Jeff Sullivan FanGraphs Chat — 6/15/18

June 15, 2018

9:06	Jeff Sullivan: Hello friends

9:06	Jeff Sullivan: Welcome to Friday baseball chat

9:06	James: The Astros seem to have their offensive mojo back. How scared should the league be?

9:07	Jeff Sullivan: I was just looking at something yesterday

9:07	Jeff Sullivan: I calculated every team’s total negative WAR

9:07	Jeff Sullivan: The Astros are at -0.1 — just Jake Marisnick

9:07	Jeff Sullivan: Not that that’s a perfect encapsulation of everything, or even anything, but it’s absurd how good and deep and healthy they are

9:08	Jeff Sullivan: The Astros are the best team in baseball. They’re playing like it. They’re going to win that division by like ten games

9:08	kyle: is there a place that I can look up xBABIP?

9:08	Jeff Sullivan: Not via Statcast. It’s not included among the Baseball Savant dropdown menu options

9:09	Pio: Between his tremendous power and inability to make contact, where do you think Franchy’s bat ends up?

9:09	Jeff Sullivan: I know the Padres really like him, and they intend to give him a long leash

9:10	Jeff Sullivan: Part of that, though, has to do with his defense, which this season hasn’t been good at all. He’s very fast but very raw. Unpolished player in multiple areas

9:10	Jeff Sullivan: I think he ends up a low-lineup regular, but I doubt it ever all comes together at once

9:11	Jeff Sullivan: Not for more than a few games at a time

9:11	NYTT: Will the Braves be one of the five best teams in the NL at the end of the year?

9:11	Jeff Sullivan: In terms of record, or true talent?

9:12	Jeff Sullivan: In terms of record, they already have a leg up

9:12	Jeff Sullivan: I’m a little bit of a Braves skeptic, but at the same time, I have a feeling they could be the most likely destination for Machado. So obviously that would be a massive improvement

9:13	Scherzer’s Blue Eye: Given the Nationals’ soft contact and hard contact rates (5th and 7th worst in MLB), how much do you see their MLB-worst BABIP changing?

9:13	Jeff Sullivan: They’re about to have more Daniel Murphy and less Wilmer Difo, and more Adam Eaton and less Michael Taylor

9:14	Jeff Sullivan: They’re going to hit a lot. And while Harper’s BABIP is a terrible .213, his career mark is .315. No reason to believe he suddenly sucks

9:15	NYTT: Is Dansby Swanson good now? Average-ish bat and plus defense at shortstop looks good even though his BABIP is higher than you’d like

9:15	Jeff Sullivan: Defensively I think he’s playing over his head, and I don’t trust his current offensive profile much. I see him as more of an average everyday player

9:15	Jeff Sullivan: Career DRS of 0, and UZR of +0.8

9:16	Slurve: What’s the biggest reason for the Mariners’ success to this point?

9:16	Jeff Sullivan: Clutch performance

9:16	Jeff Sullivan: First among all teams in batting Clutch, second among all teams in pitching Clutch

9:17	Jeff Sullivan: We’ve seen this before from other teams. I recall that 2016 Rangers

9:18	Jeff Sullivan: The Mariners are third in high-leverage wRC+, and 19th in low-leverage wRC+

9:19	Jeff Sullivan: They’re third in high-leverage wOBA allowed, and 17th in low-leverage wOBA allowed

9:19	Jeff Sullivan: They’re a perfectly adequate team, but this is always basically a mirage

9:20	Preller: Will the Yankees go after Brad Hand? Maybe package him with Tyson Ross, what kind of package would it take?

9:20	Jeff Sullivan: Given how the Padres make demands in negotiations, it’s hard for me to see Cashman being the guy who caves

9:21	Jeff Sullivan: Which isn’t to say he won’t go after Hand or Ross, but Cashman surely doesn’t want to dip into his best prospects. Maybe for Hand, but the Padres are going to try to drive a nearly impossible bargain

9:22	Jeff Sullivan: Incidentally, if the Brewers wanted to make their bullpen lethal, they could get involved for Hand. And Ross, too, for the rotation. But they might not want to give up the pieces they have left

9:22	All Cats Are Beautiful : Did you get into baseball writing for the money or the ladies?

9:22	Jeff Sullivan: I got into it to avoid having to go to chemistry grad school

9:22	Jeff Sullivan: So far, so good!

9:23	O’Broxton Tortas: Is there a baseball equivalent to what’s going on in Ottawa, and do you see yourself switching NHL allegiances as some point?

9:23	Jeff Sullivan: I don’t believe in switching allegiances, but it is probably the worst ownership situation in the four major North American sports

9:23	Jeff Sullivan: If not the very worst, then bottom five

9:24	Jeff Sullivan: Imagine the Wilpons, but in a much smaller market

9:25	Jeff Sullivan: As far as the personal stuff goes between Karlsson’s partner and Hoffman’s partner, I’m reminded of when Carlos Peguero’s wife stole from Felix Hernandez’s wife http://blogs.seattletimes.com/today/2014/06/wife-of-ex-mariner-sentenc…

9:25	Jeff Sullivan: Sports are weird. Sports cause us to learn weird things about people

9:26	greg: What to do with Scooter Gennett? Senzel looming…

9:27	Jeff Sullivan: Personally, I’d try Senzel at shortstop, since Peraza is bad and the Reds aren’t playing for anything anyway. But more likely they just flip Gennett pretty soon for low-level prospects

9:27	Jeff Sullivan: Right or not, Gennett just isn’t a guy who’s going to command a major return

9:28	Ichiro for CEO: Jeff what would you change to incentive teams not to tank?

9:28	Jeff Sullivan: I wouldn’t mind a draft lottery, but I also don’t see tanking as a major problem in the sport today

9:29	Jeff Sullivan: Teams are already incentivized not to tank because it sucks. It’s a horrible process for everybody. And the worst team in baseball right now is the Orioles, who were trying to compete!

9:30	Austin: Alright, thoughts on Twins move to send Sano down to Single A???

9:31

Jeff Sullivan: He’s made zero progress in any facet. I wouldn’t read too much into the Single-A part — I think they just want Sano to have access to the facilities at that location. Might as well be Double-A or even Triple-A. What matters is the demotion, and I think it was time to try to give Sano a wake-up call. I’m pleased to hear he’s open-minded about it

9:32	Beni and the Betts: Is Jose Ramirez the new king of trade value?

9:33	Jeff Sullivan: Five years, $43 million after this season is finished. Fifth among position players in WAR since the start of 2016

9:34	Jeff Sullivan: With Shohei Ohtani on the disabled list and possibly/probably looking at Tommy John, it’s hard for me to know who else might get the nod

9:35	Jeff Sullivan: Last summer Dave ranked Carlos Correa at No. 1, but he’s got just three years left, and he hasn’t been as good as Ramirez

9:35	Matty P: If I had a fastball and curveball that I could throw anywhere I wanted with exact precision , how slow could my fastball be and still play in the MLB?

9:35	Jeff Sullivan: 80 miles per hour

9:38	Norm Macdonald: Leonys Martin has been hitting way more flyballs this year and has seen good results. What are the chances he brings back an interesting prospect at the deadline?

9:38	Jeff Sullivan: Martin won’t get the Tigers a lot, on account of his own background, but he has had a very encouraging year and he can still play a regular center field

9:39	Jeff Sullivan: Obviously, most of the players prized and moved around the deadline are pitchers. Martin feels like he’d bring back the Eduardo Nunez package from last July

9:39	Jeff Sullivan: That was two lower-level starting pitchers

9:40	Eh: What’s turned Justin Miller into a force in the bullpen?

9:40	Jeff Sullivan: I was just looking into him yesterday. There’s not a real clean explanation, but he’s been absolutely dominant, and he was no less dominant in Triple-A

9:41	Jeff Sullivan: He’s seemingly turned his four-seamer into more of a cutter, and he’s better able to keep his slider buried. Throw in plain old better conditioning and you have a hell of a career resurrection

9:41	Boba Shett: Could the Brewers land Jacob deGrom without losing Josh Hader?

9:41	Jeff Sullivan: Yes

9:43	Ichiro: Buying into a changed Felix in a ‘good’ two out of three starts? Or thinking it is a mirage? Thanks.

9:43	Jeff Sullivan: Slider came back last night for the first time in a while. Velocity was up somewhat. I think Felix was really feeling it, in that competitive environment

9:44	Jeff Sullivan: Way too early for me to believe that Felix has solved anything, but I also believe he does still have enough stuff to get by. I am very, very modestly encouraged

9:47	The KHole in Calhoun’s bat: What’s going on with Matt Thaiss? He is on “temporarily inactive list” but Angels FO hasn’t said why. Usually they give a simple reason like family/paternity leave but given they haven’t mentioned why it’s concerning it might be related to PED

9:48	Jeff Sullivan: I don’t think there’s a history of PED players going on the temporarily inactive list

9:48	Jeff Sullivan: You won’t be surprised to learn my brief digging here didn’t turn up the truth, but at this point it doesn’t seem like a thing to worry about

9:48	Jeff Sullivan: Probably just a personal matter

9:49	Rockie Dangerfield: If you added up all the WPA on every missed ball/strike call by every ump for each team over the course of a season, do you think the total effect would be greater or less than a given team’s most influential reliever?

9:50	Jeff Sullivan: Maybe once or twice, it would exceed the influence of a team’s most important reliever. But that would come down to some very extreme pitch-framing, which most teams don’t have anymore

9:51	Jim: My proposal for the wild card series: 2-games, away & home(from higher seed’s perspective) with a travel day in between. Lower seed needs to win both games to advance. Your thoughts?

9:51	Jeff Sullivan: Way too harsh given that the second wild-card team is usually hardly worse than the first

9:52	Jeff Sullivan: I know that, last year, the wild-card teams in both leagues were separated by six wins. But the year before that, the wild-card teams had identical records. Why put one of those teams at a 3:1 disadvantage?

9:55	Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe: If you don’t answer this question, my ass will be in the jackpot. What do you think about the declining attendance numbers this season? Weather was a convenient excuse early, but things seem to be adding up…

9:56	Jeff Sullivan: The first thing I’ll say is there’s a difference between attendance and tickets sold. I’d be interested to know if actual attendance is down

9:56	Jeff Sullivan: The second thing I’ll say is this is a lot more complicated than we want it to be and I don’t possess nearly enough information to give you a great answer

9:57	Jeff Sullivan: But just generally speaking, the in-home experience of watching baseball has gotten better, and the expense of going to the actual ballpark, especially as a family, has gotten worse

9:57	Jeff Sullivan: Another question worth answering: even though ticket sales are down, is ticket- and concession-related revenue down?

9:58	Cespedes U Bum: Things are looking pretty bleak for the mets huh? Retool around the core or complete rebuild?