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Jeff Sullivan FanGraphs Chat -- 2/2/18
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Jeff Sullivan
10:00
This isn't collusion. This is teams being smart enough to react to the circumstances. It's a huge, huge deal that certain big spenders are trying to stay under the tax. Now, whether they actually need to do that -- that could be argued. But that's the operating philosophy, and it's having an effect. And then you have potential big spenders at the other end, with bad present rosters. What's their incentive to, say, sign Jake Arrieta? What would he do for the Tigers?
10:01
Free agency has always been a bad investment, efficiency-wise. Money needs to find a way to get to players before they get to FA age. It's more urgent now than ever
And, of course, beneath all of this, money really needs to find a way to get to the minor leagues
Don't overlook that those are the players in the most financial peril
Scott
10:02
It just feels so greedy by the owners to refuse to spend money on free agents when revenues are at an all-time high. Are they really going to destroy the long-term health of the league to increase short-term profits?
Jeff Sullivan
10:02
Again, in fairness, offers are out there. Darvish could sign today for big money. So could Hosmer and Martinez
10:03
But there are certain owners who don't need to be as frugal as they are. Unfortunately, we can't talk about them with true specificity, since the books aren't open to the public
gump
10:03
What was your meeting in Seattle about? Was it another pitch talks/live event?
Jeff Sullivan
10:03
Just a planning meeting for this year's Women In Baseball event
Erik
10:04
How different is the Marlins' teardown this winter from the White Sox' moves last offseason? Should they really be received so differently? They each took a team with some good young players that could win about 81 games and decided to sell off nearly everything that moved.
Jeff Sullivan
10:05
Yeah, if you don't hold the current Marlins accountable for what they've been in the past, this is just a rebuild. Normal rebuild, shedding present value for long-term value. The White Sox are a good comparison, because both teams assembled stars with very little depth
10:06
It would've been way too horrible to talk about at the time, since it wasn't at all what was important, but the Marlins as a baseball franchise were very strongly affected by the death of Jose Fernandez. You can't just recover from that. Fernandez was one of the brightest talents in the world
It's too cold and impersonal for me to want to write about at length, but that weekend changed the very course of the Marlins' whole operation
Kris Shaw
10:08
re: prospect buys, how motivated do you think the Yankees are to clear Ellsbury's contract? Willing to include Adams + Sheffield?

relatedly, is a Pillar + Morales sufficiently valuable to get a team like CHW interested? (for PTBNL of course)
Jeff Sullivan
10:09
I think the biggest problem for the Yankees is Ellsbury's NTC. I've also heard that so far they haven't been so willing to include much young value to shed money. They know what it *should* take but they haven't offered it up
10:10
On the second one, that might actually do it. The White Sox could actually play Morales at DH, and they don't have a good CF solution at present. But they'd probably still ask for someone younger than Pillar
Kiermaier's Piercing Green Eyes
10:11
Have you ever done or thought about doing a rim-to-rim Grand Canyon hike?
Jeff Sullivan
10:11
We were just there last November and it sparked the notion. Will do something like that one day, but for now there's so much to explore that's even closer
Chris O'Day
10:11
Kyle Seager's average dropped below 250 last year. Do you see this being a constant going forward, or is he going to get back to the 270 range?
Jeff Sullivan
10:11
His career mark is .263
10:12
He's a slow fly-ball lefty who pulls his grounders. It's not going to be easy for him to lift his batting average very much if he keeps putting the ball in the air so often
10:13
He should still be something of a modest BABIP recovery
Heathcliff Slocumb
10:13
In which capacity is Chad Green most valuable to the Yankees: as a starter, in a multi-inning relief role, or as trade bait?
Jeff Sullivan
10:13
The second one. Don't change a thing
Kimball
10:14
Writers are moving away from "good" and "bad" contract terminology, but "team-friendly" seems like it basically represents the dichotomy to most fans. Modest proposal: "owner-friendly." Whaddya think?
Jeff Sullivan
10:14
I think team-friendly is more useful and explanatory
Forrest
10:15
Do you think teams (Red Sox) will be weary of J.D. Martinez's age and being a power hitter, his declining bat speed? Do you think he will get what he commands?
Jeff Sullivan
10:15
Well by definition he will get what he commands
Teams are obviously wary of Martinez's age, but he's going to get a nine-figure guarantee. It won't be much longer
Dustin
10:15
The league actually folded and they just haven't figured out how to break it to us, right?
Jeff Sullivan
10:15
It's going to come back in a few years as the XLB
botchatheny
10:16
would ray lankford be a god in todays game?
Jeff Sullivan
10:16
Younger than Rafael Palmeiro!
Erik
10:16
The players should negotiate a locked-in percentage of revenue, and if salaries fall below that number, the league should have to pay out the rest of that amount split equally between all players. Basically a league-wide salary floor. Would something like that work?
Jeff Sullivan
10:17
I don't know all the details of this, but there's a challenging conversation to have about what should and shouldn't count toward league revenue. If you consider, for example, the value of MLBAM, to what degree should the players be entitled to that?
This is not my area of expertise. It's far from simple
Kev
10:18
Kiley wrote about the Pirates possibly valuing quantity over quality when trading for prospects, in order to help keep payroll down. Is this a strategy that other low payroll teams, like the A's, should be considering?
Jeff Sullivan
10:18
Many of them are already there
It's why the lower-payroll teams often have trouble developing stars
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