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Jeff Sullivan FanGraphs Chat -- 1/8/16
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The Cincinnati Kid
9:42
Do you know of a location for projections on QS or am I missing it on the site?
Jeff Sullivan
9:43
Nobody projects quality starts. Nobody cares about projecting quality starts
If you really want to know that bad, you could just calculate some correlations between general performance and quality starts, historically
Guest
9:44
Do you think there could be a market inefficiency to be exploited if teams limited their front office hours to 40/week? Study after study, decade after decade shows employees are more productive, less burned out, etc etc when they are around 40 a week. Could that be true of baseball orgs?
Jeff Sullivan
9:44
I think it's just unrealistic. That'd be far better for work/life balance, without doubt, but other teams aren't ever going to operate like that, and since teams are constantly in communication with other teams, you'd have to tell employees to ignore messages from other teams until 9-5 hours. Other teams wouldn't respond well to that, and then your team would be kind of left behind
Joe
9:45
Braves sign Upton to backloaded deal. They have all the pitching prospects, but no offense, and next year's FA class isn't very good. If they truly want to compete in 2017, why not get offense now while there is a surplus on the FA market?
Jeff Sullivan
9:46
It's not a terrible idea, but I'm not at all convinced the Braves would want Upton back, or that Upton would want to go back
Clark
9:47
If Roberto Alomar, Craig Biggio and Ryne Sandberg are Hall of Famers then Jeff Kent should be a Hall of Famer, or no?
Jeff Sullivan
9:47
Kent was probably the worst of all of them
So, no, it doesn't follow easily
Dweep
9:48
Do you think the Rockies are in for a massive season with lots of great victories, and an affable manger who tells it like it is. I saw Dante's Peak yesterdat, and scoffed at it.
Jeff Sullivan
9:48
<3
Mets Fan
9:48
Hi Jeff. With Denard Span getting scooped up by the Giants, the Mets don't have too many CF options in the FA market. I was hoping they'd sign Fowler...how likely is this now?
Jeff Sullivan
9:48
They seem to have their outfielders already. Always some chance they surprise, but I don't think they're ready to quit on Lagares. 2%
The Real Chris Davis
9:50
2013, 2014 or 2015? Which Crush shows up in 2016? How much does it depend on the park and lineup he lands in--quite a bit, or not at all?
Jeff Sullivan
9:50
I mean, he'll hit homers in any park. But I have to think he's had his best season, and probably his best two seasons. I think next year he's an above-average player, and then at some point along the line people start talking more about Richie Sexson
9:51
My sense is the Orioles are bidding against nobody. I think Davis stays in Baltimore, where Angelos loves him
Clark
9:51
If Rollie Fingers, Goose Gossage and Bruce Sutter are Hall of Famers than Lee Smith should be a Hall of Famer, or no?
Jeff Sullivan
9:51
This is the problem with precedents
natsfan
9:51
The Nationals have historically come out of nowhere to sign guys, most notably signing Werth and Scherzer, but also trading for Gio. Who do you see as their next surprise get?
Jeff Sullivan
9:52
As Rosenthal wrote about earlier, it wouldn't be a shock if they negotiated with Boras for Chen
that's going to depend on the market for Gio
Going the Distance
9:53
Hi Jeff. Can you explain a little bit about the difference between the HR/FB distance as recorded on the leader board at Baseball Heat Maps, and the "True Distance" I saw a fantasy writer on another site refer to? It was specifically in regards to Joc Pederson, and how his "true distance" on home runs was best in the league, better even than Stanton. What does that mean? Is it reason for optimism with regards to this season's Joc looking more like last year's first half than last year's second half?
Jeff Sullivan
9:53
I believe the Baseball Heat Maps distance data is inferred from Gameday, while True Distance comes from the ESPN Home Run Tracker http://hittrackeronline.com/golden_sledgehammer.php
There's never been any question that Pederson has power. I think the better measure of raw power is an estimate of *max* distance, where Stanton really shines. We know Pederson can hit the ball hard. We don't know if Pederson can consistently hit the ball
BT-in-VT
9:54
Matt Cain says he is healthy, has reviewed film/corrected mistakes, and is ready for bounce-back season. What say you?
Jeff Sullivan
9:54
Sounds like we're ready for spring training!
9:55
The stuff that made him successful is basically still there, but elite-level Cain was elite by a slim margin. He had to be super precise, and that precision doesn't last forever. The home runs have started to come. The suppression days are probably finished
ArunK
9:56
Hey Jeff, what do you think about Span to Giants? Should be an upgrade on Pagan in centre, assuming Pagan moves to left anyway, but comes with the same injury risk perhaps. Cheap contract though?
Jeff Sullivan
9:56
Wrote about this for Fox. I'm probably guilty of under-playing the injury risk, but the more I think about this, the more I really like it
Span is such a good fit for the ballpark
Guest
9:56
As stat-inclined people, are we conflating the hall of fame with the hall of value? We spend so much time parsing e.g. whether Trevor Hoffman had as much value as Jim Edmonds or whatever, but maybe we're just missing that he was more of a "thing," nebulous and squishy but human, than Edmonds was. Our stat leaderboards aren't going anywhere, but the hall is one of fame, not of stat leadership.
Jeff Sullivan
9:57
I absolutely agree with you, that there should be more that goes into this than just statistics. Like, Barry Bonds more than doubled Griffey's career WAR, or something, and now that I think about it this was a bad example because Bonds belongs in the Hall, too. But there's no questioning that Griffey was a 90s icon, and he's a massive part of the story of the past few generations of the game
9:58
That counts. Perception counts, reputation counts. That comes out of the "fame" part. Now, a problem is this is in part dependent on media coverage, and then that slights underrated players, which is unfortunate because what really OUGHT to matter is performance over everything else. So we're left making statistical cases
9:59
There's no clean answer. We'll see this pretty soon when Adrian Beltre retires and will statistically qualify as a Hall of Famer. Was he ever really "famous" enough? I'd like to think so, because I love him, but how much is Beltre really a big part of the MLB story of the 2000s?
This is why there are arguments. I don't have the answer for you. I'll keep trying. I'm only 10 years away from having a vote!
10:00
Maybe in 10 years I'll be smarter.
Jenkins
10:00
Gordon at 4 for $72 million is grand-theft larceny, right?
Jeff Sullivan
10:00
It seems like a good deal for Kansas City. It's not like he deserved a Heyward contract or anything, but for the team it's more good than bad
Tom
10:01
With the outfield market beginning to take shape, where do you see Upton and Cespedes landing?
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