Jeff Sullivan FanGraphs Chat — 3/4/14

March 4, 2014

9:02	Jeff Sullivan: Let’s do some live baseball chat

9:02	Jeff Sullivan: Couple minutes late today but that’s better than usual!

9:02	Comment From SMC PROVIDE CONTENT NOW

9:03	Jeff Sullivan: I will provide content if you will be content

9:03	Jeff Sullivan: (DIFFERENT WORDS)

9:03	Jeff Sullivan: I apologize if this is kind of herky-jerky because it seems like Cover It Live is being pretty slow at the moment

9:03	Comment From Conrad How about an early Tuesday Nick Franklin trade prediction?

9:04	Jeff Sullivan: Tampa Bay for a starting pitcher. Rumor has it there was an agreement in place when Hellickson got hurt and TB no longer wanted to sacrifice depth

9:04	Comment From Daniel Carroll What’s the best World Series to never happen? ’01 Mariners/Diamondbacks? ’94 Expos/Yankees? Something else?

9:05	Jeff Sullivan: How about ’03 Red Sox/Cubs?

9:05	Comment From Swing and a Miss Puiggy Do you think we’ll see even more shifts in 2014 than we did in 2013?

9:05	Jeff Sullivan: For all intents and purposes it’s a certainty

9:06	Comment From Guest Is Joc Pederson the #5 outfielder in LA this year? With the injury history in LA is there a chance that he is called to contribute this year?

9:06	Jeff Sullivan: Right now he’s basically the #5, but I suspect by midseason or something he’ll be the #4 after someone gets cleared away

9:06	Comment From Pale Hose Is it possible that your innings threshold was too large in familiarity/framing article? Maybe it only takes a couple starts for a battery to become familiar enough.

9:06	Jeff Sullivan: I thought about that. Stands to reason you’d only really see an effect at the start. But if the effect is so small that it disappears over a larger sample, it’s not an effect anyone should really care about

9:07	Jeff Sullivan: Game-calling and familiarity, on the other hand…

9:08	Comment From john jim henderson, how long is his leash?

9:08	Jeff Sullivan: With Francisco Rodriguez behind him? There are longer leashes

9:08	Comment From Lou Gramm I wanna know what love is

9:09	Jeff Sullivan: Consistently putting someone else before yourself

9:09	Comment From Catoblepas How would you characterize this offseason? Long-feeling? Boring?

9:09	Jeff Sullivan: Interesting, like all of them. Morales, Drew, and Santana are still free agents! There have been boring stretches, but thankfully there are other things going on in the world to fill in the gaps

9:09	Comment From Guest Guys without options that are on the outside looking in?

9:10	Jeff Sullivan: I don’t have a list off the top of my head, but I suspect FG will put up a post sometime relatively soon about this exact thing

9:10	Jeff Sullivan: Or MLBTR

9:12	Comment From Bob Melvin Who are my top 3 starting pitchers in 2014?

9:12	Jeff Sullivan: Gray, and then Kazmir, and then the others are the damn same

9:12	Comment From Chris206 When can I get excited about Dustin Ackley again? Solid contact!!

9:13	Jeff Sullivan: You can get excited whenever you want. Just be prepared to subsequently get not excited if events warrant

9:14	Jeff Sullivan: I wouldn’t be shocked if Ackley hit a decent .290 this year. Don’t expect it, but I can’t let go of the near-certainty he used to be. Not going to slug a lot but at this point I’d take anything

9:14	Comment From Kris how excited are you about Brook’s and Pav’s work at BP on framing???

9:15	Jeff Sullivan: It was very well done, and I came away not really having learned anything new. They basically confirmed conclusions that were already in place. For the most part, their numbers agree strongly with the numbers Matthew Carruth has had published online for a short while

9:16	Jeff Sullivan: In certain cases, there are disagreements, probably from the pitcher correction that BP included. But the guys we suspected were good are good, and the guys we suspected were bad are bad

9:17	Comment From Guest Chances james Paxton is still in rotation in July?

9:17	Jeff Sullivan: Pretty good. I think he’ll be pretty good

9:17	Comment From Some Kitty or Something If a hitter has a ~600 at-bat season, and then one game with unlimited at-bats, how good would that last game have to be add 1 WAR to his season?

9:18	Jeff Sullivan: Unlimited, like, infinite? 1 WAR means nothing over infinite at-bats

9:18	Jeff Sullivan: But if you have a game with, say, three home runs and one crazy difficult catch of a ball in the outfield gap…that won’t be 1 WAR, but it’ll get in the vicinity

9:18	Comment From jocephus how many weeks too long is spring training

9:19	Jeff Sullivan: 2-3

9:19	Comment From Tyler B Hi Jeff I know you dont do a lot of fantasy but I am trying to decide between Matt Cain’s track record vs Tanaka’s youth/upside. Any thoughts? thanks

9:19	Jeff Sullivan: If you’re having trouble making a decision between two options, and you consider yourself informed, odds are they’re essentially equally good or equally bad

9:20	Comment From MikeY Do you see any AL East team being a buyer of any remaining significant free agent, or involved in a trade for a starter/position regular between now and opening day, or are they done?

9:20	Jeff Sullivan: Something’s possible for all of them

9:21	Jeff Sullivan: Boston might still sign Drew. New York might still sign Drew. Toronto might still sign Drew or Santana. Tampa Bay might trade for Franklin. Baltimore might trade for Franklin.

9:21	Comment From Steven Corey Hart stole home? What happened?

9:21	Jeff Sullivan: I believe a ball got away from the catcher. It wasn’t as exciting as it seems

9:22

Comment From Compton
(Related to the StL SP post) Is there any sort of correlation between particular pitching abilities and overall hitting ability? The only one that intuitively makes sense is that better fielding pitchers might be better hitting pitchers because of the athleticism required for both. Any concrete findings?

9:23

Jeff Sullivan: Nothing concrete, presumably nothing significant. Athletic pitchers seem like they should be able to out-hit less athletic pitchers, but then all pitchers are some minimum level of athletic, and there’s a lot more that goes into hitting than athleticism. See Michael Jordan or Reggie Abercrombie

9:24	Comment From Brian In regards to the new data stream being implemented this year… Do you expect a big market inefficiency next offseason because of this? Maybe some strange signings we may not be ready for?

9:26

Jeff Sullivan: I don’t think things are going to do a 180. In fact, for the most part, I bet the numbers we and teams already have will be pretty close to whatever numbers teams get out of the new data supply. Like, as much as people complain about UZR or whatever, I’m guessing it’ll turn out that UZR isn’t that far off, and it captures the guys who’re good and not good. There’s only so much further to go when it comes to determining which players are valuable and which players aren’t

9:28

Jeff Sullivan: That might make me sound cynical, and I’m very excited to hopefully get my hands on new stuff so different ideas can be presented or ordinary ideas can be presented differently. But I think we’ll just change the way we approach certain things — when it comes to overall value, I think we’re already damn close

9:28	Comment From _David_ Does Kinsler’s seeming attitude issues and refusal to move to first base allow for a different assessment of the trade?

9:28	Jeff Sullivan: No, because they could’ve cleared Kinsler without adding so much payroll

9:29	Comment From Rated Rookie I loved the “Taijuan Walker Isn’t Dying” piece. Any reason given (player, manager or GM comments) for why he arrived at camp with a sore shoulder? Or is his shoulder simply where the bubonic virus entered his body?

9:30	Jeff Sullivan: I imagine he just developed bursitis while throwing normally in the weeks prior. Wouldn’t be surprised if he’d had it before, maybe less noticeably. He might have it again down the road. As long as this is all it is, he’ll be okay

9:30	Comment From Daniel Carroll 03 Red Sox/Cubs was SO CLOSE TO HAPPENING.

9:30	Jeff Sullivan: 🙁

9:32	Comment From Wily Mo Money Mo Problems Are you more concerned that Matt Adams will eat himself into a coma or that his PT will be limited due to Taveras shifting Craig back to 1B?

9:32	Jeff Sullivan: I mean if I had to pick, I’d pick the latter

9:32	Comment From Swing and a Miss Puiggy any hope for an Ike Davis resurgence? (if that would qualify as like a .230/.330/.470 line?)

9:32	Jeff Sullivan: Of course yes, some hope. Not enough hope

9:33	Comment From Wily Mo Money Mo Problems Reports suggest Pineda’s shoulder is holding up. Off the top of your head, can you think of any other pitchers that have gone on to have a decent career following labrum surgery?

9:33	Jeff Sullivan: http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=1292&position=P

9:34	Comment From Steven Brewers fan here who lived in Kansas City for a while and now moving to Denver. If I want to see playoff baseball, who should I follow more closely, MIL, KC or COL?

9:34	Jeff Sullivan: This year? Royals

9:35	Comment From GK Should I be nervous about Adam Wainwright? That was a lot of innings last year.

9:35	Jeff Sullivan: Justin Verlander threw 270 innings in 2011

9:37	Comment From Swing and a Miss Puiggy Sonny Gray worries me with all the looking K’s in a Vance Worley kind of way….obviously he’s more talented than that but….do you share any of this concern?

9:38	Jeff Sullivan: Maybe this’ll make you feel better:

9:38	Jeff Sullivan: Last year, 187 starters threw at least 50 innings. Gray ranked 20th-best in contact rate allowed, ahead of guys like Jeff Samardzija and Jose Fernandez

9:39	Jeff Sullivan: Whiffs AND grounders? He’s an excellent one

9:40	Comment From Moogy is 2/8 really an overpay for Dioner Navarro or is Anthopoulos’ ability to valuate players just way out to lunch?

9:41	Jeff Sullivan: It’s possible he could’ve been had for one year, but yeah, that commitment is basically nothing for a fairly solid semi-regular backstop

9:41	Comment From That Guy Do you play daily fantasy baseball?

9:41	Jeff Sullivan: Haven’t for about ten years, which is one of the reasons I don’t answer obvious fantasy baseball questions. I can’t give advice!

9:42	Comment From Guest do you think Johan will pitch out of the pen at some point this year?

9:43	Jeff Sullivan: Yes, and I think he’ll pitch out of the rotation too

9:43	Comment From Moogy Play devil’s advocate and tell me why Alex Anthopoulos’ offseason of signing nobody outside of Navarro is a plan that might work out?

9:44	Jeff Sullivan: The Blue Jays could have a lot better luck in 2014 than they had in 2013 and in 2013 they were supposed to be one of the better teams in the American League. A lot of that talent remains. They’re still going to add an actual major-league second baseman

9:44	Comment From Kris With catcher defense in mind… Thoughts on the Braves going from McCann and Ross to Doumit, Gattis & Laird? That’s quite a drop in catcher defense.

9:45	Jeff Sullivan: I think Gattis isn’t too bad back there — the framing numbers like him — but yeah, they used to have something special. McCann/Ross made for a hell of a pitch-receiving combination that didn’t get the recognition it deserved

9:47	Comment From Andrew Theory: the way Baseball Analytics World reacts to bad calls with umpires fundamentally contradicts their overall approach to understanding and appreciating every other component of baseball. Agree or disagree?

9:47	Jeff Sullivan: The baseball analytics world is interested in furthering its understanding of the abilities of players and teams. Bad calls reward the wrong players

9:48	Jeff Sullivan: But I think there is a growing trend in analysts trying to figure out why bad calls were made, as opposed to just complaining like complainers

9:48	Jeff Sullivan: Turns out umpiring is super hard work!

9:50	Comment From SMC Would it be theoretically possible to have a ~20 WAR season? How close would ca. 2001-03 Barry Bonds with elite defense get?

9:51	Jeff Sullivan: 2001 Barry Bonds was worth 128 RAR (12.5 WAR)

9:51	Jeff Sullivan: He had a Defense rating of -12. Plug in, say, Manny Machado’s 2013 Defense rating, and Bonds goes up to 173 RAR

9:52	Jeff Sullivan: Now we still need to add another 30 runs

9:52	Jeff Sullivan: Some of that would come from playing all 162 games. Then you throw in a little better BABIP luck, and, presto, all you need is to be the best in baseball at almost literally everything

9:53	Jeff Sullivan: Alternate scenario: you have an ace-level pitcher who, when not pitching, is also an elite-level position player!

9:54	Comment From Moogy why aren’t people more upset when their team loses in Spring training? Is building momentum to the regular season not important?

9:54	Jeff Sullivan: Can’t tell if serious

9:55	Comment From SteveV Better year Paxton or TWalker?

9:55	Jeff Sullivan: You know what, the hell with it, I’ll say Paxton by a little

9:57	Comment From Swing and a Miss Puiggy Is Darin Ruf a useful MLB player over 400+ PA or really just a lefty mashing platoon guy who shouldn’t get more than ~300 PA in a bench role?

9:57	Jeff Sullivan: He isn’t special, but then Garrett Jones landed himself a multi-year contract so Ruf could have a fairly lucrative career if he’s given an opportunity to hit

9:58	Comment From Logan Davis Does FG pay for the Spray Chart data? Would sharing the actual number values from those charts in be stealing, or would I just have to cite FG?

9:59	Jeff Sullivan: We pay for all our data, but we pay so that you guys can use it. If it’s available on the site, you can use it, and cite freely how you please

9:59	Comment From Amazed I realize this is old news but DID YOU SEE THAT CATCH Josh Reddick made?

9:59	Jeff Sullivan: both of them

9:59	Comment From Guest “If you’re having trouble making a decision between two options, and you consider yourself informed, odds are they’re essentially equally good or equally bad”…do you take the joy out of everything?

9:59	Jeff Sullivan: There’s joy in realizing a decision isn’t as difficult as it might seem