Meg Rowley: Good morning! Welcome to the chat.

Meg Rowley: I am not Travis, but fear not: he’ll be here tomorrow, and back to regularly scheduled programming next week.

Yu: What do the Mariners do about 2B now?

Meg Rowley: Ugh.

Meg Rowley: I think for the moment you’re looking at some combination of the non-catching Romine, and possibly Taylor Motter and (sighs heavily) maybe Gordon Beckham sharing duties there.

Meg Rowley: It sounds like they are reticent to move Dee Gordon off center, but I’ll be curious to see how long that holds up.

Jeff Sullivan: Hello friends

Jeff Sullivan: Welcome to Friday baseball chat

Palardelphia: Carlos Santana has been on fire lately. Looking at his rolling averages…was he walking too much (and not capitalizing on hittable pitches)?

Jeff Sullivan: My understanding is that, early on, Santana was basically just hitting into terrible luck. Mike Petriello wrote about it at MLB.com. His xwOBA was always strong from the get-go

Yu: Is this a breakout season for Maikel Franco?

Jeff Sullivan: Probably not

Eric A Longenhagen: Howdy from a Morristown, NJ Starbucks where I’ve stopped on the way to see Lenny Torres (which I’m growing worried is going to be rained out).

Eric A Longenhagen: Kiley will be joining momentarily, but I’m gonna get rolling now as I will probably hve to bounce sooner than Kiley to get to the game.

Paul: Wasn’t there a new mock promised at some point soon?!

Eric A Longenhagen: Early next week after I’ve seen who’s at the games I’m seeing this weekend and we make some more cals.

Kiley McDaniel: And I just got home to Orlando where I’m scrambling to run errands and settle in for some serious content putout (and also UCF/Oklahoma this weekend)

Dave: Any chance the Braves go with Kelenic at 8?

Jay Jaffe: Good morning or afternoon, folks, and welcome to another edition of my Thursday chat. If you saw the subtitle of this week’s chat, you’ll understand that I’m in mourning for the impending loss of my favorite neighborhood restaurant — the default place where my wife and I take family and friends who trek to our corner of Brooklyn for a casual night out. https://ny.eater.com/2018/5/9/17336048/ganso-ramen-closing-downtown-br…

The moral of the story is, hug your favorite neighborhood restaurant, because one day it won’t be there no matter how often you go.

THE Average Sports Fan: What is your take on the Harvey-Mesoraco swap?

Jay Jaffe: 1. “Be careful what you wish for, Matt Harvey.” While he was within his rights to reject the Triple A assignment, he’s now about to toil in a place that’s much rougher for pitchers, particularly ones with gopher problems, and he won’t be anywhere close to the postseason.

2. A fair trade of damaged goods for both sides.

Mike: My yankees are on a tear right now, and most of that relates to what I thought was our greatest need. Pitching. What does German look like as a starter going forward? and how sustainable is CC’s FIP defying heroics?

Jay Jaffe: Travis Sawchik took a good look at German a couple days ago. https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/domingo-german-demands-our-attention/ Obviously, Sunday’s six no-hit innings was a promising development, and he does seem to have a mix that should help him survive as a starter. As for CC, he’s not gonna keep up a sub-2.00 ERA but he’s still a very useful starter. After this chat I’m heading up to Yankee Stadium for tonight’s outing against the Red Sox and planning to write about him unless something bigger happens.

Hard hit rate: It seems like a number of players who are sporting career-best or near career-best hard hit rates are struggling. Marcell Ozuna, and the Santanas, Carlos and Domingo, come to mind. Do you have any ideas for why that is the case?

Meg Rowley: Good morning! Welcome to the chat.

Meg Rowley: Let’s dive in with a bunch of sad Mariners questions! Yay!

Alex: How many starting pitchers on the Mariners end the year with a higher WAR than Edwin Diaz?

Meg Rowley: Well, Paxton…

Meg Rowley: mayyyyybe Marco Gonzales if he can ever figure out how to a third time through the order.

Meg Rowley: The pitching really isn’t very good.

Dan Szymborski: DAMMIT ITS MAY NOW

Giants Fan: How bout them Giants?One thing I’ve noticed going on baseball savant is the xwOBA for almost every hitter suggest they’re facing bad luck (even Belt, Posey, Hundley) and if they were to come to the norm they would have arguably best lineup in NL, however the reverse is true with the pitching staff. Could the park and defense be playing a role in this? Or should I still expect their wOBA to move toward the xwOBA over time?

Dan Szymborski: I get similar, though far from the extreme that they’d be the best lineup in the NL.  I have my own method that does take into account park.

Dan Szymborski: Heck, just by runs created, they’re missing half-a-run a game you’d expect.

hscer: Perez, Goldschmidt, Zimmerman, Bruce, Taylor, Yelich, Desmond, Castillo, Weaver, and Jansen: are they conspiring to ruin my fantasy team?

Dan Szymborski: Naturally, yes.

Travis Sawchik: Greetings …

Travis Sawchik: Happy Monday

Travis Sawchik: Glad you are hanging out here and choosing to drain some of America’s workplace productivity

Travis Sawchik: Let’s get started

Despairing Mets Fan(All Mets Fan: Please provide hope during these dark times. Can Conforto, Bruce, and Cespedes catch fire? Will Degrom return and keep rolling? And please tell me Rosario is not a bust.

Travis Sawchik: Let’s give Conforto some time. We didn’t even expect to be back at this point. Degrom avoided a worst-case scenario.  But the Braves and Phillies might be here to stay for awhile

Jeff Sullivan: Hello friends

Jeff Sullivan: Welcome to Friday baseball chat

john: Hello, Jeff. Thank you for chatting.

Jeff Sullivan: Hello john. Thank you for chatting, because without any of you, this would be pathetic

Put me in coach: You have to tell me what is going on with Nick Markakis. He has the third highest WAR in the NL.

Jeff Sullivan: You can never really dig too deep on these things in a live-chat format, but Markakis has such a fun profile right now

Eric A Longenhagen: Hey, everyone. Gotta grab a coffee and tweet a link, so will be back momentarily.

Eric A Longenhagen: Okay, I’m back.

Bill: Any word on who the Mets are in on post round 1?

Eric A Longenhagen: No and I doubt we narrow it to anything more than a specific classification of player by draft day. They’re not really in position to target anyone specific with their second pick, too many cop picks ahead of them.

Joe: Thoughts on Caleb Feguson?

Eric A Longenhagen: above avg curveball, fastball is average, change a hair below. An up and down arm as far as we’re concerned.

Jay Jaffe: Greetings from Brooklyn, where it’s suddenly 87 degrees. i think we skipped spring entirely.

Bork: Who’s the lucky recipient of this live Tommy John surgery?

Jay Jaffe: By the look of the game of Stroller Crash that my 20-month-old daughter is playing in the hallway, it might be her nameless doll.

v2micca: Have you ever seen a fanbase transition from optimism to fatalism as quickly as the 2018 Mets fans?

Jay Jaffe: For the moment it sounds like the Mets dodged a bullet regarding Jacob deGrom’s hypexetended elbow, but between the mixed messaging, the team’s long history of injury mismanagement, and the pitcher’s importance to their 2018 fate, you can understand why the fan base is a bit nervous.

Rob: Stroller Crash would be an excellent name for a rock band btw