Jeff Sullivan FanGraphs Chat — 3/23/18

9:03	Jeff Sullivan: Hello friends

9:03	Jeff Sullivan: Welcome to Friday baseball chat

9:04	Bork: Hello, friend!

9:04	Jeff Sullivan: Hello friend

9:04

Jordan: It seems like every publication is underestimating the Jays, they seem to be solid across the board if unspectacular, currently projected for 5th best record in the AL which amounts to a second wild card but when I see publications of contenders they are nearly omitted.
Is there something I’m missing that’s causing them to be completely overlooked?

9:05	Jeff Sullivan: Many publications put a lot of weight on previous season record and offseason activity. The Jays are coming off a bad record, and they didn’t have an astonishing offseason. So it goes

9:06	Jeff Sullivan: Obviously, the projections around here like them just fine. But the Twins made the playoffs and have been super active, and the Angels have Trout and added Ohtani, so you can see how the Jays get lost in the media mix

9:07

DJ: Who would balk MLB or MLBPA:
Kids drafted out of HS are controlled by the drafting team for 10 years and kids drafted out of college are controlled for 8 years regardless of how much time they spend in the majors. Maybe give the players the option of becoming a free agent if they haven’t been in the majors after half their time served.
It would eliminate this silly service time game and reward teams and players for having the most efficient player development system.
Obviously something would have to be worked out for international players too (10 years once they debut in the US?).

9:09

Jeff Sullivan: I think the general idea could be workable, but those numbers might have to come down, because you’d be penalizing the players who fly through systems and get to the majors fast. Someone like Kershaw, who was picked out of high school in 2006 and debuting in the majors two years later. You’d be increasing team control for the most talented young players, which is the opposite of what ought to happen

9:09	Sonny: You have Posey or Sanchez as the 2nd best catcher in MLB behind Zunino?

9:10	Jeff Sullivan: It’s like with center fielders. Zunino is so much better than everyone else it’s not even worth acknowledging they’re alive

9:10

Kiermaier’s Piercing Green Eyes: Why is the universal DH considered inevitable? There are enough pitchers who like hitting for the players to avoid lobbying for it. For the owners, I’m not sure of the net effect of paying for a DH vs not losing pitchers to stupid injuries. Without agreement from both sides, who is going to make a concession for it?

9:11

Jeff Sullivan: I don’t think there are really that many pitchers who still love hitting, and guys get injured as batsmen every year. Look at what happened to Jimmy Nelson, the most valuable pitcher in the Brewers organization. Pitching is already dangerous enough — teams shouldn’t want to keep the risk higher than it needs to be

9:11	Jeff Sullivan: Throw in the fact that, Bumgarner aside, all of them suck, and it just doesn’t seem like something that’s long for this world

9:12	Jeff Sullivan: But I could be wrong! Tradition, and whatnot

9:12	THE Average Sports Fan: On the CF list, where you more surprised the Mets were 3rd or that the Twins were 6th?

9:12	Jeff Sullivan: The Mets came up quicker than I expected, but the projections pretty heavily regress baserunning and defense, so I see how Conforto wound up elevated above Buxton. Buxton’s best skills are likely to be underappreciated by a projection system

9:13	Bork: If all center fielders are losers compared to Trout what does that make us? What does that make Prince Fielder?

9:13	Jeff Sullivan: We can’t be losers if we’re not even playing

9:15	Jeff Sullivan: And Prince Fielder is basically my age but he has an extra roughly $250 million. Money by itself doesn’t make a soul brighter, but at least if Fielder has things to worry about, he doesn’t have to worry about trying to fix them

9:15	Kiermaier’s Piercing Green Eyes: Why is your chat the only one where the queue is not open prior to the start?

9:15	Jeff Sullivan: I’ve never had a problem getting enough questions. Guess I don’t see the point

9:16	Jack: It looks like Joey Wendle might get to play a whole bunch of second base for the Rays, so can you give me any reason to feel good about that?

9:16	Jeff Sullivan: no

9:17	Jeff Sullivan: Well, I guess, if someone else emerges, it wouldn’t be too hard to find playing time

9:17	Ross: Will Jose Bautista ever play another MLB game?

9:17	Jeff Sullivan: Sure

9:18	Jeff Sullivan: But will he play another 100? That I’m far less certain about

9:18	CamdenWarehouse: The As have had pretty bad luck with pitcher injuries over the last half decade or so. At what point do you start wondering if it’s not luck but something the organization does? This probably applies to the Mets too.

9:19

Jeff Sullivan: I don’t know exactly when you start to worry; talking to people around the game, everyone considers pretty much every single pitcher a ticking time bomb. Every pitcher kind of expects to get hurt eventually. It’s not so much bad luck when pitchers get hurt, but good luck when they don’t

9:20	Jeff Sullivan: That being said, a theory: Maybe the A’s are willing to accept pitchers with worse medicals than average, because it’s a way to get cheaper talent. They always have to worry about keeping costs down, and perhaps they invest in talent over health

9:20	Jeff Sullivan: Doesn’t explain something like, say, Puk. But, welp, he’s a pitcher. Pitching sucks

9:20	Jack: How has Miguel Cabrera looked in Spring Training?

9:20	Jeff Sullivan: Good

9:20	Jeff Sullivan: It’s too early for him to be hurt yet

9:21	Tim: Aside from Holland which free agents are you most surprised at being unsigned less than a week from Opening Day? Who are you most annoyed by them not being signed?

9:23

Jeff Sullivan: I don’t know. Scott Feldman? Seth Smith? Matt Holliday? There’s not really…I don’t think any of the remaining FA are all that appealing. Several of them have their potential uses, but none of them project to be actually good. No point in signing Matt Holliday for his track record, if you have someone younger and more athletic who could also be about an average hitter

9:25	Jeff Sullivan: Someone like Holliday can still hit the ball hard, but he doesn’t do anything else. Teams want their players to be able to move around

9:25	Jeff Sullivan: Jose Bautista, I did expect to find a job. Forgot about him

9:27

Hae-Lo Dee: It’s been discussed in multiple places that the juiced ball era has helped players with low to middling power more than it has traditional sluggers.

In the steroid era, we saw multiple sluggers putting up crazy seasons of 50, 60+ homeruns. In theory, both a juiced ball and a stronger human result in higher exit velocity, which results in more homeruns. What is the difference that is creating this difference in homerun distribution, or is the difference only perceived?

9:28	Jeff Sullivan: I think part of it is that teams now are looking for guys who can hit everywhere. You no longer find so many guys who are clearly defensive specialists or slap hitters. Home runs are more achievable, so everyone is expected to be able to hit home runs. Lifts up the floor

9:29	Jeff Sullivan: Minor aside but it’s worth remembering it also used to be easier to rack up high home-run totals, because there was more contact back then. With strikeouts significantly elevated, there are fewer HR opportunities in the first place

9:29	JInx: Mike Trout struck out in his first at-bat against Ryu last night. Just thought you should know since a whole paragraph in your CF power rankings was about him not striking out.

9:29	Jeff Sullivan: Son of a bitch

9:29	Jeff Sullivan: This is precisely why I hate scheduling articles for the next day

9:31	Babe Lincoln: Anyone (other than Nimmo) on the Mets being underrated by the community? If Bruce’s swing changes from last year are real?

9:32	Jeff Sullivan: I don’t know what there is to believe about Jay Bruce taking a step forward. He’s basically a 110 wRC+ kind of guy. That’s his talent level

9:33	Jeff Sullivan: I think the Mets as a general entity can get underrated because of lolmets. It’s not that people are down on the individual players. There’s just an assumption that something stupid is going to happen

9:33	John: Have you ever been to spring training? Would you rather go to Arizona or Florida for it?

9:33	Jeff Sullivan: Never been to Florida for spring training and god willing that will always be true

9:34	Jeff Sullivan: Not that I’m a huge fan of the Phoenix metropolitan area either, but the major advantage in Arizona is dry warmth and never a drive of more than an hour or so

9:34	Jeff Sullivan: In Florida, the teams are so damn spread out

9:34	Rickon: Is Luis Severino on the consistent Cy Young threat path? Elite K%, BB%, throws lots of first pitch strikes

9:35	Jeff Sullivan: Just a matter of health. The talent is all there but he is an obvious health risk because of the velocity and slider usage

9:35	Hae-Lo Dee: What’s going to happen at first base in Seattle? At this point Vogelbach has to get at-bats, right?

9:35	Jeff Sullivan: Healy is going to get his chance, because that’s been the idea all winter, but ultimately, Healy projects for 0 WAR, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if Vogelbach emerges down the line

9:36	Bork: Bo Bichette will have a better career than Vlad Jr.

9:36	Jeff Sullivan: He might!

9:36	Brett: Will Acuna be a 20-20 guy this season?

9:37	Jeff Sullivan: The odds are fairly good, but the steals could be tricky; it takes time for even good young base-stealers to figure out opposing big-league pitchers, and if Acuna is conservative about his running, he might top out closer to 15 before moving ahead in future seasons

9:38	Jeff Sullivan: Billy Hamilton, of course, was confident stealing right away. But Acuna isn’t Billy Hamilton. Look at Byron Buxton and how he took a while to get running

9:38	Erik: Should teams stagger their best starters so that bullpens don’t have to work as hard on consecutive days? Second and third starters end up with the same amount of starts, so why not put your second-best guy third?

9:39	Jeff Sullivan: I think rotations naturally end up jumbled over the course of a year. You don’t see a whole lot of the 1-2-3-4-5 starter order even though every starter has his own number

9:42	Mike NMN: How does luxury tax get calculated on players who are traded for in-season? Is there a offset for the acquiring team if a player is injured and DL’d for the balance of the season?

9:43	Jeff Sullivan: I am almost certain that, for midseason trades, you just look at the prorated salary number

9:43	Jeff Sullivan: Meanwhile I do not believe there exists such thing as a DL offset. Payroll is payroll

9:44	Moltar: Conforto seems to be well ahead of schedule, but given what we know about the Mets and how they handle injuries, is that a good thing? I’m concerned.

9:45	Jeff Sullivan: If Conforto looks good, Conforto looks good. Every team gives players opportunities to return early, if their rehab goes well enough

9:46	Waylan Smithers: Do you buy Quintana’s K% increase? I mean some should increase as a byproduct of going from AL to NL but I have a tough time seeing actual skills increasing? Could it just be having a better pitch framing catcher?

9:47	Jeff Sullivan: Quintana with the White Sox against position players: 24% K Quintana with the Cubs against position players: 26% K

9:47	Jeff Sullivan: Barely anything to notice. After Quintana joined the Cubs, he faced pitchers 25 times, and he racked up 15 strikeouts. Those are cheap

9:48	Jeff Sullivan: I’m open to the idea that maybe the Cubs are able to make Quintana better, but, also, Quintana was already very good

9:49	THE Average Sports Fan: Mike Trout is amazing, but the Angels have generally been disappointing. Lebron James is amazing and whatever team he plays for is a championship contender. Why pay any baseball player big money?

9:49	Jeff Sullivan: Because the teams that don’t have enough good players are terrible

9:49	Jeff Sullivan: And good players require big money

9:49	Carson Cistulli Sabathia: Brewers and Neil walker, what happened there? That seemed like one of the easiest matches

9:50	Jeff Sullivan: I think they simply don’t see him as very good

9:51	Jeff Sullivan: Villar was a three-win player two years ago. Sogard, improbably, just had a .393 OBP. Walker’s not much of a defender. Not a meaningful improvement

9:51	1234: Player who has impressed you the most in spring? the Least?

9:51	Jeff Sullivan: Absolutely love what Giolito has done

9:52	Jeff Sullivan: Not so much of a fan of Domingo Santana’s 50% strikeout rate

9:53	Jeff Sullivan: Lucas Sims, Reynaldo Lopez, and Carson Fulmer have sort of let me down

9:53	Jeff Sullivan: Keep an eye on Chris Stratton

9:55

zach: I’m not sure if there’s a way to find this number, but a stat I’ve always been curious on is RISP conversion rates for hitters i.e, you come up to bat with 300 RISP over the course of your season, and knock in 75 of them (be it on hits or sac flies), you’d have a 25% conversion rate. Any insight on how to find these numbers?

9:55	Jeff Sullivan: Baseball Prospectus tracks a stat like this https://legacy.baseballprospectus.com/sortable/index.php?cid=2529099

9:56	Jeff Sullivan: Adam Lind batted with 195 actual runners, and he generated 45 RBI, not counting driving himself in. So he had a league-leading conversion rate of 23%

9:57	Jeff Sullivan: Tyler Saladino brought up the rear

9:57	austin, texas: Do you believe the home run rate will continue to rise in 2018?

9:57	Jeff Sullivan: Yep

9:57	Jeff Sullivan: It’s way up again this spring, which provides some foreshadowing

9:58	Steve: I’ve been visiting this site for almost 10 years now, can we please stick to analytics instead of SJW clickbait?

9:58	Jeff Sullivan: https://www.fangraphs.com/

9:59	Jeff Sullivan: The front page is absolutely full of deep and timely baseball analysis

9:59	Jeff Sullivan: Why, I can’t even believe how much analysis there is!

9:59	Jeff Sullivan: It would be impossible to read it all

9:59	Dan: MATT KEMP IS GOING TO BE PLAYING FOR THE DODGERS IN 2018, ON PURPOSE

9:59	Jeff Sullivan: I’m so confused as to how to manage the Dodgers’ depth chart, because I have stubbornly refused to believe Kemp will actually get that much of a chance