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Kevin Goldstein FanGraphs Chat - 1/10/2022
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Kevin Goldstein
12:55
Eric and I both talked to people who had seen him, and it helped us feel better about him. It's all about getting dope from people who have better info than what you have. Heard a lot of good things.
Owners
12:55
If a soccer-team owning oil sheik or oligarch decided to buy a baseball team and spend whatever it took to dominate, how would other teams respond at the ownership and FO levels?
Kevin Goldstein
12:55
Fun quesiton. Cohen might be test case here....
Matt
12:56
How much would a starter be worth if he only had 10 games started, but threw a no-hitter every time?
Kevin Goldstein
12:56
Another fun question. Can I pick the ten games? Can someone calculate the way on these 90 innings?
Erik
12:56
I've always thought that Eye is a significantly more important tool than Arm. Would separating Eye from Hit (where I assume it's currently included) and lumping Arm in with Fielding leading to a more useful set of five tools, or is the standard setup best for reasons I don't understand?
Kevin Goldstein
12:57
The standard setting is what it is, but it's not like teams treat them equally. Teams understand what's important and what's not.
Tel
12:57
Hi Kevin, like me you probably got tired of the questions about teams circumventing the rules to contact free agents about contracts during the strike.  But a couple of weeks ago I read an article where the Yankees claimed to have no idea about the status of their rehabbing players.  Is there really no way for a team to find out how their injured players are doing?  I suppose HIPPAA might prevent them from asking the doctors directly, but it seems like a team would find a way to make sure an injured player has all the help he needs.
Kevin Goldstein
12:58
Yeah, it's actually a real point of frustration right now. Team employees can NOT contact players, so that means that a team's strength and conditioning folks, or rehab coordinator can't get in touch, and that's really crappy. The only kinda loophole is that most team doctor's are not team employees, they're contractors with a private practice, so they can (I'm pretty sure).
Clu Heywood
12:59
Do you know if teams do much game theory work when it comes to specific pitcher/batter matchups? Is there anything available publicly about it?
Kevin Goldstein
12:59
I've never seen anything public about it, but I do know of a few teams that definitely incorporate game theory into their advance stuff.
Martin
12:59
I get that clubhouses are probably more on the Schilling side of politics than I'm entirely comfortable with, but i'm curious what the front offices are like? A diverse collection of viewpoints? Or were you in the minority, as a person with a more progressive worldview, and politics just stayed out of the workplace? Was it uncomfortable for you, professionally, to skip a White House visit or not a big deal?
Kevin Goldstein
1:01
Front offices are pretty diverse, but much like the rest of the country, the higher up the chain tends to get more conservative, but it's hardly universal. It wasn't uncomfortable for me to pass on the White House invitation, and nothing was ever made of my decision to do so.
daro
1:01
So let's say that Dalbec improvements in the 2nd half are real. What will the Red Sox do with Casas? Try him in LF? Move Dalbec to LF? Or will they just platoon them?
Kevin Goldstein
1:02
When you talk about these "problems" that might happen, you don't put too much work into them until you really have that. So many things can happen between now and this being a "problem" and if you end up with too many good players, it's never really a problem.
NotAA
1:03
I know you’ve said before you don’t care if a guy goes to church or helps old ladys across the street but is that kind of thing any added bonus?
Kevin Goldstein
1:03
Not in my mind.
The Oberamtmann
1:04
I wish people would stop saying the vaccine doesn't affect infection rates. You are absolutely less likely to get omicron if you are vaccinated. It just doesn't seem that way because it is so virulent. The vaccination also vastly reduces the changes of significant illness. One would think sports front offices would be investing in saving their players' lungs.
Kevin Goldstein
1:04
What they said.
Phil
1:05
Do you have general thoughts about the trajectory of prospect buzz? It's always weird to me when a prospect seems to get "better" (in the collective mind of the internet) over the winter--is there genuine new information that emerges, or is this just a kind self-propelled buzz inertia? Thinking about Mayer somewhat, but also others from years past.
Kevin Goldstein
1:05
I think most buzz has some kind of real reason behind it, I guess I just wish people were more realistic about the wildly varying outcomes, even for the top prospects.
Steve
1:05
Curious if front offices use external web sources like Fangraphs to supplement their own research.  If they do, are there a couple that were the most widely used?
Kevin Goldstein
1:06
Absolutely they do. FanGraphs is very high on many FO reading lists.
Moog Powell
1:06
Al Avila has made some (from the outside) seemingly significant changes to the Detroit's front office in the past couple years. Between bringing in guys who had been working in FOs such as the Dodgers (i.e. Ryan Garko) and organizations like Driveline (a la Max Gordon), do you see this as something that can have a significant positive change for Detroit's minor league development or is this simply noise that will take a while if ever to have any impact?
Kevin Goldstein
1:07
I think the Detroit FO is quite good actually and seems to have a very different perspective from the outside as opposed to reality.
1:09
Really weird to see the one person coming at me hard in the chat also going off on pedophiles to go along with anti-vax rants. Or not . . .
matt
1:09
What are front office employees doing right now? Is there significantly less work due to the lockout? Are they just doing different things? Or is this always a slow period?
Kevin Goldstein
1:10
January is a slower than average month. Lots of teams doing draft prep/meetings, and I know of a few teams that have put a lot of effort into PD. There's always stuff team's feel behind on, and this is offering some time to catch up, honestly.
Lorenzo
1:11
Who is generally involved in deciding when a player gets promoted in the minors?
Kevin Goldstein
1:11
Player development leads the charge, but hopefully with input from scouts/coaches/analysts, the whole crew, really.
171
1:11
Any results aside, how do you think Elias and Sig have done turning the Orioles system around?
Kevin Goldstein
1:11
I think it's bee slow, but everything is trending right...
Martin
1:11
When you're traveling for work as a front office member, what's the quality of travel like? Nice hotels, business class flights, large expense accounts for meals?
Kevin Goldstein
1:13
Marriotts, fly coach, but I did it so much and had so much status that I got upgraded about 20-25 percent of the time. $55/day per diem, some teams are a little higher.
The real luxury is the charter flights.
Dave
1:15
Hey Kevin, greatly appreciate your chats.  Do you have any insight to how the ChiSox plan to use Crochet this season?  Thanks
Kevin Goldstein
1:15
I don't know anything you don't on this, but I'd use him as a bulk reliever.
Ok, entering the final stretch....
Phil
1:15
Do you find the tenor of the chats to be weirder and grouchier since the lockout started? I for one find myself with fewer questions given that there's no actual news coming from my preferred team.
Kevin Goldstein
1:17
Not really. I looked closer and the people coming at me are just one person (same IP address), and really they're the only grumpy one and clearly have all sorts of axes to grind, so happy I'm distracting them from something worse for 90 minutes. I keep getting lots of fun questions, so I'm going to keep doing them!
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