Dave Cameron FanGraphs Chat – 2/18/15

Dave Cameron: Hey, it’s a chat taking place at its regularly scheduled time. That’s different, this week.

Dave Cameron: The queue is now open. ‘

Dave Cameron: I spoke too soon.

Dave Cameron: Scheduled day, at least

Dave Cameron: Sorry about the delay.

Dave Cameron: Alright, let’s get to it.

Comment From Cave Dameron
What do you think the Red Sox could get back in a trade for Victorino, Craig, etc

Dave Cameron: Depends on how much salary they pick up. If none, nothing for Craig, and almost nothing for Victorino.

Comment From los
Which would you prefer. A team with a preseason 10% chance to win the world series or a team in Game 7 of the world series down in the bottom of the 9th such that they have a 10% W/E? Is one more variable than the other or is 10% = 10% no matter what.

Dave Cameron: in terms of having a chance to win the WS, you probably are agnostic. I’d take the latter, though, because that means I already had a really fun year.

Comment From Jimmy
Any future for Jackie Bradley Jr. as a big league regular?

Dave Cameron: Yeah, I think he’ll figure things out well enough to be a solid CF for a while.

Comment From @Bobbleheadguru
What you you like about Baseball Reference? What do you do better?

Dave Cameron: I’ll let you decide on the second question, but B-R’s Play Index is really great.

Comment From Chris
Were there any common qualities of the new hires that made them stand out above the rest of the applicants?

Dave Cameron: I said this in the post announcing them, but we really could have hired a lot of other people and felt great about our choices. So to some extent, we just had to make some tough choices. But each of the five we hired have some particular skill that was a bit unique, or at least somewhat rare. I will say that the ability to fill a specific role is probably a little bit more valuable to us than just being a generalist.

Comment From @Bobbleheadguru
Can Verlander become “Doug Fister” for the next 5 years. Not worth his salary, but very productive. Check out their FIPs last year before you comment!

Dave Cameron: He’s going to have to figure out how to pitch with diminished stuff. I wouldn’t be shocked if he ended his career as a lights out closer.

Comment From KK
Kris Bryant for Jordan Zimmermann (and Zimm signing an extension w/ cubs) — who says no?

Dave Cameron: Cubs wouldn’t even consider it.

Comment From Catoblepas
I know your minor league system value post yesterday was meant to be rough, but if you could, would you include a depreciation coefficient, to differentiate between high-minors and low-minors prospects? Or do you think Kiley’s rankings include that enough already?

Dave Cameron: The FV grades are supposed to account for that.

Comment From witesoxfan
Given that part of the reason for ranking the Upton trade so highly was that the compensation pick they’ll get if/when they lose Upton will possibly be worth more than they gave up, why wasn’t the Samardzija trade considered the same?

Dave Cameron: The White Sox gave up more.

Comment From Dan
One thing that I haven’t seen enough discussion about is the impact of the changing strike zone on specific types of pitchers, and maybe especially on pitchers who have found far more success in recent years working the bottom half of the strike zone – Dallas Keuchel, Jose Quintana, Alex Cobb, Alex Wood, others. Do you think their success is sustainable? And who are the next group of guys to find success at the bottom of the zone?

Dave Cameron: I would imagine this will be a popular topic to discuss today.

Dave Cameron: And by today, I mean this year.

Comment From Ryan Brain
Brewers window seems to be closing, if not closed already. In a division that doesn’t really seem to have a bad team, thinking long term, does it make sense for them to blow the whole thing up, sell off anything of value, and make a total rebuild and aim for greatness 5-10 years down the road, or is it a better option for them to stick with the value they have, and try to stay in quasi-contention for the forseeable future?

Dave Cameron: I think that’s their direction next winter, most likely.

Comment From _David_
How would it affect the game if the draft pick allocation was reversed and the best teams got the higher picks? It probably has terrible consequences, but would any good come from forcing teams to spend and innovate their way out of a vicious circle?

Dave Cameron: It would skew things too heavily towards the high revenue clubs.

Comment From The Only Nolan
Would a Shane Victorino and Bryce Brentz for Cliff Lee trade make sense for both sides? Is it a completely insane idea?

Dave Cameron: What would the Phillies want with Victorino?

Comment From Seymour
is Ruben Amaro over-playing his hand with Papelbon? I know your answer for Hamels.

Dave Cameron: Closers have more trade value in-season than in the off-season. I don’t have a problem with him holding Papelbon, or the Braves holding Kimbrel, until July.

Comment From greg
Having recently read about how and why ERA+ and ERA- are not mirror images of each other, it seems that ERA- is the one that paints the better picture of what we’re trying to understand. Why is ERA+ used at all?

Dave Cameron: ERA+ has been around longer and people are resistant to change. Sean Forman tried to change it once, and people freaked out.

Dave Cameron: But yes, ERA+ is problematic and it’s not great that it’s the more popular of the two calculations.

Comment From Sir Nerdlington
Your post about the team system valuation was interesting but I’m having a hard time reconciling how a 70FV is worth $55M when Moncada will cost $25-45M more than that. Are teams assigning a higher probability to his success, so flush with money they can afford to make a likely upside down investment (based on the expected value), or are they factoring in higher future inflation? Find it hard to believe it’s just supply/demand since there are other places to put that excess money to work. Thoughts?

Dave Cameron: I think the Creagh/DiMiceli values are a bit low, but yesterday’s post was less about trying to come up with an exact dollar value and more about comparing teams relative to each other. So, for the purposes of yesterday’s post, the lowered values didn’t matter too much. But I do think the values at the top end are likely a bit higher than what their estimates came up with.

Comment From Catoblepas
Re: Jackie Bradley Jr., the glove is so good that he has a relatively low bar to get over to be productive. He can easily be the Jose Iglesias of center field. On a related note, do you think we’ll see defensive specialists in a wider range of positions, as defensive metrics continue to improve?

Dave Cameron: We’ve already seen that. Note the big surge in glove-first corner outfielders of late.

Comment From cmg8462
What is Fangraphs vision for the future. It’s undoubtedly expanded in terms of writers and coverage areas (Kiley has done a fantastic job bringing prospect coverage) but what does the end-game look like.

Dave Cameron: I don’t think we’re really focused on what the end of FanGraphs looks like. We’re more focused on making the site better as much as possible. There are definitely areas where we could still improve, and we’ll look to upgrade those as we go, until we run out of things to upgrade. And then, hopefully, at that point, we’re rolling in money and we can go retire on a beach or something.

Comment From monty
What percentage of your pay do you aim to save and invest? I’ve been devouring the bogglehead forums ever since you mentioned them on twitter lol

Dave Cameron: My personal situation is a little bit of an abnormality, because my wife and I focused more on paying down debt than retirement savings when I got cancer; I didn’t want to leave her in a rough spot if I died, so we shifted towards the present rather than the future. Now that it’s less likely that I’m going to die soon, we’re saving ~15% of our income, and would like to get that to 20%.

Comment From Steven
Wouldn’t the Nationals have been much better off getting Cano last season than Scherzer this year? Can you explain?

Dave Cameron: Unquestionably. But Cano got $240 without deferrals, so they didn’t really cost the same.

Comment From Cory
Can you talk about the interaction between a prospect list like the one Kiley did and the concept of the player development? Is it that a team with better player development is more likely to have their players reach the future value assessment?

Dave Cameron: Or might regularly develop into more than we thought possible. The Cardinals are the easy example, turning low FV guys like Matt Carpenter into legitimate stars.

Comment From J. Peterman
Are the Nationals really going to put a 3-WAR, young starting pitcher in their bullpen? If they’re set on the other 5, doesn’t it make sense to trade Roark for a similar guy at a position of need?

Dave Cameron: They’re losing Zimmermann and maybe Fister next year, so they need Roark long term. Pitchers get hurt too.

Comment From CK
Have you ever pursued a position with a organization, why or why not?

Dave Cameron: I’ve had a few conversations, but realistically, I’ve got a better gig with FG than I would have with a team. I work from home, take weekends and holidays off, love the people I work with, and get to talk about the things I help build. My quality of life here is pretty tough to beat.,

Comment From Eric
Are teams ever going to give in to market forces and start paying their analysts better?

Dave Cameron: If market forces were actually pushing them to do that, they would. There’s so many insanely smart kids who are willing to work for little/nothing that they just don’t have to.

Comment From Guest
I’m looking out my window at a completely frozen and snowed-over river. Did you get hit down in NC?

Dave Cameron: We got about an inch of snow. So the whole city shut down.

Comment From Im not a robot
How often can we expect content from the new hires?

Dave Cameron: Craig and Owen will write most days. Sean and Chris will write a few times per week (plus you’ll see Sean’s charts showing up in other people’s posts), and Larry will start off as a once per week contributor.

Comment From pinch
Some of the new hires came from the Community Blog. If you write consistently and get noticed by someone at Fangraphs, are you contacted somehow? Is there an initiation ceremony? How closely do you watch things?

Dave Cameron: We’ve hired a lot of people from the Community Blog, actually. It’s the very best place to get our attention if you want to work for us.

Dave Cameron: If we see you doing regular good work there, we’ll get ahold of you.

Comment From Guest
what’s the worst thing about baseball

Dave Cameron: Murray Chass?

Comment From Mark
Does Mookie Betts play every day in that crowded Boston lineup? Seems like he has the highest upside of anyone, but will he lose ABS to the Victorinos and Allen Craigs of the world?

Dave Cameron: There’s no reason to have strict roles. Rotate Victorino/Betts/Castillo through two spots and they all get 500+ ABs.

Comment From L. Scott
Would the market for Moncada and Olivera be the same if Jose Abreu didn’t have a huge year last year? Or is there no correlation at all.

Dave Cameron: There’s no question that Abreu’s success has teams reevaluating how aggressive they should be on these guys.

Comment From Gonzo
So real talk: in the near or intermediate future MLB is going to automate the strike zone making catcher framing obsolete right?

Dave Cameron: False.

Dave Cameron: They’ll work with umpires to try and limit its effects, but they are still humans, and they aren’t going anywhere.

Comment From Pete
When is it reasonable to “give up” on a highly touted prospect — or at least significantly reconsider expectations in light of big league performance?

Dave Cameron: You probably want to give legitimate top prospects a couple of years at least.

Comment From JayT
Would you rather have a minor league system that had a ten 55s, or a system that had a 70, a 65, a 60, and a seven 45s?

Dave Cameron: The latter.

Comment From STiVo
I really liked your article titled “Everyone Is a Prospect”(http://www.fangraphs.com/bl…). I assume you were word-limited with the piece, but wouldn’t the analysis be even stronger when you add in the difference in cost between “proven” veterans (who are expensive) and prospects (who are cheap)?

Dave Cameron: Well, sure, but the point wasn’t that prospects are more valuable than expensive veterans; I just wanted to reinforce the idea that veterans come with risk too.

Comment From Joel
I think Mike Salk totally missed your point about ‘bat only’ players.

Dave Cameron: Nah, he and I have argued about these kinds of players for years. We just disagree.

Comment From Tom
No love for the Cardinals’ trade for Jason Heyward?

Dave Cameron: I liked it for them, but giving up four years of Miller for one year of Heyward isn’t a clear theft. Miller could still have a solid career.

Comment From John Thomas
Who could you see having a Wade Davis/Betances kind of year this year, not including Davis or Betances.

Dave Cameron: Aaron Sanchez.

Comment From Joel
Can you explain the difference between WAR on Baseball-Reference and WAR on FG?

Dave Cameron: On the position player side, it’s mostly just about the difference in defensive metrics; we use UZR, they use DRS. On the pitching side, it’s much larger, as we just fundamental differences in the way to approach pitching evaluations.

Comment From Guest
Is the fact that Rickie Weeks is not a Blue Jay baffling? I mean they had the need, he was cheap, and they do have a history of developing post hype power guys

Dave Cameron: Yeah, he seemed like a guy who should have fit there. But he is a pretty awful 2B, so perhaps they were just tired of lousy defense there.

Comment From Guest
if you could be doing anything else with your life, what would it be

Dave Cameron: I have some interest in providing financial analysis/retirement planning for middle-income folks. Perhaps my next career is to figure out how to help those without access to significant capital take advantage of better financial advice than they generally get.

Comment From CK
What would a Kimbrel trade look like?

Dave Cameron: If he’s having a Kimbrel-esque season, they’d get a legit prospect and dump the whole contract.

Comment From Harris
Why would ERA- be a better indicator of ERA+ ? Aren’t they just reversed?

Dave Cameron: Nope. http://walksaber.blogspot.c…

Comment From Prich
Iwakuma pitches to his career norms this year… 3/39 with a team option for a 4th @13 and 3 mil buyout get it done for his services?

Dave Cameron: Not even close.

Comment From Oren
Gammons suggests that the Braves are really interested in Jackie Bradley Jr., which seems logical enough. Is there a trade there that makes sense, though?

Dave Cameron: Maybe there’s your Kimbrel trade, in a few months.

Comment From JJB
Atypical question for you – what prompted you to switch from accountant to baseball writer? And how tough was that transition?

Dave Cameron: I actually quit my accounting job without having the baseball writing gig. I had been working 60 hours per week and taking 15 credit hours per semester at the same time, so I was killing myself and it wasn’t healthy. I quit my job in order to finish my degree with sanity, and then just lucked into the baseball writing thing.

Comment From Guest
while I appreciate that lower = better for pitching stats, I’ll be damned if inverting from wRC+/OPS+ doesn’t flummox with my head. below league average (100) is below league average!

Dave Cameron: Yeah, I get that. There is a nice symmetry to having higher always be better, but mathematically, ERA+ is just wrong.

Dave Cameron: Or, really, I should say that it isn’t calculating what people think it is.

Comment From Maxamuz
When will I be able to export ZiPS into a spreadsheet?

Dave Cameron: Very soon.

Comment From PL78
With the outstanding free agent crop next year, couldn’t any team with money (Philadelphia) pull a this-years Padres with ease?

Dave Cameron: I’d bet “pulling a Padres” is going to mean something quite different in 12 months.

Comment From Guest
do you conceptualize differently retirement savings and mid/long-term savings?

Dave Cameron: Yep. Different uses, and should be approached differently.

Comment From Guest
How much did your economics education make you a better baseball writer? Do you still like regular old economics?

Dave Cameron: I think the economic concepts are probably more important than the actual tools. I do like econ, but I don’t love economists thinking they can figure everything out with a regression.

Comment From Joel
How sabremetrically inclined are the Giants?

Dave Cameron: More than we gave them credit for a few years ago.

Comment From JJ
How much do you think one ultimately needs saved to retire today? Obviously it differs according to lifestyle, but do you have an actual number in mind?

Dave Cameron: There’s no number that works for everyone. It depends entirely on your spending.

Dave Cameron: And, of course, how many years you plan to be alive without income.

Comment From Adrian
What’s the best advice you have for younger individuals who want to work in baseball? (Either writing, with a team, etc.)

Dave Cameron: Become the go-to person at one thing. Figure out how to own an area, rather than being a generalist. There are so many people who just want to write about everything. There are fewer people who want to take one particular aspect of the game and become an expert.

Comment From pinch
How regular is “regular”? Weekly? Daily? re: community blog hires

Dave Cameron: I think we hired Dan Farnsworth after he put in three or four really good pieces over the span of a few months. Owen Watson did the same before Paul picked him up for THT. If you submit something to the Community Blog on a daily basis, Jeff might get annoyed with you. Unless you really are awesome, that’s a high bar to meet.

Comment From Harry Porter and the Voldemalts
ITS SNOWING IN THE SOUTH: TIME TO LOSE ALL MY RATIONAL THOUGHTS

Dave Cameron: I will always be amused by the school closings when snow is forecast. It’s not even snowing and everyone stays home.

Comment From Henry
LAD/Olivera–if it actually happens, what the heck are they going to do? Rotate (ala BOS OF)?

Dave Cameron: No reason Uribe needs to play 160 games. There’s room for depth there.

Comment From Charles
Should we slow down the hype train for Bryant? It seems like a ton of guys in recent years have killed in the minors and struggled in the majors. I mean…Could Bryant be Chris Davis 2.0?

Dave Cameron: Sure he could. He could even be Mark Reynolds.

Dave Cameron: But that’s not the likely outcome.

Comment From Joel
Do you think there is a real possibility that Grienke opts out of his contract after the season?

Dave Cameron: Barring injury, I’d call it a lock.

Comment From doffbhoya
i’m not sure i understand why the scherzer deal is so bad for the nats. what if they were simply making a choice between 7 years of scherzer today vs. 6 years of zimmerman (or Price, etc.) next year? would you rather have scherzer in that scenario?

Dave Cameron: So many other options, and the marginal upgrade from Roark to Scherzer just isn’t that important .

Comment From Pirates Hurdles
Wait, so you want the stars and scrubs minor league system over the all good player group? Isn’t that the opposite of your MLB roster construction viewpoint?

Dave Cameron: Yep. Because I’m not trying to win games with my farm system.

Comment From klof
you and others have noted that trade value is highest mid-season. does cole hamels’ trade value increase because of the mid-season premium more than his value loses from being half a season less?

Dave Cameron: If he stays healthy, yes. But you have to take on several months of health risk in order to get there.

Comment From Guest
Do you drink pour-over coffee

Dave Cameron: I don’t drink coffee at all, actually.

Comment From JJB
Considering what you just said about a Kimbrel trade, how crazy is it that the Phillies expect the exact same return for Papelbon?

Dave Cameron: Crazy. Kimbrel is awesome. Papelbon is okay.

Comment From Matt
Dave, your post about paying down debt in case of the worst made me sad. I just want to say that I’m glad you are well and you have influenced my life to a considerable degree. Thank You.

Dave Cameron: Well, thanks. But don’t be sad. I haven’t died yet. Be happy. Unless you hate me. But even then, be happy for my wife and kid!

Comment From Guest
As a concept, aren’t defense adjusted batted ball values vital to a pitcher’s value with the problem being lack of granular data to properly calculate it? In WAR, Fangraphs choses to ignore almost all balls in play (infield fly as the exception) rather than how Baseball Reference does what it can to include this in a non-perfect way.

Dave Cameron: Doing what it can is worse than doing nothing if you’re doing it poorly. And I’d argue that assigning defensive contribution in the way that B-R does is worse than doing nothing.

Dave Cameron: We are transparent about the fact that our pitcher WAR does not include balls in play, and you can adjust for that to the degree you think is reasonable. Good luck backing defensive contribution out of their pitcher WAR without a spreadsheet.

Comment From Mitch
kimbrel the best closer in the game for a position player that has posted negative war in 500 PA’s?

Dave Cameron: It’s almost like there’s more to trade value than past performance.

Comment From Mike P.
Did you write the title of your article for your recent piece on JABO? Over here, it makes sense “Everyone is a Prospect”. There, it’s “Veterans Can Be Just as Risky as Prospects”. By your own numbers, it’s not even close (70% to 25%). And you even say “Certainly, 25% isn’t 70%”. Just…why would they title it that?

Dave Cameron: That’s a good question that I don’t have an answer to.

Comment From Guest
Any more kingdoms Fangraphs plans to explore in the near future (ex. Techgraphs, etc.)?

Dave Cameron: I would never say never, but the reality is that building a “FanGraphs for …” is hard. If there was an opportunity that made sense, I think we’d consider it, but we’re a bit wary of spreading ourselves thin and potentially losing what we think is a pretty good thing going already.

Comment From Maxamuz
Wouldn’t you think Minor for JBJ to be more realistic than Kimbrel?

Dave Cameron: I dont

Dave Cameron: I don’t think the Red Sox need another back-end starter.

Comment From Northsider
RE: Scherzer Would your opinion of the signing change if the Nats followed up and traded Strasburg to fill up their farm system?

Dave Cameron: If they got a crazy good return, maybe.

Comment From klof
does eno ever send you great beers?

Dave Cameron: i don’t drink beer either. I’m weird.

Comment From Eric
What’s the best and worst part of your job?

Dave Cameron: The best part is the people I get to work with. We really have a great staff. These guys are awesome. The worst part is going to send like whining, but working from home does get a bit lonely at times. I like not having a commute and not having to shave everyday, but I kinda miss working in an office with other people.

Comment From Guest
Will better defensive information — maybe statcast? — allow for smarter pitcher WAR calculations?

Dave Cameron: That’s the hope. Ideally, we’ll get to a point where we can assign a specific run value to pitcher and fielder on every play.

Dave Cameron: And have more confidence that we’re correct.

Comment From Eric
Do you listen to any podcasts?

Dave Cameron: A few. I really enjoy Alton Brown’s podcast, for one. He needs to do more of them.

Comment From Action Bronson
It has always seemed mildly confusing to me that catchers arent better hitters. One would think that after building a career calling for and recognizing pitches , appropriate timing etc that these guys would have a stronger ability to hit said pitches. Is there any validity to this? Why are many catchers such poor hitters?

Dave Cameron: Catchers are selected based on a set of skills that is often quite different than the set of skills needed to hit a baseball. And also, it’s hard work.

Comment From Guest
How real is the threat of teams hiring away the best and brightest minds and losing it from public knowledge? We were probably set back years on framing losing Mike Fast. One of the leading hockey analytics sites was shut down after the creator was hired by a team.

Dave Cameron: With all due respect to Mike Fast, I think the opposite is actually true. Guys like that landing good MLB gigs encourages other smart young people to follow in their path, publishing more work in the wild, and increasing overall knowledge.

Dave Cameron: I don’t think pitcher framing analysis died with Mike Fast.

Dave Cameron: Alright, off to get some more work done.

Dave Cameron: Thanks for hanging out everyone.