Klawchat 10/7/21.

You can see my playoff picks and a one-paragraph explanation here (for subscribers to the Athletic).

Keith Law: Klawchat. Because you have to make this life livable.

addoeh: I see Dayton Moore’s son is projected to be a draftee in 2022.  From the outside, there could be a conflict of interest if he knows where other teams view his son and where they may draft and offer him.  This probably isn’t the first time this has happened, but do you see a potential issue?
Keith Law: Happens every year. IMO, the best move would be for the Royals’ owner to say you can’t draft your own kid, and move on. The information imbalance you mention is, I think, unavoidable.

Noah: I’ve written to you about this before, but it still gets under my skin when I see Sandy Alderson make a move (like letting Rojas go).  While I know the next GM or President will pick their own guy, I just would rather the Mets hire that next FO guy than have to read about Sandy Alderson doing anything other than retiring after his involvement in turning a blind eye to sexual harassment in previous hires.  Why won’t the Mets announce Alderson’s firing or retirement?  It’s a stain on an already stained organization.  Thanks for doing these, Keith!
Keith Law: I have no idea. Whatever you think of Alderson’s legacy, his tenure with the Mets has been disastrous, and he shouldn’t involved in this hiring process. You didn’t mention the conflict of interest he faces with his son in the FO as well. Will he hire someone who has no real plans to use his son or retain him beyond the contract they just gave him in July (which was itself suspect, as that’s a decision the new GM should be allowed to make, not HIS OWN FATHER).

Matt: Can you please explain to all the Yankee fans out there that it does no good to fire Aaron Boone unless there is a plan to replace him. It’s why the Yankees ended up with Aaron Boone in the 1st place.
Brian: Hey Klaw, thanks for hosting this chat. Highlight of my week. Inevitable Yanks question from an impatient fan – how do they move forward? Fire the coaching staff? The GM? Nobody? How do they get over the hump?
Keith Law: These both seem like the same sort of question. I don’t think Boone is the problem here. The team just had a great season with a rotation that was often cobbled together, and they lost the WC game primarily because their ace has been dealing with a hamstring injury the last few weeks and wasn’t able to give them a quality start. That doesn’t call for wholesale changes. Go sign Correa and a starter.

Dark Knight: Who do you think is better offensively:  Wander Franco or Bo Bichette?  Big debate from a circle of loyal followers.  Thanks Keith!!
Keith Law: This is a debate?

Barry: It seems like there are lots of Kickstartes for board games, even when the games are published by for profit game manufactures. Is there a reason why?
Keith Law: Aha! I know the answer to this. One is marketing – Kickstarters build a big buzz for upcoming titles. And the bigger reason is that it guarantees a sales figure for the first printing – you aren’t printing 10,000 copies and hoping you sell them but with no idea if you’ll sell out or only move 2500. It’s not the original purpose of crowdsourcing, but I think it ensures the financial health of publishers because they aren’t putting big piles of cash at risk and sometimes ending up with a warehouse full of unsold games.

Mo: Do the Cardinals need to look into the SS market this off-season given DeJong’s been pretty rough for 2+ years now?
Keith Law: I like Sosa. I think I’ve always kept him reasonably high on my Cards rankings and he finally justified that this year. Would like to see him get a full shot at the job.

Daniel: Keith, outside of Stearns/Beane… would you mind giving us a few names that you think would be good hires as president of baseball operations by the Mets? Who are you high on to run a franchise? Thanks in advance.
Keith Law: So I heard last week secondhand that those guys and Theo had already turned the Mets down … then the report of a Theo conversation that happened this week came out, so maybe what I heard was wrong, but also, I can’t imagine either guy taking that job. It would be great if the Mets didn’t just recycle the same names all over again.
Keith Law: I know several people within MLB who are rooting for Bobby Heck to get the GM job there, and he’d make a lot of sense as a respected exec who comes from one of the best-run orgs (Tampa Bay) and can bring that knowledge as well as his experience managing a staff (he was scouting director for Houston when they took George Springer).

ATR: Do you anticipate Torkelson and Greene to be in Detroit’s opening day lineup? Thanks!
Keith Law: No, just because of service time stuff. So few teams do that.

Jason: is it unfair that a team can withstand the loss of Bauer and Kershaw and still be a WS favorite? Seems unfair to me. Any other team this wouldve been a death blow. Thats what like 70 million bucks in pitching?
Keith Law: Define “unfair.”
Keith Law: I mean, should they sign Harrison Bergeron instead?

Chris: Is there any optimism for Rockies fans with Bill Schmidt?
Keith Law: Derek and I discussed this on the pod we just recorded for tomorrow (The Athletic Baseball Show), and the answer is … maybe. It really depends on what he does next, and especially who he hires.

A Salty Scientist: So has Logan Webb really leveled up on command and the change to become a legit #2? Nothing in the expected stats screams fluke to me, but curious if you’ve seen anything notable.
Keith Law: I think this is his peak, in the sense that he executed his pitching plan about as well as he possibly could this year. I don’t want to say it’s luck, because that seems to discredit him, but more that everything went right for him. If he’s a 60% groundball guy who can really limit hard contact like he did this year, he can be an above-average starter for a while. But I would bet the under on 2022 because of the above – everything seems to have hit at the 90th percentile.

Anthony: I know minors stats shouldn’t always be used for prospect evaluation but I’ve read stuff on  Julio Rodriguez’s hit tool being closer to a 50 than a 60 based on his long swing. Given his career minors BA is well over .300 why isn’t his hit tool given more praise?
Keith Law: Because batting average is really not a great measure of hit tool, especially not when you’re facing a lot of bad pitching in the minors (and some good, too, he’s not only able to hit the bad ones).

Seth: MLB is missing a golden opportunity with the Giants Dodgers series starting so late on the east coast.  This is the series all baseball fans have wanted to see this year for so many reasons.  If this was Yankees Red Sox it would be in prime time on the east coast without question.  Seems like there has to be a way to get these games on earlier so they dont end at 1:30am EST.
Keith Law: If you start the games earlier then the west coast fans – which, I would assume, includes most of the Giants’ and Dodgers’ current fan bases – miss the beginnings of the games, and that’s worse.

Philly Phantasmic: How much playing time will the Royals give Melendez and at what positions?
Keith Law: He’s a catcher. They have to use him as a catcher, and yes, I’m aware of the catcher they already have, but that guy isn’t going to hit 48 homers again, and catchers, especially ones who’ve caught as much as he has, are not great bets to age well into their 30s.
Keith Law: OTOH if the Royals just want to keep Salvy as the everyday guy, I imagine they could get a king’s ransom for MJM.

Jason: Did everyone who worked in the Trump White House just keep saying to themselves “Think of the book deal, think of the book deal…”
Keith Law: Well, they were clearly just thinking about themselves, so this fits.

AES: Aside from a long history of normalizing racism, why hasn’t there been a bigger outcry about Mcdonough’s comment about Zaidi?
Keith Law: It was showing up on Twitter’s “trending” sidebar for me all night, but there should be some kind of reaction from his employers. It was inappropriate.

Mcf1417: Michael Harris had a rough end to the year. What’s your thought on him going forward?
Keith Law: Harris in the Atlanta system? He didn’t have a rough end to the year at all. You can see my notes on him from when they came through Wilmington.

Chris Mitchell: Should the playoff format be changed to reseed the teams after the WC games without regard to division winners? If this were done in the NL, it would be Giants-Braves and Dodgers-Brewers in the NLDS with a possible matchup of baseball’s best teams in the NLCS. A playoff format that results in the teams with the two best records in the sport meeting in round 1 needs changing.
Keith Law: No. No format will be ‘perfect’ and trying to tinker with it to achieve a desired result in year N will probably yield an undesirable result in year N+1, and then we’ll hear a bunch of ideas to tweak it further.

J. Brenner: Any surprising omissions from AFL rosters? Personally, I expected to see Corbin Carroll show up.
Keith Law: Not surprised after his surgery. I was hopeful, but not optimistic. That said I am so fucking happy to see how many good prospects will be there, and that they’re having the AFL at all, that I’ll take whatever i can get out of the trip. (By which I mean a trip to Changing Hands and very tough decisions on where to eat between games.)

Matt: Was a little surprised that Joey Wiemer didn’t get a mention in your prospects of the year column. Age? Position? Don’t believe in the swing? Something else?
Keith Law: Older guy in single A, and also, I can’t mention every single player who had a good year.

Famous Twitter User @Whitey_83: Any insight into how the Ozuna saga might play out in Atlanta? I would very much like to never see him again, but I have serious fears about the org either bringing him back (when/if it is allowed to do so) or crying poor because of his contract for the next three years.
Keith Law: I truly don’t know, although I share your wish and your fears. I could see Liberty demanding that he play as long as they’re paying him.

SD: I know it’s hard to evaluate managers because there is so much we can’t see. From what we could see I thought Tingler was pretty good. Do you have thoughts you could share?
Keith Law: From what we could see, I agree. There are a lot of reports of the players not wanting to play for him, and while you don’t necessarily want to let the lunatics run the asylum – or to blame the manager for their own play – if the manager has lost the clubhouse, that’s a reason to move on. I think Tingler will be a great manager if he’s given a second opportunity, a la AJ Hinch and Terry Francona.

John: Hey Klaw, how rare is it for 2 prospects in the same system to essentially come back from being almost written off like Pratto and MJ? Is what they are doing sustainable?
Keith Law: Both are for real. In their cases I believe there’s a common cause – the Royals changed how they were working with several of their hitters, and they had all of 2020 to do so with these guys. I don’t ever want to see another lost minor league season, but it turns out a few players might be substantially better off from a year of instruction without games, or just from the year of rest.

Dave: Do the Mariners seem ripe for regression? Seems like they could be better next year but have a worse record with how much they outperformed their pythag
Keith Law: Yes. Future is bright, 2022 may feel disappointing.

Ethan: Keith, what are your thoughts on this Padres season?  What should be the priorities this offseason?  And what should be their profile as they look for a new manager?  Thanks as always for your good work!
Keith Law: Darvish and Snell both had 4+ ERAs, in that ballpark, and pitched a lot less than I would have expected. It all starts there, doesn’t it? If you knew going into the year that both of those guys would be average-at-best, would you pick them to make the playoffs? I wouldn’t have – I thought their rotation would be a major strength, bolstered in the second half by Gore (now going to the AFL!) and maybe the arrival of a more developed Weathers (who was pushed into making 18 starts that I’m sure were not part of the plan). Whose fault is that? The manager? The GM? Or just rotten luck?

Guest: Anything to read into Daniel Lynch’s struggles with command / control this season? Young guy figuring it out or does it dampen your enthusiasm?
Keith Law: Young guy figuring it out. They’re not all good right away. Some guys take a year or more.

Robert Axelrod: What due diligence did MLB pay to Cohen’s “dark money” past and its role in our political mess? Not to mention his grey dealings in the investment world.
Keith Law: The Kendricks are established MLB owners and their dark money habits are well known. MLB doesn’t care.

Tony: Do you think Mike Elias should spend some money this winter to not be embarrassingly bad again? And do you think he’ll do that?
Keith Law: I’d think ownership would want to do so. You have the game’s #1 prospect on the cusp of the majors. Do you want to field a 60-win team around him?

Ciscoskid: What is this Giants team in 2022 regardless of the this postseason results. A lot of cap flexibility but also a lot of holes to plug again.
Keith Law: I wouldn’t bet on a lineup with key players this old repeating the way they did, but I also think they’ll be more active this winter knowing that they are clear contenders going into the year.
Keith Law: That’s all assuming the CBA stuff gets settled. who knows what happens there.

Henry: Dave Roberts did an excellent job managing the Scherzer/bullpen yesterday, and Mike Shildt managed it like a regular season game. He’s lucky Wainwright wasn’t worse but he kept him in too late. It still befuddles me why managers make stupid decisions.
Keith Law: I was a little surprised to see Scherzer start an inning and come out with 2 men on … I’m not saying it was wrong but it felt more ad hoc than it needed to be. Shildt got very lucky on Wainwright. If Turner doesn’t chase a pitch he seldom chases, the Dodgers might put 2-3 on the board in the 4th (?) inning and change the whole course of the game.
Keith Law: Good pitch by Wainwright, of course. Just surprised Turner offered at it.

Neil: As a Jays fan this weekend hurt, but the last month was awesome.  I see tons of people pushing for expanded playoffs, but I really think that would devalue September, which can be so much fun.  Im guessing expansion of playoffs is inevitable, any way MLB avoids it?
Keith Law: No, there’s too much money in it for MLB. They will always take the option that increases their revenues in the short term regardless of any deleterious long-term consequences. Always.

Snarfle: Do you see a viable compromise on the whole service time thing? Start the clock when the player is drafted?
Keith Law: Can’t see that taking. I like the idea of at least connecting free agency to the player’s age at debut, or when drafted, to recognize that players who go to college are at a relative disadvantage (since they likely won’t see free agency until at least 29, versus ~27 for the best HS draftees and international FAs).

Luke: Will the 2022 MLB season start on time or are we looking at a work stoppage?
Keith Law: I believe there will be a deal, we won’t lose all or even half of the 2022 season, but the hot stove will be delayed and maybe even spring training will too.

Pete: Hey Keith, I was really excited to see Gabriel Moreno so high up on your rankings in the middle of the year. What’s his ceiling stat line? Is it higher than someone like Francisco Alvarez? Or was he ranked higher because he’s so close to being ready for the majors?
Keith Law: Moreno is closer to ready but as hitters they’re quite different – they will both probably be stars, but get there in different ways.

Josh: Were you a fan of the Dune novel or the David Lynch movie?
Keith Law: Loved the first novel. Never saw the Lynch movie. The sequel novels get increasingly ridiculous and I wouldn’t recommend anyone read past the first.

Jason Bersani: should I stay in on Corbin Martin, for sim/DMB purposes? I bought when shortly after the draft Calls thought there was a chance he trend into the best arm of the class.
Keith Law: He made my top 100 then too. Hold.

Kevin: Why would ESPN have Arod call the wild card game on Tuesday? He was incredibly biased the entire game, not to mention he isn’t good.
Keith Law: But he’s famous. Between him not really knowing the players or how most teams think about players & roster construction, and Vasgersian shouting the extremely cringey “What up Holmes” when Clay Holmes pitched, it was a pretty lousy experience. (And no, I don’t get ESPN2, haven’t since I left the company.)

Deke: The Jessica Berg Wilson death — obviously the vaccines are good and necessary and the mandates help, but when someone (not a bad-faith actor, someone genuine) holds that up to you, what do you say in response? How do you address their concerns in that regard? “It’s vanishingly rare” just isn’t going to sway those people.
Keith Law: It’s a terrible tragedy, but that’s the 4th death in 15 million doses of the J&J shot administered (and, I think, the second since the pause, after which the medical community was supposed to be more aware of the signs to watch for). The odds are minuscule, and it’s possible she didn’t get the proper care for a known if very rare side effect. On the other hand, we’re at 700,000 deaths from COVID-19. More people die of the virus every 10 minutes than have died from this blood clotting disorder.

Noah: I’m getting my booster next week (immunocompromised) and I have a hard time sussing out why there is debate in the medical community about whether or not boosters are necessary.  It seems like there is waning efficacy, but a lot FDA/CDC folks are still saying we need to get the unvaxxed vaccinated and well…that doesn’t seem likely to happen until mandates are more broadly used.  So, shouldn’t we be promoting those who want boosters to get them?
Keith Law: STAT had a good piece on this. The connection between science and policy, while certainly better than it was under the circus, has not been great under Biden.

Snowy: Elly De La Cruz got a lot of buzz this year, is he a possible top 100 guy next year?
Keith Law: He has top 20 overall tools but his approach is really not very good at all. It’s a bunch of 7s on the scouting report, though.

Jason: Does this week just prove Facebook has too much power and influence over our lives and needs to be regulated?
Keith Law: I don’t love that phrasing. I prefer to say that if Facebook can’t police itself – or won’t – then they should be prepared to face the consequences of their own actions. Don’t take down anti-vaccine content? Fine. Help pay for the costs that unvaccinated people impose on our economy.

Matty: What do you make of Bellinger’s season?  Is this an anomaly, a result of the shoulder injury, or are there long-term concerns with his hit tool?
Keith Law: I assume he was hurt.

Ben: Would you consider Witt to be the MiLB POY? If not him, who?
Keith Law: I wrote a whole column about it.

Chris Mitchell: Did you have similar thoughts about Kapler the second time around – seems like he’s learned a lot from the PHL experience.
Keith Law: Yes, and also he was allowed to hire more of his own people. Always thought he got a raw deal in Philly, and subsequent events proved he wasn’t the problem. The roster was.

Matt: I’ve never been a doom and gloom guy over MLB popularity, but a game that’s 1-1 in the 9th and over the four hour mark is insane, right?
Keith Law: Great game. I was hurting this morning from staying up for it.

Santos: Am I just an old man yelling at clouds or is MLB creeping towards an aesthetic problem? I know advertisements have been there forever – I have no problem with them around the ballpark and on the broadcasts (though I’m not fond of how many are behind home plate now), but they put the Nike swoosh on the jerseys and that was a small change….now they have the FTX logo on the umpires’ shirts…they have betting kiosks and advertisements in stadiums…I’m not a luddite but I just can’t get behind this. I don’t mind european sports (I’m a cricket fan) but their uniforms are awful. You can’t tell what the team name is or the player unelss you wade through a stack of other companies first. Am I overreacting?
Keith Law: Oh, just wait till your screen is crowded on three sides with interactive betting tools. It’s coming.

David: Any interest in the Dune movie?
Keith Law: Absolutely.

Bill: Just FYI. People do read your completely dishonest political takes and other dishonest takes and realize that dishonesty is likely to show up in your other work
Keith Law: And yet, here you are. Really appreciate you looking out for me, though.

Henry: Nice Strangelove DM reference.
Keith Law: I give in to sin.

section 34: I’m a lifelong baseball fan but increasingly I find the game boring: too much take-and-rake, too little action. Do you feel this way too? For an analyst there’s still plenty to analyze, but do you find the game less interesting to analyze now that the Three True Outcomes make up such a high percentage of plate appearances?
Keith Law: I miss basestealing and more balls hit into play (and not finding fielders). I don’t want to see the league ban the shift, though. Deadening the baseball even a little bit would go a long way. So would raising the bottom of the strike one (although, TBH, I haven’t seen data on whether that happened this year).

James: With the huge incoming growth of sports gambling, have you ever read The Fix by Declan Hill about matchfixing in soccer? Any concerns about seeing that happen in MLB (or the minors in particular where players and umps aren’t paid well)?
Keith Law: That is inevitable. We will have a scandal around betting in baseball. I feel like we’ve already had a few, actually.

Dark Knight: what are your thoughts on Drew Rasmussen and Ranger Suarez?  Drew for example pitched well against TOR 3 x, BOS 2x and even against PHI.  Do you think they’re for real?
Keith Law: Rasmussen is a two-time TJ guy who was worked extremely hard at Oregon State. I’d really be surprised if he stayed healthy as a starter despite all of that – he’d be a big outlier, at least. I like Suarez as a back-end starter.

Joshua: Is there still hope for Victor Robles? Would he be best that he start fresh somewhere else? Thanks.
Keith Law: Has to start hitting the ball harder.

Alex In Austin: I missed how Shane Baz is postseason eligible.  What happened to the rule of being on the roster on Sept 1st or did he arrive in the IL loophole?
Keith Law: That rule has been a laughingstock for a few decades now. If you’re in the organization on 9/1 you can be on the postseason roster.

Dan: Pedro Leon seemed to start putting it together after a tough start, all while learning a new position. Do you think he can be a star?
Keith Law: I think so but he’s near the top of my list of guys to see in the AFL.

Wayne: Is Votto a Hall of Famer in your opinion?
Keith Law: Yes.

Scott: You seem like a guy who likes good smart pop tunes, you should give The Beaches a listen if you havent already. I think they would be up your alley, punky yet very catchy.
Keith Law: I’ll check out their new EP. I can’t remember if I listened to Talk Show when it came out – too many indie bands with Beach in their name (Beach House, Beach Fossils, Beach Slang).

Dave: I would to see either Jamey Stegmaier or Elizabeth Hargraves on the podcast to talk about Wingspan and board game design. Would be fascinating.
Keith Law: Great idea. I’ll get on that.

Dave: Did anyone see this kind of season coming from Cedric Mullins?
Keith Law: I know some Orioles scouts who thought he could be a good regular but thought he was underappreciated in the org (and especially by Showalter). I don’t know if any of them would have expected (waves hands around) this.

Arturo (Mexico): I think Soto was better this season than Harper, but it seems to me than Harper was more relevant to the Phillies winning than Soto (for example many hits that were decisive in victories in an order at bat with little contributions from his teammates). Would it be a good argument in favor of Harper’s candidacy to MVP?
Keith Law: Sure, especially with the two fairly close, although I only use that as a final arbiter when I can’t decide otherwise.

Matt: Political takes are dishonest? Funny, I thought they were opinions.
Keith Law: He just means he doesn’t like them.

Dana: Any idea what happened to Gleyber Torres the past two seasons?
Keith Law: Not really. I think he’s a buy-low candidate for someone. But I also know that I don’t know what happened.

Dark Knight: Will Michael Kopech be a starter for the Chisox next year?  How good do you think he’ll be?
Keith Law: If he starts, he’ll be really good. Might take a year or two. But he’ll be really good.

Guest: If you’re the Yankees, you sign Correa, and then what with Peraza and Volpe? Trade Peraza when he’s ML ready and trade Gleyber if Volpe turns out to be the star he looked like this year?
Keith Law: Volpe can play SS, but I’m okay with signing Correa and then either moving Volpe to 2b when he’s ready OR moving Correa to third. Peraza isn’t good enough to merit changing the plans around those two guys.

Mac: Trey Sweeney will be in the Yankees SS mix too.
Keith Law: I don’t know any scouts who think he stays at shortstop.

Margarita: Hi Keith, how did you manage to invite Lauren Mayberry to your podcast? How did it happen? Probably an interesting story.
Keith Law: Just used my network. I was thrilled to get her and she was an amazing guest, too.
Keith Law: OK, that’s all for this week. No chat next week as I’ll be out at Fall League, but I’ll write up what I see there. Hope to see a few of you at the games as well! Stay safe and thank you as always for reading.