Jeff Sullivan FanGraphs Chat — 6/30/17

June 30, 2017

9:09	Jeff Sullivan: Hello friends

9:09	Jeff Sullivan: Welcome to Friday baseball chat

9:09	Bork: Hello, friend!

9:09	Jeff Sullivan: Hello friend

9:09	Jeff Sullivan: I’ve missed you

9:09	Edwin: Approximately what % of Wins are attributed to Starting Pitchers? Any idea?

9:09	Jeff Sullivan: A very precise idea!

9:10	Jeff Sullivan: This year, there have been 1184 wins, 799 of which have gone to starters. So that’s 67.5%

9:10	Jeff Sullivan: Two decades ago, the rate was 69.9%

9:11	Jeff Sullivan: Not actually that much of a drop, but I’m sure it gets more and more dramatic the further back you go, obviously

9:11	v2micca: It feels like Tyler Flowers morphed into an elite pitch framer in the last couple of years and no one really noticed. How did this happen?

9:12	Jeff Sullivan: According to the data at Baseball Prospectus, Flowers has actually always been a really good pitch-framer. Maybe now it’s just that more people are recognizing him for it

9:13

Jeff Sullivan: The *real* dramatic shift has been as a hitter. Flowers has cut wayyyyyyy down on his strikeouts and pop-ups. He’s a good hitter now! It’s incredible. And I’d be writing about him, but I know that Ben Lindbergh is already in the process of writing about him, so I don’t want to step on toes

9:13	Jeff Sullivan: Plus Ben is just going to be more thorough than I would’ve been anyway

9:14	Jeff Sullivan: In 2014, Flowers struck out or popped up in 38% of his plate appearances. This year he’s at 21%.

9:15	Daniel Carroll: I’m getting laid off from my day job today (I’ve known in advance for months, and I’m getting a nice severance). Do you have any life advice to share? I’m thinking about playing some pickup baseball today, too.

9:15	Jeff Sullivan: An opportunity like this is exceedingly rare. Go do at least one of the things you’ve been putting off for some time. One of the big things, I mean, one of the things you always said you didn’t have time for

9:16	Jeff Sullivan: If you’re a traveler, travel. If you’re a hiker, hike. If you’re a hobbyist, hobby. Immerse yourself in something. You will rarely have the chance to be so unencumbered

9:17	Jack: The Red Sox can’t call up Rusney Castillo or eat any salary of his in a trade without going over the misery . However he is hitting very well in AAA.

9:17	Jeff Sullivan: In fairness, he’s not hitting that well in Triple-A

9:18	Jeff Sullivan: But, yes, he is a little bit trapped. It’s a shitty circumstance

9:18

Kiermaier’s Piercing Green Eyes: Is Logan Morrison getting lucky or unlucky, or is this about what we should expect from his batted balls? On the lucky side is a good but not outrageous 24.4% HR/FB rate. But on the unlucky side, despite 43.1%/42.6% Med/Hard contact, he’s running a .257 BABIP. He’s underperforming his xwOBA by a bit under .01 but I don’t have a great sense of that metric yet.

9:19	Jeff Sullivan: As a pull hitter who now puts everything in the air, Morrison is never going to run a normal-looking BABIP. He’s a slow, fly-ball-hitting lefty

9:20	Jeff Sullivan: That’s the profile of most of the xwOBA underachievers

9:20	Jeff Sullivan: But the power is legitimate. I don’t know if Morrison is really a 140 wRC+ type, but 120-130 isn’t unreasonable

9:20	Jeff Sullivan: Turns out, just like the Blue Jays with Justin Smoak, the Rays saw something here

9:21	Jeff Sullivan: Or they got lucky. Who knows!

9:22	Bork: Is Yunel Escobar the dumbest MLB player? His antics last night keep supporting this.

9:22	Jeff Sullivan: I’m not going to say he’s the dumbest, but he’s probably in the lower quartile

9:23	Jeff Sullivan: It wasn’t even that long ago that Escobar was considered a toxic personality. It’s remarkable he still has a job in the first place

9:23	Jeff Sullivan: Best quote, from this http://www.ocregister.com/2017/06/29/benches-clear-in-dodgers-angels-g…

9:23	Jeff Sullivan: “I think that’s stupid, man,” Jansen said. “Nobody’s going to fight. Just the stupidity of major leagues, when it goes to a brawl like this. I wish this could be over with. If you want to go 1-on-1, go 1-on-1. You can meet somewhere else. Nobody’s going to fight.”

9:23	Jacob h cornhole: Every time I see PST I think its a secret (i.e. Jeff Sullivan chat starts at 9 am pssst). I’m just lucky to be one of those who were on the invite

9:24	Jeff Sullivan: And then the damn front page runs that banner up top that spoils the surprise

9:24	Jeff Sullivan: This is like a FanGraphs speakeasy

9:24	another bad dynasty manager: Jeff: I’ve read rumors that Justin Bour might get traded to the Yankees. I can’t seem to confirm that anywhere. What have you heard?

9:25	Jeff Sullivan: I haven’t heard anything specific. It makes all the sense in the world that Bour would be on their radar, as a good lefty-hitting 1B on a go-nowhere team. I don’t know why the Marlins would be in a hurry to move him, though, since he’s cheap and fine and under control for a while

9:26	Jeff Sullivan: The Yankees should just trade for Duda and be done with it

9:26	Jeff Sullivan: I bet they could get Tommy Joseph for pretty cheap, but Duda’s a better fit

9:27	The Average Sports Fan: How were so many people so wrong about the Giants?

9:28	Jeff Sullivan: I don’t really know what we’re supposed to learn, here. Crawford forgot how to hit, Pence forgot how to hit, and Bumgarner forgot how to practice responsible dirt-biking safety habits

9:29	Jeff Sullivan: Easy to see how this could snowball. I still don’t think they’re close to being one of the worst teams around, but it’s been an absolutely miserable half-year

9:31	Cody: Fangraphs has the Brewers at 10.4% to make the playoffs. How much lower is that actually, now that ChACE Anderson is hurt?

9:31	Jeff Sullivan: In theory his injury is folded into that calculation since the depth charts have been updated since

9:32	Jeff Sullivan: Now, we can’t actually be sure how much time he’ll miss, and we don’t actually know if the projections have accurately captured Anderson’s improvement. But, hey, Kris Bryant is kind of hurt, too. Partial negation

9:32	Reginald: I’ve never been more upset during a sporting event than I was while watching the Yankee game last night. That poor guy ):

9:32	Jeff Sullivan: Thank goodness his family wasn’t there

9:32	Jeff Sullivan: I think? Maybe I’m completely wrong, but that seems like a good thing

9:33	Jeff Sullivan: Best I can say is, Fowler will be back. But that’s as brutal a debut as I’ve heard about

9:33	BC: What are the Pirates going to do with McCutchen? Trade him at the deadline?

9:33	Jeff Sullivan: Probably yes

9:34	Jeff Sullivan: If they catch enough fire to get closer to the division, they can hold, but the smart play right now is to deal McCutchen while his stock has rebounded

9:34	ChiSox: Still a little early, but how do you evaluate Rick Hahn’s patience?

9:35

Jeff Sullivan: It’s really difficult to execute any kind of maneuver of significance pre-draft. Teams just aren’t paying enough attention to the market yet. Now is the time for Hahn to act aggressively. I would’ve liked to see a Quintana move last winter, instead of now, but he’s done okay in my book

9:35	curious: are advanced pitching stats adjusted for NL /AL differences?

9:35	Jeff Sullivan: WAR includes some form of a league adjustment, but the other stuff doesn’t

9:35	Justin: Now that Cutch is back, should the Pirates trade him in a month? If so, what could a return look? Two top 100 prospects?

9:36	Jeff Sullivan: He’s still been a 2.5 win player or so over the past year and a half

9:36	Jeff Sullivan: Defense blows, and you can’t dismiss his earlier struggles because of one hot month

9:37	Jeff Sullivan: I’d think one top-100 prospect and another two pieces of modest note. Maybe one top-100 prospect, a Cistulli guy, and a low-level flier

9:37	Jeff Sullivan: Perhaps they work it like the Melancon move and try to get a big-league reliever

9:38	Phoenix 2042: What’s the difference between a player DFA’d, outrighted, and optioned?

9:39	Jeff Sullivan: There are further details, but generally you’ll see a player outrighted to the minors off the 40-man when the player has been DFA’d and no one has worked out a trade or claim

9:39	Jeff Sullivan: So then the player stays with the organization that DFA’d him, but he no longer counts against the 40-man limit as soon as the DFA is announced

9:40	Jeff Sullivan: Options are complicated, but, the typical young player has three years in which he can be freely shuttled back and forth between the majors and the minors

9:40	Jeff Sullivan: Such a player is never exposed to a claim by another organization

9:41	Jack: The Red Sox can’t call up Rusney Castillo or eat any of his salary without going over the luxury tax. However he is playing well in AAA. Any way they can move him without having to give up a prospect?

9:41	Jeff Sullivan: Nothing I can think of

9:41	Jeff Sullivan: They can just pay the damn tax

9:43	Jeff Sullivan: It’s not like anyone is going to willingly relieve them of the Pablo Sandoval salary burden

9:44	Moelicious: Who is the odd man out in STL when Fowler returns?

9:45	Jeff Sullivan: I don’t see why it shouldn’t still be Grichuk

9:46	Jaime: Who you taking in the AL MVP race? Judge or the field?

9:46	Jeff Sullivan: Right now I think it’s a clear, obvious Judge vote. The closest contender is Chris Sale but pitchers always have more trouble summoning enough MVP support

9:46	another bad dynasty manager: Jeff: now that the Orioles have won four of six, do you think they’ll be buyers instead of sellers? I hope they don’t part with Hays, he’s pounding minor league pitchers, albeit with a poor walk rate.

9:47	Jeff Sullivan: I don’t think the Orioles are going to sell. I think they’ll hold out hope for better luck and health and they’ll make some of those typical, boring Orioles moves. Like, I don’t know how the Orioles don’t have Clayton Richard in their rotation a month from now

9:48	Jeff Sullivan: One of the advantages of having such a terrible pitching staff is that someone who’d be of no use to another contender can be a real improvement

9:48	Chris: Who do you have winning the AL East this year, and who are some players the Yankees and Red Sox could be targeting at the deadline?

9:49	Jeff Sullivan: I don’t have anything shocking to say. I think the Red Sox win by a small margin, and they’ll be looking for a 3B while the Yankees are looking for a 1B

9:49	Jeff Sullivan: What complicates the picture is how so many AL teams are right around the wild-card race. So, like, Mike Moustakas isn’t going anywhere anymore, I bet. Neither is Eric Hosmer

9:50

Chaps: Hi Jeff. Suppose the Tigers traded Verlander to the Astros (or any contending team with a SP need). Is there any way to tell if he would have a bounce back similar to Randy Johnson when he was traded from the Mariners to the Astros in 1998 (change of scenery / motivation on a contending team and whatnot)?

9:51	Jeff Sullivan: I’ve always had a little trouble with that narrative — advanced stats show that, even with the Mariners, 1998 Randy Johnson was dominant. His ERA was up due to luck and defense

9:51	Jeff Sullivan: Of course, he was better with Houston, but being in the NL was helpful

9:52	Jeff Sullivan: Plus, Johnson’s ERA got lower from April, to May, to June, to July. So he was trending well at the time

9:53	Jeff Sullivan: Anyway, this isn’t about Randy Johnson!

9:54

Jeff Sullivan: Problem with Verlander is that his indicators are actually much worse. Major decline in strikeouts and walks. Encouragingly, he’s Justin Verlander, with his own experience, and his stuff looks fine. His fastball is strong. I think any team trading for Justin Verlander would expect him to pitch much better in the second half than in the first

9:54	Moelicious: Thoughts on whether Jose Pirela can stick as an above average regular?

9:55	Jeff Sullivan: I’m still skeptical, but it sure looks like something has changed in 2017, and I’m probably going to write about him in some depth after he accrues a larger sample of data

9:55	YO JEFF: McCutchen to the Dodgers?

9:55	Jeff Sullivan: A definite possibility

9:57	Marwin Gonzales- Power Hitter: What do you think of Paulino? The strikeouts and walks have been good, but the results haven’t been great.

9:58	Jeff Sullivan: I’d like to know what changed between Double-A and Triple-A. Paulino used to throw like 68% strikes. Against higher competition, he’s been more around 61-62%, and that’s going to make it tough for him to pitch with any efficiency

9:58	Jeff Sullivan: He doesn’t yet have big-league location skills, but the stuff is legitimate, clearly

9:58	KoalaMeat: Keon Broxton’s K% sucks

9:58	Jeff Sullivan: Yes

9:58	Jeff Sullivan: What’s amazing is, over 518 career plate appearances, he has 38% strikeouts and an above-average wRC+

9:59	Jeff Sullivan: The strikeouts will always be there