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Meg Rowley FanGraphs Chat - 4/5/18
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Meg Rowley
2:00
Hello, and welcome to the chat!
2:01
As those of you who read Eric's Tuesday chat may have noticed, we are going to be swapping days starting next week to make sure the prospect chats are broken up by non-prospect chats.
Though you should all feel ok asking Eric and Kiley non-prospect questions. They know a lot about this baseball thing.
Nostradamaso Marte
2:01
How's your Ichiro reunion feeling?
Meg Rowley
2:02
That home run rob may have justified the whole deal, honestly. And then he followed it up with an infield single!
Such Ichiro! I still think that signing is going to end uncomfortably, but it has been ok so far.
Bryan Daniel Carter
2:02
Do they Astros ever drop to .500 again this regular season?
Meg Rowley
2:03
No, no I don't. They are just really very good at a bunch of stuff.
Relsh
2:03
I don’t think I’ve ever seen an organization alienate its core customers like MLB did with yesterday’s Facebook stream. Is there any hope on this cruel world for them to change direction on this?
Meg Rowley
2:04
I think they are locked in to doing it, so no, I don't think they change direction completely. I do think the broadcast itself could get better, though.
2:05
And probably pretty easily. Not having a score bug on the right side that can literally obscure players in the field? That seems like it would be easy to take care of.
Turkey Sandwich
2:05
I've had a torn rotator cuff for a few months. I'm almost embarrassed to say that when the doctor suggested a PRP injection, my first reaction wasn't, "Oh crap," --- it was, "Cool! Tanaka had that!"
Meg Rowley
2:06
We relate to things we like in weird ways! And you don't even have millions hanging in the balance if it shouldn't take, though we of course hope it will.
2-D
2:06
Any significant takeaways from Matt Harvey's first start?
Meg Rowley
2:07
This is going to sound like damning with the very faintest of praise but he looked like a major league starter?
2:08
Now what with the averaging 92 on the fastball and a crummy looking slider, the sort of slider is a 4 or a 5 but hey, that's a starter and we weren't sure that was going to be true there for a while.
Omega Red
2:08
Meg Rowley
2:09
Rodney is the best player to enjoy when not having to worry about results in all of baseball. All of it!
Mike
2:09
Mitch Haniger!
Meg Rowley
2:09
Mitch Haniger! When he was healthy last year, he was pretty good!
2:10
He isn't, you know, 332 wRC+ with a 20% walk rate and just a 10% K rate good, but he's good!
Ethan
2:11
Thoughts on Tyler Mahle? Consensus seems to be mid rotation guy, but I think he’s a too of rotation guy. Dominated pretty much every level he’s been at, up to 97, 2 above average secondaries.
Meg Rowley
2:13
He sure looked good in that one start, or at least, the parts of it I saw. I think the concern comes from the stuff not being especially overwhelming, and the secondaries being closer to slightly above average than near-great.
Ethan
2:13
With the season starting earlier than ever, why would the mlb schedule so many opening series to be played in cold weather cities? TB at NYY for example
Meg Rowley
2:13
Everyone wants home games in the summer.
2:14
There are enough warm weather/dome ballparks that if they really wanted to, they could avoid most of the cold but even if the weather is good, games are a greater draw when school is out.
So it isn't as simple as letting the weather dictate the schedule.
Monroe
2:16
If the Ms didn't sign Felix to a five year extension for 135 million, would their outlook for 2018 be any different?
Meg Rowley
2:17
They might think of themselves as having more money at their disposal but I don't think Felix's extension is what is holding them back. While they are an aging team with a lot of $100 million+ contracts, we should be skeptical of teams saying they can't afford things.
Joe
2:17
Is Gabe Kapler ruining it for the rest of us?
Meg Rowley
2:18
There have been two kinds of issues: the potentially too cute by half bullpen stuff, and the actual problem of trying to bring in a guy who isn't warm.
I would hope the latter is easy to correct.
2:19
For the other, I'm still of the opinion that we don't know enough yet. There is a learning curve on these things.
That said, not everyone does analytics well, and him being a poor practitioner is also a very real possibility.
Patrick
2:20
Hi Meg, do you think Rougned Odor will turn back into a .250-.260 hitter?  Don't like him hitting in the bottom of the order.
Meg Rowley
2:20
Where else would you put him until he shows there has been some positive change in the approach?
2:21
I don't want to pile on, but the dude just had a historically bad year at the plate. The power is still there but good grief was that a bad season.
Sean
2:21
I don't think the Diamondbacks want many home games in the summer
Meg Rowley
2:22
When the roof is closed, I've heard it is quite pleasant in the summer!
And it's about butts in seats. It's a lot easier to get kids (and their parents) out to the park when school is out.
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