Meg Rowley FanGraphs Chat – 5/8/18

Meg Rowley: Good morning! Welcome to the chat.

Meg Rowley: Let’s dive in with a bunch of sad Mariners questions! Yay!

Alex: How many starting pitchers on the Mariners end the year with a higher WAR than Edwin Diaz?

Meg Rowley: Well, Paxton…

Meg Rowley: mayyyyybe Marco Gonzales if he can ever figure out how to a third time through the order.

Meg Rowley: The pitching really isn’t very good.

Meg Rowley: It’s a problem. It’s a bad problem.

Coz: Did Ohtani’s start on Sunday sting…just a little?

Meg Rowley: It’s amazing how your expectations can protect you from sadness. I didn’t expect the Mariners to win that game, and so when they didn’t, I wasn’t terribly fussed about it.

Meg Rowley: It maybe helped that Kyle Seager managed a few hits against Ohtani. The baseball gods gave me a little something.

Meg Rowley: But life is better when you can really, truly enjoy the Ohtanis and Trouts of the world, even when it is as the expense of your favorite team.

Nelson Cruz : If Ichiro wanted to work for another MLB team this year would the Mariners need to trade him?

Meg Rowley: Hmmm I’m actually not sure how that works. He’s indicated that he wants to be in Seattle, so I guess we’ll never know.

Roman Numeral Three: Who wins the AL East this year? It seems more important than ever to avoid the WC play-in game.

Meg Rowley: I think I give the slightest of edges to the Red Sox because I like their rotation more, but it is going to be a lovely, awful fight right to the end, I expect.

Drew: Would you rather have Scherzer/Strasburg or DeGrom/Syndergaard at the top of your rotation?

Meg Rowley: Scherzer/Strasburg, but that’s an aesthetic choice.

weezy: if you could have any job working for a baseball team, what job would that be?

Meg Rowley: Which job let’s me write 2,000 words on a bunch of screenshots and GIFs while wistfully connecting those images to the lessons baseball teaches us about life, and ourselves, as we grapple with our mortality and disappointments?

Meg Rowley: We’re back! Sorry about that, everyone.

Meg Rowley: The tech, it has betrayed us.

eg: do you wager on baseball?

Meg Rowley: There are literally thousands of other things to waste my money on.

Thierry Henry: Any thoughts on Gary Sánchez’s defense? I haven’t looked at any statistics, but man, I feel like he’s allowed 1.9 million passed balls this season

Meg Rowley: Allow me a moment to look something up.

Meg Rowley: So Baseball Prospectus’ catcher defensive metric breaks catcher defense down into three components: blocking, framing, and throwing runs.

Meg Rowley: You’re not wrong that historically, that hasn’t been a strong part of his game. Last year, by BP’s metrics, he was worth -2.6 blocking runs. Not great!

Meg Rowley: So far this year, Sanchez has been worth 0 blocking runs, 0 throwing, and 1.3 framing runs, which has him tied for 9th among catchers with at least 1000 framing chances. So he’s been marginally better. The good news for Yankees fans is that most of the research shows that framing is really the place catchers add value defensively.

Meg Rowley: Which makes sense, right? Think of how many pitches they frame, and how quickly value can accumulate there.

Meg Rowley: So Sanchez isn’t a great blocker, but also, it doesn’t matter a ton over the course of season. Which is good; the Yankees needed a break.

YOAT: Don’t the Braves need to make some moves with the start they have had?

Meg Rowley: They might (will?) closer to the deadline, but this isn’t really when moves happen, so I wouldn’t be worried by their inactivity.

Dexy’s Midnight Fowlers: Matt Chapman is a robust 1 for his last 27. He’s not losing playing time thanks to the glove, but was his hot start this season a mirage?

Meg Rowley: I don’t think so. I think he’s a young player going through a rough patch. I don’t love the uptick in strikeouts. When he struggled in the past it was often because he was swinging at nonsense. But I expect he’ll adjust again.

Meg Rowley: And as an aside, the defense in unreal. Unreal! We should probably talk about the third base defense in the AL West. It’s really very good.

Thomas: Any hope for Lewis Brinson at the major league level? Hasn’t look good in his first taste of the bigs.

Meg Rowley: I think he’ll be fine. You’re right to say he’s struggled, but he was dinged up last year, and this isn’t enough to panic over. Brinson has a lot of plus tools, and I think he’ll figure out something better than this.

Vslyke: What do the White Sox do with Lucas Giolito? He is walking more batters than he is striking out and getting shelled, but he has nothing left to prove in the minor leagues.

Meg Rowley: I think they’ll just let him take his lumps up to a point. Nothing new to learn in Triple-A, and no real pressure to win in Chicago right now.

Alex: Has Marco Gonzales figured something out? I’m not sure whether I expect his ERA to regress towards his peripherals or to expect his strikeouts to decrease.  He hasn’t really changed his swinging strike rate so I’m pretty skeptical so far.

Meg Rowley: I think he has shown legitimate improvement but his inability to work deep into games effectively seems like it is a feature rather than a bug. He’s young and he’ll certainly get his chances, and the FIP is surprisingly good but I’m not sold.

kevinthecomic: how much further ahead in their division would the angels be if they had not started pujols in the 4-hole EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.?

Meg Rowley: I dunno, how much further ahead would they be if they had better starting pitching and a deeper bullpen?

Meg Rowley: The Angels have a team wRC+ of 111, which is tied for second place with the Yankees and Red Sox.

Meg Rowley: Not saying Pujols is lighting the world on fire, but I don’t think he’s the biggest issue on that roster.

that’swhatdysaid: Are the dodgers really good or really bad?

Meg Rowley: The Dodgers are pretty hurt, and have some players showing signs of decline.

Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe: Is it okay to not get excited about the London series? I understand wanting to expand MLB’s market, but the game is almost unwatchable for West Coast audiences and it is in the middle of the summer, not in the beginning of the season like the games played in Japan have been. Why not focus on the Canada/Mexico markets first?

Meg Rowley: You are never obligated to be excited about things, though it is useful to allow yourself to be excited about at least some things.

Meg Rowley: But that doesn’t have to be this thing!

Meg Rowley: I think the rationale is to try to expose a new market to the game; baseball is a well established sport in Canada and Mexico. But you don’t have to watch those games.

Meg Rowley: I will say, I have a few ex-pat friends who live in London and they are really, really excited to get to watch baseball live. So that’s something, I suppose.

CamdenWarehouse: You wager on baseball.  You have bet your future comfort that baseball will be around long enough to get by.  You bet your happiness on the Mariners.  Not all wagers involve money.

Meg Rowley: I have other skills by which I could make money, and thank god, other sources of happiness.

Hold me close, ohtani dancer : The Yankees just took 15 of 16 and Stanton, walker, and Gardner haven’t even started hitting yet. How scared should we be?

Meg Rowley: We allllll laughed about how fun it would be to have the evil empire back. We chuckled, like chumps. Big ol’ chumps.

Aaron: I think we can say that Kershaw’s time as *unquestionably* the best pitcher in the league has come to an end, right?

Meg Rowley: *unquestionably*, yes, I think so

Meg Rowley: Not saying he can’t round back into form when he is healthy, but now we’re going to wonder, is he going to stay healthy? Does the velocity decline matter? Can he adjust? It’s more of a conversation now then it used to be.

Post Malone: Over/Under 2 emptying of the dugouts over the next three days in The Bronx?

Meg Rowley: We really ought to teach folks better means of conflict resolution.

Matt: I don’t remember the exact numbers, but someone pointed out the other day that Sanchez’s run suppression via his arm netted positive against his passed balls.

Meg Rowley: So far neither has contributed much, but neither has been a negative. Historically, you’re right– they about even out. It’s really all about the framing anyhow.

Slurve: How good is Andrelton Simmons now that he’s hitting for well over a year?

Meg Rowley: Really very, very good.

Meg Rowley: We all adopt a skeptical posture toward defensive metrics, as well we should because they can be funky and noisy, especially over limited samples. But some guys you watch and are able to believe it. It feels rational. Simmons is one of those dudes. And now he can hit. His performance so far this year seems to be buoyed at least in part by some BABIP outperformance, but he’s still good.

Meg Rowley: I’ll be curious to see where the power numbers and home run total ends up for him this year.

Meg Rowley: Remember how he hit 14 home runs last year? That was weird… OR WAS IT?

Lunar verLander: Mike Petriello brought this up on Twitter this morning; how many AL short stops will make the All Star Team?

Meg Rowley: It’s a very crowded field. I expect Simmons might be on the losing end here, because they’ll want to get bigger stars in the game, and Machado is both worthy and the only good Oriole.

Meg Rowley: It’s not really important, but it is a bummer for those guys. I think it matters a lot to some players.

Caps in 6!: Which other fanbase most “gets” what it’s like to be a Mariners fan? Brewers? Padres? Rays? Pirates? Someone else?

Meg Rowley: All of those teams have been to a World Series, so sleeper candidate: the Nats?

Meg Rowley: Seattle is weird because yes, they have been very, very bad, but they’ve also managed sorta transcendent stars anyhow.

Meg Rowley: There’s a reason “Felix is ours and you can’t have him” was a thing.

Wilber: The Dodgers front office has long been considered one of the best in the game, which I agree with, but have they hurt themselves with over-conservatism? With their resources and peak Kershaw over the past couple seasons it seems like they would have been better served emptying the farm and going all in. They have more money to pour into scouting and development and have shown they are one of the best drafting teams.

Meg Rowley: First, think about how many of those guys are contributing at the big league level. Second, I think it is more that they’ve picked their spots. They weren’t afraid to trade prospects for a Darvish rental. And that almost worked out for them.

Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe: Share, with the group, a business word.

Meg Rowley: Architecting

Slurve: Baseball’s All Star game is far and away the best pro All Star Game in the USA… Is Hockey 2nd?  MLS vs. an elite Euro team?  Football and Basketball are horrible…

Meg Rowley: In my opinion, it isn’t about the game at all. It’s about the skill competitions. The reason the MLB All-Star stuff is fun at all is because of the home run derby.

Desperate, Confused Marlins Fan: Did the Mariners “give up” Tyler O’Neill because they knew they could get the best out of Marco Gonzales?

Meg Rowley: I think they thought they could get more out of Gonzales and were skeptical that O’Neill would ever make enough contact at the major league level to take full advantage of his 80-grade power.

Jimmy Jammer: Is there a rule that you have to be a MLB player to compete in the HR Derby? I would love to see Vlad Jr. this year after watching him mash home runs off a tee.

Meg Rowley: hold please

Meg Rowley: Pretty sure you have to be on the 40-man, though you don’t have to be an All-Star

Chuck : Thoughts on out new statcast darling, Franchy Cordero?  Can he be more than Keon Broxton?  Will he even reach that ceiling?  Thanks!

Meg Rowley: The power is obviously the headline, but I’ve been impressed with how he’s trimmed the strikeouts from ahhh oh no! to acceptable

BJMBjfl19: hi meg.

Meg Rowley: Hello!

Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe: Architecting? That’s a made-up word. Come on, Meg. Give us a real one.

Meg Rowley: I promise I have heard that in a business setting. Trading floors aren’t exactly full of English majors.

Bryan: If Edgar Martinez can’t get into the Hall, why do people believe Big Papi will?

Meg Rowley: Because many people are realists in the face of injustice.

Meg Rowley: They should both get in, to be clear.

Meg Rowley: OK, Red Sox fans? BOTH OF ‘EM.

Post Malone: Do you think we may see more Judge/Stanton-type builds in the future as we continue to learn about the dangers of football?

Meg Rowley: Potentially. The biggest danger to football is the danger of football. The biggest danger to baseball is how damn expensive it is. How those two existential threats interact with one another remains to be seen, but it is a lot easier to make baseball accessible than it is to make football truly safe.

Badeball: Home Run Derby? So chicks really dig the long ball?

Meg Rowley: second only to not being called chicks

David: Thoughts on Luis Gohara being moved to the pen.  It seems like he would have been the next man up in the rotation if A. Sanchez/McCarthy get hurt or are moved.  Can’t Blair/Sims/Wisler fill the bullpen role?

Meg Rowley: I wouldn’t be surprised if he does some spot starting work, but he’s slipped some. I know he had injury issues and some family stuff. I think it has as much to do with them being excited about other prospects as anything else.

Big Joe Mufferaw: Are you sad we won’t see Judge in the derby anymore?

Meg Rowley: Sure, but luckily we are lousy with guys who will be exciting to watch.

Meg Rowley: It’s neat discover a new thing to be excited about.

John S: We need to stop the myth that baseball is more expensive than football.  Someone is paying for the helmet, shoulder pads, and cleats.

Meg Rowley: They are, but when you add up the cost of travel teams and showcases, it gets very pricy, very quickly.

CamdenWarehouse: Used in a sentence: Dan Duquette is not very good at architecting a quality farm system.

Meg Rowley: See, there it is.

AdamZ: So what’s up with David Price? His command has gotten worse each of the past three seasons.

Meg Rowley: I say this without knowing anything special (the internet is wild) but I really have very little confidence that he is healthy, and that his arm is working like it should.

Jimmy Jammer: David Price may challenge Felix as the worst pitching contract of all time.

Meg Rowley: Setting aside that the Felix take is way too strong, I think Mike Hampton would like a word.

54: Is there not going to be a Chris Davis revival tour? 🙁

Meg Rowley: Maybe he can play an instrument!

Matt: Regarding baseball being more expensive than football. I’ll take your word for it – but could this be an artificial inflation? Football doesn’t have the same showcases, essentially because the career span of a player is so short, and sudden. A baseball player needs to work through many layers of essentially bureaucracy, whereas a football player needs to go to a college and play well (not to diminish their work…just simplifying). I’m not sure I have a question, just thinking out loud and curious on your comment.

Meg Rowley: I get what you’re saying, but I’m not sure it can be called artificial if it is viewed as a necessary part of the ecosystem that launches guys professionally. Not every player goes that route, but it is a big part of being seen by scouts and college coaches.

Florida Man: What kind of experiments do you think the Astros are conducting on Ken Giles right now? Maybe they sent him to a therapist?

Meg Rowley: Not accusing you of taking what happened lightly, Florida Man, but I really liked the piece Patrick Dubuque wrote on this: https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/39713/cold-takes-failu…

Meg Rowley: I was surprised when it happened that people found it funny. I don’t say that to be a scold. Patrick had good stuff to say about it.

Ben: The cubs honestly can’t keep rolling schwarber out to left field can they?  Do they think his bat is that elite?  He’s making late Bonds look like Kevin Keirmeier

Meg Rowley: He does have a 148 wRC+… they’ve always been higher on him than anyone else, which I guess works out well for Schwarber.

Meg Rowley: He’s not good in the field, but as long as he’s on the roster, this seems like the most elegant solution to a structural problem they have no control over

Josh Goldberg: Hi Meg, meant to put the question in here – As a Senior Undergraduate studying Math, how valuable to do you think it is to try to apply for baseball jobs right out of college as opposed to getting an advanced degree before applying for roles within the industry?

Meg Rowley: My suggestion would be to take a look at some of the baseball ops postings we’ve had and get a sense of what skills teams are looking for. If your skills line up, and you have a resume that supports them, I don’t see the harm in applying, provided you won’t be too wounded if you don’t get a gig. It’s a very competitive field.

Meg Rowley: Most teams don’t require an advanced degree and they take a long time to complete, so you have to weigh the skills vs. being out of the job market, eating ramen into your late 20’s, etc.

Kuzy for the win: If you went to bed right after the 2015 World Series and only just woke up, what baseball thing/team/player would most surprise you?

Meg Rowley: The home runs would probably lead the way as a baseball thing.

Meg Rowley: Maybe Altuve’s jump, or someone like Gallo being a regular, though I suppose that one goes along with the home runs.

Meg Rowley: No wait, I got it. Jeter’s fall and A-Rod’s rise. Truly wild times we’re living in.

Ben: New to your chat, which is very enjoyable FYI, so I apologize if you’ve addressed this in the past, but A) are you a fantasy baseballer, and if not, do you dislike questions regarding it (obv not the ones like My Trout for his Harper crap)

Meg Rowley: I have very little wisdom to share, so I generally don’t answer them because I am worried I’ll give bad advice and make other humans sad.

Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe: You don’t think the coma since 2015 question would be THE CUBS WINNING THE WORLD SERIES?!

Meg Rowley: Real talk? I legitimately forget that happened sometimes. Like, I know it happened. That is a fact in my brain, and if someone asked, “Hey have the Cubs won a World Series?” I am confident my instinct would be to say yes, but it isn’t top of mind for me.

Meg Rowley: Bad sports event vs real world event timing, I guess.

stever20: re Coma 2015- what about the downfall of Matt Harvey?

Meg Rowley: Sadly, pitchers getting hurt and no longer being good is one of the most believable bits of baseball.

Meg Rowley: Alright, I have to get going.

Meg Rowley: I’m sorry for what I didn’t answer and for the technical difficulties in the middle there.

Meg Rowley: Thanks for hanging out. Until next week!