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Jeff Sullivan FanGraphs Chat -- 10/6/17
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Jeff Sullivan
10:03
Correa
Jaack
10:04
You are turned into an all powerful genie, except you can only grant baseball related wishes. An MLB GM finds the lamp you live in, rubs it, and thus gets three wishes. His first wish is to make the playoffs with a replacement level team, which you grant. Now that he's in the playoffs, he asks you for the best possible playoff pitching staff, composed entirely of players currently in MLB. What 12 (he insists on 12) do you pick to give him the best chance to win the world series?
Jeff Sullivan
10:04
This would look more or less indistinguishable from picking baseball's top 12 pitchers
10:05
Or, baseball's top four starters and top eight relievers
Rotation would look something like Kershaw/Scherzer/Kluber/Sale
10:06
And then the bullpen begins with Chad Green and Andrew Miller and goes from there, predictably
Jack
10:07
Right now, are there any teams that them making the playoffs next year is harder to believe than the Twins making the playoffs this year would've been at this time last year?
Jeff Sullivan
10:07
Probably the Tigers and the Padres
At least with the Twins you could point to a small number of young potential stars
sad yanks fan
10:07
can i skip school for a month if the yanks beat kluber tonight
Jeff Sullivan
10:07
No. More school. Twice as much school
Scherzer? I hardly know her
10:08
Is there a threesome of players 25 or under you would take over Bryant, Contreras, and Russell?
Jeff Sullivan
10:08
Bryant is almost 26!
10:09
But if that's how we're doing things, I'd take Judge/Sanchez/Severino
10:10
Maybe Seager/Bellinger/field
LegallyEagle
10:12
Is this CLE pitching staff really better than the 4 aces that PHI had during their run?
Jeff Sullivan
10:14
2011 Phillies SP: 74 ERA-, 76 FIP-
2017 Indians SP: 79 ERA-, 77 FIP-
2011 Phillies RP: 90 ERA-, 100 FIP-
2017 Indians RP: 64 ERA-, 73 FIP-
10:15
A pitching staff is not just its aces. It's the entire unit. The 2011 Phillies might've had the best rotation in modern history. The bullpen was nothing special, and the bullpen matters
It's an easy point to miss, but an important point to make. What makes the Indians special is that they just don't have a weak link. They're great everywhere
Ross
10:16
When Adeiny Hechavarria was traded to the Rays, you wrote about how he was interesting. So are you intrigued at all by the way he hit over the last 6-7 weeks or so of the season?
Jeff Sullivan
10:16
Might've saved his own job
Tim
10:17
What should the Rays do with Matt Duffy next year, assuming he's finally ready to play? Platoon him at second with Miller? Also, what the hell happened to Brad Miller this year?
Jeff Sullivan
10:17
Can't guarantee Duffy much of anything. Platooning with Miller sounds about right from the get-go
Drew
10:17
Does wRC+ use specific park adjustments for each at bat or is it a proportioned aggregate of at bats throughout the year?
Jeff Sullivan
10:18
I assume the latter
Jaack
10:19
Do you think we'll see another hitter in the Ichiro/Boggs/Carew type that are ridiculously good hitter with limited power?
Jeff Sullivan
10:20
You could argue someone like Altuve already is that kind of hitter. It's just that homers are easier to come by now
10:21
I do think baseball, being cyclical and everything, will reach another contact-hitting fad. When strikeouts get so extreme, players might opt to go all Votto and choke up for the sake of slapping line drives
Matt
10:21
The strike zone was terrible. Yankee pitchers clearly got less than Cleveland did off the plate http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/zoneTrack.php?month=10&day=5&year=...
Jeff Sullivan
10:21
That doesn't look terrible to me
JTT
10:22
Does Travis hate the wildcard games more or less than John Smoltz hates modern reliever usage?
Jeff Sullivan
10:22
I don't think Travis hates the wild-card games. If anything, he wants to see more of them!
Sad Accountant
10:23
Which happens first, Mariners post-season appearance or a Yankees losing season?
Jeff Sullivan
10:23
Mariners postseason!
10:24
The Yankees should, in theory, never lose
(more than they win)
HappyFunBall
10:24
So do you think the NYYs could go with a RP rotation strategy then?  Roll out the WC plan every other game, and hope to get a regular SP win out of at least one of games 1,3,5 ?
Jeff Sullivan
10:24
Just to be clear, the wild-card game didn't go in according to the Yankees' strategy. They started Severino and expected him to last a few innings. He did not
10:25
I don't think the Yankees should be regularly bullpenning. They just have the luxury of not needing their starters to go many innings
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