Jeff Sullivan FanGraphs Chat — 10/30/15

October 30, 2015

9:12	Jeff Sullivan: Hello friends

9:12	Jeff Sullivan: Welcome to baseball chat

9:13	Jeff Sullivan: Tonight, there will be another baseball chat, for Game 3. It shall be hosted by Mr. Swydan!

9:13	Jeff Sullivan: In that chat, you’ll talk about the game. In this chat, we’ll talk about whatever?

9:13	Comment From William Binkers hello?

9:13	Jeff Sullivan: Hi!

9:13	Comment From FireDrayton Astros ideal offseason looks like….?

9:14

Jeff Sullivan: Too much going on to give specific names, but I figure they end up with either a good 1B or a good LF. At the other one, they’ll get a lesser but decent player, and they’re also going to improve the rotation and add an arm or two to the bullpen. Gotta capitalize on all this, and they don’t want the rotation to be so top-heavy

9:15	Comment From Derek (work) I come to a chat on time and now I see why everyone always made fun of you for being late.

9:15	Jeff Sullivan: Every single time. It’s not even intentional. I honestly don’t know how it happens

9:15	Comment From Jason 134 comments on Royals Magic. Quite a polarizing topic.

9:16	Jeff Sullivan: Which is why I find it so interesting! What I love about the Royals is how they can kind of make you uncomfortable with what you think you know about the game. Even if you’re steadfast in believing they’re just another team, they don’t stop trying to persuade you otherwise

9:16	Jeff Sullivan: Let me look up the poll results real quick…

9:17	Jeff Sullivan: Leading vote-getter at the moment: 84 wins. So, right on the hypothetical projection, but that’s just a quarter of all votes

9:17	Jeff Sullivan: Second place, with a fifth of all votes: 91 wins or more

9:17	Jeff Sullivan: Right there, you see the issue. Chunk of people think they’re really special, chunk of people are tired of that narrative

9:18	Comment From L. Scott Conforto or Lagares tonight? And why, thanks.

9:18	Jeff Sullivan: I like Conforto’s bad too much. I’m open to being persuaded to Lagares, but given that he can’t really throw…

9:18	Jeff Sullivan: Bat. Bat! I meant bat!

9:19	Jeff Sullivan: As much as I liked the way Lagares hit the other night, we’ve seen a lot more of Lagares not hitting

9:21	Comment From Preller The Padres are rumored to have around $20-$25 million to spend in the offseason after guaranteed contracts and arbitration. What 3 movies could they make to turn it around?

9:22	Jeff Sullivan: For one thing, they’d be an interesting fit for Byung-ho Park, assuming you’re not a big Yonder Alonso believer

9:23	Jeff Sullivan: A center fielder who isn’t Wil Myers would be nice, and though they’re not the kind of team that would trade for JBJ, maybe they’d make a play for Span

9:24	Jeff Sullivan: And for god’s sake, find an infielder, any infielder

9:24	Comment From Phillies113 What, if anything, are you going to be for Halloween?

9:24	Jeff Sullivan: a baseball writer watching the World Series

9:25	Jeff Sullivan: It’s actually convenient — it gives me a legitimate excuse to not go be active. I’m all for parties and friends and whatnot, but not so much on holidays

9:25	Jeff Sullivan: Is Halloween a holiday?

9:25	Comment From Optimetstic Was “Royals Magic” a nod to the “Catch the Magic” Mets theme of the early 80’s?

9:25	Jeff Sullivan: Not intentionally!

9:26	Jeff Sullivan: Magic is just a useful catch-all word to describe crap we don’t yet understand

9:26	Comment From Jason On the 84 win projection, looks like only about 5% would put them below that. 70% puts them above. That’s gotta be something right there.

9:27	Jeff Sullivan: Pretty predictable — I don’t know how anyone could reason through putting them below the projection. It’s not what we’ve observed. With the Royals, you either believe the projection, or you believe they’re better than the projection

9:27	Comment From Switzerland If Daniel Murphy continues to do little to nothing for the remainder of the World Series, how much will he have lost out of whatever insane new contract he might have earned by stealing Popeye’s spinach for the first two rounds?

9:28

Jeff Sullivan: It would be insane to think Murphy made himself tens of million of dollars with two rounds of playoff performance. Given that, it’s not like he’s losing a bunch of value right now. He’s just a pretty good player, who’ll get paid like a pretty good player. He’s increased his 2015 slugging percentage from .449 to .485

9:30	Comment From Danny Do you think the Royals have an ability to up the ante with runners on base? Obviously no one can hit as well with RISP as they have in the playoffs. A different bounce here or there, and they easily could have lost the last two series.

9:31	Jeff Sullivan: This year, they did improve with runners on base. However, last year, they did not, with many similar players, so it’s not too terribly difficult to argue the skeptic’s perspective

9:32

Jeff Sullivan: Where I am: when there are men on base, the defense can’t be positioned as optimally. And when there are men on base, pitchers are more highly prioritizing strikeouts. The Royals can take advantage of suboptimal positioning, and they can mitigate some of that strikeout ability. So I don’t think it’s *completely* nothing

9:34

Comment From mtsw
If the “contact teams do better in the playoffs due to performing better against elite, high K% pitching” theory is true, but is tough to demonstrate due to small sample size, could we prove it by showing these teams do better against elite relievers/aces during the season as well?

9:34	Jeff Sullivan: That’s kind of what Ben Lindbergh and MGL did here http://grantland.com/the-tr…

9:35	Jeff Sullivan: “All else being equal, hitters who put balls in play do better against bat-missers than hitters with whiff in their game.”

9:36	Jeff Sullivan: It’s not a dramatic effect, but contact hitters are better than power hitters against strikeout pitchers, and power hitters are better than contact hitters against non-strikeout pitchers

9:36	Jeff Sullivan: I love that the Royals have led to us learning this

9:36	Jeff Sullivan: And the Cubs, too, in a different way

9:38

Comment From mtsw
Is it possible that the “contact teams do better against good pitchers” idea is more “teams that SWING a lot do better against good pitchers?” There’s a widely-shared-observation among Orioles fans that the Orioles, a high K% but low BB% team, seem to overperform against good pitching and underperform against bad pitching. Is “lack of patience” be the important factor in overperforming vs good pitching rather than contact per se?

9:38	Jeff Sullivan: according to Baseball-Reference, the Orioles were about 8% worse than average against power pitchers, and about 2% worse than average against finesse pitchers

9:40	Jeff Sullivan: I think it’s mostly about bat-to-ball skill. The disciplined hitters, they’re looking for certain pitches they might not get. The contact hitters are prepared to hit almost anything. Of course, there is some relationship between aggressiveness and contact skill, much of the time

9:42	Comment From Q-Ball Nick Cafardo quoted a baseball exec as saying he wouldn’t pay more for Alex Gordon than 3 years in the 36-38 mil range. That seem ludicrous, doesn’t it? Was he speaking to Dayton Moore? What kind of contract do you predict for Gordon?

9:43	Jeff Sullivan: Maybe he meant $36-38 million a year

9:43	Jeff Sullivan: That’s absurd. Maybe such a baseball exec does exist, but there are hundreds of baseball execs, and that one simply isn’t going to be the one who signs Alex Gordon

9:44	Jeff Sullivan: The one who signs Alex Gordon will do so for something like $80 – 100 million

9:46	Comment From Q-Ball Travis Wood: Tender, or non-tender? Probably looking at around $6 mil through arbitration.

9:47	Jeff Sullivan: Of note: as a reliever, Wood allowed just a .577 OPS. Kelvin Herrera allowed a .578 OPS

9:48	Jeff Sullivan: And you mix in the 30% strikeout rate…I think there are worse gambles than Wood as a $6-million reliever for one year

9:49	Comment From Switzerland Fill in the blank: the closest that Yordano Ventura’s bat gets to a Noah Syndergaard fastball is ______

9:50	Jeff Sullivan: Let’s see. Ventura is 1-for-10, with 8 strikeouts

9:50	Jeff Sullivan: He’s seen 45 pitches, only 6 of which were north of 90 miles per hour

9:51	Jeff Sullivan: He did foul off a pitch at 91.2

9:52	Jeff Sullivan: Ventura has swung away 17 times. 7 swings have missed

9:52	Jeff Sullivan: Long story short: I think Ventura might foul-tip a pitch. And I give him 33% odds of a successful bunt if he comes up with a bunting situation

9:53	Comment From Whirled Series True or False: The Royals have a better offense than the Cubs.

9:54	Jeff Sullivan: I want to say false, but only slightly, and I might still mentally be holding Omar Infante against Kansas City even though he doesn’t matter anymore

9:54	Jeff Sullivan: Yesterday I ran some numbers and, based on the Royals’ playoff AB distribution, their players combined for a 109 regular-season wRC+

9:55	Jeff Sullivan: I think the Cubs would still have a slight edge but it depends on how strong you make your AL/NL league adjustment

9:55	Comment From Norrin Radd How much of Shapiro’s “scolding” do you think was a factor in AA leaving?

9:56

Jeff Sullivan: That was probably a bit overblown, and Shapiro was far from the only baseball person who disagreed with how the Blue Jays maneuvered. I think the reality is less dramatic: Anthopoulos realized that Shapiro and he had philosophical disagreements, and he realized that Shapiro was being put in position to overrule him. That would frustrate, long-term

9:57	Jeff Sullivan: It’s not that Shapiro “scolded” AA; it’s that Shapiro didn’t see eye-to-eye with AA, and Shapiro was going to be his boss, where previously no such boss existed

9:57	Comment From NOT Jeff Sullivan Good morning!

9:57	Jeff Sullivan: So windy. I love wind

9:58	Comment From mtsw Jeremy Guthrie isn’t on the WS roster, but he’s still on the Royals 40-man, opening up the possibility he could be added to the WS roster after an injury. What odds would you give a second-consecutive Guthrie Game 7 start? 500:1? More?

9:58	Jeff Sullivan: I’m a grown man who doesn’t actually know how odds work, so I’m going to go ahead and just say that your odds look fine

9:58	Jeff Sullivan: Also, what a nightmare