Eric A Longenhagen: What’s up party people? Happy Friday from my old man’s place in Catty, and thanks for being patient while I helped my grandmother with some stuff this morning. I’m gonna keep things to about 45 minutes today so I can catch my flight to Florida.

Oaktown Blues: Eric, thanks as always for your thorough work and unparalleled depth in the A’s prospect list. This is like Christmas morning for me!

Eric A Longenhagen: Hey thanks, it was fun to sit on them for a bunch of the spring and feel good about wrapping my arms around the whole lot of these fellas. Kade Morris!

Oaktown Blues: A 45 FV is a big jump in your eval of Junior Perez, considering he didn’t get a mention on their list last year. What changed for you? Just more confidence in the whole profile thanks to contact and defense gains?

Eric A Longenhagen: I was too light on his CF defense last cycle and that piece is the biggest reason why Perez > Bolte.

Dave T: Is MIL Luke Adams’ overly-passive hitting profile sustainable? His contact quality and approach are excellent, but he’s still not swinging the bat enough. And I’m worried about his defense.

Dan Szymborski: And awaaaay we go!

Kyle Manzardo: I have the largest difference between xBA and real BA among qualified batters, is there hope for me or am I broken?

Dan Szymborski: I think you’ll be fine

Guest: “more tools than can be found at a Florida spring break kegger” just give Dan the Pulitzer now

Dan Szymborski: Pulitzer Prize for B- Snark

Guest: it’s April and it remains to be seen if he’s replacement level, average, or better, but is it too early to say Jordan Walker is meaningfully better than he was 2024-25?

Brendan Gawlowski: Hello everybody

Brendan Gawlowski: Nice that we have some actual minor league games to go off of. I’m sure we’ll all responsibly digest the first week without getting too excited and overreacting to oh who am I kidding

Brendan Gawlowski: Housekeeping: Meg has been taking a much deserved few days off, which may complicate the publish dates, but my understanding is that Eric is very close to producing an A’s list and I’m nearly there on Rangers. Look for those soon.

Brendan Gawlowski: Let’s get to it

Guest: It’s only 3 innings but apparently Landen Maroudis was back to 94-96 and throwing strikes. How much would that change his outlook to get back to his ‘24 self, top 100 type arm talent?

Brendan Gawlowski: I don’t know about T100 but very encouraging first start, I was really worried for him. Couldn’t throw strikes, stuff down, looked bad in 2025.

Eric A Longenhagen: What’s up hosers? Good afternoon from Catasauqua, PA where I’m seeing family and baseball (mostly Nats affiliates) through next week.

Guest: Is it possible that Jefferson Rojas has gotten back on track?  True that he’s put on muscle?

Eric A Longenhagen: We didn’t think he ever got off track so much as he was a young player with an aggressive assignment last year. We had him as the top prospect in the system entering the year, 55th overall. He absolutely looks stronger, was selling out for power a little more than I liked when I saw him during the spring, though some of that was probably Breakout Game pressing.

Lord Thunder: With 17 walks in 15-plus innings including spring training, how long of a leash does Bubba Chandler have before he walks himself back to Triple-A?

Eric A Longenhagen: I wish Jared Jones were going to be ready to go sooner than mid-to-late May because there’d be a nice, natural swap there if Chandler is this wild until then. You’re seeing why we had McLean ranked first among pitchers and Chandler in the tier behind him. I’m not too worried about it, long term, athletes with this kind of arm speed tend to take a minute to reign it in. They could just let him struggle and learn on the fly and I think it’d be fine. Don’t burn an option year unless you really, really have to.

Jim: How fast should Jamie Arnold move through the minors?

Jason Martinez: Welcome to the 1st RosterResource chat of the 2026 regular season. “Happy Konnor Griffin MLB Debut Eve” to those who celebrate.

Stu: Who gets kicked out of the Yankees rotation when Cole and rodon are back? Thinking about selling Weathers before a potential move to the bullpen, is that premature?

Jon Becker: They’ve got a lot of time to figure that out (and maybe it’ll get figured out for them) with Cole not back until June. Best guess for right now is Luis Gil, since he didn’t make the season opening rotation and wasn’t good last year, so he’s got the most to prove. I wouldn’t completely discount the possibility of Weathers to the bullpen at some point (playoffs?) but he’d have to be truly awful for it to be the move in the first half of the season. They traded for him to start.

Bryan Baker: is he really the closer?

Jason Martinez: You never know with the Rays, who might be just as likely to go with Kevin Kelly for a 1-out save than the most obvious choice. At least for tomorrow, they can’t trust Griffin Jax after his last outing (and he’s also allowed a run in 3 of 4 appearances). And Garrett Cleavinger has walked 2 batters in each of his last 2 outings. Baker looks great so far. He’d be my pick. But things can change quickly.

Pistol Pete: Red Sox need a shake-up … do you see any big changes?

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?