Jeff Sullivan: Hello friends

Jeff Sullivan: Welcome to Friday baseball chat

Jeff Sullivan: Congratulations to the Red Sox, who are very good

Jeff Sullivan: So long to the Astros, who were very good

Phil: Best defeat over the past two days: POSTSEASON NARRATIVES.

Jeff Sullivan: I don’t know if it’s some kind of contrarian instinct or what, but I always, without fail, root for the players to turn those stories upside down. Very happy for David Price

Eric A Longenhagen: Hey there, everyone. Time to chat.

RS: Giants catcher in the AFL, Matt Winn, profile good enough to be a major league backup?

Eric A Longenhagen: Several caveats when evaluating AFL catchers: they’re probably tired, they’re catching a whole new staff of guys, they’re catching once or twice a week. So the error bar around evals of catchers here is greater. Having said that, I’d answer your question with a ‘no’

Jay: Should the A’s let Lowrie walk and give Barreto a shot at 2B, or trade Barreto for pitching?

Eric A Longenhagen: I’d hold onto Barreto

Pip: Who’s the better prospect moving forward, the National’s, or the Phillies’ Luis Garcia?

Jay Jaffe: Hey hey, folks. Welcome to another edition of my October chat. Forgive me for being a bit late and a bit frazzled. The impact of this crazy-ass postseason on the Jaffe-Span household — late nights and an accommodating but not entirely unforgiving 2-year-old — is taking its toll. We’ll see if I can give you a few good innings, though.

Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe: Two teams are a win away from the World Series. Which is more likely to choke?

Jay Jaffe: I don’t think you can throw a choke label on a team up 3-2 losing the final two games on the road in the same way that you could with regards to a team up 3-1 with the cushion of going home even if they lose Game 5.

But I’m not really a fan of the term “choke” in general. These are four excellent teams with strengths and weaknesses and very skilled players who nonetheless have their vulnerabilities. The routes they take may confuse us but I’ve seen enough baseball that no outcome from among the remaining series would surprise me.

stever20: why is Kershaw so hot and cold in the playoffs these last 3 years?  When he’s great like yesterday he’s great (1.13 ERA last 3 years).  When he’s bad, he’s awful(7.63 ERA last 3 years).

Jay Jaffe: Why does anyone have good days and bad days? How the hell does any pitcher survive throwing the ball hard a hundred or so times a night to various locations while avoiding discernable patterns against skilled hitters outfitted with incredible means of decoding those patterns?

Baseball is hard. That’s why Kershaw, Price and anybody else in October struggles at times.

Wes: Bregman or Benintendi over the next 10 years?

Meg Rowley: Good morning, and welcome to a special Wednesday edition of chats with Meg!

Meg Rowley: Who else is tired? I feel tired!

machado: Do you think Machado’s actions the last two nights will impact his free agency value?

Meg Rowley: I do not.

Meg Rowley: I think he should stop being a bonehead, especially if his preferred method of being a bonehead puts him the neighborhood of potentially injuring other players on the field, but in the end he’s very good at baseball.

Meg Rowley: Lot of dudes who get up to boneheaded stuff end up with big contracts.

Kiley McDaniel: Sorry for the delay and the weird day but I’ll be traveling tomorrow so here we are. Still working on some projects behind the scenes that you guys will see soon. Have some preliminary FA projections (105 of them!) if you guys are into that, starting work on prospect lists, doing some work on THE BOARD and new features with Sean Dolinar, podcast is coming weekly and working on some research for the THT annual and some stuff with Craig Edwards that will be coming in the next week or two that I think you’ll really like. Warning: we will quantify everything, even the stuff you don’t want us to.

Tommy N.: How much do you think Eovaldi gets this offseason? 3 years $40M?

Kiley McDaniel: My guess was 3/45 at first blush, so yeah something like that

Nate: How do scouts balance the “eye test” and analytics when evaluating talent?

Kiley McDaniel: Well that’s about a 5,000 word article if we’re breaking down both how the execs and scouts do it. In short, scouts are instructed by most teams to avoid analytics and allows the professionals in the office to apply them, since some scouts will see tiny sample size hitter split data and apply that info incorrectly and skew the report, for instance. In reality, most teams show scouts exit velos and spin rates so they aren’t in the dark, but they generally don’t know how to use it, so they’re given very basic instructions like “round up if the curveball spin rate is x and you graded it y but it’s a borderline grade,” and stuff like that. On the amateur side it’s almost not used at all by scouts other than the basic stuff you can see like this college hitter is striking out 30% of the time, we all know that’s bad.

GPT: Updated thoughts on Giants front office search?

Dan Szymborski: Noon: A Time for Chats

Bear32: Buxton?  What’s going on?

Dan Szymborski: Well, besides injuries, I don’t have the foggiest clue.

Jim Leyland Palmer: With taking a step back in his second year and his colossal struggles this postseason, has your outlook on Cody Bellinger changed?

Dan Szymborski: Tempered slightly (the year, not the small sample of six specific games), but not really changed.

Dan Szymborski: Nobody thought that 143 OPS+ was a baseline that he’d only go up from. A step back was expected.

Jeff Sullivan: Hello friends

Jeff Sullivan: Welcome to Friday baseball chat

stever20: what do you make of the Dodgers having Urias on the LCS roster?

Jeff Sullivan: So the word is out that Urias is on the roster to replace Alexander. Both, of course, are left-handed

Jeff Sullivan: I think in one sense there’s a general disappointment that Alexander hasn’t been better. He’s a guy with an awful big platoon split. Urias isn’t so good against lefties, but he’s better against righties, and even though he had something of a lost season he might well currently have the fresher arm

Jeff Sullivan: Little doubt that, at or around 100%, Urias should be a more effective pitcher than Alexander is

Jay Jaffe: Hey folks, welcome to a postseason off-day edition of my chat. Frankly, Ii’m a little relieved not to have a baseball game  for the second night in a row because of how out-of-whack my sleep schedule and that of the rest of my household (baseball-editing wife and two-year-old toddler) is.

Jay Jaffe: I’ve got a big NLCS preview-ish type thing going up tomorrow morning that explores some of the contrasts between the Brewers and Dodgers. It’s by no means comprehensive, but it sure is long!

kderg: How much do you believe that the Yankees thought Monday night’s game started at 8? On the one hand, someone must have double checked. On the other hand Severino’s late warmup, Gary’s fingernails were unpainted in the first, Gardner wasn’t wearing metal cleats in the first.

Jay Jaffe: I don’t believe there was any mistake regarding the time. This is a non-story.

Jay Jaffe: Boone made plenty of mistakes during the ALDS, some of which he wasn’t very clear about explaining the thought process behind in pre- and postgame interviews. He has said that he had no issue with Severino’s warm-up time, and on that note, I have no reason to doubt him.

Bruce: What kind of a contract would Stanton get if he was a FA this year?

Eric A Longenhagen: Oh, hi there. Welcome to today’s chat. I’ll get right to it.

Tumbler, Whiskey: Hi Eric, thanks for the time today. Are Kristian Robinson and Geraldo Perdomo the two best prospects in the Diamondbacks’ system?

Eric A Longenhagen: I woudn’t have Perdomo all the way up there, he’s still behind guys like  Jazz, Varsho, Dup, Thomas…but he is a good prospect. Kristian, you already know.

JJ: Just seen Santiago Espinal has been sent to the AFL – thoughts on him as a prospect?

Eric A Longenhagen: Fall League disclaimer: It’s early and I might change my mind on these guys over the next six weeks. Think Espinal is probably an org guy.

Daniel: Were there any exciting names in Cubs extended or AZL? Reivaj looks interesting (and not just b/c the of the name)

Kiley McDaniel: Hello from Florida! Think I just saw my last instructional league game yesterday, have a podcast and big Victor Mesa article both going up later today, we’ve already started work on offseason lists and new features for THE BOARD

RS: How do you scout for useful spin rate? Trackman just provides raw spin rate, but not all 3000 RPMs are equal.

Kiley McDaniel: Well you wouldn’t be scouting at that point, that’s data analysis. But if a curveball has a huge raw spin rate and also really big movement, then you can assume there’s a good ratio of useful spin. You either need a fancy camera or Rapsodo to know useful spin and neither is really practical in game situations.

Rbrewers : No love for  Brandon Howlett on the board? He’s looked great as a pro for the Red Sox so far.

Kiley McDaniel: Big swing and miss issues this spring, but he may end up on there when we do the Red Sox list

Ryan: Hey Kiley, what do you think of Dbacks shortstop prospects Geraldo Perdomo and Blaze Alexander? Thank you!