Neil Weinberg FanGraphs Q&A – 10/15/14

Neil Weinberg: Hey, we’ll get started at 3pm, but go ahead about post your questions now! Remember this chat is designed to help you understand the site, our data, and sabermetrics, but pretty much anything else baseball related is welcome. There’s also a game in an hour, so you’re welcome to hang out for the first few innings of that as well.

I’m @NeilWeinberg44 on Twitter if you’re looking for me throughout the week.

Neil Weinberg: Alright, let’s chat!

Comment From Mr Skeptic
Pitch framing. All of the work being done by various sites seems to indicate that framing is potentially a massive piece of the catcher’s defensive value puzzle. I do think that the good framers and bad framers are accurately reflected with the work being done but it’s the overall value I have trouble wrapping my head around. How much do you “believe” in the numbers that there are catchers out there capable of providing 2-3 wins of value on framing alone?

Neil Weinberg: I think this is still an open question. I believe that 2-3 wins is possible, but I don’t think we’ve fully resolved exactly the right way to measuring framing. It’s a real skill and one that influences the game, but I’m not sure if we have perfectly estimated the value of stealing a strike or if we’ve properly divided the credit between pitchers and catchers. We’re only a couple of years into real framing research and the data is less than a decade old. Room to grow.

Comment From Yosted
There seems to be a lot of disagreement on how much defense should weight into WAR. Have any regression analyses been performed to see what weighting most highly correlates with team success?

Neil Weinberg: I am blanking on who wrote about this recently, but I’m pretty sure the results suggested we are actually undervaluing defense slightly in WAR.

Neil Weinberg: If someone finds that link, drop it in.

Comment From Guest
If Pirates don’t re-sign Ruseell, who else can they go after at C and 1B

Neil Weinberg: I wonder if a Matt Wieters trade might make sense?

Comment From Steven
If you had access to Statcast data, what would be the first analysis you would do / question you would look into?

Neil Weinberg: Been thinking about this a lot lately because at some point, maybe next year, MLB is just going to be like “here’s statcast” and about 1,000 other nerds are going to rush in and put together all kinds of interesting stuff. Think back to all of the pitchf/x research we’ve done, now imagine a world with people who are trained to do this and who want MLB teams to hire them. It’s going to be nuts!

I think I am going to be most interested in determining the variation in defensive performance, i.e. what’s the typical difference in a player’s route efficiency/first step/etc? How often to average outfielders take great routes? bad ones?

Comment From mtsw
What do you think of Yost pinch running Dyson for Aoki in the middle of the game last night? Probably increased their chance to score and since their outfield is better with Dyson than Aoki, increased their chances to protect the lead. Are we not giving Yost enough credit possibly?

Neil Weinberg: I like this strategy and I think it makes a lot of sense. Yost has some really bad calls, but this has been a good one.

Comment From Phil
How do you think Fangraphs can best utilize the new info provided by MLB?

Neil Weinberg: Going to be interesting the form in which the data is released. I think there’s a lot of potential in creating some sort of defensive map that tells you how likely it is a fielder will field a ball based on its velo and trajectory.

Comment From Phil
Have you considered the discrepancy between the pronunciation of the two ei’s in your name? Have you ever considered calling yourself “Nile” Weinberg or Neil “Weenberg”?

Neil Weinberg: So I took German in high school and the teacher said this exact thing to me. “have you ever noticed how your name is an example of german pronunciation and non-german?” Wonder if there are other names out there where the same letter combos make different sounds!

Comment From PXF
BB% and K% were summarized for the library recently. I have really basic question: I’ve never been clear on the relationship between KK% and Contact%. You would think that KK% + Contact% = 100, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Does Contact% measure all times the ball is put in play (including foul balls)? (I guess I’m asking what’s the denominator for contact% — pitches or at bats?)

Neil Weinberg: K% = Strikeouts / PA
Contact% = Contact / Swings

Comment From Re:Mr. Skeptic
Is it really hard to believe a player that is involved in every single pitch for nearly every game to be worth a lot?

Neil Weinberg: I think the question is really about the spread in true talent and the number of opportunities to leverage that talent.

Comment From Pale Hose
Neil – Does xFIP break down for pitchers that just aren’t good enough? As an example, I am thinking of the last couple years of Blanton’s career. Regressing him to league average HR/FB rate seems generous.

Neil Weinberg: Yeah, there are guys who really do allow more HR or harder contact or whatever. Blanton is basically the opposite of Kershaw. There are definitely guys who the system will miss on. I actually created a expected xFIP one time to try and correct for this. I haven’t tested it, but it would basically factor in their career rate given enough data instead of league average.

Comment From Keeper
– I was wondering if there is any way to find the mean BAPIP per position on this site?

Neil Weinberg: Certainly! Go to the leaderboard. Click League Stats on the top. Then use the splits dropdown to select your position of choice

Comment From Santiago
I know defensive metrics aren’t as reliable as offensive metrics. They aren’t as valuable to estimate true talent. But, how can I use them (analyze) when comparing 2 single (defensive) seasons (eg. 2014 Zack Cozart vs 2014 Jhonny Peralta)?

Neil Weinberg: First thing you want to do is look at a few different ones. If DRS and UZR love Cozart but only one loves Peralta, that’s important. Or if one of the stats identifies their range as being critical and one is better with the arm, for example. Then you might think about looking at their previous seasons to see how big a deviation it is from their normal range. So a +10 might be a +10, but I would be way more confident if they had been +10 for three straight years than if they were -5 for three straight.

Comment From Matt
Is Shelby Miller back?

Neil Weinberg: I don’t know. Eno wrote about this! There was obviously something weird going on, but I like him as a pitcher if he’s healthy, so I hope that’s true.

Comment From mtsw
The Orioles are disguising their signs even with no men on base. Are/were the Royals stealing signs? Cal Ripken tip-toed right up to implying that on the broadcast. It would certainly explain why their offense has suddenly and inexplicably improved during the playoffs.

Neil Weinberg: I think teams disguise their signs because they’re paranoid more than anything else. More likely, the Royals just have had a good little stretch and BAL is making sure there’s nothing funny out of an abundance of caution.

Comment From Josh
With the padres having Rene Rivera, does a Grandal trade make sense? I’m thinking the Pirates might be interested in him.

Neil Weinberg: Wouldn’t shock me, but Rivera’s power was kind of new. Not sure you want to buy that just yet.

Comment From Phil
If you could name 1 baseball statistic — traditional or advanced — after yourself, which would you choose?

Neil Weinberg: I like this question.

Neil Weinberg: Ground ball rate. Don’t want to get braggy and take wOBA or something.

Comment From Matt
Why do you use terms like “luck” and “random variation” instead of admitting there are far more “invisible variables” that we should be looking for as we do in science? For example, we seemingly dismiss things like “the hot hand” or “clutch”…etc, but perhaps we are missing part of the puzzle because be have incomplete data or are looking at the wrong things to make a prediction. For example monitoring the body and. Digging deeper into the use of game theory in baseball. Being able to quantify pitching or hitting mechanics. Is this the next frontier? Who will take the next step/what will it be in this more deterministic view of baseball?

Neil Weinberg: I only like to use “luck” in very specific contexts. But the default should be to assume random variation in the absence of evidence to the contrary. So far, there isn’t much evidence for stuff like clutch. There’s lots of untold psychological components, etc, but until we have evidence of their existence, they’re just sucked up by the error term. Would love to see more inventive research though

Comment From Grogery
Can Kemp + Pederson bring back Miller + young SP/RP from Seattle?

Neil Weinberg: Guess the pitcher is important there, but I don’t think the Dodgers would do that right now. Pederson is too valuable and Kemp looks healthy, so there’s going to be a bigger market if they’re selling those two guys

Comment From mtsw
Over how many innings would you need to see a pitcher outperform his peripheral stats before you could conclude it’s due to a repeatable skill and would persist?

Neil Weinberg: So there’s no single answer. But something like 600 is a decent estimate. If you can pull it apart and really observe something (like Cueto holding runners for example) it could be lower. And after 200 innings you believe it more than after 50, also.

Comment From BusterPujols
what is the biggest component that goes into park factors?

Neil Weinberg: Park factors are basically a measure of the difference between how a team performs at home versus on the road and how their opponents perform at that park versus other places. We use 5 years of data.

Comment From mtsw
Can we expect Adam Jones’ playoff stats to regress to the mean or is something wrong with him in October (nerves or changing his approach or something?)

Neil Weinberg: Unless a player is hurt, or an opponent has found a clear weakness, the answer is almost always to not treat postseason stats as different from the season. These are important PA, but 40 PA is still just 40 PA

Comment From JayBuhnersButtPlug
The contract crowdsourcing stuff is so fun. Just curious- what do you have dor Nelson Cruz next year?

Neil Weinberg: Probably like 4/60? Not confident in that one.

Comment From Chris
Do you think, with pitch framing becoming more and more recognized as a skill, that catchers are going to join umpires in resisting a change to balls and strikes being called by a machine? They would lose a lot of their added value if they couldn’t frame pitches anymore; you can’t fool a machine.

Neil Weinberg: Tough to say, because I think catchers probably care more about a fair zone than you’re assuming. They want to know what is going to be a strike and what isn’t, but there’s some financial incentive for great framers to resist. But that’s probably balanced out by the horrible framers who want an even zone

Comment From mtsw
So you’d feel pretty confident in saying that Miguel Gonzalez (to pick a timely example) probably does something we can’t measure to prevent runs since his FIP trails his ERA consistently 450 innings into his career?

Neil Weinberg: So here’s your question. How much of this is Gonzalez inducing weak contact and how much of it is playing in front of a really good defensive team for his entire career? But there’s probably something going on that makes the gap somewhat legit

Comment From James
Re: balls and strikes. As a fan, would you want machines calling ’em? Seems like it would be a better idea to use tracking data to help umpires improve while still keeping the human element.

Neil Weinberg: So they already do use the machines to track umpires. I think I would prefer robot umps, but I’m not 100% decided.

Comment From Nate
Whoops, entered that too soon: “These are important PA, but 40 PA is still just 40 PA.” Would it be more apt to compare playoff plate appearances to regular season high leverage / clutch PAs then to compare them to standard regular season PAs

Neil Weinberg: Sure, but those are largely non-predictive as well. It’s higher pressure, but I wouldn’t look at 40 high leverage PA in the regular season and make any conclusions.

Comment From mtsw
Seems like a good solution to ball/strikes is to set up tennis-like challenge system where the batter or pitcher can quickly appeal to the machine a limited number of times (with the option to gain more chances after successful appeals). Keeps human element, adds precision, adds incentive for umps to stick to real zone, adds interesting strategic choice to at bats. Great right?

Neil Weinberg: The problem with that is why limit the number at all? Which gets people talking about the value of correct calls versus flow of the game….and that’s just a trade off.

Comment From James
Sure, but do we know what kind and how often feedback is provided to umpires based on their performance? Is there a good article on this somewhere?

Neil Weinberg: I know that they used to a get a CD (lol!) with the data from that game each night. Probably smooth technology, but it’s not like umpires are reprimanded for mistakes, so I’m not sure how big the effect is

Comment From ChuckKnoblacuhsTinyLittleNipplesWentToFrance
On the subject of park factors- does Coors still put the balls in a humidor? are there any other parks that have to do something crazy like this before games?

Neil Weinberg: Yes and I don’t think so.

Comment From Grogery
Will you draft Chris Davis in a fantasy league in 2015?

Neil Weinberg: No, but I have like four 1B 🙂

Neil Weinberg: But seriously, if he’s cheap, get him. People over-correct a lot!

Neil Weinberg: Good time to plug this, but I am in an Ottoneu league with Dave that raises money for a cancer organization. We have an open spot and whoever commits to the largest donation gets the spot. Go to his twitter timeline for full info. But it’s fun!

Comment From mtsw
What would a fair Steve Pearce contract extension look like? Team controlled one more year but presumably he’d be willing to sign for affordable price for long-term security this offseason given his unusual career history.

Neil Weinberg: Let’s see. Going to make like $5MM in arb? He’s going to be a FA at 33. So even if he really is a 3-4 WAR player, I bet you could do 4/40 given the fact that he’s never really made *real* money.

Neil Weinberg: Those are tough.

Comment From Grogery
Should the Giants be starting Petit over Vogelsong tonight?

Neil Weinberg: Probably. But you can start Vogey and go to Petit early and probably be in good shape

Comment From Devern Hansack
Do you believe that clubs will eventually integrate more game theory into their strategies to subvert other teams’ sabermetric leans (i.e. substituting pitchers earlier in games to exploit heavy-platooning teams and weaken their bench)?

Neil Weinberg: Eventually, but that kind of thing is so hard to implement because it’s so foreign to what people have been taught forever. The social norms of the game are powerful and optimal strategy is often met with hostility. You need serious buy-in top to bottom.

Comment From Santiago
Earlier today I read Dave’s chat and people were asking about tandem starters. Dave said that a team is more likely to use that strategy instead of a #5 in the rotation instead of going tandem every single day. So, using it is a good option, but you’ll need your better pitchers to throw at least 7 innnings as often as possible, otherwise it would be overtaxing your bullpen. Agree?

Neil Weinberg: Presumably your tandem guys could each throw in relief once a week too.

Comment From ThePuck
After having 4 seasons of 92 or more losses, how long can the Twins gets away with leaving payroll where it is before the fans out and out revolt?

Neil Weinberg: They have some real talent in the farm system that should be coming in 2015-16. If they aren’t on track and investing in free agents after that.

Comment From Dylan
Do you think it is foolish for playoff baseball to be on channels like Fox Sports One and TBS? That limits the audience even though the ratings would be good on broadcast television. I think this is one great advantages football has.

Neil Weinberg: I think the reality is that broadcast networks didn’t want the first round. Too many games, taking up too much of the prime time schedule. And MLB doesn’t care much about the people who don’t have cable when the cable channels are paying billions for the rights.

Comment From Robert
Have a homeplate umpire still, when the ball goes through the zone, a little buzzer goes off. You still need him back there for judgement calls, and you get instant results

Neil Weinberg: Yeah, something like this is more plausible.

Comment From Guest
You are appointed Commissioner of Baseball. Your sole goal is to make baseball more money. How do you do it?

Neil Weinberg: I haven’t thought this through, so it might be stupid, but free tickets for anyone under 14 if they are accompanied by an adult.

Neil Weinberg: There’s a loss of basic revenue, but I think it 1) makes baseball more popular 2) gets more people to the park in general to pay for concessions, etc

Comment From SmoothPumaMoist
Ever since that article about “beards” ive been fascinated with the idea of starting a pitcher, only to pull him really early on in order to gain platoon advantage. I would love to see this actually employed. if it was common, then managers would start constantly trying to guess what the other manager was doing..etc. it would be fascinating!

Neil Weinberg: I think this should happen more, but it violates the “rules.” You could get away with it once or twice, but you would start to be ostracized by the media and league.

Comment From SmoothPumaMoist
Re: making more money- so much money is in booze sales, and 14 year olds cant (or shouldnt) be buying booze!

Neil Weinberg: That’s not the point. There are X number of empty seats per game. If you tell parents you can get seats for your family for $40 instead of $80, maybe they show up and spend $20 of those dollars themselves.

Neil Weinberg: But like I said, might be stupid.

Comment From Gila Monster
Say I hypothetically bought a team and implemented a system where I eliminated starting pitchers. Relievers would pitch about 2 innings a game and pitch every 2 games. How would this change the run environment given those who could start would be even better as relievers/eliminate times through the order penalty? You could also find cheap relievers and spend all your money on offense.

Neil Weinberg: Presumably, it would decrease run scoring.

Comment From mtsw
Are we sure KC’s incredible defense is by design, or is it just what happens when you get to draft in the top 10 year after year, since the position players drafted in those slots are usually elite athletes?

Neil Weinberg: I’m sure part of it is by design, but it’s also partly that they favor a certain type of hitter and most of those guys made it to the bigs by being good at defense. Some of each

Neil Weinberg: Brief break. Fire off some more questions and I’ll come back and finish them off.

Comment From SmoothPumaMoistCooter
Why didn’t Depo work out in LA and why is this situation with Friedman any different? DePo was the OG saber nerd

Neil Weinberg: A lot of that job is managing people and the decision making process. Lots of people can analyze information, not as many people can make sure the right information gets to the right people. Friedman is well respected in both regards

Comment From Ze Pequeno
Any guess what Richards will get in arbitration? 1st year for the process, super 2 guy, only one legit season, and has his injury. Maybe 3.5-4M?

Neil Weinberg: Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think they can factor in the injury in the decision. So that should be about right.

Comment From Tom
Missed some of this chat, so sorry if this is a repeat: How come there appears to be no criticism of Buck leaving Chen in for the 6th?

Neil Weinberg: I saw some on Twitter. Honestly don’t remember exactly who was batting, might have been a decent matchup or something too.

Comment From mtsw
If Orioles win today’s game are their chances better, worse or the same than if they had won game 3 instead of game 4 (i.e been at 2-1 before going to 3-1 instead of 3-0)

Neil Weinberg: Virtually identical, assuming same pitcher usage

Comment From Grogery
Can/will Fangraphs add a pitcher’s statistics verus a particular position? For example: James Shield’s numbers versus all the 1b or DHs he’s faced in 2014.

Neil Weinberg: I don’t think that’s high on the list of priorities. Lots of other stuff to do first.

Comment From Chris
Please reassure me the Giants or Cardinals will NOT win the World Series. I don’t want it to strike midnight on KC.

Neil Weinberg: They probably will. This is how sports work. Great story crushed by perennial contender.

Comment From mtsw
From a scale of 1 to 10, how unwise was it for Buck to not pinch hit for Hundley or Schoop in the 8th last night? Seems insane to lose one run game without getting Delmon Young an at bat (or having literally anyone other than Schoop in with 5 outs left)

Neil Weinberg: Delmon vs Davis is not a good matchup, so not very crazy.

Comment From Los
If the Royals could trade their current position in the playoffs to the Angels for Mike Trout, who says no?

Neil Weinberg: Oh my.

Neil Weinberg: We might need a scientist.

Neil Weinberg: So the Royals are essentially 50/50 to win the world series.

Neil Weinberg: I bet they wouldn’t do it. But I did have to think about it.

Comment From SmoothPumaMoistCooter
what do you think is Schoops’s career year comp? O’s fans i was with were saying Macahdo. I think they are crazy, for comapring them as well as using a 21 year old kid for a comp haha

Neil Weinberg: Too aggressive. Think he’s going to peak more like 3 WAR than 6.

Comment From mtsw
Does each additional WAR a player contributes have additional marginal value (i.e. its more than twice as valuable to have a 2.0 WAR player than a 1.0 WAR player) or am I thinking about this wrong?

Neil Weinberg: It’s basically linear. At the team level, you can get some changes at the extremes.

Comment From Hercs man crush
the announcing in these playoffs has been BRUTAL between Harold Reynold’s nonsense and Ron Darling’s complete lack of personality I want to unplug my tv speakers. why not implement some sort of system where the best MLB announcers for that year are promoted to call the playoffs? my dream scenario: Vin Scully does all the playoffs by himself

Neil Weinberg: I would be willing to die for this noble cause.

Comment From Grogery
The Dodgers must sign David Price at any cost. What would Price’s stats look like in the NL West?

Neil Weinberg: Very good. But he is very good everywhere so this is a trick!

Neil Weinberg: I bet they are going to talk about shadows during this game!

Comment From Tom
Would a Pineda (plus a piece or two?) for Starlin Castro deal make sense for both teams?

Neil Weinberg: My guess is the Cubs can do better

Comment From Santiago
If a team had league average players at each position (both defensive and offensive production) and a 7 WAR. What would be their expected win-loss record?

Neil Weinberg: About 86-88.

Neil Weinberg: Aoki earned that base.

Comment From Chris
MLB.tv has been a marvel for me this year, as I got to actually watch quality baseball (I’m a Phillies fan :/ ) but it’s far from perfect. I know you have your complaints abouit the service on twitter; how would you fix it?

Neil Weinberg: They need to improve their infrastructure. They brag about it because the other sports leagues aren’t any better, but there are all sorts of performance issues and lots of variation in quality among devices. The customer service is also terrible. They haven’t raised prices in years, which they should in order to make the product better. I mean, they rolled out the new online player this year and it didn’t work for so many people

Would also end the blackouts, but that’s kind of a different thing.

Comment From Guest
I know it isn’t predictive and doesn’t mean anything, but everyone on the Royals seems to over-performing at the right time. I mean Aoki was terrible earlier. Hosmer was terrible. Moose was terrible.

Neil Weinberg: Odds are, one team is going to have the stars align. It’s the Royals right now

Comment From ralph
Seriously, how many runs have been scored this postseason because of a flub of an easy defensive play?

Neil Weinberg: A lot. I’ve said this on Twitter a lot but while this is exciting baseball, the quality of play has been very low.

Comment From Guest
The 1 WAR player vs 2 WAR player is simply the run value difference right? Because the 1 WAR guy could cost $500K and the 2 WAR guy could cost $10M

Neil Weinberg: The question gets interesting when you think about roster spots and injury risk.

Comment From mtsw
I believe in Orioles Magic and all, but I’m starting to get maybe a little tiny bit concerned about the Orioles winning this series.

Neil Weinberg: Have to think they’re down to maybe 2%

Comment From Grogery
Would you rather your favorite team had a .999… or 1.0 winning %

Neil Weinberg: .999, a perfect season would get stressful.

Comment From Guest
RE: Chrisswait… a phillies fan watched quality baseball?

Neil Weinberg: I think he meant because he could watch other teams!

Comment From jasper
What is the dollar value of one WAR in 2014?

Neil Weinberg: Something like $6.5 to $7 million.

Comment From Guest
What do you expect from the Angels next year? ~90 wins?

Neil Weinberg: Might say something like 88, but that all depends on offseason moves

Comment From Grogery
Which record will fall first: win streak, hit streak, or consecutive scoreless IP?

Neil Weinberg: Scoreless innings. Hit streak is never falling. Well, not never. But not in the next 25 years.

Comment From Chris
Guest: I watched OTHER teams play quality baseball. That’s why MLB.tv was so great; I wasn’t getting anything with the Phillies!

Comment From Shermham
Is there a rough convention for saying what a stolen base is worth with regard to total bases? Like, if a double is worth 2 bases, what’s a single + SB worth? Single + CS?

Neil Weinberg: Single and SB is less than a double because it will advance the base runners less often. Don’t know exactly off the top of my head what the precise difference is.

Comment From Slumpert
What single aspect of baseball umpiring do you never want to see automatized? I say: the balk.

Neil Weinberg: I don’t know how you could automate that, but I hate how bad umpires all at calling balks.

Comment From Slumpert
Also, do balks factor in wRC+ against SP?

Neil Weinberg: I don’t think they do.

Neil Weinberg: Probably worth combining balks, wild pitches, etc into a “pitcher base-advancement” thing and throwing it into metrics.

Comment From Tom
How long do you go with Gonzalez today? (assuming this stays within 2 runs)

Neil Weinberg: No more than 18 batters

Comment From SmoothPumaMoistCooter
When i was 5 i went to the chatham a’s baseball camp and on the final day i got a hit off of one of the chatham a’s pitchers (obviously he was lobbing it) and then he proceeded to pick me off base because i didnt know you could do that

Comment From ralph
What chance is there that in the next decade, bases and balls will have sensors in them that sense impact and thus be able to decide whether or not there was a force-out? How about in the next 50 years?

Neil Weinberg: I assume both occur in the next 50. Neither in the decade, but you could easily do it for the bases.

Comment From mtsw
Would the NPB All Star team have a greater than 50% shot of beating the Astros in a 7 game series?

Neil Weinberg: Probably not, but I don’t know the league well enough to be sure.

Comment From Guest
Could a team order a blood test on something like testosterone on a free agent before signing them since that has a significant effect on physical decline? You can make it seem like it is for PEDs!

Neil Weinberg: The player would have to consent.

Comment From mtsw
Given what a disasster this inning has been overall, getting out with only 2 runs allowed is actually pretty great, right?

Neil Weinberg: That was very close to being the end of the season.

Comment From Slumpert
Favorite Neil currently playing in the majors?

Neil Weinberg: Walker! He is Don Kelly’s brother in law and I am fond of Don.

Comment From SmoothPumaMoistCooter
i need a new MLB videogame on XBOX. im playing 2k12 and its depressing to look at the rosters.

Neil Weinberg: I think that was the last one I bought. Played it a little in 2013. Pretty much stopped once I started writing about baseball. Only so much time in the day.

Comment From Tom
Who would you guess gets the worst FA contract this offseason?

Neil Weinberg: Hanley?

Comment From Slumpert
Wonkiest MLB ballpark — statistically speaking?

Neil Weinberg: Coors, right?

Comment From SmoothPumaMoistCooter
Worst fa contract- gotta be vmart tho right?

Neil Weinberg: I don’t think VMart is going to get as overpaid as people think.

Comment From Matt
what are the chances the giants and cardinals hit at least 2 HR tonight? My buddy thinks its close to 30% but that seems high to me. Your thoughts?

Neil Weinberg: There was about 1.7 HR/G during the season. But it’s AT&T and two clubs that don’t hit a ton. 30% seems plausible. Someone could do better math.

Comment From BryceHarpersGoochTicker
did anyone catch the JABO braodcast of the game? I really wanted to- it sounded like a sick idea. Reviews?

Neil Weinberg: I liked it and wrote a review at Beyond The Box Score.

Comment From Wayne Primeau
Link!

Neil Weinberg: http://www.beyondtheboxscor…

Comment From Hank
Putting aside the current score, should Tillman have started this game? (and have the possibility of pitching him some in game 7 too)

Neil Weinberg: I think there’s probably reason to think he would be more useful in one game of full rest. I would give Gonzalez a short leash and max out the pen. Tough call, but this is the issue with shallow SP

Comment From Matt
Is there a metric which combines K% and BB% and normalizes BABIP rates altogether?

Neil Weinberg: For whom?

Comment From LAX
Who goes first: Puig or Mattingly?

Neil Weinberg: Mattingly.

Comment From mtsw
Which do we see more of in FG chats this offseason? Ned Yost jokes or fake Mookie Betts trades?

Neil Weinberg: Mookie Betts. Speaking from this side of the computer, way more fake trades than manager complaints in chats.

Comment From Hank
Today is full rest for Tilman with the rainout (4days off)

Neil Weinberg: But it wouldn’t be for game 7, right? I’m messed up on the schedule.

Comment From LAX
BOS trades Mookie bets to ATL for BJ Upton & Kimbrel, flips Kimbrel to LA for AJ Ellis: could it happen?

Comment From Matt
Is there a metric which combines K% and BB% and normalizes BABIP rates altogether?

Neil Weinberg: And we have some weird Cover it live happening!

Neil Weinberg: In reply to the trade idea: Why would the Red Sox do this?

Comment From Matt
What are the chances Stephen Drew actually may end up with a multi-year deal now that Hardy is off the market, and Lowrie, Ramirez, and Cabrera may not actually be playing SS in the future?

Neil Weinberg: I think Drew will do fine this offseason. Should have taken the QO, but oh well. Not going to go without a deal

Comment From Matt
… for batters that is, idk why my question showed up twice.

Neil Weinberg: Regarding the K, BB, BABIP question. Haven’t seen anything official like this.

Comment From Guest
Fake Trade that Sam Miller brought up: 3 years of Lucroy for 4 years of Puig? Who says no?

Neil Weinberg: I think the Brewers.

Neil Weinberg: Alright, will give this a couple more minutes, but they don’t pay me to chat for 6 hours and my battery is dying!

Comment From Matt
First contract/player Freidman moves with the Dodgers?

Neil Weinberg: Kemp.

Comment From Chris
Trade idea: Ryan Howard to any AL team for $1. Phillies pick up $59,999,999 of the contract. Who, aside from everyone, says no?

Neil Weinberg: For free, several teams roll the dice.

Comment From Hambone
Would there be any merit to doing a weighted average for defensive stats? Say a player has multiple above avg seasons on D then one year has a below season. To even out some of the volatility you would not ding him as much

Neil Weinberg: This is good for projecting, but I’m not convinced it’s best for retrospective evaluation. Especially with StatCast coming

Comment From mtsw
If Orioles sign a free agent pitcher, what do you do with the rest of the rotation? Gausman should probably be starting already, Dylan Bundy looms and Ubaldo still exists. Is there a trade market for a guy like Wei Yin Chen or Miguel Gonzalez? There isn’t a guy who sticks out as especially good to replace.

Neil Weinberg: That’s the Orioles thing. No ace, but everyone is basically the same. Probably Chen or Gonzalez is easiest to deal. Or you move one to the pen.

Comment From ralph
Similarly, how soon will he have sensors on foul poles to make clear determinations about fair/foul HRs?

Neil Weinberg: I can’t believe this doesn’t exist. I wonder if StatCast will make it easy to tell?

Comment From Guest
favorite musician(s)?

Neil Weinberg: Springsteen is probably my favorite, but I have pretty eclectic tastes, so a large variety of alternative stuff.

Comment From Matt
Would you rather have McCarthy on a 4/$50 or Shields on a 5/85-90?

Neil Weinberg: Shields?

Comment From Mox
BOS trades Mookie Betts to KC for the rights to make Ned Yost jokes in perpetuity. Who says no?

Neil Weinberg: Boston. They are more into Jeter jokes.

Neil Weinberg: Okay, well I think the red flashing light means my laptop is dying.

Neil Weinberg: We’ll do this again next week. Feel free to grab me on Twitter during the week @NeilWeinberg44.