Paul Swydan: Hi everybody!

Jeff and I will be here at 9 pm ET to cram some baseball straight down your cramholes. So get ready. You can prepare by pumping the queue full of questions. See you soon!

Paul Swydan: Hi guys! Working feverishly to get our next book, When the Sparrow Sings, by Jason Linden, ready for purchase.

Comment From Pale Hose
Hey everybody. Go buy Hardball Times. It is excellent!

Paul Swydan: Thanks Pale Hose!

Comment From Nick
First, can we get rid of this damn mountain.

Paul Swydan: I feel like this is a pop culture reference that I’m not getting.

Jeff Sullivan: All right, let’s do this

Jeff Sullivan: Made the mistake of starting a twitter conversation right before the scheduled chat time. I’m the worst 🙁

Comment From Los
If a chat goes on fangraphs and there is no Jeff Sullivan around, does it make a sound?

Jeff Sullivan: Pretty sure we can now observe that the answer is no

Comment From Garm Bel Iblis
Bottom to Top is terrible.

Jeff Sullivan: I tried to look for somewhere to change it but I don’t know where to change it 🙁

Dan Szymborski: We get signal. Main screen turn on.

Comment From Xolo
Word is that the Padres are “aggressively” trying to trade Grandal. Can we get a preview of what ZiPS thinks about him?

Dan Szymborski: 239/339/399 in SD, 112 OPS+, 2.8 WAR

Comment From Guest
Nelson Cruz. $58M??

Dan Szymborski: Meh.

Comment From Eminor3rd
Are you happy your O’s didn’t get Nelson Cruz at that price?

Neil Weinberg: Hey all. Queue is open and we’ll begin at 3pm. Remember priority to stat/data/FG info questions, but anything is fair game. I’m @NeilWeinberg44 if you’re looking for me on Twitter. See you in a few.

Neil Weinberg: Alright. Let’s get started. A little light on questions so far, so today’s the day to get stuff answered.

Comment From 804NatsFan
What is that picture I see? Sandlot football for dads… w/ uniforms! (Sans helmets?)

Comment From zurzles
WHAT IS HAPPENING TO MY CHAT WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN AM I SAFE

Neil Weinberg: People have strong opinions!

Neil Weinberg: As always, if you know of a better service than CIL, we are all ears.

Dave Cameron: Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Let’s be thankful for an hour or so of baseball conversation.

Dave Cameron: The queue is now open.

Comment From Bret
A couple of reports out of Toronto are that the Jays have given Melky Cabrera a deadline to respond to their offer (believed to be 3-years / $39M) by the Winter Meetings. If you were Melky’s agent, do you advise him to take it?

Dave Cameron: Yeah. I don’t think he’s worth any more than that.

Comment From Cicero
Since Cargo and Tulo are unlikely to return value until health is more sure, shouldn’t the Rockies at least look to move Morneau, Stubbs and Rosario?

Dave Cameron: I disagree with the premise. I would bet several teams would pay for Tulo’s upside, even coming off the surgery.

Jeff Sullivan: Are we ready to baseball chat?

Jeff Sullivan: I’ve given the queue a few minutes to get going and subsequently settle down

Jeff Sullivan: So let’s talk about god knows what

Comment From garth algar
i fear change

Comment From CecilFieldersButtPlug
well this looks funny

Comment From neal
what the heck is this interface?????

Dan Szymborski: oh god, I hope this works this week. somebody say something!

Comment From Mooking for Love
something

Dan Szymborski: Hooray!

Dan Szymborski: As I’ve traveled so far

Dan Szymborski: As I’ve traveled so far from the future for you, let’s get this fantasy started and fool the experts, too.

Dan Szymborski: First off.

Kiley McDaniel: You wanted a snappy intro and you won’t get one because I always set expectations low

Kiley McDaniel: I should mention the FG Youtube page is growing, with videos of 2 of the 4 players that were traded last night, including Jose Dominguez who hit 100 mph in that video:https://www.youtube.com/user/FanGraphs/videos

Kiley McDaniel: I tweet these out when they’re posted so check me @kileymcd for the latest

Comment From Tyler
Do you think the Yankees go stop-gap at SS b/c of Mateo or is it too early to be thinking of him as a potential future SS for them

Kiley McDaniel: Never underestimate how quickly NYY fans can get ahead of themselves. Mateo has only played in Rookie Ball. He’s their best SS prospect and I’ve seen him a good bit and he’s really good, but you didn’t call Cito Culver the future when he was the same age and was just taken in the 1st round. Years and years away from the big leagues, so stop gap is underselling it.

Comment From Tom
What would be your best guess for Moncada’s timetable to reach the show?

Eno Sarris: I’ll be here shortly. In the meantime, anyone get a Steely Dan vibe from this?

bellesglasgow:

Eno Sarris: Ooops. Forgot to publish this. I’ll give y’all a second. It’ll be like a real-time lightning round!

Comment From Guest
pew pew

Comment From Guest
::lightning::

Comment From Greg
Let’s dance!

Neil Weinberg: Hi all, we’ll get started at 3pm but the queue is open. Remember that this chat prioritizes stat/data/FG/how does that work type questions, but everything is fair game.

If you’re looking for me, @NeilWeinberg44 on Twitter during non-chat hours.

Neil Weinberg: Alright, let’s discuss baseball! Keep the questions flowing.

Comment From Raymond
How exactly is WAR calculated?

Neil Weinberg: For position players: http://www.fangraphs.com/li…

Complete position player example: http://www.fangraphs.com/li…

Neil Weinberg: The pitcher one is a little more complicated and is out of date on the site. I’ll be updating that, hopefully very soon.

Comment From Matt (St. Louis)
When evaluating projected stats, is there a hierarchy you think works best to sort through players? Meaning, is it helpful to look at wRC+ first and then combine that with the best wOBA second, and so on.