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Jeff Sullivan FanGraphs Chat -- 10/20/17
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Jeff Sullivan
9:09
Hello friends
Welcome to Friday baseball chat
Sorry for the hiccup -- forgot to set this up and schedule it for this morning yesterday, so everything is all screwed
I'll give a minute for the queue to populate itself!
CamdenWarehouse
9:10
Marshawn Lynch was ejected and sat in the stands last night!
Jeff Sullivan
9:10
One of the peak moments of 2017 professional sports
9:11
For anyone who doesn't know it already, this is allowed in baseball, per the official rules. If a player or coach gets ejected, that person is permitted to change into street clothes and watch the game from the stands, provided the person isn't too close to the dugout
Still waiting on the first baseball player to do it, but of course Lynch would be a pioneer
Guest
9:12
Is Eno dying?
Jeff Sullivan
9:13
Not any more than the rest of us
Guest
9:13
Morning Jeff, screw the Cubs I personally hope they lose for another 100 yrs
Jeff Sullivan
9:13
That seems mean-spirited
Especially since you presumably won't be around for at least the end of that stretch
But it's yours to decide! Take from sports whatever you please!
Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe
9:14
Jeff! The Yankees beat the best pitching team *possibly ever* and might beat the *maybe* best hitting team of all-time...to how many games do they push the Dodgers and who wins?
Jeff Sullivan
9:15
I don't know exactly who would be favored going up against Kershaw/Darvish/Hill, with Jansen at the end, but as we've discussed so many times over, the Yankees' pitching staff becomes a playoff strength. Either of the two possible WS matchups would be great but the series itself should go at least six
I say that knowing that there was no way to predict the Cubs would be clobbered in five. Baseball will get you
Scherzer? I hardly know her
9:16
You have just inherited a franchise. You get to pick any baseball executive to run your team. Money is no object. Who are you picking?
Jeff Sullivan
9:17
I don't know how you wouldn't pick Epstein or Friedman
Depending on the franchise, maybe you lean Friedman, if it's a smaller-market operation
9:18
I don't think there's a *ton* separating those two from the next-best tier, but they've proven their worth several times over
Waltharius
9:18
What do you think of a recent surge of Josh Naylor in AFL? Will he end up being a trade chip or a player Padres will field in the future?
Jeff Sullivan
9:19
Naylor is 10-for-27 in the AFL. He just posted a full-season .761 OPS in the minors
The only thing he has going for him is he's 20 years old. His performance record is bad
Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe
9:20
You never mentioned anything about Josh Reddick drawing a base on a catcher's interference! I thought for sure we'd get an article on our *THIRD* of this postseason.
Jeff Sullivan
9:20
I don't want to overdo the catcher's interference articles. I like it as one of my Twitter beats but we probably don't need something on FanGraphs for every single instance in the playoffs
9:21
That being said, there have been 15 catcher's interference calls in the history of the playoffs, according to Baseball Reference. Three of them this month alone
Nebkreb
9:22
Please tell whoever runs the High Heat Stats Twitter account (not the MLBNetwork show) to stop harping on Judge's strikeouts. Use your Baseball Twitter power for good.
Jeff Sullivan
9:22
Let's be real here: Judge has struck out 24 times in 49 postseason plate appearances. That's pretty extraordinary
Nevertheless, he has an .847 OPS. He's been more good than bad. And the strikeouts were only really out of control against the Indians
9:23
So the strikeouts don't make Judge *bad.* But there's no denying that his strikeouts are incredibly high
Reddick’s jilted ex
9:24
who would you rather see play the Dodgers in the WS and why?
Jeff Sullivan
9:24
I have zero rooting interest here. Or, I should say, my rooting interests balance out. I want Houston to win, because they're a good story. I want the Yankees to win, so we can all have reason to go back to hating the Yankees. The Astros have what should be a super fun offense. The Yankees have hat should be a super fun bullpen
9:25
From a strictly on-field perspective, the Astros and Yankees are equally delightful, recent Houston hitting slump be damned
CamdenWarehouse
9:26
The other day when you said that Justin Verlander had lost nothing on his fastball.  Has everything adjusted fastball speeds to be in line with how they are measured now or has everyone forgotten that the new way adds speed?  It feels like we talked about a lot for two weeks in April, then everyone went back to comparing this year to last like nothing was different.
Jeff Sullivan
9:27
The Pitch Info velocity measurements are set to be consistent season to season
9:28
That is, the Baseball Info Solutions velocity measurements show a spike of about a half-tick this season, but Pitch Info retroactively boosted old velocities so that even comparisons can be made. They effectively "moved back" old measuring points, so that velocities are reported closer to the release point
9:29
That's all a complicated jumble, but the simple point is: we have Pitch Info stuff for a decade, and it's safe to compare the pitch speeds. And even when you use the other data going back to 2002, it's not worthless. You can just mentally add about half a mile per hour or so
Guest
9:29
What baseball player would get ejected and go to the stands to watch?
Jeff Sullivan
9:29
Adrian Beltre
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