Eric A Longenhagen: Chat chat chat!

dock ellis: what do you make of rhys hoskins? anything there to get excited about?

Eric A Longenhagen: It’s certainly more effective than it is pretty — which is why you hear the Paul Goldschmidty nonsense connected to him, they share that — But still a 1B-only profile and he’s hitting in the same park that gave us Matt Rizotti, Darin Ruf, Tagg Bozied….

Eric A Longenhagen: He’s not a “no” for me, but when you step back and look at the whole profile, it’s probably not better than a platoon guy.

Eric A Longenhagen: I’ll get a first-hand look in about a week and a half, though.

JD: How much will Willson contreras be playing for the cubs, the rest of the season? Catches 2 of every 5 or more?

Dave Cameron: Happy Wednesday, everyone. We’re going to begin today’s chat with a life tip: if you’re selling your house, and you have a small child, don’t list the house the same week that you don’t have childcare. I don’t know what we were thinking.

Prates: Is Chris Archer just extremely unlucky? High BABIP, lowered his FB% from last season, but seems to be unlucky with high homers given up

Dave Cameron: When walks, BABIP, and HR rate all are all up the same time, it seems like it’s probably more “bad command” than “bad luck”. He’s got enough talent to get things turned around, but I’m guessing he’s just locating pitches really terribly right now.

Thatguy: Who are your early favorites to land Lucroy at the deadline?

Dave Cameron: Boston and Texas make the most sense. I could see Houston getting involved if they start making a real run at division again.

Dave Cameron: The Dodgers could also be in play, if they think that Grandal isn’t going to start hitting.

Paul Swydan: OK let’s do this. To answer a question I saw a couple of times, I don’t really consider Star Wars to be a space *travel* movie. Sue me.

Jeff Zimmerman: Holy cow, made it. I was just catching some college summer league baseball.

Paul Swydan: And my vote is probably The Martian, though there’s definitely some recency bias there.

Hannah Hochevar: Tarkovsky’s Solaris.

Paul Swydan: That I’ve never seen. Consider it on the list!

Honu: Worse look….man bun or mullet?

august fagerstrom: let’s do a chat!

Justin: Is there a site that has advanced stats for college players?

august fagerstrom: Not sure about advanced stuff, but The Baseball Cube is my go-to site for finding college stuff

einstein2u: I know it sounds crazy, but can Linecum be serviceable? maybe catch lightening in a bottle?

august fagerstrom: He can probably eat innings for a bad team

august fagerstrom: I doubt he’s much more than replacement level at this point though

Dan Szymborski: Stay awhile and listen.

Zonk: Reports are the Cubs are sniffing around the Yankees relievers. In your opinion, what would the Cubs need to add to Jorge Soler to pry Andrew Miller away? Is Soler alone enough for Chapman?

Dan Szymborski: Honestly, I’m not sure the Yankees are at the point yet at which they’ll really trade one of their No Runs DMC trio without being bowled over and I’m not sure a reliever is worth bowling someone over.

Richie rich: Who’s closing games for Minnesota a month from now? Do either Abad or Kintzler run away with the job or does Perkins come back strong and reclaim his throne?

Dan Szymborski: *If* he’s healthy — a pretty big if — I expect Perkins to be given as much of a chance as possible to get his spot back.

Big Joe Montferrant: Pineda has been MUCH better his last 3 starts with the change in arm angle. Do you seeing him being more typical Pineda ROS?

Eno Sarris: ‘nice’ day

Vinny From Philly: Am I going to be ok?

Eno Sarris: It’s not good. Biceps pain doesn’t make us all shiver like forearm problems, but it’s all one chain.

Anthony: Paxton is going to win a Cy Young one day….

Eno Sarris: Piece going up today about him! Just needs to stay in one piece.

Erik: With not too much separating the top 5-6 prospects in the draft tonight, the Phillies should abandon best player available and go with cheapest good enough player available instead, right?

Dave Cameron: Welcome to pre-draft Wednesday.

Dave Cameron: We’ll chat for an hour or so, and then I’ll have to go get ready to prep a piece that ties in to a pretty fun MLB announcement today.

Dave Cameron: So this should be a fun afternoon.

Tom: What was the point of the Nats calling up Trea Turner if they were going to hardly play him?

Dave Cameron: Ryan Zimmerman went on paternity leave, so they needed an infielder for the weekend.

Q-Ball: Has Cub pitching had unusual batted ball luck? BABIP against is .251. While Cubs have a couple noted contact managers (Arrieta, Hendricks) and play good defense, that seems high. Thoughts?

Paul Swydan: Hi everybody!

Jeff Zimmerman: Hi

TheDudeofNY: Peanuts are not nuts.

Paul Swydan: Picky, picky, picky.

Dave in London: Thoughts on Leonys Martin this year and going forward? Is he due for a significant regression, or is he as good as he’s looked this year?

Paul Swydan: Well, he’s on the shelf right now, but I think he has a good chance to be this good, assuming he comes back healthy.

august fagerstrom: hello, all!

august fagerstrom: chatting at the top of the hour

august fagerstrom: chat soundtrack, in celebration of a new Avalanches track, is The Avalanches — Since I Left You

august fagerstrom: also, that new track in question, which is different but good:

august fagerstrom: let us begin!

Bork: Hello, friend!