Neil Weinberg FanGraphs Q&A – 9/24/14

Neil Weinberg: Hey all. We’ll get started at 3pm. This chat specializes in answering stat/data/FG features questions but any and all baseball questions welcome.

I’m @NeilWeinberg44 on Twitter if you’re looking for me other times. It’s Fall now, so my dog stopped sleeping all day, which means he may attempt to type answers. Can’t really vouch for their quality.

Neil Weinberg: Alright, let’s chat! My dog doesn’t want to chill, so this may run shorter than normal, we’ll see. So get good questions in early! Also, person who always asks about catcher DRS, today is your day. I can answer that question!

Comment From Fronk
What do you think of Felix’s implosion last night? Kluber for Cy Young?

Neil Weinberg: I was a Sale supporter until his bad outing last week, but I think it’s Kluber at this point. I don’t know if he’ll win – that depends on the quality of the specific voting group. But Kluber’s got the best case.

Comment From Vslyke
If I’m trying to calculate a pitcher’s total WAR by adding in his hitting and defense, am I counting the positional adjustment twice?

Neil Weinberg: If you’re adding their WAR as a pitcher and their WAR as a position player, you are not double counting anything.

Neil Weinberg: Dugouts emptying after Sale hits VMart. Nothing as silly as bullpens running onto the field.

Comment From Jheff
I made this GIF in honour of you helping me last week. http://www.gfycat.com/TautD…

Neil Weinberg: Nice!

Comment From Sha
Hey Neil! When guys like AJ Pollock increase their power, how do the future projections respond? Do they believe he is still the same player, or adjust to reflect the increase?

Neil Weinberg: Projections do respond, but they respond slowly. So imagine a player who legitimately added .100 ISO points (as in, we know from on high that he got better). We might not fully believe that from a projection standpoint for maybe an extra year? It’s all relative.

Comment From Bill
Why is RE24 on FG different from RE24 on B-R, I assume its park factors but just want to know for sure?

Neil Weinberg: Definitely different park factors. I don’t know exactly what they do, but there’s a chance they might use a different sample of games to calculate it too. That won’t matter as much, but it’s possible.

Comment From Sha
Do you prefer W or QS in fantasy? OBP or AVG? SV or H+SV? All categories we’re debating about changing in our 10 team (currently) 5×5 H2H Dynasty League.

Neil Weinberg: QS, OBP, H+SV if those are the choices. Want QS because while they aren’t great, they are better than W. OBP is obvious and H+SV makes finding good relievers better than finding closers

Comment From Phil
re: Kevin Gausman… is there enough available stats to determine the overall difference in effectiveness of a 2-pitch guy (i.e., one who uses just 2 pitches more than 95% of the time) and a 3+ pitch guy on their 2nd and 3rd times through the lineup? Just for the sake of projecting future performance when a SP is developing a 3rd pitch.

Neil Weinberg: I think there was some research on a similar topic recently, but I can’t remember the exact conclusion. I think the TTOP was basically unchanged as a function of your pitch number. All about quality of pitches, I believe.

Comment From Pale Hose
Hi Neil. We commonly hear/say that defense is not paid the same as offense in the free agent market. Off of this premise I have a couple of questions. Are teams colluding to keep prices down for such players? Wouldn’t an enterprising team be able to take advantage of this to get a lot of value at sub-market price? Might this imply that teams know that defense is worth less than the SABR-savvy public thinks it is? Any other general thoughts on the topic? This throwaway line seems to have bigger implications than we acknowledge.

Neil Weinberg: Basically, two answers. 1) It’s possible that this is a function of measurement and teams know better which players are worth spending on. 2) I think a lot of teams still think offense first. Someone is going to sign Torii Hunter this offseason because they want his bat. Might be psychological.

It’s an interesting question and one that’s worth considering in more depth!

Comment From Andrew
Love the chats! I don’t see quality starts on the leaderboards or player pages, am I missing something?

Neil Weinberg: We don’t have them!

Comment From Mark
Why is there no UZR for pitchers on the site? And why not use DRS for pitchers’ Fielding runs instead of nothing for their WAR as a position player?

Neil Weinberg: There is no UZR for pitchers. I’m not sure exactly why we don’t use DRS instead. Will have to check.

Comment From Matt P
Is the reason why WPA doesn’t work for relievers because it literally tells you what would happen if you replaced a #1 reliever with a replacement pitcher without considering chaining?

Neil Weinberg: WPA doesn’t tell you anything about value for anyone, basically. It’s a story stat.

Comment From Brandon
Dave talked recently about how Jose Altuve hasn’t been as valuable as his wRC+ suggests because of all his infield hits. What are your thoughts on factoring IFH% into oWAR because to resolve this discrepancy?

Neil Weinberg: Basically, this is an argument in favor of giving hitters credit for how hard and where they hit the ball. A double off the wall and a hustle double aren’t the same in terms of how far they advance runners. I think rather than factoring just IFH, we should wait until we have good data on all batted balls and then make a complete adjustment.

Comment From Matt P
I see that cFIP for 2014 is 3.126. How do I use that to determine reliever replacement level?

Neil Weinberg: This is complicated to answer in a chat. Hope to do pitcher WAR next week in the Library, so stayed tuned.

Comment From ralph
Since WAR must add up to 1000 WAR, but no WAR is credited to defensive plays in a shift, does that mean non-shift defensive plays are getting more credit than they should be in order to make sure everything still adds up to 1000 WAR?

Neil Weinberg: Basically, the current paradigm just treats it like every shift play had average defense. The 1000 WAR is based on innings, PA, and games played. Absolutely the lack of shifts means out estimates of defense are imperfect, but it doesn’t screw up the total WAR

Comment From Mike C.
When should I use woba and when should I use wrc+?

Neil Weinberg: wRC+ is better because it makes park and league adjustments, but wOBA is good 1) if you need to calculate it on your own 2) you want to see the effects of the parks/league

Comment From Mike C.
Thanx for your time Neil! My gf is a noob to all things baseball. Should I start her off with era, rbis etc, or dive right into WAR,fip, wrc+ etc since she’s still an innocent clean slate?

Neil Weinberg: My advice for getting new fans involved is to start with wOBA. Teach them that each outcome has a value relative to all of the other actions and that you’re working toward scoring runs. Then move on to BABIP and FIP.

Comment From ralph
Which Tiger do you think should get the bulk of playing time at SS the rest of the way?

Neil Weinberg: Romine. Suarez is a better hitter but Romine is a better defender and I think it’s better to have a good defender next to Castellanos.

Comment From Gabes
What is the Positional Adjustment given to Pitchers when calculating their Offensive WAR value? It seems higher than I’d expect given no one scouts pitchers for their defensive prowess

Neil Weinberg: It basically varies based on their performance at the plate so that we assume pitchers on average will be 0.0 WAR players. I think it’s like 60 runs per 600 PA right now.

Comment From Guest
Follow up on my TTOP / Gausman inquiry: Mitchel Lichtman did the study (using wOBA) and found there is a definite impact on 1-pitch to 3-pitch guys, though to your point the difference in 2 and 3+ pitch guys seems small enough to have pitch quality still be a big factor. http://mglbaseball.wordpres…

Neil Weinberg: Yeah, I couldn’t remember the exact details. I think someone else also did a study about pitch type and didn’t find an effect?

Comment From Seattle Slough
Since defensive stats fluctuate wildly, you’re less likely to pay the “valued” rate for it as the risk premium is much higher than with batted runs.

Comment From Tim Whatley
Cliff Lee in his prime or Clayton Kershaw?

Neil Weinberg: Kershaw

Comment From Sha
What would be your top choice to replace W instead of QS? You don’t seem completely sold on them.

Neil Weinberg: Some sort of points system based on innings/runs. So like 7 IP, 3 ER is X points and 7 IP 2 ER is x+1 points.

Comment From 1990JaromirJagr
re: brandon- dave said Altuve isnt as valuable as his WAR, not wRc+

Neil Weinberg: Same difference in this case.

Comment From ralph
Once StatCast comes fully online, how many components will defensive WAR be made up of? I assume ARM would still be one component. Will there also be separate components for positioning and range? While you could pretty much give full credit to a player for Arm and Range components, I wonder how much general team credit there should go to Positioning credit. Are there additional components that you could see being brought in?

Neil Weinberg: The actual runs saved will be about getting to batted balls and then saving runs with your arm. The interesting part will be how much we consider positioning to be a skill and how much we treat it as a given.

This is the weird part. StatCast can tell you where a guy starts, but not if he made that choice or his coach did. Does that matter? Lots of new questions coming.

Comment From Fronk
Do you ever go on reddit baseball?

Neil Weinberg: Very rarely.

Comment From 1990JaromirJagr
If i were to translate WAR to hockey, do you think there would be different percanteges for defeense and offense (i.e. pitchers 43% hitters 57). also where is the 1000 per season derived from?

Neil Weinberg: The 1000 WAR is based on the idea of how many games a replacement level team would win, so that would change in hockey. And the percentage would probably split between skaters and goalies

Comment From dogbone
Still unsure of how fip/war correctly values extreme groundball pitchers with average SO & BB #s, since SOs & BBs measure highly in fip calculations.

Neil Weinberg: I’m not sure I understand this question. Please rephrase!

Comment From ralph
I understand replacing AVG with OBP in fantasy leagues… but I guess it depends on what you’re after. There’s a lot of overlap between HR, R, and OBP, so it seems like using OBP can really cause fantasy value to accumulate in sluggers. Maybe that’s good, maybe that’s bad, but it seems like reduces the number of viable winning strategies and mutually-benefical trades out there.

Neil Weinberg: If I was designing a league, I would use something like wRAA (wOBA and PA).

Comment From Matt
Why do we use a fictional “replacement player” rather than actual replacement? A lot of times if a pitcher is injuries, he is replaced with a below replacement level pitched(Kershaw and Malholm come to mind). Isn’t value a complete product of what you ARE ACTUALLY replacing.

Neil Weinberg: 1) The replacement player isn’t fictional. If you average out all of the minor league free agents in one season, you usually get about 0.0 WAR.

2) And you don’t want to use the player’s actual replacement because that means you’re not using the same baseline. So is Matt Holliday less valuable just because the Cards have a lot of OF? No. That might make the Cards less worried about losing him than another team would be about an equally good player, but that’s a different question.

Comment From Bill
Which is a better stat for quantifying value, RE24 or RE24*LeverageIndex?

Neil Weinberg: RE24

Comment From hscer
I know nobody likes NFL passer rating, but how about a pitcher rating? Strikeouts, walks, homers, runs allowed. or something. that’s not important right now.

Neil Weinberg: Isn’t this FIP or ERA?

Comment From blast off stros
How would you rank McHugh next year?

Neil Weinberg: Slightly above average starter?

Comment From dogbone
Since fip/war values results independent of the defense, aren’t ground ball(sinkerball) pitchers,who’s main focus is to pitch to contact & weak GBs (less focus on SOs), are they not undervalued vs high SO% pitchers?

Neil Weinberg: Ground balls go for hits more often than fly balls, but for extra bases less often. It’s a trade off. Basically, FIP is less useful for extreme GB or extreme FB guys because it assumes average results on balls in play. But those guys don’t get average results. This is why you should always look at lots of stats.

Comment From Frustrated Brewer Fan
is there a stat, or a way of telling a hitters ability/or lack there of, to advance a runner, ie opportunities to hit behind a runner to have them advance?

Neil Weinberg: B-R has “productive outs” and also they and BP have something like a measure of how often they score a runner from a given base.

Comment From Lucas
When you look at league wide stats how come the off and def don’t equal zero? I thought all the WAR the league accumulates would consist of replacement runs.

Neil Weinberg: This is mostly the fault of pitchers and DH’s. This is why we have the “league adjustment” to correct for this.

Comment From hscer
Are you surprised nobody’s complaining about the weakness of the NL East re: the Nats? Usually that’s something people latch onto pretty quick. I guess it’s because the Braves were around so long on account of their 17-7 start.

Neil Weinberg: Hmmm, hadn’t really though about that

Comment From ralph
How many keepers deep would a fantasy league have to have be in order for you to consider keeping Verlander next year?

Neil Weinberg: In an auction, I wouldn’t. You’ll get him for less. Depends on the league I guess, but I want JV next year but at a reduced cost

Comment From Bill
Should the a pitcher’s offensive replacement level offset that of the DH, I mean I understand why the pitcher’s replacement level is higher, but wouldn’t make sense?

Neil Weinberg: Problem is that the league’s don’t have the same rules!

Comment From ralph
That is a weird part about StatCast. The byproduct of that is that I’d imagine we could a pretty cool thing we don’t really have now — a context-neutral estimate of a player’s potential defensive value. Or is there anything out there that tries to strip out things to provide context-neutral numbers? It’d be really useful for instance, for identifying potential value for an infielder on a high-K, high-FB, since that infielder would accumulate less WAR than he would in most other situations.

Neil Weinberg: UZR/150 sort of does this. It’s not as detailed, but it normalizes based on the number of chances you should be expected to get at that position rather than the actual chances you got. Could be fun!

Neil Weinberg: Alright, fire off some more questions. Going to take a quick break and will be back in a couple mins.

Comment From Nuke Laloosh
10 team, roster 30, keep 20. If Buxton stays healthy in the AFL, I’m planning on keeping him. Would keeping Sano, over say Taveras, be a case of keeping too many prospects?

Neil Weinberg: Depends on your expectations for next year. Keep them all.

Comment From jb
Ausmus just bunted with Romine up next. Your thoughts.

Neil Weinberg: Would have been fine if he hit for Romine, of course then he squeezed. Which I approve of. Don’t mind that.

Neil Weinberg: Generally speaking, Ausmus is a poor tactician though.

Comment From Josh
What’s the difference between a breaking pitch and just looping the ball so that the path is the same. From the LLWS ive learned that the ESPN announcers think that the kids threw curves while i think most of them were just looped

Neil Weinberg: Spin. Good breaking ball will look straight out of the hand and then break. Looper will be obvious from release.

Comment From Bill
Who plays in this years World Series and why?

Neil Weinberg: Orioles and Nats. Gut reaction. There’s no good way to predict October.

Comment From Guest
Mets 2015 Win Total? Harvey 2015 WAR? DeGrom 2015 WAR? Wheeler 2015 WAR?

Neil Weinberg: 84, 4, 3, 3.

Comment From Guest
would you rather have the Angels or Orioles rotation going into the playoffs?

Neil Weinberg: Um…ummm…I would like their bullpens?

Comment From ralph
How do stats that incorporate BABIP treat balls hit off wall like the Green Monster? They’re technically in-play, but there’s also nothing (except possibly prevent taking an extra base) that fielders can do about them.

Neil Weinberg: BABIP doesn’t know about the wall. Obviously a small problem.

Comment From hscer
There is too a good way to predict October: dartboards!

Comment From Nuke Laloosh
The Sano/Taveras is a dynasty with low inflation. How would you rank them as keepers?

Neil Weinberg: Would rather have Sano.

Comment From Dylan
Wait, RE24 is park adjusted? Why didn’t I know this? Is the run expectancy during the game log also park adjusted? And finally, is FG’s RE matrix public?

Neil Weinberg: Yes. All RE numbers are park adjusted. Our neural matrix is in the RE24 library entry. It would be too messy to print all 30.

Comment From Douglas M
Neil, I could have sworn that I’ve seen the $/WAR year to year basis on FG here somewhere. Am I crazy?

Neil Weinberg: I think we just use $5.5 for all years. I’m not sure it’s dynamic, but I’d have to check.

Neil Weinberg: I’m basically caught up on question! Ask more if you want me to stay!

Comment From ralph
How many years back does RE24 go to estimate run environment?

Neil Weinberg: Think it’s one. But we might be changing it this offseason.

Comment From Mike
Neil, as a Royals fan, I don’t agree that the Tigers get to play Chicago and Minnesota to end the year while KC has to play Cleveland and Chicago, sir. Sincerely, Mike.

Neil Weinberg: Both play each opponent 18-19 times! It’s all fair!

Comment From Fronk
What do you think of the resurgence of Jose Bautista?

Neil Weinberg: Was he ever gone? Had an injury.

Comment From ralph
Will Ausmus keep using Nathan as his closer in the postseason?

Neil Weinberg: I’m afraid so.

Comment From hscer
How are you caught up on questions? Ask things people

Neil Weinberg: Question volume varies!

Comment From Jheff
What non-playoff team is your favourite to make the playoffs next year?

Neil Weinberg: Rays, Red Sox, Rangers, Cubs.

Comment From ralph
Would it make sense to have RE24 use only the current year run environment once the current year is over?

Neil Weinberg: Not sure I follow?

Comment From Fronk
Are the Royals legit or are they going to crash back to earth next year?

Neil Weinberg: They’re an 82 win team playing like an 86-87 win team. That’s pretty normal. They’re good-ish. But they lose Shields.

Comment From Jon
Derek Jeter great player or greatest player?

Neil Weinberg: Great player

Comment From Matt
That isn’t really fair. Sabermetrics is heavily based on economics. When we look at something like opportunity cost, we are only suppose to consider the next best option. Using your example, I imagine Matt Holliday IS worth less to the Cardinals that don’t have elite outfield prospects like Tavares sitting around, but MORE valuable to a team like the Reds. Don’t we have to consider opportunity cost like in economics?

Neil Weinberg: Did it eat my answer? Will try again!

Neil Weinberg: WAR doesn’t ask the question you want to ask. It’s a fine question and it’s why the Tigers won’t go out and sign a 1B this offseason. But that’s not what WAR is about.

Comment From ralph
Soria’s pitching now, with the Tigers up 6-1 in the ninth inning. Can you even discern his role right now? Feels like Ausmus is afraid to use him when the game is close and the Tigers are leading because he might need him to relieve Nathan…

Neil Weinberg: Ausmus is going to put me in an early grave.

Comment From Neel
Would you bet your house on Kershaw winning the Cy Young?

Neil Weinberg: Yes. Although I don’t own a house…so especially yes!

Comment From Neel
Should the Jays trade Mark Buehrle and his $19M?

Neil Weinberg: Would anyone take it? Not sure. I’d keep him.

Neil Weinberg: Quick pause, gotta publish the Tigers recap!

Neil Weinberg: Apologies. Alright. No more breaks.

Comment From Jheff
Are the Orioles the favourties for next year?

Neil Weinberg: WS? No. AL East…maybe.

Comment From Gila Monster
Dave tried to make a comp between Zobrist and Betts. Isn’t that a bit problematic considering Zobrist is 4-5″ taller and weighs 55 pounds more than Betts?

Neil Weinberg: Haven’t had a chance to read that yet, but I don’t think it’s crazy idea. I think Zobrist is what you hope Betts can become.

Comment From ralph
re: RE24 — 2014 offense is really low. Using 2013 offense to generate 2014 RE24 seems like it introduces error, but it’s unavoidable for obvious reasons. But once 2014 is done, maybe it makes sense that 2014 is the only source for 2014 RE24?

Neil Weinberg: There’s only so much you can do. Difference between 2013 and 2014 isn’t going to be so large that you’re going to come to the wrong conclusions.

Comment From Neel
Which team will improve the most next year? Not talking like the Rays who are good and unlucky, but which team will actually have a better team?

Neil Weinberg: Assume the Rangers are out then. Cubs. Mets, maybe?

Comment From hscer
There is a difference between a player’s value and a player’s value to his team, right?

Neil Weinberg: Yes. A players value is his WAR (if WAR could perfectly measure things). A player’s value to his team is his WAR – his actual replacements WAR. So you wouldn’t sign a 4 WAR OF if you have three of them because there’s nowhere to play him.

Oversimplification, sure, but it’s a decent example

Comment From Gila Monster
Do you think MLB has to shrink the strikezone before next season? Do you think they will? I mean it seems like unless they do, we’ll have another deadball era on our hands. 21 starters have below a 3.00 ERA…..Seems like a record.

Neil Weinberg: I think MLB wants to keep offense down for a while to play up the “cleaning up PEDs” narrative.

Comment From Stef
Is Matt Harvey overrated?

Neil Weinberg: No. I think some people are too confident that he will be able to be great right after surgery, but healthy Matt Harvey was amazing.

Comment From Stef
What did you think of Keith Olbermans Jeter video?

Comment From ralph
Is the playoff probability from that KC/CLE suspended game bug fixed yet? At this point of the season, is taking projected pitching matchups into account?

Neil Weinberg: Yes. Not the specific matchups, but it takes into account who will pitch for each team overall, if that makes sense. (so it knows x, y, z will pitch, but not against who)

Comment From Stef
What should Headley, Melky and Sandoval get in free agency?

Neil Weinberg: 2/25, 3/45, 5/70. I did not think very hard about this.

Comment From Stef
Cats or dogs?

Neil Weinberg: Dogs. Nothing against cats per se, but dogs times 1000000000000000.

Comment From Fronk
What do you think Scherzer will get in free agency?

Neil Weinberg: 7/200

Comment From Guest
If you believe in catcher framing, doesn’t Lucroy have to be a top choice of NL MVP/Fangraphs Player of the Year? Fangraphs buy him at 6.2 WAR and if we buy the 22 runs Baseball Prospectus believes he has saved, that puts him at 8.2 WAR, more than Trout and Kershaw. Even if you give him half that credit, he still is right with Kershaw.

Neil Weinberg: Yeah. Absolutely. I absolutely believe in catcher framing, I’m just not sure I believe the numbers yet. Not because I don’t think 20-30 runs is plausible, just because there are complicating factors that haven’t been fixed. So I give Lucroy a boost, but I’m uncertain about how much.

Maybe 13-15 runs? That’s still a 7-8 WAR player. Absolutely would be a top choice.

Comment From Fronk
What do you think of the Mariners collapse?

Neil Weinberg: Not surprising in general. They were never quite a playoff team in my eyes. It’s been pretty steep, but those things happen. I actually really liked the Cano deal, but only if they went out and signed more players. But they didn’t do that and are going to come a couple wins short. I may have accidentally been right!

Comment From Fronk
Phil Hughes has the best K/BB of all time.

Neil Weinberg: Baseball!

Comment From hscer
Mookie Betts is a spoonerism of the guy in Queens who runs a sports gambling operation

Neil Weinberg: Nice.

Comment From Santiago
How does replacement level change over time? How o you adjust it?

Neil Weinberg: Replacement level changes when the league expands and such. Basically, we make a determination about what a team of replacement players would do over a full season. We use a .297 winning percentage I think.

Comment From hscer
Phil Hughes doesn’t have the best K/BB of all t–WAIT HOW DOES PHIL HUGHES HAVE THE BEST K/BB OF ALL TIME?

Comment From Dylan
I know he has good goodwill bought up, But does is Sabean’s seat getting a little warm? The Giant’s absolutely collapsed. Their team is getting old and sad. The Lincecum signing is awful as expected. And the farm doesn’t look like it isn’t going to provide much help. They look like they could be quite mediocre for a while.

Neil Weinberg: I think he’s safe. Talking about two WS in the last five years. And going to make the WC game this year.

Comment From Davis Jr
Any future plans to get minor league park factors? Or just too unreliable for FG’s taste or too costly?

Neil Weinberg: I imagine it’s a long term goal. They’re just really hard to get right.

Comment From Dave
Why is Pitch F/X so hard to understand man. Any primers out there, like Dummies Guide to Pitch F/X, to help me get my head around H-movement/V-Moment/10000 other options on Brooks Baseball?

Neil Weinberg: It’s hard to understand because it wasn’t supposed to be public so there was no thought put into those things. I will be doing a post like this eventually, but there are some other priorities!

Comment From Dan
Thoughts on when Addison Russel debuts for the Cubs next year? Possible keeper in a 20-team 5×5

Neil Weinberg: Keep him. And I think July.

Comment From hscer
If Hughes had signed a one-year deal with Minnesota, what kind of contract is he looking at (and from whom) this offseason? His remaining actual contract is 2/16.

Neil Weinberg: Fascinating question. 3/40?

Comment From Locke
Do you expect Jay Bruce will bounce back in 2015?

Comment From Shaun
Any future chance of getting more filters on the leaderboards? I’d imagine adding simple things like HR, RBI etc… would be easy no? Also “export data” on every page would be swell too.

Neil Weinberg: Noted. You can export all of the leaderboards. Player pages are trickier to do I think, but I’m not the coder.

Comment From Pale Hose
When people ask what Jeter’s career would be like if he played for , the answer is basically Barry Larkin. Right?

Neil Weinberg: Decent. Jeter was a great player who got played up because of the market. The crazy thing is to go look at Jeter and Trammell

Comment From Fronk
Is Aaron Sanchez legit?

Neil Weinberg: Think he could be a good reliever, kind of iffy on him as a starter. But not at all closing the door on him

Comment From ralph
Should the Yankees have worn a commemorative patch for Jeter’s final home day game?

Neil Weinberg: At some point, it becomes a very self-aware parody.

Comment From Guest
Are innings pitched undervalued by our current form of WAR? There seems to be value in saving a bullpen/preventing “long relief” guys from coming out. But there also seems to be negative value from pitching a starter 3 times through the order when you do have a decent bullpen.

Neil Weinberg: I’m not 100% convinced, but the studies I’ve seen all basically say saving the bullpen isn’t a valuable thing beyond what’s already incorporated

Comment From hscer
Jeter’s 0-4 today makes it unlikely he’ll have a .310 career average even after rounding. Is there an HOF voter out there, somewhere, who might use a .309 average as his “justification” not to vote for him. (I wish this were completely a joke, but thanks to HOF voters, it’s only like half a joke)

Neil Weinberg: I’m very curious to see if Jeter gets 100%.

Comment From Steven in Austin
1 post-season hit = x regular season hits

Neil Weinberg: Hmmm. 2?

Comment From Guest
why do we count IP instead of actual pitches?

Neil Weinberg: Tradition. I mean, we count pitches. We just use innings for limits.

Comment From Eno
Darwin Barney pinch hit for Zach Greinke yesterday. Greinke is the better hitter. No further comment.

Neil Weinberg: Yeah. Hard to argue

Comment From Beattie
Will Pujols get a farewell tour or will the tale end of his miserable contract make him a joke?

Neil Weinberg: Very interesting thought. I think he gets the Konerko style. Very quite, but something

Comment From Guest
Why does everyone want the Rockies to blow up the team? Their offense is elite with a bit of luck and their pitching should get a lot better assuming Butler and Gray can do something next year. Maybe they can get Brett Anderson back for cheap. In mean in 42IP, he was almost worth the QO.

Neil Weinberg: They have the 13th best offense in baseball. I think people want them to blow it up because they are stuck between bad and good with no way out.

Comment From Generic Scout
If you ever get a guy who throws relatively hard with two “plus” pitches, put a reliever tag on him instantly(unless he has a plus plus changeup). You’ll be right 80% of the time. The bullpen doesn’t appear out of thin air. I’m looking at you (insert top pitching prospect).

Comment From Steve in Austin
Jeter or Mariano, more important for the Yankees? IMO Mo was more irreplaceable but Jeter was more valuable.

Neil Weinberg: Rivera was the best reliever ever. Jeter was a very good position player. Depends on your values

Comment From Fronk
What is the funniest question ever asked that you didnt publish?

Neil Weinberg: This one.

Comment From Evergreen Bowl Subdivision
which kind of animal would you least like to be killed by?

Neil Weinberg: I think some sort of large spider.

Neil Weinberg: Alright, I should wrap this up. I can’t believe the person who asked me for weeks about catcher defense isn’t here!

Neil Weinberg: I’ll save the answer so that when he reads the transcript he feels bad!

Comment From Fat Bob in Vietnam
If post-season stats = 2x regular season stats by your estimate, why is it that they are never mentioned in career totals?

Neil Weinberg: People are too lazy to add!

Neil Weinberg: Alright. I’m @NeilWeinberg44 on Twitter if you need me. Remember to check out the library posts on Fridays. Take care!