Dan Szymborski: GOBBLE GOBBLE

ChiSox2020: If White Sox don’t get Machado or Harper, should they pursue Grandal? How much should the loss of a 2nd round pick factor into any FA signings?

Dan Szymborski: Honestly, I think the White Sox should be in a go big or go home mindset. Unless they get players who are build-arounds that will be around for the rest of the rebuilding process, I think they should mostly chase deals. Those mid-market FAs are better fits for the actually competitive teams.

Tony Kemp is religion: Would you ever make your long-term forecasts available? I’m sure a lot of people (including myself!) would pay a small sum to access them. Free is also OK! I really want to see Soto’s long-term forecasts with “really really big numbers!”

Dan Szymborski: I’m a bit of a data hoarder. You’ll start to see more things come out at FG, but still figuring out what’s best to make public and what’s best to greedily save for articles and such.

Jackson C.: Mondays start to get a bit depressing for me as winter approaches. Any tips for remaining sane in this cold, baseball-less time?

Jeff Sullivan: Hello friends

Jeff Sullivan: Welcome to Friday baseball chat

Matt : Bartolo Colon is objectively better than Nathan Eovaldi change my mind

Jeff Sullivan: I neither want to nor have to

AJ Preller: Have you figured out how I can get Syndergaard yet?

Jeff Sullivan: Well, you have the most valuable farm system in baseball

Eric A Longenhagen: Good afternoon from Tempe. here are some links to things:

Eric A Longenhagen: I wrote up the Luplow/EGon trade here: https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/cleveland-and-pittsburgh-swap-surplus-…

Eric A Longenhagen: There’s been a ton of prospect stuff on the site this week. Short of linking all of it, I’ll just point you to the prospect land page where you can find all of it. https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/

KW: What’s currently keeping you from hanging a 50 FV on Nico Hoerner? Would you need to see more power out of his bat to justify him inevitably moving to 2B?

Eric A Longenhagen: He might move up when we do the Cubs list

Eric A Longenhagen: The power he’s shown here in AZ has been surprising

Jay Jaffe: Hi folks, and welcome to today’s chat. I’ll be along in a few minutes after I dot the final i’s and cross the final t’s on my Lee Smith Today’s Game profile. Apologies for the delay…

Jay Jaffe: Ok, I’m back! Let’s get to this.

Hi Jay!!!: Hi Jay,  Among the southpaws, would you rather have Keuchal, Paxton, or Corbin?

Jay Jaffe: They’re all a bit imperfect, aren’t they? If we’re talking for a single game today, I’d take Corbin, who’s coming off a strong, robust season of 200 innings. If we’re talking for the next few years via trade or free agency, think I’d lean Paxton, who despite being fragile is the one who misses bats with the most consistency, giving him the most margin for error as he ages.

stever20: So Fox reups for 7 more years.  About another 200 million per year- so a good 6.5 million more per team.  Some rights bubble heh?

Jay Jaffe: Reports of baseball’s death have again been greatly exaggerated.

Kiley McDaniel: Hello! Movers just left so I’m mostly settled in here in Atlanta. A quick rundown of all the content we’ve been publishing since the last chat:

Kiley McDaniel: All findable here at the prospects main page: https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/

Kiley McDaniel: I introduced our updated prospect asset value concept in the context of a JT Realmuto trade, after last week’s chat was chock full of JTR questions: https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/so-you-want-to-trade-for-j-t-realmuto/

Kiley McDaniel: we have the new scouting primer: https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-new-fangraphs-scouting-primer/

Kiley McDaniel: prospect graduations from the 2018 season: https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/instagraphs/2018-prospect-graduations/

Kiley McDaniel: Craig Edwards’ 3-part series where he tells you how we put a asset dollar value on every prospect in baseball: https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/an-update-to-prospect-valuation/

Meg Rowley: Hi all– allow me one moment to respond to a Very Pressing Email.

Meg Rowley: Ok, all set! Welcome to the chat. Let’s see what nonsense we can get up to today.

Lunar verLander: …you’re not REALLY out of coffee, are you? That’d be some kind of nightmare-ish hellscape…

Meg Rowley: No, thank goodness. I made more.

Billy: Any chance Paxton rumors / action heats up again soon? Or does all the “dust” need to settle for Ms FO makes any more moves (assuming they’re still around)?

Meg Rowley: I would imagine that it might delay for a day or two, but MLB has announced an investigation, and it seems almost certain their trade activity won’t wait for that to conclude.

Dan Szymborski: It’s a’ me, Mario!

Dan Szymborski: OK, not really.

Dan Szymborski: I’m going to hold off the off-topic questions until we get to the Lightning Round.

Ginny: do you think “extremely available for trade”  Kole Calhoun has a market? and does the Angels trying to trade him give indication of their actions in the FA market?

Dan Szymborski: I think he has *some* market, but I think it’s wishful thinking on the Angels if they think someone’s going to pay as if the first half of 2018 never happened.

Dan Szymborski: I’m not sure it makes a lot of sense for the Angels to trade him.

Jeff Sullivan: Hello friends

Jeff Sullivan: Welcome to Friday baseball chat

Jeff Sullivan: I made it on time to this one! Take that, haters

Xolo: Fangraphs has the Padres projected at 77 wins with fairly pedestrian Steamer numbers for all the big rookies. With that in mind, wouldn’t it make sense for them to go after a guy like Corbin now and see how it goes?

Jeff Sullivan: I do think the Padres are likely to target at least one interesting and talented pitcher, but I don’t think they’ll want to pay what Corbin will command

Jeff Sullivan: If you figure Corbin will get an offer from, say, the Yankees, the Padres would have to offer more on top of that. The Padres can’t compete with the Yankees’ budget. I’m looking for San Diego to target a cheaper starter, with a couple years of team control remaining

Eric A Longenhagen: Howdy howdy howdy, let’s do the thing…

RIP McCovey: What is your take on the Farhan Zaidi hire for the Giants and the sentiment that he could move Bumgarner?

Eric A Longenhagen: I dig the hire, Zaidi seems capable of helming a club. I’m skeptical that about Bum being good when the Giants are good again, so I think it makes sense to explore the idea of moving him.

Junction Jack: What’s the buzz around JB Bukauskas in Arizona? The stuff has looked very sharp from what I have seen.

Eric A Longenhagen: He looks good. 94-96, t98, four pitch mix, everything has flashed plus. Changeup hasn’t been as good nor used as heavily of late. Don’t think the fastball plays like 95+ because this is a small guy who also has a short stride and I tend to think of him as a nasty multi-inning relief piece more than a true 170+ inning starter, but he is good.

Jim Leyland Palmer: Have you gotten to see much of Daz Cameron in the fall league? What do you think the Tigers have in him?

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to another offseason edition of my Thursday chat series. I’m immersed in the Today’s Game ballot, the third installment of which just went up this morning https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/thrills-provided-by-carter-and-clark-n…

stever20: what surprises, if any, did you have with the award finalist announcements on Monday?

Jay Jaffe: While it took me a day even to get to looking at the list of finalists because of how immersed I was in the Hall stuff, I guess the biggest surprise — but not all that big of one — was that Chris Sale didn’t make the AL top three in Cy Young voting, owing to his late-season absences. That’s not to begrudge Verlander, Snell and Kluber their spots, it’s just a gauge of the steep cost of Sale’s absence and subsequent struggles upon returning.

Beyond that, slight surprise Lorenzo Cain slipped out of the NL MVP top three and Javier Baez in, but both had great seasons. Not a major quibble, though.

The Old Buccaneer: Do you see the Zunino/Mallex deal as one likely to work out for both teams?

Jay Jaffe: quite possibly. I think Zunino’s ongoing ups and downs on the offensive side are indicative that a change of scenery could help. Smith turned in a nice season and fills a hole that the Mariners have really struggled with in recent years.

____: Thoughts on Bill James’s statements? https://mlb.nbcsports.com/2018/11/07/red-sox-senior-advisor-bill-james…