JotCast | Travis Sawchik FanGraphs Chat

Travis Sawchik FanGraphs Chat

Travis Sawchik

12:01

Greetings, everyone. Welcome to Episode No. 2 of the Sawchik Chat.... Long way to go to catch up to EW podcast.

mtsw

12:01

Are we, savvy baseball fans, really meant to believe Jose Bautista is turning down bigger offers to return to Toronto? These "better offers" seem about as real as your middle school buddy's Canadian girlfriend.

Travis Sawchik

12:02

Players, of course, generally take the best offer, so I doubt Bautista would take a lesser offer to remain in TOR. As Dave Cameron wrote last week, it appears the market for Bautista-types has over-corrected

Justino

12:03

What can you tell me about Trevor Clifton?

Travis Sawchik

12:04

If the Cubs begin to develop pitching, if more arms take jumps like Clifton did in '16, then the rich get a whole lot richer. The Cubs have not developed much of their own pitching to date, one of the few weak areas

I can also tell you it appears Clifton had his number retired:

Reigning #Cubs Minor League Pitcher of the Year Trevor Clifton gets his No. 25 retired at Heritage.

Justino

12:05

Schwarber hasn't had much success vs LHP in his professional career so far. Is this likely being discussed and/or worked on, or are the Cubs not worried whatsoever about a little platoonin'?

Travis Sawchik

12:05

Schwarber performed very well against LHPs in his relatively brief minor league career so let's get a larger sample. I wouldn't be too concerned at this point

Ice

12:06

If you could start a franchise with Trout, Harper, Kershaw, or Markakis, who would you choose?

Travis Sawchik

12:06

Dan's chat has moved to Wednesdays!

Asabin

12:06

Considering that Theo Epstein is paid like a major league average player, and lower level front office personnel are paid much less, do you think front offices could gain more marginal value by investing in more analysts, scouts, etc.

Travis Sawchik

12:07

Short answer: Yes. It's a $10 billion industry and FO and scouting staff is relatively cheap

Bab

12:08

Is the Bautista deal (as expected) worth it? Do the Blue Jays have a chance to compete with the addition of Bautista?

Travis Sawchik

12:09

I like Bautista to have a mild bounce-back in 2017 so I like the reported terms ... Blue Jays certainly have a chance

D Nice

12:10

are buying Porcello as an "ace" again in 2017?

Travis Sawchik

12:11

'Ace' for me is received for the elite of the elite .. so no. But he's certainly a quality arm and no reason why that shouldn't continue with health

jda

12:11

Hi Travis. It's seemed to me for a while now that A.I./machine learning is a potentially useful way of evaluating scouts internally, so your mention of modeling scouts in your Pacific scouting article set off alarm bells. Do you know if teams are currently using AIML to evaluate their own scouts? And if so, do you have a sense of how successful a tool it is?

Travis Sawchik

12:13

Good question. I'm sure AI will become more and more a part of MLB front offices and that could be a useful way to incorporate some aspects of it

Daniel

12:14

Can you give a quick overview of what topic you will cover most in your chats, or which you prefer to cover? For example, some chats are heavily prospect-based, some avoid fantasy, etc.

Travis Sawchik

12:17

I'm pretty open to anything. I will try to answer interesting questions that I feel I can answer or add something to. Disclaimer: I'm not Eric Longenhagen on prospects, and while I play in a dynasty league I've never been invited to play in LABR.

Joe Don

12:17

Any thoughts re the risk/reward curve in the Rangers' gamble on Tyson Ross?

Travis Sawchik

12:17

Seems like a pretty good gamble to me, especially in this offseason's sparse market for pitching

mtsw

12:18

If clubs should be looking to Korea more (I agree) why not also to the NPB? The NPB is a better overall league than the KBO by a lot and Japan has a larger and richer history of baseball than Korea. Why is KBO talent so in demand and NPB talent (for position players) isn't? Is it just because the posting system makes NPB players a worse value?

Travis Sawchik

12:21

I think clubs should be looking everywhere for talent. It's surprising to me how few MLB clubs have full-time scouts in Asia. I just focused on the KBO in part because it was in the news with the Thames signing. ... The Park and Kang signings the previous two offseason make it kind of a trendy emerging market, but any available, quality NPB position player talent is going to have plenty of demand

Eric

12:22

Hi! I absolutely love your work so far and look forward to what you have in store for us. Do you think it is a possibility that the market is undervaluing outfield defense and that's why teams like the Rays and Mariners are stocking up on the best fielders?

Travis Sawchik

12:23

Thanks, Eric! Thanks for reading ... The Rays and Mariners certainly seem driven to improve outfield defense. I'm not sure if it's undervalued. I think defense in general is of course much more appreciated. OF defense is also perhaps more valued by teams in certain parks with certain types of pitching staffs

Joshua

12:24

What do you expect from Billy Hamilton? His baserunning and defense are so great he's been worth almost 4 WAR. Is 5-6 WAR realistic if he can hit literally league average?

Travis Sawchik

12:25

He's probably never going to hit ... but he's still valuable as you mentioned. I wonder if there are more creative ways to employ him. Like, say, bringing him off the bench as a pinch-runner as early in the game as possible

SDinSEA

12:25

Do you have any parts of the game you're most interested in? Prospects, analytics, etc?

Travis Sawchik

12:26

Almost everything about the game can be interesting, so I'm pretty open to any type of question here.

jon

12:27

Are the White Sox bluffing with respect to holding Quintana into the season? Increase in return is probably small and the risk is obviously asymmetric and concentrated.

Travis Sawchik

12:28

If only we were privy to the offers ... That contract allows the White Sox to be patient. They could also find more suitors at the deadline, potentially

Regginald Spade

12:28

Why don't teams hire each other's analysts more often? They might not come with source code, but any sharp one should be able to recreate a lot of the old system.

Travis Sawchik

12:29

Well, we see some of that. I know the Diamondbacks just hired the Pirates' No. 2 quant in Mike Fitzgerald.

Moltar

12:29

Do you think Gary Sanchez gets the full workload this season? Do the Yankees stay patient if he's cold out of the gate?

Travis Sawchik

12:29

I'd want to see a full season of Gary Sanchez

Sonny

12:31

Would Pitt hold onto Cutch and sell off other pieces to bridge to the next wave of high-end talent? Move Marte, Cole, Watson while value is high and bet on Taillon, Meadows, Bell, Glasnow and co leading a division winning team in 2019?

Travis Sawchik

12:32

Every player has a trade value, but regardless of whether or not McCutchen is moved in 2017 he's not going to be in Pgh beyond 2018 (which is a club option)

12:32

I was arbitrarily checking out pages for various players and I had somehow forgotten about early career Ryan brauns odd combination of way above average baserunning and atrocious defense

Travis Sawchik

12:33

Interesting but beyond the speed component they are much different skill sets.... Outfield defense requires route efficiency, first-step quickness, ball skills, etc

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