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…

Kiley McDaniel: Hello all from the almost empty Atlanta house, which will hopefully be filled by next week’s chat

Kiley McDaniel: ICYMI, we posted a top 50 free agents thing that I did the rankings/predictions for: https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/2019-top-50-free-agents/

Kiley McDaniel: And then all the stuff Cistulli wouldn’t let in the formal rankings, including buzz on timetables and under the radar spending teams went here: https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-free-agency-analysis-fangraphs-doe…

Kiley McDaniel: I’ll have one more offseason-focused article probably going up tomorrow and I’m editing a podcast with some FA talk as well

Kiley McDaniel: Now to your questions, which also appear to be offseason-focused

Tommy N.: Do you think a Donaldson three year deal to the Padres makes sense?

Meg Rowley: Hello!

Meg Rowley: Welcome to the chat. Apologies for my very brief lateness. I was on the phone with one Carson Cistulli.

Meg Rowley: If you will allow a moment of earnestness and also sincerity: Please go vote if you have not and your state has not made it impossible for you to do so.

Meg Rowley: If your state has, shame on them. If your state hasn’t, think of all those having a hard time voting today, and go do your voting.

Guest: When does “2019” begin for the purpose of no-trade clauses? Jason Heyward has full no trade rights in 2018, but not 2019. I started wondering about coupling one or more surplus value guys in order to try to move his contract but then ran into: when does ‘2019’ begin?

Meg Rowley: I believe the league year or championship season is defined in the CBA, so a moment.

tb.25: “The only FanGraphs chat that lets you obnoxiously spam emotes.” AKA the best FanGraphs chat.

Dan Szymborski: Good aftermorninevening!

Euan Dewar: Hey Dan! No question, just hope you’re doing well and enjoyed the Blizzcon festivities. Was fun to look at twitter and realise a baseball analytics person I like was also chopping it up in WoW on the regular 🙂

Dan Szymborski: For the Horde!

Matt: Have you ever thought about the ramifications of your non-inclusive chili ideology on the bean people?

Dan Szymborski: People who use beans can still eat it fine, ti’s just not chili.

Jeff Sullivan: Hello friends

Jeff Sullivan: Welcome to Friday baseball chat

Jeff Sullivan: Usually I’m late to start because of a pre-chat podcast. Today it was a pre-chat phone conversation with the boss! Always something

Jeff Sullivan: First Friday baseball chat in a while with no active…baseball. Weird feeling. Also weird that it already feels normal

Bork: Hello, friend!

Jeff Sullivan: Hello friend

Eric A Longenhagen: Good morning from Tempe. Let’s begin our final pre-prospect list chat.

mark: Do you know if Anderson Espinoza has started throwing, and if so how he looks?

Eric A Longenhagen: He did not throw during Padres instructs. He may be throwing off a mound but, if he is, it’s private, so I don’t know how he looks.

Josh Nelson: Hey Eric. How do Luis Basabe and Luis Robert look so far?

Eric A Longenhagen: LouBob has been fine, Basabe has not been great.

mark: Do you guys have any planned draft coverage coming up?

Jay Jaffe: Hey folks, good afternoon and welcome to today’s first chat of the long, dark offseason. I’m still catching my breath from an exhausting month and working on some stuff that has yet to see the light of day, including an ESPN-Plus piece on the Defensive Players of the Year, a piece on the passing of the great Willie McCovey, and my contributions to our Top 50 Free Agents list. The Jaffe-Span household is also battling various stages of a low-grade but stubborn cold, and all of the Haribo gummies left over from Halloween can do only so much.

stever20: what % chance do you think the Nats have of retaining Harper?

Jay Jaffe: That’s a very good question. it wasn’t entirely clear whether Scott Boras was merely joking when he said the other day that a deal was “already completed and done, but Bryce has told me that he wanted to tell you personally.” https://nypost.com/2018/10/29/scott-boras-drops-improbable-bryce-harpe…

If that’s true, the only team that could be with is the Nationals, who do enjoy a particularly chummy relationship with Boras such that Stephen Strasburg actually went the extension route rather than free agency. Most believe Boras had tongue in cheek when he said that. Still, I think that there’s a reasonable chance, somewhere between 33% and 50%, that Bryce stays in Washington.

Guille: hi Jay! What do you say are the chances Yankees don´t sign either Machado or Harper? It´s gotta be higher than 50% considering neither is a great fit for the team.

Jay Jaffe: I’d put it around 50%. Given the re-signing of Gardner, even at fourth outfielder money, as well as the continued presence of Judge, Hicks and Stanton and the pending arrival of Clint Frazier, Harper doesn’t make much sense. Machado makes more sense given Didi Gregorius’s Tommy John surgery. The team loves him some Didi but he’s going to miss roughly half of his final season under club control. If they really want Machado, it’s not just to alleviate what might be a three-month absence.

Guille: hi Jay! IF Kershaw extends his contract with the Dodgers, is something like 5/175 in the ballpark?

Kiley McDaniel: Coming to you from Florida for one last time, it’s Kileychat

Mets: We hired an agent…. WTF? honestly, I don’t see how even a regular GM would see anything but a full teardown as the only option.

Kiley McDaniel: The Brodie Van Wagenen hire is definitely one drawing some conversation around the game. It’s definitely not normal to have a GM that is recused from talking contract extension with your best player. The game has also changed so much in the last 5-10 years and agents have almost no exposure to all of these new facets.

I’m not saying they/Brodie don’t understand the stats we talk about here, but you’ll need to staff up/direct an R+D department, know their blind spots, hire scouts, hire coaches, etc. Not every GM is good at this, but how can we expect BVW to be good at this right away with no prior exposure to any of it, working with people he essentially doesn’t know? We also don’t know what sort of personnel decisions he’ll make, whom he’ll hire/fire in the front office…there’s just a lot of questions.

Kiley McDaniel: He could be good–I don’t want to be cast as knocking the hire just due to lack of information about him–but it just seems like an odd decision and one that’s impossible to judge for awhile.

Walter O’Malley : Which is worse for pitcher health? Throwing 100 mph or throwing 100 pitches?

Kiley McDaniel: 100 mph. That’s the biggest known cause of arm injuries. Rest between starts would go way ahead of pitches per start in terms of importance for predicting injuries. There’s a reason relievers get used 2-3 days in a row and blow out more often.

Meg Rowley: Hello and welcome to the offseason chat! Boy oh boy, it sure is the offseason.

Nick: What do you see the Cubs doing with Addison Russell? What do *you* think they should do?

Meg Rowley: I think they’ll probably cut and I think that makes good sense.

Meg Rowley: I was never that hype on him as a player, and now I’m even less in on the guy as a person.

Meg Rowley: I’m sure he’ll resurface somewhere, but I don’t expect him to play another game for the Cubs.

Tom in SD: Any chance the Yankees trade Stanton to the Dodgers and sign Harper?

Dan Szymborski:

Dan Szymborski: Greetings everyone!

david s: Where in the hell are the 2019 ZiPS, Dane?

Mark: Dan, can you give me a quick ZiPS projection on when I can care about baseball again.

Matt: Kinda weird how infatuated with the Yankees the Red Sox fans seem to be, eh?

Dan Szymborski: You can still care about baseball! Stuff is happening.