Jeff Sullivan FanGraphs Chat — 10/27/17

October 27, 2017

9:06	Jeff Sullivan: Hello friends

9:06	Jeff Sullivan: Welcome to Friday baseball chat

9:06	Kiermaier’s Piercing Green Eyes: Longoria gets 10-5 rights next season. Does he get traded before then?

9:07	Jeff Sullivan: I don’t know why he would. This being Tampa Bay, obviously there’s always the chance, but Longoria feels like a forever Ray

9:08	Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe: What does Hensley Meulens need to do to get hired as a manager in one of the three current vacancies? I’d love him with the Nationals (though current front-runner Dave Martinez feels like a good fit as well).

9:08	Jeff Sullivan: This comment expresses a stronger feeling about a possible managerial candidate than I could personally ever imagine possessing

9:09	Jeff Sullivan: Feels like the Nationals in particular are going to try to find the perfect impossible blend of experienced, capable, and cheap

9:09	Jeff Sullivan: That doesn’t exist

9:10	Jeff Sullivan: But if there’s a trend these days, it’s toward managers who are willing to be, for lack of better word, submissive. If you have a strong personality but you’re willing to have your strings pulled, you could get a job

9:11	BJOGC: Carson hates baseball yet he works for a baseball website and even hosts a baseball related podcast. What would be your hellishly ironic job?

9:11	Jeff Sullivan: Kindergarten teacher

9:12

Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe: Dusty Baker has lost a job, but Alex Cora has seemingly gained one in Boston. Dave Roberts and Rick Renteria represent the only other minority MLB managers. Between the Yankees, Phillies, and Nationals vacancies, how much more diversity do you think we’ll find in management roles in the dugout?

9:13	Jeff Sullivan: It’s basically Dave Martinez, right? He seems like by far the best hope

9:13

Jack: If you lived in one of the two-team cities (Chicago or New York — sorry, Angels, you’re not in LA), would you be a Cubs or a White Sox fan in Chicago, or if you lived in New York would you a Yankees or a Mets fan? For people who are raised in a two-team city, I assume which team you end up cheering for is mostly determined by who most of your family and friends cheer for, which stadium you live closer to, maybe what team was better while you were growing up, etc., but say you just moved to New York or Chicago yesterday and decided you were gonna pick one of their teams to be a fan of. You live roughly the same distance from each stadium, and you don’t have any friends in your new city yet that would influence your decision.

9:14	Jeff Sullivan: I’m torn. In this hypothetical, there’s the human pull toward the underdog, but then I think that has more to do with specific, individual games. Because there’s also a strong and pervasive human pattern of frontrunning

9:15	Jeff Sullivan: I’d prefer to root for the team that isn’t already good. But if this is also about me then in reality I wouldn’t switch my own allegiances just because I moved to a new apartment

9:15	Bennybadatroto: hey Jeff, what’s Tyler Mahle’s realistic ceiling? Can he be a solid number two starter?

9:15	Jeff Sullivan: Shout out to the unexpected Tyler Mahle question during the World Series

9:17	Jeff Sullivan: I think solid number two is aiming a little high, if we’re thinking in terms of 50th percentiles

9:18	Jeff Sullivan: Didn’t flash much of his changeup in the major leagues, and it remains an open question how he’ll do against lefties. There’s also the larger point that I just don’t know if I trust the Reds right now to know how to develop a starter

9:18	Jeff Sullivan: Big part of me wonders how the Reds would look as a major-league roster right now if they had, say, the Cardinals’ player development

9:19	Ryan B: Hey Jeff – thoughts on Mickey Callaway with the Mets? If you had to pick an arm that he might have the most influence on, who might that be?

9:19	Jeff Sullivan: Obviously, Callaway would be a big reason why the Mets won’t non-tender Matt Harvey, but I think it’s going to be most interesting to watch if he can help mold Noah Syndergaard into someone who doesn’t go 100% all of the time with every pitch

9:20	Jeff Sullivan: A version of Syndergaard who paces himself would be unbelievable

9:20	T: What are the characteristics of a pitcher that needs to lower their arm slot? Can you identify anyone that could use this to improve their slot in the rotation? Anyone else you see that could improve with this adjustment like Darvish and Morton?

9:21

Jeff Sullivan: A lot of times, over-the-top arm slots look unnatural. Mostly because they are unnatural! Like, Clayton Kershaw doesn’t pitch in the way that his body was designed to throw. But if a guy is over-the-top and successful, there’s not much of a reason to change. So you’d be looking for an over-the-top delivery with inconsistent health or control

9:21	Jeff Sullivan: Like a younger James Paxton

9:22	Jeff Sullivan: The name that jumps out to me is Lucas Giolito. I don’t really like his delivery. But I might just have Paxton bias. I think Giolito looks ridiculous but I’m just some guy with a small computer

9:23	Jeff Sullivan: If Giolito lowered to like three-quarters or something, I think he could look a lot smoother

9:24	Anthony: Hey Jeff, I think you’ve said in the past that at any one time, you think there are only a couple of noticeably good managers, a couple of noticeably bad managers, and a big group in the middle you can’t distinguish between. Was Girardi one of your handful of noticeably good managers?

9:25

Jeff Sullivan: For the most part I liked Joe Girardi, to whatever extent someone in my position can like a manager. I, of course, never had to deal with him. I just know how his teams did. I think he was pretty good, but I’m also not privy to whatever might’ve happened between him and Cashman. If their relationship soured, well, I don’t know if it’s worth trying to repair that

9:25	Jeff Sullivan: I don’t think losing Girardi is going to serve the Yankees particularly well. But their talent level is so high they’ll survive

9:25	Ross: Give me team and contract predictions for the following free agents: Logan Morrison Carlos Gonzalez Alex Cobb Wade Davis

9:26	Jeff Sullivan: I promise you — I promise you — any answer I’d give wouldn’t mean anything

9:26	Jeff Sullivan: But I’d expect Wade Davis to sign for the most

9:26	Jeff Sullivan: It might be silly, but I think he really cemented his reputation with his long playoff saves

9:27	Jeff Sullivan: Gonzalez feels like the kind of guy who ends up with the Orioles for no reason

9:27	Dan: Are the Yankees making a mistake with Girardi? Or was it time to move on?

9:28	Jeff Sullivan: It’s all about whatever happened to the relationship between Girardi and the front office. If the front office doesn’t see eye-to-eye with the guy in the dugout, well, it’s not the front office that’s going to concede position

9:28	Mike: All of the discussion about Stanton’s trade value has made me wonder – why is the $/WAR relationship for contract pricing linear? Isn’t a 5 WAR player worth more than 5x a 1 WAR player because you have finite roster space?

9:29

Jeff Sullivan: I think that, in theory, it shouldn’t be exactly linear, but in practice, it’s hard to tell where it stops being linear because there just aren’t that many great players. And when you have so much value tied up in one guy, that also means you’ve got a rather dramatic increase in risk. Stanton is a concentration of value, sure, but that’s partly offset by the reality that, if he gets hurt, you’re screwed

9:30	Jeff Sullivan: There’s also kind of an effective “cap” on salaries just because teams don’t want any one player earning too much of the payroll share. Drives down the highest prices

9:31	Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe: What baseball player currently participating in the World Series earns a ridiculous nickname based on play? I’m thinking Chris “Hat Tip” Taylor has just enough alliteration to work…

9:31	Jeff Sullivan: Charlie Culberson

9:31	Jeff Sullivan: just call him Showtime

9:31	Jota P: Who are the next Chris Taylor/Justin Turner diamonds in the rough?

9:31	Jeff Sullivan: I apologize but I cannot predict the unpredictable

9:32	Jeff Sullivan: But here’s where it gets fun: neither can teams!

9:32	Jeff Sullivan: I will say, as I think I’ve said before, but I’m developing a positive feeling about Ketel Marte’s chances

9:33	Jeff Sullivan: Bat-to-ball skills and he walked almost as often as he struck out. Seems like he could be on the verge of a massive, Jose Ramirez-like power leap

9:33	T: Should McCullers throw fastballs?

9:33	Jeff Sullivan: Yes, infrequently

9:33	Jeff Sullivan: Probably something like 25-30% of the time

9:34	Matt: Generally reliable local guy in Chicago-Dave Kaplan- mentioned that he hears Cubs could be looking to play the bad contract swap game with Heyward. If you sent Heyward + some useful assets like Happ, Almora could you see the framework of a deal for Stanton?

9:34	Jeff Sullivan: I could

9:34	Jeff Sullivan: With Stanton, the key for the Marlins will be eating money. You could effectively do that by taking on the Heyward contract, and it even comes with some potential career upside

9:35	Jeff Sullivan: Might go so far as to say it’s got a reasonable chance of happening

9:35

HappyFunBall: So Joe Torre said yesterday that yes, the umps blew the passed ball call in the deciding CHC-WAS game 5. How do we have umpires in the post season who don’t know the rule book? Not just the home plate umpire. He huddled up with the other five umps and they collectively decided on the wrong interpretation. Let’s throw some blame at Dusty also. He should have known that he can request a rule check from the replay office in NYC. But! In the post season, and when they game is already paused, why doesn’t the NYC office act more proactively?

9:36	Jeff Sullivan: When is the last time you saw that rule invoked?

9:36	Jeff Sullivan: Is the answer “never”?

9:36	Jeff Sullivan: For me, the answer is never

9:37	Jeff Sullivan: The rule book is incredibly long and incredibly detailed. I just think it’s unrealistic to expect umpires to know absolutely everything, especially when you’re dealing with uncommon fringe rules like this one

9:37	Jeff Sullivan: Matt Wieters, for his part, seemingly knew the rule, but he’s a catcher. He sees things through a different lens

9:38	Jeff Sullivan: I’d also say that I think it’s extremely unlikely the contact made with Wieters interfered with the play in progress. So even if the right call were made at the time, I’d have come away feeling like the Cubs got screwed by a technicality

9:38	Dann: Cubs making changes to the coaching staff (not to mention Dave Martinez being in the running for the Nats job). What do you think Chili Davis and Jim Hickey can bring to the table? Hickey’s reputation precedes him, but I don’t know much about Chili as a coach.

9:39	Jeff Sullivan: I’m not entirely sure what Davis will have to do. That lineup already lifts and hits for power. But maybe the hope is that he can somehow get through to Addison Russell, if he survives the offseason with the team

9:40	Jeff Sullivan: Davis is one of those rare hitting coaches with a good reputation, and I think he’s an effective communicator. But if you are worried only about results, the Red Sox this season were largely disappointing

9:41	Jeff Sullivan: Hickey is all about his relationship with Maddon. They get along famously. Pretty obvious hire

9:41	CubFan: Marwin Gonzalez’ production dropped off in the second half. Do you think he’s got a starting gig next year and if so where does he play….super sub? And do you expect regression in his stats?

9:41	Jeff Sullivan: Even the regressed second-half version of Marwin Gonzalez had a 128 wRC+

9:42	Jeff Sullivan: I imagine he’s going to play most days with next year’s Astros, at a variety of positions

9:42	Jeff Sullivan: Are we done with calling people the new Ben Zobrist?

9:44	Jade: Does Chatwood go for a lot more than people are expecting? Seems like everyone mentions him as a “buy low” guy.

9:44	Jeff Sullivan: Teams will still spend responsibly, just because Chatwood doesn’t have a track record of being actually good

9:45	Jeff Sullivan: But he gained two ticks and dropped his contact rate, and there’s going to be a vibrant market of potential employers interested to see him pitch outside of Colorado

9:45	Jeff Sullivan: The difference between him and Charlie Morton is that Chatwood doesn’t have the curveball, and I wonder if he might soon be turned into a fireman reliever type

9:46	Jeff Sullivan: But he’ll get at least one year of starting away from Coors Field before that happens

9:46	Safety Stegosaurus: If you were starting your MLB pitching career next season and you knew your skills would remain consistent for ten years would you rather be a reliever with velo and command like Fernando Rodney, or a starter with velo and command like Kyle Hendricks?

9:46	Jeff Sullivan: I’d rather be like the good one

9:48	Klentak: Do I shop Odubel and his team friendly contract this winter? It would seem Odubel would have comparable value to AEaton ‘s in winter of 2016.

9:48	Jeff Sullivan: Right or wrong, I don’t think the perception of Odubel is all that close to what the perception was of Adam Eaton

9:48	Jeff Sullivan: I also don’t think the Phillies are in a position where they need to be ditching any quality position players they have

9:49	Jeff Sullivan: But I’m sure they’re going to field some phone calls. I wouldn’t expect a move

9:49	Mark: chances the Yankees have an OF of Otani, Harper and Judge in 2019 are __%

9:49	Jeff Sullivan: 0%

9:49	Mike: How were the chicken fingers?

9:49	Jeff Sullivan: Unbelievable

9:50	Ryan: Who do you like more to build off their breakout season – Severino or Ray?

9:50	Jeff Sullivan: They’re both very good. I have major concerns about neither

9:50	JR: Do you think Yelich will be traded? He seems like a perfect fit for the Padres.

9:50	Jeff Sullivan: I think he’s the least likely of the major Marlins to get moved

9:51

Tim: How are the Rays supposed to compete next year? A mediocre 80-win team from this season is going to lose its best hitter (Morrison), best starter (Cobb) and basically all of their good relievers (Hunter, Cishek, Romo) to free agency. Kinda feel like maybe the reason they acted as buyers at the deadline this year was they knew it might be their best shot for a while. I don’t see how they’re supposed to compete with the Yankees and Red Sox anytime soon.

9:52	Jeff Sullivan: I don’t think the Rays expect to compete with the Yankees and Red Sox anytime soon. I think they’re forever in the position of trying to be good enough to grab the second wild card

9:52	Jeff Sullivan: And that just comes down to Kevin Kiermaier, and churning out cheap young starters

9:52	Safety Stegosaurus: Which way do you think the Yankees will go in their managerial search?

9:53	Jeff Sullivan: I don’t have a name, but I would trust the Yankees to hire the right sort of guy. They’re not going to get this horribly wrong

9:53	Patty O’Furniture: Kemp and a prospect to New York for Ellsbury?

9:53	Jeff Sullivan: Why would they want Matt Kemp?

9:53	Jeff Sullivan: Why would anyone want Matt Kemp?

9:54	Matt: Cubs need to avoid doing something stupid in FA, as it relates to SP, correct? Spend money on bullpen upgrades and go for a 2nd tier SP or two?

9:54	Jeff Sullivan: What team doesn’t need to avoid doing something stupid in free agency?

9:54	Jeff Sullivan: The more I think about it the more I think the Cubs getting Darvish seems obvious

9:55	Jeff Sullivan: Maybe that would go terribly wrong. Maybe it would be a resounding success!

9:55	@swmrdak79: Whats the biggest takeaway from the cubs hiring/letting go of their coaches? Upgrades? Is this more of a Maddon Influence?

9:56	Jeff Sullivan: Someone has to pay the price when a team declines that much between seasons

9:56	Oklahomabrave : This Braves investigation seems to be getting bigger and bigger with rumors of everyone up to Terry McGuirk being replaced. Will they be able to even able to line up a FO in time to have an offseason?

9:56	Jeff Sullivan: Yeah, feels like this could be a pretty quiet winter for Atlanta

9:57	Jeff Sullivan: Aside from the imminent discipline

9:57	Jeff Sullivan: The extremely severe imminent discipline

9:57	Patty O’Furniture: Realistically what type of package would it take for the Braves to pry away Chris Archer? I know it’d be a lot, but can you approximate it beyond that?

9:58	Jeff Sullivan: This is just me speculating, but I’m not sure the Rays and the Braves are really that good of a match

9:58	Jeff Sullivan: Even ignoring the part where the Braves might have to spend the next few months worrying about their own front office, I think the Rays would want more security back. The Braves have a bunch of high-risk underperforming young pitchers

9:59	Jeff Sullivan: Like, if the Cubs don’t get Darvish, it’s not hard to see them using someone like Happ or Russell to try to get Archer