Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to my Tuesday chat. Apologies for the technical glitch in terms of the pre-chat queue but we should be up and running.

Jay Jaffe: Pouring one out for Whitey Herzog, the Hall of Fame manager best known for piloting the Cardinals to the 1982 championship and two other pennants.

Jay Jaffe: And pouring another one out for Carl Erskine, a true mensch who not only helped the Dodgers to five pennants and their 1955 championship — and threw two no-hitters as well — but became “a fierce champion of human rights, racial equality and, when his late son Jimmy was born with Down syndrome, became immersed in fighting for people with special needs.”

The Hall of Fame honored Erskine with the Buck O’Neill Lifetime Achievement Award last summer https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/2024/04/16/indianas-carl-erskine…

WinTwins0410: Jay, I hate to “remember some guys” too much to start a chat, but it seems like we’ve lost a lot of interesting baseball guys lately — Ken Holtzman, Whitey Herzog, Carl Erskine, Fritz Peterson, Jerry Grote and even Pat Zachry.  Curious if you plan to do a full-on article about Whitey.  I am hoping you will!

Jay Jaffe: Forgot about Holtzman, who was a big part of the A’s three straight championships and holds the record for most wins by a Jewish pitcher (174).

Jay Jaffe: I’m thinking about whether I can pull off a Herzog tribute in a timely fashion.

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?