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Jeff Sullivan FanGraphs Chat -- 2/9/18
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Jeff Sullivan
9:05
Hello friends
Welcome to Friday baseball chat
Bork
9:05
Hello, friend!
Jeff Sullivan
9:05
Hello friend
Tim
9:05
Does Pecota have a glitch where it just automatically projects the Rays to make the playoffs every year?
Jeff Sullivan
9:06
Projection systems always tend to be based on something like BaseRuns. According to BaseRuns, the Rays are always at least okay!
Every single year, at least for me, I can look at the Rays and see how they could be a wild-card team. It...it hasn't happened for a little while now
9:07
Even now though, I look at them and see like ten major-league starting pitchers
Desperate, confused Marlins fan
9:07
so whats with these rumors of big FA's signing massive 1 year deals? tell me pros and cons please. Good afternoon btw Jeff
Jeff Sullivan
9:07
Cons: said free agents would always prefer more security and compensation
9:08
Pro: next winter there's going to be a lot more spending, guaranteed. Might as well try to get involved in that if you can't find what you want this time around
David lawrence
9:08
The person who leads the Cardinals and saves at the end of the season is:
Jeff Sullivan
9:08
uhhhhh
Leone?
9:09
I know they say they're starting with Gregerson and I don't see them caving for Holland. Pretty likely July trade coming here
Mavis
9:09
If you're the Padres, do you keep Franchy in AAA to work on his plate discipline or do you just hope he figures it out in the majors?
Jeff Sullivan
9:10
I think he can open in Triple-A as long as they're starting Pirela/Margot/Renfroe in the bigs. But it's also not impossible to find regular playing time among a four-man OF rotation, so even if Franchy does start in the PCL, he should be able to force his way up before long, especially if, say, Renfroe struggles
CamdenWarehouse
9:11
Chat withdraw...No non-prospect chatting since Monday.  Is someone going to take of the Thursday slot?
Jeff Sullivan
9:11
We'll be announcing new hires before too long
I imagine at least one of them will be a chatter
Jack
9:11
I’m not as ambitious as the guy you had on the podcast who’s doing 30 stadiums in 35 days or whatever it was, but I’ve decided I do want to try to get out to a couple of new ballparks every year. I live in Toronto, and prior to last year, the only ballparks I’d ever been to were Rogers Centre and Fenway Park. Last year, I got out to five new stadiums: Tropicana Field, Progressive Field, AT&T Park, Dodger Stadium and Angel Stadium (sucks that I didn’t knock off O.Co and Petco while I was in Cali, but the A’s and Padres were on the road while I was nearby). Thinking I’m gonna try to get to Comerica this year since it seems nice and Detroit’s fairly close. Any suggestions for another park I should try to get to this year?
Jeff Sullivan
9:12
That's entirely up to your time and travel budget, and of course a place like PNC would be more convenient for you, but I cannot recommend highly enough the experience of a Safeco matinee in summertime
or even a Safeco night game in the summer. Summers in the pacific northwest are amazing
Sayward
9:13
Free agency collusion

Isn’t the owner-player relationship the core issue of the FA controversy? The owners have repeatedly engaged in collusion (1985/86/88, 2002/03), not to mention the deplorable way players were treated before the rise of the MLBPA. The players seem justified to distrust ownership and scream loudly at any hint of bad behavior. As with any repeat offender the owners don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt—isn’t the burden on them to prove that that there isn’t collusion in the market this year?
Jeff Sullivan
9:13
How do you prove the absence of collusion?
And if you're already inclined to distrust the owners, how would you even accept their proof?
9:15
I've seen it suggested that some evidence of collusion is players getting virtually identical contract offers from different teams. That doesn't work for me. Of *course* the contract offers are similar. Teams currently value players almost identically
Even here on FanGraphs, we have a basic contract estimator. Teams all have something even better than that
Ross
9:15
What team are you the least excited about for this season? I don’t mean which team do you think is going to be the worst, I just mean like which team interests you the least right now?
Jeff Sullivan
9:16
Probably the Tigers
Let me do a quick check
Yep, it's the Tigers
9:17
Almost zero chance of making the playoffs, *and* they have little in the way of high-level youth that I care about
Doesn't mean they have none at all, but, geez, fingers crossed for Daniel Norris
Sir Nerdlington
9:18
Are we seeing a bending of the $/War curve this offseason?  The relationship no longer seems linear as top guys will still get paid, but middling FAs are taking less/fewer years than forecasted with many stuck with MiLB deals.
Jeff Sullivan
9:18
Relievers have done pretty well
When it's all said and done, timing aside, I don't think this market is going to look all that bizarre
E
9:19
At the beginning of the offseason I was more leaning on the side of the teams in terms of the slow offseason and that there just wasn’t a fit for a lot of these free agents. But after reading all the articles about the slow offseason, and Travis’s post about building a contender from remaining unsigned free agents, and now looking at the projected standings, it looks like there are 4 or 5 teams that COULD push themselves from mid 80s projection to upper 80s or low 90s. I don’t think it is outright collusion but I definitely think the players have more of a gripe now than I did in the beginning of the offseason.
Jeff Sullivan
9:19
The good free agents all have offers
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