Jeff Sullivan FanGraphs Chat — 6/3/16

June 3, 2016

9:06	Jeff Sullivan: Hello friends

9:06	Jeff Sullivan: Let’s baseball chat

9:06	Bork: Hello, friend!

9:06	Jeff Sullivan: Hello friend

9:07	Ben: Dae-Ho Lee vs RHP: 189 wRC+ Dae-Ho Lee vs LHP: 130 wRC+

9:07	Jeff Sullivan: I don’t care about the splits as much as I care about the overall line. Lee works! Kang works! Kim works! Park works!

9:07	Jeff Sullivan: I wonder if it’s time to seriously consider the return of Eric Thames

9:08	Bork: The Padres sure showed Ron Fowler he was wrong!

9:08	Jeff Sullivan: At least the position-player part

9:08	The Decadent Moose: With the impending Evan Scribner return, is there room in the bullpen. If so, what’s his role?

9:09	Jeff Sullivan: There is room on account of the fact they just promoted Cody Martin. There’s always room in a bullpen. He’ll be low-leverage at first

9:09	Barves gotta Barve: What’s with all the Subaru’s in Portland?

9:10	Jeff Sullivan: Generally an active city, and a Subaru is probably the best compromise between drivability and durability. Doesn’t consume too much fuel and it makes trailheads and put-ins and whatnot more easily accessible.

9:10	Zonk: The Cubs run differential after 50 games, +128, is the highest since the 1939 Yankees. History!

9:11	Jeff Sullivan: They’ve slowed down of course — of course — but even over the past few weeks, when they’ve gone 12-9, they’ve outscored their opponents by 31. Only the Giants have had a better Pythagorean record

9:12

Dustin: Jeff, let’s pretend that 100 pitches is a good marker for pitcher fatigue. I know it’s more complicated, but let’s just say that it is… Doesn’t it drive you crazy that pitch count doesn’t take into account pick-offs, warm-ups before innings, catch early in the day, etc. Like, we have this arbitrary ‘pitch count’ thing that completely ignores other actions of the same type (throwing). No real question here other than ‘does this bug you’… Idk, maybe talk about your thoughts on it? This was a mess of a question.

9:13

Jeff Sullivan: It does bug me in a similar way to how we don’t have any measurements for how often a reliever gets up but then never gets into the game. Throwing in the bullpen isn’t too dissimilar from throwing in a game. Now, throwing actual pitches in an actual game figures to be the most taxing thing, due to the adrenaline and stakes involved, but those other throws all matter. I think 100 functions as a convenient simple proxy. As you get close to 100, you monitor how the pitcher is feeling, and then you operate on that knowledge

9:13	Jeff Sullivan: It is kind of a wonder to me we don’t see more injuries on pick-off attempts given how the throwing motion can sometimes be super weird

9:14	Kal: Can Trumbo keep this up all season?

9:14	Jeff Sullivan: No, but he already has his highest WAR in four years

9:15	Jeff Sullivan: That trade has already paid off for the Orioles and we’re a third of the way into the season

9:15	Curtis: 99.9% Win Probability is NOT equal to 100%.

9:15	Jeff Sullivan: Last team that needs to be reminded of that is the Mariners

9:15	JayDun: Haven’t seen much on the site about Dae-Ho Lee, who seems to be flying under the radar. But his numbers look great. Can he keep this up in an everyday role over a full season?

9:16	Jeff Sullivan: Can’t imagine he actually gets the chance given Adam Lind’s track record, but you can buy the bat. The power is real, and he’s made league-average contact. Don’t buy the 154 wRC+, but…120? Sure, I’ll take 120

9:18	Jeff Sullivan: Remember that the thing about Lee in Japan was that he hit for power while controlling the zone. Park, by contrast in Korea, struck out a lot. So that’s a variable

9:19	j6takish: Jeff, how have the Tigers managed to have a below average bullpen for like a decade straight? You would think just by how many guys they cycle through, they could have collected a few decent relievers by now. Is this an org problem or just coincidence?

9:20	Jeff Sullivan: For whatever it’s worth, the 2011 bullpen was fantastic. The next couple years it was also okay

9:21	Jeff Sullivan: But! For fun, over the past decade, Tigers relievers are 24th in WPA. Yankees are No. 1 by a mile. Astros and Mets are at the bottom

9:22	Jeff Sullivan: I think a lot of it is just weird bad luck, but like, Rodriguez/Wilson/Lowe was supposed to be a thing this year. Rodriguez and Wilson should be fine, but Lowe has completely given back his velocity gain. So now he sucks

9:23	Jeff Sullivan: Up 3.3mph last year, down 3.3mph this year. I don’t want to speculate on why that could be happening…right when Lowe was just about out of baseball…but it’s happened. And this year’s version is bad

9:24	Kal: Will the Mets ever give Conforto a chance to learn to hit LHPs?

9:25	Jeff Sullivan: 92% at-bats against righties last year, 80% this year. He’s getting some more looks

9:26	Argo: Where do you fall on the matter of Chris Archer? Bad luck, bad approach or injured?

9:27

Jeff Sullivan: I think there’s a mechanical problem that’s costing him location, but even at his best, Archer wasn’t a pinpoint sort of pitcher. He’s usually just past that line of acceptable wildness, and now that he’s taken a step back, the walks are spiraling. He is better than this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if last year in the first half was his career peak

9:29	Andy: Hellickson looks much better this year than in the past. What’s he doing differently?

9:29	Jeff Sullivan: facing pitchers

9:30	Jeff Sullivan: Less snarkily, he’s throwing his best changeup in years. That’s a pitch that compels hitters to expand, so Hellickson hasn’t been forced into the zone too much. He’s kind of getting back to where he was when he was initially interesting

9:31	Jeff Sullivan: Hellickson is right around a career-high strike rate with a career-low zone rate. That reflects well on his secondary stuff

9:32	Argo: Brian McCann is sitting a lot lately. Is this just a slump or is he becoming a platoon player?

9:33	Jeff Sullivan: Think it’s just a slump. He hit lefties fine the last two years, and his overall platoon rate this year is right in line with the recent past. Yankees probably just trying to make sure not to over-work a 32-year-old backstop

9:34	Hoops: Any chance of bouncebacks from Abreu and Freeman?

9:34	Jeff Sullivan: Freeman’s fine, though he’ll have to deal with the pressure of being the only bat in the lineup. Abreu is too talented to struggle like this but he’s having a devil of a time catching up to high or inside heat. So the next adjustment is on him

9:35	Jeff Sullivan: Abreu is in a similar kind of place, offensively, as Puig. Getting busted in, then exploited away

9:35	Kal: Whats your outlook for Chris Archer?

9:35	Jeff Sullivan: ERA in the upper 3s

9:35	D: Anybody you could see th dodgers going after in trade season?

9:35	Jeff Sullivan: Every half-decent reliever on the planet

9:36	Jeff Sullivan: We’ll have to wait a month or so to see how the injured starters are doing, and/or whether Urias adjusts

9:36	Curtis: What is the most effective type of pitch in baseball?

9:36	Jeff Sullivan: Good fastball

9:36	Jeff Sullivan: Most pitchers would be nothing without one

9:37	Q-Ball: Dexter Fowler has gone from a defensive disaster, to average or even a slight plus. Apparently, it’s all due to positioning, moving back a few steps. Is OF positioning a hot thing? Are there other OF that could benefit from shifting positions?

9:38

Jeff Sullivan: I don’t think we know that it’s all because of positioning. I think that’s just a guess, based on correlating defensive improvement with a positioning switch. They could conceivably be almost unrelated — you don’t want to get too hasty. But this will be an increasingly common thing to discuss as we all get more Statcast information. Teams have access to this stuff for the first time, and we’ve seen, for example, the Cubs and Pirates take the info in different directions

9:38	Jeff Sullivan: I don’t have the data at my fingertips, so I don’t know who might benefit from moving in or out

9:38	Jeff Sullivan: That stuff is kept privately by MLBAM

9:39

Gary Guy Yetti: What can MLB do to ensure the best talent takes the field? As a Phillies fan, I know this is not our year, but playing Ryan Howard at all feels like tanking whether intentional or not. Keeping the fans appeased by keeping him might only be delaying the emergence of the next great slugger…

9:39	Jeff Sullivan: Let’s be honest here: if the Phillies had a candidate to play first base, Howard wouldn’t be on the roster

9:39	Jeff Sullivan: They don’t, so, here we are

9:41	Sean P: Given how many important current Red Sox players were found by Theo Epstein/Jason McLeod, how impressive of a front office feat would it be if the Red Sox and Cubs faced off in the World Series? The Theo vs. Theo Series

9:41	Jeff Sullivan: and then Ryan Hanigan drives in the winning run for no reason

9:41	Ben: Hi Jeff, Everyone is talking MadBum hitting stats following last night and the numbers are pretty impressive. Think the Giants would ever consider using him as a DH in interleague/WS games?

9:42	Jeff Sullivan: They have used him as a pinch-hitter. There’s a little more injury risk having an ace bat three or four times, but if the Giants had enough players on the DL, Bumgarner would probably become the best option

9:43	Argo: Which impending call-up from the minors are you most excited to watch play in the bigs?

9:43	Jeff Sullivan: I suppose Taillon or Hoffman

9:45	Bob Dobolina: Tell me good things about the Yanks?

9:46	Jeff Sullivan: they’ve outscored the Mets!

9:46	Jeff Sullivan: We’ll settle for good thing

9:46	Outta my way, Gyorkass: Of the teams that are clearly attempting a rebuild, which one has made the most progress towards returning to contention over the past year or so?

9:46	Jeff Sullivan: Gotta think the Phillies

9:49	Q-Ball: What is your take on the Ronald Fowler, Padres owner, rant? Do we now know why Preller made all those seemingly frantic deals after he was hired?

9:50

Jeff Sullivan: My interpretation isn’t that Preller was responding to pressure from above — rather, I’m going to guess Preller sold his bosses on the idea that he could turn the club into a winner, quick. That’s an easy thing to sell but a challenging thing to execute, as evidenced by, you know, those miserable failures

9:51

Jeff Sullivan: A team chairman should never go public like that with those sentiments but it’s not like Fowler was *wrong* and he made sure to credit his front office and coaching staff. He’s right about the players — they aren’t good enough. He’s right that the performance has been embarrassing. It’s some bad PR but everyone is in agreement, and this is why the Padres need to hit the restart button

9:53	Zorak: Should the Mets try to make an aggressive trade for some infield help or try to ride out the storm until closer to the deadline? Think a guy like Solarte would be a good fit?

9:53	Jeff Sullivan: I think they have a couple weeks to test out the depth they have and see how Wright is recovering. If he needs surgery, and/or if the depth pieces in house prove insufficient, then it’s time to get a head start on the market

9:54	Jeff Sullivan: You wonder if they could get the A’s to part with Danny Valencia

9:54	Chris: Is Profar going to become a trade chip with all the bats in the Texas system, and if so what teams do you think would pair up well?

9:54	Jeff Sullivan: The best-looking fit right now is Profar going in a package for Lucroy

9:55

JR: Speaking of the Mariners (I’m sure somebody will have mentioned them by now)…do you see Dipoto making a big deadline move to put them over the top or staying the course with what he’s got? I’m sure there will be a bullpen depth move or 2 but an LF upgrade from Aoki or replacing Adam Lind sure would be nice.

9:55	Jeff Sullivan: I definitely don’t see a big deadline move. We’ll see if anyone gets hurt, but the team doesn’t need a splash, nor does it have the pieces to exchange for one

9:55	Gary Guy Yetti: Keeping in mind the Petco dimensions, their financial situation and all other tangibilities, what would a rational Padres GM do to build a competitive team quickly

9:55	Jeff Sullivan: Not try to build a competitive team quickly

9:56	Jeff Sullivan: But I’d be pouring money into international areas. Try to play up the location advantage in luring Japanese and Korean players

9:56	2-D: Who would have a better season if given the chance, Madbum the hitter or Bethancourt the pitcher?

9:56	Jeff Sullivan: Bumgarner as a hitter

9:57	Jeff Sullivan: We’ve seen him go deep a whole bunch. I’m unconvinced Bethancourt has stuff to get strikeouts

9:58	Outta my way, Gyorkass: Is it reasonable to expect a new power ceiling for Mookie, or is what’s happening lately just a power surge that will subside when pitchers start pitching around him?

9:58	Jeff Sullivan: Of his 14 home runs, six of them would’ve left fewer than 10 ballparks, according to the ESPN Home Run Tracker. He’s definitely one of the kings of the just-enough dinger

9:59	Jeff Sullivan: But it’s not like that isn’t a skill — he makes consistent good contact, and in some parks, that leads to four bases. I could see 25-30 homers in a peak season from him

9:59	Andrew: Are the Mets in trouble after this year? Cespedes and Walker gone, Wright a shell, d’Arnaud can’t be counted on, Duda incredibly inconsistent. The pitching is great, but could the window be a lot smaller than we originally thought?