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Meg Rowley FanGraphs Chat - 8/7/18
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TB
3:04
Which teams have the biggest upside/downside in the offseason?
Meg Rowley
3:06
Pretty excited to see what the Phillies do, and how San Diego thinks about where they are in their competitive cycle. Pretty bummed about the Mets (evergreen sentiment). We're probably going to see the Mariners rebuild start in earnest. I will continue to forget the Marlins are real.
stever20
3:06
I love folks talking Cubs rotation like they're disastrous- they have a 3.79 ERA which is 8th.  You say that's defense.  Well, the Cubs starters have the 4th highest ground ball percentage, so they know how to play to that strength....
Meg Rowley
3:08
(hold please, looking up a thing)
3:11
Ah yes, as I thought. So 3.79 (which is what B-Ref has) is, I believe, their team ERA. Their starting ERA is 4.12 and their FIP is 4.71, making them good for 24th in the league. Yes they generate ground balls, but this hasn't been a great rotation, defense or no.
Finding Nimmo
3:12
Do you follow any sports besides baseball?
Meg Rowley
3:12
I am a Seahawks season ticket holder and feel not great about it. Just very implicated and gross.
Woodrow the Impaler
3:12
In a dystopian world where robot umpires are calling the shots, what sort of robot would you prefer? A C-3PO type or something along the lines of the Terminator? I think I'd go with a smart alecky type like Ruby from the Jetsons.
Meg Rowley
3:13
I don't need C-3PO's takes on bat flipping. That seems potentially not good. What if we made the ump BB-8. Think how hard it would be to boo BB-8! What, are you a monster?
Vlad Jr
3:13
What are the chances of getting called up to the show this season?
Meg Rowley
3:13
I think, unfortunately, not great but for September.
Woad Raider
3:13
Have you watched Jon Gray pitch recently? If you haven't you need to start watching.
Meg Rowley
3:14
I have been a fan, and continue to be one, especially now that I feel less worried about how his weird-ass year must have been making him feel.
Derek
3:14
Why aren't there more publicly owned sports teams? The Packers are the only one to my knowledge and they're... Pretty freaking good. Like all the time. I really don't know what the mechanics would be for a team to go from privately owned to publicly owned, but it seems like it would solve a lot of the "owners are terrible people and/or terrible at running a professional sports team" problems.
Meg Rowley
3:16
What mechanism would the league deploy to make that happen? I don't necessarily disagree that it would be cool, but how do we do it? Also, if they are operating in the same system, I wonder how different it would be. I don't think the Packers are necessarily that much better on labor stuff just because the ownership structure is different. Now if the players own them...
Finding Nimmo
3:16
Aren't you worried that your draft alternative (essentially free agency) would really crush the smaller market teams who couldn't pay as much? Smaller market=less cash=less exciting prospects=less attendance=less profit=vicious cycle.
Meg Rowley
3:17
Maybe we should make sure owners can afford to own teams, though.
Confused English Baseball Fan
3:17
Why do teams rush to get trades done before the July deadline, when most of the players in the league then clear waivers and can be traded in August anyway? Why doesn't the league just have a hard August deadline for all trades and stop the faff?
Meg Rowley
3:18
I mean, for teams contending, you want the player (without the complication of waivers) as soon as possible to help you win baseball games. But I think if the non-waiver deadline were in August, that would be fine. I still think you'd see activity earlier though.
Timmy
3:18
Would you consider yourself more of an analyst or a commentator when it comes to baseball writing?
Meg Rowley
3:19
I like to think I do some of both. I described my writing, when on the Media Panel at sabersem, as whimsy supported by rigor. I hope that's true.
Guest
3:19
Is it just me or should players absolutely not be eligible for trade while serving a suspension, whether PED or DV?
Meg Rowley
3:20
I don't necessarily mind them being available for trade. I do think it tells us a lot of gross stuff about what we care about that Osuna is postseason eligible and Cano isn't.
Nick
3:20
Will the Athletics ever come back down to earth? Asking for a Mariners friend...
Meg Rowley
3:21
I mean, they aren't this good. The A's have a shaky rotation that I don't have a ton of confidence in. But, as with the Mariners earlier this year, these are banked wins.
Dub
3:22
So you're the one person watching the game on facebook. Thanks for the Harper update
Meg Rowley
3:22
This game isn't on Facebook?
Sir Nerdlington
3:22
Javy Baez is wonderful for all reasons baseball.  But he's an offensive outlier this year to such an extreme it's hard to bet on him.  Right?  In the modern era (min 1000 abs), only a couple of hitters with a similar or worse career bb% have a triple digit wrc+.  Yuleiski and Ryon Healy have the hightest wrc+ while walking <4% of the time.  <shudder>
Meg Rowley
3:23
He's one of those guys who, when things go wrong they can be quite bad because you don't have other parts of the profile that can compensate. It's why he makes me nervous, even as I really, really enjoy watching him.
Ken
3:23
I understand the outrage for DV cases and can support throwing the book at people who are guilty of DV, because there is no place for DV of any kind in our society.  However, I'm concerned that we as a society are passing judgment as soon as the accusation comes out, rather than waiting for the truth or the investigation results to come out. Right or wrong, this is causing people to dig their feet in the ground preventing the necessary changes to stop DC once and for all.
Meg Rowley
3:25
People wanting teams to be accountable for these choices isn't what is preventing us from stopping DV, and given that he just came back from a 75-game suspension, I think it is disingenuous to say we didn't wait for "the investigation results" to come out.
Alvin the Chipmunk Davis
3:25
Do the Mariners make the playoffs if they stop batting Dee Gordon and his 303 OBP leadoff?
Meg Rowley
3:26
I don't think Gordon or his spot in the lineup are why they are out at the moment, but the offense's overall performance has been very, very bad, which is why. Also, you have a Jean Segura. Why not bat Jean Segura leadoff?
Aaron Judge
3:27
Couldn't I just bat one handed while my left wrist heals?
Meg Rowley
3:27
No, but if anyone *could*....
Jordan
3:27
So exactly what do people expect to happen with Osuna? He served his suspension and then turned into a pumpkin? It seems like everyone wants him to be suspended permanently, he was always going to pitch again
Meg Rowley
3:29
Again (again!), the change to policy I have proposed is to make them postseason ineligible in the season in which they serve the suspension, much like the league does with PEDs. Again (again!), I am not an advocate of zero tolerance policies because they incentivize victims not report abuse.
3:30
If the court system isn't going to make abusers unavailable, and the league's best option is suspensions, ok. But we need the league to make sure that these awful moments in peoples' lives can't be treated like opportunities.
The Astros front office is full of very smart folks who have been trained to take advantage of just these sorts of moments. We need someone else to say, "Nope, this one is off the table, if only for this season."
Ben
3:30
Thoughts on the Clint Frazier/Michael Kay spiff? Kay basically criticized Frazier, on his radio show, for being concussed and not coming back to MLB already. He quickly added that he was being facetious, said so on Twitter.
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