Paul Swydan: You. Me. TRADES.

That’s right, it’s the penultimate night before the trade deadline, so let’s talk some trade rumors!!! Jeff will be off watching live baseball, so you have me all to yourselves tonight.

9 pm ET. See you soon!

Paul Swydan: Hi everybody! I’ve got the last can of Summer Shandy cracked and a queue full of questions, so let’s do this thing.

Comment From Pale Hose
Hey Paul. Is Jackie Bradley figuring things out, or just having a good month in a bad season?

Paul Swydan: I think we need to wait a little longer before we call this improvement.

Paul Swydan: The general tone of the media is always going to be positive wrt Bradley, because everyone likes him. But it’s one month with a 110 wRC+, and for the season he’s still at 70. I want to see more.

Comment From Andrew (Ontario, Canada)
Hey Paul – How beautifully would Beltre fit in the Jays lineup? Move Lawrie to 2nd when healthy, that would be a scary lineup. Would a Norris+Pompey+Barreto package get it done?

Jeff Sullivan: ALL RIGHT EVERYBODY LET’S CHATTTTTT

Jeff Sullivan: FANTASY QUESTIONS ARE FOR SUCKERS! NOT GONNA GET EM ANSWERED HERE

Jeff Sullivan: MARINERS QUESTIONS TEND TO BE DISPROPORTIONATELY REPRESENTED

Jeff Sullivan: I WILL WORK ON THAT

Comment From bsfgbbfhfghdhdhdghdgbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb
IS THIS CAPS LOCK TUESDAY???

Jeff Sullivan: I’m finished

Nicholas Minnix: Good afternoon and good morning, baseball fans! I’ll be with you for a little more than an hour, beginning at the top of the hour upcoming!

Comment From Sad Jays Fan
Marcus Stroman as a starter: 61 IP, 2.21 ERA, K-BB% of 17.2%, 2.93 FIP, 3.28 xFIP. Thoughts on him ROS? Thoughts on his ceiling long term?

Nicholas Minnix: Like him, like him. ROS as a starter, maybe 3.50, 3.75, kinda like the systems have him. I don’t think his ceiling is much higher than what he’s doing now, but I think he can do this (a 3.25-3.75 type ERA, not 2.21) in multiple seasons, occasionally wow, occasionally disappoint. Very polished, smart guy.

Eno Sarris: I’ll be here shortly.

MrRastajohnny:

Eno Sarris: Toots is a madman.

Comment From Matt Damon
MATT. DAMON.

Comment From Hase Cheadley
Hi Eno. I’m in an AL-only league and wondering if you think Chase Headley turns out to be the best bat coming over from the NL at the deadline?

Eno Sarris: I don’t think a big bat will move into the AL. I guess the only one that might is Oscar Taveras, and in the short term… Chase Headley has a lifetime .286 BA and .446 slugging away from PetCo. Is OT a definite to surpass that in his first taste of the league, in a pitcher’s park like Tampa? I take the bird in hand.

Neil Weinberg: Hey everyone, let me get you caught up.

My job here is primarily to serve as something of a Site Educator. This means that I’m responsible for providing resources to readers about our data, advanced metrics, and how to make use of the features available at the site.

My Twitter handle is @NeilWeinberg44 and if you want to get in touch about these kinds of questions at times other than 3pm on Wednesdays, that’s where to find me. It’s my job, so take advantage of it.

With that said, I will prioritize “how does this work?” and “what does this mean?” type questions during the chats, but feel free to ask regular questions about anything as well. Although if you’re here for fantasy advice or prospect talk, I’m probably less helpful than some of our writers.

Think that’s it, queue is open and we’ll start at 3pm!

Neil Weinberg: Alright, let’s chat.

Comment From Pale Hose
Hi Neil. Welcome back. I’m trying to walkthrough the part 1 of the WAR calculation for hitters. Dave uses the example of 2008 Adrian Beltre. I can match the wRAA on the player page (3.5), but I don’t follow the park adjustment. Somehow I am supposed to take a 96 Safeco park factor and come up with a batting value of 5.9 for Beltre. Can you help with this?

Neil Weinberg: This is probably too technical to walk you through in detail during a chat, but his wRAA is 3.5 and his Batting Runs are 4.8 for that year. I assume the values changed when we adjusted replacement level, so the exact values Dave and wrote about aren’t exactly correct.

I just did a very quick pen and paper calculation and got 4.7something. I’ll cover the specifics of all of these things as I update the glossary, but if you ever need specific clarifications, get me on Twitter.

Comment From Paul
Q about defense stats: if a player robs a HR, does he automatically gets 1 run saved? does it go to 4 runs saved if the bases are loaded?

Neil Weinberg: It depends on how difficult the play is. So basically, you care about how often the average defender would also rob that home run. Unfortunately, not as simple as +1 for solo HR robbing.

Dave Cameron: A week and a day until the trade deadline, so I’m guessing these next two chats will be heavily driven by trade rumors/questions/suggestions. Normally, I prefer to avoid crazy trade proposals, but for the next couple of weeks, we’ll indulge everyone’s desire to make fake trades. Try to maintain some semblance of logic, however.

Dave Cameron: Non-trade questions are still allowed too, of course.

Dave Cameron: The queue is now open and we’ll start chatting in about 20 minutes.

Comment From Guest
How different is the Rockies Front Office by opening day 2015?

Dave Cameron: Entirely different, I think. We haven’t had much front office turnover lately, but I think we’re going to see a bunch of house cleanings this winter. Arizona, Colorado, and San Diego are all likely to bring in new people, and I wouldn’t be shocked if Ruben Amaro got canned in Philly either.

Comment From Tradey Tradestein
Biggest name to be moved at the deadline will be?

Paul Swydan: Hi everybody!

Jeff and I will be here at 9 pm ET to cram as much baseball as we can cram into your cramholes. Until then, fill up the queue! See you soon!

Paul Swydan: Hey guys, let’s do this thing.

Comment From Cobbieguy
Conventional wisdom says Brock Holt won’t be a first ballot hall of famer; however, what can his value be going forward? Ben Zobrist lite with less power?

Paul Swydan: Ben Zobrist lite with less power is a utility player, which is what Holt really is.

Jeff Zimmerman: I am just not buying to his season. Zobrist without the power and a little worse defender.

Comment From Ceej
Is Byron Buxton injury prone similar to someone like Ellsbury and Harper where it just keeps happening but he isn’t necessarily brittle and more fluky?

Jeff Sullivan: All right, so let’s see

Jeff Sullivan: Late: check

Jeff Sullivan: Don’t bother asking fantasy questions because I don’t know how to answer them: check

Jeff Sullivan: The Mariners are the way to my heart but I try to limit the amount of those questions I take: check

Jeff Sullivan: Onward!

Comment From JR
Does Baez moving to 2B imply he’ll get called up soon?

Dan Szymborski: ZIP ZOP ZOOPITY BOP

Dan Szymborski: First off, our usual business.

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Comment From Bret
Reports over the weekend that the Jays can’t take on any money in trades. On a scale of 1-10, how angry should Jays fans be?

Dan Szymborski: Assuming the reports are true, very.

Nicholas Minnix: Hello, everybody! I’ll be with you at the top of the hour, as always. I have been going to about an hour and a half for these, but today I won’t go much beyond the requisite hour, visiting family, hope you understand. Looking forward to hearing what you have to say and ask!

Nicholas Minnix: And, my sincere apologies: I changed the start time of my event initially … but not the time zone! So now we’re all set.

Comment From Zach
Among the teams who are in the hunt for a RP which would not have Soria as a closer?