Jeff Sullivan FanGraphs Chat — 6/9/17

June 9, 2017

9:07	Jeff Sullivan: Hello friends

9:08	Jeff Sullivan: Welcome to Friday baseball chat

9:08	Jeff Sullivan: Sorry for that delay, was finishing a podcast

9:08	Jeff Sullivan: FanGraphs looks different now. I wonder if there are opinions

9:08	Dodgers: Do the Dodgers make a big splash this summer?

9:09	Jeff Sullivan: I’m not anticipating one, but I suppose it could in part come down to where they are with Hill and Wood. Just generally I continue to figure they’ll make the B- and C-tier moves, around their own flexibility

9:09	Jack: Will both American League Wild Cards come from the East again this year?

9:09	Jeff Sullivan: That’s my operating assumption, although the Mariners could make a valiant attempt at prevention

9:09	Stuafoo: Why does yovanni gallardo still have a job? I realize the Ms are in need of a human meat shield or two to suck up some innings, but a guy like andrew moore has to be a better option

9:10	Jeff Sullivan: They’re in no position to turn down innings at this point. Gallardo is basically an MLB #6, but they’re missing a lot of 1-through-5

9:11	Jeff Sullivan: If and when healthy pitchers return, Gallardo is likely to be on the outs

9:11	Jeff Sullivan: Which is actually kind of a shame given that he’s shown a significant velocity bounceback. He’s up something like three ticks! Three ticks!

9:11	Dion Phanooooof: How do think the Rockies are likely to split playing time when David Dahl returns? If story continues to struggle do you think Desmond gets any starts at SS?

9:11	Jeff Sullivan: Last I heard, Dahl’s rehab process had stalled

9:11	Jeff Sullivan: That was a few days ago

9:12	Jeff Sullivan: Soooooooo nothing to worry about any time soon. Dahl seems like he’s still a long ways off. And if he does get back, chances are someone else will be injured or struggling

9:13	Moltar: Which team is closer to contention, the Mets or the Mariners?

9:13	Jeff Sullivan: Well, the Mariners, since they’re in a better spot just in 2017

9:13	Jeff Sullivan: Like, the Mariners are technically in contention now

9:14	JTT: Jeff, counterpoint to your Epstein/Boras debate. Scott Boras is disgustingly rich, like “F you” rich. Theo Epstein is just regular rich.

9:14	Jeff Sullivan: Yes, this is among the valid counterpoints. The Boras life plan is really not so bad

9:16	Roaches, Twinkies, and Bartolo: If MLB expanded with two more teams, how many players would teams be able to protect in an expansion draft? Who would be a potential first pick in such a scenario?

9:16	Jeff Sullivan: If it worked anything like the previous expansion draft, teams would be able to protect 15 players from throughout their entire organization

9:17	Jeff Sullivan: Plus I’m pretty sure recent draft picks were also automatically protected

9:18	Jeff Sullivan: So while I can’t predict how the draft would look without doing a lot of background work, I wouldn’t be surprised if the first pick came from one of the very deepest organizations, like the Cubs/Dodgers

9:18	Jeff Sullivan: You know how the Cubs look. They’re more than 15 quality players deep

9:19	Tj: What does a 2018 CC Sabathia free agent contract look like? I can’t wrap my head around it

9:21

Jeff Sullivan: He’ll be 37 years old, and very obviously that’s going to work against him. A few years back Bartolo Colon signed that deal for 2 years and $20 million. Wouldn’t be shocked if Sabathia wound up with something similar, albeit maybe higher in salary since he’s younger and coming from a very tough division

9:21	Jeff Sullivan: It’s a virtual impossibility he gets 3+ years, and teams will also limit themselves given that Sabathia probably won’t be thought of as a guy you want starting in the playoffs

9:21	Chaps: Have there been any studies indicating a relation between a pitcher’s pitch type & speed to a batter’s exit speed & trajectory, or is it widely understood that there’s no strong correlation between the two?

9:22	Jeff Sullivan: Just in general, there’s a very weak relationship between pitch speed and exit velocity. Pitchers “providing the power” is mostly a myth

9:22	Jeff Sullivan: As for speed and trajectory, though, you can probably use your imagination. Sinkers get low launch angles. Four-seamers get high launch angles

9:24	Baryolo Cologne: Do you think we’ll see a breakout from Castellanos coming? All of the underlying seem to assume its coming…

9:24	Jeff Sullivan: He is much better than his current 90 wRC+

9:25	Jeff Sullivan: My favorite thing about him is that he basically never pops up

9:25	Jeff Sullivan: I’m not convinced he has the approach to become an elite-level slugger, but he should be comfortably better than average

9:26	weezy: finding this chat was harder than expected on the new layout!

9:26	Jeff Sullivan: For me, too!

9:27	Matt: Just looking at Odor’s periphs. Everything is in line with last year – K%, BB%, GB%, FB%, etc. ONLY difference is IFFB% and it’s massive. Is there some buy-low opportunity there? Can he turn it around this year, or is he just swinging super hard and not going to stop?

9:28	Jeff Sullivan: No, he’s a lot better than this. I never loved Odor because of his approach, but he’s good enough to be something like an average hitter. When he’s going bad, he looks terrible, but he’s going to have a much improved second half

9:28	Jeff Sullivan: That being said, his pop-up issue is significant, and limiting. Right now he has eight homers and 19 pop-ups. That’s crazy

9:28	Jeff Sullivan: He already has three more pop-ups than he had all of last season

9:30	Baryolo Cologne: Where does Shark fall right now on your pitchers ranks? His #s this year have been elite (xFIP, K/BB, K/9, IP, etc.), but are being masked by a terrible ERA

9:30	Jeff Sullivan: Really good

9:30	Jeff Sullivan: And the ERA mostly just reflects a poor start. Since April 28, his ERA is 2.93

9:30	Jeff Sullivan: …with two walks and 64 strikeouts.

9:31	Jeff Sullivan: Think about that. Since the beginning of May, Samardzija has a K/BB of 59

9:32	Nelson: Opposite sides of a trade- Would you rather have the career of Josh Hamilton (higher WAR, more money, but tons of injuries and issues) or Edinson Volquez?

9:32	Jeff Sullivan: Volquez. Winning a World Series puts it over the top

9:32	S: Will Ian Desmond manage to be a league average player by the end of the season?

9:32	Jeff Sullivan: Given this start, no probably not

9:33	Jeff Sullivan: He already has to make up for a -0.5 WAR through 150 or so plate appearances

9:33	Jeff Sullivan: Now, he probably is a league-average player, but his end-of-season numbers won’t reflect that

9:33	Jeff Sullivan: Quietly disappointing player on an otherwise overachieving ballclub

9:34	Tj: With Gray/Quintana/Cole all scuffling, does that make it more likely that someone will overpay for one, or an unforeseen pitcher comes on the market?

9:34	Jeff Sullivan: I’ll take the latter

9:35	Jeff Sullivan: In fact, just saw Kiermaier is out about two months with a hip injury. If the Rays go in the tank, we’ll have more Archer talk

9:36	Ross: With Wilson Ramos on his rehab assignment and expected to join the Rays at some point this month, who should they keep around as his backup when he’s ready, Norris or Sucre?

9:36	Jeff Sullivan: Well, we’ll have to see if Norris can avoid a suspension

9:36	Jeff Sullivan: That could make their decision for them

9:38	Alec Asher Wojciechowski: So… Lance McCullers, change-up artist?

9:39	Jeff Sullivan: It’s good to see him throwing more of them, but I don’t think it’s actually all that great of a pitch.

9:41	Jeff Sullivan: Had to take a minute to do some quick research. Something is changing here!

9:41	Jeff Sullivan: McCullers has barely thrown half his changeups for strikes, so that shows some wildness. But his movements are all substantially different from a season ago

9:42	Jeff Sullivan: Seems like a lot more tail. I’ll pen that in for a next-week article

9:42	Bruce: Whats stopping teams from pulling any stunt lineups at the end of the season? Like why wont we see Bonds or Tebow get a few ABs? Are GMs afraid of the backlash?

9:42	Jeff Sullivan: 40-man roster spots are pretty important

9:43	Jeff Sullivan: Every organization out there thinks it has 40 players worth a damn. You don’t want to punt a player to force in a gimmick

9:43	Jeff Sullivan: Plus, if the Mets brought Tebow to the major leagues, they’d have to put out a lot of internal fires

9:45	Baryolo Cologne: Do you think we’ll continue to see Alex Cobb getting “it” back or is this who he is?

9:45	Jeff Sullivan: His split-change used to be one of the best secondary pitches in baseball. It’s missing, now, as Cobb hasn’t quite gotten the feel of it. If that never returns, he’ll never be what he had been pre-surgery

9:46	Steve: Is deGrom going to be another Mets casualty or will he be okay moving forward?

9:47	Jeff Sullivan: I don’t see anything I don’t like in his numbers. The ERA doesn’t bother me. It’s just, you do have a power pitcher here, whose 2016 ended due to surgery

9:47	Jeff Sullivan: So, don’t worry about the performance. Just know that you’ve got a heightened injury risk

9:49

Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe: I understand that folks aggressively dislike change, but I cannot help but share my opinion on the website redesign. The lack of delineation and perspective makes the article listing confusing. On the desktop, articles appear in two columns without a time stamp, requiring readers to rely on memory to know which articles he or she has read and what content is newest (does one read left to right by row or left column before right column?). Community Research is buried, and beneath the tools is a “Top Articles” section and an “Essential Articles” section. The addition of front page images and graphics has [slightly] slowed loading times

I know the advantages in the mobile format can be many, but I do not think they were wholly achieved with this change. I would rather zoom in one time than scroll down to locate an article. This could be solved with the mobile menu linking directly to Rotographs or Hardball Times, etc. I would compare this with the MLBRumors approach: a clean application capable of a thumb-swip

9:50

Jeff Sullivan: I don’t know very much about website design so my opinions aren’t worth anything. I don’t even really…go…to websites, very often, outside of doing my own work. But I can assure you that the site is going to be open-minded moving forward about tweaks and adjustments now that the changes have gone public. We all got to beta test as a staff, but the staff is small, and the reader audience is large. You will collectively come up with some very good suggestions that eluded the lot of us

9:51	Matt: Jeff! Tom Murphy is coming back soon! Wolters is playing pretty well…is he going to get any PT? Is that bat going to start blowing up balls in COL and force it’s way in?

9:51	Jeff Sullivan: Wolters is going to remain the regular for the time being, because pitchers love working with him. Plus he somehow has an OBP north of .400!

9:51	Jeff Sullivan: Tony Wolters!

9:51	Tj: Will Judge hit one 125mph this year?

9:51	Jeff Sullivan: Didn’t he just hit a ball 128mph in batting practice?

9:51	Jeff Sullivan: So that’s something

9:51	Bork: Hello, friend!

9:52	Jeff Sullivan: Hello friend

9:52	JTT: As a writer, Is this new era of players being able to dramatically change their skillset exhausting? Every time a player goes on an extended hotstreak you have to do hours of tedious research to figure out whether or not some slap hitting utility infielder became a superstar overnight

9:53	Jeff Sullivan: I think it’s more fun than an alternate league where players are more static. This way keeps us all on our toes, and it forces us to confront questions we never thought would be worth asking

9:53	Jeff Sullivan: That being said, I think the danger is in genre over-saturation. It’s easy to start feeling like every article has to be about some guy who’s doing something different, and then it just gets obnoxious because you’re losing sight of so much of the rest of the game

9:54	Jeff Sullivan: Get so focused on players making changes that you forget there are wins and losses and incredible plays and pennant races

9:54	Sim: Love the new interface!

9:54	Jeff Sullivan: A genuinely uncommon opinion on Day 1 — not just for us, but for any website!

9:54	Baryolo Cologne: Why would the Pirates put Nicasio in the closer role instead of Rivero assuming Watson loses his job?

9:54	Jeff Sullivan: Probably about keeping salary down

9:55	Stenzy: Cueto to Astros for Tucker or Fisher a real possibility?

9:55	Jeff Sullivan: I don’t think it would be option No. 1, but he’ll be on Houston’s radar

9:56	Baryolo Cologne: Matt Bush has continued to get beat around recently…it seems like Kela could be the answer for that bullpen but he has “clubhouse issues.” At what point does an organization look past that, especially an organization that needs as many wins as possible right now.

9:56	Jeff Sullivan: Well, firstly, Matt Bush has a 2.49 ERA

9:57	Jeff Sullivan: Secondly, it’s not like Bush doesn’t come with his own baggage

9:57	Jeff Sullivan: Thirdly, that’s really up to the team to decide. We’re not privy to the internal conversations, so we don’t know how the team’s view of Kela could change if he owns up to his previous issues

9:58	Jeff Sullivan: If Kela shows he’s maturing, and if the rest of the team buys into that, then the problem is solved

9:59	JC: Thoughts on what’s going on with Gregory Polanco? Strikeouts down, power way down, defense regressing… Feels like a similar profile to Lucroy actually. Last year’s power a one-off abberation?

9:59	Jeff Sullivan: He just had a 140 wRC+ in the month of May