Dave Cameron FanGraphs Chat – 10/4/17

Dave Cameron: Happy Wild Card Wednesday, everyone.

Dave Cameron: The playoffs have begun, and I just published some thoughts on the Yankees power display last night (http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-yankees-are-overwhelmingly-powerful…), so obviously we’ll talk about the postseason plenty today.

Dave Cameron: But I’m sure there are plenty of questions about what’s going on in Atlanta, and other off-season issues, so we’ll grab some of those too.

Dave Cameron: Also, I’m running the live blog for the NL Wild Card game tonight, so you’ll get an overwhelming dose of me chatting today.

toki: What kind of penalties are you expecting the braves to be handed?  Do you expect them to lose prospects like the Red Sox did?

Dave Cameron: SInce we don’t have the information, it’s impossible to know, but it’s not that hard to note that no one in Boston got fired or resigned, and A.J. Preller was just suspended by MLB when he was with Texas and was accused of doing some shady stuff on the international scene. If Coppolella was forced to resign over the accusations, it seems like whatever he got caught doing was probably more blatant than what BOS or TEX did, so yeah, I’d expect some significant penalties for the Braves are still to come.

Dave Cameron: I don’t think MLB really wants to make a guy like Maitan a free agent unless they have to, though. If he gets $20 million or something if his contract is voided and he’s allowed to sign with anyone for whatever teams want to offer, then it will become even more obvious to future players that it could be financially advantageous to them to engage in shady activity with a team, then turn in the team they signed with in order to become a free agent.

CamdenWarehouse: Are we at the tip of the iceberg point with the Braves or are we really supposed to think that Hart had no idea what Coppy was doing?

Dave Cameron: Again, without knowing what they did, it’s difficult to say with any kind of certainty. But everyone in baseball knows how this stuff works, and it’s difficult for me to believe that this was just Coppy and Blakely doing stuff by themselves with everyone else completely unaware.

CarrotJuice: Is it OK to skip a philosophy course to watch the NL Wild Card Game? Asking for a friend…

Dave Cameron: As long as it isn’t a final, you have my full endorsement.

Chris: Recommendations on places to eat in Bend? Some thing

Dave Cameron: Wild Rose is a pretty interesting northern thai spot downtown. Spork is good. Bos Taurus, if you just won the lottery. If you’re looking for more casual fare, Sunriver Brewing probably has the best food of the 25 or whatever brewpubs we have now.

The Average Sports Fan: Doesn’t the Indians planned starters kinda fly in the face in what is supposed to be the disadvantage to the WC winner?

Dave Cameron: Well, the primary disadvantage for the Wild Card team is that they have to play their way in, and use their #1 starter generally to get through that game, meaning he only makes one start in the DS. But Severino didn’t work long enough to have to wait until Game 3 to start, so that disadvantage probably went away. Now their disadvantage is Robertson and maybe Kahnle/Green won’t be available for Game 1.

Dave Cameron: But yeah, this starting Kluber in game 2 thing is weird. I get that he’d only be able to pitch in Game 5 either way, so it might not matter, but you’re risking only getting one start out of him if there’s a rainout.

Dave Cameron: If you throw Bauer on Thursday, and then Friday’s game is canceled for weather — it’s October in Cleveland, after all — then you’re screwed, because he’d have to go Saturday in Game 2 and Game 5 would still be Wednesday, so your only option then would be to throw him on short rest.

Dave Cameron: It’s just not a risk I’d be willing to take.

doodus: If you could have any reliever for the playoffs who would you take?

Dave Cameron: Andrew Miller

Dave Cameron: Kimbrel and Jansen are awesome too, but Miller gives you more flexibility with the early entrance comfort.

Dontrelle Willis: Who are the Dodgers rooting for tonight?

Dave Cameron: Probably the Rockies. They won’t admit it, but COL is just a much easier matchup.

Ryan from NC: I was going to ask you about Kiley McDaniel’s status in light of ongoing Atlanta implosion.  But then I read that he’s been “demoted” to West Coast crosschecker.  https://www.talkingchop.com/2017/10/3/16413510/atlanta-braves-reassign…

Dave Cameron: He didn’t get demoted; he took that job several weeks ago, well before all this came out.

Q-Ball: From the outside, it looked like Coppolella was doing a really good job rebuilding the Braves.  Couple headscratcher moves (Kemp, Olivera), but mostly he was doing a good job on surface.  Would you agree with that?

Dave Cameron: Nope.

Dave Cameron: The farm system is in good shape, but the Major League team is mostly a mess.

Dave Cameron: The prospects are mostly very high risk types.

Dave Cameron: I don’t think the Braves are all that close to being good, and they haven’t done a good job of managing fan expectations.

J: If Cleveland is down 2-1 in the series with Tomlin on the mound in game 4…. are they making a mistake?

Dave Cameron: I think they’re making a mistake either way.

Zonk: Who is your pick for NL MVP?

Dave Cameron: I honestly don’t know. I didn’t have a ballot this year, so I haven’t gone through the process of splitting all those hairs.

Dave Cameron: There are a lot of legitimate candidates.

Eric: We finally got (almost) a bullpen game!

Dave Cameron: It works pretty well if you have four guys throwing 98.

Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe: Once Severino was pulled, were you impressed with how the Yankees managed their ‘pen? Or do you think there was too much or too little of an arm?

Dave Cameron: GIrardi handled it really well. I probably wouldn’t have used Chapman up by four, and taken that as an opportunity to see whether Betances could earn some trust back, but I get why he didn’t want to mess around with potentially having to bring Chapman in to fix Betances’ mess.

Mac: I saw something about how the indians gained an advantage by how much Robertson and green pitched yesterday. With the day off could they still pitch tomorrow, granted not for as long?

Dave Cameron: Robertson threw 52 pitches last night; and all of them very high effort. He needs a few days off.

B. Cashman: Jeter is reportedly likely to move Stanton. Hypothetically, how rough would your outfield defense be if you were starting Judge, Stanton and Harper (I guess Harper is the CF)? Asking for a friend…

Dave Cameron: Pretty rough. And the luxury tax payments that getting both of those guys would entail wouldn’t be fun either.

Matt: Thoughts on what’s next for Severino? Do you continue with the expected schedule and let him start Game 3, giving him a redemption at home? Do you try to get him out there earlier and start him in Game 2? If you stick with Game 3, do you make him available to supplement the bullpen tomorrow since he didn’t throw too many pitches?

Dave Cameron: I’d probably push him to Game 2.

Dave Cameron: He’s still their best starter.

Xolo: If you ran the Twins, what would be your approach to this offseason?

Dave Cameron: Patience. There’s still a big gap between MIN and CLE, and you don’t want to sacrifice too much of the future trying to think you’re closer than you are.

Dave Cameron: Add an arm or two, but mostly run back the same team and evaluate in July.

PTBNL: Were last night’s events enough to make managers consider bullpening a wild card game in the future? Or will conventional practices hold out.

Dave Cameron: I mean, we basically just saw one.

Dave Cameron: I think it will take a while before a team just says they aren’t even going to have a starter take the mound first, since those are the guys who are used to warming up pre-game and having that routine, but I think we’re already at the point where the SP designation is kind of useless, and everyone in that game is just going an inning or two.

Dave Cameron: Greinke and Gray will go deeper tonight, because neither ARI or COL really love their bullpens.

Dave Cameron: But for teams with strong relief corps, yeah, bullpenning is here.

Matt: So last night’s game, in terms of the bullpen once it came in, worked out literally perfectly. This does not however, address what I believe to be the strongest criticism of the bullpen strategy for a game – that the likelihood of having that many guys be “on” in a single game decreases as you increase the number of guys. Thoughts?

Dave Cameron: There’s zero evidence that it’s true.

David: Concerning the Indians’ confusing plan to start Kluber in Game 2, does it make more sense if they are planning to turn the Bauer and Tomlin starts into bullpen games at the first sign of trouble? Thus, starting Bauer in Game 1 and having the workhorses in Games 2 and 3 separates the bullpen games by more rest days, allowing them to more fully recover before game 4, while Kluber still pitches twice and Bauer is available for relief in the last two games. Maybe the Indians are actually smarter than people think.

Dave Cameron: I’m sure that’s part of it. It’s too cute for me, though. If there’s no rainout, you still get an off-day between games 2/3, so even if you use Bauer in Game 2, you’re getting a rest day and then a Carrasco start before Tomlin takes the mound.

Dave Cameron: And if there is a rain-out, this strategy blows for Cleveland.

Sterling Mallory Chris Archer: Any recovery update on your ACL?

Dave Cameron: I’ve been greenlit to start jogging again. So mostly back to normal human life, minus I can’t do anything particularly aggressive. No running/cutting/jumping. But walking is fine and straight line jogging/biking gives me exercise options.

Matt: So, if last night just moved the “10” on a 1-to-10 scale of game awesomeness, what’s the expectation for tonight? A 4?

Dave Cameron: Arenado and Goldschmidt are fun. J.D. Martinez. Jon Gray’s slider. Greinke being Greinke.

Dave Cameron: I’ll say a 7.

Specious Spencer: So the MVP award is, in your view, independent of team performance?

Dave Cameron: Yup.

Dave Cameron: It’s an individual award.

Dave Cameron: The reward for team performance is the postseason.

Bleh: Is there a team that would legitimately surprise you if they made the world series?  Or have all the remaining playoff teams proven enough to be considered contenders?

Dave Cameron: COL making it would surprise me.

Gronch: Are the Yankees the second best team in the AL?

Dave Cameron: I’d say that’s Houston.

Dave Cameron: But they might be just as good as Boston.

PTBNL: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/madison-bumgarner-rode-a-hot-stre…

curious to get your take on this article and how you view ‘hot streaks’ for a pitcher

Dave Cameron: I like that Rob is researching this. I’m not convinced that the conclusions are entirely right yet.

Aaron: Are writers glad it’s finally October because they can start writing about the playoffs or not glad because everybody ends up writing about the same stuff?

Dave Cameron: The playoffs are super fun from a baseball standpoint, but kind of crappy from a life standpoint.

Dave Cameron: Today is my wedding anniversary (I got married before I was a baseball writer), and I’ll spend it live blogging the Wild Card game.

TJ: Yankees really dont care what Blake Rutherford does repeating low class A again next year, do they?

Dave Cameron: No.

Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe: Let’s pretend that each team was at top health entering the post-season. If you were to rank the teams by lineup, bench, rotation, bullpen, coaching, and front office, are there any categories where the Twins would not have ranked “10?”

Dave Cameron: OF defense.

Billy Eppler: Should I try to resign either Justin Upton or Brandon Phillips?

Dave Cameron: Upton, yes.

Dave: Dave, you thought the Astros needed to improve their offense, but they just finished as one of the best offenses of all time while missing significant time from a superstar and being obligated to play the corpse that is Carlos Beltran’s bat speed. Is it OK to say we undersold their offensive capabilities?

Dave Cameron: They got some great regular season performances from some guys who played over their head. I’m still a bit worried about their October offense, especially against RHPs. Their LH weapons offensively are McCann and Reddick, basically.

Moltar: If you were given unilateral control over MLB with no need to collectively bargain, how would you approach international signings? Unrestricted free agency?

Dave Cameron: My proposal, which will never happen, has been to just bundle all spending together and give each team a total budget that they can spend on everything. So maybe you get $250 million in total, and that has to pay for your MLB players, any new player acquisitions (foreign or domestic), coaching staff, etc…

Dave Cameron: If you want to spend $100 million on teenagers while you’re rebuilding, knock yourself out.

Ducky Mansyrup: What kind of package do you think the Marlins could get for Giancarlo?

Dave Cameron: Depends on how much salary they eat. He cleared waivers in August.

TJ: If the Yankees run the table in October and Judge is an active contributor, does he become the Manfred-authorized new Face of Baseball  (tm) ?

Dave Cameron: He’s already pretty close, I think.

Dave Cameron: Top selling jersey this year.

Liam: In light of the production Jay Bruce and JD Martinez provided for their teams, will the FA/trade market for power hitters adjust back accordingly?

Dave Cameron: Bruce wasn’t very good in Cleveland.

Dave Cameron: And Martinez was just as good in ARI as he was in DET.

Dave Cameron: So, no.

Ducky Mansyrup: Only negative thing I ever heard about Coppolella was that he would pepper teams about players he was about to release and asking for top 10 prospects. How much does behavior like that make other teams simply not take anything seriously?

Dave Cameron: That is not the only reason other teams didn’t like dealing with him.

Dave Cameron: Alex Anthopolous used to bug everyone for trade talks at all times, but he didn’t get on people’s nerves the same way.

CamdenWarehouse: Re Braves managing fan expectations – I don’t think that’s an easy job.  These guys think Markakis and Kemp could return top prospects

Dave Cameron: Because the organization sold those guys as assets.

Dave Cameron: That’s on the organization, not the fans.

HappyFunBall: So last postseason it was Andrew Miller. Last night was all the Yankees. I don’t know what the FA class for RP looks like this off-season, but I think they’re about to get PAID.

Dave Cameron: Well, there aren’t any Chapmans or Jansens in this class, so you won’t see the high-end contracts that we saw last winter.

Dave Cameron: And I think the shift is going to be more towards shifting SP prospects to RP sooner. Teams will look more for their Chad Greens.

Josh: How much of the Brewers success this year can be attributed to August Fagerstrom?  At least 10 wins, right?

Dave Cameron: I’d say 15.

NtflxnRichHill : The players’ view on bullpenning a game was interesting. As a former div 1 college pitcher, if I was starting, my game prep started the day before. Question: is it still a bullpen game if the starter starts and is told he’s just going 3 innings – that way he can still do his normal routine?

Dave Cameron: I think that’s what we’re headed towards. Because SPs have the routine to get ready for a first pitch, no real reason to take that away from them and force an RP to throw pitch 1. But you just make it clear to the “starter” than he’s effectively throwing 30-40 pitches, and that’s it.

E: Are there and “bad” World Series matchups the MLB and the networks wouldn’t want to see at this point?

Dave Cameron: CLE-COL is probably worst case scenario for ratings, I would think.

Dave Cameron: But from a baseball standpoint, everyone left is interesting.

Dr Evil: Bullpening is great but Girardi just said Robertson and possibly Green not available Thursday (with one day of rest).  You still need something from your starters as the dominant arms can’t go 40-50 pitches every day or every other day

Dave Cameron: Of course. No one is suggesting that last night’s model is the model for every game.

Dave Cameron: But for winner-take-all games with a built in off-day afterwards, it’s a good plan.

Ducky Mansyrup: Bryce Harper cleared waivers too? Does that mean no one wants him at that salary?

Dave Cameron: It meant that there was no possible trade discussions to be had there.

Dave Cameron: That is not true in Stanton’s case.

kevinthecomic: How do you reconcile your stance that the mvp is an individual award with the clause “most valuable to his team” in the voting instructions?  It’s pretty clear that team performance/context is supposed to be considered.  Seems like you are ignoring the rules in order to go on some kind of personal crusade.

Dave Cameron: Read the entire instruction. It clearly says most valuable to his team, as in the value of hitting, pitching, and fielding.

Dave Cameron: It defines value as individual performance.

Dave Cameron: I think you might want to reconsider who has the personal crusade here.

Dave: That seems a bit unfair, teams have guys perform over their heads all the time, which is how teams win or break records. And usually have guys that do the opposite, as well. Are we deeming “over their head performance” to guys you were average hitters in Bregman and Gurriel?

Dave Cameron: Name an Astros hitter who underperformed this year.

Dave Cameron: Beltran, maybe, but he’s 40.

Guest: How are we worried about the Astros against RHP because their only LH bats are Reddick and McCann? Are we supposed to look past having Correa/Springer/Altuve in this scenario?

Dave Cameron: Of course those guys are awesome, but the Astros line-up is particularly unbalanced, and there are a lot of very good RH relievers in this postseason. I’d feel better about Houston’s offense if one of their good hitters was a lefty.

NtflxnRichHill : I know you guys say it would never happen because the demand isn’t there, but I would love – and I think I speak for a lot of Fangraphs’ readers – if you and Jeff got together and did  a live broadcast, announcing at least one playoff game. Fake booth – maybe blazers, tshirts, underwear…and you guys talking…that sounds like a dream…

Dave Cameron: Not allowed. MLB would cease and desist us.

Guest: Re August: was it released what kind of role he has with the team?

Dave Cameron: He’s a baseball operations analyst.

Nick: Could you guys do commentary if you didn’t provide the video feed?

Dave Cameron: The disclaimer they always say is that you can’t report the “accounts and descriptions of the game” in real time.

Dave Cameron: Alright, off to go try to buy some donuts for my wife for our anniversary. I’ll be back this evening for D’Backs-Rockies.

Dave Cameron: See you guys then!