Jeff Sullivan FanGraphs Chat — 8/17/18

August 17, 2018

9:06	Jeff Sullivan: Hello friends

9:06	Jeff Sullivan: Welcome to Friday baseball chat

9:07	Jack: Concern level for Kevin Kiermaier? Just hasn’t been able to get going offensively this year, and doesn’t really seem like the same otherworldly defender anymore, either

9:08

Jeff Sullivan: Wouldn’t be a surprise if the defense were beginning to slow down — that’s the way it goes — but I think Kiermaier basically just needs an offseason reset. Seems like he’s never found his swing and timing since coming back from the torn ligament, and it doesn’t make sense to me that he would’ve just fallen apart for no other reason

9:09	Jeff Sullivan: I think he’ll get back to being a pretty good player next season, but the Rays would be wise not to count on him to play 140 games

9:10	Ross: Offseason trade idea: Marlins trade J.T. Realmuto to the Yankees for Gary Sanchez. Who says no?

9:10	Jeff Sullivan: I think the Marlins say no. It’s not that it’s a terribly lopsided trade, since Sanchez would come with more years of team control, but if the Marlins were going to trade Realmuto I think they’d be looking for a package of younger players

9:11	Jeff Sullivan: It’d be ballsy, though. Sanchez, obviously, could become a franchise player

9:12	Oakland Coliseum: I can haz championship???

9:12	Jeff Sullivan: Probably not

9:12	Jeff Sullivan: But it would be a gas

9:12	Jake Junis Priest: Mike Zunino or Mike Zuniyes?

9:13	Jeff Sullivan: Mike Zuninehhh

9:13	Kiermaier’s Piercing Green Eyes: With how little money they have on the books for next year, the Rays can be active in free agency if they want. Think they do anything more exciting than another Sergio Romo reunion? They could afford Ramos, Grandal might be a stretch.

9:14	Jeff Sullivan: I think the Rays know it doesn’t really make sense for them to be paying many free-agent prices. But they’ll be active looking for a handful of bargains, and/or, failing that, they could opt to take on someone’s overpaid player in addition to a prospect or two

9:14	Jeff Sullivan: Could be used as an opportunity to effectively boost the upper farm

9:16	Brandon Belt: Will I ever hit 20 homers in a season or am I forever cursed to hit 17-18?

9:16	Jeff Sullivan: I’m always amazed whenever I look at Brandon Belt’s splits

9:17	Jeff Sullivan: He feels like a guy who’s been crippled by his home ballpark, and indeed, home Belt has 42 homers, while road Belt has 70 homers

9:17	Jeff Sullivan: But then, home Belt has a .362 wOBA, while road Belt has a .348 wOBA

9:18	Jeff Sullivan: Road Belt isn’t better; he’s just different

9:18	Jeff Sullivan: That didn’t answer your question

9:18	Jeff Sullivan: The answer to your question is yes

9:18	Tim: Mallex Smith: pretty good?

9:18	Jeff Sullivan: Not actually sold on the hitting yet, but I’m getting there

9:19	Jeff Sullivan: I’ve had the loose idea to eventually write about him, just as an exercise in appreciating a different kind of hitter successful today

9:19	Jeff Sullivan: It’s fun to focus on something other than a guy who’s learned how to tap into his power like everyone else

9:21

Nate: What are your thoughts on a hypothetical re-alignment system that bases divisions on the previous season’s final standings? So the top four teams all in one division, worst 4 in one division, etc.. 6 playoff spots, with the top two seeded divisions receiving byes. Bottom two divisions would play the next two best non-division winners in KBO knockout style where the division winner is the top seed

9:22	Jeff Sullivan: I’m going to be honest with you

9:22	Jeff Sullivan: I don’t like it

9:22	Jeff Sullivan: This feels like something that’s different without being better

9:23	Jeff Sullivan: Nevermind the travel nightmare of it all; I also don’t think I like how it rewards teams for being really bad, while penalizing teams for being really good

9:24	Jeff Sullivan: The teams in the good division would play a much tougher schedule than the teams in the bad division

9:24	John: Ready to declare the Nats toast yet?

9:25	Jeff Sullivan: I don’t really traffic in absolutes, but, yeah, they’ve obviously put themselves in a terrible spot

9:25	Jeff Sullivan: I will point out they have a better run differential than the Phillies, Brewers, and Cardinals. Too bad for them!

9:26	Jeff Sullivan: Been the fifth-best team in the NL according to BaseRuns, but BaseRuns doesn’t put you in the playoffs

9:27	Nate: Who are some potential bargain FA signings to keep an eye on this offseason?

9:27	Jeff Sullivan: Let’s consult this list: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2016/12/2018-19-mlb-free-agents.html

9:27	Jeff Sullivan: Hey look, Steve Pearce! Someone should sign Steve Pearce

9:28	Jeff Sullivan: Eduardo Escobar feels like someone who won’t get as much as he deserves

9:28	Jeff Sullivan: And, uhhhh

9:29	Jeff Sullivan: Someone will probably find a good non-SP role for Jordan Lyles

9:30	Jeff Sullivan: And then god knows what’ll happen with the reliever market

9:30	Jeff Sullivan: We’ll have a better idea when the offseason is actually underway, but right now I don’t see much in the way of hidden gems. As such, keep an eye on players who might be coming over from Japan or Korea

9:30	Mike Rizzo: Can I sell all the pending free agents yet? We tried, but …

9:30	Jeff Sullivan: Doesn’t seem like it’s your call to make

9:31	Mattyb: How hard does Washington try to retain Harper in the off-season? Will they feel pretty set with Soto/Robles/Eaton/Taylor as their outfield group moving forward?

9:31	Jeff Sullivan: They’ll stay in it until the end, if only because of the Boras/owner relationship, but I imagine the Nationals know now that Harper is going somewhere else

9:32	Jeff Sullivan: The emergence of Soto has made that reality a lot easier to digest

9:35	Parts + Gleyber: What’s happened to Gleyber Torres? Is he still injured? Did he get figured out? Any idea how long the hump will last?

9:36	Jeff Sullivan: I was looking at this briefly yesterday and I couldn’t identify any particular red flags

9:37

Jeff Sullivan: He’s not getting pitched that differently, relative to before. The quality of his contact has gone down. That suggests this could be a timing thing, given the DL stint. Alternatively or additionally, it’s not uncommon for a young player to slump around this point in Torres’ career, where he’s made his first impression and opponents are beginning to adjust

9:38	Jeff Sullivan: Remember, Rhys Hoskins had a wRC+ of 50 in May

9:39	Jeff Sullivan: Torres is a good offensive player, but he’s not an elite offensive player. He’ll work out of this, because he’s good enough to do that, but it could be another few weeks

9:40	Dave: Who is your favorite to come out of the NL at this point?

9:40	Jeff Sullivan: Honestly, still the Dodgers. They don’t have the easiest road to make the playoffs, but I think they have the strongest team, assuming Jansen can make his return

9:41	David: Most difficult to predict: the AL MVP winner, the NL ROY winner, or the NL West division winner?

9:42	Jeff Sullivan: Let’s see. There are like six decent AL MVP candidates, three or four decent NL ROY candidates, and three decent NL West candidates

9:42	Jeff Sullivan: Therefore, most difficult to predict the AL MVP

9:43	Sir Mookleton McBetts III: Rhys Hoskins is really good at hitting and really bad at playing the outfield. Carlos Santana is really bad at playing first base and extremely average at hitting. What can the Philies do, or is it just shrug emoji?

9:43	Jeff Sullivan: I don’t think Santana is all that bad in the field

9:44	Jeff Sullivan: Hoskins is

9:45	Jeff Sullivan: But obviously, Hoskins is survivable-bad. Moving forward, maybe this starts to look like Hoskins moving to 1B in the later innings, with a defensive replacement entering in left

9:45	Jeff Sullivan: The Phillies pounced on Santana because they just didn’t think they could pass up the FA value, even despite Hoskins’ presence. The Phillies didn’t understand at that point that Santana wasn’t a real value at all, given what happened to the rest of the FA market

9:46	Jeff Sullivan: They might opt to ship Santana away, maybe packaged with a prospect. I do not think that would be a necessity, but it’s one available path

9:47	squeeze bunt: If the Padres addes de Grom and Thor would they make the playoffs?

9:47	Jeff Sullivan: No

9:48	Jeff Sullivan: As is, the Padres project as something like a 71-win team. Add two great starters and they’d end up somewhere around .500

9:48	Jeff Sullivan: Now, of course, the Padres should be on an upward trajectory, and they should get into contention soon, but right now they remain too bad

9:49	Jeff Sullivan: (I should say, they project as something like a 71-win team over a full season, if we were to start right now from scratch)

9:49	Failson: Phillies v Braves down the stretch… who’s winning the division?

9:49	Jeff Sullivan: Braves

9:50

Jake: Literally everyone on the Rays’ roster not named Kevin Kiermaier is not under contract for next season. Everyone else is either eligible for free agency, eligible for arbitration, or pre-arb. Their payroll for next season right now is like $10 million — $8.167 M for Kiermaier and $2 M they’re retaining on Longoria. Though they sold at the deadline, the players they got back suggest they think they have a shot to contend as soon as next year, not to mention the Pham deal. They’ve gotta spend some money this offseason, right? Jokes about them saving up for a run at Harper or Machado aside, with *that* little money on the books for next season right now, and them seeming to think they have a window opening up, maybe they could be in on the kind of free agent we wouldn’t usually expect them to be in on. At the very least, they should explore long-term contracts with their young studs like Snell, Bauers, Adames and Robertson

9:51

Jeff Sullivan: Something that’s important to remember for a team like the Rays: free-agent prices don’t mean the same thing to everyone. Even if, say, Manny Machado is a $30m/year player, $30m to the Red Sox means less than $30m to the Rays. With the Rays, that’s like 30-40% of their would-be payroll

9:52	Jeff Sullivan: This is why the Rays are unlikely to ever get involved for a big-time free agent. They’ll be active in the FA market, but more looking for one- or two-year players. Those contracts, they can deal with and work around

9:53	Jeff Sullivan: I would expect them to try to sign a lot of their core. Those young-player contract extensions are what allow the Rays to keep pieces around for longer than they would otherwise

9:54	Mattyb: Is Wade LeBlanc’s performance a fluke and will he fall back down to earth next year or is his resurgence for real?

9:54	Jeff Sullivan: I think he’s for real as a roughly league-average starter who never gets to 100 pitches

9:55	Jeff Sullivan: He’s not a workhorse, but he’s okay pretty much across the board

9:55	Jose Urethra : How about suspending a starting pitcher 5 starts instead of 5 or 10 games for a severe infraction? That has some impact to a team vs a suspension of 5 to 10 games where the pitcher will miss 1 start maybe 2.

9:56	Jeff Sullivan: Suspensions aren’t about games missed as much as they’re about salary missed. If you suspend Urena five times as long as you’d suspend a position player, that means Urena is forfeiting five times as much salary. How is that fair, from a player perspective?

9:57	Jeff Sullivan: Not to mention that the impact a starting pitcher can make in one game is roughly equivalent to the impact a position player can make over four or five games, anyhow

9:58

Jeff Sullivan: I’m not arguing the idea of sending a stronger message; I hate things like what Urena did, and I think he should face a more severe penalty. But it’s not going to be easy for MLB to establish a new precedent, given that this is how things operate now, and if Manfred came out and suspended Urena for the rest of the year, the union wouldn’t be happy about it

9:58	Mac Gwire: What’s more likely: Yankees miss the playoffs or Astros lose the division?

9:58	Jeff Sullivan: Astros lose the division

9:59	Jeff Sullivan: Yankees are 5.5 games up on the Mariners, and they’re the much better team. The Astros are also much better than the A’s, but that gap is only 2.0 games instead

9:59	squeeze bunt: What kind of moves do you think the Padres make in the off season? Trade for a bat or arm? Do you see any potential fits for a blockbuster type move?