Jeff Sullivan FanGraphs Chat — 9/22/17

September 22, 2017

9:02	Jeff Sullivan: Hello friends

9:02	Jeff Sullivan: Welcome to Friday baseball chat

9:02	Bork: Hello, friend!

9:02	Jeff Sullivan: Hello friend

9:02	Bork Bork: Hello Friend! Hello Friend!

9:02	Jeff Sullivan: I would like Bork to know that he has many weekly admirers and impostors

9:02	Ned Yost: Sox are running a wRC+ in the 80s the past few weeks. As an Astros fan, am I crazy for preferring to face them over the Yankees in the ALDS?

9:03	Jeff Sullivan: I don’t think so. The playoff Yankees look scary good, given how heavily they could lean upon that bullpen

9:04	Jeff Sullivan: The Red Sox are still a fantastic baseball team, and all that, but the Yankees are so well set up for the postseason. Now that they’ve made it this far, the true strength of the roster can be more fully unleashed

9:04	Zonk: What should the Orioles do this offseason? They seem determined to compete rather than sell Britton, Machado, Jones, but I don’t see how they can radically improve. Will this end in the Orioles being bad for a long time?

9:05

Jeff Sullivan: If they can’t extend Machado, it only makes sense to trade him this winter. He’s not a guy who would drive a trade-deadline premium. And if you’re trading Machado, you’re trying to trade the rest. Although with Britton, I guess you need to let him try to re-establish value in the first half

9:05	Jeff Sullivan: It’s hard, I know, because the Orioles always seem to be around the fringe of the race. But I don’t realistically know how they keep up with the rest of the good teams in the AL between now and next September. Looks like it’s time for the step that Angelos refuses to take

9:06	Zonk: Kris Bryant is 3rd in fWAR in the NL, only 0.3 behind the leader, and is the reigning MVP. It doesn’t look like he’s in the conversation for MVP this year though. Is he somehow underrated?

9:07

Jeff Sullivan: I don’t think Kris Bryant is in any way underrated. He is, as you say, the reigning league MVP. It’s just…I mean, *is* there an NL MVP conversation? I hear about it the least, out of the major awards. I have no idea who’s going to win, in the way that I have a strong understanding of the other races

9:07	Jeff Sullivan: Definitely can’t argue that Bryant is underrated when he’s involved in the same race as Anthony Rendon

9:08

sp13: Guess who leads the AL in stolen bases? Go ahead. Guess!
Yes! You’re right! It’s Whitley Merrifield. Only Billy Hamilton and Dee Gordon are ahead of him.
And among those three speedsters, guess who has the highest OPS, wRC+, wOBA, WAR, SB%, and HR’s?
Yes. You’re right again. It’s Whitley Merrifield.
Also, ignore Jose Altuve. Just pretend he doesn’t exist and this whole conversation is much more interesting.

9:09	Jeff Sullivan: Merrifield is one of those weird fun late-career breakout stories, and he ought to now help prevent the Royals from bottoming out. I also kind of like what they have in Junis. It’s still, though, an organization perilously short on long-term assets. Going to be a rough winter

9:10	Q-Ball: Justin Wilson’s command has suddenly abandoned him. Is there a particular reasons, or he just has to work it out?

9:11

Jeff Sullivan: This one is really strange. He still has his stuff, and it’s not like he’s completely missing the strike zone all the time. But, by walk rate, this is the wildest stretch of his big-league career. I can’t get into his head, so I don’t know if he’s experiencing some form of mental block, but I believe he’s structurally sound. So it’s one of those work-it-out situations. Just, preferably, in lower-leverage spots

9:12	Jeff Sullivan: He’s pretty fortunate the Brewers couldn’t seal the deal yesterday

9:13	w: Just as a follow-up for your Winnipeg-Wichita discussion on the pod, the pitcher was called for still doing the “glove wiggle” while lowering his hands in the set. I don’t think it was a balk either, but that was the explanation.

9:14	Jeff Sullivan: Isn’t that the thing Chris Tillman does?

9:15	Jeff Sullivan: Or, at the very least, did. Like any responsible baseball observer, I’ve tried not to watch Chris Tillman for a while

9:15	Jeff Sullivan: I get that the pitcher had a very brief pause in his delivery, but I still think the pause was there. More of a non-balk than a balk, to me

9:16	Jeff Sullivan: Probably, without the balk, Wichita wins the championship. Instead, they lost the game, and then subsequently got destroyed in Game 5. Winnipeg won it all. Tough break

9:17	Ben: Is there a starting pitcher with better command of his entire repertoire than Keuchel?

9:17	Jeff Sullivan: Keuchel is way up there on the list that we can’t actually measure. I think he’s taken a little step back, so maybe it’s someone like Hendricks, or it’s the ol reliable Greinke

9:18	Q-Ball: What rebuilding team has had the best year in terms of development? MIL perhaps?

9:18	Jeff Sullivan: I don’t know how you’d argue against the Brewers, although it’s worth noting maybe the most promising development has come from Jimmy Nelson, and now he’s out with a potentially career-altering labrum tear

9:19	Jeff Sullivan: Huge, huge blow if Nelson doesn’t come back as he was. He had become one of the best starting pitchers around

9:20	Jeff Sullivan: Worth giving some attention to the Phillies — great recent signs from Hoskins, Nola, Altherr, and Crawford. They need plenty of pitching, but pieces are coming together

9:20	PTBNL: Is the 300k narrative enough to push Sale over Kluber for Cy Young? Or will Kluber’s (and his team’s) strong second half keep the award in his favor?

9:21	Jeff Sullivan: Strong point in Sale’s favor. He needed some kind of late push, and that start against the Orioles was sensational. It’s going to be hard to break through the ERA mindset, but Sale has a real advantage in strikeouts and innings. I’d put it right now at…55/45 in Kluber’s favor

9:24	Bork: Where does Jose Bautista go from here?

9:25	Jeff Sullivan: Can’t run, can’t play the field, is shortly turning 37

9:26	Jeff Sullivan: He’ll be marketed as a bounceback candidate, which is fair, but very obviously, the pool of interested teams will be small. I’d say 40% Rays, 40% field, 20% retirement

9:27	Owen Ricketts: Do you think that JD Martinez will get more than the 4/110 that Cespedes got, especially due to the lack of a qualifying offer attached to him?

9:28	Jeff Sullivan: I’d be surprised if that kind of market existed for a power hitter who doesn’t really do anything else

9:29	Jeff Sullivan: Martinez is a liability as an outfielder, and he’s no baserunning asset. He’s going to get paid, absolutely, and he deserves it, but the only concern with Cespedes is health. His athleticism is wildly superior to that of Martinez

9:29	Chicks Dig the Long Ball: Favorite part about your job?

9:29	Jeff Sullivan: You guys!!!

9:29	Jeff Sullivan: awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

9:30	Jeff Sullivan: But seriously, it’s the no commute. Having no commute is wonderful. Just wonderful. And I love working for Appelman. I’ve had few bosses, but he’s easily the best of them

9:30	Xolo: Do you see more players raising their launch angles next year or will players who already did but didn’t get much boost in their production go back down?

9:31	Jeff Sullivan: Going to be a continuing general trend toward more line drives and fly balls. I do think we’re eventually going to see a decreased emphasis on changing the swing path, and an increased emphasis on just looking for fly-ball pitches

9:32	Jeff Sullivan: Changing swing path can be destructive. Changing the approach can be simpler to implement

9:33	Ben: Is there a top tier of free agent relief pitchers this year? Davis, Swarzak, Neshek, Albers, Reed, Petit, and Kintzler have been some the best results-wise, but which will teams buy into going forward?

9:35

Jeff Sullivan: The top of the market is probably going to be Reed, Davis, and Holland, and they’ll all sign moderate contracts for multiple years. But there’s going to be nothing like last winter’s frenzy. Those pitchers just aren’t out there. And as much as I like what I’ve seen from, say, Swarzak and Petit, think about what those guys were a year ago. They were nothing! Teams see new relievers breaking out all the time. So they’re going to assume they can do that with their own internal options

9:36	Bork: How do you know which Bork is the true Bork?

9:36	Jeff Sullivan: I feel it in my gut

9:36	mtsw: Everyone knows that the Orioles need starters. What many do not know is that reliever Mychal Givens has small platoon splits despite his side-arm delivery. Is he a candidate to get stretched out next season?

9:37	Jeff Sullivan: This year he’s topped out at 42 pitches, he’s never started a game as a professional, and his career platoon split is 98 points of wOBA

9:37	Jeff Sullivan: I like Givens, and I’d like to see more of him. But he’s maybe more of a Chad Green type, potentially, than a starter

9:38	Jeff Sullivan: Not that the Orioles are necessarily unfamiliar with starting pitchers who last about three innings

9:40

churchill’s black dog: Jeff: can you explain to me why the Orioles haven’t shut Bundy down yet? I checked the schedule of games last night and I was surprised to see that Bundy was pitching this weekend. His 169 IPs are a lot more than the 109 IPs from last year, which in turn is was more than all four previous years. It’s distressing for an Orioles fan like me.

9:41

Jeff Sullivan: The Orioles would probably say they’ve seen no signs of imminent injury. And for a while they’ve been hanging around the distant periphery of the wild-card race. Me, I’d probably just give Bundy a few innings this weekend and call it quits there, because I’m conservative. Let him start, but don’t tax him

9:41	Striker: Any plans to chart or list WAR by week or month? Tim Anderson’s cumulative WAR is bad but he’s dug himself out of a whole the past couple of months.

9:41	Jeff Sullivan: You can look at monthly WAR splits on our leaderboards

9:42	Jeff Sullivan: Provided you care only about the actual calendar months, and not WAR from like August 22 – September 21

9:43	Jeries: Lucas Giolito is a hall of famer. Agree or strongly agree?

9:43	Jeff Sullivan: He’ll probably be in the Harvard-Westlake hall of fame some day

9:44	Phil: This has nothing to do with anything, but I wish to apologize for trolling the LL comments 10 years ago. Sorry. I miss that quality of LL

9:44	Jeff Sullivan: Every soul is redeemable

9:44	Jeff Sullivan: Well maybe that’s not true. But yours is!

9:44	Jeff Sullivan: Well maybe that’s not true. But it probably is!

9:47	Ted: Is there any discernible pattern in teams that drastically underperform their pythagorean records? The Yankees all-over-the-place season has me thinking about this

9:47	Jeff Sullivan: There’s not really any “sustainable” skill to under-performing run differential. There are common reasons, like poor clutch hitting, but that’s not the sort of stuff you expect to keep up

9:49	Jeff Sullivan: By our leaderboards, Yankees hitters rank fourth-worst in baseball in Clutch, and Yankees pitchers, interestingly, are dead last. Been that kind of year. But I’m not worried about them moving forward at all. They’re just fortunate to be good enough to still be leading the WC1 race

9:49	martin: Jeff my man… saw you posting on twitter about hitters swinging at pitches way above zone. Being the person you are, it would be absolute perfection to do a fangraphs post on “science” of hitters(haha mostly Trumbo) swinging at those pitches this year, with gifs. I would die to see this.

9:49	Jeff Sullivan: Nearly did a post yesterday, inspired by Trumbo. Backed off because I didn’t think it was worth it. Might re-visit in the offseason. Seems like a January kind of topic

9:50	Jeff Sullivan: The best thing about the Trumbo swing is it wasn’t in a two-strike count

9:50	Jeff Sullivan: (Also known as the worst thing about the Trumbo swing)

9:52	anonymous liger: who’s the most overrated player this year?

9:52	Jeff Sullivan: I really don’t have a good sense of this. No single name stands out. Maybe that’s just because I closely monitor what I choose to read, and I know which writers to avoid

9:53	Jeff Sullivan: I mean, I can’t even say it’s Eric Hosmer, because Eric Hosmer has been fantastic!

9:54	Prince S. Leia Fielder: If your life is on the line and you need one of the following three pitchers to come through with a quality outing in the last week who do you pick between Josh Tomlin, Martin Perez and Luis Perdomo? Yes, I realize your chances of survival are slim but give me a name!

9:54	Jeff Sullivan: What the hell kind of crime did I get involved in

9:54	Jeff Sullivan: Who is this criminal

9:55	Jeff Sullivan: Why are his methods so stupid

9:55	Josh: What do you think of Travis’s idea of altering the wild card round by having the higher seed advance with one win and the lower seed needing to win twice to advance?

9:56	Jeff Sullivan: Unconvinced. I’m willing to be convinced, but I don’t have a problem with the way that things are. Most years you won’t have a big difference between WC1 and WC2, and already, by being a WC team, you didn’t win the division

9:56	Jeff Sullivan: Just seems to tip things too strongly is all

9:57

Chicks Dig the Long Ball: Recently you took some light-hearted jabs at Yusmiero Petit on Effectively Wild. Take a look back at his 2014 season and particularly what he did in the playoffs that year. I think he totally has the skillset to be the darkhorse Andrew Miller. Aside from the fact that the Angels still don’t seem like they’ll make the playoffs.

9:58

Jeff Sullivan: I’m aware of Petit’s 2014, but, playoffs aside, what stands out is that Petit in the regular season was used in extremely low-leverage spots. He actually wound up with a negative WPA. The surface numbers were good, but *this* year, Petit has been of actual, meaningful value when the Angels have needed it

9:58	Jeff Sullivan: He’s still no Andrew Miller, but that doesn’t mean the Angels wouldn’t try to use him as such, given their lack of other options

9:59	Chris Hardwick: Who you like better next year, Smoak or Josh Bell?

9:59	Jeff Sullivan: Justin Smoak is good now and Josh Bell is not

9:59	Bork: Who’s your darkhorse pick for a potential landing spot for Ohtani?

9:59	Jeff Sullivan: San Diego