Astros vs. Yankees ALCS Game 1 Chat

8:05

Jay Jaffe: Hello folks, and welcome to the FanGraphs ALCS Game 1 chat. I’ll be joined by Dan Szymborski shortly and we’ll get this thing up to speed. For the moment, here’s my ALCS preview: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/postseason-preview-new-york-yankees-vs-hou…

And here’s Dan’s ZiPS-driven game-by-game odds. https://www.fangraphs.com/standings/playoff-odds/post-season-zips?seas…

8:08	Shaun: Is this a “must-win” for the Yankees? Down 1-0 with Verlander and Cole on full rest in games 2-3 doesn’t sound great.

8:10

Jay Jaffe: I’m hesitant to call any single game outside of an elimination game a must-win, but obviously, the Yankees’ road to four wins is more difficult if they lose tonight, and the likelihood that they can beat both Verlander AND Cole in back-to-back games would mean that they’re almost certainly playing from behind.

8:11	Guest: It is a pleasure to share this evening with you in this chat, Jay.

8:12	Jay Jaffe: Thanks, it’s good to be here. I previewed this series and I’ll be covering the New York leg of the series on-site, so I thought it would be worth chatting during it as well. Emma and I are home watching baseball anyway

8:13	Dan Szymborski: Good evening!

8:14	Jay Jaffe: That Aaron Judge fly out had a 32 degree launch angle and a 102.8 mph EV. The Statcast tool says that’s a homer 76% of the time over the past five seasons. Fat part of the ballpark on that drive, but maybe also another one of those “if this were the juiced ball” shots

8:15	Jay Jaffe: Good first inning for Greinke, 1-2-3 on 12 pitches

8:15	Jay Jaffe: and hello, Dan!

8:15	Eric: was that ball gone with the regular season ball?

8:15	Guest: Judge flyball a HR in the regular season?

8:15	5 Run Homer: Do you think that’s a homer with the regular season ball?

8:16	Jay Jaffe: everybody wanted to know!

8:16	Dan Szymborski: It’s weird, I was hearing rumors about the playoff balls being different before the playoffs started and I dismissed it as black helicopter stuff. I’m not so sure now.

8:17	Mr. Flask: This is a series of favorite vs. favorite. A nice contrast to the underdog vs. underdog NLCS.

8:17	Dan Szymborski: Who Are Your Rooting For? Astros (41.5% \| 44 votes) Yankees (41.5% \| 44 votes) Both (0% \| 0 votes) Neither (5.6% \| 6 votes) Sweet Meteor o’ Death (11.3% \| 12 votes) Total Votes: 106

8:18	Eric: Dan dan da Chevy man!

8:18	Dan Szymborski: I don’t have a Chevy! My mom used to have a Celebrity with a Caprice engine in it for some reason when I was a kid

8:19	Jay: Don’t want to be a downer later in chat so may as well ask now before the game gets good… Skaggs news is tragic as is the Angels involvement. What can baseball do to better support players battling these types of addictions?

8:19	Dan Szymborski: I think you need teams themselves to be more involved rather than MLB centrally – they simply know their people better.

8:19	Magic Kingdome: What is Dan’s cat’s best pitch? The fur-ball

8:20	Guest: Would HOU vs WAS World Series be the best starting rotational match up ever?

8:20

Jay Jaffe: The thing about the de-juiced ball theory is that even with what Rob Arthur showed about the drag being different, the average fly ball distance is higher than the regular season, 326 feet to 323. More likely that my finding is a sample size issue than his, but it’s still something that sticks out right now.

8:21	Dan Szymborski: Thinking about this.

8:25	Dan Szymborski: Not finding a better one looking at random WS.

8:25	Dan Szymborski: The late 70s Yankees rotation wasn’t as deep as memory said.

8:25	Jay Jaffe: The 1948 World Series had Feller and Lemon for the Indians and Spahn and Sain for the Braves (among others on both sides including Satched Paige in Cleveland’s bullpen). 1963 had Koufax, Drysdale and Ford.

8:25	Dan Szymborski: I ahven’t gone back before about 1970 yet.

8:25	Jason: I wish the networks would show us somehow when there’s a shift. I hate seeing the ball up the middle, and not knowing there’s a guy there til the last second.

8:25	Dan Szymborski: It would be.

8:26	Hire Joe Morgan?: Dear Dan, Hong Kong French toast occurs when a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is deep fried, slathered in butter, and served with maple syrup. It is eaten with a fork and knife. Is this a sandwich? Thank you, kindly.

8:26	Dan Szymborski: Sandwich with knife and fork is a plutocrat sandwich.

8:26	Hire Joe Morgan?: Also, hi Jay and Dan! Thanks for chatting.

8:26	Jay: What odds would you put on Altuve making the hall of fame?

8:27	Jay Jaffe: Better than 50%, i think.

8:27	Dan Szymborski: He’s going to be way up there in hits unless he goes Sax.

8:27	Dan Szymborski: He’ll be around 1600 when he has his 30th birthday.

8:27	Jay Jaffe: 3 batting titles and a ring already, about 3 seasons away from 2,000 hits

8:29	Jay Jaffe: JAWS-wise, Altuve has some low-hanging fruit to improve, as his 5th through 7th best seasons are 4.8, 3.7 and 1.4 WAR

8:29	Dan Szymborski: ZiPS has him ending right near 3000

8:30	Dan Szymborski: and I think even by the time he votes, that’ll still be a thing.

8:30	Jason: Better teams hit the ball further. A sample that doesn’t have the Tigers in it versus one that does is destined to have a higher number

8:30	Dan Szymborski: Some of the data done is vs. model, not raw distance.

8:31	It’s an NLCS chat if you believe: Has Rendon meaningfully changed the way his free agency will go through his postseason performance?

8:31	Dan Szymborski: No

8:31	Mr. Flask: There you have it, folks. Houston has more check marks.

8:31	Hire Joe Morgan?: I eat sandwiches with a fork sometimes because washing a fork is easier than using a napkin. I assure you, I am not wealthy. But plutocracy aside, I accept your position.

8:32	Shauger: Gurriel plays with annoying cockidence.

8:32	Dan Szymborski: That’s a new word for me

8:32	mariano: But these are the best hitters, doesn´t that influence the avg distance? But the drag.. you can´t argue with that

8:33	Jay Jaffe: they’re some great hitters, but also great pitchers…

8:34	Jordan: If it goes Nats/Stro’s, what pitching potential matchup are you most excited about?

8:34	Dan Szymborski: I want Scherzer vs. Verlander and Strasburg vs. Cole to match up

8:34	Jay Jaffe: if we get a Scherzer-Verlander or Scherzer-Cole it would be awesome

8:34	Hire Joe Morgan?: What else could Bregman do to lean into his heel turn?

8:34	Dan Szymborski: I gave lots of ideas when I was proposing A-Rod do a heel turn some years ago.

8:34	Jay Jaffe: the two ex-Tigers with multiple no-hitters, head to head,

8:35	Dan Szymborski: Like every road trip, take out a full-page ad bashing the fans of the team.

8:35	Dan Szymborski: And always acting as if the crowd is cheering him, no matter what they’re doing.

8:35	Wire Fan: Have you ever been tazed after trying to go through a doggy door of the wrong home while in a drunken stupor?

8:35	Dan Szymborski: Things happen in your early 20s!

8:38

Jay Jaffe: back to the average fly ball distance question, the leaderboard doesn’t entirely conform to a measure of sheer batting talent. You’ve got playoff guys there (Sano and Cruz 1-2), and then among other postseason participants, Adam Duvall at #4, Yordan Alvarez #11, Aaron Judge #13, Matt Adams #15… it’s a weird group

8:39	Jay Jaffe: https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/statcast_search?hfPT=&hfAB=&hfBBT=fly%5…

8:39	Lunar verLander: TBS had a “shift is on” notification in the box

8:39	Eric: hard throwers = longer distance when hit?

8:39	Jay Jaffe: mean to mention this when somebody complained earlier, not that it wasn’t a valid complaint

8:40	Jay Jaffe: (the TBS shift thing)

8:40	Dan Szymborski: There’s a negative correlation between velocity thrown and home runs.

8:40	stever20: what about the one with the O’s and Dodgers in 1966? Palmer, McNally, Drysdale, Koufax headlining it.

8:40	Jay Jaffe: another good one

8:41	Jay Jaffe: not just rotations but the 1954 series had Hoyt Wilhelm on the Giants, and Bob Lemon, Early Wynn, and Hal Newhouser for the Indians — and those are just the HOFers

8:42	5 Run Homer: HOLY SHIT BREGMAN

8:42	Hire Joe Morgan?: Whoah.

8:42	Jay Jaffe: wow, what a play by Bregman

8:42	Dan Szymborski: Even just looking at fastballs, >95 MPH fastballs were 22% of the fastball home runs but 27% of fastballs.

8:42	Eric: Were they filming Jacob Nix’s Day Off?

8:43	Dan Szymborski: A modern day Ferris Bueller’s Day Off could be darker

8:43	Negative Coral reef: How far am I delayed. Bergman did nothing yet?!!

8:43	Dan Szymborski: “Kershaw just came in the game on my screen, no spoilers guys!”

8:43	Jay Jaffe: TOO SOON

8:44	Eric: Miley/Sanchez has to be the best potential match up

8:44	Jay Jaffe: Wade Miley isn’t starting. He’d be dead meat against this righty-heavy lineup

8:44	Michael: Is that fastball stat just looking at hits/contact or all fastballs. Would the decrease in HR partially be because they’re harder to hit?

8:44	Dan Szymborski: Of course

8:44	Dan Szymborski: I’m doing this as quickly as possible as there’s a live chat!

8:45	5 Run Homer: Miley/Anibal, I think he means

8:45	Dystopian Future: Those same 60s Orioles vs the Mets in ’69 was probably pretty good too, for SP.

8:45	Eric: the radio broadcast is like 3 mins behind

8:46	Dan Szymborski: Or you’re slightly time-shifted into the past like in a Star Trek TNG episode

8:46	5 Run Homer: Has Cole boosted his FA stock in the postseason?

8:46	Dan Szymborski: I don’t think postseason is a big deal in contract any more than just added starts/at bats to their record

8:46	Jay Jaffe: I don’t think his stock can go much higher. I also know that no front office type will tell you that they pay off postseason performance

8:46	Dan Szymborski: Maybe the Royals

8:47	Jay Jaffe: LOL

8:47	Jay Jaffe: if the Royals didn’t exist, we’d have to make them up.

8:47	Dan Szymborski: Now, postseason is long enough and changes can be enough to actually improve/worsen the projection.

8:47	Dan Szymborski: Dan Murphy several years ago, his postseason flurry really affected his projected enough to increase the ZiPS projection by I think $7 million for the contract.

8:48	Dan Szymborski: But it’s because there were new games, not because they were POSTSEASON per se

8:48	Hi Matt: My friend Matt is also chatting. Can you pass this along to him. Looking forward to shuffleboard tournament next weekend.

8:50	Jay Jaffe: Dan, you include postseason stats in your projections?

8:50	Guest: Dammit Dan i was gonna say Daniel Murphy

8:50	Alex Samuels: Is it just me or is Kyle Tucker a combination of English nobleman and Dwight Schrute?

8:50	Lunar verLander: Broadcast suggestion: postseason stats are small sample nightmares. They should instead just show stats against teams > .500 winning percentage.

8:50	Dan Szymborski: National TV still has this idea that postseason baseball-playing is some magical different thing where everything comes down to moxie, so seasonal stats don’t matter

8:51	Hire Joe Morgan?: Not just you. He looks like Benedict Cumberbatch playing Tommy Edman.

8:51	Eric: Jay, my comment (Miley/Sanchez) was for the question about best possible match up in world series if HOU vs WAS, not this series

8:51	Jay Jaffe: that one went way over my head, sorry.

8:51	Dystopian Future: I mean, the TV broadcast still prominently features batting average. Don’t expect much from it, we’re not their target audience.

8:51	Guest: Or they could just show regular season stats

8:52	Jay Jaffe: through 3 innings, one hit and no run for either team. both pitchers have faced the minimum

8:53	Adam2: Recovering addict Bubbles should not be tending bar

8:53

stever20: so taking outside the Postseason narrative – what happened to Kershaw the last quarter of the season and in the postseason. Finished that period with an ERA over 4.75 and a FIP over 6. 15 homers in the 47 innings. That’s what made this year seem so different- it felt like what happened to him this year was how he was at the end of the season…

8:54	Byron Buxton : Eovaldi last year?

8:54	Dan Szymborski: It did give him more starts – I think his performance after joining Red Sox was the bigger deal

8:54	Dan Szymborski: and he was fine with the Ray stoo

8:54	Dan Szymborski: Rays too

8:55	Eric: Why are there no great baseball video games being made? Isn’t that a useful medium to get youth interested in the sport, if that was an objective of MLB? Not saying this is THE solution but it could help out some…

8:55	Dan Szymborski: MLB the Show is a great baseball video game.

8:55	Dan Szymborski: There actually aren’t that many sports video games. MLB the Show is the only game in town largely because 2K had the license for so long and once that was gone, it’s a lot of work to get INTO the market.

8:56	Dan Szymborski: Madden every year isn’t like making a whole new game, they have older stuff to build on

8:56	Dan Szymborski: And of course, there’s only Madden if you want NFL licenses.

8:56	Jay Jaffe: i haven’t played a baseball video game in eons

8:56	Wire Fan: Is JBJ tendered a contract this winter? and then dealt for something minor?

8:56	Dan Szymborski: He’s tendered

8:56	Guest: For how much Joe Buck talked about Greinke only using 28 pitches through 3 innings, you think he would’ve noticed Tanaka is at the same number

8:57	Jay Jaffe: one great thing about chatting through the games is that I don’t pay attention to the broadcasters

8:57	Dan Szymborski: They have an outside chance of finishing four full in an hour. In a game with the Yankees or Red Sox involved!

8:57	5 Run Homer: The problem with The Show is that it’s PlayStation-exclusive

8:57	Jay Jaffe: Damn it, Dan, this game is now going to go 37 innings and we’ll still be chatting about it tomorrow at 4 pm

8:57	Dan Szymborski: Yup and Yup

8:58	Dan Szymborski: It was always going to be exclusive because it’s made by Sony themselves.

8:58	Dan Szymborski: And that it was made by Sony is the only reason it was allowed to exist.

8:59	Guest: Dan do you have to pay licenses to MLBPA?

8:59	Dan Szymborski: I do not.

8:59	Eric: I like ESPN radio’s team you can mute the TV and listen to them?

8:59	Jay Jaffe: A LeMahieu single, a wild pitch, and a Gleyber Torres double puts the Yankees on the board first

8:59	Dan Szymborski: THey hae to line up

8:59	Mr. Flask: Re: baseball video games, Bad News Baseball on NES is all I’ve ever needed. It’s like RBI but plays a bit faster, it’s perfect.

8:59	Alex Samuels: My guess is that way more Fangraphs readers would like OOTP than have tried it. Pee pee!

8:59	JOE BUCK!!!: REMEMBER THAT TIME I SAID THAT I DON’T EVEN LIKE BASEBALL!?!

8:59	Not Evan: How many more years does the Astros’ competitive window stay open for?

9:00	Dan Szymborski: They have a while yet. It’s when the farm system starts to thin too quickly that you kinda start reaching that money/star spiral of death.

9:00	Jay Jaffe: They have to produce some starting pitching to keep it open past the Verlander/Greinke contracts

9:01	Jay Jaffe: which isn’t to say that that’s impossible but they’ll have to replace Cole with somebody good. Altuve and Springer will be over 30 next year, but the Bregman/Correa core is still mid-20s

9:01	Eric: kidding of course the radio is wayyyy behind

9:01	Guest: OOTP is one of the coolest games ever

9:01	Hire Joe Morgan?: With those two under contract, what are the chances they pay Cole, too?

9:01	Dan Szymborski: I think there’s stilla chance.

9:02	Dan Szymborski: Depends if they start playing luxtax games

9:02	Dan Szymborski: Yup, you need a veteran pitcher to know what kind of hitter is at the plate.

9:03	Dan Szymborski: I’m sure a rookie wouldn’t know who Edwin Encarnacion is and he totally wouldn’t be talking with coaches about plans to attack different batters before the game.

9:03	Hire Joe Morgan?: Every inning Greinke throws is a little miracle. This is great.

9:04	Jason: That’s part of the rookie hazing, Dan. They just send em out there.

9:04	Adam2: It took me a moment to realize Dan was responding to FOX not to an unpublished comment here

9:04	Jay Jaffe: ohhhhhh, i was wondering if I’d skipped a groove or something

9:05	Jordan: Feels like a lot of teams will be in on Cole, so you see him breaking records?

9:05	Dan Szymborski: For those that missed it, Smoltz was going on about how Greinke, as a veteran, knows what kind of hitter Edwin Encarnacion is.

9:06	Jay Jaffe: Yes, i see a record coming for him. He’ll surpass Price, Scherzer and Kershaw

9:06	Dan Szymborski: Smoltz like to start a sentence with veteran and then just plug in whatever weird cliche he makes up after.

9:06	Dan Szymborski: Off the cuff, I’ll say 7/230

9:06	NathanLazarus: I played SO many hours of OOTP. They had draft classes full of real prospects, and 20-80 scouting grades. So great.

9:06	Jay Jaffe: yeah that’s about what I’d think, Dan, $230-240

9:06	Dan Szymborski: Cole’s good enough that he won’t get caught in the MLB miser trap.

9:06	5 Run Homer: Is 2 really a crooked number?

9:07	Dan Szymborski: EVEN NUMBER LEADS ARE BETTER FOR SOME REASON~!

9:07	5 Run Homer: I thought a crooked number referred to a big inning, not just something other than 1

9:08	Jay Jaffe: So far, Tanaka’s allowing the higher average exit velo, 94.0 to 92.3, but 5 of the 6 hardest-hit balls have been off Greinke

9:09	Hire Joe Morgan?: How many pitchers have won the Cy Young Award in their walk year?

9:10	Jay Jaffe: was pondering this briefly earlier and the one who came to mind was Catfish Hunter, whose free agency was sort of a fluke

9:11	Dan Szymborski: Wow, lookign down the Cy Young list, I think Maddux is the most recent to win a Cy in walk year.

9:11	Jay Jaffe: ah, it was Hunter who had the Cy and the championship before free agency, that’s the combo that Cole COULD have

9:11	Jay Jaffe: but yes, Maddux with just the Cy/FA combo

9:11	Dystopian Future: Oh, I wonder how easy it will be to talk yourself out of Gerrit Cole, seeing as he’s only had two great seasons and he’s already 29. Remember this time last year we were thinking Harper would get 400-500MM.

9:12	Dan Szymborski: I never thought that.

9:12	Jay Jaffe: yeah, no.

9:12	Dan Szymborski: Depending on when I did it, ZiPS had Machado at 330, Harper around 300.

9:12	Adam2: Maddux with Cubs

9:12	Dan Szymborski: Bah, if I had read down, I woudln’t have had to go look !lol

9:13	Adam2: Clemens with Blue Jays

9:13	Dan Szymborski: He wasn’t a FA

9:13	Dan Szymborski: He suddenly demanded a trade and there was talk of a secret demand trade clause tha t MLB didn’t approve

9:14	Dan Szymborski: That was the Wells/Lloyd/Bush trade

9:14	Guest: Professional hitter!

9:14	Lunar verLander: PROFESSIONAL HITER

9:14	stever20: how big is the QO number dropping this year from 17.9 million to 17.8 million? Is that just more ammo for the union?

9:14	Dan Szymborski: They ought to already have all the ammo they need.

9:14	Hire Joe Morgan?: Clemens was traded, wasn’t he?

9:14	Dan Szymborski: Yes

9:15	Eric: Mark Davis 1989 San Diego Cy Young free agency to Kansas City for 1990. and he got paid really well for that time period!

9:15	Dan Szymborski: Ah, voters in the 80s

9:15	Dystopian Future: Tons of loud contact so far this game, just the one run to show for it.

9:15	Jordan: I wonder if we see LA try to get Cole to go for something like 4/164i

9:15	Jay Jaffe: ah yes, a reliever winning a Cy Young, no wonder I forgot Davis

9:15	Richard: I’m assuming that one reason that ex-players are so up on veterans and down on young players is that they were all veterans much more recently than they were young players themselves.

9:16	Hire Joe Morgan?: I think some people said he’d be worth that or it would be reasonable to pay him that. No one said he’d get it.

9:16	Dan Szymborski: The thing is, Harper’s not Trout.

9:16	Dan Szymborski: He was a very young FA (which is why he got the contract he did), but he still only has the one crazy SUPERSTAR year.

9:17	Dan Szymborski: In WAR over last four years, he’s 25th among hitters. He’s 0.5 above Semien!

9:18	Giodude: What percentage of the chat do you think is watching on cable vs. streaming?

9:18	Dan Szymborski: 70/30?

9:18	Hire Joe Morgan?: Right, Trout sets the ceiling. You have to be better than Trout or wait a while to get as much as Trout.

9:18	Also true: Trout is also not Harper

9:18	JOE BUCK!!!: SO IT WASN’T COLLUSION DAN!!

9:18	Eric: I thought Verlander was essentially a lock to win the Cy Young. Voting is before the post season, right?

9:18

Jay Jaffe: Yes, voting is before the posteason, but I don’t think anybody’s a lock there. Cole had the lower ERA and higher strikeout total, one fewer win than Verlander (not that I care), split decision on bWAR/fWAR. Verlander has the no-hitter and the 3,000 K milestone but i haven’t seen those figure into Cy young voting much.

9:18	Dan Szymborski: I maintain that there was and is no collusion. What there is is a shitty CBA for the players in which the financial system is based on owner knowledge in 1984.

9:19	Spotted cow: Does kris Bryant get more than Harper, kinda similar with the single obscene year?

9:19	Dan Szymborski: No

9:20	Dan Szymborski: The fact that his contract will start age 30 is a very big deal.

9:20	Eric: What percentage of the chat do you think is human vs. cats?

9:20	Dan Szymborski: 97 vs. 3

9:20	5 Run Homer: Cat update?

9:21	Dan Szymborski: All upstairs. Cassiopeia was here for a while, but she doesn’t like the smell of Old Bay and left.

9:21	Dystopian Future: Bryant will e so much older than Harper when he hits FA. Harper was just a special case. Hard to compare most FAs to him.

9:21	Dystopian Future: A hitter just watching Greinke’s curveball land right in the middle of the strike zone is so satisfying.

9:21	Meowmewsmileyface: whispers we are the three percent

9:22	Richard: Baseball isn’t on TV (even cable) much here in Europe, so it’s all streaming. But there’s no blackouts on MLB.TV which makes up for a lot.

9:22	Dan Szymborski: The magic of VPN!

9:22	NathanLazarus: The players should negotiate a CBA that requires the owners to pay them a fixed percentage of revenues, instead of hoping that teams’ desire to win prompts them to spend money on salaries.

9:22	Dan Szymborski: They really have to deal with service time manipulation.

9:23	Dan Szymborski: My personal, half-baked plan that would need a lot of work into molding into something better, is that when teams lose a player to free agency, they have to refund them a percentage of their average yearly salary with new team based on the extra service time over six years.

9:24	That Guy: Is there something about Tanaka’s stuff that plays better in the postseason?

9:24	Jay Jaffe: i don’t think so, other than the fact that he’s a very focused and unflappable player — he himself thinks the postseason performance numbers are a small-sample fluke. if the ball has changed, it might be helping his grips; he was having trouble at some points this year.

9:24	Dan Szymborski: So in Kris Bryant’s case, the Cubs have to pay 171/180th of the average yearly salary in his next contract signed in free agency.

9:24	mariano: I´m in Argentina, probably the only soul in this country watching, so streaming!

9:24	Lunar verLander: Did the MLBPA get a different lead negotiator? Last CBA seemed significantly favorable to the owners.

9:24	Dan Szymborski: Tony Clark is not Fehr and certainly not Miller

9:25	Jay Jaffe: Yankees have something going here with 1 out in the fifth and back-to-back singles by Sanchez and Urshela

9:25	Dan Szymborski: And I had to pick on Weiner, a guy everybody liked and who died very young, but I don’t think his leadership of the MLBPA was all that great.

9:26	Hire Joe Morgan?: So when Cole walks, the new team pays Cole and the Astros? Wouldn’t that incentivize teams to stockpile impending free agents and then not pay them?

9:26	Dan Szymborski: The idea is for the old teams to compensate Cole for the extra service time they got.

9:27	Jay Jaffe: Gregorius’ fly ball sends Sanchez to third. Yankees now have 5 hits to the Astros’ 1

9:27	Dan Szymborski: The Pirates/Astros would have to pay Gerrit Cole directly 111/180th of his average yearly salary, the proportion determined by the percentage of service time each team got from him.

9:27	Hire Joe Morgan?: Your plan is retroactively paying players after their service tiem window with a percentage of their market value?

9:27	Dan Szymborski: That’s the idea.

9:28	Hire Joe Morgan?: Continuing to use Cole, would that mean Pittsburgh and Houston would both be paying him a percentage of his next contract to compensate him for hsi early service?

9:28	Dan Szymborski: Just clearing out the service time.

9:28	JOE BUCK!!!: TOSSING STRAIGHT BUTTERED SQUIRREL!!!

9:28	Geebs: They could always go with a system of that last year of control they get with service time manipulation be restricted free agency

9:28	Hire Joe Morgan?: That would incentivize teams to get rid of good players early so they never have to pay them.

9:28	Dan Szymborski: They already do! But at least the player gets paid for the year he was manipulated out of

9:29	Dystopian Future: Would teams ever trade for impending FAs then, from your model? Or is it all proportional to actual service time used.

9:29	Dan Szymborski: Proportional.

9:29	Just Kidding: Is Fangraphs gonna cover the Felipe Vasquez scandal?

9:29	Dan Szymborski: Didn’t anybody write anything on it?

9:29	Jay Jaffe: Greinke works out of trouble with another easy fly ball. He’s only thrown 60 pitches through 5 but the hard hit balls tell me he’s not long for this outing

9:29	Dan Szymborski: That’s not usually my type of thing to write about. I don’t have the sensitivity to write about very serious things.

9:29	Jay Jaffe: Unless you’re a lawyer, what is there to say about Vazquez besides WTF eeuw, lock him the hell up?

9:30	Dan Szymborski: It’s kind of a Sheryl piece but we don’t have Sheryl anymore!

9:30	Hire Joe Morgan?: Speaking of which, Jay, will you be adding another labor lawyer to the writing staff this winter?

9:30	Jay Jaffe: right. She has the tool to advance the story on that one. i don’t have anything meaningful to say about Vazquez

9:31	Dystopian Future: If you’re Aaron Boone do you pull Tanaka?

9:31	Jay Jaffe: I’m not the one who makes staffing decisions here, but I imagine we’d like to have at least a contributor with some facility in that area.

9:31	Dan Szymborski: At 46 pitches? NFW

9:31	Sean: Wait where’d Sheryl go?!

9:31	Dan Szymborski: Beyond the Box Score

9:31	Jay Jaffe: yeah no. Boone will have a quick hook but not that quick

9:32	Dan Szymborski: Yeah, I don’t make staffing decisions either.

9:32	Dan Szymborski: But just on a general level, it’s always good to have a lawyer handy

9:33	Eric: Are there any updates on Jonah Keri? Haven’t heard a peep since his arrest a few months ago, which leads me to believe he’s guilty of everything reported…

9:33	Dan Szymborski: Haven’t heard anything at all about Jonah.

9:33	Jay Jaffe: COurt date in November, that’s all I know

9:33	Dan Szymborski: Check the news from time to time, but there hasn’t been much out there.

9:34	Richard: Greinke is the starter who’s looking shaky, not Tanaka.

9:34	Hire Joe Morgan?: How would that affect service time manipulation? They’re still incentivized to keep players down untnil they’re stars.

9:34	Dan Szymborski: Yeah, but at least the guys for whom the service time issue matters would get paid for it.

9:35	Pieman: What if the player had the pay his former team a set percentage of his salaries over the 6 years of service time? That would encourage teams to pay players more in order to increase their future cash flow.

9:35	Dan Szymborski: Wait, what?

9:35	Dan Szymborski: This makes no sense to me.

9:36	Dystopian Future: I don’t trust how shaky pitchers look, at all. All it takes is two batters and you lose the lead. Tanaka is a 4.27 FIP pitcher this year. Why are you risking this? You have the best bullpen in baseball.

9:36	Dan Szymborski: He’s not even at 60 pitches

9:36	Daniel: That’s like “what if there was a reserve clause, so they had an inventive to bring folks up.”

9:36	Giodude: My goodness Judge is so good at fielding

9:36	Jay Jaffe: wow, some excellent Aaron Judge defense there, doubling Bregman off first after catching Alvarez’s fly

9:37	Dan Szymborski:

9:37	Jay Jaffe: his UZR and DRS numbers are insane, 12.7 and 19 in just 775 innings

9:37	Hire Joe Morgan?: A man that large should not be so nimble.

9:37	Dystopian Future: I can’t even really blame Bregman for that, it’s not like he was past second or anything; Judge just threw a missile.

9:38	Daniel: Well, everything is closer to him

9:38	That Guy: Was there any whispers at all of Judge’s defense in the minors? Him being a plus-plus RF has gotta be the least expected part of his emergence, no?

9:38	Dan Szymborski: I honeslty don’t remember hearing much about his defense

9:40	Not Evan: Is Ken Rosenthal respected in these circles? I can’t tell if I’m supposed to be smirking at everything he says.

9:40

Jay Jaffe: Anybody in our profession who doesn’t respect Ken is an idiot. The guy is a mensch as well as an excellent reporter. The first time I sat in a press box for a 2010 Sunday night Mets-Yankees game, he was friendly and helpful when he could have big-leagued me, and we’e since gotten to sit together many times (Fox and SI seats at Yankee Stadium used to be adjacent). I’ve done a bit of TV with him, which is always fun. He blurbed my book… my wife gets to edit some of his stuff at The Athletic. Quality, quality dude.

9:42	Reunited and it feels so good: I read Kapler is interviewing with the Gigantes. Due diligence or legitimate interest?

9:42	Jay Jaffe: probably legitimate interest given that Zaidi and Kapler worked together in LA. God knows why as far as how legitimate the interest is, but it doesn’t hurt to get an outside perspective on your roster.

9:42	Dan Szymborski: Yeah, everybody likes Ken.

9:42	Hire Joe Morgan?: Guaranteed contracts are so important for baseball players, I can’t imagine any solution that undermines that.

9:42	Dystopian Future: Greinke just balked? Or no? What is a balk, anyway? Is that a balk?

9:43	Dan Szymborski: A balk is anything that you look at and think “hmm, that just ain’t right”

9:43	Jay Jaffe: Gleyber Torres home run

9:43	Dan Szymborski: Glebyinated.

9:43	Spotted cow: Fangraphs 2016 judge scouting 60 arm great body control. Making him the ideal RF

9:43	Jay Jaffe: Great glayven

9:44	Dan Szymborski: You can just say “an RBI” b/c “one or more RBIs” sounds weird

9:44	That Guy: So did NYY hire a hypnotist to convince Gleyber that every team he faces is the Orioles?

9:44	Wire Fan: 93 mph EV, 343 ft, gotta love the ridiculousness of the Crawford boxes

9:45	Dan Szymborski: Do you really need Aaron Judge to go around and tell people that Gleyber is great?

9:45	Dan Szymborski: “I got a hot tip from veteran pitcher CC Sabathia that tacos are great.”

9:45	Jay Jaffe: yes because he’s tall, Dan. Tall people are right more often than short people. As a short people I know this

9:46	Jay Jaffe: good lord if i actually listened to this broadcast I’d lose 30 IQ points by the 7th inning stretch

9:46	Dan Szymborski: lol

9:47	Dan Szymborski: I can’t help it, I’m an obsessive nitpicker

9:48	Dan Szymborski: “The two teams that hit the most home runs in the postseason were the Dodgers and Braves and they’re both out.” <trails off>

9:48	Eric: the home run was just confirmed by the “live” radio broadcast

9:48	Richard: At least they got rid of Tal’s Hill. Crawford boxes are harder to redesign out.

9:48	No Take Backs: Which of these current signings does Andrew Friedman rue the most. Extending Roberts. Extending Kershaw. Joe Kelly signings. AJ Pollock signing.

9:48	Dan Szymborski: Pollock

9:48	Hire Joe Morgan?: That’s why we need Fangraphs chats for every game.

9:48	Hire Joe Morgan?: Save us, Jay.

9:49	Dan Szymborski: boom shakalaka

9:49	Dystopian Future: Giancarlo Stanton out of play, run(s).

9:49	Eric: how deep is the poo poo that the Cardinals now find themselves in down 0-2?

9:49	Dan Szymborski: Quite. One of them was a Sanchez team and both at home.

9:49	Dan Szymborski: Sanchez game

9:50	JOE BUCK!!!: BAH GAWD THAT’S STANTON’S INTRO MUSIC!!!

9:53	Jay Jaffe: got called in on toddler detail and missed the Stanton home run in real time. 110.7 off the bat, whew

9:54	That Guy: Greinke’s stuff was shaky to start and he’s in the third time through the lineup, should the pen have been warming long before this?

9:54	Jay Jaffe: He didn’t look great based on the hard-hit balls but 12 swings and misses on 83 pitches ain’t nothing.

9:54	Jay Jaffe: I’d have gotten the pen going at 2-0 though

9:55	Jay Jaffe: which is easy to say now

9:55	Giodude: dang xBA of 0.050 on Gleyber’s home and 0.950 on Stanton’s

9:55	Jay Jaffe: xBA… isn’t always the most useful metric

9:56	Dan Szymborski: Guys it’s his 7th postseason game

9:56	Richard: I miss Primer game chatter.

9:57	Hire Joe Morgan?: Speaking of which, can you remind us of the chat schedule?

9:57	Dan Szymborski: A lot of chats are still up in the air!

9:57	Dan Szymborski: But the next chats are possible game 5s, I believe

9:57	Hire Joe Morgan?: I’m convinced Flaherty is a demigod. So when he wins game three, it’ll only be 2-1, which is manageable.

9:57	Eric: How much longer does Tanaka pitch?

9:57	Dan Szymborski: As long as he’s not allowing hits and his pitch count is low, I don’t see the need to be too cute

9:57	Dan Szymborski: he’s not even at 70

9:58	Pieman: I am currently staying in a hotel that has a “kitty hotel” out back. Food and water bowls alongside plenty of hot delicious grass. Walking around one might see at least a half dozen strays for a couple of blocks around.

9:58	Jay Jaffe: my guess is that he’s done when the lineup turns over

9:58	Dan Szymborski: I think at 3-0, they’ll be less urgent to move him

9:58	Dan Szymborski: remove

9:58	Jay Jaffe: maybe but it doesn’t take much to get the Astros back in this with that lineup