Jeff Sullivan FanGraphs Chat — 5/11/18

May 11, 2018

9:03	Jeff Sullivan: Hello friends

9:04	Jeff Sullivan: Welcome to Friday baseball chat

9:04	Palardelphia: Carlos Santana has been on fire lately. Looking at his rolling averages…was he walking too much (and not capitalizing on hittable pitches)?

9:04	Jeff Sullivan: My understanding is that, early on, Santana was basically just hitting into terrible luck. Mike Petriello wrote about it at MLB.com. His xwOBA was always strong from the get-go

9:05	Yu: Is this a breakout season for Maikel Franco?

9:05	Jeff Sullivan: Probably not

9:06	Jeff Sullivan: Looks like basically the same hitter he’s always been

9:07	Syndergaardians of the Galaxy: Can you say anything that will make me feel hopeful about the Mets?

9:07	Jeff Sullivan: The 2015 Mets were below .500 in the last week of June

9:09

Kiermaier’s Piercing Green Eyes: Archer and Snell have very similar peripherals. The main difference between post-breakout Snell and Archer for the last few years is that Archer gives up hard contact, which means homers and a high BABIP. How much longer would you want to see them maintain their current performances before we can consider Snell to be the better pitcher? (Hopefully this is praise for Snell and not a knock against Archer.)

9:10	Jeff Sullivan: It’s encouraging that Snell is still avoiding getting into walk trouble like he used to. Appears that much of his second-half breakout is carrying over. His current strike rate is only more or less average, so that’s not a strength, but I like that he has a broad repertoire

9:11	Jeff Sullivan: If I had to guess, an issue for Archer is that he’s mostly fastball/slider. Batters swing through the sliders out of the zone, and then they feast on the in-zone fastballs. So that would lead to both strikeouts and hard contact

9:11	Jeff Sullivan: If this keeps up through the All-Star break or thereabouts, I’d be willing to consider Snell the better starter

9:12

Jack: Should the Jays just bite the bullet and give Morales the remaining $20 million or so on his contract to go away? He looks finished, and the roster is actually pretty crowded when/if it gets healthy, and they could use that DH spot to keep guys like Solarte and Hernandez’s bat in the lineup. And obviously Morales’s lack of speed and defense makes him a pretty useless bench player.

9:12	Jeff Sullivan: Since the start of 2016, Kendrys Morales has been worth -0.6 WAR

9:13	Jeff Sullivan: It looked like a bad contract when the Jays signed it, and now it only looks worse

9:14	Jeff Sullivan: There’s no reason for Morales to be on that roster. I know teams are loath to give up on that kind of salary commitment, but the Jays have so many major-league-caliber players. The roster should be full of them

9:14	Rox Fan: Is it time for the Rockies’ rotation to sue the offense for non-support?

9:15	Jeff Sullivan: Worst lineups in baseball: Rockies and Marlins tied, at a 75 wRC+

9:15	Jeff Sullivan: Last year, of course, the Rockies were fourth-worst

9:16	Jeff Sullivan: In a sense it shouldn’t be this way — Story, Arenado, Blackmon, LeMahieu are all fine. The rest is a void. This team could really use a healthy breakout from David Dahl

9:17	Nathan: Why aren’t we talking about how good Leonys Martin has been? Should we be talking about how good Leonys Martin has been?

9:18	Jeff Sullivan: He’ll get his attention eventually. But for one thing, we’ve already seen this from him before, and it was temporary. And for another, most people who write about baseball just aren’t paying that much attention to the Tigers

9:18	Jeff Sullivan: Martin has been an early success story, absolutely. He might really be figuring something out. But even if you focus on the Tigers alone, Martin isn’t as compelling a story as, say, JaCoby Jones, who just last season looked totally hopeless

9:19	THE Average Sports Fan: Is Eric Hosmer the final product of a secret government program aimed at driving all writers at Fangraphs insane?

9:19	Jeff Sullivan: I don’t mind him

9:19	Jeff Sullivan: He can do what he wants. That’s Dave’s problem, not mine

9:21	Kiermaier’s Piercing Green Eyes: Is Sergio Romo finished? So many walks and hard hit balls when the Rays have a small army of AAAA or better guys in Durham. Or given his career-high K numbers, maybe they think he can turn it around enough to be flipped for a low-end prospect?

9:21	Jeff Sullivan: Romo’s not finished, I don’t think, because I can’t write off a guy with that strikeout rate. But he also has fringy stuff and shouldn’t go against lefties, so it’s not like he’d ever return a midseason prospect

9:22	Jeff Sullivan: He only has a role in a deep bullpen with multiple multi-inning relievers. He’s such a specialist

9:23	Jeff Sullivan: Maybe there’s no reason for Romo to coexist with Chaz Roe. They’re trying to do the same exact thing

9:24	Todd: Anything jump out at you about former Top-100 prospect Alen Hanson in SF? Any chance for him to be a regular ML player?

9:25	Jeff Sullivan: I don’t see anything that excites me too much

9:25	Jeff Sullivan: Maybe he’s figured something out, I don’t know, but based on the early evidence he’s simply overachieving. Haven’t taken a deep dive, here

9:26	Johnny Triple: Eddie Rosario’s launch angle has increased to 20.2 this season from 12.7 last season. Is this the type of thing that can be sustained or is he a regression candidate for the rest of the season? Haven’t heard anything about a swing change.

9:27	Jeff Sullivan: Rosario is actually just carrying over what he did in last year’s second half, when he started to aim for the sky

9:27	Jeff Sullivan: Between halves, he dropped his grounder rate by ten percentage points

9:27	Jeff Sullivan: If I recall correctly, it’s not so much about a swing change as it is about a selectivity change. Just going after different pitches

9:28	Jeff Sullivan: His walk rate is so low he feels a little Rougned Odor-y, but at least you know the homers will be there

9:29	Yu: Is Andrew Heaney actually pretty good?

9:29	Jeff Sullivan: Heaney is pretty good as long as he’s healthy. Can’t make any guarantees about that second part

9:30	Vicente Padilla: What’s a good baseball pun name for a new kitten?

9:30	Jeff Sullivan: Jim Cat

9:30	Orioles fan: Can you give us anything to be happy about or look forward to other than the returns we’re going to get for Machado and maybe Britton?

9:30	Jeff Sullivan: One answer: no

9:31	Jeff Sullivan: Another answer: at least the team should be forced to pick a new direction. Some kind of rebuild ought to be coming. No more of this flailing for the middle

9:31	Jeff Sullivan: Whether the right people are in charge for that — that’s very much up for debate

9:32	Gest : Were you able to see any of Gohara’s appearance last night? Just from looking at the play-by-play, it didn’t seem like his slider was fooling anyone.

9:33	Jeff Sullivan: Just the one game, but his velocity was kind of down even though he was pitching in the bullpen. And his slider wasn’t the same one he was throwing late in 2017. Nothing to be worried about quite yet, but something to monitor over the next month or so

9:34	Deathclaw: Is Nomar Mazara breaking out? He has greatly improved against lefties and is also hitting the ball significantly harder. Or just a hot streak?

9:36	Jeff Sullivan: What we’re seeing right now is definitely a hot streak, but also, Mazara is only 23 years old, and from the beginning he’s shown some remarkable peak power

9:36	Jeff Sullivan: Now he’s tapping into that more. I think he’s somewhat leveled his swing, and he’s hitting more balls toward right and right-center. I don’t think Mazara is great yet, but he’s absolutely better than he was

9:37	Kevin: Jeff, just wanted to say I’m a huge fan and that I hope you have a fantastic weekend!

9:37	Jeff Sullivan: Kevin, I hope your weekend is even better than mine

9:37	jimmy: Devon Travis has a wRC+ of 7 in AAA. Is he cooked?

9:38	Jeff Sullivan: No, but there’s very little reason for the Jays to hurry him back

9:38	Jeff Sullivan: Even without Travis and Tulowitzki, the Jays are overloaded with infield depth. This is mostly by design, because, the team knew it couldn’t count on Travis and Tulowitzki

9:39	Blessed Be the Chatters: Should the White Sox ask Matt Davidson to use a glove at Wrigley this weekend? Particularly, not of the batting variety?

9:39	Jeff Sullivan: Once or twice. No reason not to

9:39	Ross: Who are you most concerned about, the Indians, Cubs or Dodgers?

9:40	Jeff Sullivan: Dodgers

9:40	Jeff Sullivan: Seager is gone, Jansen isn’t right, Kershaw might not be right, Toles had a setback, Turner isn’t back yet, gap in the division is large

9:40	Jeff Sullivan: The Indians haven’t wowed me, but their division absolutely sucks

9:41	Jeff Sullivan: It would be embarrassing if the Indians don’t win that division by at least ten games

9:42

Put on your tinfoil hats!: At the beginning of the 2016 season, MLB announced that they were switching their official pizza sponsor from Dominos to Papa Johns. Papa Johns then announced that there would be discounted pizza for every grand slam hit, right around the time that people began to notice the spike in home runs. Coincidence? Probably, but still kind of interesting.

9:43	Jeff Sullivan: Grand slams by season: 2014: 84 2015: 108 2016: 110 2017: 133 2018: 147 (pace)

9:43	Jeff Sullivan: Take that, Papa Johns!

9:43	THE Average Sports Fan: What does Harvey need to do between now and trade deadline for the Reds to get something of value out of him?

9:43	Jeff Sullivan: Not suck

9:43	Jeff Sullivan: He needs to miss bats. Period. If he can’t do it as a starter, then he needs to accept that he should do it as a reliever

9:44	Jeff Sullivan: If he doesn’t miss bats, he’ll be dropped in a month

9:45	FearAndLoathing: Is a Garret Richards rebound going to happen? what would it look like stat wise? His xfip is great, but he’s rocking an elevated hr/fb rate (19.2 %), twice his career average, and he’s walking guys more.

9:45	Jeff Sullivan: Richards has never been a command pitcher, and he’ll never be a command pitcher

9:46	Jeff Sullivan: But his stat line right now is fine, and that folds in his one disaster start, where he allowed nine runs in 1.2 innings against the Yankees

9:47	Jeff Sullivan: He’s not efficient, and batters have taken to waiting him out, because he’ll frequently miss. But overall, this version of Richards is fairly good

9:49	Gest : What possible adjustment do you think there might be for pitchers to make to Acuna?

9:49	Jeff Sullivan: This would be a good start:

9:49	Jeff Sullivan: So far, 337 players have seen at least 200 pitches. Acuna has baseball’s second-highest rate of pitches seen that were middle-middle

9:50	Jeff Sullivan: He’s up there in between Alex Blandino and Jarrod Dyson

9:51	Jeff Sullivan: Pitchers just have to execute better. The early numbers are interesting — Acuna has hit grounders and flies, and basically nothing in between

9:52	Lunch Angle: I’ve been to day games at Camden Yards and Nationals Park recently, brilliant sunny days, and all the lights were on. Why?!

9:52	Jeff Sullivan: One plausible answer: http://www.answers.com/Q/Why_are_stadium_lights_on_during_the_day

9:53	Jeff Sullivan: Another plausible answer: https://www.ocregister.com/2009/12/10/why-are-angel-stadium-lights-on-…

9:53	James: Is Batspeed tracked by anyone? I feel like Albies has a lot of bat speed

9:53	Jeff Sullivan: There are personal devices that some players use but there’s nothing public

9:53	Jeff Sullivan: Besides, it’s not clear exactly what you’re supposed to measure anyway

9:54	Jeff Sullivan: And at the end of the day, what matters is how hard the ball comes off the bat. We have that data now

9:54	Rob: I’m pleasantly surprised by the Brewers so far, nothing great but nothing terrible. Do they have the talent to hang with the Cubs/Cards? I feel like their bullpen is their strength that could keep them in it.

9:54	Jeff Sullivan: They probably have the best bullpen in baseball, but I think they’re likely to need a starter unless Jimmy Nelson comes back looking strong

9:54	Jeff Sullivan: Zach Davies just had a setback and Wade Miley is hurt again for a while. Thin crop

9:56	Vader: OK Jeff, what’s your expert opinion on whether or not the Jays should bring up Vlad, Jr.?

9:57	Jeff Sullivan: Don’t think you do it now. Do think you could do it in a month, depending on how things settle out

9:58

Dev: The other day I was thinking of unique player skillsets and I came up with this question for you: who is the last notable hitter you can think of who had a ton of power and above average defense with absolutely nothing else to offer? Strike out and walk numbers are not impressive and not a great contact hitter, just a dude that can go yard and field.

9:59	Jeff Sullivan: Almost Randal Grichuk, but I guess he has some small amount of baserunning value

9:59	Jeff Sullivan: Adam Duvall?

9:59	johnnyhobbes: is pat corbin a sell high right now?