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Jeff Sullivan FanGraphs Chat -- 8/24/18
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Jeff Sullivan
11:03
Either would work, obviously, but Machado could give them coverage at both SS and 3B, depending on how they feel about Franco's present and future
Guest
11:03
It feels like position players are punished for winning the mvp constantly - voters want new faces. But it almost feels the opposite with Cy Young awards, where story lines seem to encourage a streak like Johnson’s four in a row.
Jeff Sullivan
11:03
Miguel Cabrera won two MVPs in a row
Mike Trout won two in three years
11:04
I don't think there's anything to read into here
Cartulo
11:04
Jeff, I don't want you to bad mouth anybody but I don't know if you saw Craig Calcaterra's twitter feud with Rays fans. In short, Craig got really mad online about Rays twitter trying to dunk on him for calling the team a disgrace during the offseason
Jeff Sullivan
11:05
Lots of people called the Rays a disgrace last offseason
It never looks good for any team to routinely show up at the bottom of payroll leaderboards
But lots of people also don't have a good understanding of how baseball teams operate
Mac
11:07
What prevents a team in the playoffs from announcing to the public that they will start a certain lhp for a game before giving the umpire a lineup with a rhp instead to screw up the other team’s platoons? Not sure the logistics of where this secret starter would warm up, but is there a rule against it?
Jeff Sullivan
11:07
I could be wrong, but I don't think anything counts or matters before an official lineup card is provided
11:08
But for one thing, yeah, there's the warm-up part. For another thing, there's the part where you're just inviting that to be done to you. And for a third thing, teams these days hardly have platoons anyway, since all the extra roster spots seem to go to relievers
It's not unlike asking for a pine-tar check. You might get the leg up at first, sure, but then it's just going to happen right back out of revenge
Fahad
11:10
Hello, care to comment on Justin Upton’s curious lack of doubles this year?  He had 44 last year and averaged 33 the last 4 seasons but only 16 this year to date.  Are we witnessing the beginning of his power decline?
Jeff Sullivan
11:10
This year Upton actually has his highest single-event exit velocity of the Statcast era
(114.9 miles per hour)
Everything basically seems to be normal. I think it's just noise
Fill in the Kyle Blanks
11:12
A’s FO can’t be happy about Canha getting the short end of the Martini-Laureano-Canha triumvirate, right?
Jeff Sullivan
11:12
Laureano is presumably a better defender in the outfield than Canha is, and Martini is left-handed. Canha will play more if/when Laureano's hitting slows down
Mike
11:13
True or false--The Astros win the AL West by 3 or more games.
Jeff Sullivan
11:13
True
All right, I need to get rolling. Post-chat podcast this time
So thank you everybody for hanging out, and I'm sorry for what I didn't or couldn't address. We'll do it again next week at the same time, and until then, be well and have great days
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