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Jeff Sullivan FanGraphs Chat -- 1/19/18
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Slurve
10:17
Will the recent influx of younger players into the Majors impact the salary structure in the future, with more valuable younger players coming into MLB or will the sheer number of veterans override big changes?
Jeff Sullivan
10:18
Eventually, unless old players stop declining so fast, baseball will have to deal with the fact that the valuable players are almost all wildly underpaid. Money will have to be shifted forward somehow. It's the only option
Matt
10:19
2 parter:
1) I think a larger part of this slow offseason than is being given credit is that teams are beginning to fear long contracts for non-super elite guys. Thoughts?
2) If this is the case, and the rest of the FA market this season ends up collectively with less years than expected, could this help to drive discussions about rethinking the arb system and how to better balance player control with a player getting paid during their productive years?
Jeff Sullivan
10:20
This will need to be the conversation. See, teams aren't acting sub-optimally right now. Makes all the sense in the world to try to wait the free agents out to reduce their demands, at least when they're non-elite. Teams know more than ever that building through free agency is a bad idea. And so the free-agent market will continue to get less and less money, relative to expectations
So given how many limitations there are on spending elsewhere, the excess money needs to find a way to get into the hands of pre-FA players
10:21
The players want to get paid what they're worth. By the time they're free agents, they're usually not worth it anymore. They should be paid something like what they deserve, when they deserve it
ATCQ
10:21
True or fale: the Pirates (at least in 2017) didn't fail b/c of cheap ownership, but b/c their Plan A guys at several positions failed and no team could reasonably have recovered from losing their 3B, LF, RF, SP1, etc.....
Jeff Sullivan
10:22
Fun fact: I ran that ownership poll in January 2016. At that time, the FanGraphs community ranked Pirates ownership at No. 11 https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/team-ownership-ratings-by-the-communit...
I expect them to end up somewhere in the bottom 5 this time around. What's changed? The team got worse. But even back then, it was clear ownership wouldn't spend as much as the fans would've liked
10:23
Ownership hasn't helped, not in showing a commitment to winning, but ultimately, yes, the biggest problem has been that the Pirates core eroded. Cole got worse, McCutchen got worse, Marte got worse, Kang disappeared, etc.
Long Live Jeff Frye
10:23
I struggled with your owner poll. I used to think highly of John Henry but lately I feel like he doesn't have the ideas I formerly attributed to him.
Jeff Sullivan
10:24
And I look forward to finding out whether the rest of the community shares your experience! If you haven't noticed, I *love* community polling projects
Mike Stanton
10:24
Who says no to a soto/taylor/robles for yelich/realmuto deal?
Jeff Sullivan
10:25
Marlins, but I think you at least have the beginning of something
Wouldn't be shocked if the Marlins want to keep Yelich and Realmuto separated, even if just for the illusion of getting a bigger total return
Uncle Muscles
10:26
What if everyone was Mike Trout?
Jeff Sullivan
10:26
The world would be horribly uniform, but the climate would recover within a couple centuries, after humans fail to procreate and die off
frennn
10:27
Neil Walker's numbers are better than I thought. The Yanks should be in on that, right?
Jeff Sullivan
10:27
Given how much they believe in both Torres and Andujar, Walker doesn't do much
Rick
10:28
Would Jarrod Dyson/Steven Duggar be enough to secure CF for the Giants? Or do you see them needing Cain to get to the playoffs?
Jeff Sullivan
10:28
They should get Dyson at the minimum, but, obviously, Cain is better, and would make them better. They should do it
Bebop
10:29
do you think the Cubs should prioritize signing Hendricks & Contreras to extensions?  i know the players have to be interested as well but those seem to be two players that are definite keepers based on position & skillset.
Jeff Sullivan
10:29
Not a whole lot of urgency with either and I can see how the Cubs might want to wait another year or so on Hendricks given how he lost so much more velocity. He's still effective today, but, for how much longer?
v2micca
10:30
Have Bellinger and Judge created unreasonable expectations for the 2018 rookie class?  I'll admit I've got stars in my eyes for Ronald Acuna and would have been dissapointed by anything less than 4.5 fWAR from him, before realizing how absurd an expectation that was.
Jeff Sullivan
10:31
Aaron Judge just led baseball in WAR
He had one of the all-time best rookie seasons
10:32
That's definitely going to warp some perceptions. Few rookies are ever Judge. Few, still, are Bellinger. Far more are DeJong or Mancini or whatever
That being said, it's impossible to look at Acuna's 2017 and not think he could be an immediate superstar
CamdenWarehouse
10:33
What are you going to miss most about working with Dave?
Jeff Sullivan
10:33
Reading his posts and chats
10:34
Or having him do literally all of the logistical planning for FanGraphs get-togethers
Guest
10:35
With the FA market as it is, do you think there's any of FG's top 50 FAs that will still be out of job on Opening Day?
Jeff Sullivan
10:35
Very hard to imagine
Ben
10:36
Do you know when the Twins projections/depth charts will be updated to include Zach Duke and Addison Reed?
Jeff Sullivan
10:37
Let me do that right now
Someone was being neglectful!
10:38
Okay, those changes should be reflected soon
Duke was actually already in there, but Reed was not
2-D
10:39
How much did Justin Upton gain or lose from signing so early?
Jeff Sullivan
10:39
I'm still inclined to think he got about what he was going to get, but it's hard not to think he might've been left a year short by now had he stuck around
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