Dan Szymborski: It’s a chat!

Chaz: Are the Royals overwhelming favorites to win it all now or do you still think other teams have a chance?

Dan Szymborski: Heh

the guy who says it’s april: it’s april

Dan Szymborski: Yup, I’m behind on my “April” responses since I was doing Career Day last week at at elementary/middle school

Closer problems: Have to drop one of Fairbanks, Alzolay, and Tanner Scott?  Who is your pick?

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks! Welcome to my first (solo) chat of the 2024 season. I’ve got a piece today about Ronel Blanco’s no-hitter here https://blogs.fangraphs.com/on-a-day-for-no-hit-bids-astros-righty-ron…

Jay Jaffe: And yesterday I wrote about the Yankees’ hot start thanks to Juan Soto and the fill-ins for injured third baseman DJ LeMahieu https://blogs.fangraphs.com/juan-soto-and-the-third-base-fill-ins-star…

JT: Is Ronel Blanco fur realz or should we be very, very worried as Blue Jays fans that Mark Shapiro loves glove first non-hitters?

Jay Jaffe: Blanco had his changeup working last night, and it baffled the Blue Jays. They have the potential for a pretty decent offense, but punting on third base by letting Matt Chapman go and replacing him with Isiah Kiner-Falefa is going to cost them, and I’m not wild about their second base situation either.

slave to 25 PA: I know Mike Trout’s not gonna maintain a .900 slugging, but am I wrong to be a little hopeful he makes a bounce back. I am worried about his whiff rate.

Jay Jaffe: after getting just 237 games over the past three seasons, I’m glad to see any Mike Trout, and holy smokes did he destroy that baseball. 473 feet! and that was just one of his homers https://www.mlb.com/video/mike-trout-drills-a-473-foot-homer-run

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to my pre-Opening Day chat. I’m just back from a brief ski vacation in Salt Lake City with my daughter; due to delays we didn’t get home until 3 AM so forgive the cobwebs. The second of my two Positionl Power Rankings ran while I was gone, the Right Fielders https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2024-positional-power-rankings-right-field

Jay Jaffe: The first of those was, um, first base, which ran early last week https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2024-positional-power-rankings-first-base

Jay Jaffe: Anyway, on with the show…

Andrew: If it does come to light that Ohtani bet on sports, do you think the Angels are forced to vacate all their playoff wins while he was on the team?

Jay Jaffe: womp womp

TKDC: Over/under .5 game suspension for Ohtani when this all shakes out?

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to another edition of my FanGraphs chat. I’ve got my head buried in Positional Power Rankings assignments but came up for air to write about Noelvi Marte’s PED suspension yesterday https://blogs.fangraphs.com/noelvi-martes-ped-suspension-simplifies-re…, and last Friday wrote about Brayan Bello’s extension https://blogs.fangraphs.com/red-sox-hope-brayan-bello-deal-is-the-star…

Jay Jaffe: With that, let’s get going.

wheelhouse: I’m trying to rebalance here, but if Cole is out for the season, do you think the Yankees are:
A) a threat for the third wild card
B) 100% dead in the water, stick a fork in them

Jay Jaffe: To borrow from Monty Python for a line that’s often quoted in our household, “A fair question and one that in recent weeks ‘as been much on my mind.”

Jay Jaffe: I think the answer to that depends upon how close to the best versions of themselves other starters such as Cortes, Rodón and Stroman are in 2024. If the two holdovers pitch as they did last year, the Yankees will be toast

Jay Jaffe: if the three of them pitch up to their capabilities and if they get a decent fill-in, all isn’t lost, but it may very well cost them down the road — either via a trade or a necessary payroll cut if they were to add a big salary to this year