Eric A Longenhagen: Hey, chatters. We’ll get underway in 10 minutes, or so. Get your questions in.

Eric A Longenhagen: Okay, good morning everyone. Thanks for your patience. Quicker chat today due to a vet visit.

liljebbie10: Do you think Seth Hernandez makes it to AA by the end of the year? Do you think he could debut by the end of next year? Is his upside Bubba Chandler but throws strikes more consistently?

Eric A Longenhagen: I think they’ll make him sustain success with Greensboro before promoting him, but I do think the end of next year (late enough for him to retain rookie eligibility in 2028) is possible. Don’t give up on Bubba throwing strikes yet, he’s too young to be this impatient and conclude he won’t.

dansanchez86: Joseph Dzierwa real?

Eric A Longenhagen: To an extent. I think his ceiling is limited by his breaking ball quality. I don’t think he’s an ace or anything like that, but lefties with good changeups and command tend to be nice rotation pieces.

Dan Szymborski: Oh thank goodness, there are questions in the queue

bkgeneral: The Braves seem to lose another pitcher every week.  Their record is still great, do they have enough depth to overcome the injuries?

Dan Szymborski: I think so, but it may be closer than they’re comfortable with, especially if they have a quiet deadline

Dan Szymborski: I’m not *highly confident* the Phillies are five games better than the Braves, but I think that it’s not unlikely

Dan Szymborski: If that makes sense

Woody1937: Juan Cespedes of the DSL Angels set an unofficial record with 8 stolen bases in a game last week while going just 1/4 with a walk. Whats the oddest statline you can recall?

Brendan Gawlowski: Hello everybody

Brendan Gawlowski: I am chatting from beautiful Bend, OR, where I absconded for a few days after finishing the Marlins list.

Brendan Gawlowski: Eric is working furiously on the Rays, that will be up later this week and then we’ll be mercifully done with those… for a few months.

Brendan Gawlowski: I’m staying with a couple family friends, one of whom is Austrian and knows nothing about baseball, but he gave me a piece of advice just before starting here: “Don’t embarrass yourself.” So, with that in mind, let’s go.

KURTIS SWENSON: Christian Oppor is making me sad, is there any hopes he gets over his intense yips hes having this season?

Brendan Gawlowski: Sure, but he’s gonna fall off the T100 in our next update.

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks! Welcome to the latest edition of my weekly chat. The queue for question is rather sparse so I’m going to give it a few minutes to fill up before I dive in. Remember, that while you don’t need to be a FanGraphs member to post a question to the chat, you do need to be logged into your user account to do so.

Jay Jaffe: On the subject of membership, please read David Appelman’s “The State of FanGraphs,” which is currently featured on the home page. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-state-of-fangraphs-2026/

Jay Jaffe: I have a piece on Freddy Peralta that should go live during this chat.

Jay Jaffe: Prior to that, I wrote about Jackson Chourio’s step forward, which may be flying under some radars given that he missed the first 5 weeks of the season https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/jackson-chourios-big-step-forward

leoneforthird: Lets assume that Skubal comes back and is Skubal and the Mariners are still in a playoff spot at the deadline.  Does a Logan Gilbert for Skubal trade make sense for both sides.  The Mariners have young pitchers that they can slide in next year when Skubal leaves and the Tigers get a pitcher who can help them compete next year.

Jay Jaffe: That’s an interesting one to ponder, but I don’t think it makes great sense for the Mariners. Gilbert is a very good pitcher with one more year of club control, and the Mariners do seem to have rotation depth, but the margin between him and Skubal just isn’t big enough — to me at least — to give that up. I can certainly understand the impulse to go for it, though.

Eric A Longenhagen: Howdy from Tempe, a mild 107 today. Folks are gonna roast here for the Combine next week, bring your long sleeve linens.

Braydon Roberts: Any initial thoughts on Sebastian Dos Santos? He just got a quick promotion like Rainiel Rodriguez last year.

Eric A Longenhagen: Not doing backflips like I was with Rainiel last year. Frame/tools/skills pretty medium on Dos Santos.

dan norman lear: Not a “prospect” anymore, but any info/sense on Hurston Waldrep?

Eric A Longenhagen: Still bringing the kitchen sink, problematically bad feel for location, 92-97 t98 this year, lots of early-count cutters because of his heater’s vulnerability. Get why they want him to throw this many pitches and try to start but that aint happening.

dan norman lear: Throwing a dart: Assuming no injuries, OD STARTING OF for the 2027 Rockies?

Brendan Gawlowski: Hello everybody

Brendan Gawlowski: Since we last did this, Eric and James published a Twins list.

Brendan Gawlowski: I have been working furiously on the Marlins. That’ll go either tomorrow or Thursday but it’s essentially done.

Brendan Gawlowski: Which leaves just the Rays and this will all be over.

Brendan Gawlowski: For now let’s do this

Chris: Is James Tibbs III a Top 50 prospect at this point?

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon! It’s a gorgeous 71-degree day here in my corner of Brooklyn and here I am, stuck inside yappin’ at you folks — I kid, but maybe I’d better take a walk to get my lunch after this ends.

Jay Jaffe: The vibe here is still lovely in the wake of the Knicks’ NBA championship win on Friday night. As somebody who’s been hating on James Dolan and the Knicks for over 31 years since moving here, I did not climb aboard the bandwagon, but my wife and daughter greatly enjoyed it — the latter has never been swept up in sports fandom like that before, so that was cool to see.

Jay Jaffe: And of course we have the World Cup going on, the drama of which has already managed to outrun the awful underlying politics.

Jay Jaffe: And the baseball has been fantastic! Jacob Misiorowski’s one-hit, 15-strikeout game from Friday night was remarkable, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto chased a perfect game on Saturday evening.

Jay Jaffe: Yesterday I wrote about José Ramírez’s broken hamate https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-ultra-durable-jose-ramirez-has-been-fe…

Jay Jaffe: and late last week, I wrote about Dustin May (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/dustin-may-is-finally-having-his-day/) who made me look good by throwing a one-hit shutout last night against the Padres