Travis Sawchik FanGraphs Chat

Travis Sawchik: Happy Monday, folks

Travis Sawchik: Let’s get started ….

Travis Sawchik: Oh, and this is a GoT-free zone

Hot Dogs are Sandwiches: Should the Jays buy, sell, or retool for ’18?

Travis Sawchik: We have the Jays with an 11 percent shot to reach the postseason http://www.fangraphs.com/coolstandings.aspx

Travis Sawchik: Not great

Travis Sawchik: And Blue Jays has BA’s 20th-ranked system entering the year http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/2017-organization-talent-ranking…

Travis Sawchik: It’s a tough division and it’s going to become more competitive, at least at the top

Travis Sawchik: I’d be selling

Justin: Would Cole get a similar return to what Quintana got for the Sox?

Travis Sawchik: Cole could command a solid price, I would think … but Quintana had more value

Travis Sawchik: Quintana has another year of control and he’s been a more consistent performer

Travis Sawchik: Quintana has 17.1 fWAR since 2013, Cole has produced 11.3

Matthew: Thoughts on Tyler Glasnow?

Travis Sawchik: I was present for Neal Huntington’s press briefing Sunday. The Pirates believe Glasnow has made real improvement in Triple-A

Travis Sawchik: Glasnow told reporters he is feeling his old self again, it might mean something or nothing … considerable upside and volatility remain

Matt: Who’s closing in WAS – Doo or Mad?

Travis Sawchik: My guess would be Doolittle

Travis Sawchik: Hey, Nats might have a bullpen now, right?

Jeb: What would Cutch fetch back in a trade? Two top 100 prospects?

Travis Sawchik: In a market weak for position players? I kind of doubt it. Quintana fetched two top 100 prospects (Granted, one was top 10)

Travis Sawchik: I think the Pirate would move Cutch at the right price, as they tried to do in the offseason, but if he’s really back he might have more value to the Pirates in 2018 than the return they would receive

Jack: What are the Pirates going to actually do at the Deadline?

Travis Sawchik: I don’t even think the Pirates know.

Neal Huntington: % chance I trade Cutch? % chance I trade Cole?

Travis Sawchik: 38%, 31%

Charlie: The Brewers messed up not trading for Quintana and watching him go to the Cubs right? A cost controlled lefty with 3.5 years remaining made so much sense, and the White Sox wanted outfielders. Brinson-Ortiz is as good as Jimenez-Cease right? Brewers could have just kicked in one more good prospect (Corey Ray) and easily beat that deal? Feels like they are gonna really regret this chance.

Travis Sawchik: The Brewers look like they should be buyers at the deadline, some type of buyer, but how much of tomorrow do they want to trade? They still have a relatively playoff odd of 30.2% according to our forecasts. They’ve been linked to Sonny Gray, too, so they might get an impact arm yet. You would think Hahn would have let the Brewers know that Quintana might end up on the north side of Chicago. Maybe that’s suggestive that the Brewers aren’t quite ready to go all-in

MB: Will Treinen end up being the best player traded yesterday?

Travis Sawchik: His sinker is filthy. Has a chance to be the best pitch that was traded

Matt: % chance your % guesses are arbitrary and made up?

Travis Sawchik: I would say they were more intuitive than scientific

Oscar Obannon: Hey Travis – meant to get this in last week. I think the “everything went right for the 2016 Cubs” is a little unfair. Yes, their rotation stayed healthy and their defense was historic. And those are huge! They also lost two of their most important relievers before the playoffs, got nothing offensively from their $184M signing, and lost a middle of the order hitter three days into the season. I suppose you can argue losing Schwarber helped in some ways, but that team definitely faced their share of adversity.

Travis Sawchik: That’s fair. A lot went right — most importantly Game 7 — but not everything.

Manny Machado: Am I going to be traded this month?  This winter?

Travis Sawchik: Orioles say they won’t … but Orioles are headed toward a significant rebuild, imo. He’s a piece that could jumpstart such a process (assuming there’s close to a zero chance he would return). No great answers or paths for the Orioles

Travis’ Friend: Worried about Judge yet? Also, why are projection systems always so slow to react to a player’s batting average? For example, high FB rate Lindor is probably a .275 hitter now, rather than a .290, and Judge is probably a .270 rather than a .259. Are projection systems too reliant on past track record than any changes a player might have made in their current profile?

Travis Sawchik: Hi, Friend

Travis Sawchik: I kind of doubt projection systems buy too much into a small sample of batted-ball profile systems … And the systems don’t know when players are making adjustments and conscious efforts to change. They are imperfect, but useful tools

Ray: Chances Donaldson gets traded to the Red Sox or Yankees? Both need 3B and have top prospects.

Travis Sawchik: The Cubs and White Sox showed us that it’s OK to trade within the city, maybe the AL East will show us it’s OK to trade within the division

Hunky Dory: Rank the best AL RP left on the trade market: JWilson, D-Rob, Brach/O’Day/Britton, other(s) I’m forgetting.

Travis Sawchik: Assuming Britton is OK, and  it looks like he’s OK, he’d be my No. 1. But Justin Wilson is legit. Tampa is interested in him, Rosenthal reports

Travis Sawchik: Wouldn’t this be something:

Travis Sawchik: Dodgers might never lose again

Taylor: Is the home run serge/juiced ball a bad thing?

Travis Sawchik: I think most fans like the home run, so the surge is probably good for the sport. And it goes beyond the ball, so MLB has limited control over it

Dan: Think Treinen takes over (or at least gets a decent shot) as A’s closer? Thanks!

Travis Sawchik: I’m not sure about his immediate role but I still believe

Travis Sawchik:

Travis Sawchik: I will never quit on that

John: If the Blue Jays were to sell, would there be a market for a 1B like Justin Smoak?

Travis Sawchik: There would likely be some sort of market, but again, it’s not a great market for position players

Mike: Please tell me cards are going to be sellers…

Travis Sawchik: When was the last time the Cards were sellers? Just the consideration is unusual

Travis Sawchik: NL Central is really weird …. I don’t think Cards or Pirates are ready to quit on playoff aspirations quite yet …but they also have some intriguing assets to move if they choose

DT: so strange to see Cubs fans still talking about how losing Schwarber was a huge loss last year.  Dude had a great stretch when called up in 15, but has been bad since then.  He’s not awful, but he’s also not Papi come back to MLB

Travis Sawchik: The Babe Ruth comp in scouting report didn’t help

Travis Sawchik: But, yeah, there

Travis Sawchik: was probably too much hype surrounding him

Travis Sawchik: Of course, I thought that was true of Gary Sanchez

Coner: Great expansion article. Of the cities not examined in-depth, which do you think has the best chance of seriously entering the conversation?

Travis Sawchik: Thanks! It’s a fun topic to explore. In case you missed it: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/rob-manfreds-three-expansion-cities/

Travis Sawchik: I think San Antonio and Austin have compelling cases

ManBearPuig: Is there such a thing as a ROOGY?

Travis Sawchik: Are there any?

Travis Sawchik: With SPs pitching fewer and fewer inning … it’s tough for bullpens to become even more specialized. I believe only 15 SPs reached 200 innings last year

Mean Tweeter: Could the Braves be a dark horse for a Machado or Donaldson type player? No real long term future at 3B, could move Freeman back to 1B. Have the prospects to make the move.

JP: what on earth should the braves do? they’re not a good team but are .500. they can’t be buyers, right? albies shouldn’t be dealt at all.

Travis Sawchik: I can’t see the Braves as buyers …. Maybe they could be a darkhorse in 2018-19 free agency, though?

Jaime: Who ya got: Britton/Jansen or Betances/Miller/Chapman

Travis Sawchik: I guess I like the 3 over 2

Travis Sawchik: But damn. I wonder if the Yankees will get the band back together again after 2018

A’s fan: How badly did we get fleeced by the Nats? Fine, so we were never going to get Robles. But would demanding Soto, Fedde or Kieboom have been unreasonable?

Travis Sawchik: I loved that trade for the Nats. (I didn’t like last year’s Melancon trade). I thought A’s could do better and perhaps should have waited

Jordan: If Treinen breaks out (quickly) in Oakland we have to start questioning the Pitching coaches and or bullpen coaches in WASH right?

Travis Sawchik: I don’t know. Some guys do respond differently to different staffs and environments.

Max: Will JD and JWil get traded in the next week

Travis Sawchik: I think both will be moved prior to the deadline. They are the Tigers’ most attractive assets

Hot Taek: have you ever seen a correlation between deep playoff runs and injuries or under-performance the following year?

Travis Sawchik: This has been studied … The thing is is that great seasons are often some level of outlier so they are tough to repeat

Kyle: Miggy has his highest LD percentage and Hard Hit percentage of his career and the average and counting power numbers are down. What gives?

Travis Sawchik: He had some terrible fortune early on on batted balls. he can still hit

Matt: What would a Cubs package for Sonny Gray look like? Probably not Happ, right?

Travis Sawchik: I’d want Happ if I’m the A’s … but there’s a way to a non-Happ-led package

Nate: What are your thoughts on in-division trades? There’s speculation the Royals are interested in J.D., which would be odd since there’s no chance they re-sign him while giving away top prospects.

Travis Sawchik: I’m fine with them so long as the teams are on different ends of the competitiveness spectrum

Chaps: re Expansion article: isn’t air pollution a significant problem for Mexico City? Would it be significant enough to deter an expansion?

Travis Sawchik: I have not considered that …. And I can’t answer it but it is an interesting consideration

Sean: Comparing Schwarber’s 2015 and his 2017 and he appears to be just missing some BABIP, plain and simple. Thoughts?

Travis Sawchik: I do think Schwarber will be fine eventually. I mean this is a young player who missed a full developmental year … and he’s not going to BABIP .203 ever again

Oddball Herrera: Why is New Orleans seldom mentioned as an expansion option?

Travis Sawchik: I know ballwriters would be all for it … but I have never heard it mentioned

Pie: Money heals all wounds, but it seems unlikely that Betances would return to the Yankees, right?

Travis Sawchik: Money heals all wounds

Dave: I have no idea if the Cubs could actually get Fulmer for Schwarber straight-up, but isn’t it time for Chicago to stop pretending that he isn’t a natural-born DH and trade him to an AL-team for, at the very least, a #2 or #3 starter?

Travis Sawchik: If you can get a controllable No. 2/3 starter for Schwarber I think the Cubs would be all over that

Nick: Can you explain why Kyle Schwarber strikes out so much? His contact rate (76%) and swinging strike rate (10.4%) are right around average.

Travis Sawchik: He’s in a lot of deep counts

Not a GoT reference: Teams like St Louis have rivals to the North, South, East, and West.

Travis Sawchik: Re:  realignment? If MLB were to pull off a radical realignment it would make sense to have StL paired with some more southern-based teams but I think the StL-Cubs rivalry would be protected

Travis Sawchik: (and western-based)

Hunky Dory: The top 5 SP in 2018 FA, preseason, were Darvish, Arrieta, Cueto, Tanaka, Pineda.  I would just like to say, lol.

Travis Sawchik: Yikes

Xolo: Speaking of expansion to Mexico City, wouldn’t distance be an issue? It’s three hours to Houston and that’d be their closest neighbor.

Travis Sawchik: It would be. I wonder if some scheduling creativity … longer road trips and home stands to reduce overall flight miles … could help

RK: For the past 2.5 months (since his monster game) Rendon has hit .352/.477/.723.  Where does he rank for MLB 3b in your mind?  Argument to be made it’s between him and Bryant for #1 isn’t there?

Travis Sawchik: It seems like he is under-appreciated … but let’s also not forget about the year Jose Ramirez is having

Gary: Is Cutch really too expensive to be a Pirate forever?

Travis Sawchik: I doubt the Pirate would pay for his mid 30s … and you wonder how interested Cutch would have in sticking around

Kyle: Mexico City Expansion. With the 7000+ ft elevation how big would that field have to be to keep it from being a homer dome?

Travis Sawchik: I kind of want to see an Uber Coors environment

Mean Tweeter: So Anthony Rendon…NL MVP??

Travis Sawchik: He deserves to be in the mix

JTT: Schwarber is older, worse,  and has less control than Fulmer. This trade rumor has literally never made sense

Travis Sawchik: Valid points … though I do think Schwarber is really going to hit and all pitchers are health risks

Taylor: What are the chances Tanaka opts out of his deal? He’s been pitching better lately, definitely enough to make more than 3 years $67 M he has left?

Travis Sawchik: 60/40 … He can do better on the  AAV, though I wonder on the years he’ll get

Nolan Arenado: Subject Re: Argument for top 3B

Nolan Arenado: Hello!

Travis Sawchik: Hi! You’re wonderful and fantastic but the fourth-best 3B in the game at the moment … and that’s in no way a slight

Rick: How many future hall of fame players are active in the MLB right now?

Travis Sawchik: Great question

Travis Sawchik: The counting number benchmarks will change …

Travis Sawchik: Kershaw, Beltre, Pujols, Trout, Harper seem like HoF talents for sure … be a fun list to come up with

Travis Sawchik: What would Scherzer have to do from here on out?

Travis Sawchik: Altuve?

Travis Sawchik: Sale?

Travis Sawchik: Sounds like a FanGraphs piece

Crazy Aunt Marie: Votto?

Travis Sawchik: For me he is

Travis Sawchik: He’s new-age HoF, for sure

Bernie Sanders: What’d you think of Game of Thrones last night?

Travis Sawchik: I haven’t watched since season 3

Sad Mr Met: Treinen is front of the A’s “defense” might be a horror show

Travis Sawchik: Thank goodness for fielding-independent measures

Bo: What is it about baseball that makes individual game results random relative to other sports? i.e. bad teams win ~30% of their games, which isn’t true of, say, soccer

Travis Sawchik: The best players touch/impact the ball less often

Travis Sawchik: The NBA/NFL equivalent to star usage would be akin to Mike Trout batting every inning

Dub: why are we still talking about Mexico City as an expansion city? Id put the chances of a franchise succeeding there at 0%. Would take a whole new CBA for the air quality/ quality of living and also the revenue sharing would be way off because they couldn’t charge same price as US for tickets,food, merchandise.

Travis Sawchik: North America’s largest city and it isn’t close, it would be massive market, a national team, and Mexico City proper is fairly rich city. Compares to US. And MLB should and will eventually expand to Latin America

Big Joey: expecting a big 2nd half from Dozier?

Travis Sawchik: Moderate buy low

mike sixel: All pitchers are risks, sure, but if you trade them all away for hitters (out of fear of injury), how do you ever get pitching? There is no reason for Detroit to trade a young, cost controlled, starting pitcher. Other than a ridiculous over pay, of course.

Travis Sawchik: It’s the old Pitch-22

Travis Sawchik: Investing in pitching is insane expect that you can’

Travis Sawchik: t win without it

Sean: Which is more embarrassing? An MLB front office never heard of FanGraph’s top 50 Trade Value series? Or an MLB front office has not only heard of it but uses it to supplement their decision making?

Travis Sawchik: The former and not close

Travis Sawchik: Dave has that down to something of a science

Travis Sawchik: And I suspect it closely mirrors many club’s internal evaluation

Travis Sawchik: I’d love to see a top 500 trade value list (Sorry, Dave)

Sterling Mallory Chris Archer: So Alex Wood….ummmm….what’s happening there?

Travis Sawchik: Crazy. I dropped him a dynasty league a few years ago. Whoops

Bernie Sanders: If you could have any job in the world, what would it be?

Travis Sawchik: They guy who realigns and expands baseball

Travis Sawchik: Baseball Czar

Ed: When looking at population bases for expansion cities, is MLB more concerned with TV numbers or attendance numbers? Charlotte’s population base for game attendance is actually closer to 1.5 million, but the TV market for the Carolinas (NC and SC) is probably top 10 nationally.

Travis Sawchik: Ideally you want both …. Charlotte could become the team of the Carolinas — eventually. Lot of Braves fandom in SE

Xolo: Could Mexico City play in a dome that balances out the elevation effect?

Travis Sawchik: Possible, yes?

Travis Sawchik: I think so

Luck Dragons: Do you agree with Justin Wilson’s ZiPS projections (4.01/1.27)? Why are they so high?

Travis Sawchik: I like Justin more. K rate is great

Bernie Sanders: How much money would it take for you to willingly give up the last 5 years of your life?

Travis Sawchik: What ages are we talking about?

Carter: I honestly think the Braves are going to be buyers. Not saying they should, but I have a feeling they call up Acuna before September, and are buyers. Why would they not be a darkhorse for Machado or Donaldson? They have the farm system, and should be competitive next few years.

Travis Sawchik: Braves should be more focused on 2018 and beyond, imo

Travis Sawchik: Not sure they have the horses to advance deep into postseason even if they snuck in

Sean: Your thoughts on Patrick Corbin? Over the past month he’s really had the peripherals clicking — #8 in the league in xFIP over the past 30 days.

Travis Sawchik: http://www.fangraphs.com/graphs.aspx?playerid=9323&legend=1&statArr=36…

Travis Sawchik: Good trend lines

Travis Sawchik: That music you hear marks the conclusion of today’s chat. Thanks for all the questions and for keeping this mostly GoT-free. If I didn’t answer your question today remind me that I ignored you next week when I return at same time/place. Be good, do good.