Taking the Yankees Analytics Quiz 

For a Yankees screening test there was a surprising lack of questions based around acceptable grooming and presentation standards of players Hair.

> "Hey man, you're benched because you only had 2 hits in your last 35 PA" > "But... but... I had 33 walks!"

Question: You're presented with two players, who will hit in the bottom of the 9th with 2 outs? Player A: .285/.365/.350 with an ugly girlfriend and 12 homeruns over 450 plate appearances in the regular season. Player B: .190/.189/.500 but he's a big dog and he keeps stomping up and down the dugout saying "big dogs do what they want."

Honestly, your shout out to your friends was genuine and I appreciate it a lot. You were honest about not taking other sponsors and ad revenue isn't the prime focus of your channel. So hats off to you, you're a class act.

Just bought their book! Artists need more respect in this community! So glad you helped them out

Q22 is like asking in 2023 if you want Clayton Kershaw or Madison Bumgartner on the mound for your clinching game.

One thing that I'd like to note is that people on Reddit are likely giving their genuine opinion, but if they were actually taking a test from an analytics department, they might choose differently. I think this is important, because it was sometimes really easy for me to see what was supposed to be correct even if I didn't personally agree.

This quiz just makes me realize how inconsistent our thinking can be. Sports analytics can be so confusing sometimes. Great video, either way!

Happy to pick up a copy. That's exactly the sort of thing I will support. Keep making great vids.

I like the questions I got right and the ones I got wrong are had and probably shouldn't be on the test to begin with. Thank you. That is all.

The real correct answer for most of these questions is, "Screw you, give me more info first." Who's my team's owner? The Riddler?

i am a very causal baseball fan and you did a fantastic job explaining and breaking down everything! Great video this was awesome

The other thing about Q21 that incentivizes bringing in a reliever is the stipulation that you have FIVE high-level relievers all with FIPs between 3.20 and 3.40 to cover 3 innings. This allows you to play matchups far better than leaving in your starter against a lineup tailored to hit against him.

Easily my favorite baseball channel keep ‘em coming!

Re: the triple slash question: there's no reason to assume that the player with an OBP of 1.000 has only had 5 plate appearances while the other player has put his numbers up over an entire season. The question also wasn't "Which of these is more realistic?" but "Which would you prefer?" I'd take the guy who never produces an out.

"Every team's ultimate goal should be to win the world series" Jeffrey Loria: "I have never heard anything so deeply offensive in all my life as a consness man. I mean business trickster. Er, businessman."

For question 12, I picked B. My thought process was that innings are inherently valuable and having your bullpen pitch an extra 1.1 innings every time the pitcher started could strain them over the course of a full season. Over ~30 starts the difference between the pitchers is 40 innings (around 2/3rds of a full time reliever) which could potentially save a roster spot/ reduce bullpen workload. I totally get why I was wrong and would pick A in the future, i just wanted to share my perspective on it

If you look up the guy who gave the "the bad team can trade the 5 WAR player for prospects", I'll bet you find someone who works in the Mets' FO.

Got a few wrong due to valuing a few stats more than others. I thought the 5 war 3B would be equally valuable for both teams due to trading, but that might fall under the don't assume they would trade him ordeal. All in all, fantastic video and thank you for bringing the quiz to light!

Boone would've failed this test after starting Gardner hitting leadoff for years while he was a .180/240/300 hitter😂

For question 22, I (and I assume countless others who took the quiz) couldn't get the image of Blake Snell being pulled in the 2020 WS out of my head. I knew the right answer was to pull the starter, but I had to answer otherwise on principle.

Love question 12 because not only were the responses fairly evenly split, but if you were wrong (like I was) you were WAY wrong and in a way that is easily quantifiable when you stop to think about it.

For question 21 you could disregard this entirely and pull your starter before he goes through the order a second time. I call it the Blue Jays Front Office Method(tm)

This is one of the best RU-vid videos I have ever watched. Instant sub ❤

Question 26 is interesting to me because a 5 war player would make up a higher percentage of a 70 win teams war thus making them more valuable to that team than the team that won 88 games. Also in this instance the league average starter he’s replacing would likely have another spot to move to making the war shift higher as the 5 war player would likely be replacing a replacement level player vs an 88 win team he might be placing the average starter straight up

The problem with using the Rays with the openers question is that they've had so many injuries to their arms over the years. Tbh I don't think the opener system is the biggest contributor to that, but it most likely does factor decently into it.

This is awesome. I did pretty well, but a few of the questions really stumped me. This is a phenomenal video!

I'd be perfect for the Yankees FO, cuz I put too much stock into recency bias, trusted worse stats to determine good players, and barely understood most of the deeper analytics

Love this and your thought process throughout was on point. One disagreement though - on Question 26 I feel like you violated some of your own rules. You made an assumption that Team B was on the brink of being a contender just because they are at 88 wins, but that is not necessarily the case. Take this year's AL East for example. I interpreted this as a trick question when I took the quiz. If both teams have the same WAR at 3B, and both teams sign a new 3B with +3 WAR, then both teams gained 3 wins above replacement. To me, the win count is there to throw off the test taker. The net gain for both teams is +3 WAR, and equal benefit. Going further than just taking the additional WAR requires making assumptions. The point about the worse team trading the player for prospects is a good one, but its also an assumption. To me, both the prospect-trading scenario and the 91 wins = contender scenario are equally invalid given the context of the questions. They are both assumptions, and therefore are outside of the scope of the question being asked. Both teams gain 3 WAR at 3B, simple as that. I'd like to end with saying that your channel is VASTLY underrated and you should have 10x as many subs as you have. Keep up the great content.

I think Q #21 is really interesting in terms of question design. When dealing with a question with this many numbers thrown in it, my approach is to discard irrelevant stats as quickly as possible. I tossed IP and current score instantly, but in doing so, I was ignoring the entire phrase of "five shutout innings (18 batters faced)" - literally didn't even notice that it told me the # of batters. That left me with just pitches (low enough to not matter... much) and FIP. Given FIP(Starter)

As someone who is only casually into baseball but very good at test taking, I was able to do better at this than I think I should at a test designed for a screening like this.

Stoked to see this video, haha. I was one of the people arguing about the 1.000 OBP question, but really my point was always that both interpretations are possible. I think you convinced me, though. It's a good point that the sample size issue is more of an assumption to make in a standardized test setting than a hypothetical impossible stat line being real.

THIS WAS SO MUCH FUN

Amazing how baseball existed without this stuff for over 100 years.

i have a follow up for question 13 if you have a player that walks 100% of the time, do you: -keep in the line up -use him as a pinch hitter the first time you have base loaded to walk in a run

Great video as usual. Favorite baseball creator 👍

i shot about 50% from the field on the questions, but this was still very entertaining. well done.

Q21. You stick with what’s working til it’s no longer working. This is why great regular season teams, ie the Rays historically fail in the playoffs.

I made a video going over what Tom Tango and Lee Panas said about clutch hitting in "The Book" and "Beyond Batting Average" and how clutch hitting is much more than BA with RISP and how many RBIs a player has. You always pick the player who is better with a larger sample size rather than great in just a few games. Thank you for highlighting this quiz, It gives good insight into what some teams are looking for in stat analysis.

Been on a shitty van tour. Love baseball. Love your channel. Pujols destroying Lidge forever the first clip of your intro. I may even buy two! Keep it up, Dead Mr. Met!

Well this has worked out great for the Yankees in recent years.

I can say having taken this quiz last year, we were only given 15 minutes to answer the 30 questions. That being said, the instructions mentioned not having to worry about the time and just to answer the questions to the best of your ability. Seems as though they were stressing people’s thought process more so than how quickly you got through the questions. They also wanted you to maintain consistency throughout the questionnaire

I think one question that I disagree on is: True or False: An elite reliever is worth less to a team that already has six elite relievers than to an overall equally talented team that has only one elite reliever - True because the first team doesn't have as many high-leverage innings to spread around. - False because you can never have enough elite relievers, and the first team might end up having injuries. You picked true since it's a good strategy to avoid answers with never in them (as you said, you could theoretically have 30 elite relievers). However, the question itself says six elite relievers, so in that case I feel like False is the better answer, and the "you can never have enough" is just a turn of phrase more than a definitive statement. I don't think you can go wrong with 7 elite relievers, to me that 7th reliever is equally valuable. Going into the postseason with 7 elite relievers is a cheat code.

The one that gets me the most... is the last question. You mean to tell me, that if youre the dodgers. and you just watched kenley jansen blow games 4, 5, and 6 in the world series, youre going to send him out there in game 7 to try and save the game? Recency bias aside, you would have to be a lunatic to do that. Now i do understand the concept of larger sample sizes and law of averages, but this is baseball after all. The weirdest game in the world. A team went 7-25 for a stretch this year, and has gone undefeated so far in the post season, on the road, about to beat their second division winning team. It may not happen at all though, the second team may come back and win the next 3 and the first 4 didnt matter. Thats baseball though, and the better overall team winning. When it comes to playoffs, i think the smaller sample sizes matter. you face the toughest competition the most high leverage situations. if i have two bench bats to face kenley jansen and one is a 200/200/200 (400pa) guy for season, but in 20 ab's vs kenley and he is a 400/500/600 off the guy, the other bat is 300/350/450 (300pa) in the season with 0 hits in 20 ab's vs jansen, im gonna send the first guy up even though in the season hes the personified version of water in batters box facing anyone other than kenley. I understand the point of this question from the analytical standpoint, and that this is an analytics quiz, but man that one gets to me. There are just certain pitchers you see in your life that you know you own. Its impossible for them to get you out. And others that will dominate you for no reason other than it being baseball. Just cant figure them out. Analytics are weird when it comes to this sport. So weird when they work, and then when they dont work its even more weird. Great video! As a player i hated it, as a stats person i loved it. (sorry if thats all over the place, its still early)

For question 21, a fun example: The Phillies pulled Suarez vs. the braves after 3.2 shut-out, 1-hit innings this week. They went on to shut out the Braves, the best offense in baseball, leveraging their bullpen strength. Of course, nobody is complaining about that decision anymore. We have absurd levels of bias in how we cover and blow up very specific examples of starters getting pulled. We NEVER reward a manager for pulling a pitcher early even when the stats back it up. It's so tiresome.

Perfect score, woo! Obviously, this quiz was supposed to be as misleading as possible. If I wasn't sure, then I imagined what my dad would say and picked the opposite 😅.

I got almost all of these, but did get tripped up on the "4.2 IP no runs pitcher vs. 6.0 IP 2 runs pitcher" question, because I was thinking in terms of "eating more innings = better", without considering how the former pitcher with any reliever would still prevent more runs over six innings on average than the latter pitcher does.

34:45 I think this Kershaw line was funny since I'm watching this after his start today against the Dbacks. Sometimes I wonder whats in the air in October that makes his ERA jump 2 full runs.

This was a great video! I wouldn't have got them all but I think once you spoke about them, I'm pretty on your side with what you picked

I answered these not as a standardized test but as actual questions another human being might ask me, and thus gave short rationales Q1: I can see a situational argument for B, as you want to ride the hot hand in the crucial game Q2: Mutually beneficial--Xander Bogaerts used his opt-out and while the Red Sox could have used him this season they certainly wouldn't need him for the next 11 years at 28 million per, for example. On average it benefits the player, of course. Q3: Player B is the better answer, though there's a fair argument for A Q4: BABIP, though this is such an odd question as a .350 average is due for regression anyways (unless you're Ted Williams or Ty Cobb) Q5: Among the options granted, posting the 3.00 ERA is the most likely outcome anyways Q6: Pitcher B, I'm a sucker for consistent innings-eaters Q7: Again, an oddly worded question but I'm taking True. The Law of Diminishing Returns is stronk Q8: I would take FIP if I had to choose just one, WHIP would be second Q9: False; this is baby's first sabermetrics question Q10: True. Any strategy born from weakness is, by its nature, not preferable to the mainstream alternative...also the Rays are just magic. I'm a Red Sox fan, we know. Q11: 1 Out; I remember from Little League to never make the first out on the basepaths. They never said why, even when I asked--it was only years later that I realized the rationale of taking greater risks when you have fewer resources to use. It's not the "smarter" ie most mathematically efficient choice, but if you're asking this question I'm presuming a certain level of urgency that overrides the usual probabilities Q12: Pitcher B, again I'm a sucker for those innings-eaters. Plus, the offense should be scoring more than 2 runs per six innings anyways so the decline in efficiency will have little practical adverse effect Q13: Hitter B, you can't get that mfer out! Q14: Team B, no one's beating my team 7 times in a row lol (also yeah, sample size) Q15: I don't know actually, but I'd guess defense on batted balls Q16: Catcher A, that OPS difference tells me more about his true talent than the ERA--he could just be working with worse pitchers afaik Q17: Hitter C, gimme that OBP Q18: wRC+ Q19: OBP Q20: Hitter B. I'm a simple man, I see an OBP starting with 4 and I click Q21: An old-school answer, but I'm sticking with my starter until his pitch count closes in on 100 or he starts allowing hard contact Q22: Pitcher A. I'd rather lose knowing I went with my best than getting cute with small sample sizes Q23: False, obviously. I mean, having balance is certainly a plus but plenty of teams have won the World Series with only one power hitter (if that many) Q24: K percentage. Relievers, especially in high leverage, are best when they aren't leaving things to chance (ie, letting the ball get in play). Guys with filthy stuff are going to have high K/9 and low LOB% anyways Q25: Runner B, the over-under on stealing is about 70 percent success rate Q26: Team B. That three games from 88 wins to 91 is the difference between just barely making the playoffs and having a fun October. 70 to 73 is just a slightly worse draft pick; even signing and then trading him for prospects...well, that 15 million could be spent for several such players instead of one. Q27: Pitcher A. Dat 9:1 K/BB ratio is gooooood stuff Q28: wOBA or xwOBA is not a stat I'm overly familiar with, but I'm guessing unexpectedly weak competition is the most likely to consistently skew the results Q29: I'm a big believer in the predictive power of K/BB ratios for both hitters and pitchers. I think some folks get unnecessarily lost in the horde of analytical stats we have available to us when relatively primitive tools are just as good or better for estimating future performance Q30: Pitcher A; beyond the small sample size, what are the odds of a guy blowing four saves in a row? It has to be less than converting four consecutive opportunities

i stuck with my starting pitcher until i let them strike out a qualified bats-man, and i never said thank you to the man i owe my life. thanks, jean parmesan, love ya!

Following this season, it makes sense

Yeah I agree with you on pretty much all of this - got 3 wrong mostly on some of the disagreeable ones. (And I just completely forgot what BABIB was lol…) Only one I disagree on is the pull your starter question - I feel like there is value of keeping a starter in with a 3.5 FIP (counting the 3X penalty) vs a 3.2 reliever, you need 4 innings so you need your top 3-4 relievers - so you are really replacing your solid starter vs your 3rd or maybe 4th best reliever with an unknown FIP, the FIP of just your top two relievers isn’t actually that relevant to the question. Also the pitch count was low so the starter had the range to go an extra inning. Edit : just reread it and it was 5 rested relievers - saw the numbers and assumed it was top two… yeah you’re right haha.

6:01 It's funny you mention this, because I also applied to this position and when they gave me this test, there was a 15 min time limit.

I agreed with you on the vast majority of questions. For #21, I know the correct answer is bring in a reliever, but what I would really want to do is have the bullpen ready to go, bring the starter out, and let them keep going until they give up a baserunner. I'm sure the numbers don't agree, but I would be scared to count on that many pitchers to be "on."

The thing about quizzes like these when you are taking them, you ask yourself is this the answer they want to hear. So many questions on this quiz will not evaluate what a person thinks but rather reenforce the teams's current prevailing wisdom. If a team were to give this quiz 30 years ago the answers would be different and you would never hire the guys that rewrote theway we look at stats.

I would argue on a few of the questions that the player psychology also plays a big role since the numbers can look good but if someone is not in the right headspace then their numbers could drastically change

I have to disagree with you on question 17, the question asked is who should start today. So today you give your best hitter the day off and give the player with the best stats off of today's starter the start. You could always pinch hit him

I’ll definitely buy a book from ur friends band, looks cool!!

Q26 also sucks cuz there's no indicator within the question that Team B would or wouldn't make the postseason with or without signing the 3B. I answered "both" because both teams would hypothetically get better by the same amount, although I admit B is definitely "correct".

Your intro is a great sales pitch for why standardized testing is not the answer for everything or everyone. Well done

At the end of the day I feel like the contentious ones just come down to your philosophy on baseball. For instance I believe that since baseball players are people you have to take the mental aspects into account and with that in mind I'd much rather have the slightly higher fip closer who hasn't just blown three saves in a row and is likely to be feeling down on his abilities. Same logic applies to the which team would you rather face in the playoffs question. But I also understand that given this is a test for the analytics department why they'd want you to answer the statistically best outcome

great videos!

bASEBALLS NOT DEAD BUT THE yANKEES SURE ARE!

My missed questions, according to this video. Question 11: I argued it would be better to send runner home with 0 outs, since sending home with 1 out could result in an inning-ending double play. Question 16: I put too much stock into catcher ERA. Question 23: I fell into the always/never trap. They made it so appealing and I fell for it. Question 24: I said LOB%, figuring a reliever's ability to leave inherited runners on base was more valuable than his ability to strikeout hitters. But I definitely see that point made that LOB% is too much of a luck stat when compared to K%. Question 26: I viewed that as being too tricky and a bad question. I answered that both would benefit equally, as a 5WAR player is a set value more than a 2WAR player, regardless of the team's record. I feel like your answer of Team B is assuming that an 88-win team is close to playoff contention; I will counter your assumption with another, that 92-wins is needed to make the playoffs. There is no way of quantifying whose assumption is more valid, so I stand by my answer of Both. But I also agree that this is a bad question.

The issue with analytics is it cannot predict pressure like the playoffs. Take Clayton Kershaw. A sub 3.00 Career era in the regular season. A 4.42 era in the playoffs. He has a much larger sample size from the regular season however he is a different pitcher in the playoffs. Part of that is playoff teams have better hitters where as in the regular season you can get fat off of weaker comptetion.

In question 3 i think we do note have enough information. OPS is a great stat but doesn't put avg in count so in The question says hit not on base so i think that The avg in scoring is The only that gives a clue about The avg of The hitter

Isn't the flaw with question 23 the actual use of the word "balance"? What constitutes balance between the ratio would be entirely up to interpretation, no?

Just want to add a defense of question 26. Imagine that in some exotic scenario, you have 40 units of a vital resource to split among 8 people, but each person needs at least 6 units of that resource to live. The wrong answer would be to divide the resource equally, thus killing everyone. Now imagine you have 41 units. The most people will survive with 6 people receiving 6 units each. But what do you do with the remainder? Do you give it to someone who will use it and still die, or do you increase the safety margins of some number who have enough to survive? You should do the second. The point is that in some kinds of scenarios, thresholds matter. In this case, the threshold is making the playoffs or not. I'll grant that the question perhaps should have asked where the 5 war player would be more valuable THIS SEASON, but if you're part of the baseball business world, you have to understand that thresholds matter.

Question 3 I disagree not because of the question of if clutch exists. It says game on the line with runnerS in scoring position so the OPS is less descriptive for this situation. A base hit almost certainly drives those runs in. If the higher OPS guy has a lot of home runs then I’d want him if we were down 2, but down 1 or tied a guy who’s less likely to get a base hit but more likely to have that base hit be a home run doesn’t help as much.

Analytics does not factor in the feel for the game. Question 14 you answer fundamentally incorrectly because its not about the overall record but the performance. Go ahead and walk through the last 10 postseasons based on match ups between teams during the regualr seaosn and who won and come back and answer the question. If you win 5 out of 6 games in the regular season against a team, you've got their number. Its a mental aspect of the game. Hard to beat teams that pry on your weakensses better than others

I got a lot of questions wrong. But, I also have appeared in the same number of World Series as the Yankees since 2010. So who’s to say?

This was really cool. I’m a data scientist with a degree in statistics who’s a huge baseball fan, and I got 2 wrong: the opener one and the 5 war 3rd baseman one. I understand the implied “always” in the opener one and agree with your explanation, but I do not agree with your answer for the 5 WAR 3rd baseman question. I guess I assume that both teams would benefit equally because given 50th percentile outcomes, they would each gain 3 wins, and the goal of all teams should be to win games. No analytics department will actively be partaking in the tanking of a baseball team. They will suggest ways to win games. For me, it is the same as the MVP debate. If Mike Trout puts up 10 WAR on the 70 win angels, that is just as valuable as if he put up 10 WAR the 100 win Astros. I guess I just contest the idea that player value is dependent on team success.

Regardless of this quiz, the actual analytics the Yankees use: -If a player is on fire, bench him immediately -No matter how small the sample size, if a batter has success against a pitcher, put him in the lineup -If a player has good career stats but is in a massive slump, he must not be benched or moved in the order -If a reliever is struggling several games in a row, you must change nothing about how he is used NEW FOR 2023 -If a player has a preseason wrist injury that makes him unable to hit, hide it and let him tank the team's offense -If a player has an obvious concussion and suddenly can't make good contact with the ball, just let him keep trying without changing anything -If you let your left fielder leave as a free agent, the best possible replacement is not replacing him and leaving a hole in your lineup

As someone who took the Questionnaire last year and was just asked by the Yankees to take it again today, the questions are now different lol. Similar concepts though with a couple of the same questions sprinkled in

I didn't have a good understanding of which stats were most valuable (like OBP vs SLG), and I appreciate all the explanations. In the quiz I caught on immediately, though, to the small-vs-large sample size tricks. That said, does recent performance mean absolutely nothing? Is there no such thing as a hot or cold streak?

One thing about question 3: it just says "game on the line", it doesn't necessarily say that there is a RISP. Maybe I'm overthinking it. But I also think the right answer is B.

OK, i purchased the graphic novel. Hope it helps your friends recoup and journey on.

For question 8. The question is "of the following pitching stats, which is more robust (i.e., value-driven, all-encompassing)?" The question is not which is better at predicting future era. Fip might be great predicting future run prevention, but there is no inherent value to run prevention that has not happened yet. Era is more value-driven, because actual run prevention does have inherent value. Era is also more all-encompasssing than fip, because fip only considers walks, strikeouts and homers. Therefore the correct answer is era.

The questions that are so separated from reality can't possibly be good questions for an analytics team job application. You are only ever going to see the 1.000 OBP in small sample sizes so it's impossible to tell that player's true value.

Book pre-ordered. Hope it helps

Third time through order curse is an assumption. Even if it is significant, show me the proof that fatigue is not a contributing third variable. Assuming that there is fatigue goes against every other type of logic that is supposed to be used on this test, which I generally agree with. I firmly believe the state of the science is behind on this if it is truly accepted that you must pull starter to avoid this curse without evaluating any third variables.

So, I took this test as recently as last week and I hope I had watched this video first. Tho I believe they changed some of the questions. Anyways, I feel like these are up to discussion rather than just right or wrong questions (yeah there’s always a better answer to it) but if I’m the interviewer, and I’m doing a screening I would want to know the reasoning behind one of the answers because that would give some insights to how someone processes and applies information.

Q3. One again .350 is better, in most cases despite the lower OPS because you can be 1-4 with RISP but be a solid guy with no one on base while .350 is at least 7/20, so .350 has both the larger sample size and the better stats

38:40 The whole premise of this question relies on projected wins being an accurate measure of a team. I would argue the answer is both teams benefit equally since you can’t trust a win projection.

The difference between the unrealistic pitcher stat line question and the unrealistic hitter stat line question is that both pitchers were clearly unrealistic, while one of the batters was realistic and one was not. No one goes the same number of innings giving up the same number of runs every time.

Your example for Q23 is pretty much would you rather have the 2023 DBacks or 2023 Dodgers. As a Dodger fan, this is very conflicting

Next time I'm studying for a standardized test, you know where I'll find the best information 😂

For Q3 I do think it is A, just because it’s asking for a hit and not getting on base. Walks heavily influence OPS

Do you think confidence (both self confidence and confidence in the specific matchup) should be considered while making these kind of decisions in the actual situations presented? For example, in question 17 (26:17), even though his overall numbers are worse than hitter C, hitter A would probably feel very confident in his matchup against this pitcher, and likewise, the pitcher’s confidence in himself would surely be way lower against hitter A rather than hitter C. I know this ain’t analytical and definitely not what this quizz was aiming for, but I do believe there is something to be said in favor of this kind of intangibles.

I think I knew almost every answer I figured the test wanted me to pick, except the wOBA stuff I know nothing about that stat. So that's nice. However, I know for a fact the Yankees, or at least Aaron Boone, and many other teams seem to put a lot of stock in small sample sizes over larger ones when considering batter/pitcher matchups vs each other as its often used to justify lineup decisions during interviews. It seems even the Yankees would not get a perfect score on this test.

As a jay’s fan, I will always say that you should stick with your starter. Is it correct? Probably not. Do I want to talk about it? No

I think that for some of these questions, like the 3 blown saves vs 3 consecutive saves, momentum is very key. Baseball is very much dependent on hot streaks, and usually the team that is hot come playoff time is the team that lasts.

On the 15 singles and 1 double vs 12 walks, I'm going to say putting the ball in play is way more valuable than just getting a walk. The maximum runs you can score on a BB is 1 and the bases have to be loaded for that to happen. That's a maximum of 12 runs. Given the same situation, bases loaded, those 15 singles and 1 double could result in up to 3 runs each. That's 48 maximum possible runs. To me that's a significant difference in offensive potential, especially when you look at all the potential outcomes and common situations you'll face that aren't bases loaded. Putting the ball in play will always result in more runs being scored and therefore a higher likelihood of winning a game.

Love the catcher ERA question. The folk who voted for the lower catcher ERA would have taken Eddie Perez (mediocre hitter, Greg Maddux's personal catcher with the Braves) over Javy Lopez (good power hitter, rarely caught Maddux).

Speaking of question 23. I wanna ask everyone. You can only have a team of 1 player and 8 clones of that player. Defense does not matter. Who are you taking. For me I'm going prime Ricky Henderson. Solid homerun pop. Amazing discipline. And the stolen base speed.

I’m a go with your gut person. If my pitcher has had 3 blown saves in his last 3 appearances or the ok hitter but great against pitcher X, I’m going with my gut. The better player may just be in a slump. I know stats say otherwise. Give me post season Schilling over post season Kershaw.

35:28 obviously this isn’t a statistical analysis, but Coney talked about how having the balance between multiple approaches always made his day a lot harder on Toeing the slab. So I’m just going to trust the man especially since he isn’t disconnected like a lot of ex players.

I am definitely going to buy a copy, are the misprints the ones for sale or are they also for sale?

The thing with question 13, .000/1.000/.000 is useful in fewer situations than .300/.450/.600, because to assume that no one is ever on base for him, or to assume that the bases are loaded, is fallacy. Hitter A has a better OPS and will allow other players to move farther along the basepaths.