Craig Edwards FanGraphs Chat–5/2/2019

Craig Edwards: Let’s get things rolling.

Desperate Royals Fan: Talk about Hunter Dozier and Adalberto Mondesi!

Craig Edwards: You just might want to pay close attention to FanGraphs later today for an article on one of those players.

Craig Edwards: Couple other quick plugs. Wrote today on attendance: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/april-attendance-was-a-mixed-bag-for-baseb… and yesterday on the plate discipline revolution, or something like that. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/how-hitters-are-fighting-back-against-risi…

Josh R: All the talk of the depth of the NL East and Central preseason has seen the NL West kicking their butts so far.  Real or mirage?

Craig Edwards: I think the East and the Central still have a bit more depth, but the Padres jumping up and doing well, the Diamondbacks being a bit of a surprise after losing so much in the offseason and the Giants not being awful means each division has at least four quality teams. Can’t really read too much into the head to head at this point in the season, but the West has been a bit better than originally thought. the NL is just crazy right now.

yojiveself: How do you think the dodgers will handle Kershaw’s workload this year?

Craig Edwards: I think they will treat him like a normal pitcher, which is to say, not vintage Kershaw. They’ll look for signs of trouble into the fifth and sixth inning, and he’ll probably be a six-inning guy most times out without trying to push him.

James M: Carter Kieboom has 3 hits, and 2 of those are homers.  if he bats .200 this year, will he end up with 40 hr’s?

Craig Edwards: if he bats .200 this year, he might not get a chance to hit even two more homers. He’s looked a bit overmatched at the plate and in the field. He’s still a good young prospect, but the Nationals really need Turner back…and Rendon.

here goes nothing: Is Graham Canning going to stick? It doesn’t seem like the Angels have better options, and as a four pitch college arm he seems like the type that could succeed quickly.

Craig Edwards: I think Griffin Canning has a good shot at staying. He should be pretty close to league average right now and that fits in most rotations, let alone the Angels.

Ralph Rowdie: Who are the one pitcher and one hitter you are most worried about?

Craig Edwards: I’ll say Joey Votto for hitter and not quite sure on pitcher. Guys like Nola and Sale have done better of late so I’m not as worried as before. Might have said Kluber before yesterday, but that one is a bit moot with him out for a few months.

JV: McHugh’s last few starts have me a bit concerned.  What do you see him doing the rest of the season?

Craig Edwards: He’s had a weird few starts giving up homers and going from either no strikeouts or a bunch against Cleveland. This is probably just a three-game blip, but it isn’t like his first four starts when he was giving up any runs were a fair representation of his talent, either. He’s decent, but he’s not much more than that.

resumeman: How long has this service time manipulation been a thing? The first one  I remember was Bryant in ’15, but did it have any relevance before that?

Craig Edwards: Bryant is the guy who made it famous because he was so obviously ready. I think it was on the periphery like it might have been discussed when Heyward was up on Opening Day and right around the time Evan Longoria was signing his first contract extension, but it didn’t get talked about as much. The CBA in general wasn’t as big of a deal because players were doing a lot better, then.

AF: Is simply swinging more a good way to counteract the increase in strikeouts (eg. – Baez, Mondesi)?

Craig Edwards: You have to be able to have an incredibly quick bat and hit for a lot of power when you do swing to make it work. It didn’t work for Baez until last season. Baez is good not because he swings wildly at pitches out of the zone. He’s good because a lot of those big swings happen on balls in the zone and he hits them hard. There are way too many pitches out of the strike zone to make it a successful strategy for 99% of players.

Yankees’ Injured List: Is Dan Vogelbach for real?

Craig Edwards: Dan Vogelbach is big. Real? Not quite sure. He’s not going to keep up a .400+ ISO. The projections already say a 130 wRC+ so that’s real in terms of being an above-average player.

Derek: In light of Kluber’s injury and Ramirez’s extended struggles, are the Twins the favorite to win the AL Central now?

Craig Edwards: Cleveland is still the favorite. If Kluber were out for they year or Ramirez’s struggles continued all year long, it would be really close. Despite everything that’s gone on, the Twins are still only a couple games ahead right now. One more bad thing or a continuation of the above bad things and it is pretty much even/slight Twins lean.

Thor: If you’re trying to evaluate whether a bad start is legit or something the player will bounce back from, what’s your method for doing so?

Craig Edwards: I look at velocity, strikeouts, walks at first for pitchers and then see if there is anything behind those numbers. For hitters, I’m more likely to just trust the track record for at least half a season, see if it just BABIP or a few homers getting turned into outs. This early in the season, a few home runs can make a pretty big difference in a player’s line.

dilbert: Am I crazy or has this Cardinals team enjoyed some good luck. Lots of runs scored on wild pitches and passed balls…weird defense issues last night (Robles and Kieboom with big misplays)

Craig Edwards: I think any team that is 20-10 has probably had its share of good bounces. Overall, I think the Cardinals offense has gotten pretty close to what it has deserved. If you want to look at luck, the pitching staff hasn’t been punished enough for all the homers they are giving up. The homers could be bad luck with the lack of runs scoring overall good luck, but something has to give there.

Kiermaier’s Piercing Green Eyes: Appreciated the attendance article. Have you checked for people substituting towards minor league games? If you just want a day at the ballpark, the value is so much better. And Kiley and Eric make it easy to identify the names worth knowing!

Craig Edwards: I haven’t, and you are certainly right on the value aspect. The internet has made it much easier to follow minor leaguers, though much of that excitement has to do with how those players will help the team’s big league club.

Ryan: As a Cubs fan, I don’t want Addison Russell on the team. However, stashing him in the minors doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense to me. IMO, paying him millions to play in the minors isn’t morally better than paying him millions to play in the majors, and he would be a much better option in the majors than Zagunis.

Craig Edwards: The very cynical view is that the Cubs save $200,000 by keeping him in the minors for another week. The team and player structured his contract so that he could make back what he was going to miss due to his suspension. The Cubs created this problem when they chose baseball concerns about their SS/2B situation last winter. Now that the baseball concerns are less of an issue for the team, they don’t know what to do.

Dan: I can’t seem to locate plate discipline numbers by team / by season.  What am I doing wrong?  After reading the Dejong article I wanted to check in on the Cardinals team-wide to see if Jeff Albert has made a difference that shows up in those numbers.

Craig Edwards: While I would caution against looking at things too closely right now given we are just a month in and the players aren’t the same, you can find this year’s information here and choose by year. https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0…

Dan: Looks like Shildt is adopting LaRussa’s get-away-day lineups.  What do you think of that approach to managing off days?

Craig Edwards: I think that starters need as many off days as they can get and the day game after a night game is a pretty good time to do it. It helps the Cardinals that they have decent options to go with. Only Yairo wouldn’t start on at least a handful of teams.

Craig Edwards: and here’s that Hunter Dozier post everyone has been clamoring for. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-best-hitter-youve-never-heard-of/

Alex: Why does the projected wins amount differ when you go from the projected standings tab to the playoff odds tab (only a slight difference but you’d figure they’d be the same?)

Craig Edwards: playoff odds factor schedule into them. The projected standings tab gives you the best idea of true talent while the playoff odds should do a better job projecting the rest of the season because teams can play very different schedules. The ROS schedule is in the playoff odds so you can compare.

Derek: Is Yandy Diaz for real?

Craig Edwards: Why not? Even last season in limited playing time he put up a 115 wRC+. That was on the strength of a high BABIP, but it you can turn the hard contact in the air, this result was always possible. I don’t know that he’ll hit 30 homers, but 20 seems realistic and an ovrall above-average player.

Pros vs. O’s: Is Jorge Polanco legit? His exit velocity, hard hit rate, and launch angle are all up a good bit from prior years.

Craig Edwards: I don’t think he can keep up both the power and the average. With his hot start, he’s already projected to be basically a four-win player. That seems pretty legit, though it does mean falling pretty far off his current pace.

Howard K Stern: is he shine starting to wear off with Alex Cora?  He inherited a great team last year but this year – oofah

Craig Edwards: The guy who managed the World Series winner without much of a bullpen? Wait for the World Series hangover to wear off a bit more.

Luke Voit: I am not a fluke!

Craig Edwards: That certainly seems to be the case.

James M: its silly to even bring up but Vladito is batting .167/.286  Was Toronto kinda right about him not being ready?

Craig Edwards: Maybe if they brought him up last season, he would have been more ready right now. It is silly to bring up after 21 plate appearances.

Appa Yip Yip: Do you know what the correlation between a point of BABIP and a point of AVG is? IE/ Cavan Biggio has an Avg. of .361 at AAA but his BABIP is .404, if the BABIP were 100 points lower, how much would the average drop approximately? Point for point, half as much? Too squishy to really tell? I imagine teams have ways of approximating this just haven’t been able to find anything public. Thanks!

Craig Edwards: It depends on strikeout and homers so there isn’t a single number for anybody. The fewer strikeouts and homers, the more a rise or dip in BABIP is going to affect the average. At least I think that’s how it should work.

Connie Mack & Cheese: Thoughts on how the Cards and Cubs will match up this weekend and moving forward this season?  Both playing very well recently.

Craig Edwards: It should make for a very good series. No Mikolas and Hudson for the Cardinals with no Lester or Hamels for Cubs but still leaves some good pitching matchups with both teams’ offenses looking like they can score a bunch. Should be close the rest of the season.

Something: Did you just have an article published during your chat?? Well done.

Craig Edwards: It was edited and published during the chat thanks to the work of Meg Rowley. I had little to do with it going up now.

Daro: Kyle Tucker looks more like a trade candidate than a possible callup. What can Hou get for him?

Craig Edwards: Whatever they want assuming he starts hitting sometime soon. Of course, then Houston might want him for themselves.

Upset Dodger Fan: What statistic(s) can I best employ to evidence the supreme un-clutch-ness I see from Pedro Baez game to game? I need it for an open letter I’m going to write to Dave Roberts.

Craig Edwards: Can you make him completely forget the 2016 and 2018 seasons? That would probably do it.

HappyFunBall: As a Nats fan, I can see a scenario where the hitters get healthy and start producing better. But that bullpen is so, so very bad. It feels like .500 is baked into their DNA

Craig Edwards: It’s not as bad as it has looked with a better FIP than ERA. Some of it is just bad luck, plus with the Nats starters, fewer innings are needed. The bullpen can’t get any worse and the offense should get a lot better with health. Of course, whatever talent lead they had on the rest of the division has been evaporated with the poor early start so they need to play a lot better to catch up.

Ed Craigwards: This early in the season, I only pay attention for “Past Calendar Year” splits to keep from getting too caught up. Do you do anything similar, or is last year too long ago?

Craig Edwards: Past calendar year is a good one. This early, you could just include 2018 if you wanted to. If you don’t want to get too caught up just look up last year’s April numbers and compare them to the end of the season.

Not: you a joey gallo believer? he’s just destroying the baseball and hitting it harder than anyone else in the league, and he’s shown the ability to make adjustments all the way up through the system.

Craig Edwards: I believe in the power about 85% and the average about 20%. Both will come down with average coming down a lot, but he’ll still be a good offensive player and a 140 wRC+ at the end of the year seems reasonable.

Meat the Mets: Noah Syndergaard intentionally slowed down his breaking pitches by about 5mph for today’s start and dominated in a shut out.  DeGrom is struggling at times with a slider he’s almost throwing 95 mph.  Is the Warthen slider actually any good?

Craig Edwards: I would present all the years prior to this one as evidence that yes, it is good.

Jimmy: In what season do we see robot strike zone calls, with umps just sharing the machine generated outcome with us? And what do we do when we find out Mike Trout is a robot and can talk with the machines?

Craig Edwards: The former maybe in 10-15 years. With the latter, we can start to make more sense of the universe.

Craig Edwards: That’s going to do it for today. Thanks for all the questions.