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Travis Sawchik FanGraphs Chat
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Travis Sawchik
12:03
Greetings!
I hope everyone here is enjoying their extended weekend and not shooting off fireworks in their quiet subdivisions ....
Kevin
12:03
Do you know when Dave's trade value series is going to come out?
Travis Sawchik
12:04
I believe it is published during the All-Star break. It's one of my favorite reads of the year
Kevin
12:04
Now that the website redesign is behind us, what's the next big thing coming to Fangraphs?
Travis Sawchik
12:05
That's a good question ... And i am not privy to all plans. But with the Effectively Wild podcast added, Ad Free membership created, and the redesign it's been a pretty eventful 2017 thus far
Justin Turner's Bald Spot
12:05
Why am I not featured in the all star game?
Travis Sawchik
12:06
Every year there are deserving snubs .... Sorry, dude. Love the swing philosophy though
Hitters
12:07
Brewers might get the HR double-double this year! (At least 10 HR by 10 different players). How common is this?
Travis Sawchik
12:07
In the NL I would think it's extremely rare
Joe Douglas
12:07
Happy 4th, a day early.
Travis Sawchik
12:07
And to you, sir!
Michelle
12:07
Hey Travis! Thanks for chatting. What are your feelings on the annual "all-star snubs" conversation?
Travis Sawchik
12:08
There are always deserving folks left off. I don't love how the reserves are selected. Perhaps they should let a sabermetric-minded panel determine the team! Felipe Rivero deserves to be on the team
12:09
But I'm not a huge All-Star game guy, myself. That all games are now televised, and the inter-league play element, have diminished the game, for me
12:10
I'd prefer to have a radical realignment based upon geography, do away with interleague play, and only have the two leagues meet in the All-Star game and World Series
TKDC
12:10
Are there any additional teams besides the Pirates that should be "soft sellers" right now?
Travis Sawchik
12:12
Mets, Rays, Twins ....
Teams with interesting cores but low playoff odds
Ray Searage
12:12
What's wrong with Gerrit Cole?
Travis Sawchik
12:14
His fastball is averaging a career-high 96.2 mph ... so I assume he's healthy. He's been hot and cold. The HR/FB is absurdly high and due to come down .... The No. 1 overall pick perhaps places unfair expectations upon him, he's increased changeup usage this year, I have not studied how the pitch has played
Slider is at a career-low usage, perhaps he needs to ramp that usage up
12:15
When he was at his best in 2015, when he performed like a No. 1, he was able to locate the slider really well, particularly backing-footing it against lefties
Well-Beered Englishman
12:17
What's for lunch?
Travis Sawchik
12:18
Chick-fil-a sandwich, no fries, unsweeted ice tea. Not exactly the picture of health. The other option was an entree of Trader Joe's yellow fin tuna
Smoky Joe Wood
12:18
Is Sale better than Kershaw?
Travis Sawchik
12:18
At the moment, yes
The Average Sports Fan
12:19
Are the Cubs good?
Travis Sawchik
12:20
Man, I still think so. But we're at the midway point now -- and their performance is arguably the single biggest surprise of the season. They face some short-term and long-term pitching questions
chuck
12:21
What could the Tigers expect in return for Verlander if they put him on the block with all that money and time he's due?
Travis Sawchik
12:22
It looks like he's owed $28 million next year and again in 2019 with a vesting option for 2022 ... if he's a 4-winish pitcher he'll still have value. I think he has some value but the return is not going to rebuild a farm system
Bill
12:22
What are your thoughts on the juiced ball? Seems like the evidence proves it is juiced but I think calling it juiced implies MLB did it on purpose, which I tend to think they didn't do. What do you think?
Travis Sawchik
12:24
The ball does seem different, though, I think the HR surge goes beyond the ball. If the ball was purposefully made differently, that mades it difficult for analysts to compare year-to-year performance
Kiermaier's Piercing Green Eyes
12:24
Jake Odorizzi has struggled this season, primarily with the long ball (he has something like a dozen straight starts with a homer, excluding the injury-shortened one in April). Is he actually pitching materially worse than before, or is this what a victim of the home run surge looks like?
Travis Sawchik
12:25
Remember when everyone was telling high-spin Jake to pitch up the zone? Maybe that was a mistake (and a suggestion made without knowledge of ball changes and/or a deepening of the HR surge).
Kevin
12:26
with the increased prevalence and effectiveness of the infield shift, could there be a change in how the defensive spectrum is valued/arranged given a possible reduction in the importance of the shortstop defensively? Could Catcher or Centrefield surpass Shortstop in defensive value?
Travis Sawchik
12:27
Great question. I do think shifts, by their nature, reduce the importance of infield range since you are essentially asking a greater number of infielders to cover a smaller area. Shortstop defense will always be important but it's possible it has lost relative value compared to catcher and center field
Lucroy
12:27
There was talk last year that Lucroy turned down a trade to the Indians because they wouldn't guarantee he'd stay at catcher. With the fall off in his pitch framing this year, is it possible the Indians were seeing something that other teams didn't--i.e., could they have been anticipating the fall off in his defense?
Travis Sawchik
12:28
I don't think so. If the Indians thought Lucroy was going to keep losing value, I don't think they would have offered Francisco Mejia
Brandon
12:28
That's a lame lunch, Travis.
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