Meg Rowley: Hello all!

Meg Rowley: And welcome to the chat. It is very nice to be back here with you after our jaunt to Vegas.

Dann: Why would anyone, let alone a contender like the Cubs, invest 2 years and $5m into Daniel Descalso, who can’t play shortstop, when Ian Happ and David Bote each offer basically the same flexibility with considerably more upside at less cost?

Meg Rowley: Because he’s made some adjustments that make him much more interesting, everyone needs a bench, and it isn’t very much money.

Meg Rowley: Jeff’s piece on this is good: https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/instagraphs/the-quietest-swing-changer…

pelkey: Since you’re a Vegas expert now, what would you say the odds are haniger gets traded?

Epic Mike Francesa : Thoughts on Ramos signing?

Dan Szymborski: I think it’s decent. Just hope the Mets stay out of Castellanos nonsense.

Dan Szymborski: And hello!

Dan Szymborski: Keeping this week to a strict hour; came back from Winter Meetings from a nasty cold and I keep almost dozing off in my chair

Vladdito: Hi Dan, what do Kevin Pillar and Justin Smoak bring back to the Jays (esp if they go to the Giant and Rockies)? Thanks!

Dan Szymborski: You’ll get a couple of real prospects for the pair. There’s some value there.

Jeff Sullivan: Hello friends

Jeff Sullivan: Welcome to Friday baseball chat

Lunar verLander: Do you consider Die Hard a Christmas movie?

Jeff Sullivan: I don’t care

Robbie: Who plays 1B for the Rays next year? Everything I’ve seen points to Yandy Diaz being better at 3B and Ji-Man Choi being a butcher in the field

Jeff Sullivan: I think there’s still a decent chance the answer isn’t yet in the organization

Jay Jaffe: Hey gang! Welcome to my Thursday chat, post Winter Meetings edition. I had a very good time in Las Vegas despite the dreadful layout of Mandalay Bay and the even more dreadful lack of sleep it took to get me both there and back while fulfilling my professional and personal obligations. I can only hint at how great it is to work with my fellow colleagues at FanGraphs. Anyway, there’s plenty to discuss this week, but I don’t know a damn thing about the Rule 5 draft, so please don’t ask.

Nick: Hi Jay! As a journalist, what is the most excited part of being at the Winter Meetings?  I’m sure it’s a great experience, but I’d imagine there’s quite a bit of waiting around.

Jay Jaffe: it’s great when there’s a big transaction — signing or trade — to cover on deadline but the moves for this one didn’t really rise to that standard, particularly compared to my last couple of meetings in 2014 and 2015. On a personal level, it’s awesome to see so many people whose work I respect and admire, and lately, to hear people say such kind things about my work.

Tim: What does it say about the Veteran’s committee that one of their members simply could not act like an adult on national TV when discussing their decision to include Baines? To me it says they can’t attempt even the pretense of objectivity, further hurting their credibility among the public.

Jay Jaffe: Yeah, I haven’t read the full transcript of La Russa’s comments but what I’ve seen was an embarrassment.

This applies less to La Russa than to Jerry Reinsdorf, but here’s one weird trick the Hall of Fame could do to increase the credibility of the small committees: PROHIBIT ANY EMPLOYER FROM BEING ON A COMMITTEE WHERE HE CAN VOTE FOR HIS EMPLOYEE. Second to that, make the committee large enough (maybe double in size?) with enough neutral parties (i.e., journalists and actual historians) that somebody as closely linked as a player’s ex-teammates and managers is forced to abstain from the vote on that particular candidate. It does not seem too much to ask, and yet it apparently is.

troke: Do you have any prediction of the likely landing spot for Harper and Machado?

Jeff Sullivan: Hello friends

Jeff Sullivan: Welcome to Friday baseball chat

Jeff Sullivan: Been a busy week! Going to be a busy week!

aw: Hey Jeff, what are your thoughts on DRC+?

Jeff Sullivan: Seems initially promising but I haven’t had the time this week to actually dig in. Probably going to be airplane reading tomorrow

Jeff Sullivan: Don’t otherwise have anything substantive to say. Not sure I agree with the park factors but I also can’t say that and mean it without yet fully understanding the methodology

Kiley McDaniel: Hello from the ATL. Head to fangraphs.com/prospects for our latest content, including the NL Central lists wrapping up this week with the NL East coming up next. Podcast going up later today

Jake Jortles: How bad was that Segura trade for the Mariners?  Seemed pretty terrible from here.

Kiley McDaniel: The Paxton deal was on the lower end of fine. This deal was maybe a little below that, in part because the market for SS’s isn’t large, there was guaranteed money, everyone knew he didn’t get along with Dee Gordon and SEA was aggressively dumping guaranteed money. Luckily they found a match of another team trying to dump money nobody wanted (Carlos Santana) that also had an MLB-ready everyday shortstop.

Kiley McDaniel: And by fine I mean the cold, economic asset value range–the Paxton deal was $35-50M in value for like $30-40M in value–where trades generally, in a vacuum tend to match up pretty well. The Segura deal had extenuating circumstances

Lilith: Is it likely that Bobby Witt Jr is going to fall in the draft due to his age and contact issues?

Kiley McDaniel: Fall would be relative to where he is now and everyone know his age now, so that’s not an issue in terms of where he’s headed. He’ll probably slide up a bit (we cover this in the podcast that’s coming out today) as he performed well at Jupiter and with Team USA, answering some of those contact questions.

Meg Rowley: Hello all!

Meg Rowley: And welcome to the chat.

ChiSox2020: Trade proposal – Carlos Rodon for Nick Senzel.

Meg Rowley: But not like, a serious one, right?

CamdenWarehouse: Meg, I’ve been waiting all day to ask you: What did Jerry Dipoto do?

CamdenWarehouse: Also every time Seattle makes a big trade, that song bounces around my head for a couple days. I am quite unhappy with Baumann.

Dan Szymborski: There are civil defense sirens going off, so either it’s noon on the first Monday or I’m going to die soon. Let’s find out which!

MrMet33: Any update on ZiPS release schedule for 2019 projections?

Dan Szymborski: Starting tomorrow! Since I’ll be able to do more a week for FG as I’m now full-time here, we should end around the same time.

Jay: What should the Padres do with Wil Myers, Hunter Renfroe, Franchy, and Franmil?

Hunt for for 28: The return for Segura seems pretty weak to me.. plus taking on Santana?? I don’t get it

Dan Szymborski: Honestly, I think you have to trade Myers. With Hosmer at first for no particular reason

Eric A Longenhagen: Good afternoon from cloudy Tempe.

Eric A Longenhagen: Let’s begin this week’s chat, which I’m totally 100% focused on and not at all distracted from by current trade rumors.

Eric A Longenhagen: Oh, hey! Brewers list came out today.

Eric A Longenhagen: https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/top-32-prospects-milwaukee-brewers/

Eric A Longenhagen: Pirates were Monday, if you missed it

Eric A Longenhagen: https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/top-35-prospects-pittsburgh-pirates/

Jay Jaffe: Hey folks, apologies for the delay this week. I’m deep into my Hall of Fame profile series, awaiting the publication of my Roy Halladay piece. Later today I’ll also publish a tentative schedule of the candidate profiles as well as a link to a very cool new feature: the FanGraphs Crowdsource Hall of Fame ballot, in which registered users will be able to cast their own votes from 0-10 candidates from now until December 31.

Jay Jaffe: As I await the delivery of my burrito, let’s get to it, with questions about both the Hall and the Hot Stove.

Syndergaardians of the Galaxy : Have the Braves already won the off season?

Jay Jaffe: I really like the Josh Donaldson deal; as we often say, there are no bad one-year contracts, and for a team like the Braves, with a lot of young talent and money to spend (see https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-braves-profits-provide-glimpse-int…), this seems like a good move; if Donaldson is worth about 2.5 wins, it’s more or less break-even from a $/WAR standpoint, and if he’s anything close to his track record besides last year, it’s a bargain, and there’s no long-term risk.

As for the addition of McCann, I don’t have high hopes given his recent lack of durability, but he can still be a solid backup and doing so where his career began is one of those nice full-circle stories.

That said, the Braves still have work to do, including adding a right fielder and some kind of rotation upgrade, so let’s not anoint them the winners just yet.

Acunami: With your great work on hitters, how do you see young pitchers and their chances for the Hall? Buehler, even Soroka with his limited but good debut?

Jay Jaffe: Given the fragility of elbows, shoulders and backs, I can’t even begin to ponder the Hall chances of a rookie, because far too much can happen. Hell, even two-time Cy Young winners like Saberhagen, Santana and McLain are outside the Hall of Fame. There just aren’t any guarantees that even the best young pitcher can survive the brutal realities for even the 10 years needed to qualify for election.