Astros vs. Rays Division Series Game 1 Chat

Ben Clemens: Hey everyone, and welcome to the ALDS Game 1 chat.

Ben Clemens: We have a pretty good roster today- Dan, Jay, and Josh.

Ben Clemens: Some links for your pleasure:

Ben Clemens: First, today’s series preview:
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/postseason-preview-houston-astros-vs-tampa…

Ben Clemens: The ZiPS projections, artisanally crafted by none other than Dan Szymborski:
https://www.fangraphs.com/standings/playoff-odds/post-season-zips

Ben Clemens: And since I really enjoyed it (though it has no bearing on today), Jay on Mickey Callaway:

Ben Clemens: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/with-firing-of-mets-callaway-managerial-me…

Derek: As the only day that is guaranteed to have 4 playoff baseball games, is this the best day of the baseball calendar?

Dan Szymborski: It is chatting time!

Ben Clemens: It’s the best, and also the most tiring.

Dan Szymborski: Well, it was 3 minutes ago.

Dan Szymborski: But I forgot it was on FS1

Ben Clemens: Great things are often tiring, though.

Dan Szymborski: “The chat got NC-17 so quickly I didn’t even notice.”

Magic Kingdome: Will this series feature the most spins of a baseball in history?

Magic Kingdome: Astros in 9!

ZiPS: Probably a question for Dan, but why is Kershaw listed as the potential Game 5 starter instead of Buehler?

Dan Szymborski: They initially were hinting a bit that they could bring Kershaw back in Game 5 and I haven’t heard anything new yet. I think Buehler is preferable too

Ben Clemens: I’ll just throw a few polls up here to start:

Ben Clemens:

Ben Clemens:

Sabo: that’s some optimism for the rays there

Derek: Is this series called, like, the Juice Bowl? The Juice Cup maybe? (Tropicana wins in the battle of the actual juices, btw)

Ben Clemens: FanGraphs is in the tank for the Rays. Hi Jeff!

Dan Szymborski: SPACE FISH SERIES

Jay Jaffe: Hey folks, echoing what Dan and Ben have said, welcome to today’s chat

Eel Ffilc: Ben’s chatting usage is akin to Andrew Miller in the 2016 playoffs.

Ben Clemens: Hopefully without the eventual breakdown.

Cito’s Mustache: AJ just used the cliché “Use it or lose it” so this broadcast is off to a roaring start.

Dan Szymborski: I don’t know who I want to win this series in my heart of hearts

Jay Jaffe: With four series going at once, the depth chart gets a workout, to say the least

Ben Clemens: For someone so fast, Pham grounds into a ton of double plays.

Ben Clemens: 22 this year

Ben Clemens: As much as I think of him as a modern, stats-driven hitter, he is very groundball happy

ryan: by what metric are the Astros “first place in defensive efficiency”?

Derek: Can we start a petition for Jason Benetti & Co. to call every postseason game?

Jay Jaffe: by the stat Defensive Efficiency, the rate at which teams turn balls in play into outs https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/AL/2019.shtml

Jay Jaffe:

cO.COa: Cat and Dog updates, please, Dan and Ben

Ben Clemens: Ruby is at daycare. I’m recapping tonight’s game so I didn’t think I could handle two games of vigilance.

Dan Szymborski: Cassiopeia bullied the kittens off my office windowsill after the kittens were done fighting on top of the high bookshelf. Now she’s asleep on my left desk and I hear chaos upstairs that I’m not checking unless a smoke detector goes off.

stever20: Kershaw is one of the funnier pitchers in the playoffs.  He’s had 10 starts where he’s given up 4 runs or more.  But then at the same time 9 where he gave up 0 or 1 run.  Only 5 with either 2 or 3 runs….

Ryan G: This strikezone already seems problematic. Is there any evidence to support a change in the strikezone in October?

Dan Szymborski: I’ve personally never looked at that issue. Ben or Jay?

Jesse: Is the chat going to take a break between the two AL games or just go straight through?

Jay Jaffe: so much of Kershaw’s line has to do with the hope that he can get out of a jam when he’s tiring, which, after having 200 innings piled on his plate and 100+ pitches, has often not been the case

Dan Szymborski: We’re just motoring through, I believe. I’m here for this game and then I have writing to do

5 Run Homer: Jay has a dog too! Jay, dog update

Ben Clemens: Never looked at it. I’m skeptical, though. Strike zones are bad all year, it just feels worse in the playoffs.

Dan Szymborski: Weird, neither leadoff hitter hit a homer. Is this 2019?

Jay Jaffe: Sandy, a mutt, is doing quite well except for his confusion during the threenager’s tantrums

Sabo: tyler glasnow, aka why ray searage was fired

Dan Szymborski: I think Searage’s “pound the strike zone low with fastballs” strategy
got largely usurped by modern hitting theory

Jay Jaffe: I’ve never studied the strike zone issue. It’d be a good question to ask somebody who studies that stuff large-scale, like Jon Roegele

Guest: Jay, is Chapman the new front runner reliever for HOF? Highest active fWAR @ 19.3 and 13th all time (which I believe incorporates WPA #s for relievers) with fewer innings than Jansen and Kimbrel. His K/9 is the highest and FIP the lowest of all pitchers min 500 IP. and FWIW his save numbers are respectible. Not to mention the other two look more and more in decline. Sorry you haven’t had a chat in a while!

Ben Clemens: Searage reminds me of Seth Rogen in Knocked Up. He just has the one move… he has to keep going with it.

Ben Clemens: It worked quite well for a while, and then when it didn’t, well….

Ben Clemens: “MLB considers them the eighth-best team in defensive efficiency.” That’s certainly one way to say that.

Daniel: Sort of weird that the broadcast keeps pronouncing it “Lowe” as opposed to “Lowe”

Dan Szymborski: It’s Lowe’s fault for pronouncing his last name different than everybody in the history of the world with that last name.

Jay Jaffe: Re Chapman: Good question. I haven’t looked closely at it but he figures to be the next guy in the pecking order. Straight JAWS-wise (which isn’t ideal) he’s 80th, a long ways off.

It’s a bummer to see Kimbrel and Jansen declining before our eyes, but it should deepen the appreciation for guys like Rivera, Hoffman and Wagner — it’s damn hard to stay good at that job for so long.

Derek: Glasnow just threw that ball like, 40 feet

Ben Clemens: Savant will imply a height when the pitch crosses the plate, and I’m very curious to see where that one comes in.

Dan Szymborski: It’d be like Ben demanding we all call him CLEE-muns.

Ben Clemens: Yeah, and?

Ben Clemens: My name is easy to pronounce but people never spell it correctly. Not as bad as Dan I’m sure, but you’d be shocked how rare it is that someone gets it right.

stever20: so last night….  the Dodgers/Nats game.  Soto up and Kolarek comes up for 1 batter…  Next year, he has to pitch to 3 batters.  How is MLB going to prevent Kolarek from feigning injury after his first batter?

Ben Clemens: I’ll have to verify this but I believe he’d have to go on the IL.

Ben Clemens: So, Game 7 sure, but otherwise that would be costly.

Jay Jaffe: at the very least, he could be forced to be inactive for X games if it’s not an IL-worthy injury

Derek: How else do people spell “Clemens”?

Dan Szymborski: Clemons?

Ben Clemens: Clemons, Clemmons, Clements

Dan Szymborski: I would think baseball people would get it right

Jay Jaffe: or you could do something like award two bases per batter needed to get to 3 batters?

ViewerfromHolland: Over/under yandy Diaz with 3 Hrs today?

Dan Szymborski: O/U is like 2.6!

Ben Clemens: Yeah if I say ‘like Roger’ baseball people always get it.

Dan Szymborski: “Oh, Roger Clements!” and then you cry yourself to sleep.

Jay Jaffe: that reminds me of the Louis Cefarino tweet

Dan Szymborski: For a passing score with my name, you just need a z, and m, and some spelling of ski/sky and you’re fine.

Jay Jaffe:

Josh R: How much does everyone hate both TBS and Fox postgame crews? They both just sit or stand around laughing at each other. Do people actually like this.  I switch over to MLB network immediately after these games.

Dan Szymborski: I’m kinda over the whole pregame/postgame show thing. Just not much value for me anymore, as arrogant as that sounds.

Jay Jaffe: I quite enjoyed the TBS one last night. if Pedro Martinez is talking about pitching, I’m listening

Dan Szymborski: I totally missed the Cefarino tweet. That’s even better than the guy who told me my fassad was broken.

stever20: also on next years rules….  for the playoffs, is it going to be 26 man rosters?  I know that’s what Mar-Aug is and then 28 in September.

Dan Szymborski: I actually have no idea about playoffs.

Jay Jaffe: i don’t watch them closely but we had that one on in the background. I do like the fact taht they’re not all old white men and that Pete Rose isn’t doing them anymore

RandyMarsh: I love Pedro as a postgame analyst.

Ben Clemens: Pedro is the best.

RandyMarsh: But no postgame show is as great as Inside the NBA – their chemistry is great, EJ is great at controlling Barkley to not go too crazy and it’s like you’re just w your friends joking about the game that happened

Dan Szymborski: I get more out of NBA postgame shows since I’m not a basketball expert.

Ben Clemens: I text my friends pictures of a $20 dollar fillup of gas frequently.

Ben Clemens: Shaq is such a gem on that show.

HOF Voter: Jay, I read an article that ranked active HOF players and the author had Verlander as the top pitcher and dinged Kershaw for having “only” three CYAs. How uninformed is that opinion on a scale of 1 to you’ve gotta be effing kidding me?

Logan: It took me longer than I’m willing to admit to figure out “Cefarino” = “Severino”

Dan Szymborski: People on Twitter think I made up the names of the communities I grew up in near Baltimore: Timonium, Lutherville, Cockeysville

stever20: whether you like the show or not- it was great to see Big Papi there today.

Dan Szymborski: Healthy Ortiz is an 80. Such a weird case.

Ben Clemens: With Travis d’Arnaud up, it’s always worth mentioning that his Players Weekend nickname is Little D.

Ben Clemens: Interesting choice.

Dan Szymborski: By the way, our friend, former Royals pitcher, and all-around awesome guy Bob Tufts passed away this morning.

Jay Jaffe: oh man

Jay Jaffe: That’s a heartrbreaker. I didn’t know Bob except through Twitter but we had some good conversations about early ’80s Pacific Coast League baseball (he played for Rocky Bridges, who was quite a character) and the MLBPA

RandyMarsh: Nothing beats Rich Hill’s nuckname: D Mountain

Ben Clemens: I’m going to run out and grab lunch quickly: this game started before my sandwich place of choice opened, unfortunately.

Derek: Dan, I grew up in south central PA – names of towns in PA and MD are just the strangest. Yocumtown is another of my favorites

Dan Szymborski: Bob was very active in old Baseball Think Factory. He was one of the people that really encouraged me in the profession and he gave me a lot of early contacts.

Jay Jaffe: Is Yocumtown where they do Tommy John surgeries that Dr. James Andrews can’t get to?

Dan Szymborski: Without his support and encouragement, I don’t know if I would have had the guts to stick it through in the industry ten years ago.

Jay Jaffe: That’s awesome, Dan. I did not know that.

Dan Szymborski: I’ll be back in about 5 minutes, I need to step out for some air.

Fire Ken Tremendous: Does Fangraphs still have a ranking of team’s radio broadcasters? I need to know whether I should select the Tampa or Houston feed on At Bat.

Jay Jaffe: Not that I know of but I haven’t been here THAT long. Both have good TV crews; I’d take my chances with either’s radio crew on that basis alone

Vin Scully: What are the chances of Cole to the Dodgers this offseason?

Jay Jaffe: Given this front office, I’m skeptical they want to invest another $200 million like that, and they have some very good starting pitching already. More likely they spend $60-80M to retain Ryu

Jay Jaffe: (and I do think he gets more than $200 million. just throwing that figure out there for order-of-magnitude purposes)

Cito’s Mustache: I initially read Ben’s tweet as “sandwich palace”. Now I wish I had my choice of palace to choose from for lunch.

Jay Jaffe: All future chats should be held at the FanGraphs Sandwich Palace

Sanford: Feels like everyone throws upper 90s nowadays, but you can almost feel the heat watching Glasnow pitch. Dude pumps gas. So glad he’s healthy again.

Phil: The NY talk radio has talked up Tanaka as being a “big game pitcher” as a reason why he should have started Game 1 over Paxton, who has “no postseason experience”. Is this a thing>

Ben Clemens: Oh man, I’d love a sandwich palace.

Jay Jaffe: This Russell Carleton piece on postseason experience is worth sharing https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/22039/baseball-therapy…

Dan Szymborski: OK, back.

Jay Jaffe: final 2 grafs:

Jay Jaffe: I can imagine that there are some readers out there who are nearing the end of this article and are forming sentences in their heads that begin with “Yeah, but there’s no substitute for experience…” I would kindly point out that the numbers would suggest otherwise. I would also suggest that the important thing isn’t having experienced the playoffs yourself, but having some way to keep level. About the best case that you can make for the importance of playoff experience is to say that a guy who’s been around (and to a few postseasons) might be able to teach some coping skills to the younger players who haven’t been around as long. And maybe a few of them haven’t really yet developed those skills.

But make no mistake. The numbers are very clear here. This week, when you hear someone extol the virtues of playoff experience, you’ll know better. Prior playoff experience has no predictive power over outcomes in the postseason. I would gladly tell you otherwise if it were true, but the numbers just don’t back that

Dan Szymborski: It’s a good way to put it.

Dan Szymborski: I tend to be less politic

Ben Clemens: Mickey Callaway disagreed with 80% of that article.

Jay Jaffe: hey that’s less than he usually disagreed with things

Dan Szymborski: I still think Callaway will be a fine pitching coach for someone again

Jay Jaffe: Mickey “Peter Principle” Callaway

Derek: The FanGraphs Sandwich Palace sounds like it would be great!

Vin Scully: So no chance Cole takes a shorter deal with a high AAV (4/140) to contend every year and be close to home? Would the Dodgers even offer that deal?

Dan Szymborski: He might get that on a longer deal

Zmboringsky: Fool that I am, I kept looking for graphs in Jay’s post.

Jay Jaffe: he’ll get something like that as the pre-opt out portion

5 Run Homer: Timonium sounds like some made-up element, like unobtanium

Derek: Besides Astros & Dodgers, who do you guys think has the best chance to surprise and win the World Series?

Dan Szymborski: Yankees but it’s hard to call them a SURPRISE

Dan Szymborski: I’d have said the Nats but they’ve got a loss on the scoreboard which is significant.

Ben Clemens: Without delving too far into the dark arts, I will say that before the playoffs, I thought that the market was most wrong about the Cards and Nats.

Dan Szymborski: When you’ve got a AA and your opponent has KK and a king drops on the flop, you *should* feel a lot worse.

Ben Clemens: Not that the Cardinals are great, but I think that they were undervalued relative to the Braves.

Jay Jaffe: Plus you have to factor the Cardinals Devil Magic in any projection

Ben Clemens: Haha I’d say this is more like you have AK and your opponent flops a small pair

Ben Clemens: That’s fair… Look at Tommy Edman this year!

Ben Clemens: It’s crazy that no one has written about Edman at FG yet, but I assume it’s because we all assume the other shoe will drop.

Nicholas: Sorry to hear about Bob Tufts passing away. Thanks for sharing Dan about his influence on your career.

Jay Jaffe: 23 of our contributors once covered the Cardinals, i figured it was only a matter of time

Ben Clemens: 23 of our contributors once wrote for Viva El Birdos it seems.

stever20: So Braves now- will they just have Fried in the pen and have Teheran start game 4 if it gets there?

Dan Szymborski: Bob was an awesome dude and I will miss him greatly. I’m very thankful his daughter always made an effort to keep his friends up-to-date on his many hospital stays.

Ben Clemens: That makes sense to me. I always thought they should use Fried as a reliever, so I think they’ve been somewhat boxed into the right move. Teheran is good!

Dan Szymborski: He had myeloma for about a decade and this was his second stem cell transplant. He sought every new treatment modality he could find and underwent it all with nary a cross word for anyone.

Sabo: if robo umps ever happen the one thing I’ll miss is over dramatic strikeout gesticulating by the umps

Dan Szymborski: You can program a wide variety of gesticulations into robots.

Ethan: TIL Dan is from where I am from as I sit in Towson

Dan Szymborski: Yo! Whereabouts?

Dan Szymborski: DID YOU SEE BATEMAN’S NEAR TOWSON U CLOSED? Stupid university reclaimed that for office space.

Brian: if you’re chatting,  how are you watching the game?

Dan Szymborski: Multitask!

Guest: Hey Dan how come ZiPS thinks the NYY-MIN series is more of a toss up than all the other projections ? (538, BP, even Depth Charts/Steamer)

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS just likes the Twins a lot!

Geust: Is Teheran’s option picked up next year?

Dan Szymborski: I was honeslty surprised it was projecting that close too

Dan Szymborski: But ZiPS really hearts Odorizzi, for example.

Dan Szymborski: More than you see in the simpler in-seaso model

Ben Clemens: I think so. He’s durable and average, which is really quite useful.

Dystopian Future: The chances that Glasnow gets the third time through the order has got to be pretty low, right? Astros have looked very comfortable even first time through.

Ethan: Well, I’m from the Hereford Zone but I work for the Baltimore County Govt.  RIP Batemans

Dan Szymborski: Frigging Hereford Zone. We’d get two hours late for snow and you’d be closed.

Jay Jaffe: Having crunched the numbers for this year’s rosters in my preview, the Twins’ starting pitching for this series looks to be as good or better than the Yankees — homer prevention is key — and the bullpen battle is a toss-up.

Ben Clemens: It was low regardless of how the first time through looked, but yes. Can’t imagine they give him much leash.

Dan Szymborski: I still want Glasnow to develop some kind of changeup/changeup variant long-term.

Dan Szymborski: I would think he’d be a good candidate to develop so kind of chlitter thing.

PD: Wouldn’t the rule be that if gas prices are going down, fill up $20 or what you can afford but if they’re going up, fill the entire tank? Let’s say you drive 200 miles a week, and your car gets 20 MPG. 10 gallons every week. If you know prices will drop from $2.999 to $2.899, then fill up the $20 amount during the first week, which is 6.667 gallons. For week 2, then if you fill the tank, it would be 13.333 gallons, or $38.65. Over the two weeks, your cost would be $58.65. But, if you filled up every week, then your 10 gallons per week would cost $29.99 and $28.99, for a total of $58.98. Therefore you save $0.33 over the two weeks.

Dan Szymborski: Wait, did I miss something?

Ben Clemens: Dan have you never seen the Shaq gas thing?

Dan Szymborski: I have not! Have I lost my internet cred?

Ben Clemens: And PD…. look, just put in $20 dollars each time. The average American gets gas once a week.

Ben Clemens:

Ben Clemens: This will be worth your while, Dan.

Dan Szymborski: Not having a daily drive really saves on gas – I just passed 6K in my subaru and I bought it in 6/18.

Ben Clemens: I had no car from 2008 to this June. It’s a big change.

Dan Szymborski: I’ve always been a suburban boy, I have to have a car.

Dan Szymborski: Even if it was that Ford Tempo I got when I was 16.

stever20: after seeing what we’ve seen these last 4 days, robo umps can’t get here soon enough…..  And to think we haven’t even had Joe West yet.

Dan Szymborski: They’ll program in the AI for Robo West to get 15% of calls wrong and shoot lasers at anyone who questions him

Ethan: Hereford Zones previous resident Nick Markakis knows all about it.

Andrea’s Fault: Jay, you said you were digging into the Peter Laughner box set a couple weeks ago. What’s the verdict? Worth it for someone who has the 1994 out-of-print ” Take the Guitar Player for a Ride”?

Jay Jaffe: oh hell yes. Better sound on those cuts, plus context for the variety of their original sources (he played in so many short-lived bands). My one beef is that I’d like to have seen more Rocket From the Tombs (they had 1 cut) and Pere Ubu (none) — surely they could have added a few rarities to the canon

Dan Szymborski: Oh man that Shaq clip. I love Shaq but I don’t know what’s going on in his head there

Ben Clemens: The broadcast has backed into a good point that I might do a little research on. The cost to batters from runners stealing should theoretically vary by count, and I haven’t seen any research into that.

Dan Szymborski: I wonder if a baserunner has ever put a thumb tack on their hand for holding the base after a steal

Dan Szymborski: I haven’t either.

O Shag Hennessy: What would your walk-up music be if you were a player? Mine would be the instrumental near the end of Bloodsport (when Chong Li says “matay”).

Jay Jaffe: I had the chance to answer this, sort of, when I got to throw out a first pitch in El Paso in connection with The Cooperstown Casebook (short version of the story is that I’ve been a guest on ESPN El Paso for like 10 years and my guy has gotten sponsors to fly me down a couple times). I chose Devo’s Uncontrollable Urge as my music

Ben Clemens: I’d like to see big Hulk fists- get a little extra reach.

Jay Jaffe: foam novelty fingers, Ben

Dan Szymborski: Just the generalized stat that players hit worse when stewals are attempted in their at-bats and worse with more pickoff throws

Dan Szymborski: stewals?

Ben Clemens: Yeah exactly Dan. It’s interesting, though- in theory if batters really are taking pitches to help with steals, you’d want to take in the counts where takes are least punishing.

Dan Szymborski: One can argue that you should throw pickoff throws to first even if you have the slowest runner in history at first

Andrew: Goalkeeper gloves would be handy! They’re huge and sticky-ish

Dystopian Future: Michael Brantley’s first batted ball today had an xBA of .730. It was an out. His next batted ball had an xBA of .070, and it was a hit.

Dan Szymborski: Baseball gonna baseball

Ben Clemens: Here’s a thing I didn’t expect to say: AJ Pierzynski has made some good points today.

Dan Szymborski: He’s probably kicking an intern during commercial breaks

Geust: Dan are you still doing elegies?

Dan Szymborski: Of course! Just none this week as I’m doing a lot for playoff openings. Since I’m off gamers and chats for several days after this initial blast, I’ll be writing some more.

R: i remember Pierzynski went on intentional talk and was the only guy who looked like more of an asshole afterwards

Aaron: There’s been a *lot* of borderline pitches from Glasnow that seemed to have no chance of being called strikes because of how much D’Arnaud was moving his glove to catch them. Glasnow’s fault, D’Arnaud’s, or both?

Ben Clemens: It’s interesting to me that there’s so much talk of being really careful with Bregman because he’s the presumptive MVP. So much of his value comes from walks!

Dystopian Future: Yeah what’s stopping a team that runs a lot (say, the Royals of this year) from lathering up the bases with some stickum?

Geust: Good because the elegies are excellent

Jay Jaffe: the obviousness of the ploy, Dys. I mean, it’s not gonna be the visiting team that gets sanctioned for that.

Dan Szymborski: I’m glad you’re enjoying them! They got really good response last year so decided it was worth continuing. Playoffs just kinda throw everything off. Unless I die or something, all 30 will be there!

Jay Jaffe: Dan — and I cannot stress this enough — don’t die, please.

Ben Clemens: “This at-bat could be the series.” That seems unlikely?

Dan Szymborski: well, ideally no

Ben Clemens: Like, how do they think baseball works??

Jason P.: This broadcast booth is good. Probably the best of all the national broadcasters.

Ben Clemens: You know, I actually agree with this. I’d like to see a Jess Mendoza/Ron Darling booth, because I think she’s quite sharp and he has his moments, but of what we have, it’s the best.

Guest: How crazy is it that rookie eligibility is based off AB and not PA still?

Matt W: Hey dan, how are the kitties?

Dan Szymborski: Trouble. I haven’t gone completely upstairs because I dread what the kitchen looks like after the noises I heard

Ethan: The Statcast broadcast was really enjoyable

Ben Clemens: Yes, obligatory “except the Statcast broadcast” reminder.

Ben Clemens: The Statcast booth is the second-best possible booth, behind only Benetti + Bill Walton.

Jay Jaffe: as I said behind the scenes earlier to my colleagues, I though the Brian Anderson/Ron Darling booth on the Cardinals-Braves game was good

Pete: I get irrationally annoyed when people use ABs instead of PA

Josh: I gotta say that I have learned that watching sports with the sound off is a generally enjoyable experience. Joe Davis and Orel are great for Dodger games, but not listening to the call and just watching the game is very nice

Ben Clemens: I like correcting people by saying plates appearance.

RandyMarsh: Respect to what the Astros FO has done, etc etc & there are a lot of likeable players w/ teh Astros but as an Asian AMerican, as long as they employ Gurriel I will root for that team to fail.

And sadly, they’re probably not going to

Jay Jaffe: enjoyed the Statcast booth too but as with this one, being tasked with writing/chatting while listening means I get less out of them than the viewer

RandyMarsh: Can we get the inside the nba crew do an mlb game? I just want an MLB version of Barkley

RandyMarsh: like Barkley also is a bit of an old fart when it comes to analytics, but most of all what separates him from the MLB counterparts is that he’s still having fun out there

Dan Szymborski: Yeah, the problem with some of the straw hats in baseball is that they’re SUPER ANGRY about the stats stuff all the time.

TB: Could listen to Brian Anderson call paint drying, he’s great

Dystopian Future: I think we really, and I can’t stress this enough, underestimate how hard it is to discuss a baseball game where over half the time is the analyst trying to fill empty space. Instead of dinging analysts for the dumb things they say, I prefer to just tune out everything except for the interesting insight they have. Though I would say instead of a former player I’d much rather have a scout in the booth, since I feel like they’d be much better at articulating what they’re seeing as opposed to a former player.

Dan Szymborski: I think broadcasters would do well to not try and fill every last second with empty space.

zangler: So the series is over? Best of the national crews is saying NOTHING for MLB. I would prefer the home team crew does the games. Would like to see the other crews anyway.

Ben Clemens: No, the series “could” be over.

Ben Clemens: My prediction: it is not.

Dan Szymborski: Do you think any classical composers got heat because NOT ALL THE INSTRUMENTS ARE PLAYING EVERY SINGLE MOMENT AT THE SAME TIME

lee: Rich Hill, when he retires, is going to be SO MUCH FUN as a broadcaster

Ben Clemens: For me, the thing I care most about, by far, is that the announcers seem to like baseball.

Ben Clemens: That forgives a lot for me.

Derek: Honestly, Dan, those composers probably did get heat for that… It’s human nature I think

Dan Szymborski: “THREE MEASURES AND NOTHING FOR THE VIOLAS LUDWIG? DO U EVEN COMPOSE BRO?”

lee: Now I’m imagining Amadeus with Tim McCarver as Salieri

zangler: Mozart literally did because a lot of instruments we’re new to the world and people wanted a chance to “show off” so they could get other jobs.

Guest: Fun fact, Bregman’s 2019 saw him reach three true outcomes 35.2% of the time. For qualified players (2010-2019), only Bregman, 2017 Votto, and 2013 Miggy are the only guys with K rates under 15% to reach 35% TTO..

Geust: I like watching video clips of college announcers that are in their 20s and use slang. It’s like a crew of 20 year olds are just goofing around.

Dan Szymborski: Boom goes the dynamite!

Dan Szymborski: sneaking upstairs to feed angry cats real quick

Geust: “That one was yeeted into left field!”

Ben Clemens: A friend of mine started purposely misusing slang to annoy his 10-year-old.

Ben Clemens: And I am fully in favor of it.

lee: How long does everyone think it’ll take for TB to get a hit?

Jay Jaffe: How’s tomorrow sound?

Ben Clemens:

Ben Clemens: There was a ninth-inning hit that ruined this tweet but its heart was in the right place.

Ben Clemens: Glasnow’s motion is really a joy to watch. He looks like he’s asleep out there then bam, 100.

Derek: Any chance Glasnow comes back out for the 5th?

Ben Clemens: Man. It’s really close. I’d be tempted to let him pitch to the righties.

Ben Clemens: But then, to do that you have to let him face Reddick.

Sabo: yeah, but it’s Josh Reddick

Ben Clemens: Glasnow doesn’t have much of a career platoon split, but I’m skeptical of that being due to any particular skill he has.

Dystopian Future: Glasnow’s been giving up some loud contact early on, and yet the only hits he’s given up so far were on a jam-shot and a grounder to short. Baseball in a nutshell.

Jay Jaffe: five of his eight balls in play have been hard-hit (95+) — and those have produced one hit. The other three, all in the 70s, have produced two hits. Go figure

Ben Clemens: Sure, but for his career, Reddick has a 91 wRC+ vs. lefties and 110 vs. righties, which is basically a league average platoon split. Why gift the Astros those 20 points just to let Glasnow face hitters who have already seen him twice?

Geust: Glasnow’s release point is rather high, which would decrease his splits, correct?

Ben Clemens: That’s a fair point, but he doesn’t have a changeup, which works the other way.

Josh: vertical CU though

Ben Clemens: Yeah, that’s the benefit of the release point I think. I don’t know, I don’t have the numbers offhand, but I’d like to see what the Rays do.

Ben Clemens: Huge, huge benefit of this booth: I haven’t seen anyone say “good piece of hitting” all day.

Ben Clemens: Also describing Buehrle as pitching like he was double-parked.

Josh: i’d like to see them put Glasnow at 1B while they bring out Drake or Poche for Reddick. But that won’t happen

Dan Szymborski: I’m back. The monsters destroyed another loaf of challah bread and got a bag of sunflower seeds open somehow, so I’ve spent 10 minutes sweeping the kitchen.

Ben Clemens: The Oliver Drake, lefty specialist thing is awesome.

RandyMarsh: Surprising lack of TTO today for both teams

Ben Clemens: What a tremendously goofy pitcher.

Dystopian Future: Whatever happens, I feel like Glasnow has to be out of the game before facing Brantley a third time. I get the sense he’s the most dangerous guy in that lineup for Glasnow.

Ben Clemens: 100%

Ben Clemens: Lefty third time through, do not want.

RandyMarsh: the pitcher-to-1B switch & back should be called “the Grover Cleveland”

Dan Szymborski: I’ll endorse this.

Tufts: I met Tufts at a BBTF softball game once. Very kind man (and a fellow alum of my school). RIP.

Ben Clemens: Dan clicked that one into the chat before I could.

Ben Clemens: But I second the motion.

Geust: 100mph heater, filthy curveball, do want

Dan Szymborski: That you DMN?

Ben Clemens: Yeah, it’s not hard to see why Glasnow is good. His two pitches are at the top of the charts when it comes to stuff.

Cal: What is the correct pronunciation of Lowe?

Geust: Low

Adam2: Any professional hitters, though?

Dystopian Future: So who’s the most professional hitter in today’s game?

Dan Szymborski: Among position players, Mike Trout is the most professional hitter at $34.1 million in 2019. Stephen Strasburg is, I believe, the most professional player overall at $38.3 million.

lee: Dan, my wife uses your kitten stories on me the way I use my friends’ “my kids peed in my dinner and laughed about it” stories on her

Dan Szymborski: Eww, I hope they don’t eat the dinner then

Ben Clemens: The Rays kill me because they have both pronunciations of Lowe.

Ben Clemens: With Brandon and Nate.

Dan Szymborski: Greg Gagne only got away with Gage-KNEE until there was Eric GONE-yay.

Ben Clemens: And every time I say either one of their names I can’t shake the feeling that I’m getting it wrong.

Dan Szymborski: “I’ll pronounce your last name LAO, but I’m going to also call you Brunden”

Prediction: The Yankees will beat the Twins if Paxton doesn’t have midseason Bad First Inning Paxton vibes

Ben Clemens: AJ Pierzynski is a great example of when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail

Ben Clemens: I’ve never heard more about blocking than I have in the first five innings of this broadcast.

Dan Szymborski: If you have a hammer and something doesn’t look like nail, your hammer isn’t large enough.

Ben Clemens: The commentary just became an unexpected delight. AJ Pierzynski pointed out that one reason not to steal is if you think you’ll be thrown out.

Dystopian Future: First big mistake pitch from Verlander, Kiermaier just missed it. High hanging breaking ball and he was a touch early and fouled it off.

Ben Clemens: Kiermaier got a lot of that.

Trent: What percentage of the runs scored in the Twins-Yankees series will come via HRs?

Dan Szymborski: I bet AJ buys Shaq’s gas argument and can expand on it

Dan Szymborski: At least AJ is upbeat-insane.

Emil: Nate is lower in the alphabet than Brandon, so he’s Nate Low

Ben Clemens: Sounds like a great excuse for a poll:

Ben Clemens:

Dan Szymborski: Kiermaier had good horizontal movement on that angry bat flip, but you really need to have some vertical bite so you can get some good end-over-end action

Ben Clemens: So Dan, I would put a 60 on the bat flip. It’s definitely no angry helmet smash from the Wild Card game.

R: Bat Flip+, leaders Yasiel Puig with a 220 BF+, add it in is a new WAR component man is going to get Paid

Ben Clemens: Nah Tim Anderson leads.

Nick: If Verlander wins a Cy Young and World Series this year, then plays out the two years on his contract at any close to his current level of performance, does he enter the HOF as an Astro?

Ben Clemens: His grab-and-throw flip redefined the 20-80 scale.

Jay Jaffe: I have a feeling JV will do a Maddux/Mussina no-logo.

And it’s remarkable how much HOF progress he’s made over the past two seasons. Really pushed himself from “if things continue well” to “no doubt, you jabbering fool!”

Ben Clemens: It’s like the first time someone saw Joey Gallo and realized what 80 power really was.

Derek: Hey it’s Tyler Glasnow!

Derek: And maybe it shouldn’t’ve been Tyler Glasnow!

Dan Szymborski: What does Glasnow take for a sore arm? Tylernol.

Cito’s Mustache: The Rays have a third Lowe (Josh) on the way too. I’d love to see him prank people by asking them to pronounce the ‘e’ or something.

FadedCrown: FanGraphs discord when

Ben Clemens: Tyle-nope!

Jay Jaffe: That Lowe comment and the previous conversation reminds me of the first round of the 2010 draft, when the White Sox took Chris Sale (pronounced sail) and the Rays took Josh Sale (pronounced sally)

Dan Szymborski: I totally think we should have one!

Dystopian Future: Remember when we were all talking about Bryce Harper’s bat flip against WAS? Now that looks pretty tame. Harper has to up his game.

Ben Clemens: Nick Anderson fulfilling his contractual requirement to always be warming up.

Dan Szymborski: We’ve always been at war with Nickasia

Sabo: verlander has as complete a HOF resume as you can possibly has as of the end of this season

Jay Jaffe: uh i wouldn’t go that far

Dan Szymborski: You can ALWAYS be better

Jay Jaffe: 300 wins, for one thing. Above-average JAWS for another.

Dan Szymborski: But I think he’s in at this point without having to add any bulk numbers to fatten up his lines

FadedCrown: Can someone tell me what the point of RA9-WAR is?

Ben Clemens: I like RA9-WAR!

Dystopian Future: Jose Altuve in play, run(s).

Jay Jaffe: How many Altuves was that?

Ben Clemens: Boy that thing was gone fast.

Dan Szymborski: Not everyone likes FIP as a WAR base, for philosophical reasons

Dan Szymborski: Like a lot of stats, there’s some tug-and-pull involving predictive vs. descriptive

Ben Clemens: Over long stretches of time (multi-season windows), it’s pretty reasonable to think that FIP doesn’t capture everything you want.

Jay Jaffe: one thing I really like about us having an RA9 WAR is that you can combine that with FIP WAR and take an average

Dan Szymborski: My WAR in ZiPS is kind of a compromise between FIP based and defense based, but we don’t need more WARs.

Ben Clemens: Like I’m not here to argue with the general idea of DIPS but it would be the peak of hubris to think that FIP was perfect and got everything exactly right for every pitcher.

Ben Clemens: At some point the runs you allow are what matters.

Jay Jaffe: for example https://www.fangraphs.com/warleaders.aspx?season=2019&team=all&type=2

FadedCrown: So a pitcher like Dakota Hudson benefits from RA9-WAR?

Ben Clemens: He has so far, though I’m less certain he has the right kind of skills to keep doing it forever. Julio Teheran has been a consistent FIP beater, though.

Anonymous: Tyler Glasnow with 3TO Bingo on 10 pitches this inning

Cito’s Mustache: Third time through the order was not kind to Glasnow today. Go figure.

Ben Clemens: Good job chat- I think we successfully first-guessed this one.

Jay Jaffe: Riffing on more Lowe stuff: In 1977 after David Bowie released his masterpiece album Low, Nick Lowe responded by releasing a 7″ EP called Bowi.

Jay Jaffe: and they all pronounced them the same, thankfully

Derek: McKay is first out of the bullpen???

Ben Clemens: Lefty matchup thing I believe.

Ben Clemens: I might have gone with Drake, but I’m okay with it.

Surprise: Why did Lindor seem to have an off year? Looking at that WAR list, he had fewer than Judge, who missed twice as much time and isn’t a SS, etc

Ben Clemens: Drake’s release point is actually more like your average lefty than McKay’s, as weird as that sounds.

Jay Jaffe: well, Lindor hit for just a 114 wRC+, compared to 130 last year, and while he played above-average defense, Judge was a tough-to-believe 12.7 in UZR in 775 innings of RF

boo this man: More like Glas-later than he should’ve stayed in amirite

Ben Clemens: Username checks out.

Blue: I have a structured settlement and I need Glas-now!

Ben Clemens: Oh god.

Ben Clemens: You’ve ruined my brain for the rest of the day.

Kiermaier’s Piercing Green Eyes: Nerdcast just spoils me. That broadcast would never comment about how McKay is a two-way player and then wonder out loud how many ABs he had, as if it’s not your gosh darn job to know that. There’s a curiosity and willingness to be informed by the advanced metrics that is sorely lacking in other broadcasts.

Ben Clemens: There’s also a huge team of people backing these guys up. I have to believe that if they really wanted to know that they’d know it.

Ben Clemens: Although Girardi with a nice save, talking about Roe’s slider.

Ben Clemens: It was a good use of Statcast data, so credit where credit is due.

Dan Szymborski: We essentially all got into sabermetrics because we had questions we wanted to answe.r

Ben Clemens: Hoo boy.

Dan Szymborski: So it’s one of those things most of us share

Jay Jaffe: woof. that’s a real Lowe point

Ben Clemens: Nowe we’re cooking with gas

Dan Szymborski: Gotta find my Roe GIF

Ben Clemens: In all honesty though, that’s 100% on Meadows.

Roland: Do players who appear in the regular season but get left off the post-season roster get a WS ring if their team wins it all?

Jay Jaffe: generally yes, though it varies from team to team who they decide to award rings to.

Dan Szymborski: “I was calling Lowe! Lowe! Lowe! But nobody was answering. That’s what happens when you pick odd proununciation!”

Dan Szymborski: Yeah, teams vote people rings.

Brandon: Do you think it’s feasible to let a computer or analyst dictate all the managerial decisions? Might be hard to find a manager that’s okay with that, but you could really play the matchups and might get an extra win or two a season for no cost from managerial inefficiencies.

Jay Jaffe: hell no.

Jay Jaffe: so much more goes into managing than just what comes out of a computer

Dan Szymborski: The Red Sox went all out their first modern WS and like everyone even tangentially related to the Red Sox got a ring. Except Voros.

Dan Szymborski: (Actually, players vote shares, not rings)

Jay Jaffe: and nobody is going to take that job where they’re literally a subordinate to a machine

Dan Szymborski:

Ben Clemens: I do not think this would work as well as you think. I think that managing workload and injuries and things like that is undervalued.

Jay Jaffe: i’m still pissed of on Voros’ behalf at that one

Dan Szymborski: It practically turned him off to working in baseball for years

Ben Clemens: Lol dangit I complimented the chat.

Ben Clemens: And now they’re saying that that should be a hit, and that Gurriel wants the RBI.

Ben Clemens: complimented the broadcast, rather

Dystopian Future: Pierzynski is full of good points today, and he’s right again here; that ball’s on Meadows, he’s coming in; though it should be noted Lowe gave himself a terrible angle on that ball.

Dystopian Future: The best storyline if the Dodgers win is if they’ll give a ring to d’Arnaud.

Dan Szymborski: “We decided to give a ring to Jeff Bridich as he did such a good job helping us this last offseason.”

Jason: I see that the “homer or error” trend is still holding true for the Rays.  Sad that the NL couldn’t live up to their side of it yesterday.

Rockies: The Yankees should vote the entire COL franchise playoff shares.

Dan Szymborski: “Thanks guys, do you have any other players you don’t care enough to bother with for us to check out?”

Dystopian Future: Speaking of Bridich, did you see that apparently it was his idea to put the opt-out in Arenado’s contract? https://www.denverpost.com/2019/10/01/rockies-nolan-arenado-opt-out-cl… And that Arenado didn’t even care about having an opt-out at the beginning? I’d laugh if I didn’t feel so bad for Colorado.

Dan Szymborski:

Ben Clemens: It’s a tossup whether Dan or I said snarkier things online about this.

Ben Clemens: Just…. Yikes.

Jay Jaffe: to say nothing of what Dan told the Denver Post this week

Dan Szymborski: “Did you go to Harvard Upstairs Medical College too?”

Ben Clemens: Ah, now that I didn’t see.

Jay Jaffe: http://denverpost.com/2019/10/01/jeff-bridich-bud-black-wade-davis-roc…

Dan Szymborski: I actually toned down the snark!

Geust: Wait was Voros with the Boston org last year?

Jay Jaffe: no, 2004

Ben Clemens: Oh my, the headline here:

Ben Clemens: Rockies “like a good 1985 front office” when it comes to free agency, pundit says

Dan Szymborski: No, 2003-2005

Jay Jaffe: right, i meant the 2004 championship

Dan Szymborski: I actually said a few nice things!

Ben Clemens: Yeah they really put the hot take in the headline there.

Dystopian Future: Jeff Bridich and Mickey Calloway should work together on a team sometime as GM and Manager. Just for scientific study.

Ben Clemens: I’m willing to give him some benefit of the doubt on the opt-out thing and say that he was just talking nonsense.

Jay Jaffe: in my attempt to say something nice I should have specified that I meant only the 2016 version of Mark Reynolds and only via bWAR

Ben Clemens: But it’s not hard. I’m a dope with no team and no computer programming experience and I wrote an article about valuing opt outs just this year!

stever20: The Yankees should vote the entire Oriole pitching staff playoff shares.

Ben Clemens: Heck, I’ll email it to the Rockies if they need it.

Dan Szymborski: The broadcasters have officially lost interest in the game.

Geust: Ben you could probably get them to pay for it

Ben Clemens: Here was my conclusion:

Ben Clemens: If I’m valuing the opt-outs correctly, Arenado’s deal compensates him significantly more per WAR than Harper’s or Machado’s.

Ben Clemens: And a swing andn a miss here:

Ben Clemens: On the other hand, wait, what? Free agency is supposed to give you more leverage because you get to negotiate with more teams. Maybe the Rockies are higher on Arenado than ZiPS. Maybe my model’s wrong (again, I don’t think so). Most likely, though, the Rockies decided they were going to go out and sign Nolan Arenado, and he said he wanted eight years and $260 million with an opt-out.

Dan Szymborski: The BBWAA is pretty insistent we not share our votes.

John Bolton: Teams like the Dodgers Astros & Rays definitely also have info on the umps & how it would affect certain pitchers right?

Do you think that influenced certain rotation decisions like pitching Kershaw game 2 over Ryu?

Dan Szymborski: I think they just want Kershaw as an option to at least come out of relief in game 5

Jay Jaffe: agree with Dan on that one

Ben Clemens: Yeah seller of how much the umpire’s zones matter for Kershaw vs. Ryu.

Dan Szymborski: and they could even start him – they like to get Kershaw involved in elimination games!

Dan Szymborski: Plus, if you use him in Game 2 and don’t need him, he has an extra day of rest before an NLCS

Dan Szymborski: Wait, Trump was really tweeting about Verlander in 2012?

Ben Clemens: Tommy Pham is not having a game to remember.

Dan Szymborski:

Dan Szymborski: I thought that was fake until I looked more closely

Ben Clemens: He had some Kershaw takes too I believe.

Randy Marsh: Hot take, but Trump’s tweet about game 4 last year was actually…not *that* wrong?

Jay Jaffe: ok, folks, I’m off to get “Bartola” (the in-utero name of my now 3-year-old daughter). I’ll be back on here at 9ish for some more chatting. Until then, you’re in good hands

Dan Szymborski: We’re all going to laugh about Kato Kaelin’s Brewers ranting when he’s the dark emperor of half the world.

Randy Marsh:

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“nervous reliever(s) who get shellacked” is a great phrase

Dan Szymborski: Guys, we’re going to have a chat interregnum between the end of this game and the start of the Yankees-Twins chat.

Randy Marsh: Considering the state of the Dodger relievers after the 18 inning game, I really do think Hill should’ve faced more batters that game

Hinchy: With a 4-0 lead, do you take Verlander out earlier than usual? And if you try to, does he say No?

Dan Szymborski: You take him out, but you send Anthony Fenech to the mound to do it.

Ben Clemens: I’ve learned a few tricks recently from having a puppy. Perhaps you could dangle a treat of some type just in front of his face, then keep moving it towards the dugout so that he follows.

Derek: wait is there a second chat for the NLDS games? Or are we just pretending the NL doesn’t exist?

Dan Szymborski: We’re doing Official FanGraphs Chats for Games 1, and the last two “if necessary” games in DS and CS.

Dan Szymborski: We’re only chatting each game of the World Sereis

Dan Szymborski: Too much chatting and you guys will tire of us, especially tire of me!

Lunar verLander: Did anything ever come from that Fenech/Astros situation?

Dan Szymborski: I think there wasn’t much more to do at this point then MLB to express their official displeasure

Andrew: Anyone else get a little slowdown on that Reddick double play? I know last night everyone was getting choppy video.

Dan Szymborski: My end looks fine.

Dystopian Future: Tell Verlander the 2016 Cy Young Award is in the clubhouse and if he comes out of the game he can claim it, hand-delivered by Rick Porcello.

Ben Clemens: Yeah, same here. I had severe choppiness in the LAD/WAS game last night, but today is crystal clear.

Nick: By UZR, the Twins and Yankees were two of the worst fielding teams in MLB.  Can we expect to see some sloppy fielding plays?  Or is that a silly question, since it presupposes the existence of balls in play in a Twins Yankees series?

Ben Clemens: The Astros mascot at the left periphery of the shot is freaking me out.

Dan Szymborski: Haha, ball in play

Jason: Ben, the problem with that is that the Rays hitters might object to getting dangled in front of Verlander.

Lunar verLander: Lot of broken bats this game…

Ben Clemens: That Adames play was very impressive.

Ben Clemens: The average arm strength among shortstops these days is otherworldly.

Jason: Instead of using special announcers who obviously aren’t even sure which sport they’re commenting on, Fox should just put the regional broadcasters for both teams in the same booth and let them shout at each other.  Would be far more entertaining, and probably more informative too.

Ben Clemens: Today’s booth seems like they like baseball. I’m not displeased with them.

Ben Clemens: It’s hard to keep up a good flow of banter when the game starts to feel out of hand.

Dystopian Future: So what are the odds on Verlander completing the shutout here in game one? I’d say right now it’s 50/50 he gives up a homer or gets pulled.

Dan Szymborski: No way. He’s at 92 pitches and they’re going to want the option to bring him short-rest

Dan Szymborski: Not for a 4 furn lead

Jason: Pitch count too high, so zero.  If it were 1-0, might be a different story.

Dan Szymborski: Yeah, 1-0 it’s close enough that you risk not having him for Game 4

Ben Clemens: I don’t think he should even be pitching now.

Dan Szymborski: I’m ashamed to note how much time I spent making this:

Dan Szymborski:

RTR: Are you surprised by how overmatched these Rays hitters have looked tonight? They seem kind of shell shocked

Dan Szymborski: Verlander

Ben Clemens: Shout out to the old woman with the “Pitcher of the Year Verlander” sign

Ben Clemens: If only there was a name for that award.

Dan Szymborski: Batters had a .579 OPS against Verlander this year. The Rays aren’t a particularly amazing offensive team and Verlander’s been rested

Lunar verLander: You shouldn’t be ashamed. That is art.

Ben Clemens: I have not yet played Untitled Goose Game but I have it all queued up for tomorrow.

Nick: In her defense, she might have been alive and a baseball fan before the Cy Young Award was a thing.

Dan Szymborski:

Dystopian Future: And Cole probably isn’t going to be much easier. How much does it suck to think that your best shot of the three starting pitchers you’ll face in the ALDS is Zack Greinke? The Astros are ridiculous.

Lunar verLander: My guess is he gets pulled the second a Rays touches 1st base.

Hinchy: verlander definitely gonna pass Smoltz and Petite for K’s this post-season, right?

Dan Szymborski: I wouldn’t say definitely – teams can lose 3 games at odd times – but it’s a good bet I think

RTR: There is a non-zero percent chance they score 0 runs against Astros starters this series

Ben Clemens: Presumably ZiPS could be calibrated to calculate those odds, but yeah.

Ben Clemens: There aren’t going to be a lot of comfortable at-bats.

Dan Szymborski: I’ll probably run it if they don’t score in game 2 too!

Dystopian Future: I’d like to see the odds on the Yankees or Twins getting zero runs in the ALDS, it would have to be quite small.

Ben Clemens: Meanwhile in the other league, Foltynewicz retires the first two batters but his velo looks sketchy.

Dan Szymborski:

Jason: I thought the Yankees and Twins just got five runs apiece spotted to them at the beginning of the game.

Ben Clemens: First pitch of the day 92.7mph, though he’s picking up velo within the inning so maybe it was just jitters.

Dan Szymborski: “How about we save everyone some time and start the game in the 7th with a 10-10 tie?”

Dan Szymborski: After all the Twins-Yanks HR jokes, watch them go Toney-Vaughan

RTR: Game 5 2017 World Series part deux

Dystopian Future: That was a really good play by Adames, though it’ll be forgotten. Far into the hole and fires a rocket to get a speedy Springer.

Ben Clemens: I wrote about Oliver Drake’s goofy release and location on the mound recently:

Ben Clemens: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/oliver-drake-changed-his-game-and-found-a-…

Sabo: is this chat for all the games today or is there a seperate one for the nl games

Ben Clemens: In case your interest in the game is flagging but Drake intrigues you.

Dan Szymborski: We’re only doing Game Ones, not Game Twos.

Dan Szymborski: So there will be a chat, featuring Meg, Josh, and Jay, covering the Yankees/Twins which you should really attend to!

Ben Clemens: Bringing in the heavy hitters for the East Coast Bias game.

RTR: Is there any concern for Air Yordan? He has looked completely out of whack and limped into the postseason

Dan Szymborski: Not I. Everyone has down stretches and you don’t tend to look good in ’em

Jason: Not much point in cherry-picking small samples and trying to draw conclusions.  Even Babe Ruth went 0-fer his career in at bats where he didn’t get a hit.

Ben Clemens: Strangely, Babe Ruth batted .225/.350/.450 in at-bats where he didn’t get a hit.

Ben Clemens: Baseball was weird back then.

RTR: But in a high pressure situation such as the postseason could he have a shorter leash? Especially because he is a DH and provides nothing defensively

Dan Szymborski: DrakeDrake

Dan Szymborski:

Ben Clemens: I don’t buy this argument. Looking bad in a few PA’s doesn’t change the fact that he’s a much better hitter than anyone else they’d play at DH, and every DH will get the same penalty.

Jason: The real question to ask regarding Yordan, and slumps in general, is “is there a statistically significant auto-correlation in consecutive at bats.”  If you can demonstrate that there is, then maybe you can extend that into claiming that a specific player’s slump is real.

Dystopian Future: Not only does Drake catch my interest on the mound, he also has my interest with the bat; He has a 472 wRC+ on the mound this season, highest in baseball (min 1 AB).

Ben Clemens: Noooooooo Johnny Davis!!!!

Dystopian Future: No, 473! I’m sorry, 473 wRC+.

Dan Szymborski: Did I just see a fan walking with a what looked like a Tommy Bahama Astros shirt?

Ben Clemens: Jason, that’s exactly the right question to ask. I think that the real trickiness of streaks and the reason it sticks in people’s heads is that sometimes there are reasons for auto-correlation: if your toe hurts in AB10, it will probably still hurt in AB11.

Ben Clemens: But lots of the time there isn’t. And it’s hard to distinguish which is which, and it’s usually just noise.

Dan Szymborski: Yeah, even if there’s an ability, it’s something you’ll mostly see in hindsight and as Ben says, the noise is just massive.

Ben Clemens: The human brain does love a narrative though.

Dan Szymborski: Like what if clutch ability exists but it’s 97% your normal baseball skill, 3% Clutchiness? It may be real, but you won’t be able to really use that information.

Dan Szymborski: Pattern finding!

Ben Clemens: True story: my dad sneaks into the comments of my articles under various names to ask me to write about clutchness.

Dan Szymborski: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia

Ben Clemens: Eh, if he weren’t slumping, that would be extra bases.

Dan Szymborski: At least your dad understands what you do.

Sabo: does he think he’s being sneaky

Dan Szymborski: My mom’s still not sure what my source of income has been for 20 years. “Why would anyone listen to you? You played baseball in high school.”

Lunar verLander: You should write about the correlation between father/son clutchness.

Dystopian Future: Yordan Alvarez in play, run(s).

Ben Clemens: I’m not sure ,but I’ve never told him that I know it’s him and he’s never mentioned that he does it.

Jason: Nooooooooooo!  There goes the homer-or-error streak!  I’m going to have to completely retune all of my models.  Is it too late to cancel the bet I made in Vegas?

Nick: If the choice for the Astros is extending Springer or re-signing Cole, which should they choose?

Dan Szymborski: Cole

Geust: Did you play baseball in high school?

Dan Szymborski: poorly

Dan Szymborski: Good athletes all played lacrosse!

Dan Szymborski: Here’s how you made baseball/football in my high school: show up

Dan Szymborski: it was all lacrosse lacrosse lacrosse

Dystopian Future: Yuli Gurriel in play, run(s).

Dystopian Future: Who will the Astros let walk when the time comes?

Dan Szymborski: SPringer I think. They can replace an outfielder or two

Ben Clemens: Austin Meadows is not the greatest fielder of all time.

Dan Szymborski: IF it comes down to that

Ben Clemens: He’s taken some weird lines.

Dystopian Future: You have to keep Correa and Bregman right?

Ben Clemens: Bregman already signed his deal. He’s staying.

Dan Szymborski: Yeah, through 2024, he ain’t going nowhere

Dan Szymborski: The thing is, Springer will be entering his age 31 season and I see nothing in how teams are acting that indicate he’s going to get something absolutely nutso

Dan Szymborski: (in his first year of FA)

Ben Clemens: Meanwhile Jack Flaherty has allowed a run, which shouldn’t be surprising but is.

Jason: Correa’s ceiling is MVP at shortstop.  You can’t just let that walk.  Springer’s ceiling is probably as MVP, but MVP caliber outfielders are marginally easier to replace than MVP caliber shortstops.

Nate: I’m surprised more people haven’t brought up that thought process with Springer/Cole. Springer would be the sentimental favorite to re-sign, but if they can get Cole back at a not totally crazy number…feel like everyone on that team besides maybe Bregman should take a backseat in the keeping order

Ben Clemens: I have no reason I feel this way but I can’t shake a bit of uneasiness around a long-term deal for Cole, from the perspective of a team.

James: Most Astros fans would prefer Springer to Correa, despite the obvious age and talent differences

Ben Clemens: No logical basis for it, just something residual in my brain from his inconsistency on the Pirates.

Geust: FG depth charts has cole aggressively projected for 300 IP and 49 starts. Bold

Dan Szymborski: At 6-0, they really REALLY couldn’t keep Verlander in at 100 pitches.

Ben Clemens: Rubber arm.

Dan Szymborski: Myles Straw sounds like a Liberal Democrat candidate for UK prime minister

PD: If I’m reading this correctly, Austin Meadow’s statcast reaction time is -1.6, burst is 0.1, and route is 0.7. So taking weird lines may be due to his inexperience in playoff games [sic]?

Ben Clemens: Maybe it’s just a fluke. That’s not great reaction time though.

Dan Szymborski: “Standing for the LibDems is Myles Straw, the MP for Flippingsbrittle-Upon-Splootywhatisit.”

Lunar verLander: Correa being injured as often as he has been is probably why the fans prefer Springer to Correa

Ben Clemens: Earlier this year I called Corey Seager injury-prone Carlos Correa, and I’m not sure if I had that right or backwards still.

Dan Szymborski: The team is very creative. You replace enough guys with prospects, you can keep most of the players

Dan Szymborski: Theyre’ the same guy trying to get two paychecks.

Lunar verLander: I mean…have you ever seen Corey Seager & Carlos Correa in the same room at the same time?

Andrew: I’ve seen some Astros fans on the internet outright badmouthing Correa because of his injuries. Feels insane to me.

Ben Clemens: I was working on an article about whether the Austins Adams could secretly be the same person

Ben Clemens: Working out flight times from stadium to stadium and such.

Ben Clemens: And uh, no.

Dan Szymborski: You have to remember, most fans seem to think that half the injuries are from players not being tough enough

Dan Szymborski: That’s why the disabled list stints

Alan: The tomahawk chop/chant is so gross. I caught my eight year old singing it to himself as he got ready for bed last night after watching the game last night. Watching a baseball shouldn’t necessitate conversations about racisim and appropriation.

Dystopian Future: Hey, the Rays got a hit!

Ben Clemens: It is not a good look in 2019.

Dan Szymborski: Doesn’t count because it’s Pressly not Verlander

Ben Clemens: “The only thing Tyler Glasnow can do is sit and watch.”

Ben Clemens: Darn you, rules of baseball!

Dan Szymborski: Technically, he could have not allowed a homer and three walks!

Dystopian Future: It’s hilarious that fans think players aren’t tough when almost all of them, probably all of them, have gotten drilled in the back by a 90MPH or harder fastball, and walked it off like nothing happened. Not that it’s somehow the only measure but it’s kind of comical.

Nate: On your uneasiness around a long term deal with Cole…is it because you know he’ll probably get some kind of crazy deal like 8 years 250 mil or more? Because that would make me uneasy too. Haha

Ben Clemens: Nah it’s just irrational. I can’t shake the feeling that he could just be average again tomorrow, though the data don’t really support that view.

Dystopian Future: Eric Sogard in play, run(s).

Jason: In principle, he could invent a way to send a message back in time telling himself not to throw a fastball to Altuve (and also including a note that he still needs to invent a time machine in order to prevent a paradox).  That could be a way he could get back into the game.

Ben Clemens: This is the kind of announcing I want in 6-0 games.

Cove Dweller: How much of Cole’s inconsistency in Pittsburgh do you think teams are willing to blame on Searage?

Dan Szymborski: I’m not sure blame Pirates as much as credit Astros

Dan Szymborski: though they share some

Derek: Glasnow could do lots of things! It’s just that most of them that would affect the outcome of this game would be… ill-advised.

Dan Szymborski: Dropping Alex Bregman through a trap door into your shark tank would affect the outcome of the series considerably.

RTR: You could say the same thing about Glasnow and the Rays/Pirates

Geoff Williams: Is this game interesting again?

Dan Szymborski: MIldly

Ben Clemens: Glasnow was starting to figure it out while still on the Pirates.

Dan Szymborski: What do you mean they have the ability to keep it going? You said five minutes ago THEY HAD TO BE ABSOLUTELY PERFECT, WHICH IS IT?

Ben Clemens: No one has ever looked at Tyler Glasnow and said, eh, I just don’t see it.

Dystopian Future: What could a player do to stop the game and get it restarted? Are there options?

Dan Szymborski: tactical nuke

Dan Szymborski: helicopter dropping giant buckets of feces

Ben Clemens: He’s 80 feet tall and throws 300 miles an hour

Ben Clemens: (note: approximation only)

Jason: Well, there goes the odds of a series shutout.

Jason: Hire a cloud-seeding company, and bribe the stadium operators to open the roof.

Fangraph’s Lurker: Forget robot umps, I’m in favor of robot commentators

Geust: The odds of the Rays winning this game are approx the odds of a homer being hit in any given plate appearance(almost said at bat, Ben).

Ben Clemens: Alright guys, on that note, I’m heading out to pick up Ruby from doggie daycare. Dan and soon Josh will be here for the rest of the game, and then Josh, Jay, and Meg will be here for all 73 home runs in the nightcap. Have a great day everyone!

Dan Szymborski: I tried to make a robot announcer kind of

Dan Szymborski: http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/szymborski/announcer.mp3

Geoff Williams: Dan, if you could write a “this is sportscenter commercial”, who would you like to see the star of it be?

Dan Szymborski: Someone very tall at ESPN getting in fight with someone very short in the shiny helmet room

Dan Szymborski: Maybe Tristan Cockcroft vs. Danny Devito

Dan Szymborski: and there IS a shiny helmet room

Dystopian Future: I don’t think there’s a single person out there that doesn’t like Will Harris.

Dystopian Future: Tyler Glasnow hits the restart level button.

Dan Szymborski: Just off the NFL Gameday set, there’s a room that has ALL the college football helmets. There was someone shinying them up when I was in there and there were so many, I figure that’s ALL the dude’s job

Dan Szymborski: err college gameday

Dystopian Future: I know he struggled after coming back, but Dan, how much has your outlook changed on Dansby Swanson (if at all)? He’s looked much better this year, especially in the early months. He looked legit.

Dan Szymborski: I’ve remained cautiously optimistic about him for a long time

Dan Szymborski: But that power just disappeared in the second half though I don’t think sadly I can just blame leg/heel

Jimmy Wynn’s Toy Cannon: Will Harris has been a really unrelated and reliable guy. Since 2015, top 5 in ERA-, top 20 in FIP-, and top 10 in xFIP-

Derek: Holy crap I was going to make a joke at Nate McClouth’s expense but he almost had 4 WAR in ’08!

Dystopian Future: Joe Girardi makes a good comment about Poche’s fastball spin while dumbing it down enough for the casual fan. Props to him for that, and I’m really liking him as an analyst. He definitely has his moments.

Geust: Glad that Clemons guy is gone

Dan Szymborski: I’M TELLING

Dan Szymborski: I really hope the Astros don’t blow it dramatically in the 9th because the articles about how they should have left Verlander in will be overbearing to the extreme.

Dystopian Future: Speaking of Rays relievers, Emilio Pagan was obviously amazing this year, but it’s more likely this is a one or two year wonder before he loses enough fastball command and goes back to being what he was pre-Rays, right?

Dan Szymborski: That usually happens with relievers. Teams find them, ride them for a few years, then the Rockies sign them.

Dan Szymborski: What made Mo special wasn’t just that he was awesome but that he was awesome for so frigging long. He could probably still be getting guys out right now

Josh Herzenberg: Hi all, just arrived. Like Ben said above, I’ll be joined by Jay and Meg for the impending pitcher’s duel this evening

Dan Szymborski: Hi Josh!

Dan Szymborski: This is a Joshetizer.

Dystopian Future: Hi Josh, and welcome to Basebaholics Anonymous.

Josh Herzenberg: I’ll try my best to fit in

Lunar verLander: Hello, Josh

Dan Szymborski: OH GOD SOMETHING IS DIFFERENT IN THE CHAT FORMAT AND I’M SCARED

Dystopian Future: Well, it wasn’t just Rivera. I mean Joe Nathan, bar one bad year, was amazing for like 10+ straight years (if I’m recalling right). I wonder if it’s just harder for relievers to be consistently great now because teams are focusing more on each reliever and how to beat them, and because all relievers have great stuff now.

Dan Szymborski: MO went 18 years with just a single ERA above 3

???: What is that random looking picture of two Astros and a girl in a black dress?

Dan Szymborski: WWE MLB!

Dan Szymborski:

Wire Fan: Dan do you do anything (or are planning anything)  in ZIPS to account for the juiced ball or is it more a generic league wide adjustment to everyone?  Also has it impacted projecting AAA players significantly?

Dan Szymborski: One of my long-term projects is figuring out how different types of players are affected differently by generic changes in offensive environment.

Dan Szymborski: Which is still a work in progress!

Dan Szymborski: But ZiPS does take into account league on a general level

Geust: Dan,

Dan Szymborski: That sounds ominous!

Dystopian Future: What is in Osuna’s mouth.

Dan Szymborski: I dunno but it’s yello and looks plasticy

Geust: Dan Im doing some research and I want to know if ballpark hr factors add x% to Hr/fb for every player or if sluggers get a bigger boost than low power guys. For example, would i multiply a player’s hr/fb by say 1.25 or would i add a certain amount to everybody’s.

Dan Szymborski: There is a HR/FB park factor.

Derek: Teeth?

Cito’s Mustache: It’s a mouth guard of some kind. Had it in his Toronto days too.

Dan Szymborski: Never noticed it before

Dystopian Future: FINAL in Houston: Astros 6 – 2 Rays. Thanks for chatting Jay, Josh, Dan, and Ben!

Dan Szymborski: And that’s the game!

Dan Szymborski: Thanks for joining us everyone! Get some food, pay attention to loved ones, and then report back for Josh, Meg, and Jay covering the Yankees vs. Twins!

Dan Szymborski: I hope you all enjoyed spending part of your afternoon with us! You guys in the community is what makes FanGraphs be a thing.

Josh Herzenberg: Seconded, all of the above.