Brendan Gawlowski: Hello everybody

Brendan Gawlowski: Just a little housekeeping to start… I published the Rockies list yesterday, kind of a weird/volatile system, pretty interesting and a little better than I thought it would look going in.

Brendan Gawlowski: I covered the Cooper Pratt extension here. It appears y’all are already having a party in the comments there.

Brendan Gawlowski: Upcoming: Eric is rolling on A’s, I’ve started up on Rangers.

Brendan Gawlowski: And, most pertinently for this chat… I watched Jonah Tong’s start last week in prep for the avalanche.

Brendan Gawlowski: Let’s get to it.

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks! Welcome to my first chat of the 2026 regular season.

Jay Jaffe: It’s a gorgeous day here in Brooklyn. Alas, we have no day baseball to accompany this chat; when I’m commissioner, I will mandate a minimum of one day game for every day through at least the first 30 days of the season.

Jay Jaffe: Anyway, I’ve got a thing in the pipeline about Chase DeLauter’s hot start, which should go up sometime while we’re chatting.

Jay Jaffe: Yesterday, I wrote about the Giants’ season-opening offensive futility https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-giants-opened-the-season-by-making-som…, and on Friday I wrote about Jackson Chourio’s injury https://blogs.fangraphs.com/scratch-that-jackson-chourio-lands-on-the-…

Jay Jaffe: and now, on with the show….

Allan: Incredibly early, but both Murakami and Okamoto have looked quite good so far. Have major league teams been underrating the ability of Japanese hitters to succeed at the MLB level?

Dan Szymborski: It’s a chat!

Davy Andrews: Hello everyone and welcome to our Opening Day(ish) chat!

Davy Andrews: Hello Dan!

Davy Andrews: Oh no, we’ve used up our entire quota of exclamation marks in the first 45 seconds.

Jay Jaffe: Hey hey, Happy Opening Day!

Dan Szymborski: And I’ll be here for more than expected as I my brother-in-law is already home from his procedure, so I don’t have to spend part of Opening Day wrangling a six-year-old and a four-year-old

Brendan Gawlowski: Hello everybody. I’m back from AZ and already missing the sun. I’ll have another notes from the field post tomorrow and hopefully a Rockies list this Friday.

Brendan Gawlowski: I failed to answer my wife’s question last week, so we may need to go long to ensure I get out of the doghouse.

Brendan Gawlowski: Let’s get to it.

Ken Griffey Jr (Photographer): Is Emil Morales a 3B long-term or does he have a chance to stick at SS?

Brendan Gawlowski: Shot to stay at short.

Galahad: What do you make of Carlos Lagrange’s blowup yesterday?

Brendan Gawlowski: Hello everybody, sorry for the delay.

Brendan Gawlowski: I’m out in AZ and running between a meetup with a scout and getting out to the backfields. My apologies, let’s get going.

Mariner Fan: Hey Brandon! Have you been to a game yet down there? Who impressed you at the most recent game you were AT?

Brendan Gawlowski: I like the capital ‘AT’ at the end. I saw Josuar yesterday, so I’ll say him. 0-3, a couple groundouts, looked like he tweaked his leg sliding but obvious speed and athleticism.

Punk in drublic: Who are some prospects outside the top 100 you think could make significant impact in the majors this year?

Brendan Gawlowski: Tons of relievers fall into this bucket.

Eric A Longenhagen: Good morning from Tempe where the temps are starting to crank to 20+ degrees above what is typical for March. I’m sure it’s fine, my dad says this is just cyclical.

DR: Are the Yankees doing something specifically bad with their high dollar international talent?  I know the fail rate is pretty high when considering a 14-17 year old population. But it seems (perhaps because NYY prospects get more publicity generally) that they have had significantly worse outcomes among their high dollar guys.

Eric A Longenhagen: Agreeing to deals earlier and earlier opens you up to more risk of failure. It’s already a volatile market due to the youth of the players on signing day, the error bar is bigger when you’re reaching verbal agreements with 12- and 13-year-olds, to say nothing of the ethics of it.

Seth: If you’re Steve Cohen, should you leverage your immense wealth to find advantages beyond the field, like building an electrical substation near Dodger Stadium?

Eric A Longenhagen: Have a robust scouting staff even as teams like the Cubs and Braves hemorrhage scouts. Start cultivating and/or understanding talent in places that are either largely unscouted (like Africa) or places with a finite amount of space, like Asia. Obviously, the Dodgers have already manufactured a revenue and talent stream from Asia and have a head start in Africa. Better get going.

DR: Does Vance “Spring Training Babe Ruth” Honeycutt’s absurd ST output allay any fears that came up during his bad 2025?  I know Aberdeen is a terrible place to hit, but he was bad everywhere. I don’t think anyone who saw him in Aberdeen would’ve predicted this many HRs in 2026 as a whole, let alone ST