Archive for Chat

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon folks, and welcome to another edition of my Thursday chat. I’m back from a (mostly) restful vacation on Cape Cod, and today I’ve got a deep dive into the soaring home run rates; I think we’ve reached the point of “Too Many Homers” https://blogs.fangraphs.com/weve-reached-the-point-of-too-many-homers/

I Won a Phone: How come FG on mobile is such a spammy wasteland?

Jay Jaffe: I have no idea because I never encounter this, as I get to sign into my account. I know that if you become a member, you get an ad-free annual membership (https://plus.fangraphs.com/product/fangraphs-membership/), and if your woes are happening even with that going on, well — we’ve got something that needs fixing.

Cove Dweller: Do you think that MadBum gets Jack Morris-like consideration for the Hall?

Jay Jaffe: I think he’s going to have to pitch well for a long time for that to happen, and right now, given that he’s staring a third straight season with fewer than 10 wins (yawn) in the face, with a set of peripherals that have generally been moving in the wrong direction for years, I have a hard time imagining him getting the bulk numbers on which to base such a case that would obviously play up given his postseason accomplishments.

Ryan: Hi Jay, thanks for the chat. When you’re looking at historical stats, how do you decide what date cutoffs to use? I’m looking at team records following a loss using baseball-reference data, and I was thinking only looking at seasons from 1900-present day would make sense- thoughts?

Kiley McDaniel: Hello from ATL! Starting a little early and will run a bit shorter today since I’m tightly scheduled on my last day before I head to Florida for the MLB PDP event, my first of summer showcase season

Kiley McDaniel: As always, all our content and the graduation tracker are here: https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/

Kiley McDaniel: and THE BOARD with all our real-time rankings of every non-big-league baseball player on Earth of consequence is here: https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/the-board/2019-in-season-prospect-…

Kiley McDaniel: and the big content this week is the unveiling of the J2 Board, with a preview and links to everything here: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/instagraphs/july-2-international-amateur-p…

Kiley McDaniel: to your questions:

Greg: I think you said last week 65% chance Matt Allan signs. Where would you put that percentage now?

Meg Rowley: Hello all, and welcome to the chat.

Meg Rowley: It is nice to be back after a little vacation break.

Richard L: Hi Meg,

Billy Beane: Hi Meg.

Meg Rowley: Hi there.

Tim I: Hi Meg, 12 tm 5×5 standard: Moncada for Nola straight up? I can afford to trade offense and need SP. Thanks,

Dan Szymborski: Uh oh

Dan Szymborski: Just letting the queue fill up a bit more. The post wasn’t going live so I had to re-do it.

Dan Szymborski: We’re going to start off at about 12:30 PM

Dan Szymborski: Maybe earlier if you guys build up a mighty buffer.

Dan Szymborski: OK, let’s get this strangely scheduled party started.

Magic Kingdome: I don’t feel tardy

Kiley McDaniel: Hello from ATL! I’m on the couch and Scout is on her bed eyeballing my lunch, which is leftover meat I grilled last night

Kiley McDaniel: (andouille sausage, shrimp, chicken thighs for those curious)

Kiley McDaniel: I would normally link to all the stuff I wrote the last week but I was commanded to not do stuff this week

Kiley McDaniel: but here’s the FG prospects page where all our stuff is, including the graduation monitor so you know when guys will graduate from our lists: https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/

Kiley McDaniel: and also Eric and I have quietly done lots of work on the 2020 draft rankings, which one scout called “absurd” yesterday and I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad: https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/the-board/2020-mlb-draft?sort=-1,1…

Kiley McDaniel: showcase season has begun, as Eric was at the first event of the summer and I’m going to the next two (PDP and college team USA)

Dan Szymborski: “Dan Szymborski is chatting now.”

Dan Szymborski: OH GOD HE ISN’T PANIC

Dan Szymborski: Now I am.

The Other Dave: Is there ANY hope left for the Reds at this point? Or should they start exploring some trade scenarios? It just feels like if everything clicks, they should be a very good team. They just can’t seem to win any 1-run games.

Dan Szymborski: It kinda sucks, but their poor fortune is baked into the cake.

Dan Szymborski: Yeah, they’re 8 games under their Pythag. But the thing is, you don’t get those games back. You expect them to match their Pythags going forward, not get an extra helping from the good luck carnitas.

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, and greetings from Wellfleet, Massachusetts, where I’m just beginning my 10-day stay  — working the rest of the week, then on vacation — but contending with some nasty weather that temporarily knocked out our Internet connection this morning. Hopefully it holds out for the next 90 minutes or so; check @jay_jaffe on Twitter in case there’s a sudden gap in the conversation here.

Justin: I know it’s early, but what’s wrong with Machado? You mentioned on the pod Manny is not doing damage with 1st pitches? Anything else you’ve noticed? As a Padres fan I hope you don’t have to write a piece about his struggles anytime soon…

Jay Jaffe: I don’t really have a good answer for this yet; he’s on my list of players to look into, but something else usually pops up, perhaps because I’m still not clear about what’s going on. He’s barreling the ball less but still averaging above 90 mph in terms of EV. There’s a big gap between his xwOBA (.375) and wOBA (.330) despite slightly better sprint speed, so it may be something of a run of bad luck.

v2micca: We have generally examined the amount of run support that a Pitcher receives.  But is there value in more closely examining the defensive support for his specific innings.  Instead of looking at a team’s aggregate UZR, DRS, and BABIP allowed, instead breaking it down to the UZR, DRS, and BABIP allowed for that pitcher’s specific innings?  I just wonder when we see a pitcher under or over performing his peripherals for a stretch how much it might correlate to his defense over or under performing their aggregate defensive metrics for his innings during that period.

Jay Jaffe: given how sketchy defensive metrics are in small sample sizes, I am skeptical that working with UZR and DRS in such increments would give you more signal than noise. BABIP, sequencing, and batted ball info (including Statcast now) give us a lot of information to help tease out the gap between a pitcher’s actual and expected results.

Brood550: If and when the Mets go into sale mode.  Who’s untouchable?

Kiley McDaniel: Hello from ATL where Scout is passed out next to me from a busy day of napping. Some quick self-promotion before we get started

Kiley McDaniel: Last week was draft week! You can find all the draft content in the widget on the home page https://www.fangraphs.com/ or our up to the second rankings of everyone and everything at https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/the-board/2019-prospect-list?sort=…

Kiley McDaniel: we’re rolling out some of our favorite clips of draft video at our instagram @fangraphs but my personal favorite is also on twitter: Zach Thompson’s 3000+ rpm curveball:

Kiley McDaniel: and lastly, so those interested, we have a new top 100 and all the team lists have movement, graduations taken off, draft (all top 10 rounders or confirmed later signs) are added. I would guess that comes out this week since we’re just doing clerical stuff now like filling out blurbs and whatnot. Possibly Monday.

Kiley McDaniel: Eric is at PG National this week and I’ll be hitting the summer circuit starting a few weeks from now, so if you’re 2020 draft curious, peek THE BOARD for updates as we learn them https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/the-board/2020-mlb-draft?sort=-1,1…

Kiley McDaniel: to your questions: