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August Fagerstrom FanGraphs Chat -- 4/26/16
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august fagerstrom
11:50
Hello! My internet is being weird so hopefully this all goes smoothly.
In a Death Grips mood today. Death Grips -- Government Plates
11:51
Also, if you've missed the announcement, make sure to check out this cool thing myself and other baseball writers will be attending in New York in June: www.fangraphs.com/blogs/staten-island-yankees-sabermetric-day-event-on-june-19th/
Jake M
12:07
Milky Cabrera after a awful first Hal last year had a 110 wRC+ in the 2nd half and now has a 155 wRC+ with the best strikeout to walk rate in baseball last time I checked. Turnaround I can believe in?
august fagerstrom
12:07
Milky!
Let's begin.
Mike
12:08
With the Szymborski caveat that it's still April, what/who is your most disappointing early season team/player so far this season?
august fagerstrom
12:08
Gotta be the Astros and Carlos Gomez. They looked like the only team that stood out in the American League, pre-season. Not that I still don't believe in the roster, but, yeesh
Nate
12:09
How long will it be before exit velocity is used to determine soft/medium/hard contact rates?
august fagerstrom
12:10
Seems like this should happen as soon as we have confirmation that Statcast is actually gathering information for every ball in play. Beyond that, I'd hope that five years from now, we have devised a BABIP-type stat that includes batted ball information. That would massively impact the way we evaluate pitchers, and even hitters to a certain extent
Riley Martin
12:11
Are the White Sox good or are they just the best of the worst?
august fagerstrom
12:11
I picked them to the win the division, so yeah, I'm a believer
12:16
apologies, had to step away for a moment
CecilFielder
12:16
I suggested this to eno and he seemed to like the idea- there should be an Instagraphs posts letting us know everytime a rate stat stablilizes. would be a huge help!
august fagerstrom
12:16
Thing about this is, I think it encourages the misconception that at 49 plate appearances, swing rate isn't stable, but at 50 it suddenly is
It's a sliding scale
Bill
12:17
After looking mediocre-to-bad in CF, Adam Eaton has looked amazing in RF so far this season. Should he make a permanent switch to RF going forward?
august fagerstrom
12:18
Well it should be expected that he'd perform better in a corner than in CF. He's also the only other CFer on the team, and the other one, the one who's currently occupying the space, is trying his hardest to play his way out of a job
Trevor Story
12:18
End of my story?
august fagerstrom
12:18
You've walked a bit more since the last time I looked at your page!
Those strikeouts are still frighteningly high
AskJeeves.com
12:19
What happened to me?
august fagerstrom
12:19
The fact that you need to ask this question is reason enough why people didn't trust you for information when Google existed.
Jimi Hendrix
12:20
Who is GOAT? Me, Jimmy Paige or Eric Clapton?
august fagerstrom
12:20
Impossible question
12:21
I'm partial to "texture" guys like Jonny Greenwood and David Gilmour myself
Sirras
12:21
Thor wasn't completely dominant - PANIC CITI!
august fagerstrom
12:21
Carson on our Slack last night:
cistulli
10:33 PM Hey, if anyone's interested in a topic, explaining how Noah Syndergaard ever gives up any runs ever -- that would be an acceptable topic.
Erik
12:22
The Phillies first base platoon has been worth -0.9 WAR so far. Will this be the worst position in baseball? Or is there some escape?
august fagerstrom
12:22
There's no reason it can't be
In fact, it was projected to be so: http://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=Team
12:23
(also, looking at that, I think you've possibly mistaken that page for actual production. That's projected production. They've actually combined for -1.1 WAR: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=1b&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2016&month=0&season1=2016&ind=0&team=0,ts&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0)
Nick in CLE
12:23
Man, it's crazy how much better Lindor is hitting in the majors than he did in AA/AAA. Sample size still isn't huge, but are we close to being able to expect Lindor to be an above-average hitter going forward, in addition to being a superstar defensively?
august fagerstrom
12:24
I really don't know how to wrap my head around this. I covered Lindor through the minor leagues and he never looked anything like this at the plate
12:25
When he came up, I was thinking he'd be a 90ish wRC+ hitter. Last year swayed me more toward league average. Now I'm thinking maybe 105-110 is where the current true-talent lies, but he just keeps on producing at a 130 clip. It's insane. Last year's power has dipped, as expected, but his patience from the minor leagues has returned, and he's still spraying the ball all over the field. Basically, he's *looked* more like the hitter we all expected this year, but the production hasn't dropped at all
12:26
And he just hits the ball hard as hell, which, paired with the speed and ability to spray the ball all over makes the mid-.300s BABIP look somewhat sustainable
Ben
12:27
How much trouble are the Astros in?
august fagerstrom
12:28
Based on the projections, they've still got a better-than 1-in-3 shot to make the playoffs, and the best odds of anyone in their division, so things could be worse
Josh
12:29
Delino Deshields is striking out a ton, which obviously is not good considering his skill set. He's also been successful only twice on 5 SB attempts. Do you think he's the most at risk of losing playing time when Choo returns?
august fagerstrom
12:29
He hasn't been too much different than what he was last year, and the Rangers seemed to like him quite a bit last year
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