Meg Rowley FanGraphs Chat – 5/23/18

Meg Rowley: Good morning, and welcome to the chat!

Meg Rowley: I am clearly not Kiley, who is off watching college baseball.

Meg Rowley: I am a sad Mariners fan, which the queue has clearly guessed at. Let’s get started.

The Old Buccaneer: Is the Mariners’ second base situation worse than the Dodgers’?

Meg Rowley: Let’s assume that the world isn’t so cruel that Gordon’s injury will require more than 10 days. In that case, no, at least not among starters. Dee Gordon is good!

Meg Rowley: Obviously losing Cano until August is this horrible, devastating thing and I am sad about it every day, but if Gordon is back soon, they’re probably better off than what Utley and Forsythe offer? Maybe? Let me have this, ok?

Jerry DiPoto: Will the Rays have traded Joey Wendle or Brad Miller to the Mariners for Ariel Miranda or chasen Bradford by the end of the week? Rays seem to have an extra 2b and the mariners clearly could use one…..

Meg Rowley: I would think not, though it would hilarious if Jerry *now* saw Brad Miller as a viable second base option.

Christian: Hey Meg, how sad does the Mariners second base situation make you?

Meg Rowley: Ok last one of these for a while.

Meg Rowley: This isn’t an especially revelatory statement but Cano in conjunction with a banged up Gordon, and now Cruz and possibly Haniger and Segura (good freaking grief) highlights the thing that, apart from the rotation, was always going to be the Mariners greatest weakness: there is just no depth.

Meg Rowley: No depth to back up stars who are out with injury, no depth to trade from for any really useful pieces. Just very little depth.

Meg Rowley: The 2018 Mariners: These are the Mariners

Moltar: Get u a partner that loves u like the mets love washed up veterans

Meg Rowley: There appears to be a diagnosable pathology at work at this point.

James: Scioscia’s seat getting warmer? Team’s key players are healthy but team is floundering after hot start.

Meg Rowley: I wouldn’t think so, at least not this early. I don’t say this with special knowledge, but they all seem to get on pretty well there, and the Angels are only 2.5 games out of the second wild card with literally the Cano-less Mariners in front of them.

Meg Rowley: He’s in the last year of his deal and at some point you’d think the guy would get tired, and managers do get blamed for stuff, but he didn’t put that rotation together.

Put me in coach: A rotation of Newcomb, Folty, Gohara, Soroka and [insert Teheran/Allard/Wisler/5th starter] can be an above average group for not that much more than the league minimum, right? That’s pretty crazy.

Meg Rowley: I liked the Braves position players at the start of the year and was very skeptical of the pitching. We’re not necessarily far enough in to erase those concerns, and some of those pieces are more proven than others, but they’ve out performed what I thought they’d do for sure.

Meg Rowley: Tied for 10th I think in pitching WAR with that lineup. Not bad, not bad at all.

Oyster Burns: Who is your favorite of the recent call ups?

Meg Rowley: *Extreme Recency Bias Alert* Soto? There is something so cool about guys who are that young doing this. What a neat thing.

Meg Rowley: The real answer is probably Acuña but Soto has been a fun few days.

Wes: Angel Hernandez had a .115 WPA last night on one pitch. How bad is he for baseball?

Meg Rowley: I’m going to say two things that sound like they’re in opposition to one another but they aren’t really.

Meg Rowley: I think that as fans and analysts we are way too hard on umps. Umpires have a really, really hard job and they actually do it pretty damn well. They do their job and still get booed because that’s what happens when you make occasional mistakes and your role is to be a bummer.

Meg Rowley: And so realllllly bad calls like Hernandez’s are painful because they are slightly more than occasional and give ammunition to folks who think all umps are terrible because their job is to be a bummer.

Meg Rowley: I wouldn’t go so far as to say he is capital b Bad for Baseball, but he’s making it harder for a bunch of other dudes who do their jobs pretty well.

Price: What’s the one article you want to write but don’t think the editors will approve?

Meg Rowley: Baseball Prospectus let me write a piece on whether or not Adam Lind farted so forcefully that we could see it and Carson okay’ed 4000 words on manager ejections. My editors have been hilariously indulgent.

CamdenWarehouse: Are there plans for more stops for the full cast Fangraphs Meetup?

Meg Rowley: Nothing official, though in my experience of these things, folks tend to linger and subgroups emerge as people decide they want to keep having a good time.

Meg Rowley: Just remember, you’re drinking at altitude, so you’ll get tipsy more quickly and should drink twice as much water.

Concerned Reds Fan: Is Harvey’s resurgence for real? Very small sample size, but it looks like the Reds might have found themselves a viable trade chip for the deadline. What kind of return could they expect if he keeps up his perfromance as he has with the Reds?

Meg Rowley: Allow me to look something up

Meg Rowley: Harvey went four innings vs. the Dodgers; he went four innings vs. the Giants. He did manage six against the Pirates. The biggest knock on Harvey is going to be the effect the injuries have on his durability. I don’t think we know enough to say that’s behind him and it isn’t like the 28 other teams (I am assume he does not go back to the Mets) don’t know his story.

Meg Rowley: He might be the subject of a trade just because the Reds are terrible, but I would temper your expectations of the return.

Mariners: It’s sounding like Jayson Werth might be a Seattle Mariner today, how sad does that make you.

Meg Rowley: 2018 is freaking wild times.

Kristen: Worst food you’ve ever had a ballpark?  Just can’t get into Globe Life’s Dilly Dog (hot dog stuffed into a dill pickle and whole thing is deep-fried).  Kinda nasty.

Meg Rowley: Does the beer selection at Yankee Stadium count as food?

HappyFunBall: Rules minutiae question. Cano went on the DL the day before his suspension. Now he’s on the restricted list. Does that mean he is no longer on the DL? Or are they concurrent lists?

Meg Rowley: This is a good question. I think he is technically just on the restricted list, though the language is a bit ambiguous.

Meg Rowley: If you look at the transaction log, it says he was placed on the restricted list, as opposed to transferred. But I think he’s just on the one list.

Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe: Love the business word song in the podcast. Want to share a business word with us?

Meg Rowley: This is now everywhere but “taking things offline” used to confuse the hell out of people when I would say it.

Meg Rowley: I suppose now it confuses the hell out of people because we are all forever online.

mel: In what order do you place the Astros, Red Sox, and Yankees and why?

Meg Rowley: I think you have the order right. Astros first because they are just so terrifyingly complete, even if the pitching cools a little, Red Sox over Yankees because I still like that rotation marginally more.

Meg Rowley: My opinion of the Red Sox/Yankees ordering is likely to change approximately 100 times before the end of the year.

Babe Lincoln: Thoughts on today’s PED users getting into the HOF  Thoughts on 90s PED users getting in?

Meg Rowley: I tend to not be especially fussed about it. I think guys like Bonds clearly had HOF worthy careers independent of any steroid use. I think baseball benefitted from guys like McGwire and Sosa using as much as anyone. I think there is a lot of performance alteration or supplementation that goes on that isn’t PED use.

Meg Rowley: Mostly though? I think the HOF is best as a museum that tells the game’s story, and baseball happened when I was a kid, and is happening now.

Meg Rowley: The Hall should reflect that.

Meg Rowley: I also get it if voters want to draw a line between 90s users and guys who get got now.

Mike: What are the odds of Trout’s career taking a Pujols-esq turn: still a lock for HOF but with some serious decline in the later stages of his career that diminishes his star?

Meg Rowley: I think low and I can say that because we’re still in the phase of his career when he is a young, strong dude who will live forever.

John: Kyle Lewis isn’t developing like I would hope. I was very impressed with his first season prior to injury.

Meg Rowley: Turns out working knees are pretty important in baseball.

FailSon: Can we have a specific chat where only questions about Braves players/ prospects are asked since thats about 50% of the chats devolve into.  Wondering out loud where all these ppl come from since no one shows up to their games.

Meg Rowley: In Braves fans’ defense, their team is young and exciting and their ballpark is hard to get to.

David: I know you said you’re done with mariners but.. Not many teams can lose a starting 2b, Centerfielder(/backup 2b), DH, right fielder and possibly shortstop without having depth issues. The fact that we were losing a starting 2b and DH and having reasonable backups is an okay depth showing. Now if we can just get Romine off of this team.

Meg Rowley: I didn’t say I was done. I mean, if nothing else, I am a season ticket holder, feel happier when they win then when they lose, and will be doing a few different events with the team later this summer.

Meg Rowley: But I think it is ok to like something very much, to even love it, and to be realistic about what it is.

Meg Rowley: There is no help coming for them from the minors. Heck, they’re likely to recall Jayson Werth at some point here. Or Taylor Motter. Every team that gets hit with injury has to deal with depth, and even a team like the Dodgers can struggle to do so if the injuries pile up.

Meg Rowley: The Mariners are very thin everywhere. They’re outperforming their pythag by four games and might give meaningful time to Gordon Beckham. We love them. This start has been so fun! But we can tell the truth about who and what they are.

McAllister : Who would you rather have; Javier Baez, Addison Russell, or Gleyber Torres.

Meg Rowley: Gleyber.

Meg Rowley: Javy is great fun, but Gleyber. I’ve never been able to get excited about Addison Russell.

Please win, Caps: You, Jeff, Travis, and the rest of the weekly chatters are great, but have you thought about doing some guest chats? Like with the monthly residents, or Sheryl Ring?

Meg Rowley: I’ll definitely ask!

Babe Lincoln: What percent of entries in the queue are misogynist/otherwise obnoxious re your gender?

Meg Rowley: A delightfully small percentage.

Meg Rowley: The internet is awful and there are dopes everywhere, but most people here are good people.

Bud Selig: Has anyone ever considered renting players? Like not an actual trade but say the Mets can lend DeGrom to a team for the rest of 2018 for X compensation with an additional agreed list of Y compensation players if there is an injury to that guy in the time hes rented? Would shorten the rebuild for teams in the middle of contending / rebuilding and help teams go for it in that year.

Meg Rowley: I like this idea very much if for no other reason than I think it would be great fun to watch and even more fun to write about.

Sotolicious : When is Mookie betts going to cool off?

Meg Rowley: When the sun goes out.

Meg Rowley: Of course, he won’t be alone.

Michael: So with your HoF answer does that mean you think Pete Rose should be in?

Meg Rowley: No. I think what he did is fundamentally different than individual PED use and a much greater threat to the integrity of the game. Plus ummm the google result for Pete Rose and legal trouble isn’t great.

Porcho Villa: FYI, I just googled the words “Rowley Lind baseball fart”. I don’t have a question, I just wanted to tell you.

Meg Rowley: My parents are weirdly still very proud of me.

Bo: Atlanta is currently 11th in the league in average attendance… That’s not too shabby!

Meg Rowley: I also don’t think attendance shaming is useful.

Babe Lincoln: Idea: making the FG Leaders board sortable by HOF status.  So we can answer burning questions like which HOFer had the highest wRC+ in 1974.  Any chance?

Meg Rowley: I don’t think there is a ton of demand for it, and while it isn’t wRC+, I think Baseball-Reference has much of what you’d be looking for

CamdenWarehouse: You inspired a whole Effectively Wild episode about the fart!

Meg Rowley: Actually I was inspired by a whole Effectively Wild episode, and then spent the evening worrying that someone else would beat me to writing about it because my job is fundamentally very strange.

Ham ‘n Mayo Smith: Is Puig turning it around or just on another brief up cycle?  Saw him take a six pitch walk vs. Rox last night, showed extraordinary patience / didn’t swing at all on four Bettis pitches just off the outside black.  Seemed reasonably impressive…

Meg Rowley: I think he was getting a touch unlucky before and we’re seeing that shake itself out a bit now.

Just moved to Milwaukee: Favorite Wisconsin beer?

Meg Rowley: Karben 4 has a beer called Fantasy Factory I liked a lot; Two Hearted is good.

Meg Rowley: I liked New Glarus’ Scream double IPA

Meg Rowley: As an IPA drinker, the midwest was hard for beer sometimes, because that wasn’t their thing quite as much, though I know there are lot more now

Skuggs: Hate to harp on this, but I agree that the HOF “is best as a museum”…and that’s the exact reason Rose has to be in.

Meg Rowley: Yes, by that logic, I suppose so, though you’re then obligated to tell an honest story of Rose, which he might not be keen on.

Greg: So I’m out of the loop, but what’s the deal with Goldschmidt?  Is he playing hurt?

Meg Rowley: It is really strange. The strike outs are way up. He is better on the road, so maybe some of it is the humidor, but it’s a pretty dramatic split so I wonder how of it that can account for. I don’t know anything special or secret or fancy about him being hurt, but I am starting to wonder. I will admit I haven’t looked at it closely enough to say if there is a mechanical thing that is out of sorts.

Nic: Any chance Gleyber wins roy over Ohtani.

Meg Rowley: Barring an injury or a realllly dramatic downturn in performance, I’d be surprised. It isn’t a knock on Gleyber, it’s just that Ohtani has been so fun and good, and what he is doing is so compelling.

Bored Employee: This might not be your wheelhouse, but do you have any idea when Eric and Kiley will update THE BOARD?

Meg Rowley: Allow me to consult my esteemed colleagues.

Meg Rowley: Eric says they are adding draft guys sometime this week, overall top 100 next week, and will update team lists posts draft.

Meg Rowley: I’d also encourage you all to follow the FanGraphs prospect twitter account for all the latest on THE BOARD and other prospect news: https://twitter.com/FG_Prospects

Chacin the Dream: How much does the NL Central benefit from playing the AL Central in interleague?  Enough to matter re: wild card?

Meg Rowley: Some but I think it probably evens out more than you think. I guess wins are wins and these things might be close, so it could certainly be worth looking at when it is all said and done, but the biggest beneficiary of getting to play the AL Central is still Cleveland.  And honestly the good teams in the NL Central probably get their biggest boost from the Reds.

yankinstl: What are the chances that Ohtani some day wins all the awards? (MVP, CY, etc.)

Meg Rowley: I think pretty low. There are too many other position players with more regular playing time for MVP. Maybe a marginally better chance for Cy Young, but you still have the entire Astros rotation plus Sale, Severino, Paxton (YEAH I SAID IT), Kluber, etc to contend with. Put that way, I think very, very low.

Oyster Burns: prime a-rod or prime griffey?

Meg Rowley: I wish I could go back in time and rewatch prime A-Rod with my perspective on baseball now, because I know for sure I didn’t appreciate him enough and was mad and fussy and mostly, was a dumb teenager who thought his contract was bad for the game.

Please win, Caps: Ben Lindbergh cited female listeners of EW mentioning that they are often forced to “prove” their baseball fandom to men through statistics/other advanced knowledge. To what extent is that true with your male colleagues (at FG or

Meg Rowley: I work with very smart, respectful people here. I worked with very smart, respectful people at BP. I haven’t had a problem with dudes in the industry. Which isn’t to say that other women don’t experience that. But I have been insanely fortunate in terms of coworkers.

Meg Rowley: Now, fans out in the wild? That’s been different. I will say that one of the reasons I was first drawn to advanced stats was because it leveled the playing field. Ain’t none of us nerds been close to being pro ball players.

tyler: They need to get rid of the unbalanced schedule no?  With the way the wild card is set up teams in the AL east are screwed.

Meg Rowley: I think that it would take a lot to get rid of divisions because owners (and fans!) like the rivalries and that’s a natural way to do it.

Meg Rowley: That, the other day I was joking with buddies about the most Mariners way to miss the postseason and I think I’ve landed on everyone in the AL Central having a worse than .500 record and the M’s not making it again with a .600 record. It’s not likely to happen for any number of reasons but it would be so Mariners.

Please win, Caps: elsewhere?

Meg Rowley: Yes elsewhere. VERY IMPORTANT CLARIFICATION.

Eminor3rd: Two-Hearted is Michigan 🙁

Meg Rowley: Well, ummm, it’s still very tasty.

Gardy Party: Which baseball personality (current or historic) do you really, really want to get drink a beer with, or see drunk as a fly on the wall?

Meg Rowley: This is a very weird answer, but I think Russell Martin would be a really interesting dude to talk to.

Taylor: Does the overwhelming negativity of Mariners’ fandom ever wear on you? The team is competitive in an obviously improbable way, yet most of what I’m seeing is folks shouting about how it’ll all come crashing down as always.

Meg Rowley: It’s interesting what we see, isn’t it. I think the majority of Mariners twitter is really optimistic and positive in a way I find surprising.

Meg Rowley: I do worry sometimes that I like feeling sad.

Meg Rowley: I think it is also a matter of what you understand yourself to be.

Meg Rowley: Fans can and should and do feel optimistic and joyful. And there isn’t really a consequence to them doing that and then being wrong, because they are fans engaging entertainment they like. My obligations are a little different now.

Meg Rowley: But I will say this start is much better than I expected, and for a team whose rotation (outside of Paxton) is basically sand held together by force of will, they have been really, really fun to watch. That offense has been great.

Please win, Caps: Does your job ever bring you in contact with beat writers? If so, who are some of the best, and how do you perceive their overall quality and importance to baseball media?

Meg Rowley: I know a bunch of the local Mariners beats and they are excellent humans, even Divish who insists that he is a grump but is actually a very nice guy. Outside of that, I can’t really comment on the overall quality of the larger corps outside of guys like McCullough, who is obviously excellent.

Meg Rowley: But I think that local coverage is really important, and when it is good, can elevate the dialogue with fans pretty substantially

Geust: Why do we call players “players,” until we’re talking about trading them and now all of a sudden they’re “pieces?”

Meg Rowley: Because our economic system has damaged us all in pretty fundamental ways?

Vottomatic: You growley?

Meg Rowley: The sun is out, I have a good iced coffee, and I get to chat with all of you. Today isn’t bad, actually.

tb.25: Maybe none of us nerds have bene close to BEING pro ball players… But have you been close TO pro ball players? I shook a guy’s hand once. It was huge.

Meg Rowley: I am constantly amazed by how big these dudes are. Except for Altuve who look, I know we joke about his height but it is somewhat arresting close up. He is listed at 5’6 but he is an inch shorter, I swear.

MB: Hi Meg, is there any way we could get service time added to player pages? I know that info is available elsewhere, but I like fangraphs better than all the elsewheres, so it’d be cool to have it here too.

Meg Rowley: Hmmm I’m not sure, but I will ask.

New Rays Fan: I’m having trouble telling many of our relievers apart. Tell me something interesting or fun about any one of Andriese/Pruitt/Yarborough/Kittredge.

Meg Rowley: Kitteredge was the name of the sorta bad guy in one of the Mission Impossible movies.

Meg Rowley: Yarborough is one of nine active players whose last name starts with Y

Meg Rowley: That’s two fun things. Interesting? I’ll leave that to you.

Morbo: Who is your favorite player to watch at the moment?

Meg Rowley: I should maybe have a more interesting answer than Ohtani, but I don’t

Meg Rowley: Probably right now it is some mix of Ohtani, Trout, Betts, Hader, Albies, Odubel Herrera, Paxton?

Manderson: What players do you think the Tigers should sell at the deadline?

Meg Rowley: Literally anyone who won’t be part of the next core who they can

CamdenWarehouse: No Zunino? 🙁

Meg Rowley: Some of these at bats…

Meg Rowley: The framing is good. That’s nice. That’s a nice, good thing.

Meg Rowley: But these at bats…

A Boy Named Yu: Would you part with Addison Russell and his controllable years for 2-3 months of Machado?

Meg Rowley: Yes, but I probably shouldn’t which is why I write about manager ejections and run The Hardball Times

Alex: What percentage hilarious and what percentage depressing would it be if the Mariners moved Seager to second, Healy to third, and put Vogelbach at first?

Meg Rowley: Depressing is moving Seager to short, come on now

A Boy Named Yu: Why won’t the Mariners give Vogelbach a serious chance?  Merely bad roster contruction and no place to play him?

Meg Rowley: Because Nelson Cruz is a better DH and Healy’s bat has turned around, and while he’s no defensive wonder, he’s better than Vogelbach

Gil : Hey Meg, going to Safeco for a game first weekend in June. Anything I must have while there? I love beer and ballpark food so pretty much anything is cool with me.

Meg Rowley: Try to do the local taps. Hop Valley is their big beer provider now, but Reubens has a few Crickey taps throughout and it is better. For food, they have a really good spicy chicken sandwich in the Pen. On the club level there is an excellent salmon sandwich.

A Boy Named Yu: As a Mariners fan, do you have any news on Sam Carlson?  I think he’s going to be a good one.

Meg Rowley: The last I heard, he had a PRP injection (never great news) and wasn’t throwing.

Meg Rowley: He hasn’t been sent out on a minor league assignment so…

Bo: How many current stadiums have you NOT been to?

Meg Rowley: Sadly most of them. I’ve been to the Kingdome and Safeco, the Colosseum and AT&T, Miller, Coors, old and new Yankee, and Citizens Bank Park

Meg Rowley: I feel like I’m forgetting something

Meg Rowley: I’ve been to all the parks down in Arizona but not Chase, oddly.

Sonny: What did you study in graduate school and do you have any advice for someone returning to the academy after a 8y break?

Meg Rowley: I studied Political Science. I was going to get a PhD but do you know how long those take!?

Meg Rowley: My advice is to treat it like a job as much as possible. Have working hours and a routine.

OddBall Herrera: You’re not even going to get Werth, he’s injured too now!

Meg Rowley: And on that note!

Meg Rowley: I have to get rolling.

Meg Rowley: Kiley will be back at his usual time next week, and I expect I will be, too, barring someone else needing to swap.

Meg Rowley: Thanks for hanging out and sorry for what I didn’t get to.