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Meg Rowley FanGraphs Chat - 2/3/2021
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Danny Almonte’s fastball
4:39
Out of these 2 things that we can’t really quantify, which do you think has a larger impact on performance in the game of baseball, weather or sleep patterns? What do you think has the biggest impact that we can’t quantify?
Meg Rowley
4:39
whoops, hit add too quickly
for the first thing, I'd ask again that you ask our fantasy writers, since they are very good at fantasy baseball and I am decidedly not
4:41
For the second thing, for any individual game, I'd say weather, but over the course of a season, I'd say sleep assuming it is a more persistent issue.
4:42
There have been a number of guys (I believe Josh James, Jed Lowrie) who have had sleep disorders addressed and seen real upticks in their performance. Turns out being able to sleep is really important!
sam
4:43
I still can't get over how every single team passed on the chance to claim Brad Hand for less than the contract he signed
Meg Rowley
4:47
I think on the one hand (I swear I'm not doing this on purpose), there are some concerning trends in his FB velo numbers, though he did see it start to reverse itself as last season progressed. But yeah, it just doesn't seem like enough of a problem, or significant enough of a contract for it to have been a problem.
4:55
(apologies, there is loud landscaping going on at my neighbor's house and I had to close the windows)
Mike
4:55
Hi, thanks for doing this chat. I’d like to ask why you found Kevin Goldstein’s defense, as outlined in his first article, that even though he suggested an elaborate camera system when he was with the Astros that he was unaware that an elaborate camera system was being used by the Astros to cheat, to be credible, especially given that his defense fits well into the pattern of Astros front office folks all completely shirking responsibility? Really trying not to be rude, but this hiring has me considering cancelling my subscription.
Meg Rowley
4:55
I appreciate your question, and would simply share that we did a lot of background work before we made the decision to bring Kevin on, talking to him as well as folks on both the team and media side. David and I felt that our readers would find his experience and perspective interesting. I hope that helps, and that you’ll continue reading and supporting the site, and thank you for having done so before now.
Xuan
4:56
Who are your favorite players to watch?
Meg Rowley
4:59
Tatis is the easy answer, but hey, sometimes stuff can just be obvious. Ditto I guess on Trout. Betts is spectacular. Darvish's repertoire is just incredible. I continue to love watching Greinke; Kyle Hendricks remains a fascination given the persistent gap between how he projects and how he performs.
That's an odd collection and one that often shifts
5:00
We are wildly luckily. The talent level in the game is really great.
Rivervillian
5:00
Who are you picking first in the draft of "best shape of their life" before spring training starts?
Meg Rowley
5:01
Am I allowed to offer an earnest answer here? I'm going to give an earnest answer. Vlad Jr looked really good in LIDOM!
The Ghost of Wade Boggs
5:02
Has there been any more update on when the MiLB schedule will be released? Last I heard was that they were going to push it back a month or two
Meg Rowley
5:03
(also read and follow James, he's great)
Rivervillian
5:03
When the Jays move back to Toronto, what are the odds on Buffalo getting a major league team with all the stadium upgrades they've got?
Meg Rowley
5:05
Sadly not very good, which given how Bills fans love a team is a shame, but I think other, larger markets further from the Blue Jays, Yankees and Mets collective shadow are more likely.
Rob K
5:05
I'm sorry, but I don't know where else to ask this: are the mugs in your merch store dishwasher safe? I have limited open shelf space and no free time.
Meg Rowley
5:06
Per one David Appelman, CEO of FanGraphs: "To ensure a long lasting design, we recommend hand wash only" but that's crap, the mug itself is definitely dishwasher safe and I have been washing mine in the dishwasher and it seems fine.
5:07
Now in the interest of full disclosure, David also shared that he also washes all sorts of non dishwasher safe stuff, like vacuum sealed mugs. So calibrate your risk tolerance accordingly.
Ken
5:08
The commish asks you to make one rule change starting tomorrow, what do you do?
Meg Rowley
5:09
I hope this isn't a cheap answer, but universal DH. The more specific answer is, I don't think hitters should be safe at first if they reach after a catcher fails to wrangle a dropped third strike. Don't trust it.
Steve
5:10
Can you offer any advice to those that would like to apply to the FG part time contributor position?
Meg Rowley
5:12
Make sure that you include writing samples, but don't worry if not all of them are baseball clips. We want to get a sense of your handle on analytics, but we also want a sense of you as a writer and realize non-baseball pieces might best express that.
5:14
Oh also, pay attention to the subject line when you email. We'll still look at all of them, but we're getting enough applications that saves meaningful time in distinguishing the Roto applications from the FanGraphs ones.
Jeff
5:14
Where would pro sports be today if we didn't know payroll and salaries?
Meg Rowley
5:15
I was going to type out a whole answer, but then I remembered that Patrick Dubuque wrote a really interesting piece at Baseball Prospectus on this question! https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/46244/cold-takes-what-...
See! You! Later!
5:16
Would it be possible to get some sort of toggle on the leaderboards to include postseason stats? It would be really helpful, at least for me.
Meg Rowley
5:16
I'll ask Sean! Probably not right away but good question.
Danny Almonte’s fastball
5:17
Would you ban the shift if it were up to you, but no one knew it was up to you so you wouldn’t get irrational death threats?
Meg Rowley
5:18
No. I think there's a lot of evidence the shift isn't deployed optimally right now, so I expect this is a problem that will take care of itself as teams course correct. I'm also not a fan of strategy-based rules like that - I want teams to think up new stuff and see if it works.
Guest
5:21
Why do you have to think of trading Lindor or Mookie or whomever as a negative? It's a negative for one fan base and a positive for another. As a neutral party, why do you have to come at it with a negative attitude?
Meg Rowley
5:24
I think part of what we do here is to highlight league-wide trends and what they mean about the health of the game. With that understanding of what we're trying to do here, it's hard to look at a team trading a player like Betts or Lindor as a positive. A lot goes into free agent decisions, and I'm not indifferent to the fact that front offices have a budget given to them by ownership, but I think we have to engage with what it means for baseball when these big moves happen.
Dodger Fan
5:25
The Cards just spent a ton of money!
Meg Rowley
5:25
Yes, I should say, they took on a fair amount of payroll here. They just took on so much less payroll than they should have had to given that it's Nolan Arenado!
Milk Bag
5:25
Do you think you would attend a game this year if you didn't have the option to do so as a member of the press? Asking for a friend. The friend is me. I really miss live baseball.
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