Jeff Sullivan FanGraphs Chat — 2/3/17

9:03	Jeff Sullivan: Hello friends

9:04	Jeff Sullivan: Welcome to Friday baseball chat

9:04	Bork: Hello, friend!

9:04	Jeff Sullivan: Hello friend

9:05	Jeff Sullivan: Apologies for this brief immediate delay but now I have a phone call real quick

9:06	ZMP: Do you think we see a spike in K-rate from Stroman or Taillon this year?

9:06	Jeff Sullivan: Stroman, yes — I think his leg is back to 100%, and he also started to figure out some strikeout techniques last year over the course

9:07	Jeff Sullivan: Taillon, I wouldn’t expect a huge boost — I love his skillset, and he takes charge by throwing so many strikes, but I think he’ll be more of a K-BB% pitcher than a straight-up K% pitcher, on account of how few walks he issues

9:08	Bebop: James McCann was the second most valubale defensive catcher according to defensive ratings, is he that good defensively or do defensive ratings not capture pitch framing? for what it is worth the top 5 is 1.perez 2. mccann 3. lucroy 4.barnhart 5 posey, does that sound about right?

9:08	Jeff Sullivan: You can kind of see it right here: http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=12859&position=C#fieldingadvanced

9:09	Jeff Sullivan: McCann got a +9 by DRS, but almost all of that was because he was so good at gunning base-stealers down. Last year he was a strong thrower and a strong blocker. His receiving actually rated at around league-average, and I don’t believe framing is a factor in the DRS calculations

9:10	Jeff Sullivan: Overall, McCann is good back there. It’s why the Tigers talk him up so much even though he hasn’t hit

9:10	Zonk: Should Joe Blanton’s agent just send the Nats a 1 year, $4 mil contract and get this done already?

9:10	Jeff Sullivan: There’s no way that Blanton should have to settle for less than what Boone Logan got

9:11	Jeff Sullivan: But you’re still pretty close. It’s surprising to me that the Blanton market hasn’t moved faster, given that he can be effective against lefties and righties

9:11	Jeff Sullivan: I wonder if Blanton’s long-term history is being held against him

9:12	Chaps: With the Astros getting 2 draft picks from the Cardinals, do you think this changes Lunhow’s mind about standing pat on trading for a starting pitcher, or are the 2 draft picks not enough to justify giving up the rumored asking price for Archer / Quintana / Gray?

9:12	Jeff Sullivan: It doesn’t mean nothing but it isn’t going to tip the balance for anything, I don’t think. The draft picks aren’t super valuable and they aren’t even actual players yet. Good prospects in the system are important because they’ve already surpassed a number of thresholds.

9:13	Jeff Sullivan: The Astros remain interested in adding a quality starter, and that won’t go away. But they won’t, say, give away Musgrove in return, and extra draft picks won’t make other teams like the Astros’ prospects more

9:13	Kiermaier’s Piercing Green Eyes: Loved the piece on my namesake. What prompted you to dig into the quality of pitchers faced?

9:13	Jeff Sullivan: Desperation

9:13	Jeff Sullivan: I noticed it when researching Logan Forsythe the other week, but I couldn’t justify writing another Logan Forsythe post

9:15	Zonk: Why weren’t the Nationals in on Chris Coghlan? I realize he isn’t amazing, but if Seth Smith was a fit, and you have no money, Coghlan seems like a poor man’s Seth Smith…..unless they really like Clint Robinson?

9:15	Jeff Sullivan: Robinson is projected to be just as good a hitter as Coghlan. Same age. Probably just not worth doubling up

9:15	Chone Figgins: Hi Jeff! How come you haven’t called me lately? I miss you!

9:15	Jeff Sullivan: You suck

9:16	BJOGC: Jeff, I had a dream that we met and I gave you a Keurig machine. You looked at me like I was the weirdest person ever even though you also brought a gift to give to me. I do not recall what you gave to me but I do remember feeling hurt

9:16	Jeff Sullivan: I probably gave you your Keurig back

9:16	Ryan: Greater longterm value, Correa or Lindor?

9:16	Jeff Sullivan: I’ll take Correa. Really high offensive potential

9:17	Jeff Sullivan: I do realize how good Lindor has been to this point. Don’t @ me

9:18	Q-Ball: Mark Trumbo gets $37 mil. Chris Carter is looking for work in Japan. What is the real difference between these two, other than Trumbo’s ability to be really bad in in the OF?

9:18	Jeff Sullivan: Basically, Trumbo is a little more versatile, a little more athletic. Also puts the ball in play more often. It shouldn’t make the difference it has on the market, but he’s beyond a certain threshold, while Carter is just below

9:18	Brett W: Any more thoughts on Houston and why they regress so much in your team defense analysis? Is it all Rasmussen, or are other things pushing that as well?

9:19	Jeff Sullivan: Probably losing Rasmus and reducing Marisnick’s playing time

9:19	Jeff Sullivan: The defense will still be OK. They’ll just be a little more offense-first

9:19	Wil Myers: Any chance I stay healthy and repeat production that I had last year?

9:19	Jeff Sullivan: Well sure. We don’t know nearly enough about individual injury-proneness

9:19	big boy: hey jeff – do you buy the rumours surrounding wacha being pushed to the pen? At 25, he should have something left, no?

9:20	Jeff Sullivan: It’s more a question of how much his shoulder can handle. A little like how the Reds have pushed Iglesias to the bullpen because of concerns about his own shoulder. Wacha can clearly be effective as a starter, but if he can’t stay healthy as a starter, what’s the point?

9:20	Ryan: Do you think Houston shot themselves in the foot by sacrificing defense for offense? Will Springer be a liability in CF?

9:20	Jeff Sullivan: Springer is young and very athletic, Marisnick is still around for depth, and the offense is the best in the American League

9:22	ZMP: Do you think we see Carlos Martinez take a step forward this year, possibly entrenching himself as an ace if we’re being optimistic?

9:23	Jeff Sullivan: He’s still a little too wild against lefties for me to be a big believer. Odds are he remains a quality No. 2. But it’s not like I can sit here and predict who’ll successfully keep their mechanics consistent

9:23	Bebop: who starts the most game in CF for the Cubs this year, Heyward, Almora or Jay?

9:23	Jeff Sullivan: I’ll say Jay starts the most, and Almora finishes the most

9:24	PF: What do you think of Danny Barnes in the Blue Jays bullpen? The strength of their bullpen kinda hangs on his ability to transfer his minor league numbers…

9:25	Jeff Sullivan: Just so everyone knows what we’re talking about: Last year, between AA and AAA, Barnes threw 61.1 innings, with six walks and 77 strikeouts

9:26	Jeff Sullivan: Extremely, extremely good

9:26	Jeff Sullivan: I’m someone who frequently scouts the stat line, so to speak, and it’s pointed me to guys like Andrew Triggs and Grant Dayton

9:27	Jeff Sullivan: Barnes has three pitches. In a small sample in the majors, he missed bats with his fastball. Count me as a believer

9:27	Connor: What are the two 2017 AL Wild Card teams?

9:27	Jeff Sullivan: Mariners and Rangers

9:27	Q-Ball: What remaining FA is still available that puzzles you the most?

9:27	Jeff Sullivan: If it’s not Blanton, then I’m forgetting someone

9:27	Kyle: How would you grade the Cubs offseason? Have they put themselves in position to potentially repeat?

9:28	Jeff Sullivan: Probably the best team in baseball remained arguably the best team in baseball. It’s a battle between them and the Dodgers, but they’re both super strong. The Cubs did well enough

9:28	Zonk: If Dave Cameron does his “worst moves of the offseason” article, what are a couple that stick out to you as maybe questionable?

9:29	Jeff Sullivan: To be honest, nothing has really sucked. The Kendrys Morales move still doesn’t look so great. The Ian Desmond contract, obviously, is weird. Mike Dunn got too much money. But on balance, the offseason has been reasonable

9:29	GERB: With the success Cleveland has had extending young player, do you expect them getting a deal done with either J Ram or Lindor?

9:30	Jeff Sullivan: I bet they wait on Ramirez to see if he’s actually legitimate, but they’ll try hard on Lindor, as he could and should be the long-term face of the franchise

9:30	Rich: What do you see from Snell this year? Can he get the walks under control and pitch deeper into games?

9:30	Jeff Sullivan: Strikeouts + inefficiency. The usual

9:30	Brett W: Jeff, who are some of your favorite musicians or bands?

9:30	Jeff Sullivan: Guess I’ll point to Lord Huron again. Second time doing that in a chat but I don’t have much else to say about music

9:31	GERB: Think the Indians make any more moves, or are they done?

9:31	Jeff Sullivan: Can’t think of much they need to do. They really just need to learn how much they can expect out of Brantley. Gigantic question mark for 2017

9:31	Friday Baseball chatter: Eddie Butler. Wax poetic please.

9:32	Jeff Sullivan: I don’t understand How a pitcher with that stuff Cannot get strikeouts

9:32	Hal: wow, showing up then immediately leaving is such a power move. teach me your ways, jeff

9:32	Jeff Sullivan: I AM THE ALPHA

9:33	brad: What’s your take on Correa’s statement? Pure ass covering and sour grapes, or is there something to the idea that the Cards got off light in part because MLB didn’t want to look too hard?

9:34

Jeff Sullivan: From my position it’s impossible to evaluate this all fully. That being said, MLB had an awful lot of time to investigate. And Correa’s credibility, clearly, isn’t what it used to be. I would imagine the Astros were doing certain things in a fashion very similar to what the Cardinals did, but you can’t expect Luhnow to just abandon everything he knew upon changing organizations. Processes were going to look similar. That’s all I can suggest

9:34	Joe: Who has a better Hall of Fame chance, Longoria or Donaldson?

9:35	Jeff Sullivan: Same age, and Longoria has a WAR advantage of 15 wins

9:35	Q-Ball: Jeff, I’m here today in the unemployment office, surrounded by many one-dimensional sluggers. Where is there going to be work for Pedro, Napoli, Chris Carter, and others? Can you create some jobs for these guys?

9:35	Jeff Sullivan: For Napoli, Texas feels almost inevitable

9:35	Jeff Sullivan: For the others, get comfortable

9:35	Jeff Sullivan: Tampa still makes some sense, but their interest is limited

9:36	Anatòl Roig: Hi Jeff! I remember watching Ryan Rowland-Smith outduel Halladay on a 100 degree Seattle day back in 2009. What’s one of your favorite pitching upsets you’ve seen in person?

9:37	Jeff Sullivan: I don’t know how much it counts, but back in April 2007, before Felix Hernandez was Felix Hernandez, I was there in Boston to watch his one-hitter upstage Daisuke Matsuzaka’s home debut

9:37	Brett W: Your phone call made me wonder if there is any data about the fastest commencement of a rain delay following the start of a game?

9:37	Jeff Sullivan: I feel like now I have to know the answer to this

9:37	Fritzy: If you’re Rick Hahn, which team are you hoping to see on the caller ID for a Q trade? Who is your ideal headliner?

9:38	Jeff Sullivan: I’d like it to be July, and I’d like for the Yankees and/or the Dodgers to be in the race and feeling a little desperate

9:38	Jeff Sullivan: Now, with the Dodgers, you probably can’t count on them ever acting all that irrationally. But it would be nice to get into the Yankees’ system

9:38	Chip: Is there a baseball equivalent of Portland traffic in inclement weather?

9:38	Jeff Sullivan: A ball in play when the Tigers have the bases loaded

9:39	Brett W: Are the Marlins realistic playoff contenders?

9:39	Jeff Sullivan: Not to me, not without some measure of luck. They’re not bad, but I don’t think they’re good

9:39	Q-Ball: I still can’t believe the Cubs won the World Series. That happened, right?

9:39	Jeff Sullivan: No. Sorry

9:39	Slamboni: If Texas is clearly out of it at the trade deadline, how much should they sell? Obvs the pending FAs, but what about Hamels, Dyson, Beltre or Andrus?

9:40	Jeff Sullivan: They’ll never sell Beltre. Mostly it would be about Lucroy and Darvish, and I’m sure they’d dip into the pen depending on why they were performing so bad in the first place

9:40	Jeff Sullivan: That being said, I wouldn’t count on the Rangers being in that position

9:41	PF: Is russel Martin no longer a great defensive catcher?

9:41	Jeff Sullivan: I don’t know if he’s great. He is still good. Good everyday catcher

9:42	TooDamnTall: I was wondering about D peaking early in players, and if could think of counter-examples

9:42	Jeff Sullivan: Mark Belanger remained an outstanding defender well into his 30s

9:42	Jeff Sullivan: Ozzie Smith too

9:42	Jeff Sullivan: For a modern example, it’s worth noting that Jarrod Dyson is somewhat improbably 32 years old

9:43	Ryan: Do you see Musgrove surpassing his 0.7 Steamers WAR projection?

9:43	Jeff Sullivan: For sure. He’ll presumably end up pitching in the majors a lot more than is forecast. I should adjust that…

9:43	Ryan: Are you concerned about the Nats lack of depth as Dave Cameron suggested?

9:43	Jeff Sullivan: It’s a problem, but if a team is going to have a problem, it’s probably the best problem to have

9:43	JT: Carson is extraordinarily good at predicting breakouts but by all accounts, hates baseball. You however, love baseball. Do you ever get jealous, in a Mozart/Salieri kind of way?

9:44	Jeff Sullivan: I love Carson and everything about him. I love that he’s so good at it while being what he is. It’s like, take that, industry

9:44	Q-Ball: How much better would the Mets be if they declined the option on Bruce and used that money for, say, Boone Logan?

9:45	Jeff Sullivan: Not much better, maybe the same. Clearly they could use a reliever more than they could use another corner outfielder, but Bruce isn’t totally worthless

9:45	Kevin: In that Kiermaier piece… Someone commented below with the ERA- for all teams – the Rays faced the best pitching by far. Maybe a story on that next?

9:45	Jeff Sullivan: It follows from the Kiermaier thing. That wasn’t a coincidence; teammates all have similar opposition numbers, of course

9:46	Q-Ball: When you’re looking for something to write about, why not Mike Trout? We need to keep reminding everyone he’s a generational player.

9:46	Jeff Sullivan: You’re right!

9:46	Jeff Sullivan: It’s been too long.

9:46	Rb: Martes tucker and what would be fair for Quintana? Musgrove as the third piece reportedly was turned down by Houston. What could be a compromise last player for both teams to get this deal done?

9:46	Jeff Sullivan: Not convinced there’s an excellent fit there yet. Musgrove would be too heavy a price but I don’t think the White Sox love the Astros’ other prospects. Probably worth revisiting in July to see who’s emerged and gotten closer

9:46	GOAT: Is Eddie Butler the next Arrieta?

9:46	Jeff Sullivan: No

9:47	Greg: What trade makes the most sense for the Rangers and Jurickson Profar? And what can he do with 600 at bats and his talent?

9:47	Jeff Sullivan: I don’t think any trade at the moment really makes that much sense. The league is down on Profar and he hasn’t shown all that much. He’s one guy who could stand to rebuild some value before getting sent away

9:47	Kevin: BYUNG HO PARK DFA’d

9:47	Jeff Sullivan: First impression: I hate this

9:47	Jeff Sullivan: DFA’d for Matt Belisle?

9:48	Jeff Sullivan: As always, I have to note that the Twins know more than I do. Maybe Park isn’t recovering very well from his injuries. Maybe he’s a complete ass. But I hate this

9:49	JT: Why aren’t MLB teams allowed to trade draft picks? With the draft being such a crapshoot, I understand why teams wouldn’t want extra picks over actual prospects but I don’t understand why they aren’t allowed to make the choice?

9:49	Jeff Sullivan: It feel like it’s one of those long-term inevitabilities. I don’t know all the various pros and cons, not off the top of my head, but the fact that teams can now exchange competitive-balance picks and international slot money — that seems like the first step

9:50	klof: Eddie Butler as the next Jake Arrieta top prospect reclamation project for the Cubs?

9:50	Jeff Sullivan: Jake Arrieta is an extremely hard worker

9:50	Jeff Sullivan: I will leave that there

9:50

Art: Do you agree or disagree with the notion that Yankee prospects tend to be overhyped? Joba and Jesus Montero were obviously way overhyped. I know its early, but Severino and Judge appear to have been a bit overranked as well. On that topic, Gleyber Torres was a top 20-40 prospect at midseason, is traded to the Yankees, plays worse in the minors and is now being rated in the top 5 by various outlets. I know he had a great AFL, but it was only 18 games and I don’t remember offensive stats in the AFL ever being weighed as heavily as they seem to be with Gleyber.

9:51

Jeff Sullivan: Just generally speaking, I’m not a believer in this. I don’t think prospect evaluators themselves have any interest in overrating or underrating a given team’s prospects. What happens is that you just hear more about the best teams’ prospects, because they get so much coverage, and then it makes them *feel* overrated due to oversaturation

9:52	Bartolo Colon: Would would you bet I hit another homer this year ?

9:52	Jeff Sullivan: No. And it wouldn’t even feel the same. Not close

9:52	Jeff Sullivan: I lost my mind when Ben Revere hit his first home run. He’s apparently hit five more

9:52	mike sixel: The Twins DFAd Park to sign a 36 year old RP….

9:52	Jeff Sullivan: I will continue to say that I hate this

9:52	Q: Which side of the Robert Gsellman is good vs Robert Gsellman is not that good argument are you on?

9:54

Jeff Sullivan: I think I’ve gone over this a few times. I think he’s not that good. Serviceable, sure, but the minor-league record doesn’t impress me, and in the majors he faced some lousy opponents. Had one of the lowest opponent OPS marks in all of baseball. Seven starts, with five against the Phillies or Braves

9:55	Keefths: Why are Aaron Sanchez’s projections so down on him ?

9:55	Jeff Sullivan: Steamer still thinks he’s a 3-WAR starter. That’s pretty good. But Steamer hasn’t forgotten about the previous walk trouble.

9:55	Mike Foltynewics: ETA on Fangraphs framing metrics?

9:56	Jeff Sullivan: I can’t answer that. I’m given to understand fairly soon?

9:56

Raindog: Hey Jeff, do you know if the forecast systems know about platooning? As in, do they assume a guy will face an normal distribution of RHP/LHP, or for guys like Seth Smith who will be heavily platooned do they assume something different? Basically trying to ask if we should be mentally bumping up the slash lines of guys we know will be platooned.

9:57	Jeff Sullivan: I think — I think — it’s just based on the recent record. And Smith has already been pretty heavily platooned for years, so not much there is likely to change

9:57	Jeff Sullivan: It would be more significant, I’m guessing, if you have a guy who’s about to be platooned for the first time

9:57	Hammel Toe: Eddie Butler. Low risk high reward move. The stuff is there. How much of his issues were elevation?

9:57	Jeff Sullivan: Limited

9:58	Dave: What is Dansby Swansons offensive potential?

9:59	Jeff Sullivan: Pretty high. He could conceivably run a career wRC+ in the 110 – 120 range as a regular shortstop