Archive for Chat

Jay Jaffe: Hey folks, welcome to my first solo chat in over two months! Between our postseason group chats, the Hall of Fame ballot releases timed to coincide with this time slot, and some lesser issues, I’ve been out of the loop with this process but for today, I’m back at it, just in time to avoid giving you any useful Thanksgiving tips.

Bring Back Jeff: In all seriousness, I do understand what you mean about batting average. This is fundamentally a game about entertaining us. We get to choose what we care about. And batting average is fun, even though it may not correlate all that strongly with the “value” of the player.

Jay Jaffe: Last week, a good chunk of our staff descended upon New York City and we did a FanGraphs live thing on Thursday. During my panel, which also included The Athletic’s Lindsey Adler and Marc Carig, I went into a tangent on batting average, saying, “Let’s give a shit about batting average again” or words to that effect (I haven’t played this back https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/effectively-wild-episode-1460-live-fro…), a sentiment that I’ve been mulling for months but haven’t had the chance to write up in full treatise form

Jay Jaffe: The statement, which i only briefly fleshed out, has to do with countering the aesthetic shortcomings of the current iteration of baseball before us, and I think Bring Back Jeff’s non-question kind of summarizes some of that. Anyway, I’ll have more to say about the topic at some point this winter, perhaps even in the next couple weeks, but I make no promises as to when because it’s Hall season and I’m up to my neck in both Modern Baseball and BBWAA processes.

Jay Jaffe: Anyway… on with the show, which will also be interrupted by a brief radio spot that you can hear via SiriusXM at about 12:35

Dave: After reading your piece it seems that Rolen didn’t end up having a good relationship with the Cards or Phils. If he’s elected does he go in without a logo?

Dan Szymborski: And away we go!

Peter Thomas: How’s that ZiPS 101 article coming?  I know it feels to you like self promotion, but there are sooooo many projection skeptics out there who could be converted if they better understood the process.

Dan Szymborski: Not even thinking about it until my two big year-end/winter projects (the elegies and the ZiPS are done).

Dan Szymborski: I had process writing.

Jeff: What’s $/WAR at these days and how can I help make it better for the owners?

Dan Szymborski: Depends who you ask. Based on ZiPS projections, I still get the best predictor of salaries players get in the mid 7s.

Kiley McDaniel: Hello from ATL! Scout is patrolling the backyard and Eric and I are readying ourselves for the NYC live event and the first batch of team prospect lists

Kiley McDaniel: Don’t know if he’s mentioned this yet, but we’ll be doing lists by spring training pod, since lots of pro coverage groups teams that way and it makes it easier to talk to each source once in the offseason instead of circling back a bunch of times

Kiley McDaniel: https://plus.fangraphs.com/product/fangraphs-live-new-york-city-2019/

Kiley McDaniel: and I just noticed it appears to be sold out already

Kiley McDaniel: so I’m just being a tease now

Kiley McDaniel: here’s the last thing i contributed to: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2020-top-50-free-agents/

Meg Rowley: Hey pals, will get started in a second here, just need to fetch a cup of coffee.

Meg Rowley: Ok, am returned, caffeine in hand.

Meg Rowley: A few things to highlight from today:

Meg Rowley: Dan detailed his NL ROY ballot: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/a-deep-dive-into-my-national-league-rookie…

Meg Rowley: Jay made the case for Ted Simmons to be in the HOF: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/ted-simmons-election-to-the-hall-of-fame-i…

Meg Rowley: David Laurila continued his excellent pitching series with a look at the evolution of a couple of changeups: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/dylan-bundy-cory-gearrin-and-dereck-rodrig…

Dan Szymborski: Greetings, there is no baseball!

Dan Szymborski: But there is pretend baseball that may lead to future baseball.

Dan Szymborski: Unless, you know, the world ends in March or something. But then you won’t be aware of no baseball so our demise works out also!

Dan Szymborski: I like existing, but no longer needing to finish cleaning out the basement is cool too.

Bill G: Where can I get plate appearances per lineup slot.  Thanks!

Dan Szymborski: Our Split Leaderboards are just the tincture you need for revitalization, good sir!

Kiley McDaniel: Hello from ATL! Scout is sunbathing on the porch and the grout for the backsplash should be going in later today. Big changes to the chat as I figured out how to add a picture so you can tell me apart from people that ask questions as me. To your questions:

Archer: As a recent home purchaser whose kitchen  could use a slight face lift, I’d love to see the pictures of your new backsplash! Did you install yourself?

Kiley McDaniel: I knew this would be the backsplash chat

Kiley McDaniel:

Kiley McDaniel: that’s mid installation, it’ll eventually go to the ceiling behind the vent

Kiley McDaniel: Had the contractor’s guys do it. 5th contractor was the charm!