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Travis Sawchik FanGraphs Chat
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Travis Sawchik
12:00
Greetings from the Pirates media work room in Bradenton, Fla....
The FanGraphs spring training tour bus has made its way to Florida
12:01
Still, there's always time to talk. We have an open-door policy. Let's get started ...
Acuna Matata
12:01
Acuna is basically the love child of Mike Trout and Hank Aaron, right?! RIGHT?!
Travis Sawchik
12:01
Obviously, right?
12:02
If you believed Acuna was a better prospect than Ohtani, that's looking pretty good as of March 19
Kiermaier's Piercing Green Eyes
12:02
Now, I support the pitch clock and look forward to its inevitable MLB implementation. And the current minor league clock has been a success. But the proposed 15 second clock seems really aggressive compared to the amount of time pitchers currently take. How concerned should we be about increased injuries? I have no sense of what that extra five seconds between pitches means for an arm's health. Nor how many strains we should accept to get game times down to 2:45 or so based on back-of-the-napkin math.
Travis Sawchik
12:03
Increased injury rates for pitchers are going to be an unintended consequence of a clock, I suspect
12:04
I wonder if it might also reduce velocity
I do think pace is a real issue, but i'd start by keeping batters in the box
They put those chalk lines on the dirt for a reason, right?
Mr. Fister
12:04
Does Mike Clevenger hold a rotation spot all year long in Cleveland?
Travis Sawchik
12:04
He has the talent to do it, for sure
12:05
He added the curveball last year which gives him two plus breaking pitches
CamdenWarehouse
12:05
If Cobb signed today, do you think he'd be ready for the start of the season?
Travis Sawchik
12:06
I don't think so ... but perhaps reducing some innings wouldn't be the worst thing for Cobb
John S
12:06
I'm not sure what to gather from the Hosmer article/quotes. His swing looks the same to me this spring as in the past.
Travis Sawchik
12:07
I wouldn't take from them that Hosmer has made a full buy-in. I don't think that has happened ... what I took was that he has started to explore this. Listening to JDM's hitting coach seems like a first step
Mr. Fister
12:07
Do you think it is possible that Greinke is just trolling everybody at this point with regards to his diminished velocity?
Travis Sawchik
12:07
Greinke wants to draft himself in the 7th round of fantasy drafts
Jenny From the Block
12:08
Probably a question for Dan, but i noticed that Zips is projecting Beltre for only 104 games this year. You have concerns about him this year?
Travis Sawchik
12:08
Better question for Dan but he is 38
A 38-year-old playing 104 MLB games is an outlier
Nicole
12:10
Thoughts on Francisco Mejia possibly moving to the outfield?
Travis Sawchik
12:11
I think he's a long-term catcher but the club is probably just exploring additional flexibility
Billy Beane
12:11
Hey Travis, I just wanted to say that your Spring Training articles have been 10/10. Obviously you do way more analysis during the course of the year, but your skills as a reporter are still very, very good.
Travis Sawchik
12:12
That's very kind of you, Billy. Spring training is for reporting skills, too
Mary
12:12
Will the Indians ever trade Gomes/Perez to make room for Mejia/Haase?
Travis Sawchik
12:12
I think eventually, yes
I'm a big Haase, fan, too
Justin
12:12
If Ohtani doesn't turn out to be great (reports say it's his command that's the issue), how much does that hurt the Angels' chances?
Travis Sawchik
12:13
Angels need Ohtani to be great right away. He might not be!
Ohtani might require some patience. I know no one is interested in hearing that. He's also coming off an injury-shortened season
Ronnie
12:14
Chase Anderson was 25th in FIP based WAR & 16th in RA9 WAR in only 141 innings last year, yet the projections barely have him scraping 2 WAR. Do you buy the changes he made in 2017 carrying over into 2018?
Travis Sawchik
12:14
Anderson made some real skills gains. I'd bet on the over
Mr. Fister
12:15
Taco cat spelled backwards is Taco cat.  You're welcome.
Travis Sawchik
12:15
12:16
Re-raise
Jenny From the Block
12:16
Having trouble deciding between Freeman vs Votto vs Rizzo. Is there any real difference between the 3? Feels like you cant go wrong though Votto has the age cliff concern
Travis Sawchik
12:16
Votto, Freeman, Rizzo for me
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