Eric A Longenhagen: Friday chat fam, what’s up? Hello from the kitchen island in Tempe as monsoon season looks like it has arrived early and we’re in line for some rain today.

Eric A Longenhagen: I wrote up the Twins with James this week. Two more orgs to go before we’re done with all 30. I’m starting on Rays this weekend, Brendan is doing Marlins. Pretty exciting stuff! Let’s see what you’ve got for me today…

WarrenJ: Happy to see Merphy Hernandez in your Twins writeup, even as an honorable mention.  Yohandy Morales isn’t a favorite of the prospect community, but he’s hitting 339/415/596 at Rochester.  Don’t the Nationals have to give him a try soon?

Eric A Longenhagen: Merphy can play some defense, man. I share in the Yohandy skepticism but think he’s in line for trial after Garcia is traded.

muenstertruck: No real question, but I’m excited that Daniel Espino finally got the call. I can’t imagine his stuff is quite as electric as it was before the injuries, but he’s still bumping 100 in the minors and the story behind it is amazing.

Eric A Longenhagen: He’s going to be a higher leverage reliever, I think. Sitting 96-100 with plus vert, slider generating plus miss. Ryan Helsley look to the mechanics. Hunter Harvey type trajectory for Espino.

Dan Szymborski: We seem to be having technical issues

Dan Szymborski: Nobody can log in and ask questions.

Dan Szymborski: And I tried it myself!

Dan Szymborski: Unless there’s a fix, we may need to 86 the chat this week. Unless people want to hang around as I share my idle musings about whatever stupid thing I’m thinking about currently.

Dan Szymborski: (And no, people should not want to hang around for that)

Dan Szymborski: If you’re reading this, hit refresh and it shoudl work now!

Brendan Gawlowski: Hello everybody

Brendan Gawlowski: As you all undoubtedly saw, I published the Giants list last week.

Brendan Gawlowski: Eric and James are working furiously on the Twins. I’m about 20 players into the Marlins system, that’s gonna be a long one. I see a path for us to have TB and Miami done next week and be finished with the whole kit and kaboodle but those are both deep systems so we’ll see.

Brendan Gawlowski: I’ve Isotopes/Rainiers fired up in the background

Brendan Gawlowski: Let’s go

Phillip Denny: What’s your 2/5 of the way through the season evaluation of the DePodesta regime in CO?

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks! Welcome to another edition of my weekly chat. It’s a lovely day here in Brooklyn, but no, I don’t have Knicks fever. After 31 years running along the spectrum from antipathy to apathy towards the team, I’m indifferent at best to their run to the NBA Finals while my wife and daughter (who’s never rooted for a men’s basketball team before) are swept up in it.

Jay Jaffe: Anyway, I’ve got a forthcoming piece on the White Sox’s turnaround today (2 PM ET). Most recently, I wrote about Roki Sasaki’s turnaround (https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/roki-sasaki-is-putting-it-all-together) and Aaron Judge’s injury (https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/tough-break-aaron-judge-will-miss-time…).

Jay Jaffe: and now, on with the show

bkgeneral: Why don’t more teams sell earlier in the season?  It seems you would get more for 100 games of use over say 75.

Jay Jaffe: I think there’s a lot going on early in the season, with front offices focusing on the amateur draft as well as on the rosters they spent the previous months building, and on the earliest wave of players who might help from within (perhaps related to service time shenanigans but not necessarily)

Jay Jaffe: After the draft and the All-Star break, it’s easier to focus on the realities of what they’ve put together and where they fit with regards to the playoff races

Eric A Longenhagen: Good morning, y’all. Sorry for the slight delay, had a cat w/ bird situation to handle just as we were supposed to start.

Eric A Longenhagen: (bird was bleeding a bit but also flew away just now so…yay?)

miggy80: Nice to see a very young cubs overslot doing well, what is Hartshorns ceiling as of right now?

Eric A Longenhagen: Everyday 1B driven by OBP and contact, more doubles pop than huge raw. Like 55 hit, 50 power, plus plate discipline. Don’t think he’s a 30+ homer guy. We considered 50’ing him when he did Cubs, but thought the 45 was more in line with the value of the profile when it’s in A-ball.

alec_eiffel: Hey, a Dax Kilby sighting at the Rookie league! Just stay healthy kid!

Eric A Longenhagen: Wooot, now go hit please.