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Keith Law

2:17

Yep. My Snape wasn't very good but I was very proud of my Dumbledore and my Dobby.

Archie

2:17

What do you think of Mike Krukow's idea to shorten between inning breaks and recoup the advertising money lost by putting small ad patches on the player uniforms?

Keith Law

2:18

I'm really OK with that. I'm fine with ads on the screen between pitches or at bats too. I would think advertisers would prefer that because viewers aren't walking away or distracted.

Erwin

2:18

What do you think of Nander de Sedas? Top 10 pick, stay at short?

Keith Law

2:18

Maybe top 10 pick, definitely first round, stays at short.

Ramon Neopolitano III

2:18

Hey Keith- lately, I've seen tons of media and fans act as if Manny Machado to the Yankees is a done deal already. While I do think they're probably the favorites to sign him, why do we have articles (USA Today) implying it's a foregone conclusion? Aren't the White Sox and Phillies expected to go hard after him, too?

Keith Law

2:19

You can pretty well ignore anything that calls a free agent signing with a certain team a foregone conclusion eight months before they can even file. That's clickbait.

KOK

2:19

Have you cooked anything interesting Sous Vide recently?

Keith Law

2:20

Have made duck a few times that way - so much easier to get a duck breast perfectly medium-rare sous vide.

Karl

2:20

Is there any sort of service you’re aware of that allows someone to test/rent board games without buying? I’m intrigued by some that you talk about but am wary of putting down a lot of money for them without knowing if I’d like them.

Keith Law

2:20

A lot of cities have board game cafes where you can go play stuff for a small fee or for the cost of food & drink. Also, conventions like Gen Con or PAX Unplugged charge admission but then there's lots of open gaming.

Kevin

2:20

Any more insight on what substance Whitley was using? How much effect would this suspension have on his Top 100 ranking if you were to rank again?

Keith Law

2:20

Zero effect.

2:20

I know you're not really a football guy, but I thought you'd enjoy this quote from new Raiders' coach Jon Gruden, on using the team's analytics department: "I'm trying to throw the game back to 1998. I'm not going to rely on modern technology. I will certainly have some people that are professional that can help me from that regard. But I still think doing things the old fashioned way is a good way."

Keith Law

2:20

Good for him. I never liked the Raiders anyway.

Josh

2:21

Just spent a week in Scottsdale and your food guide was indispensable. How much does Whitley's suspension hurt his development?

Keith Law

2:21

I don't think it hurts much at all, because he wasn't going to throw 160 innings or pitch six full months anyway. Maybe he loses four or five starts he would have otherwise made.

Grant

2:21

Alice in Chains or Pearl Jam?

Keith Law

2:21

Peak AiC. But the current incarnation is not good.

Nolan W

2:21

How much do you buy into framing metrics in their current form, specifically how the data is being translated to runs/WAR? In my judgment, the raw data captured by these metrics is generally in very close alignment with what the eye test tells us in terms of identifying good receivers vs bad ones. At the same time, it's a little jarring to see Baseball Prospectus slap a 6 WAR on Tyler Flowers largely on the strength of superb framing stats.

Keith Law

2:23

Teams seem to think this is at least directionally correct. I do wonder if a player whose framing was worth, say, 3 WAR in one year is also likely to come back down towards the average pretty hard the next year. We don't have a ton of framing data but there seems to be a lot of year to year volatility in it, implying that while it is a skill, there's also some randomness involved too.

Derek

2:23

The two most coveted position players in baseball are a SS that can hit and a C that can hit (we seem to have a number of the former these days but not as many of the latter). What was the scouting report on Bryce Harper as an amateur C? Could he have been a 40 defender there? Assuming his bat would have developed the same way (maybe an implausible assumption), that's probably more valuable than what he is in RF. Did the Nats make a mistake moving him off C?

Keith Law

2:25

Could have been a 50-60 defender back there. At least a 70 arm in practice, 80 arm strength. Hell of an athlete, of course. Liked doing it too. But you'd lose 30 games a year guaranteed, and if he's had injury trouble in the outfield, it probably would have been worse at C.

Greg

2:25

What's your take on the slow free agent market? Just a function of circumstances or are the owners up to no good? I admit to being a bit suspicious but I obviously have nothing concrete with which to back that up.

Keith Law

2:26

I don't think it's collusion. I think it was a weak market, overstuffed with players without homes - 1b/dh/lf types, mostly LHB - combined with a general philosophy against long-term contracts for hitters in their 30s or pitchers at all.

The Sloth

2:26

How big of an upside does Basabe (Luis Alexander of Chicago) possess? Is 20/20 a possible best case scenario?

Keith Law

2:26

Sure. I think he could be an above average regular if healthy.

Keith Kristol

2:27

You'll be on the frontlines for the inevitable U.S. intervention in Syria, right? You definitely should be considering you've been peddling disgusting regime change propoganda. Remember the gas attack the "moderate" rebels were responsible for in 2013? Maybe you should consider that when these obviously false reports about Assad "gassing his own people" come out. Or you could actually find news sources outside of Netflix documentaries, Teen Vogue, and WaPo. Seriously, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Keith Law

2:30

You seem unwell. Or unhinged. By the way, from Amnesty International, on Syria buying materials to manufacture chemical weapons from North Korea: "But to help the Syrian government – which has repeatedly used chemical weapons against civilians – replenish its supplies would be a particularly egregious betrayal of humanity." Or look at the state's sieges of its own cities/regions like Ghouta, Raqqa, Aleppo. Hundreds of dissidents forcibly 'disappeared.' Assad's longtime support of Hezbollah and other terrorist movements. I'm not sure who you think you're defending here ... or what you think I've even supported, other than writing about the two excellent documentaries on the crisis, Last Men in Aleppo (Oscar nominated) and City of Ghosts.

Bret

2:30

There's been a lot of talk in Toronto about the Blue Jays using Danny Jansen as the backup to Russell Martin for much of this season -- maybe not out of the gate, but perhaps from the middle of the season onwards. What kind of impact would that have on Jansen's development?

Keith Law

2:31

Might help him if he gets to work more with the major league coaching and pitching staff. I think he can hit, and he's not that young. But he needs a lot of work on receiving & working with pitchers.

2:31

The best news in spring training is no news right? You don't want to see your favorite team/players in any reports - just routine, injury free spring training.

Keith Law

2:31

Yep. I ignore most ST news, but injuries are tangible and at this time of year often really bad.

Jake

2:31

New college baseball fan here. Going to the University of MN baseball tournament this weekend. AZ, WA, and UCLA are the other teams participating. Any players from those teams worth paying close attention to?

Keith Law

2:32

Joe Demers at UW is a prospect. Arizona and UCLA are as bad as I can remember them being. And ASU is worse. (You didn't ask, I just had to point that out.)

The best college baseball prospect in the state of Arizona isn't at Arizona or ASU (Wong at Grand Canyon). How wrong does that sound?

BJinIndiana

2:32

First--finally bought Smart Baseball and loved it. I dislike dust jackets though, so I was very pleasantly surprised to see the green/brown colors underneath.

Keith Law

2:32

I wish I could take credit. Glad you liked it, though!

Tommy

2:33

Between Garver and Haase, who has more ability to stick and hit with some pop?

Keith Law

2:33

Haase I think has more everyday potential than Garver. Both big league backups at least.

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