JotCast | Meg Rowley FanGraphs Chat

Meg Rowley FanGraphs Chat - 7/3/18

Prev Page View Full Chat Next Page

Ernest Hemingwaybackbacktothewal

12:18

Who are your favorite baseball writers? What are your favorite baseball books? What advice would you give to an aspiring baseball writer?

Meg Rowley

12:19

Answering this invariably means offending someone who I admire or like drinking beers with. Such pressure!

There are a lot of good ones. Just like we're in a golden age for players, I think we've landed in a really cool time for baseball writing, with lots of different voices who do different things.

12:20

And the writing corps is getting more and more diverse, which will only make things better.

My advice to aspiring writers is to try to write every day. Write every day, even just a little, and write about a bad team if you're a fan of a good one.

12:21

Writing about crappy Mariners teams made my writing better, because I had to find something interesting to say when a lot of folks preferred to not think about that team at all.

And also, after you have some real clips, remember that what you're doing is work, and that it probably doesn't make sense to work for free forever.

12:22

And read widely. Read as much as you can so you know as much of the conversation as possible.

And be nice

Raymond

12:22

Say the season ended today. Would the fact that Betts' WAR/600PA is higher than Trout's have any affect on MVP voting?

Meg Rowley

12:22

To precisely seven voters.

Safety Stegosaurus

12:23

Do you think Archie Bradley will ever close? His status as a #2 guy out the bullpen seems forever cemented now.

Meg Rowley

12:23

I am shocked there aren't more of these jokes in the queue.

AJ go Puk yourself

12:23

Pick two starters for the Ros: Musgrove, Heany, Minor, Marco Gonzalez

Meg Rowley

12:25

Sorry, mountain internet flaked for a moment.

If you mean for baseball reasons, I guess Gonzales and Heaney?

adam

12:26

where have all the chats been? What do you expect me to do at work...work?

Meg Rowley

12:27

I am working from my moms' place in the mountains and so had to explain what a chat was, and then had to admit how much of me having a job is dependent on other people neglecting their jobs.

YKnotDisco?!

12:27

Has Alex Bregman morphed into Anthony Rendon? They have to be near the top of the list for most similar players (hitting wise), don't they?

Meg Rowley

12:28

I don't know if he'd be my top comp for Bregman.

12:30

Bregman's a better player than 2018 Rendon. But Baseball-Reference has Jung Ho Kang as his top similarity score player, which just feels rude.

v2micca

12:30

Chapman was instrumental in getting the Cubs over the hump. But if Gleyber Torres keeps this up, at some point two months of Chapman for six years of Torres has got to begin burning, right?

Meg Rowley

12:33

Yes, but I think it is important to remember that Torres' profile and reputation in the minors before the trade was somewhat different than it was before his promotion, or what it is now. It'll sting, for sure but these things can. Credit to the Yankees for seeing it, though. They really needed a break.

Bob Cobb

12:33

I still don't get how Archie Bradley managed to poo-poo his pants while taking a pee-pee. The only rationale ways I could see this happening would involve Bradley: (1) being ill ; (2) having some sort of urinary tract issue that forced him to exert an extreme amount of effort in order to overcome some sort of blockage, causing him to poop ; (3) having an exceptionally loose anus.

Which of these options do you feel is most likely, or, in your professional opinion, is there fourth viable option I am missing?

Meg Rowley

12:34

I have just so many regrets about my choices.

Look Dude

12:34

I've never really been a fan of Matt Kemp. But to see a guy who was dumped on a team that didn't want him and then have an all-star season like this. It's pretty cool.

Meg Rowley

12:34

2018 is just wild, wild times.

12:35

His June was much more what I was expecting but he's already exceeded what I thought he'd bring for the year.

CubFan

12:35

Do you think Joe Jimenez can succeed as Detroit's closer when Greene eventually gets traded? He failed miserably last night. He's thrown quite well this year but some guys seem to fold under the pressure.

Meg Rowley

12:35

I think guys have bad outings and we don't know enough to know.

Look Dude

12:35

Do you think Dexter Fowler's exit - one way or another - from St. Louis, has been expedited by Mozeliak's candid words?

Meg Rowley

12:36

It seems like a bad, uncomfortable situation.

Whatever is going on with Fowler, I'm not generally a fan of team's litigating this stuff in public.

Mostly, I'm not sure what it actually accomplishes.

Bob Cobb

12:37

what would you say are the biggest pros/cons of living in Seattle for anyone who was contemplating moving their?

Meg Rowley

12:37

The biggest pro is getting to live in Seattle, which means you have ready access to mountains and water and all sorts of good nature, plus very good food. The biggest con is that it is god awful expensive. It so damn expensive.

12:38

I don't know your situation but buying a house could prove very difficult.

Joe

12:38

Where are the Cascade Mountains? My college dorm is called Cascade in the "Mountainview Community"

Meg Rowley

12:40

They run from Washington down into California.

My moms have a house in the North Cascades.

Connecting…