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Jeff Sullivan FanGraphs Chat -- 4/20/18
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Bored Employee
10:20
Do you think Brandon Nimmo has a chance to replace Adrian Gonzalez, or will the politics/finances keep him on the bench till an injury strikes. My friend suggested he just learn how to catch.
Jeff Sullivan
10:21
Waiting for injury or under-performance. One of those is likely to happen
APODionysus
10:21
Mookie Betts. How do?
Jeff Sullivan
10:21
Good?
Lunar verLander
10:21
Where do you get the quotes you use for your Twitter posts about these chats?
Jeff Sullivan
10:22
Some terrible random quote generator I found a year or two ago that ranges from Socrates to Margaret Cho
Mario Mendoza
10:22
Is Domingo Santana playing himself out of the picture in MIL?
Jeff Sullivan
10:23
Not quite yet. But it always seemed like the Brewers might have to trade an outfielder, and more and more, Santana could be becoming that guy
Uriah
10:24
Should the A's be worried about Matt Olson? His contact% has cratered and may only be masked by his sky high BABIP
Jeff Sullivan
10:24
Matt Chapman has dropped his strikeout rate by ten points. Matt Olson has raised his strikeout rate by eleven points. Do your evaluations change, or do you figure, well, this is variance?
10:26
Maybe soon it could be worth a deeper dive to see if something is up, but Olson is still showing his same strength and plate discipline. He's been swinging and missing far too much, but I'm not so worried quite yet
mike
10:27
should Blue Jays be concerned about Sanchez velocity drop this year?  Using change and sinker more i guess... Also what about Stroman's control? Small sample i know but are scouts saying anything about the two ??
Jeff Sullivan
10:28
For Sanchez, it's not really this year. In the first two starts, his velocity was fine. In the last two starts, he's down two ticks. Maybe there's an explanation out there I'm unaware of, but that's a red flag
10:29
Now, he did top out at 96 yesterday, so that's encouraging. I still don't love seeing him sit at 92 when he's always been better than that
10:32
Stroman, I think, will work it out. His zone rate hasn't collapsed. Hitters have just taken more pitches than ever. That won't keep up as his repertoire rounds into form
Moltar
10:32
So notwithstanding the drama surrounding such a decision, would Matt Harvey be effective as a reliever? Would his stuff play up enough?
Jeff Sullivan
10:32
I don't think we know quite enough to say. It's been hard to predict who'll thrive and who'll struggle
10:33
I do think it's an intriguing idea, but it's the opposite of what Harvey would want to hear in his contract season. He'd be furious
Which, as the team -- well, I wouldn't care
Colin
10:33
What does the real Dansby Swanson look like?
Jeff Sullivan
10:34
6'0 or 6'1, pushing 200 pounds, fair skin with some observable tan lines
10:36
Swanson never had particularly bad bat control. I think there were times he wound up too patient
10:37
He's not close to being 164 wRC+ good, but I think he badly needed a start like this in order to put 2017 fully and firmly behind him. Swanson should be an average or above-average everyday player. The Braves have recently been reminded of that
Definitely NOT the FBI
10:37
So where were you Thursday?
Jeff Sullivan
10:38
Mount St. Helens. Climbing it in snow is my yearly tradition
Bork
10:38
Have the Blue Jays found a fountain of youth and dipped Granderson, Axford, and Clippard in it?
Jeff Sullivan
10:38
Unfortunately they removed Marcus Stroman from it to make room
10:39
I don't think Axford is actually that useful and Clippard will typically post decent peripherals in between stretches of giving up too many homers
But after an offseason like this one, it would be funny to see a bunch of teams benefit from relievers who were given minor-league contracts
Big Sexy
10:40
Have you seen yet who will replace Taijuan Walker in Arizona's rotation?
Jeff Sullivan
10:40
It's probably Braden Shipley. They don't have many options. There's Shipley, Kris Medlen, and Matt Koch, with Shelby Miller on the return path
john
10:41
Hello, friend!  Thank you so much for chatting.  Have you written about the effect of lineup protection and/or could you recommend any articles about it?  I’ve heard from analytic people that it is basically a myth that someone will hit better with better hitters behind him, which seems so counter-intuitive but not something I want to dismiss without reading the available information
Jeff Sullivan
Marky Mark
12:06
What is the logic behind lineup protection not existing? I know the numbers don't bear it out but how does the logic work?
Dave Cameron
12:07
The theory is that hitters perform better because pitchers are scared of pitching to the guy on deck with a runner on base. But if hitters actually performed better, than pitchers would be pitching to the on-deck batter with a man on *more often*.
So pitchers aren't going to pitch in a way that creates the result they are trying to avoid.
10:42
I know that's just a chat excerpt, and not actual research, but I don't keep a bunch of research articles neatly labeled and bookmarked
Bort
10:42
Can the Bryan Mitchell experiment still be salvaged?
Jeff Sullivan
10:42
As a starter, it's unlikely
Hampton
10:42
What is wrong with the Cincinnati Reds? How can they turn this season around? Any suggestions?
Jeff Sullivan
10:43
They need Suarez and Votto healthy and hitting, and they need Lorenzen and Hernandez off the DL so they can see Amir Garrett start
10:44
Castillo and Mahle, I like enough. They need more
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