Dave Cameron FanGraphs Chat – 1/6/16

12:00
Dave Cameron: Welcome to 2016. Let’s have our first chat of the year.

12:01
Ben G: Is 2017 a realistic goal for the Braves to try and compete?

12:02
Dave Cameron: If guys like Swanson develop quickly, they could probably rise to the definition of “contender” that has developed the last few years; 75-80 wins with a crack at the mid-to-high-80s if they get a lot of breaks. But they’re way behind WAS and NYM.

12:02
Pale Hose: Hey Dave. Can we expect an offseason trade value update, or is that off the table?

12:03
Dave Cameron: You can! Because Jonah Keri also does his own version of the series, and Jonah and I are friends, I’m holding my update until after he releases his. His new version of the list should go up at Sports Illustrated towards the end of the month, and I’ll do a refresh of mine then.

12:03
Ray: Any idea why the Dodgers would hire Alex Anthopolous? Any truth to the talk that there is discension in the LA front office?

12:05
Dave Cameron: Why wouldn’t an organization want a smart, hard-working guy to help offer a fresh perspective? And I wouldn’t put much stock into anything the LA media says about the Dodgers front office. The contempt for these kinds of executives runs deep with guys like Plaschke.

12:05
Bill Heywood: Does four years for Gordon make Cespedes getting six any more likely?

12:05
Dave Cameron: Probably not the terms of the deal itself, but the fact that Gordon didn’t go to CHW or LAA probably helps Cespedes.

12:06
Baloo: So Gordon has signed with the Royals, what should the Tigers next move be now? Are Fowler or Span a big enough upgrade over Collins, or since it would probably require Ilitch going over AA’s head anyway, might as well go for broke and get Cespedes? Screw left field and grab Chen/Gallardo?

12:06
Dave Cameron: I’d go for Cespedes if I were them.

12:07
Jon: In which world does one Mike Leake cost less than one Alex Gordon?

12:07
Dave Cameron: You mean more than, but yeah, the prices that teams are paying to pitching this winter, relative to similar or more valuable hitters, is a little nutty.

12:08
David: The Chris Davis negotiations seem strange as reported. Why are the Orioles offering $154M and why is Davs turning it down? Those both seem crazy.

12:08
Dave Cameron: Boras is very good at playing overly involved owners against themselves. He’s likely confident he can outwit Peter Angelos. He’s probably right.

12:09
Caveman Jones: Are you surprised Gordon didn’t get a better deal? If so do you have any ideas why he didn’t?

12:09
Dave Cameron: I would bet he took less than the highest offer to stay in KC.

12:10
BenJ: Of Davis, Upton, and Cespedes, which will sign at the biggest discount?

12:10
Dave Cameron: I don’t think any of them is going to take a big discount. They’ll all clear $100M.

12:11
Jordan G: Dave! What should the value of what a RP does be compared to a SP? Clearly the value is all over the place. But, is it as a simple as the number of outs they get, or is there a huge premium on what outs they get?

12:11
Dave Cameron: Leverage definitely matters. I’d say RPs are about 30% as valuable as SPs, overall.

12:11
some guy: On the FG Team Depth Charts page, players are populated with a WAR that differs from the ZiPS projections that The Digital Dandy provides. What numbers are used in the Depth Chart projections pages?

12:12
Dave Cameron: Steamer. ZIPS will be added in to those and they’ll blended together when the full ZIPS sheet is released in March.

12:12
CTMike: Scott Kazmir deal seems very good for Dodgers. They get a Steamer projected pitcher with 2.7 WAR for one year at $16 million plus a compensation pick after the season. Net cost roughly $5 million for 2016. What am I missing with the negative takes on the deal?

12:12
Dave Cameron: The fact that they guaranteed him three years and $48 million?

12:13
Kylo Ren: Any chance the Cubs re-up Austin Jackson as a 4th OF or insurance?

12:13
Dave Cameron: Possible. I’d bet they sign someone like him, or Denard Span, if they don’t trade Soler for a guy like Bradley or Inciarte.

12:14
Tom: Does WAR take into account park effects to the extent that we can say that Larry Walker’s 70+ WAR, including his great 97 and 98 years, were not a product of Coors Field?

12:14
Dave Cameron: Park factors deflate the value of his raw stats in Coors, yes.

12:15
Concerned White Sox Fan: If you were Rick Hahn would you enter the season with Erik Johnson and John Danks as your 4 and 5 with the possibility of adding an SP mid-season if necessary or would you look for an upgrade now?

12:15
Dave Cameron: They absolutely need another SP.

12:15
$$$ Bill: Do you think B Harper could/will get the ARod clause in his contract making him the highest paid player by $1M for x # of years?

12:16
Dave Cameron: Maybe. Or maybe he’ll just get an opt-out after every two years of the contract for the life of the thing, so that he can always opt-out and demand raises. Lots of options for what that deal looks like.

12:17
Andrew: Sonny Gray for Kyle Schwaber who hangs up and why.

12:17
Dave Cameron: A’s aren’t doing that.

12:17
Grant: I keep hearing for NL Central race: Cubs – *sizable gap* – Cardinals/Pirates. Does that go something like 93/87/87 wins?

12:17
Dave Cameron: Or maybe 95/89/88, or something like that.

12:18
Bork: First team to blow up the roster during the course of the 2016 season is…?

12:18
Dave Cameron: The Brewers, maybe. If Lucroy and Braun have strong starts to the season, they could have a big firesale in June.

12:19
John: Realistically will the Indians make an impact move? It’s really difficult to watch them hold onto prospects during their window of contention while they have big holes on the team.

12:19
Dave Cameron: You’re probably glad they hung onto Lindor and Salazar now, right?

12:19
Dave Cameron: “Impact moves” are overrated.

12:19
Paytonrules: If you were a betting man – who is the Cubs opening day centerfielder? Heyward? Baez? Almora?

12:19
Dave Cameron: Denard Span.

12:20
Roger: The Diamondbacks and White Sox seem to be in a similar place insofar as they both have a great core (Goldy/Pollock/Greinke/Miller and Sale/Abreu/Quintana) but lack complementary pieces to really make them contenders. Which one do you think is more likely to have actual post-season success in the 2016 or 2017?

12:20
Dave Cameron: The White Sox aren’t in the same division as the Dodgers, so CHW.

12:20
Phil: Considering the market right now, would it make sense for Upton to accept a 1/35M offer over something like 5/100M or even 6/110M, betting on himself to make a bigger splash next year as the best under-30 hitter on the market?

12:20
Dave Cameron: No one is paying Upton 1/$35M.

12:21
Dave Cameron: If he could get that, then yes, he should definitely go that route. But I’d bet he’d have to settle for $25-$27M on a one year.

12:21
Eric: People often suggest that a team should wait to trade a struggling player so that the player can rebuild their trade value. This makes no sense to me. Other teams can evaluate the possibility that the player will bounce back nearly as well as the player’s team can (and certainly as well as any fans or journalists), and everyone involved should be able to make the same risk/reward evaluation.

12:22
Dave Cameron: To a large degree, I agree with you, but there are health related things that only the team who owns the player gets to know, and teams will discount a player if a team isn’t willing to try and let their injury-prone guy prove he’s healthy. So in those cases, I think a team can build value by letting an injured player prove they’re healthy.

12:22
Paul D: Can analytics work in football?

12:23
Dave Cameron: Making decisions based on quantifiably true conclusions can work in any area of life.

12:23
Guest: Is Upton a decent fallback for Davis?

12:23
Dave Cameron: I’d rather have Upton, and he’s cheaper, so I’d have Davis as a fallback to Upton personally.

12:24
Bork: What’s more nutty this year, the price of starting pitching or relief pitching? The contracts some RP have been getting have been mind boggling.

12:24
Dave Cameron: Yeah, the inflation in the reliever market has been pretty stark.

12:24
Threat Level Midnight: What do you think of Pablo Sandoval going forward? Is he young/good enough in your mind that you expect him to turn it around and become at least league average again, or are the Red Sox stuck with a sub-1 win anchor for the next 4 years?

12:24
Dave Cameron: Average isn’t an unreasonable expectation.

12:25
Yovanni Gallardo: Am I really worth 4 years and $50-$60 million with draft pick compensation tied to me?

12:25
Dave Cameron: No.

12:26
Joel: Are the Angels getting one of Fowler, Cespedes, or Upton?

12:26
Dave Cameron: If they really only have $4 million to spend below the luxury tax line, and Moreno doesn’t want to pay the tax, then no.

12:26
Dave Cameron: Gordon made the most sense for them.

12:27
James: Given reluctance on 4th year for Gordon from some teams, Bautista looking like 3 year and $60-$70 million for next contract?

12:27
Dave Cameron: No, dingers get paid. He might only get 3-4 years but they will be at much higher salaries.

12:27
The Boat: Do Giants sign a big fish like Cespedes, or back down to Span/Fowler?

12:27
Dave Cameron: I’d bet on Fowler.

12:28
TJ: who do you see as this year’s Padres , win the off season and loss the regular season ?

12:28
Dave Cameron: The Padres didn’t win the off-season last year according to anyone who knew what they were talking about.

12:28
Dave Cameron: But the most similar off-season to SD last year is AZ this year.

12:29
jtt: Jon singleton has 3 club options each with a buyout, does he get all 3 buyouts if the first club option is declined?

12:29
Dave Cameron: I believe so, yes.

12:31
Norman: Ian Kennedy and James Shields had the two highest HR/FB rates among qualified starters last year. Did something happen out in Petco to change the ballpark’s HR-suppressing tendencies?

12:31
Dave Cameron: Yeah, they moved the fences in a few years ago, and it’s been much more HR friendly than it used to be since.

12:32
Leo: Can the Jays compete for the division again?

12:32
Dave Cameron: Sure. But they probably aren’t the favorites.

12:32
Derek: Yesterday, August said that Carlos Carrasco is a top ten SP in the MLB. Not the AL, all of baseball. Is that his Indian fandom getting the best of him or is he correct?

12:33
Dave Cameron: The projections say the same thing.

12:33
Eric: What would you set as the 95% confidence interval around how many games the Cubs will win in 2016?

12:33
Dave Cameron: 75-95.

12:33
Tom: Matt Adams and Marco Gonzales enough for Cargo to the Cards?

12:34
Dave Cameron: Should be, yes. CarGo’s not that valuable a trade chip.

12:34
Eric: Which team is least likely to make the playoffs in the next 2 years? 5 years? 10 years?

12:35
Dave Cameron: Phillies, Brewers, Rockies.

12:35
Joel: In general, what do you think of a philosophy of someone like Dipoto, who would rather trade than sign FAs? Isn’t the issue with that, is that you have to win every trade, which is hard to do?

12:36
Dave Cameron: Why is it easier to win every FA signing?

12:36
The Boat: Which current GM do you see as most similar to you – shares the same thought processes about the game?

12:36
Dave Cameron: Probably David Forst.

12:37
TJ: Could we still see some big trades happening before spring training starts ?

12:37
Dave Cameron: Sure. The off-season isn’t over yet. Plenty of stuff still to come.

12:37
Anglertron: Better Season next year: Joc Pederson or Jorge Soler?

12:37
Dave Cameron: Pederson.

12:38
Dale: If the Red Sox wants to offer an extension for Betts, where do they need to come in at? 90M 7 year? This buy 2 year of free agency say for 50M.

12:39
Dave Cameron: He’s not going to make $40M over the next five years. Give him $1M for the next two years combined, then arb awards of $5M, $10M, $15M or something, and you’re look at 5/$31M pre-FA. So 7/$90M is way too much.

12:40
Bork: AZ is very similar to SD last year. A lot of flashy signings and names, but the team needs a lot more than what they’ve signed.

12:40
Dave Cameron: This is true of most teams that go stars and scrubs.

12:40
mtsw: How much should teams look at their divisions for when they should “go for it?” The D-Backs’ decision to push their chips in seems foolish in light of very strong teams in SF and LAD. Or as a comparison it seemed like it made a lot of sense for Toronto to “go for it” in a rare year in which the Yankees and Red Sox both were reloading.

12:41
Dave Cameron: You absolutely have to weigh your odds of winning based on what your competition is likely to do. The Reds and Brewers should basically give up any thought of making the playoffs the next 2-3 years because of their division.

12:42
Eric: re: Cubs’ 95% confidence interval — so would you say the Cubs have less than a 3% chance at winning more than 95 games? They won more than that last year

12:42
Dave Cameron: I was mostly just giving an idea of how wide the range is. If you want to say it’s 78 to 98 instead of 75 to 95, that’s fine.

12:43
Jason: Which AL team is least likely to make the playoffs next year?

12:43
Dave Cameron: I’d say the Orioles.

12:44
Dave P: Dave – A follow up comment to a question you answered here early. Petco Park definitely changed due to the fences coming in but also changed due to construction in the area the past couple of years. The biggest addition was the 16 story Sempra Energy building 2 blocks north (link to google map pasted below. (https://www.google.com/maps/place/Sempra+Energy/@32.7086366,-117.1577072,384m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x80d954a8ca5133d7:0xf0358c7f19af1955

12:45
kp: Ken Griffey Jr is my favorite athlete of all time. Who is yours?

12:45
Dave Cameron: Probably Gary Payton.

12:45
Dave Cameron: Adrian Beltre is in the conversation too, though.

12:47
Bork: How high are you on Marcus Stroman? Ace in the making or just potentially very good?

12:47
Dave Cameron: The lower K% totals make me think he’ll be more of a good #2 than a dominant ace.

12:47
Big Joe Mufferaw: Why does no one seem to want Justin Upton??

12:47
Dave Cameron: Think there’s still some lingering disappointment with what he is compared to what he could have been.

12:48
Dave Cameron: Hard to look at him and not think that a +3 WAR player is disappointing giving his physical skills.

12:48
GetTheseCookies: Which 29 year old will age better? Donaldson, Cain, or Chris Davis?

12:48
Dave Cameron: Cain.

12:48
Julio Pepper: Independent of cost, who would you rater have for the next 5 years, Carrasco or Greinke?

12:48
Dave Cameron: Probably Greinke.

12:48
Joel: Do you think its fun when Beltre and Felix chirp at each other? I think it’s fun.

12:48
Dave Cameron: It’s the best.

12:49
Anglertron: Do you think Keuchel’s K-BB% jump last season is for real? Can he Sustain it this season?

12:50
Dave Cameron: He’s got elite command of very good stuff and takes advantage of the low strike zone better than anyone in baseball. So until or unless the umpires adjust, yes.

12:50
Derek: What would King Felix fetch in a trade to a playoff contender this year?

12:50
Dave Cameron: Probably something like the Hamels package.

12:50
Matt: Who makes the playoffs first: Braves, Phillies, Brewers, or Reds?

12:51
Dave Cameron: Braves or Phillies. NL East will be winnable before NL Central.

12:51
GSon: Including cost.. who would you rather have for the next 5 years, Carrasco or Greinke?

12:51
Dave Cameron: Carrasco, obviously.

12:51
grumbleshoes: Perhaps the question about football analytics could be looked at a different way. Might it be easier to make progress with statistical analysis in baseball than in football, due to the larger number of games played in baseball?

12:52
Dave Cameron: For sure. Also the independence of events, which makes things much easier to isolate in terms of a player’s responsibility for the outcome. Baseball is the most individual of the team sports, which is why there’s more useful data with it than other sports. The tracking systems are beginning to change that, however.

12:52
some guy: Does Juan Uribe on a 1-year deal to CLE look like a match to you? Seems they could / should add a veteran to play 3b in case Urshela doesn’t improve.

12:52
Dave Cameron: Yeah, that seems like a good fit.

12:52
TJ: Surprise team for 2016 is ____?

12:54
Dave Cameron: There isn’t really a traditional “sleeper” now that everyone is going for it in the AL and half the NL teams are legitimately awful. So I’ll go with the Dodgers; the narrative surrounding them is mostly negative, so people will be surprised when they run away with the NL West.

12:54
grumbleshoes: Should the Blue Jays be interested in Chris Davis, as a hedge against the loss of Encarnacion and/or Bautista? Or would he be too expensive an upgrade over what they’re already getting out of Smoak/Colabello?

12:54
Dave Cameron: They shouldn’t be interested in outbidding the Orioles. With $150M on the table, no one should be going near him.

12:55
Owen: Lots of talk about the Sox rotation after David Price. Do you think Rick Porcello bounces back and has a good season? Do you think Eduardo Rodriguez becomes the 2nd best pitcher on that staff as soon as next season?

12:56
Dave Cameron: Porcello will be fine. I’m not quite as high on Rodriguez as some others, and think he’ll be more of a back-end guy until the command improves a bit more.

12:57
mtsw: Do teams prioritize dingers for marketing/fan popularity reasons or do their baseball ops actually think a 5 WAR guy who hits 40 HR is more valuable than a 5 WAR guy who hits 20 HR?

12:57
Dave Cameron: Lower variance and more confidence surrounding hitting production than fielding value.

12:57
Joe: You said the Orioles are the least likely team to make the playoffs in the AL. How many NL teams are less likely to make the playoffs than the Orioles? 6? 8?

12:58
Dave Cameron: Yeah, probably six. Reds, Brewers, Phillies, Braves, Rockies, and Padres.

1:00
Ryan: No Marlins in that list of 6 teams…you think they might be able to surprise this year?

1:01
Dave Cameron: I’m not super high on them, but the NL East is winnable. Nats have some question marks, especially on health, and Mets are heavily relying on young pitching.

1:01
West: Why do you think the Dodgers will run away with the division when two teams made offseason improvements and LA lost Greinke and still have an average offense?

1:02
Dave Cameron: The Diamondbacks didn’t really get any better this winter. The Dodgers offense is one of the best in baseball.

1:03
HappyFunBall: I know it’s a silly thing, but any comment on this year’s HOF results to be released later today?

1:03
Dave Cameron: More of the same. Griffey will get in, Piazza might, and lots of other deserving players will not.

1:04
Dave Cameron: Alright, that’s going to do it for me today.





Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.

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tz
8 years ago

Fun fact of the day:

Joe Mauer, age 32 season:

.265/.338/.380, 10 HR, 66 RBI, 69 runs

Ross Gload, age 32+33 seasons:

.269/.321/.367, 9 HR, 67 RBI, 79 runs

cornflake5000
8 years ago
Reply to  tz

As a guy who drafted him in my Strat League when he was in AA ball and has kept him his entire career, I do not find this fun…