Travis Sawchik: Happy Monday

Travis Sawchik: Let’s mourn together Ohtani’s right UCL

Travis Sawchik: Baseball cannot have nice things. We are reminded of this often. On that somber note, let’s get started…

GY: Do you think the indians could acquire Hand & Yates without including Mejia/McKenzie/Chang or Bieber?

Travis Sawchik: Indians-Padres seem like an obvious match

Travis Sawchik: Indians would have to give up a premium prospect

Jeff Sullivan: Hello friends

Jeff Sullivan: Sorry sorry! Podcasting!

Jeff Sullivan: Welcome to Friday baseball chat

hscer: I know they’re completely independent, but the Caps make me feel better about the Nats chances this year. Is that sports?

Jeff Sullivan: That’s sports

Jeff Sullivan: It also shows the power of the narratives we make up about them to make them more interesting

Jay Jaffe: Hey gang, it’s that time again! First off, thanks to reader GELB, whose question last week prompted me to write about José Ramiréz and the greatest 3B seasons ever, not to mention the folly of the 10-WAR pace https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/jose-ramirez-and-the-greatest-third-ba…. I always come out of here with an idea or two for the next week, which is great.

Second, I’ve got vacation on my mind, as this is my last chat before embarking up on a trip up to Cape Cod, and it can’t come soon enough. I’ll be chatting from there next week, but the following week, I’ll be en route to Denver for the FanGraphs staff throwdown and reader meet-up (https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/fangraphs-meetup-denver-june-22/), so if you’re in the area, do come by for some beers. And with that, we’re off and running…

Nick Senzel: When do I come up?

Jay Jaffe: I get asked this every. single. week. My guess is sometime after the Super Two date, whenever that is, and given his vertigo issues I don’t see the need for the rush. It’s not going to change the arc of the Reds’ season, though.

Matt: In the Koufax vs Kershaw debate, I got to thinking about innings. Does JAWS to anything to account for the fact that, for example Koufax’s environment allowed him more opportunities to accumulate WAR that Kershaw’s environment? Kershaws peak 7 will never match Koufax’s (even without injury) because Koufax had more IP in which to accumulate WAR. Or is that a part of Koufax’s intrinsic value over Kershaw’s?

Jay Jaffe: WAR is something of a counting stat, and Kershaw (61.9/49.6/55.8, 50th among SP) has actually already passed Koufax (49.0/46.1/47.5, 88th) on both the career and peak levels, because he’s had more good, healthy seasons.

If I ever do The Cooperstown Casebook, Volume 2 — and I’ve got a rough outline — I’ll probably lead with a chapter called What We Talk About When We Talk About Sandy Koufax. People tend to forget that his peak was very short, even by Hall standards. Even in his run of five straight ERA titles from 1962-66, he made fewer than 30 starts in two of those seasons due to injuries, and once you let some of the air out of his stats with park adjustment he doesn’t fare remarkably well via WAR/JAWS. And of course none of that incorporates his postseason work, which is one of the main reasons for his popularity, and rightly so.

Jay Jaffe: Kershaw hasn’t got the postseason part of the resumé down, and that’s always going to be something  that a certain segment of the public holds against him, but his body of elite regular-season work is already larger and better than Koufax’s.

Tommy N.: Are you surprised Liberatore signed for slot did he really just want to start his career or was there something in his medicals to make him slide? Granted 3+ mil is still a lot of money.

Kiley McDaniel: Wasn’t medicals. I’ve been told the story and am pretty sure it’s correct, won’t be sharing for a little while at least for reasons you guys can probably assume. Great deal for TB.

Tommy N.: Padres draft kind of was underwhelming after Edwards and Weathers they drafted a good amount of college seniors is this because Xavier Edwards is going to cost much more than we expected?

Kiley McDaniel: We like Grant Little and Dylan Coleman, Juwaun Harris has a lot of upside. College seniors means money savers to pay other players, so it’s a sign money is being moved around.

K-Man: Any opinion change on a player because of the team that drafted him?

Meg Rowley: Hello! Welcome to my let-Meg-sleep-at-least-a-little delayed chat!

never fail beta male: Brewers just dropped 2 out of 3 to the lowly White Sox, this is the beginning of the end and the fun is over, right? Please tell me I’m not right…

Meg Rowley: You’re probably not right! The Brewers are a good team, but even good teams lose to lousy teams sometimes.

Meg Rowley: I like that Brewers team a lot. It must be so strange to be a baseball player and have your bad days make everyone so profoundly nervous.

Meg Rowley: We all have bad days.

Brewers Fan: New Glarus or Capital Brewery ?

Eric A Longenhagen: Here is our last mock. Fingers crossed. https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/2018-mlb-mock-draft-v-3-1/

Eric A Longenhagen: And here is our draft board: https://www.fangraphs.com/scoutboard.aspx?draft=2018mlb&type=0&pos=all…

Eric A Longenhagen: Things still sounded unsettled as of a few hours ago, so there’s still a chance things totally blow up at the top of the draft, but we’d say it’s unlikely.

Eric A Longenhagen: We’ll be answering your questions throughout the evening and providing live analysis as things unfold.

Kiley McDaniel: Hearing it will go Mize-Bart-Bohm at the top, as expected

Dan Szymborski: Because You Were Bad:  A terrible Szymborski chat is incoming.

Seth: Can the Reds have Mize? Too many Ks for the top hitters…

Dan Szymborski: The Reds have struck out fewer times than league average.

Dan Szymborski: We live in a world in which 8.6 K/9 is average.

Raymond: How have your expectations of Rafael Devers shifted since the beginning of the season

Dan Szymborski: Not really.  We’re talking about a guy that basically skipped AAA and probably had a higher BABIP than was expectable

Travis Sawchik: Happy Draft Day, folks

Travis Sawchik: I am not our resident draft expert(s) but we will continue to have plenty of draft-related content

Travis Sawchik: So let’s talk about this game of baseball, shall we?

Bo: Have you read Rian Watt’s excellent article on Folty? Reason to believe he’s a front-line SP now that he’s got better separation between his FB/SL?

Travis Sawchik: Great piece and Ryan also noted how he has seemingly tightened up command and consistency of all his offerings. He’s made Bryce Harper look pedestrian which is tough to do.

Travis Sawchik: You could also make a case that Sean Newcomb was the best pitcher in the NL in May

Jeff Sullivan: Hello friends

Jeff Sullivan: Welcome to Friday baseball chat

Tommy N.: Jose Pirela has a 1.2 bWAR but only a 0.3 fWAR why such a drastic difference?

Jeff Sullivan: Defensive Runs Saved puts Pirela at +5 as a second baseman and +3 as an outfielder. For Ultimate Zone Rating, it’s +1 and -1, respectively

Jeff Sullivan: A gap like that is likely to regress as we move forward; most importantly, if you’re the Padres, no matter what’s going on with Pirela’s defense, you want him to be hitting for some actual power. So far, he’s not

Dylan: How amazing is Brandon Nimmo?