Jeff Sullivan FanGraphs Chat — 9/23/14

September 23, 2014

9:06	Jeff Sullivan: Well let’s talk about baseball, live

9:07	Jeff Sullivan: I suppose we don’t have many alternatives

9:07	Jeff Sullivan: Or we have infinite alternatives

9:07	Comment From Jake Shane Greene’s true talent, over/under league average starter?

9:08	Jeff Sullivan: The last time I checked this — probably two weeks ago or so — Greene was the MLB leader in rate of pitches thrown low, as defined by some standard I used. Beat Keuchel. Beat some relievers who exceeded my minimum threshold. Greene knows how to keep the ball down like few others

9:08	Jeff Sullivan: I think maybe that becomes exploitable, and maybe he owes a good deal of gratitude to Brian McCann and the Yankees’ receivers, but with the strike zone expanding down there I think Greene can succeed now in a way he might not have been able to do 5 or 10 years ago

9:08	Jeff Sullivan: I’ll buy him as at least average. I’m surprised by my own answer!

9:09	Comment From Mike Trout Will I ever have another 10 WAR season?

9:09	Jeff Sullivan: You know what? I’ll say no. But you’ll come mighty close

9:09	Comment From tommy you are late!

9:09	Jeff Sullivan: I’m late every week

9:09	Comment From THE average sports fan How many Gm’s do you think will be replaced this offseason? How many should?

9:09	Jeff Sullivan: 2? And, say, 4-5

9:10	Comment From Jake What’s the best way to calculate a team’s true talent for a single game, accounting for a single starter?

9:10	Jeff Sullivan: Well, FG provides game odds, based on the specific starters and starting lineups, so that’s a thing that exists

9:11	Jeff Sullivan: But if you’re trying to do it yourself, you might pretend like that starting pitcher is every starting pitcher, and do some multiplication, and come up with a hypothetical team WAR if every starter were like the given day’s starter

9:11	Comment From Judy Who do you like for the WS?

9:12	Jeff Sullivan: Tigers/Nationals? Hell if I know, it’s probably going to end up like Indians/Pirates

9:12	Jeff Sullivan: I think my answer must change every week

9:12	Comment From Vslyke PLEASE tell me that GMDM doesn’t end up in Atlanta? I was iffy on Wren’s firing but that would be a disaster.

9:12	Jeff Sullivan: I don’t think he gets away from KC, for better or worse

9:14	Comment From Jake Biggest change in the 2016 MLBPA contract?

9:14	Jeff Sullivan: International draft? Changes pertaining to service-time manipulation?

9:15	Comment From Sgt. Pepper Is it possible to study whether or not baserunners miming the safe sign on close plays at first has an impact on calls?

9:15	Jeff Sullivan: It’s possible to study, but no one’s going to do it

9:15	Comment From Jake The Angels project for a .489 win percentage ROS. Is this just a consequence of them running a AAA team to rest the starters, or do they actually suck? They projected for a .522 percentage a week ago.

9:16	Jeff Sullivan: Basically noise. That’s not an accurate representation of their talent, and with so little of the season left anyway, I’m not sure the use of the ROS win%. The Angels are terrific

9:16	Comment From tom adam wainwright looks like adam wainwright again!

9:16	Jeff Sullivan: Sometimes dead arm isn’t a death knell

9:16	Comment From Crappy Junk Wilson Should the Angels be concerned about limping to the finish line?

9:17	Jeff Sullivan: Not even a little bit, although I bet they’d like for their players to not keep getting somewhat injured

9:17	Comment From John What happens to Pedro Alvarez this offseason? DFA, trade, posiition change?

9:18	Jeff Sullivan: I’ve backed off from thinking he could get DFA’d, but I think we are at least looking at a position change

9:19	Comment From a boblowblalawbomb if you’re billy beane and had a time turner, do you trade cespedes again knowing you’ll be depending on fewer streaky players who are on hot streaks at the moment?

9:20	Jeff Sullivan: I bet Beane believes less in the Cespedes theory than even we do. I imagine he figures this is unfortunate noise, and I don’t think he’d not do that same trade if he had the opportunity. Cespedes has a .300 OBP.

9:20	Comment From Eric Which move from this past offseason will turn out to be the worst?

9:20	Jeff Sullivan: Shin-Soo Choo or Prince Fielder. Hey, same team!

9:20	Comment From Bubba I miss Trout’s sexier .320+ BA. Do you think the .290ish is here to stay?

9:21	Jeff Sullivan: He’s not going to blow past the .300 mark if he keeps striking out a quarter of the time. So unless the strikeouts go away, this is going to be it

9:21	Comment From Guest What’s your prediction for Josh Harrison next year?

9:21	Jeff Sullivan: Good player, worse player

9:21	Comment From neal Today, Brandon McCarthy will (probably) throw 200 innings in a season for the first time, at age 31. How rare of a feat is this?

9:22	Jeff Sullivan: I can’t answer that on the fly, but I couldn’t be happier for him. And what a pair of things to have happen — headed into free agency, McCarthy has not only stayed healthy, but he’s succeeded in New York

9:22	Comment From Nuke Laloosh Yesterday I got the impression that Dan is fairly confident in a decent sized step forward for Taveras next year. Do you share his alleged sentiments?

9:22	Jeff Sullivan: Yes, I don’t think he’s going to be a -2 WAR player

9:23	Jeff Sullivan: Taveras has been really really bad. He’s not actually really really bad

9:23	Jeff Sullivan: There are lessons to be learned from Taveras and Polanco’s rookie seasons

9:24

Comment From hscer
The Nationals were 25-27. That’s a third of the season. Since then they are 66-37, a 104-win pace over a full season. The need to talk about stuff produces a lot of hand-wringing at points in the season where we still don’t really know anything about what we’re talking about, doesn’t it?

9:24	Jeff Sullivan: That is an unavoidable consequence. Best we can do, short of not writing anything until August or September, is try to analyze early results responsibly. It’s something we have to keep in mind every single season

9:26	Comment From Ryan Now that Travis Wood’s season has mercifully come to an end, with a below replacement level war if considering anything not purely fip based. Do the Cubs just run this back next year and hope for better or move on?

9:27

Jeff Sullivan: In my head right now it’s 50/50. I can’t see the Cubs returning both Wood and Jackson, but neither is going to be cheap. I could see Wood starting again at the beginning to try to rebuild some value, but at the end of the day if the Cubs elect to DFA him I don’t think they’re going to be too broken up about it

9:28	Jeff Sullivan: Through six starts this year, Wood had seven walks and 37 strikeouts. Boy, the things that were probably written

9:29	Comment From Player Development Nerd In terms of WAR, would Derek Jeter have had a better career playing another position (presumably second or third)? In other words, for him personally, was the below average defense at shortstop more than offset by the positional adjustment?

9:31

Jeff Sullivan: I mean, obviously, we can’t know, but based on observation and based on stuff from the Fan Scouting Report, it might’ve been interesting to have Jeter as a third baseman, where the average player isn’t so gifted with his first step and range. I think Jeter would’ve had the arm for third, so maybe there’s a few extra runs

9:32	Comment From The Iron Sheik What’re the chances the Brewers make Ryan Braun available this offseason? Would he be in the Stanton/Tulo tier in terms of prospects required?

9:32	Jeff Sullivan: Ryan Braun has been a below-average player and he’s dealing with some kind of really problematic thumb/hand concern. Nobody’s paying very much to land a fish like Ryan Braun. He’s not the Brewers’ ticket to a restocked farm system

9:34

Comment From Art Vandelay
I understand that aligning starters for the WC play-in isn’t something always done, but in the case of the Giants and Pirates, where the division is almost out of reach, but the wild card is locked up, do you think they have an idea of who they want to pitch the game next Wednesday?

9:36	Jeff Sullivan: We’re probably not going to see Madison Bumgarner start this coming Sunday. The Pirates don’t have a Bumgarner, but they could definitely hold Cole. The Pirates, however, are progressive enough to probably be aggressive with the bullpen if they need to be.

9:36	Comment From Tark Do you see Rougned Odor being a league average 2nd baseman in 2015?

9:37	Jeff Sullivan: No

9:37	Comment From Terrible Ted Is Pena really blocking Mesoraco? What’s going on there?

9:38	Jeff Sullivan: Pena’s started three games this month?

9:38	Comment From ar what do we think of jose fernandez next year?

9:38	Jeff Sullivan: Probably won’t pitch until the second half. I’m going to be interested to see what his pitch distribution looks like when he’s back on a mound. Is he going to lean just as heavily on his incredible breaking ball?

9:38	Comment From THE average sports fan What is your take on the MLB pace of play committee?

9:40

Jeff Sullivan: I like that it’s a cause, and I’m naturally skeptical of committees of old men. Like Olney, I sure wish there’d be more young/active-player input. I know a lot of people don’t think baseball needs to get faster, but, baseball needs to get faster. For its own health. I’m happy to see a step, but really there need to be above five or six

9:40	Comment From The Iron Sheik Mets competing for a wild card spot this time next year?

9:40	Jeff Sullivan: I don’t know about this time — there’s less than a week left — but I think they’re playing real, meaningful baseball into September

9:40	Comment From Rams what is wrong with CJ Wilson, Will he be in the playoff roatation/ nexts years 5 man?

9:41

Jeff Sullivan: They don’t really have options, but Wilson, last I checked, owns baseball’s very lowest strike rate among starting pitchers. There was an article some time ago about Dipoto telling Wilson how much better he is when he throws 60% strikes. 60% strikes! That’s significantly below-average! Wilson just needs to have a below-average strike rate to be okay, and he can’t even consistently manage that

9:41	Jeff Sullivan: He’s in the playoff rotation, and he’s in the 2015 rotation, but his leash is getting shorter

9:43	Comment From Jays fan Jose Bautista is having a sneaky good/great year.

9:44	Jeff Sullivan: Basically he’s Jose Bautista, with better BABIP. 6.3 WAR!

9:44	Jeff Sullivan: The meaningful change:

9:45	Jeff Sullivan: He still kills the ball when he pulls it. But this year he’s hit .340 to the opposite field, where he used to come in around .240. He’s taken better advantage of this shifts, which was one of his goals for the season

9:45	Jeff Sullivan: Basically, Bautista has opened up the other way, without forgetting that he’s also a terrifying pull-power slugger

9:46

Comment From Spencer
Alex Wood is 8th in the NL in ERA and FIP, and has actually been better as a starter than as a reliever. He’s got two more starts, so let’s say he gets to 160 IP as a starter, with about a 3.20 FIP. And he’s only 23. The only guys in front of him are perennial CY candidates. Do you think he can build on that at all?

9:49

Jeff Sullivan: I feel like this is about what he is, with room for maybe a little decline in the future. He’s obviously difficult to square up, and he throws a perfectly adequate number of strikes and unhittable pitches. He doesn’t do anything poorly, but he has definitely benefited from lousy competition. Elsewhere, he wouldn’t have numbers this good, but he’d still be pretty good, and I think he’ll continue to be pretty good until/unless he gets hurt

9:49	Comment From J I’m not normally able to participate in these but now I can and I don’t know what to ask. What should I ask?

9:49	Jeff Sullivan: This was a bad start

9:49	Comment From john What say you about yasmani tomas?

9:49	Jeff Sullivan: A lot of money. Quite possibly nine figures

9:50	Comment From The Iron Sheik What’s the best possible haul for any of the Mets mediocre triumvirate of Colon/Niese/Gee?

9:51	Jeff Sullivan: A live-armed Dominican righty with good natural movement and a developing slider

9:51	Jeff Sullivan: Projectable

9:51	Comment From Ralph What does the future hold for John Holdzkom?

9:52	Jeff Sullivan: I think he’s still destined to issue a few too many walks, because I don’t believe in his command, but he’s so hard to hit I think he’ll make some millions of dollars as a setup guy who picks up a couple dozen saves

9:52	Jeff Sullivan: So, happiness, basically

9:53	Comment From Andy As a royals fan, are you content that your team has a chance at the postseason this year? Or saddened that this perhaps gets Dayton Moore an extension?

9:53	Jeff Sullivan: I am a Mariners fan. You must be confusing me for the currently happier Jeff.

9:53	Comment From Hrkac Circus Does any team stand out to you as potential big buyers or sellers this offseason?

9:53	Jeff Sullivan: Rockies could get crazy in one direction. Cubs could open up the wallets in the other direction.

9:54	Comment From Hrkac Circus Who would you like to see in the World Series?

9:54	Jeff Sullivan: The Mariners and the Diamondbacks so the Mariners can win

9:55	Comment From Nuke Laloosh At this point, is BJ Upton even an adequate 4th OF on a contender?

9:55	Jeff Sullivan: No, he’s awful, but maybe he can make something better with a different team in 2015.

9:55	Comment From Matt Shoemaker Am I legit?

9:55	Jeff Sullivan: I like you

9:56	Comment From My Friend Goo Does Allen Craig have negative, neutral, or positive hypothetical trade value?

9:56	Jeff Sullivan: Negative

9:57	Comment From Jays fan Did you see Pompey’s catch last night? Can he be the Jays cf next year?

9:59	Jeff Sullivan: I did, thanks, that was annoying. He can be the Jays CF next year if they’re willing to accept a below-average bat, but come the second half I think he’d be just about ready

9:59	Comment From lunch did wren deserve the ax?

9:59	Jeff Sullivan: Not 100%, but it was time for change, so they made a change. They’re not going to be worse off for this

9:59	Comment From Stephen Any chance a player not named Hamilton wins the NL ROY?

9:59	Jeff Sullivan: Very good chance