Kiley McDaniel: It’s taking everything I have to keep working and not listen to Drake’s surprise album that dropped last night. So, here I am, talking to you people instead.

Comment From 2legit2quit
is the album legit?

Kiley McDaniel: Checked out some of the previews of the tracks on iTunes, sounds like it’s low energy/introspective/R+B Drake, which is my least favorite Drake

Comment From Andy
So what’s the best Cuban food you’ve had?

Kiley McDaniel: La Teresita in Tampa is right next to the Yankee complex and is pretty darn solid along with being crazy cheap

Comment From DC
Gun to your head, when is Kris Bryant called up?

Eno Sarris: I’ll be here soon! For now, an aptly-named song.

{“author”:”Ingrid Smith”}:

Comment From Guest
enoooooooo I can’t make this chat so make sure it’s a boring one

Comment From Guest
or take this opportunity to say mean things about me behind my back

Eno Sarris: That Guest is the worst.

Comment From mymaus
Pod wrote a great article about drafting Billy Hamiton at #20. I’ve heard people say to avoid drafting one category guys. Why is that? Do you agree?

Dave Cameron: It’s Wednesday, so let’s have some fun.

Dave Cameron: The queue is now open.

Comment From Bret
LOL fun on a Wednesday! This guy! ^^^

Dave Cameron: “More fun than you normally have on a Wednesday”

Comment From mtsw
Are sentences like “Before we move on to 2015, one more thought on the O’s-Rays conundrum. It might be tough to accept at face value that one club that finished 19 games behind another might actually have been a better club than the other” explicitly written in order to get Orioles fans riled up?

Dave Cameron: Nope. If the idea that single season team record is not a perfect model of a team’s true talent level offends you, perhaps you need to do more research on the variations in team record in a 162 game sample.

Paul Swydan: Hi everybody! Jeff and I will be here at 9 pm ET to cram baseball into every orifice. Baseball, and snow. Frankly, I’m at least 13 percent snow now.

See you soon!

Paul Swydan: Published the last poll twice by accident. Whoops!

Jeff Zimmerman: If anyone wants to get their ‘nerd on’, they can follow the LABR mixed draft which should start at the same time as this chat. FanGraphs has two teams in it: http://rtsports.com/labr-mi…

Paul Swydan: ok lets do this like brutus

Jeff Zimmerman: Word

Jeff Zimmerman: Test

Jeff Sullivan: Hello friends

Jeff Sullivan: Welcome to live baseball chatting

Jeff Sullivan: Today I’ll be your tour guide through this chat, but not through any others.

Jeff Sullivan: I think I need to give the queue a minute to fill out because holy crap it’s the middle of February

Comment From GSon
a week and a day until Pitchers and Catchers report to Spring Training !!.. wooot !

Jeff Sullivan: Every year I check to see if this is exciting to me. Unfortunately, still no. It’s a milestone — it’s one more step having been taken toward the regular season — but I haaaaate spring training 🙁

Dan Szymborski: Happy afternoon start! Well, for those in the good time zone.

Dan Szymborski: I woke up early for me and was surprisingly productive – wrote a Shields piece, set up some presidents *and* showed up for chat!

Comment From Maxamuz
When will I be able to export ZiPS projections into an excel spreadsheet for further analysis?

Dan Szymborski: Not too long – weekend or early next week

:

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Kiley McDaniel: Today’s schedule involved a bunch of calls and one got moved and one went shorter than expected so here I am. Good catchphrase, right?

Comment From Chris (AL)
Have you heard of this Moncada guy?

Comment From RotoLando
It’s that time of the week. Legit questions only, please

Kiley McDaniel: Nice to see the sarcasta-bots are out early today

Comment From RotoLando
Any new predictions on where the Cubans land?

Kiley McDaniel: I wrote this one yesterday, so I hope I don’t change my mind that fast

http://www.fangraphs.com/bl…

In fairness I narrowed it down to two likely options, which is really the most you can do at this point. The other Cubans’ market is still wide open.

Eno Sarris: be here soon. feeling like some hip hop today

{“author”:”uNiqueTaMere”}:

Comment From Guest
Missy Elliot owned that halftime show y/y

Eno Sarris: Well my boy was mesmerized by Katy Perry and the sharks and lions but yeah Missy did pretty well.

Comment From Cronut Burger
Does Hamilton’s injury equate to an uptick in CJ Cron’s fantasy value? Given the current power drought, is he worth gambling more than a few bucks at the auction?

Eno Sarris: I think he’ll basically full time DH to begin the season, and if you value him at like .260/15 I think you’ll own him and there’s a little upside left.

Dave Cameron: It’s Wednesday, so let’s chat about… James Shields, I guess? Or maybe my get-rid-of-the-draft proposal, which you can read here: http://www.foxsports.com/ml…

Dave Cameron: Alright, let’s do this thing.

Comment From Vslyke
Do you think Mike Minor gets dealt at the deadline if he rebounds? He’s older than most of the Braves staff and will be a FA after the 2017 season.

Dave Cameron: I’d imagine pretty much any Brave not named Freeman or Simmons having a good year could be trade bait.

Comment From Kris
Why not lump everyone together and allow the draft picks to be traded among teams while keeping the slot’s in place?

Dave Cameron: If the function of the draft can be replicated without the process of assigning picks — and it can be — then the picks are useless, and come with negative side effects like we saw with Brady Aiken this summer.

Paul Swydan: Hi everybody!

Jeff and I will be here at 9 pm ET to answer all of your base-and-or-balling queries. See you soon!

Paul Swydan: Hey guys, one minute and we’ll get started.

Paul Swydan: OK, here we go. Jeff is making more polls.

Paul Swydan: Glad to see BU is leading the Beanpot poll (of the four schools anyway).

Comment From Rated Rookie

Paul Swydan: I forget why he does this. This is from Fletch right? I need to whip out that DVD again soon.