Jeff Sullivan FanGraphs Chat — 7/29/14

July 29, 2014

9:06	Jeff Sullivan: ALL RIGHT EVERYBODY LET’S CHATTTTTT

9:06	Jeff Sullivan: FANTASY QUESTIONS ARE FOR SUCKERS! NOT GONNA GET EM ANSWERED HERE

9:06	Jeff Sullivan: MARINERS QUESTIONS TEND TO BE DISPROPORTIONATELY REPRESENTED

9:06	Jeff Sullivan: I WILL WORK ON THAT

9:07	Comment From bsfgbbfhfghdhdhdghdgbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb IS THIS CAPS LOCK TUESDAY???

9:07	Jeff Sullivan: I’m finished

9:07	Comment From Mike Jeff – I would like to welcome Fangraphs to Canada. Sportsnet.ca is now carrying FG articles!

9:08	Jeff Sullivan: Speaking of Canada (stretch), the Maple Leafs just hired Kyle Dubas as an assistant GM, and he’s a young stats guy. Real bright up and comer. He follows FanGraphs!

9:08	Comment From Ken Rosenthal Hey Jeff, what’s your hot take on the odd Valencia for Kratz and Hendriks trade?

9:09	Jeff Sullivan: Valencia pairs well with Juan Francisco. Classic platoon, the sort we all would’ve absolutely loved a decade ago. It’s interesting

9:09	Comment From Con Your thoughts on Billy Burns ROS and beyond?

9:10	Jeff Sullivan: I suspect he will not be very good, but he will make a disproportionate number of highlight reels

9:10	Comment From xFIP hater Why would anyone think that xFIP is a good stat?

9:10	Jeff Sullivan: mainly because it is a good stat

9:11	Jeff Sullivan: Think of it as a sabermetric starting point. From there, you try to explain why a guy might give up more or fewer runs. But you begin with the principle that pitchers don’t have much control over hits and dingers

9:11	Comment From bsfgbbfhfghdhdhdghdgbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb dose lon jester getting traded affect his free agent value and if so how much

9:11	Jeff Sullivan: It means there wouldn’t be a qualifying offer, but it seems like the top-level free agents don’t really get hurt by having compensation attached to them anyway. So it’s a minor thing

9:12	Comment From Guest True or False: Once the trade deadline has come and gone, Chase Headley will be the best bat that came over from the NL to the AL?

9:12	Jeff Sullivan: It’s all about Marlon Byrd’s partial no-trade clause

9:13	Comment From Billy Beane Are Jesse Chavez’s days as part of the Oakland rotation about to come to a close? If so, do we see Milone or Pomeranz take his place?

9:14	Jeff Sullivan: He’s getting into uncharted innings territory, so it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see him shift to relief down the stretch. In which case, it isn’t clear yet which guy would replace him, but we’ll see if Milone gets dealt like he wants

9:15	Comment From Ira To what extent do you think Bogaerts’ move to third affected his production this year?

9:16	Jeff Sullivan: I don’t think very much. Obviously the correlation is there but I’m not buying the causation. He’d had reps at third base before, and I don’t think players are that fragile when it comes to moving around defensively. It’s not like Bogaerts was dealing with DHing or catching

9:17	Comment From American League Hustle If you were Alex Anthopoulos, what deadline moves would you make to push the Jays into the playoffs?

9:18

Jeff Sullivan: I’d see how high I can sell on Aaron Sanchez. I don’t think that’s a team with a bunch of needs, but they might actually be the best fit for an ace starting pitcher. Definitely a better fit than the Dodgers. At issue is that the cheapest acquisition is probably Lester, and Lester’s in the division and I don’t know how well that would work

9:18	Jeff Sullivan: The Jays + Lester would be super interesting. Right now they don’t have a starter anywhere close to that tier

9:19	Comment From Baron Von Waffles Do you see Towers mustering the competence to start trading pieces off by Thursday?

9:19	Jeff Sullivan: I think he finally admitted yesterday that Addison Reed isn’t an untouchable part of the future

9:20	Comment From Jeet Hey! What are your thoughts about Mat Latos rest of season? Should I sell low because of the declining velocity or is he still a high Tier 2 pitcher?

9:21	Jeff Sullivan: The velocity looks like it might be starting to come back, but it’s still down and so are the strikeouts so I’m not loving him as a rest-of-season gamble

9:22	Comment From _David_ As a mariners fan, I’m dreading the next few days. Would you prefer they didn’t make any major deals, just in case robbery occurs?

9:23	Jeff Sullivan: Byrd would be fine. Can’t live in fear. Lester would be interesting, but I don’t think it makes sense to pay very much considering the odds are so heavily against them

9:24	Comment From The Dude I know it’s early and he’s young but Rafael Devers is absolutely killing it. What’s his upside?

9:24	Jeff Sullivan: The sky is the limit, like with all 17-year-olds. I personally wouldn’t even pay attention to him yet, but then I’m pretty cautious with prospects

9:25	Comment From alex Should Met fans want to trade big time prospects like wheeler and d’arnaud for a guy like cargo. This may sound stupid because he is a premiere CF and all, but lagares is a GG in CF and who knows how Cargo’s power will translate to Citi Field?

9:26	Jeff Sullivan: Carlos Gonzalez has spent most of his career playing a corner. You can have both!

9:26	Jeff Sullivan: I think the risk of trading for Rockies players is a bit overblown. Dexter Fowler has hit. He hasn’t defended, but he’s hit

9:27	Comment From Tucker If the Mariners DO make the playoffs, is Jack Z still done?

9:27	Jeff Sullivan: What? No, of course not

9:28	Comment From Gabe Why is it that we used to have good teams trading their stars midseason (Piazza, Keith Hernandez), but now that’s all but nonexistent? There’s still an incentive for first place teams to trade away great players, but it seems like everybody is trigger-shy for some reason.

9:29	Jeff Sullivan: Mark Teixeira got traded a couple times. CC Sabathia got traded. Cliff Lee got traded a couple times. Zack Greinke got traded. Matt Holliday got traded, Manny Ramirez got traded…

9:30

Jeff Sullivan: Everyone now is closer to the playoffs than ever before, which could be a part of what you might be noticing. We have better tools to evaluate players than ever. And prospects are so closely guarded, and position players are so much more reliable than pitchers that I think you’ll mostly just see bigger-name pitchers get moved because teams don’t want to give up on awesome-level infielders or outfielders

9:31	Comment From Visitor An idle thought I had recently: I know it’s impossible, but imagine Scott Boras is under consideration to be the MLB commissioner. Would you be in favor?

9:31	Jeff Sullivan: Well that would be a wee bit of a shift

9:32	Jeff Sullivan: It would be fun because of the zaniness, but I don’t think baseball would be better for it

9:32	Comment From Guest no more 538 articles?

9:33	Jeff Sullivan: Incidentally just finished one up. But FanGraphs takes up almost all the time I care to spend writing about baseball, and the 538 process is a lot more involved. I like that with FanGraphs I can just write and publish

9:34	Comment From baltic fox Brian Dozier: is he going to turn his season around after a dreadful July? I find it hard to believe that a full calender year of improvement in power, plate discipline and stolen bases is suddenly going to evaporate–even with a woeful lineup.

9:36

Jeff Sullivan: He hit in last year’s second half, he hit in April, he hit in May, and he hit in June. His July ISO has been fine — he’s just missing some walks and singles. He has a particular kind of approach that, I don’t know, might be exploitable, but right now I’m not worried. He’s a pull-hitting slugger and sometimes he’s going to slump

9:38	Jeff Sullivan: So here’s why Dozier didn’t walk:

9:38	Jeff Sullivan: April – June: 49% Zone rate July: 57% Zone rate

9:39	Jeff Sullivan: You can’t walk if you’re getting a lot of strikes. His discipline numbers were fine. Long and short of it, again: I think he’s okay. He’s not an elite-level player, but even Mike Trout had a bad stretch

9:39	Comment From Guest If you like hte Mariners, who is the one that liked the Royals? He might have had a K in his name.

9:40	Jeff Sullivan: Klaassen. And Zimmerman!

9:42	Comment From Chicago Mark How much do you see Kris Bryant’s K rate effecting his ability to become a top hitter in the majors?

9:42	Jeff Sullivan: George Springer is slugging .468

9:42	Jeff Sullivan: This is just part of it with Bryant, but it’s not a big concern to me. It’s just like the one single somewhat red flag. He’ll probably always strike out, but he does so many other things well at the plate that I don’t think anyone’s going to complain, reasonably

9:43	Comment From 20longyears Given the awesomeness that is Josh Harrison on a rundown, any chances of an upcoming Sullivan special loaded with gifs of players beating rundowns?

9:43	Jeff Sullivan: I’m going to need tips of when players have beat rundowns. can’t search for those very well 🙁

9:43	Comment From Guest do you have a desire to write about something other than baseball? If so, what?

9:44	Jeff Sullivan: Not really. Nothing inspires me more than being in the mountains, but that’s almost specifically because the mountains make me feel things I can’t properly express with words

9:46

Jeff Sullivan: Like, Saturday morning, I hiked up to 9000 feet or whatever on Mt Hood at sunrise. As soon as I got as far as I could go, I put my pack down, looked to the right at a massive glacier, and a block of ice the size of my apartment building leaned and fell, shattering completely to powder and bits. I’ve never seen anything like that before, and I could never describe the sensation of seeing that while up there at that elevation alone. It’s the coolest thing I’ve seen this year

9:46	Comment From fowler re: morosi/ rosenthal article on Jack Z. How would you grade Jack Z’s performance as a GM? Are the Mariner’s growing impatient with him?

9:47	Jeff Sullivan: People have been complaining about the same stuff with him for years. He’s never been easy to deal with

9:47	Comment From Mike Boston pretty much has to trade Lester right? Lost season, plus Lester wants to re-sign with them in the offseason.

9:48

Jeff Sullivan: Yeah, once he gave them his blessing, it really paved the way. There’s still some danger of Lester changing his mind, so trading him doesn’t *help* Boston’s odds of bringing him back, but now the Sox are in the market with maybe the one impact starter and he could bring the Greinke haul

9:49	Comment From _David_ Dave told Carson that the Mariners might have a problem with teaching hitting at the major league level (or maybe he was referring to all levels.). Why is it harder to find good coaches than players? Shouldn’t there be a larger talent pool?

9:49	Jeff Sullivan: (THIS ISN’T A MARINERS QUESTION BY THE WAY)

9:50	Jeff Sullivan: We have numbers that we can use to evaluate players. We don’t have numbers that are any good that we can use to evaluate coaches. So, how do we know who’s actually a good coach?

9:51

Jeff Sullivan: And, coaches work differently with different players. A hitting coach who helps a guy find a better swing might not be able to perform the same way with a different guy who has a different problem. Coaching can be so individualized which is why one guy who helps one pitcher might not be able to do much of anything with another pitcher

9:52	Comment From Clap for my Stubby Jeff! Opinion on Corey Dickerson please. AMazing season so far and major regression ROS so sell high or hold?

9:53	Jeff Sullivan: I don’t know what your fantasy team should do but I like Dickerson as a pretty good regular outfielder. Obviously he’s not 155 wRC+ good but he’s at 129 for his career. Gets himself into some trouble swinging out of the zone, but he’s useful

9:53	Comment From Hipster-stache When are you going to embrace true hipsterism Portland style and only write articles about teams in the Nippon League?

9:53	Jeff Sullivan: Yuniesky Betancourt, 74 plate appearances: .141/.139/.155

9:54	Comment From Wussell Restbrook What should I expect from Jean Segura. He can’t be this bad forever right? Will he figure it out this year, maybe in future years?

9:55

Jeff Sullivan: I think it’s safe to say Segura is dealing with some personal things that might be affecting his performance. But he doesn’t walk and he doesn’t hit for power, so his skillset gives him a pretty low ceiling. He goes as his BABIP goes, and last year’s .326 has dropped to this year’s .261. For his career he’s got an 85 wRC+ and maybe he’s really just Elvis Andrus

9:56	Comment From Joe Who do you like better in the future Baez or Russell? Better hitter? Better overall?

9:56	Jeff Sullivan: I like Baez a bit better although I think he has the bigger bust potential

9:57	Jeff Sullivan: Baez fun fact: monthly Triple-A splits April: .617 OPS May: .738 June: .815 July: 1.008

9:57	Comment From Hockey guy I think hockey advanced stats are kind of weak in comparison to what baseball has. What do you think?

9:57	Jeff Sullivan: It’s super complicated, way more complicated than baseball. So the public numbers are worse, but recently I saw something to the effect of, the numbers teams have access to are light years ahead of what we can see

9:57	Comment From KC Hurt Convince me Byrd’s 2016 option is no big deal.

9:58	Jeff Sullivan: Well by that point that’ll be like the market rate of a 1-WAR player. But Byrd might be willing to move without having that option guaranteed — still a few days left

9:59	Comment From Wal/J.D. Mart Is the J.D. Martinez run over or are you high on him in that awesome lineup for the rest of 2014?