Craig Edwards FanGraphs Chat – 8/13/2020

Craig Edwards: Let’s get this thing rolling.

Craig Edwards: If you missed the news this morning, there is now Statcast data at FanGraphs. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/statcast-stats-are-now-on-fangraphs/

Jason N: Tatis > Acuña is an official thing now, right?

Craig Edwards: Our Depth Chart projections have Tatis ahead by a couple of runs over the course of the rest of the season. https://www.fangraphs.com/projections.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&type=rfan…

Craig Edwards: Over a full season, that’s like a win better. Both are great, but Tatis certainly seems to be turning a corner this year after injuries took away a good chunk of last season.

Armadillofury: Why did the Angels promote Adell when he couldn’t even hit  AAA pitching (32.6% K% and 67 WRC+ despite .410 BABIP in 27 AAA games)?

Craig Edwards: That 27 games isn’t super-meaningful given he was great in Double-A last year over more playing time. Plus, what were they supposed to do with him? If they want him to get better, he needs to play. There aren’t any other options for that right now.

Bueller: Congrats on getting power restored.  We were without electricity and net access for a week.  I don’t know how we we survived without the net thirty years ago.

Craig Edwards: You really take a lot of things for granted, like electricity and the internet, and it’s difficult to figure out what to do without them. Plus, throwing away everything in the fridge is brutal.

Double D’s: Derek Dietrich for MVP?

Craig Edwards: As long as he doesn’t make an out.

Derek: Every AL Central team is 5-5 over their last 10 games… Feels about right for that division!

Craig Edwards: Kind of surprising for the Royals and Tigers, but over 10 games, just about anything can happen.

Paul: Is Freeland back on track? Throwing a ton of offspeed stuff, less fastballs.

Craig Edwards: He still isn’t striking anybody out, which isn’t great. I don’t know if I’d say back on track, but he’s going extreme on groundballing right now, which can be effective with a good defense.

Kevin: Clint Frazier and Estevan Florial for Clevinger. Who says no?

Craig Edwards: Cleveland. That’s not really close.

Mike Hawk: The Phils are fianlly freeing Bohm, when will the Orioles free Mountcastle?

Craig Edwards: The Phillies are trying to win while the Orioles are actually winning. Maybe Mountcastle comes up soon, but the situations aren’t completely the same.

Rick: With Bohm being called up and Segura moving to 2B, looks like Kingery is out of the mix. Long term is Kingery still their second baseman with 25-25 potential?

Craig Edwards: I still believe in Kingery, but he’s not really doing much to stay in the lineup. I imagine he’ll still get playing time because he can play all over, but he’s not hitting the ball hard. If he could maintain his current strikeout rate and hit the ball at least as hard as last season, he’d be able to get on base more and use his legs and be the above-average player he was a year ago. I’m not giving up on him and hope he pulls things together the rest of the way.

viper: One question and one observation. With the Cards DH likely cancelled tomorrow, they may be lucky to play 50 games. Could a team make the playoffs with a 25-20 record? Is there a minimum needed?

Craig Edwards: They really need to get this weekend series in to get back on track. They are down like 13 games and there’s still a way to make up a lot of them, but the situation could be pretty wild if the Cardinals have played 55 games but have a higher winning percentage than a team that played 60. I’m not sure there are any rules when it comes to this. Prepare to be mad at the Commissioner.

Armadillofury: Obligatory Gausman question – is the breakout finally happening or is he gonna disappoint us like the last 57 times? 32.8% K% and 1.6% BB% in his three starts this season against tough opposition (@LAD, @COL, vs SD).

Craig Edwards: He’s only walked two guys in 20 innings this year and that probably isn’t going to hold up. He’s also going with two pitches like 90% of the time and that doesn’t always last either. He’s in a good park for his skill set, but I think he’s closer to average going forward as opposed to a real breakout.

Estevao: Do you think the Padres got or get any sort of indication that Tatis would/will be willing to sign a long term extension when they decided to play him from OD last year, even if not was avoiding any sort of animosity on future negotiations a part of the decision?

Craig Edwards: I don’t know about that. It doesn’t usually work that way and the Padres were trying to sell tickets and be a contender, so that might have been big on their decision versus money saved in 2025.

Guest: From a strictly cynical, dollar perspective, do you think MLB is kind of glad that college football isn’t being played, as it could potentially give them more of a limited sports spotlight in the fall? And, relatedly, should MLB consider doing more (all star game, HR derby, exhibitions) after the World Series to capture more attention in a sports dead period?

Craig Edwards: I know that the tv partners really wanted to keep their October schedule back before the season started, but I do wonder if that has changed now if their is a lack of inventory in November. That could give MLB more leeway to finish the season a little bit later. Ultimately, I think MLB would much rather have everything back to normal than get a little more coverage due to the lack of other major events.

Estevao: Francisco Lindor for Will Smith, Edwin Rios and Chris Taylor or maybe a couple of prospects. Just off the top of my head it could be adjusted but what do you think, the Indians get their catcher for the future plus a couple of flexible young hitters to provide some pop and the Dodgers move Seater to 3B, Turner 1B/DH, Muncy primarily 2B in an all-in move, they don’t need him but they didn’t need Betts, it makes them better, Barnes can bridge the gap to Ruiz

Craig Edwards: I don’t think Smith works in that deal. I’m also not sure that Cleveland is going to trade him when they could go on a playoff run this season.

Estevao: Will the first round three game series be played in three consecutive days and if so is there any chance a team like the Mets use their ace (DeGrom) as a reliever in a possible third game

Craig Edwards: It’s not likely because usually that is a later-round desperation-type move and your bullpen should still be in pretty good shape the third game into the playoffs.

dezre: is using statcast data a good way to break a mental tie when trying to decide between two players in fantasy? or is this a mis-use of data that isn’t supposed to be predictive?

Craig Edwards: It depends what brought you to the mental tie in the first place. You should arguably already be factoring in that data, and having it break a tie double-counts it.

Guest: Teams, even anecdotally, seem to be taking the virus more seriously. What are the odds we make it to the postseason? 10 days ago my perception was VERY different.

Craig Edwards: I’ve always thought it was likely. I was also pretty down about 10 days ago, but MLB seems to be learning from its mistakes and hopefully when the next Marlins/Cardinals situation happens, they will be more prepared and take better actions.

DJ: I guess DJ is keeping this thing from last year going, huh? (Currently most oWAR in AL!) Yankees have to bring him back, right?

Craig Edwards: They will have to decide how badly they want him. If they offer him the QO, he probably takes it, right? They could just run it back and give him another 2/24. The winter isn’t going to be great for FA and it hasn’t been good for second baseman for a while. If the Yankees want him back, it shouldn’t be too difficult for them to make that possible.

Cleveland: Their teammates expressing public anger is a good sign, too.

Craig Edwards: I think it’s good that players want to hold their teammates accountable, though we have to keep in mind, the virus is still out there infecting a lot of people who are being safe and taking precautions. It’s a tough situation to be in, but certainly reckless behavior shouldn’t be tolerated.

Estevao: I’m not necessarily talking about saving money, I just think that unless he signs an extension before reaching FA, the likelihood that he hits the the open market and returns to SD a medium market at best is very, very small. By playing him from day one are they more likely to keep him beyond the six years because of a better relationship without the animosity that we saw on the Kris Bryant-Cubs scenario

Craig Edwards: that’s possible, it just usually doesn’t work out that way. Kris Bryant was probably going to go to free agency no matter what the Cubs did. Other players are going to sign extensions because they need that security. It’s possible having a positive relationship with your front office leads to an extension, but it doesn’t often play out that way.

Benny Baseball: What most likely happens to me? Option, DFA, Trade, Non-Tender, Above Avg Player next yr?

Craig Edwards: I’ll say above-average player next season. This year is just too weird and too short to put too much stock into it long-term.

Astros: So…. they did not manage to have their off-season forgotten around the league.

Craig Edwards: Players are certainly still upset about it, yes.

Isolated Thinker: Shouldn’t “league leaders” be divided in 3 this season: West Central and East?   Having an AL and NL HR champion for example doesn’t make sense if teams are not facing the other divisions in their respective leagues.

Craig Edwards: Maybe, but that sounds complicated, and even with that competition and uneven schedules, talent is still fairly close together overall.

Estevao: I know this is insane but what would you think of forbidding stolen bases, designing a spot to indicate the furthest the runner can take his lead from 1B, nobody steals anymore and it would do wonders to speed up the game

Craig Edwards: I think action is more important than pace and taking away action for the sake of pace is counterproductive. Steals are fun.

Chris: Kyle Lewis is awesome!!

Craig Edwards: First 10 days of the season, 217 wRC+. Last 10 days of the season, 95 wRC+. The latter is much closer to his future production, even if he still has a 159 wRC+.

Scott: Who can the Red Sox trade? What kind of return should we expect?

Craig Edwards: Maybe some of their relievers or Martin Perez. I’m not sure there will be much of a return for most players. There are going to be a lot of PTBNL in trades this year and most of them will end up being 40s or less.

Daro: CWS needs Vaughn!!! E5 is just a hot corpse at the moment!

Craig Edwards: It’s only been 10 games. I would give him a bit more time.

Panda Sandoval: I was watching a Darvish start and man does Victor Caratini really ham it up with his framing. Never seen so many pitches hit the middle of the zone if you are going by where the catcher’s mitt ends up. Is that considered good framing? Do framing stats treat it as a positive? I’m thinking umps probably might even treat it unfavorably, producing less strike calls on questionable pitches

Craig Edwards: Our framing numbers don’t seem to indicate Caratini is a good framer. https://www.fangraphs.com/players/victor-caratini/14968/stats?position…

Craig Edwards: i think generally, less movement is best, even if you catch it out of the zone.

Lorenzo: Can you envision the Red Sox trying to acquire Yaz? Obvious reasons. I mean it would have to please their fan base no?

Craig Edwards: I suppose it is possible, but I don’t think sentimentality is going to win the day on this one. I think Red Sox fans would rather win, and trading away good prospects, which the Red Sox need, is what will get them there the quickest.

Carlos Santana: Such an anomaly, .182 avg, .430 OBP. Low BABIP suggests he could pick up where he left off in 2019, is there anything suggesting he will regress to mediocrity?

Craig Edwards: I think Ben Clemens is working up a piece on him right now.

Derek: “Prepare to be mad at the Comissioner.” So business as usual, then?

Craig Edwards: Sometimes, you can try to ignore the Commissioner.

Chris: Hahahaha Strasburg just got thrown out while sitting socially distant in the stands. Where does he go?

Craig Edwards: I’d like to see him go up to the second deck or something. Heckle from there.

The swoosh: I thought I was going to have other ads and logos to hang out with on player uniforms. I read that it was happening but never read anything after that that said it wasn’t. Do you know what happened with all that? I thought it was free money.

Craig Edwards: It was part of a deal the players offered to the owners, but the two sides were never able to come to an agreement that altered the original March agreement so it didn’t happen. They did agree to expanded postseason, but that was pretty limited and only got done right before the season started.

Sonny: MLB probably rooting pretty hard for Miami and St Louis to stink ROS? Like, hands are kind of tied so just hope they don’t play their way into playoff conversation

Craig Edwards: I don’t think they are going to need to root when it comes to Miami. I think all else being equal, they’d like St. Louis in the playoffs because there’s more name recognition, there.

Estevao: Zack Greinke is a fine hitter, how much potential do you think went untaped because of his position (pitcher) and start in the AL

Craig Edwards: From 2011-2019, he was worth 5.6 WAR as a hitter due to his superiority over other pitchers. And that’s in one full season’s worth of playing time. I think we’d be talking about another five wins or so if he had started his career in the NL and continued there.

the487: I watched Kurt Suzuki catch yesterday, which is to say I now understand the importance of pitch framing

Craig Edwards: Kurt Suzuki has about 10 career WAR. It would be double that if he were average at framing. It’s not his thing. https://www.fangraphs.com/players/kurt-suzuki/8259/stats?position=C#ad…

Guest: Thoughts on David Peterson so far?  Impressed or mostly luck?

Craig Edwards: He’s been solid. I think back-end of the rotation seems like the most likely outcome, but that’s not terrible.

viper: Nate Pearson – was last start a vision of things to come or just an off day

Craig Edwards: I think he’s still adjusting to the majors, and his velocity isn’t in midseason form, yet. I think his last start was more off day than bad sign.

Marcell Ozuna: He’s been mashing when he makes contact but his K% is way up. Think this continues or he brings it down and has a bounceback season?

Craig Edwards: I’d settle for more strikeouts if he keeps lacing the ball like he has.

Estevao: I probably said this once but it’s good to reiterate. Chase Utley has virtually the same career WAR as a Craig Biggio with about a 1000 less games. That makes him a Hall of Famer

Craig Edwards: I’d vote for him.

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