JotCast | Meg Rowley FanGraphs Chat

Meg Rowley FanGraphs Chat - 5/14/19

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Meg Rowley

2:21

Yup yup yup

tom

2:22

when i see a small version of your twitter avatar in my timeline, sometimes i think it's a duck dynasty person

Meg Rowley

2:22

Truly so rude.

Yahoo Sincerely

2:22

I try to be generally open-minded and accepting of ideas that differ from my own; but there are a couple of things that I continue to have trouble accepting: first, the practice of orienting the toilet paper roll "under" as opposed to "over" (I just don't understand the appeal!); and, second, the idea that we should have a three minute replay to determine whether a runner who beat the tag let his hand come off the bag for a microsecond. Effing physics, man. Anyway, can you, in the space of a pithy but insightful paragraph, help me understand these issues?

Meg Rowley

2:22

It's a very goofy part of the implementation of replay

I really liked Dave's suggestion from a few years back where there is a safe zone above the bag.

2:23

I wrote about this wayyyy back in the day at BP https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/29069/players-prefer-p...

grunp

2:23

what are you listening to tho

Meg Rowley

2:23

Phoebe Bridgers

2:24

What do you think the Yankees will do with all the talented guys playing when their starters begin returning

Meg Rowley

2:24

Hold on to many of them for depth. As we've seen, that can be super, super useful.

JoelPineiro

2:24

Who would win a general knowledge bar trivia night: Ben, Jeff or Sam?

Meg Rowley

2:24

I don't know, but given what all of their secondary interests are away from baseball, I think they'd make a pretty kick ass team.

Jart

2:25

I went to a game at the oakland colosseum yesterday. Can we declare it a hostoric monument? I kind of love how bad it is

Meg Rowley

2:25

It is weirdly one of my favorite parks in baseball.

The vibe there is great, the food and beer selection is weirdly good, and it has a very strong sense of place.

person 1

2:25

Is it spooky thinking your chats (and other fangraphs chats) could just be one person changing their name for each question?

Meg Rowley

2:26

It is spooky thinking any of you want to talk to me about baseball, though I am glad you all do.

Voldemort

2:26

Is this the year Nelson Cruz's age finally catches up with him?

Meg Rowley

2:26

The wrist thing isn't great, but no signs so far.

Derek

2:27

Why isn't the fact that MLB is constantly tinkering with the ball (apparently in secret?) a bigger, more public deal to players, coaches, GMs, etc.?

Meg Rowley

2:27

I think it is-- pitchers, for instance, seem very grumpy.

I think a lot of this stuff plays out privately.

Ozzie

2:28

We keep hearing about these super bouncy balls they are using in AAA. How much of a difference do they truly make?

Meg Rowley

2:29

Go look at the PCL stats

Doug

2:30

Kershaw or Paddack tonight? And will you be watching?

Meg Rowley

2:30

Paddack and hell yes

asinwreck

2:30

Are you excited about Shed Long? He seems like a fun player to have on your team.

Meg Rowley

2:30

He is. He is at times quite unfun to watch in the field, but I love the offensive profile.

Mariners

2:30

Just to be clear, I was talking about an organization's 20-25th guy, not an overall top 20. For the mariners that's Joe Rizzo/Branyan Perez/David McCay.

Meg Rowley

2:31

No, I understand. I'm just saying, there seems to be some inflation of trade value amongst some Mariners fans and observers that I find very strange.

Trent

2:32

"It is very hard for the continued existence of cases like this to not alter one's appreciation for the sport in a meaningful way." I can see your point, but let's not exaggerate the impact of cases like Urias. Are there any statistics showing that baseball has a higher incidence of domestic violence convictions, etc., as compared to any other industry? Every group of people--whether a company, a sports league, a civic organization, etc.--has a few bad actors. Condemning every *group* because of the presence of those *individuals* risks condemning all of society.

Meg Rowley

2:33

Well society handles these things very poorly, so that isn't a indictment without some merit. At no point did I say these incidents occur more frequently in baseball than in another avenue of life. They do occur frequently enough that it tarnishes my enjoyment of a form of entertainment, and that feeling is furthered by some of the very obvious institutional issues that determine how they are dealt with.

2:34

re: the juiced ball — how would you feel about baseballs being filled with actual juice ? what’s yr favorite juice ?

Meg Rowley

2:34

Not a big juice person, as juice is often too sweet. I do like grapefruit juice.

Ben

2:34

If you were in charge of running a team, what sort of philosophy would you follow? Offense or pitching first? Toolsy raw talent or high-technique? I imagine it would at least be mostly analytics-leaning

Meg Rowley

2:36

Analytics-leaning certainly. If you're talking about a player development and drafting strategy, farms that lean pitching heavy make me awfully nervous, but the first thing I'd do is go hire a very smart scouting direction and head of baseball ops and let them tell me all the ways I was being a real goofus.

AAAA superstars

2:36

Voit, Urshela, German, even kind-of-okay Tauchman... is finding these people luck, GM skill, or player-development skill?

Meg Rowley

2:36

Combination of all three, though I am willing to weight that heavily in player dev's favor in this case.

Tony

2:37

Whats your favorite ball park to visit? Why?

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