Author Archive

FanGraphs After Dark Chat – 5/12/15

5:35
Paul Swydan: Hi everybody! Jeff is going to be helping coach his daughter’s machine pitch softball team tonight, so you’re stuck with just me. So that means we need extra questions in the queue. So get them in there and I’ll see you at 9 pm ET!

9:01
Paul Swydan: OK, let’s do this.

9:02
Paul Swydan: Note – I have Lance Lynn in fantasy, and I want it known that I’m nervous about the Cardinals’ bullpen blowing this win for me.

9:02
Paul Swydan: Fantasy baseball, yey!

9:02
Comment From Zach Sanders
HI PAUL!

9:03
Paul Swydan: HI ZACH!

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The Best of FanGraphs: May 4-8, 2015

Each week, we publish north of 100 posts on our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times, orange for TechGraphs and blue for Community Research.
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Did the Rockies Miss Their Window to Trade Carlos Gonzalez?

Carlos Gonzalez is slumping. That isn’t news to you, unless you don’t really pay that much attention to the Colorado Rockies. Even then, it still might not be news to you. Gonzalez, who from 2010-2013 hit 108 homers (tied for 18th-best in the game), and posted a .245 ISO (ninth-best) and 103.4 Off (13th-best), is knee deep in a slump that seemingly has no end. If true, the question then becomes what do the Rockies do with him, because it might be impossible to trade him.

First, let’s see if we can figure out what exactly the issues are. Let’s begin with batted ball distance. Jeff Zimmerman has set up his handy batted ball distance search over at Baseball Heat Maps, and here we see that for the first five years of Gonzalez’s time with the Rockies, his was fairly consistent. He was right around 300 feet each season, with an overall average of 309.277′. Last year, that dropped quite a bit, down to 295.891′, and this season he is at 280.565. That’s nearly a 30 foot drop over the span of two seasons. Perhaps not predictive of how he will fare for the remainder of 2015, but it’s certainly not a great sign.

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FanGraphs After Dark Chat – 5/5/15

3:35
Paul Swydan: Hi everybody! Jeff and I will be here to chat at 9 pm ET. Well, Jeff might be late, but usually he just *says* he’ll be late and then shows up on time. Under promise, over deliver, and all of that.

Anyhoo, get your questions in now, and we’ll chat like the bosses we all are.

9:01
Paul Swydan: OK, let’s do this. Jeff IS going to be late, so you’re stuck with me for awhile.

9:01
Comment From Job
Saw this on Twitter: If you think Lucroy is a 5ish win player for ’15/’16/’17 and Perez is a 3ish win guy for his contract, and the Royals are going all in for the next few years, would it make sense for KC to trade Perez + prospects or Lucroy or just Perez? Lucroy is a better hitting and isn’t credit for pitch framing, but the contract isn’t as nice as Perez.

9:02
Paul Swydan: I mean, it’s an interesting thing to ponder, but I don’t see the upgrade being enough for the Royals to sacrifice all the knowledge that Perez already has of their system and their pitchers, etc, etc. Don’t see that one happening.

9:02
Comment From Minty
No one knows what their respective teams will do, but when would you debut Correa and Seager?

9:02
Paul Swydan: Not before the Super 2 deadline passes in June.

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The Best of FanGraphs: April 27-May 1, 2015

Each week, we publish north of 100 posts on our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times, orange for TechGraphs and blue for Community Research.
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FanGraphs After Dark Chat – 4/28/15

5:49
Paul Swydan: Hi everybody! Jeff and I will be here at 9 pm ET to cram some baseball into your baseball holes! Fill up the queue and we’ll see you soon.

9:01
Paul Swydan: Hi everybody!

9:01
Comment From Pale Hose
Hey guys. I tried DFS for the first time yesterday. Safe to say I’m hooked. Any general advice for a beginner to that format?

9:02
Paul Swydan: I don’t play DFS, because it seems like the sort of time sink that I can’t manage at this stage of my life, but I remember when we did Pick Six that one year that you had to prepare for failure every day.

9:03
Comment From a eskpert
If you had a team of all immobile Sluggers (Manny Ramirez, Adam Dunn, Jim Thome, Good Ryan Howard) playing every position but pitcher, how many thousand runs would they score and allow against an average team (and Mark Beurhle’s pitching)?

9:03
Paul Swydan: Many thousands of runs. I can’t imagine them in the middle infield and in center.

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The Best of FanGraphs: April 20-24, 2015

Each week, we publish north of 100 posts on our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times, orange for TechGraphs and blue for Community Research.
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Career Retrospective: Joe Nathan

Joe Nathan has had Tommy John surgery before. Joe Nathan will need to have Tommy John surgery again. He has proclaimed that he intends to come try to return, but the odds are against that — 41-year-old major league pitchers are in short supply (there are just two this season). Whether he does or doesn’t make it all the way back, any subsequent seasons are unlikely to add much to his statistical ledger. And an impressive ledger it is.

A sixth-round pick in the 1995 draft, Nathan has been one of the few players left in the game who saw action back in the 90s, as he debuted for the Giants back in April of 1999. He was a starter back then, though he wasn’t particularly good. He only struck out three more batters than he walked in those 14 debut season starts. He would get another crack at starting the next season, but in his 15 starts in 2000 he struck out four fewer batters than he walked, and that was the end of that chapter.

Well, sort of. He would be a starter for the bulk of the next two seasons, at age 26 and 27, but he would do so in the minor leagues. His 2001 was an unmitigated disaster — he struck out 54 against 70 walks in Double-A and Triple-A — he walked more guys than he struck out at both levels. He was better in 2002 — 117 Ks against 74 walks, all at Triple-A Fresno — but he allowed 20 homers, had a 1.647 WHIP and 5.60 ERA. Better, but not good. He would come back up to San Fran in September for four scoreless relief appearances, and never looked back.

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FanGraphs After Dark Live Blog – StatCast Debut Edition – 4/21/15

4:19
Paul Swydan: Hi everybody! Tonight we’ll be starting earlier than usual, as we’re going to live blog the StatCast unveiling broadcast on MLB Network tonight between the Cardinals and Nationals.

Jeff is a bit under the weather, so he may be in and out (or just out), but we’ll also be joined by special guest Sean Dolinar, whose pretty graphs have been populating the site for a little bit now.

See you soon!

5:38
Paul Swydan: Someone asked in the comments if the StatCast edition is available on MLB.TV. My answer is that I don’t think so, because they generally only carry local broadcasts on MLB.TV, but I’m not 100% sure.

6:09
Sean Dolinar: For those wondering, I just got an alert from my MLB At Bat app, and it looks like they will have a live look-in on the first inning of the MLBN game. This looks free to anyone:

http://m.mlb.com/video/topi…

6:30
Comment From Mike
For those of in the DC area (or STL), do you know if the MLB Network broadcast will be blacked out in favor of the regional networks? That would be very disappointing.

    Sean Dolinar: I think normal blackout policy applies, and you’ll be getting the Cubs-Pirates game on MLBN. 

7:02
Paul Swydan: Hey everybody!

7:04
Sean Dolinar: Game time!

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The Best of FanGraphs: April 13-17, 2015

Each week, we publish north of 100 posts on our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times, orange for TechGraphs and blue for Community Research.
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