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Meg Rowley FanGraphs Chat - 5/29/18
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Meg Rowley
12:23
He's still an above average hitter-- he's running a 112 wRC+ in May-- driven largely by the power, but yeah, it's less otherworldly than it was in April.
I also expect it to smooth out and be fine.
Q-Ball
12:23
Kyle Schwarber has acumulated very positive defensive stats so far.  SSS and all, but are you buying real improvement?
Meg Rowley
12:23
I think that arm makes up for a lot of other goofiness.
12:24
He's never going to sell me as an amazing outfielder, but really, he just needs to be serviceable.
He needs to avoid those plays where you worry that he's embarrassed his mom saw. And he's mostly doing that.
Bork
12:24
Will Russell Martin end up playing all 9 positions this year?
Meg Rowley
12:25
As a writer of baseball words, dear god, I hope so.
Weird that a team claiming defensive issues as a reason to keep a top prospect down is then doing this, but...
AC
12:25
Do the Tigers DFA Victor Martinez at some point this year to give someone else reps at the big league level? Or am I doomed to watch V-Mart singles off the wall through September?
Meg Rowley
12:26
I doubt it. I don't know that the Tigers are really at the "let's get guys some seasoning" point of their process yet.
The Decadent Moose
12:26
Dodgers are going to win 100 games, aren't they?
Meg Rowley
12:27
No, but someone has to win that division and their awful start looks a lot less insurmountable than it did a few weeks ago.
Trixie
12:27
Do you think MLB teams should be allowed to trade draft picks?
Meg Rowley
12:28
I think baseball players should be able to sign with teams without an amateur draft at all, but I'm a rebel.
Justin
12:28
Somehow the Yankees found and developed 3 5-WAR (or more) level players without ever being truly bad. Judge isn't Betts or Trout, but Judge/Severino/Sanchez (and Torres, though that was a trade) is... it's a good group.
Meg Rowley
12:29
A very good group. We should all be ashamed of ourselves for letting them get such a good group and then developing them well. We have an entire legal system at our disposal and we did nothing!
12:30
So I'm realizing that not sleeping well did in fact make me a little punchy.
Big D
12:30
Boo on your Rizzo take.  That was a good baseball play.  He was on the line his entire time down the basepath.  Don't just watch the slide, watch the whole play.
Meg Rowley
12:31
I did. He's basically lined up to slide into the left handed batter's box, and put his leg up.
Jeff Sullivan
12:32
How do you feel about Seattle ROS?
Meg Rowley
12:32
Fake-Jeff, I don't feel great about it! June is going to be one heck of a crucible for them.
12:33
On our handy playoff odds page (https://www.fangraphs.com/standings/playoff-odds/fg/lg) you can look at remaining strength of schedule. The Mariners have the third toughest remaining SOS.
12:34
Harder than the Angels! That's not great.
That said, they can't take the wins they have away.
12:35
That's banked cushion. If they can do decently in June, it will help a tremendous amount. I mean, obviously, but we'll be able to say a lot more about what this team is then.
Guest
12:35
You guys ever talk to Dave Cameron anymore?
Meg Rowley
12:36
Others on staff who know Dave better than I do (I think) chat some. He's obviously very busy, but you don't stop being friends with people when they switch jobs.
Dave
12:37
Please rank these catchers ROS for 12-team Roto: Hicks, Barnhart, Stassi, Maile. Thanks, Meg.
Meg Rowley
12:37
I would encourage you to hop over to Justin Mason's chat because he will actually be able to answer this question, and I care about you.
Justin
12:38
"So I'm realizing that not sleeping well did in fact make me a little punchy." so..... you growley?
Meg Rowley
12:38
gdi
Josh
12:38
Is there any research suggesting that pitchers who throw more pitches age better? Intuition being that multi-pitch pitchers have more weapons with which to attack hitters, even as their velocity starts to decline with age
Meg Rowley
12:39
I'm sure there is and I'm not thinking of it, but it would make sense that if you have well developed secondaries that you would be able to weather a velocity decline better. Now, you have to be able to mix them and execute them well in light of reduced velo for it to work.
12:40
Felix has some very good non-fastball pitches. Felix isn't especially good right now.
James
12:40
Can Cleveland succeed with that bullpen? Or are they expecting the starters to finish every game in October?
Meg Rowley
12:41
Can we take a moment to appreciate how quickly things can change?
Just, remark on the weirdness of that.
It's clearly an issue for them. Allow me to look something up quickly.
12:43
They're 28th in bullpen WAR, and have the second worst FIP. I imagine they'll try to address it come the deadline.
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