Jeff Sullivan FanGraphs Chat — 12/17/13

December 17, 2013

9:02	Jeff Sullivan: Hey guys, let’s baseball chat

9:02	Jeff Sullivan: If I disappear for a few minutes it’s probably because someone is at the door for a routine apartment inspection

9:02	Jeff Sullivan: Happening today somewhere between nine in the morning and five in the after-morning!

9:03	Jeff Sullivan: Alternatively I’m just taking a really long time to move on to the next question or answer

9:05	Jeff Sullivan: that was not a person at the door! that was me losing a link to something! anyway

9:05	Comment From Guest Why does Fangraphs project 8 NL teams to get 300 PA at DH?

9:05	Jeff Sullivan: Presumably because we have a problem with the manually-generated depth charts

9:06	Comment From Masahiro Tanaka Where could I conceivably end up this spring??

9:06	Jeff Sullivan: Like literally anywhere. You’ll be posted and every single team in baseball will place a bid. And I don’t know what your preference is

9:06	Jeff Sullivan: The Yankees will be in there, of course, and the Cubs seem like a good bet among worse teams to make a strong offer. The Angels might not have the money

9:07	Comment From GSon You like the Brian Roberts deal?

9:07	Jeff Sullivan: Seems fine. Kind of funny and sad, but if you just look at it objectively there’s not a lot of risk in $2 million and there’s not a lot of talent out there in the infield

9:07	Comment From _David_ Your USSMariner podcasts are awesome.

9:07	Jeff Sullivan: Tell Carson :/

9:08	Comment From Justin Now that the Mariners have a dozen or so first basemen, what’s your best guess as to who plays what position?

9:08	Jeff Sullivan: 1B: Smoak LF: Morrison/Hart split DH: Morrison/Hart split not how I’d like to see it done but that’s my current sense, barring a Smoak trade somewhere

9:09	Comment From Guest Why is Ryan Jackson projected to get PA for both the Astros and Cardinals?

9:09	Jeff Sullivan: Because the Cardinals depth chart guy probably missed Jackson going to the Astros on waivers, probably because it was right around Thanksgiving

9:09	Comment From Cochise Do you see the M’s overpaying for Tanaka?

9:09	Jeff Sullivan: darkest of horses, not counting on it

9:10	Comment From Evan Does the Ellis signing mean that we’ve seen the last of Pete Kozma on a 25 man roster?

9:10	Jeff Sullivan: On a 25-man roster? Kozma’s still young enough and he can play a mean defensive shortstop. Those people tend to stay employed

9:11	Jeff Sullivan: The Yankees are giving $5 million over two years to Brendan Ryan

9:11	Jeff Sullivan: The Pirates re-signed Clint Barmes

9:11	Jeff Sullivan: Kozma might not be Ryan or Barmes-level good in the field, but he’s good nevertheless

9:11	Comment From Guest Do the Fangraphs depth charts consider possible platoon situations? (Ex. Ellis in St. Louis will likely hit against a higher proportion of LHP than at other times in his career.)

9:12	Jeff Sullivan: I believe that they do not, beyond simply accounting for the expected playing time. But I can ask to confirm later on

9:12	Comment From Guest Has Dayton Moore become smarter? the Aoki and Infante deals are good, and the Vargas deal is ok.

9:13

Jeff Sullivan: Assume that he’s the same guy he was a year ago. It’s just that the situation is different, so the needs are different, so the behavior is different. Moore is probably still a big fan of the Myers/Shields trade, and he’d probably make a Walker for Price trade if he were in the Mariners’ situation

9:14	Jeff Sullivan: But not everything that Moore does is a hilarious disaster. Very little is. And I think there’s an argument that having less budget flexibility helps a GM avoid really lousy decisions

9:15

Jeff Sullivan: I’ve read a theory about the NHL that teams with lower payrolls have something of an effective advantage because they don’t end up with so much money tied up in declining players. They’re forced to eschew those things and while now this doesn’t have al ot to do with Moore, it’s something to think about as an MLB theory too

9:15	Comment From _David_ Does the Baker article in any way, to any extent excuse/explain the comments of Player A, or is that too far in the past to be relevant?

9:15	Jeff Sullivan: Scott Spiezio’s just a real douche

9:15	Comment From Prich When you get married, are you planning on being on time to the following: Rehearsal Dinner/Wedding/Births of Children..?

9:15	Jeff Sullivan: MY WEDDING MY DAY

9:15	Comment From Gordon Are the FA Pitchers or are the teams waiting out the Tanaka situation? think one pitcher will drop before this issue is resolved?

9:16	Jeff Sullivan: It’s both. But there’s been talk that Garza could move soon, and realistically you could see movement as soon as Tanaka gets posted. I’m looking forward to that offseason jolt

9:17	Comment From Guest Should the Mariners try and make a deal for Cliff Lee and Brown?

9:17	Jeff Sullivan: Wouldn’t hurt to call but don’t plan on that getting close to happening

9:17	Comment From MadLibAdLib The Yankee’s signing Brian Roberts is a _________ move.

9:17	Jeff Sullivan: (n) okay

9:18	Jeff Sullivan: Reasonable player last year! Played a lot…after…coming back from injury…

9:19	Comment From Justin Neither Arizona nor SF has done enough to move past the Dodgers in the NL West, correct?

9:20

Jeff Sullivan: No, but they’re both perfectly within striking distance. Would’ve been good for the rivals to have Uribe end up elsewhere, since the Dodgers were otherwise hopeless at 3B. But that team isn’t the team that went on an insane run last season after Puig came up. The Dodgers are more vulnerable than that so it’s not an open-and-closed case

9:20	Comment From GSon Why won’t the Pittsburgh Pirates bite the bullet and sign Shin-soo Choo?..they’d become an easy choice to challenge the Cardinals in their division…

9:20	Jeff Sullivan: Because he’s asking for stupid money, the Pirates didn’t have the money to make a QO to A.J. Burnett, and it’s not even clear Choo is going to be all that valuable for very long

9:21	Jeff Sullivan: These kinds of deals aren’t the kinds of deals the Pirates should get in the business of giving

9:21	Comment From Prich If you were Jack Z, would you be willing to part with Walker and Franklin, provided Tampa threw Jennings into the Price deal?

9:23	Jeff Sullivan: I still wouldn’t do it, although at least you’re making me look things up

9:23	Jeff Sullivan: The Mariners should just overpay a free agent

9:24	Comment From Kris What happened to the 34 teams who added the star player??

9:24	Jeff Sullivan: Seems ripe for a follow-up!

9:24	Jeff Sullivan: Incidentally I wanted to write that post all last week but kept getting bumped by new news. Still not 100% satisfied with how it came out but at least I did the research I wanted to

9:25	Comment From Lawdog I’m currently flying at 30,000 feet and participating in this chat. What’s more amazing? That, or Andrelton Simmons’ defense? It’s a trick question. Andrelton’s actually flying the plane.

9:26	Jeff Sullivan: The first sentence is enough to make a little liquid brain pool next to where I’m sitting

9:26	Jeff Sullivan: THINK ABOUT WHAT THIS MAN IS DOING

9:26	Jeff Sullivan: THINK ABOUT IT RIGHT NOW

9:26	Comment From Steve Do the yanks actually plan on starting Roberts?

9:27	Jeff Sullivan: As things currently are, he’d play a lot, but I imagine the idea is to add another, better layer above Roberts/Johnson

9:28	Comment From karl which team will surprise the most this year? (good or bad)

9:28	Jeff Sullivan: Angels good, Reds bad?

9:28	Comment From zack Are you surprised Kershaw hasn’t been extended yet? How much have the dodgers reportedly offered?

9:29	Jeff Sullivan: Actually very surprised. I all but wrote this off as a formality several months ago. I mean, come on, right?

9:29	Comment From Steve Anything the Yankees get from Roberts is a bonus, right?

9:29	Jeff Sullivan: That would be true if they were not paying him

9:29	Jeff Sullivan: But that isn’t “allowed”

9:30	Comment From Chicago Mark Although I thought it best that the Cubs wait a year, many thought they’d be active in fa this year. I also thought they’d at least buy some high risk/high reward players to turn over at the deadline. Thoughts?

9:31	Jeff Sullivan: I think they have a shot to do some interesting things in Tanaka negotiations. As for midseason flipping, I don’t think it makes for much of a strategy, per se. It’s just something you do if you end up in that circumstance

9:31	Comment From Conrad Why do some people ask the exact same specific question at every possible Fangraphs Chat opportunity? is this a test?

9:32	Jeff Sullivan: Because they’re either unsatisfied by our answers, they’ll polling as many staffers as they can, or they’re sociopathic

9:32	Comment From Steve The Angels have ___% chance of winning the west?

9:32	Jeff Sullivan: 25-30%

9:32

Comment From Zach
What is the deal with the O’s pursuit of Balfour? They dumped Johnson since was going to get $10m for one year but are offering something probably close to $15m over 2 for Balfour. Balfour is older, has been inferior, and is a high-K, high-FB pitcher ill-suited for Camden and the O’s excellent D. I get why they shipped off JJ, but why Balfour for minimal savings???

9:33

Jeff Sullivan: In theory the idea is that you get a lower AAV and you get more years, which is something the Orioles want. But it’s kind of silly. The whole Orioles offseason has been kind of silly and depressing. You almost forget that they’re more good than bad because this feels like an old Orioles offseason

9:34	Comment From Furman Where will Ackley and Franklin end up?

9:34	Jeff Sullivan: I mean, honestly my best guess is that there’s still a trade with Tampa Bay, but Kansas City was the obvious Franklin destination until Beltran went to New York and Infante went to KC. Now I’m practically shrugging

9:35	Comment From LarryA Do you like Denard Span for a bouncebak season? Some article claims that Davey Johnson was holding him back from bunting for hits

9:35	Jeff Sullivan: Span was the same player he’s been for years. Nothing to bounce back from

9:35	Comment From A. Lane Does a player ever lose the qualifying offer attached to him? Can he theoretically take a sabbatical sit out for a year or a month of the season and the QO stain goes away?

9:35	Jeff Sullivan: I think — I think — it goes away after the draft

9:36	Comment From GSon There seems to be some real wild ass guesses on the Tanaka salary.. Darvish 6 years, $ 56 MM, Dice-k six years $ 52 MM.. Tanaka 6 years $ 60 MM?. Why would anyone add the posting fee to the player’s salary?

9:36	Jeff Sullivan: Because that’s still money spent and now teams will have to negotiate against other teams, giving Tanaka a lot more leverage

9:37	Jeff Sullivan: I could easily see something like $100m/6yr

9:37	Comment From person hscer Isn’t the darkest of horses Black Beauty, and aren’t the Mariners pretty ugly?

9:37	Jeff Sullivan: Personally I’m just not really into horses

9:37	Comment From Kris Your thoughts on Gavin Floyd apparently turning down a longer, more lucrative deal from the O’s to take the one year deal with ATL?

9:37	Jeff Sullivan: The weirdest thing is that he’s from Maryland

9:38	Jeff Sullivan: I’d like to know more about the Orioles’ offered incentives

9:39	Jeff Sullivan: But Floyd probably wants to enter the market clean as soon as he can at full health. Didn’t want to be tied down in a rebuild-value kind of year

9:39	Comment From Max Jack Z mentioned a couple of further Mariners’ needs a while ago, but adding another OF was not among those things, is there hope?

9:39	Jeff Sullivan: At the least, they’ll add a reserve, who might look a lot like Franklin Gutierrez

9:39	Comment From LarryA Ive slacked off from my SABR reading, is it still the best idea to use your best reliever in the 7th and 8th inings, or assuming fixed roles, should you have him in the 9th?

9:40	Jeff Sullivan: It’s best to use him whenever the leverage is highest

9:40	Jeff Sullivan: As it happens, closers tend to end up with the highest average leverage scores

9:40	Jeff Sullivan: Current usage is suboptimal, but not extremely so

9:41	Comment From _David_ Would the amount Cruz will get plus the amount Santana or Garza get equal what it would take to get Tanaka?

9:41	Jeff Sullivan: Thereabouts

9:41	Comment From SteveV Garza for say 5/$80M or Tanka for say 7/$120M?

9:41	Jeff Sullivan: I say Tanaka but I’m a dreamer

9:42	Comment From Geust What are the D-backs doing?!? At this rate any chance Bradley gets moved as well?

9:42	Jeff Sullivan: It seems that Bradley is a no-go

9:43	Jeff Sullivan: What the D-Backs are doing is trying to win, and at least they’re not picking up a bunch of old short-term commitments. But it’s sad to look at some of their prospect lists from recent offseasons past

9:43	Comment From Justin I was in Oregon last week when it was -9 in the valley. My parents blamed me for bringing the cold with me from the Northeast. So . . . sorry about that.

9:44	Jeff Sullivan: http://www.portlandhikers.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=17671

9:44	Comment From Dave M. I don’t know if I’m understanding the DEF stat on player’s homepages correctly. Does the very negative value given to DHs skew WAR or defensive value towards NL teams because they don’t have this DH positional penalty?

9:46	Jeff Sullivan: Skews defensive value toward NL teams, skews offensive value toward AL teams

9:46	Comment From Guest Why are we so damn wrong so damn often. For all of our advanced metrics, do we even know anything?

9:47

Jeff Sullivan: We know a shit-ton. We just also don’t know close to enough, because baseball is unfathomably complicated and all the interactions make it next to impossible to tell the future. Even if we can identify a guy’s true talent, that comes with massive error bars in terms of projected performance. And then true talent can change abruptly without warning

9:47	Jeff Sullivan: Baseball analysis is fun because no one’s ever gotten it right before, and everyone wants to be first.

9:48	Jeff Sullivan: We’re great at explaining things. Pretty lousy at seeing things coming

9:48	Comment From Polly Can you give me an idea of the basic or average WAR progression/regression in regards to age?

9:49

Jeff Sullivan: For position players, build up slowly until the late-20s, plateau for a bit, drop gradually and then less gradually. People like to dock 0.5 WAR per year for older players. For pitchers, it’s less of a curve. Pitchers tend to be just about as good as they’re going to be right away, with exceptions of course, and the decline is slow unless there’s an injury

9:50	Comment From GSon Ubaldo’s history (inconsistency), draft pick attached to signing, and huge price tag.. Is it pushing him back to the North Coast and Mickey Callaway?..

9:50	Jeff Sullivan: Definitely a strong possibility because no market has really formed yet, but then Santana and Garza are still out there too and they’ll be in demand so it’ll just take one team that looks at Jimenez and sees a possible staff ace, still

9:51	Comment From JimEd Name a worse trade than what Detroit got for Fister.

9:51	Jeff Sullivan: That time the Phillies traded Cliff Lee for like literally nothing

9:51	Comment From Jay So would you rather have 1 year of J. Johnson for 10 mil or 2 years of Balfour at 18 with a third vesting option.

9:52	Jeff Sullivan: The former by a mile

9:52	Comment From Joel With the roster as currently constructed, wouldn’t a hell of a lot have to go right for the M’s to just be better than 4th place in the AL West?

9:52	Jeff Sullivan: yep

9:52	Comment From Team Theo Does the loser in the Tanaka sweepstakes come asking Cubs for Samardzija? And here’s holding out hope the Cubs win the Tanaka derby

9:52	Jeff Sullivan: or teams could look to Garza, or Santana, or Jimenez, or Price, or…

9:53	Comment From Bruce what GB% does it take to be consider a “Ground ball pitcher?” 50? 55?

9:53	Jeff Sullivan: 50% works as a handy and easy dividing line

9:53	Comment From JimEd Why does Ruben Amaro still have a job?

9:54	Jeff Sullivan: Because that team was good for a decade and just a few years ago the Phillies won 102 games and people in power want to believe that’s possible to get back to

9:54	Comment From Bruce Bonifacio now just a super multi-position sub for the royals now?

9:54	Jeff Sullivan: yeah, nifty one

9:56	Comment From Nick Which team has improved the most so far this off season?

9:56	Jeff Sullivan: Hmm. Cardinals? I really like the offseason they’ve put together

9:56	Jeff Sullivan: Mariners are the easy answer, in terms of 2014 wins – 2013 wins

9:57	Comment From Guest who sign first and who would you rather have: Delmon or Francoeur?

9:57	Jeff Sullivan: Young signs first, rather have Francoeur

9:57	Comment From Bruce What minor-league teams are in Portland? Just the sea-dogs, or any others?

9:58	Jeff Sullivan: Portland, OR has nobody, but nearby Hillsboro has the Hops

9:58	Comment From _David_ Is Zunino still an elite prospect, or did his plate discipline get exposed last year and readjust his prognostications?

9:58	Jeff Sullivan: I think his ranking came less from upside, and more from safety. He should be able to hit enough and defend enough to stick as a regular catcher for a while. But he’s not going to be any kind of superstar

9:59	Jeff Sullivan: Whole lot of Arencibia in there

9:59	Comment From Eminor3rd How does Jeff Sullivan feel about Rick Han’s offseason thusfar?

9:59	Jeff Sullivan: pleased

9:59	Comment From eric would you trade Michael Saunders for Gerardo Parra, if you were Jack Z? Easy way to improve the horrendous OF defense without much decline in offense?

9:59	Jeff Sullivan: in an absolute damn hurry