Dan Szymborski: We have started the chat. That goldbricker layabout Cistulli didn’t start up the chat until a few minutes ago, so a smaller queue than usual at the start.

Rob: Most likely scenario: Sale & Quintana are traded, only Sale is traded, only Quintana is traded or neither is traded?

Dan Szymborski: Most likely scenario is that the White Sox claim to be interested, but when they’re not offered entire farm systems, they lose the motivation and continue the yearly quest to 83 wins.

Springer am Rand: I’ve always pronounced your name “Shimborskee”. Is there a better pronunciation?

Dan Szymborski: Fairly accurate in Polish (but the first syllable a little more horrific, it sounds like shim if someone awkwardly tried to throw an f and a j in there for some reason).

Dan Szymborski: I’ve always said zim-BORE-skee. As did my dad. Mom and my sister always say sim-BORE-skee.

Jeff Sullivan: Hello friends

Jeff Sullivan: Welcome to Friday baseball chat, in advance of about 13 hours of competitive meaningful baseball

Bork: Hello, friend!

Jeff Sullivan: Hello friend

KIRK: HI JEFF

Jeff Sullivan: HI FRIEND

Eno Sarris: not beautiful like Thor vs Bum, but this has it’s own kind of beauty

Bork: Hello, friend!

Eno Sarris: Hello!

Steve: Which wild card game was more exciting for you?

Eno Sarris: The ending of the first was amazing, because he had the crowd behind him. That always makes things nice. But if amazing pitching is exciting, and I think it is, the second was v exciting.

Bork: Just a plug for everyone to please buy my new “I’m with Bork” t shirts, and coming this winter I’m writing a book with all of my greatest hits from saying “hello, friend!” in chats!

Dave Cameron: Welcome to the NL Wild Card live blog. August Fagerstrom and I will be hanging out with you tonight.

Dave Cameron: Let’s do a poll!

Dave Cameron: On the question of who you’re rooting for, there’s no wrong answer, unless you picked the Giants.

Dave Cameron: Because we’ve all seen enough San Francisco championships lately.

Dave Cameron: Do the Giants really draw a bunch of walks? This doesn’t feel like a high walk team.

Dave Cameron: Huh, 4th in MLB in BB%. Who knew?

Dave Cameron: So, today’s chat will start a little bit late; still only have one car in Oregon at the moment and wife and kid need a ride.

Dave Cameron: We will aim to start around 12:15.

Dave Cameron: Alright, Dave’s Uber Service has been completed. Let’s do this thing.

Matt (Denver): Should Buck Showalter be fired for not using Britton last night?

Dave Cameron: No. In-game decisions are probably a minority of the ways that managers can impact a team, and by most accounts, Showalter is excellent at the other stuff. No one is perfect.

That said, if I’m Dan Duquette, I’m sitting down with Showalter and walking through the thought process of this decision, and trying to help him see why he should do it differently next time. If, after some reasonable conversations, he maintains he wouldn’t do anything differently, then I might make a change.

Dave Cameron: You don’t want to overrate in-game strategy as a part of the job, but intellectual curiosity has to be part of the process, and if Showalter refuses to believe that his decision was a mistake, then he might not be the right guy going forward.

Jeff Sullivan: Hello friends

Bork: Hello, friends!

Jeff Sullivan: Hello friend

Jeff Sullivan: Welcome to October 4 American League Wild Card One-Game Playoff Live Blog

Jeff Sullivan: I will be joined at some point by both Eric and Carson! And all of you and your blessed hearts

Eric A Longenhagen: Hi everyone, we’ve got some great questions in the queue so I wanna hop into things quickly, but just a heads up on what I’m up to today:

Eric A Longenhagen: I’m hitting instructs after the chat. Oak, AZ, SF and a KBO team. Looks like I’ll be doing the AL Wild Card live chat tonight with Sullivan, too. So come enjoy a more scout-y flavored chat if you’re so inclined.

Eric A Longenhagen: Ok, let’s do it.

Billy: Have you gotten a chance to see Corey Ray yet this fall? What are your opinions on him?

Eric A Longenhagen: I assume you mean the Brewers Corey Ray and not the Royals (who I saw throw a bullpen yesterday, he looked good). Haven’t seen CF Ray but heard he was on crutches this week so I’m looking into that.

Dan: Is Aristides Aquino a potential top 100 prospect heading into next year?

august fagerstrom: Pre-playoff chat!

august fagerstrom: We’ll get started at noon

august fagerstrom: Soundtrack is the new Bon Iver record, which might be my AOTY so far:

Bork: Hello, friend! I actually made it to a chat!

august fagerstrom: Hello, friend!

Pie: Do you think Mike Trout is good at baseball?

Dan Szymborski: Peanut butter jelly time.

Dan Szymborski: No dancing bananas. Just shut up and eat your sandwich.

Tim: I’m a big Dodgers fan, what is the teams #1 concern?

Dan Szymborski: There’s some angry Babylonian god that’s focused primarily on making their starting pitchers injured.

Dan Szymborski: Or having to go through the Cubs at some point

Erik: If a team made all of their signings and trades based strictly on ZiPS, never allowing themselves to allow their own intuitions to have any affect, how much better or worse off would they be than a typical organization? What type of great moves would they pull off? What would their biggest blunders be?

Jeff Sullivan: Hello friends

Jeff Sullivan: I guess I’m back to being late again

Jeff Sullivan: Welcome to Friday baseball chat!

CamdenWarehouse: Is there actually evidence that says mid range power guys hit more warning track fly balls than the bigger power guys or is this something that just seems correct?

Jeff Sullivan: I think to me and others it just *seems* correct. Now, this is something that would be possible to investigate with Statcast, so with good fortune someone will take it up in the coming weeks or months to confirm

Jeff Sullivan: I’d really like to know how evenly or unevenly fly balls end up being distributed