Jeff Sullivan FanGraphs Chat — 7/28/17

July 28, 2017

9:10	Jeff Sullivan: Hello friends

9:10	Jeff Sullivan: Welcome to Friday baseball chat

9:10	Jeff Sullivan: Sorry for the hiccup — had to amend some behind-the-scenes team depth charts

9:10	Owen: Should the Nats trade for a SP like Gray/Darvish, or focus on the bullpen?

9:11	Jeff Sullivan: Bullpen, for me. Just build that thing out. They have enough starters and if you feel like Roark or Gonzalez might not be so reliable in October, just limit them to five or so innings

9:11	Jack: Thoughts on Ramirez for Cishek? Seems like a pointless trade. Was Jerry just scratching his trade itch here? Did the Rays just feel they had to do something, anything about the bullpen after yet another failure last night?

9:12	Jeff Sullivan: The Rays are quietly overhauling their bullpen and they’ve been picking up a lot of sliders. It’s becoming a bullpen full of specialists, which is an interesting approach. Going to be an awful lot of mound visits

9:13

Jeff Sullivan: As far as the Mariners are concerned, I’m sure they like Ramirez’s cost control and flexibility. Their pitching depth has been tested and there’s not very much in the upper levels, as rotation insurance goes. So this somewhat weakens their present-day bullpen but Ramirez is a useful No. 5 for a few more years

9:13

Jack: Doesn’t it seem weird that someone as strong as Khris Davis would have such a weak throwing arm? I know there’s a lot more than arm strength when it comes to hitting home runs, but one would still think most guys that have the strength to hit the ball hard would also have the strength to throw the ball hard, or am I off base here?

9:14

Jeff Sullivan: I think the understanding is that Davis sustained some kind of shoulder injury, in college I believe. Arm hasn’t recovered. The problem might be mechanical, or he might just have a weaker right shoulder, but my guess is that for a righty hitter, a lot of the power comes from the left shoulder and the lower body

9:14	Pie: How long would you say you typically spend on the titles of your articles? I very much enjoy them

9:14	Jeff Sullivan: I usually go with the first thing that comes to mind. Never more than a few minutes. Headlines have been a historical problem of mine 🙁

9:15	Brandon M: I have one day left in Portland before I catch a flight tomorrow home. Any good hikes/restaurants/activities worth doing?

9:15	Jeff Sullivan: Go hike somewhere on Mt Hood — Cooper Spur trail if you’re feeling ambitious. Have dinner and beer at Breakside (northeast) or Great Notion

9:16	Matt: If the price for Gray proves too high, who would the Yanks be best to move onto? Any of Darvish, Lynn, or Straily a good fit?

9:16	Jeff Sullivan: I’m not strongly of the opinion the Yankees even need a starter right now. In a way you can kind of think of them having “added” a starter by the Red Sox losing David Price to the DL

9:18	DMoney: Derek Fisher, will be remain an everyday starter in the future? How does the future OF picture look with Springer as a mainstay, Marwin excelling, Reddick not too far behind, and Kyle Tucker in the mix? Assume Aoki is gone.

9:18	Jeff Sullivan: Don’t forget the weirdly extreme Jake Marisnick!

9:19	Jeff Sullivan: The Astros don’t have too many long-term problems at the moment. The outfield is definitely among their non-problems. It does feel a little weird to see them still having Aoki, but that won’t go on much longer than it needs to if Fisher takes off

9:20	LAA: Who’s going to win the AL MVP? (Regardless of who “should.”)

9:20	Jeff Sullivan: I bet Sale has a great chance if the Red Sox manage to make it into the playoffs

9:20	Jeff Sullivan: Altuve will be deserving but he might lose votes because of how easy it’s been for the Astros to get way ahead

9:21	Jeff Sullivan: Sale will face the pitcher bias. Altuve will face the way-too-good-of-a-team bias. Judge has a chance if he finishes well and the Yankees make the postseason

9:21	Jared: As high of a return as the A’s are said to have for Gray (ie Frazier, Brinson). Who do you think folds first Beane or a contending team?

9:22	Jeff Sullivan: The A’s will ultimately settle for a less-shiny centerpiece

9:22	Jeff Sullivan: Rumors are always outrageous before a trade is agreed to. It’s why a trade hasn’t been agreed to

9:24	TJ: Can Tanaka finish the year with his stats like this and still opt out? What would a FA contract look like?

9:25

Jeff Sullivan: I don’t think Tanaka would opt out if he were coming off such an insane home-run rate. Granted, I don’t expect that to keep up. Tanaka should be pretty good between now and the end of the season, and if he’s good enough, he could do better than 3y/$67m. A fourth year could be out there somewhere

9:26

sadtrombone: Jeff: I was thinking of the MVP races this morning, and everyone seems to be thinking about Altuve or Judge in the AL. Why not Chris Sale? He’s having one of the most incredible pitching seasons of the last 20 years and is substantially higher in WAR than anyone else. Can I persuade you to take up the case?

9:26	Jeff Sullivan: I would barely need persuading. He’s incredible

9:26	Jeff Sullivan: One of the problems is the nature of our leaderboards. You have to do a little work to see hitters and pitchers on the same page

9:28	Owen: How many runs per year are lost by the nationals batting Goodwin/Difo/Drew/Raburn 1-2 in the lineup, and batting the 4 best hitters 3-4-5-6?

9:28	Jeff Sullivan: A few. Not very many. It’s not optimal, but in fairness, Goodwin has been pretty good

9:29	e.o.g.: could jerry dipoto possibly get any more jerry dipoto than jerry dipoto has been at this deadline?

9:30	Jeff Sullivan: Let’s see if he trades a couple teenagers for, like, Kirby Yates

9:30	Jeff Sullivan: Presently at 8 or 9 out of 10 Dipoto level

9:30	Coner: I like the idea of the Jays selling off pending FAs for whatever they can get and trying to retool for next year, but is the core strong enough to have one last run in the AL East next year?

9:30	Jeff Sullivan: Yeah, the Jays are still good enough to give it a go next season. The problem with selling the pending free agents is that they have been bad

9:31	Erik: Who finishes with more career WAR, Yoan Moncada or Rafael Devers?

9:32	Jeff Sullivan: Moncada, but they’ll both be really good

9:32	Zee: Does the Price injury make the Red Sox more of a player in the Sonny Gray or Yu Darvish sweepstakes?

9:33	Jeff Sullivan: I don’t expect them to get in on Gray. I do expect them to phone around on rentals. I’ll guess they’ll stop short of paying the Darvish price, but they could get someone more boring like a Lance Lynn

9:35	J: What do you think of Didi’s bat? 123 wRC+ but the underlying indicators don’t look great.

9:35	Jeff Sullivan: Feels like a mirage to me, but he’s still an average-hitting everyday shortstop, which is a valuable asset

9:36	DMoney: Does Cody Bellinger cut down on strikeouts enough to become an elite batter for years to come?

9:37	Jeff Sullivan: He’s actually had his strikeouts under control for the last couple months or so. I still think he’ll have swing-and-miss issues and the comp I arrived at not too long ago was Chris Davis. Feels Davis-y. Good hitter with the occasional elite full season

9:37

Ronnie: His framing decline has been well explored, but what has happened to Jonathan Lucroy at the plate? Career low liner & fly ball rates as the result of an insane GB% of 56 (against a career average of only 42.5!!). He’s almost gotta be hurt, right? And, how does this impact his market this winter? Does he get/accept a qualifying offer?

9:37	Jeff Sullivan: Something almost has to be seriously wrong. At this point I don’t think he gets a QO, and he’s killing his market

9:38	Bo: Is the Dansby Swanson ordeal the result of skewed outcomes between manager playing for his job and front office playing for long term?

9:39	Jeff Sullivan: Swanson looked like he was ready. Starting him was the right call. Then it turned out he wasn’t ready after all. So now it’s time for a confidence-builder. I don’t think there’s anything too extraordinary here; just a player whose path hasn’t been totally smooth

9:41	LegallyEagle: How does Verdugo rate in your book/mind? Is he such an elite prospect worth comparing to ones the Dodgers refused to trade before (like Seager and Bellinger)?

9:42	Jeff Sullivan: Really like him. He’s a 21-year-old with more walks than strikeouts in Triple-A. Feels vaguely Benintendi-ish. I think he’ll be special, and I’d be shocked if the Dodgers sent him elsewhere

9:43

Batflips for BB: Do you think we’ve seen the end of the historically laughable trades (e.g. Andersen for Bagwell, Sandberg for Bowa) given how analytical organizations have become? I could still see something like this happening involving injury, but I’m more referring to rental for HOF kind of trades.

9:44

Jeff Sullivan: I think we’re basically done with trades that look laughable even at the time. The Shelby Miller trade might’ve been the death rattle. Of course there will forever be trades that look horrible in retrospect — just look at, say, Chris Taylor for Zach Lee. But just about every front office these days is on the same page

9:45	Ted: So what do you think the White Sox will do with their bullpen real estate now that they don’t need it to hold any actual baseball players?

9:45	Jeff Sullivan: Grow some plants

9:46	Mecha-Syzmborski: What’s wrong with Kyle Seager? Just a down year? M’s really needed him to be pretty good again this year.

9:46	Jeff Sullivan: I don’t think anything’s seriously wrong. He’s essentially the same player as ever. A little worse luck with his outcomes. He’s fine

9:46	Lars: Seems like Dipoto is destined to make a splash for a SP, but he tends to make slightly unexpected deals. Who besides Gray could he target? Cole? Degrom?

9:47	Jeff Sullivan: I think Gray would count as an extremely unexpected deal for the Mariners to make

9:47	Mike Milligan: So Darvish has been less than stellar this year and frankly I don’t see Verlander or Gray as significant upgrades over Maeda. Assuming Kershaw returns should the Dodgers stand pat on starting pitchers ?

9:47	Jeff Sullivan: I believe so, yes

9:47	Jeff Sullivan: I wonder how much of all this talk about the Dodgers looking for starters is coming from sources who aren’t with the Dodgers

9:48	Ham Bone: What punishment should an ump have to face for tossing Beltre? It should definitely be humiliating and very public

9:48	Jeff Sullivan: Those umpires already have to exist as themselves every single day upon waking up

9:50	Jason: A ton of names are being floated around at the deadline, but give me a name who could be a surprise move?

9:50	Jeff Sullivan: Don’t count on it, but it would be really, really, really interesting if the Twins decided to sell Byron Buxton

9:50	Jeff Sullivan: Can’t imagine where that market value is

9:51	matt: is jake arrieta fixed, as much as a post-2015 jake arrieta can be fixed?

9:52	Jeff Sullivan: I’m still not seeing enough strikes and the velocity hasn’t returned. He is a worse version of himself

9:53	Evan: Rhys Hoskins vs Dom Smith. Who makes a bigger impact?

9:53	Jeff Sullivan: Hoskins, because he is better

9:54	Rafi: With Lance McCullers’ recent struggles and the fact that he only pitched 81 innings last year, do you see the Astros moving him to the bullpen later this year?

9:54	Jeff Sullivan: No, but I can see them skipping a few starts and limiting his playoff innings each game

9:54	Jeff Sullivan: With the depth of that bullpen, McCullers really won’t need to ever reach the sixth

9:56	Owen: Has a MLB level player been acquired in season and then traded without appearing in a game, as is possible w Jaime Garcia?

9:56	Jeff Sullivan: I’m having a lot of trouble thinking of any precedent

9:57	Jeff Sullivan: The 2002 Expos got Cliff Floyd on July 11, and then traded him on July 30, after falling further out of the race. But even there, Floyd played something like 15 games with Montreal

9:58	TJ: Beane and Cashman don’t usually telegraph trades like this in public – could it really get done w/o Adams/Sheffield?

9:58	Jeff Sullivan: There are probably like 500 different possible packages of Yankees players that could work in a Sonny Gray exchange

9:58	Joe: Thoughts on Danny Salazar’s second half?

9:59	Jeff Sullivan: Don’t see any reason to believe he’ll stop being kind of annoying

9:59	Erik: Will the Phillies be able to get anything for Howie Kendrick? He’s running a 126 wRC+ this year and is worth a bench spot on a contender, if not more. Who out there needs a solid veteran bat who can fill in anywhere?

9:59	Jeff Sullivan: Throwaway prospect or two. Maybe a couple low-level teenagers. Nothing of impact coming back

9:59	John: Assuming both are fully rested, the Mariners probably go with Paxton over Felix in a WC game right? Although it feels brutal to not go with the “ace”

9:59	Jeff Sullivan: Yeah, you go with the ace