Meg Rowley FanGraphs Chat – 5/7/19

Meg Rowley: Hello all!

Meg Rowley: Welcome to the chat.

BEES: BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

bob:

Big League Choo: Which weighs more: 10 pounds of baseballs or 10 pounds of bees?

Meg Rowley: On my soul? The bees for sure. Much harder to dodge.

Justin: In a Fantasy Dynasty league would dropping Keuchel for Whitley be a good move?

Meg Rowley: Sure! Seems logical, if one is constructing a dynasty. That is what one does in dynasty leagues, right? It’s like Risk?

Lukas: Thoughts on the Padres?

Meg Rowley: They are tremendously fun to watch. Especially when Paddack pitches (more on him soon, I promise), but even when he doesn’t. I picked them in Sam, Ben, and I’s Fun Team draft on Effectively Wild, and I am quite content with my choice.

Chris: Is Domingo the second coming of Nelson Cruz. By that I mean a guy who is the rare full time DH type who occasionally can play LF. Seems like the mariners should trade Healy/vogs too and open up that spot completely

Meg Rowley: In this run environment, I mean, maybe, but he’s different than Cruz in that Cruz is more consistent producer, and his power profile isn’t as reliant on the current state of the ball.

Meg Rowley: I have seen three people hit the ball out of what was then Safeco during BP: Nelson Cruz, Giancarlo Stanton, and Mike Zunino

Meg Rowley: Just clear on out of there

Meg Rowley: That is hard!

Zorak: How many scouts are re-evaluating Vlad after his truly putrid start to his ML career? He’s looked completely and utterly lost. He’s chasing bad pitches and when he does make contact it results in a groundball.

Meg Rowley: It’s been what, 37 PAs? Would we have all preferred he immediately light the world on fire upon coming up? Oh sure. But he’s gonna be just fine.

Bryan: Amed Rosario for Andrelton Simmons.  Who says no?

Meg Rowley: The Angels.

TwinsWin: Martin Perez was at best mediocre. He added a cutter which has been very successful.  Can he continue success, or will the hitters eventually catch up?

Meg Rowley: I’m pretty encouraged. Hard not to be when you couple the jump in strikeouts with the decline in home runs, which, how is that working in 2019? I need to dig on him further (I’ve only seen parts of two of his starts) but early returns look really promising.

Meg Rowley: If a Martin Perez led rotation helps fell Cleveland… Jeez, baseball rocks (sorry Cleveland fans).

JS: we are hear to talk about Chris Paddack, right? good. the most beautiful thing from my perspective is that you can create tension without headhunting.

Jason N: How long does Paddack have to keep it up before he’s recognized as a true #1?

Meg Rowley: Paddack was my ROY pick going into the season, not because I am so smart or fancy or anything, but because that fastball is just good, good fun, and I like good, good fun, and it’s boring for our staff to pick all the same guys. I feel very smart and fancy now. How he sequenced stuff yesterday was so impressive. That command is greattt fun. And yeah, the flare is good, too.

Meg Rowley: He’s going to need to go longer than this to be in the No. 1 convo in a real way but he’s near the top of our leaderboards for a reason.

Johnny5Alive: Mets doing last year met things. Glad brodie traded prospects for all this ‘depth’ #lolmets. Silver lining is maybe callaway is a goner.

Meg Rowley: I know I snarked on the Mets last week, and they are quite snarkable, but I think this is perhaps an overreaction. Depth is good, even if they aren’t playing well right now, and even if they are making some goofy lineup/reliever usage choices.

Gaslamp Gary: I am probably the ONLY one who will ask a Chris Paddack question…   He already has a 1.4 WAR. The best Padres pitcher last season was Joey Lucchesi with 1.0 WAR. Over the whole season. Paddack will be the best Padres pitcher since Jake Peavy. This year.

Meg Rowley: He is Very Good and Very Fun, and almost so much of both that I am willing forgive the young man choice of the full sheriff ensemble, which could read as deeply silly but which I now like.

Sunday German: Domingo German. He’s been fantastic this season, and now he’s coming off a great game against a strong Twins lineup. How real is this start, and how much do you think the Yankees might want to manage his innings as the season wears on?

Meg Rowley: Quite real I think, and I’m sure, given both his prior season highs for IP and the general state of their rotation, that they’ll be careful, or at least, as careful as that rotation’s health allows.

Meg Rowley: Sung Min wrote a good thing on him a little bit ago: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/domingo-german-is-finding-consistency/

Meg Rowley: You should read that, I think.

Big League Choo: What if a certain batter got really good at appearing to be hit by pitches that really just miss him. Like Oscar-worthy performances that were good enough to fool the umpires 20 times a year. Would this be praised as a cool skill like pitch framing, or considered poor sportspersonship?

Meg Rowley: So in this scenario, do we know he is faking, but he is able to continue faking?

Meg Rowley: I think more than pitch framing it would be something an ump would be on the lookout for, should a batter develop that reputation. It’s a much rarer event, so it wouldn’t require the vigilance framing stuff does, plus HBP is a reviewable play, so you know the other team would be on watch.

The Human Rain Delay: Feels like you missed on the question the other week about how best to amass 50 WAR in a career — even considering the money you’d leave on the table and the brevity of your imaginary career, the answer is clearly to do it all in one season, right?

Meg Rowley: My answer was, if you recall, predicated on the idea that feeling lousy at work is pretty terrible and a thing to be avoided.

Jessica: Can you explain the Wander Javier meme to me? Because I… don’t get it.

Meg Rowley: Me either.

Getting Ahead of Myself: When was the last rookie pitcher to start the All-Star Game?

Meg Rowley: hmmmm

Meg Rowley: Mark Fidrych?

Meg Rowley: Did Mark Fidrych start that All-Star game for Detroit?

Meg Rowley: (sorry, I thought that would be a simpler search than it proved to be)

Gaslamp Gary: How long do you wait to take a team seriously? 40 games? 50? Padres have weathered some storms (losing streaks, Tatis injury) and are still 4 games above .500. Could they really contend?

Meg Rowley: At this point in the season, projections are generally more reliable, so stuff doesn’t meaningful start to shift in my heart or head til mid season, honestly.

Meg Rowley: Unless you have a realllly extreme performance

James: Whoops, my Gallo question got cut off. It seems like he’s made a conscious decision to just stop swinging at outside pitches. His contact is still bleh overall, but it looks like he’s doing better with pitches on the zone. Do you think he can post a 130wrc+ at the end of the season?

Meg Rowley: assuming there will be some return to earth (even if not all the way), but that the plate discipline changes are real and he keeps hitting for monster power, yeah, that seems about right

hooha: Domingo Santana has -1.3 Bsr runs this year, yet he has 4SBs and no CS, what am I missing?

Meg Rowley: It also takes into account things like grounding into double plays and base running advancement

Meg Rowley: A good explainer can be found here https://library.fangraphs.com/offense/bsr/

Pitch_Out: Will Caleb Smith be pitching for the Marlins after 31 July? Could he be the next in line to be sent away for an underwhelming return?

Meg Rowley: I honestly don’t know what the Marlins are doing anymore, but I’d think him being 27 maybe means they don’t expect him to be a part of the next good Marlins team. How good the return is remains to be seen. He’s been quite good this season.

Lou: Looks like the Yankees copied the Dodgers model of building incredible depth.

Lou: Sorry, didn’t finish the question.  Is the the advantage of big market teams that smaller markets cannot emulate?  Incredible depth?

Meg Rowley: You don’t have to be a big market team to develop depth– the Rays are lousy with depth in the minors and the Rays. But it helps. If you can, for instance, pay for free agent help, you don’t have to trade for help, which allows you to hold on to guys.

KitchSinky: 14 team league QS instead of W, stash Josh James for a possible starter later on or pick up Nick Anderson or Andrew Miller for ratio help now?

Large Margevicius: Better fantasy 2B for rest of season: Travis Shaw or Ketel Marte? (H, R, HR, RBI, SB, AVG, OPS)

Meg Rowley: Beg of you to ask a fantasy chat, if only because I care about both of you personally.

YDG: Which Avenger is Mike Trout most like?

Meg Rowley: Captain America, I will take no questions.

Big Joe Mufferaw: Judge hit it out of Safeco in game FYI

Meg Rowley: That didn’t leave the park, but it was very close. Poor Andrew Moore.

Mickey Callaway: Which struggling Met ends with the most WAR this season: Nimmo, Rosario, Ramos, or Cano?

Meg Rowley: I’ll go Cano then Nimmo.

Dan: I was talking to someone who moved from Russia to Texas and wanted to become a baseball fan. The best advice I could think to give her was come her and ask Meg. In my mind you’re the expect on being excited about baseball.

Meg Rowley: Go with her to some games!

Meg Rowley: Let her ask questions!

Meg Rowley: Probably helps to get the basics down before the intro to advanced stats, but what fun. I think introducing someone to baseball would be great fun. I’ve enjoyed it with my niece but she is also three, so the conversation often shifts to Dora.

Jerry B: It’s amazing that Trout has about a 2:1 BB:K ratio right now. And then I look at Barry Bond’s page and see that he maintained that ratio for basically his entire career!

Meg Rowley: Yeahhhhhhh.

Spahn and Sain: This is the adjustment part of the year where Pete Alonso and Daniel Vogelbach get figured out a little bit, isn’t it?

Meg Rowley: I mean, partially that. I am just glad Vogey is getting the playing time for us all to see what he is.

KD: It seems likely the Kendrys Morales will be DFA’ed today.  Is there a good landing spot for him?  I really don’t find any when I think about AL teams.

Meg Rowley: He doesn’t fit in Baltimore, like, at all, but doesn’t he feel like an Oriole? Or perhaps he can be a Tiger. They love DHs on that Tigers team.

Confused Guy: Richard Justice listed Joey Gallo as an MVP candidate thus far over Hunter Dozier. Not that Gallo has been bad (because he definitely hasn’t), but isn’t that ridiculous?

Meg Rowley: I don’t think either will much staying power in that convo, honestly.

Vladito Burrito: What do you think John Gibbons is doing right now

Meg Rowley: Hopefully whatever makes him most happy?

Sandwich: Make me one.

Meg Rowley: Truly floored by how clever this is. Might we award you the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor?

Jay: Who do you think will be leading the AL Central by the end of May, and by how many games?

Meg Rowley: Twins but only by like, three.

Hmmmmm: I’m trying to decide between Niko Goodrum and Kike Hernandez in fantasy — both guys are eligible everywhere on the diamond. What do you think?

Meg Rowley: Ask a fantasy person!

Meg Rowley: An expert in fantasy, to be clear, not a pretend person.

Confused Guy: Meg, you are very smart. But you say, “I think” a lot. It comes off as you not being confident, which I’m sure is not the case. Type with more conviction!

Meg Rowley: Hey, please mind your own business.

David: Justus Sheffield does not look good right now. Is he most likely a reliever?

Meg Rowley: (shifts uncomfortably in chair)

Meg Rowley: I have concerns about that fastball.

KitchSinky: Better question: Do you see a path for either Joshua James or Julio Urias to get back to their respective rotations by the end of the year?

Meg Rowley: Yup. Guys get hurt — of course, James has to be healthy for that to matter.

J-Co: Hideo Nomo started in 1995.  Pretty sure that is the most recent rookie.

Barbados_slim: Are you surprised paddack wasn’t thrown at yesterday?

Meg Rowley: No. Maybe I’m an optimist after all.

CamdenWarehouse: 50 WAR in a season and then calling it a career would be a lot of fun. Then you could go become a baseball writer and editor

Meg Rowley: That is an acceptable answer, just wasn’t mine.

Chris: What do the mariners do when seager is back? Gotta send Healy down right? Or DFA Bruce….

Meg Rowley: Healy has been both not especially good and has options so I imagine he goes to Tacoma.

I heart beisbol: Ben wrote a piece earlier about Tommy Pham being the most similar to Mike Trout. I really thought Christian Yelich was a better answer.

Meg Rowley: A fine answer, but not one consistent with his methodology.

Micah: What about Gallo doesn’t look sustainable? His Ks are down, BBs are up even more, contact is up, better batted ball peripherals, leads the league in exit velocity…I think it’s plenty likely that he’s an elite bat going forward in his career.

Meg Rowley: Just want to see it over longer. Not saying it is impossible by any means, but just want to see it for more than a month.

Concerned Dodger Fan: Kenley inherited the legacy of Mariano’s 2-seamer. So I need him to also inherent Mariano’s longevity. Please. I need to know there’s life after Pedro Baez!

Meg Rowley: Well hopefully that is true regardless of Kenley.

Guest: What is wrong with the Angels.  Big Market team with Trout.  Seems like they should be every year.

Meg Rowley: The obvious answer is the pitching, but sometimes the obvious answer is the right one! The injuries have also clearly gotten them this year.

Jerry B: When is Fangraphs going to spin off a sister site for football and/or basketball?

Meg Rowley: Please let me sleep sometimes.

Spahn and Sain: How worried are you if you’re the Indians that the Twins might be a better team than you, particularly with Kluber and Clevinger out for an extended period?

Meg Rowley: I would be pretty worried.

Meg Rowley: Their whole deal was predicated on the stars being stars and playing most of the season.

Nathan: Would you rather to go a baseball game in Japan, Korea or the Dominican – and why?

Meg Rowley: Oh jeez, that is a tricky pick.

Meg Rowley: I have the good fortune of direct flights being similar lengths, so maybe Japan and Korea first to comp the pro leagues there to MLB?

Big Joe Mufferaw: The Paddack thing shouldn’t be an issue, heck, he backed it up and said what he felt. Nothing wrong with it, he put his head out there and came out on top, tip your hat.

Meg Rowley: these aren’t often decisions motivated by logic

Nathan: Please don’t stop this chat. I don’t want to go back to my CPA study.

Meg Rowley: But I must go edit!

Meg Rowley: I’m going to call it there, folks. Thanks for the questions, and sorry for what I didn’t get to. Have a great rest of your week!