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Dave Cameron FanGraphs Chat
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Dave Cameron
12:02
Alright, let's chat. Spring Training kinda sorta starts today, so we're getting closer to actual baseball.
Out of my way, Gyorkass!
12:02
Of the two NLC 2016 bottom feeders, who returns to relevance first?
Dave Cameron
12:02
The Brewers. Stearns has done a fantastic job of adding talent to te organization this winter, and they still have a pretty big trade chip left in Lucroy.
Out of my way, Gyorkass!
12:02
Davis for Nottingham/Derby...perfectly cromulent trade for both sides, or did one get the better of the other?
Dave Cameron
12:04
Like it more for the Brewers. The A's offseason plan has seemed to be to stockpile 1-2 WAR players, which is a good enough plan if you already have the stars to carry you, but the A's don't, really. So I'm not sure they're in a position to take advantage of Davis' short-term value.
Salicylic
12:05
What's up with the pessimistic projections of the royals AGAIN
Dave Cameron
12:07
Sam Miller had a great piece on why PECOTA is down on them over at BP yesterday. The reality is that, whether Royals fans like to hear it or not, their success the last two seasons has been heavily based on sequencing; they're +20 wins over their BaseRuns expected record over the past two seasons. There is no evidence that teams can sustainably beat BaseRuns on an annual basis, and projection systems aren't going to project teams to beat BaseRuns. If you think the Royals have magical BaseRuns beating properties, then you can take the over on the projections. But for years, people claimed the Angels had figured out how to beat BaseRuns, until they stopped. Then it was the Orioles. The Royals will stop outperforming BaseRuns pretty soon too.
Music 4 Airports
12:07
Thoughts on Dodgers' bullpen? Is it good enough, or would it be worth a prospect or two to try to solidify the 8th inning role?
Dave Cameron
12:08
I like a lot of their young arms, and they have so much SP depth that it shouldn't be that hard to turn one of the extras into an RP.
Out of my way, Gyorkass!
12:08
What team who has not already done so is the next to decide to fold their hand and initiate a rebuild?
Dave Cameron
12:08
The Padres.
Out of my way, Gyorkass!
12:09
Regarding the Royals - do their offseason financial commitments to Kennedy and Gordon eventually impede their ability to extend some of their upcoming FAs like Hosmer and Moustakas?
Dave Cameron
12:09
Yep. It's not a coincidence that they gave Kennedy the opt-out after the second season, when those guys are up for FA. They're clearly hoping he'll opt-out and then they'll reallocate his money to one of them. It's unlikely to work out well for them, though.
Dove Cameroon
12:10
Buster Olney continues to push the tanking narrative claiming that veterans such as Ryan Raburn wouldn't still be free agents if tanking wasn't an issue. What do you think about the perceived abundance of mediocre veterans being unemployed and what it says about the perception of "tanking"?
Dave Cameron
12:11
When a player signs is irrelevant. Raburn will sign, and he'll be on a big league roster on Opening Day.
Glen
12:11
Is UZR for 1B's calculated differently from other positions? e.g. does it include scoops? Does the ARM rating carry as much weight? or matter at all? 1B seems qualitatively different enough from other positions that to have the same data with the same weight seems ... not right. I know relying on the "eye test" (especially for a lay person) is foolish - but it seems exceptionally odd that Teixera (for example) has graded out so poorly defensively over his career
Dave Cameron
12:12
Yes, scoops are included. They're also highly overrated, so the perception of good scoopers is skewed relative to their actual value.
Phineas J Whoopee
12:12
True or false: Kiley McDaniel single-handedly engineered the Shelby Miller trade.
Dave Cameron
12:13
False. When they trade for an airhorn, though, that will be all him.
Bruce Bochy
12:13
The Giants have the most homegrown players and produce studs year after year yet farm gets no respect. Why?
Dave Cameron
12:13
You think that a prospect should be graded higher because Joe Panik turned out well? Really?
Moop
12:13
Are we valuing D too much with WAR>
Dave Cameron
12:13
Nope.
Vanderbilt Commodores
12:14
At this moment who are the top 5 teams in baseball?
Dave Cameron
12:15
I'd say the Cubs and Dodgers are the top two, and then it's a cluster of teams in that second tier; Mets, Nationals, Red Sox, Astros, Giants, Yankees, Cardinals, Pirates
Kevin
12:15
Is it possible to view only blog posts related to a specific team? Such as: I want to see the most recent blog posts pertaining to the Nationals
Dave Cameron
That said, we aren't always exactly perfect at tagging posts, so if you just bookmarked that page, you might miss some stuff occasionally.
Guest
12:16
Another thought for membership: make an option for readers to see only comments by paid members. I'd love this feature.
Dave Cameron
12:17
Interesting idea. On the one hand, we don't want to make commenting an exclusive club, but giving people the ability to opt-out of seeing comments from non-members is different than stopping non-members from commenting.
We'll kick it around.
TKDC
12:17
Where would you have ranked the Chapman trade in an entirely made up universe where the only thing that was different was that there were no off-field issues?
Dave Cameron
12:18
Top 5, probably, but in that universe, he costs a lot more, so it's a catch-22.
Schiraldi
12:18
Re: the tanking discussion -- do we know how ticket prices respond to losing? Is there a linear relationship between losses in year one and attendance in year two, does that relationship significantly change in years two or three of a rebuild, etc...
Dave Cameron
12:18
Attendance is a lagging indicator; teams don't know that their teams are going to be bad until they see it for themselves, mostly. So it shows up in years 2-3 of a rebuild, and often lingers even into the early years of a team being good again.
TL4
12:19
Astros fan here. The stros seemed to underperform based on Pathagorean W-L and baseruns. They're a young team who should get better. Any reason to be pessimistic? Anything to keep an eye on early in the year that may suggest last year was a fluke?
Dave Cameron
12:20
I wouldn't say last year was a fluke, but they've got a lot of health risks up and down the roster. Gomez's health is still a question mark, Springer is hurt a lot, Fister is a big gamble, Fiers hasn't been healthy much, etc...
Ryan
12:20
Which PECOTA projection threw you off the most?
Dave Cameron
12:20
That 91 win forecast for the Rays.
TKDC
12:21
Care to give some honorable mentions for worst transactions? I was surprised the Simmons trade (for the Braves) wasn't on it.
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