Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks! Welcome to another edition of my Tuesday chats. We’ve got a nice little streak of four straight weeks going, something that  hasn’t happened since May and June, just before the summer travel began.

Jay Jaffe: Anyway, in case you missed it, I wrote a tribute to Davey Johnson, who passed away over the weekend. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/davey-johnson-1943-2025-a-man-ahead-of-the…

Jay Jaffe: I’m more convinced than ever that Johnson belongs in the Hall. Nothing against Lou Piniella, who missed by one vote on the 2024 Era Committee ballot while Jim Leyland got elected — with Johnson in the “5 votes or fewer scrum — but Johnson’s managerial career is superior to Piniella’s in everything but length, and he was a real innovator in terms of his usage of personal computers and his carrying on the Earl Weaver legacy.

Jay Jaffe: Anyhoo, I’ve got a piece in the pipeline today about candidates for the 30-30 club. Would you believe Juan Soto is the closest to joining from among this year’s crop, and that he has more steals over the past ~2 months than any major leaguer? Yeah, weird times.

Alby: Of the pitchers who will finish with fewer than 200 wins, whose election do you think would do the most to get voters to change their standards – somebody who’s not a unicorn like DeGrom but would represent the new level that would allow a representative cohort to follow him?

Jay Jaffe: I touched upon this a few weeks ago when I did my Hall of Fame progress series (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/cooperstown-notebook-the-2025-progress-rep…). I think the answer might be Chris Sale, who is 36 years old, has 143 wins, and has the next-highest S-JAWS after Verlander, Kershaw, and Scherzer (49.2). I don’t see him getting to 200 wins, but 3,000 strikeouts is a possibility (he needs 454), and between his perennial Cy Young candidacy and his bWAR rankings (including six times in his league’s top 5), I think he’s going to be the best choice we see for a few years.

Eric A Longenhagen: Hello from stormy Tempe, we’ll probably have a shorter chat today so I can batten down the hatches before this enormous cell hits the city.

Eric A Longenhagen: This week I wrote about the defense of more shortstops

Eric A Longenhagen: Let’s Scout More Top Shortstop Prospects’ Defense: Franklin Arias, George Lombard Jr., JJ Wetherholt, Edwin Arroyo | FanGraphs Baseball

Eric A Longenhagen: Meg and I also wrote a job posting looking for a second full time prospect writer. FanGraphs Is Hiring! Seeking a Full-Time Prospect Writer | FanGraphs Baseball

Jeb: Konnor Griffin, whoof. AA doesn’t seem to be phasing him at all so far. As a pirate fan, can he actually work out and be great? What does his ceiling look like? What can we dream on?

Eric A Longenhagen: Yeah, he’s quite good. I still think it’s a round down hit tool to some degree, but the power/speed combo is great. He’s a top 5 prospect.

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks! I hope you all enjoyed your three-day weekends. I had a lovely one here, one that included a surprise solo parenting job as I took my daughter and her friend to see the Brooklyn Cyclones on Sunday; my wife planned to go instead of the friend, but came down with a migraine (ugh). Fortunately, it all went well, everybody had fun and I came home with the same number of kids I brought.

Jay Jaffe: I’ve got a thing on Walker Buehler joining the Phillies that’s about to go live. Did some injury roundups as they pertain to contenders late last week. Here’s the NL one: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/watch-those-fingers-a-roundup-of-recent-in…

Jay Jaffe: And here’s the AL one: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/a-roundup-of-recent-injuries-among-the-al-…

Jay Jaffe: pour one out for Corey Seager, yeesh.

Jay Jaffe: Ok, on with the show…

Thank you!: Would you try to extend any yanks?

Eric A Longenhagen: Good morning everyone, let’s dive into your questions immediately.

Ben: Hey Eric, love these chats! We have two exciting SP debuts tonight. If you only could watch Tong or Tolle tonight, which would you choose and why?

Eric A Longenhagen: If you have to pick one (both *matchups* tonight are also incredible, Tolle vs Skenes, Tong vs Eury) I’d go Tolle just because we’ll get to learn more about him tonight than I think we will Tong. Tolle’s power fastball will play, how about the other stuff? How does he approach big league hitters the second and third time through? Tong’s question marks are more going to be answered over longer period because it has to do with him sustaining big stuff at his size.

Drew: Is Eduardo Quintero really a top 50 prospect like I’ve seen in other publications?

Eric A Longenhagen: That’s rich for me, clearly, or I’d have him in that area.

Rob: What have your impressions of Cam Cam been this year?

Dan Szymborski: And thus the chat began. Suspiciously, it began on time as well.

Philly Fan: How much of a hit did Phillies’ WS prospects take with Wheeler’s injury?

Dan Szymborski: I didn’t do an article on the topic, but I did run the numbers and at the time, they dropped from 11.7 to 9.8 in ZiPS purely for the Wheeler injury

Ben: If/when expansion happens, which cities are you hoping get  team?  Which ones would you bet on getting a team?

Dan Szymborski: I hope Nashville gets one. That’s purely for selfish reasons – gives me yet another park five hours or less away!

Dan Szymborski: And I like excuses to visit Nashville. The state of hot chicken in SW Ohio, at least in the Dayton area, is truly sad.

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks! Welcome to another edition of my weekly chat.

Jay Jaffe: It’s my daughter’s birthday today so I’ve been running around like crazy, but the second installment of my annual Hall of Fame progress report is up: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/cooperstown-notebook-the-2025-progress-rep…

Jay Jaffe: Part I, covering pitchers and catchers, ran last week https://blogs.fangraphs.com/cooperstown-notebook-the-2025-progress-rep…

Jay Jaffe: Before I get going, thanks to a couple participants in last week’s chat for ideas that directly led to articles. Reader Your Name pointed out that at the time, the Pirates didn’t have a single player with a wRC+ of 100 or better, regardless of playing time. That would be a first if they pulled it off, as I discovered: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/aargh-the-pirates-are-in-danger-of-making-… Since then, however, Tommy Pham and Spencer Horwitz have nosed over the line. We’ll see if they can maintain that

Jay Jaffe: Also, reader Nasty Nate asked for a look at Nathan Eovaldi, who’s having a sneaky great season: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/nathan-eovaldis-sneaky-great-season/

Jay Jaffe: For tomorrow, I’m looking at the AL MVP race, which is far from the Aaron Judge cakewalk that it looked like during the first half of the season — particularly if you take note of Cal Raleigh’s pitch framing as well as his prolific home run pace