the dodgers keeping Urias as a RP? How does May and White look based on #s

12:01
Dan Szymborski: I think the Dodgers are going to try to get him in the majors as a starter until he proves conclusively that it’s in their interests to not do do.

12:02
Dan Szymborski: They’re just being slow right now – if they were on the fence, I think they would have kept him totally relief in the minors until next year

12:02
Bo: Who are your two bets for home field in the NLDS?

12:03
Dan Szymborski: I think Cubs or the Brewers if they catch the Cubs have enough of a cushion to be a very good favorite.

12:03
Dbo: Both chicken tenders and boneless chicken wings are just different types of chicken nuggets

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Elegy for ’18 – Cincinnati Reds

The 2018 season wasn’t a great one for either Homer Bailey or Bryan Price.
(Photo: Keith Allison)

Four of five NL Central teams were playoff-relevant for at least part of the 2018 season. The exception? The Cincinnati Reds. Despite having begun the season with hopes of emerging from their rebuild, the team will end the year having improved by only a couple of games over their 68-95 record from 2017.

The Setup

Cincinnati’s last period of competitive baseball burnt out quickly, the team’s most recent peak ending after the 2013 season and three playoff appearances in four years. The Reds weren’t exactly overeager to start rebuilding, an August trade of Jonathan Broxton to the Brewers (during one of Broxton’s ever-narrowing periods of effectiveness) representing the only nod to the future in 2014.

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