Kiley McDaniel: I’m here, sans beer, get used to it

Kiley McDaniel: Alrighty I’ll get the announcements out of the way about the existing content, in case your question is generall in terms of timeframe

General top prospects questions can usually be answered by the top 200 (though some things have changed for some of these guys already): http://www.fangraphs.com/bl…

Check the team prospect lists for questions on some deeper cuts, here’s the last list with links to the other 29: http://www.fangraphs.com/bl…

July 2 update in three parts: http://www.fangraphs.com/bl… http://www.fangraphs.com/bl… http://www.fangraphs.com/bl…

And, finally, the draft content has been coming fast and furious of late and the 2015 stuff will get updated in a few weeks as the info is still rolling in

Mock Draft: http://www.fangraphs.com/bl…
2015 draft prospects: http://www.fangraphs.com/bl…
2016/2017 draft prospects: http://www.fangraphs.com/bl…

Comment From joe
how has evaluating prospects changed over the last 10, 20, 30 years?

Kiley McDaniel: I can only guess since I started in the last 10 years. Lots more phone calls and relationships, along with way poorer scouting info/consensus and stats due to communication via technology and showcases/access to players

Comment From Bryan
Is Mallex Smith the future starting center fielder in Atlanta?

Kiley McDaniel: Could be. Has the tools to be a solid starting center fielder, but the bat is seen as just okay, so the speed needs to play in all phases.

Jeff Sullivan: BASEBALL CHAT!

Jeff Sullivan: I thought maybe this would be the week I’d be early. Turns out it is not!

Jeff Sullivan: That’s what happens when you get your URL back from JABO right when the chat’s supposed to begin. Whatever, off we go. Hello friends

Comment From Joe
So NBA teams almost exclusively use R. What do baseball teams use?

Jeff Sullivan: I wouldn’t be surprised if a bunch of them have different proprietary software

Comment From Steve
Do you see Hanley’s injury lingering as the season moves forward?

Eno Sarris: welcome to my college hip hop collection

Eno Sarris: Shoot… YouTube embed might be broken.

Eno Sarris:

Comment From zurzles
according to the probables leaderboard, the a’s starter for today is… ike davis. should i start him?

Eno Sarris: eh. okay two-seamer but lacks repeatability and a great second offering.

Comment From rustydude
Who would you prefer as a bench player in an AL only league: Saunders or Bourn?

Dave Cameron: It’s Wednesday, so let’s do this.

Comment From Pale Hose
Is it possible speedy guys benefit more from soft contact vs. hard?

Dave Cameron: Yeah, one of the fun things about batted ball data is that you can actually see that production relative to how hard you hit the ball is almost like a U. There’s a big area in the middle where production is extremely low, because you hit it hard enough to go right at a defender, but if you hit it weaker than that, you might bloop one in or get an infield hit. Hitting the ball harder isn’t better at every velocity point.

Comment From Mike Honcho
How many NL players would you pick ahead of Matt Carpenter for the next 2-3 years?

Comment From Kevin A
Is Matt Carpenter literally the greatest baseball player in history?

Dave Cameron: Matt Carpenter, getting attention.

Paul Swydan: Hi everybody! Jeff and I will be here to chat at 9 pm ET. Well, Jeff might be late, but usually he just *says* he’ll be late and then shows up on time. Under promise, over deliver, and all of that.

Anyhoo, get your questions in now, and we’ll chat like the bosses we all are.

Paul Swydan: OK, let’s do this. Jeff IS going to be late, so you’re stuck with me for awhile.

Comment From Job
Saw this on Twitter: If you think Lucroy is a 5ish win player for ’15/’16/’17 and Perez is a 3ish win guy for his contract, and the Royals are going all in for the next few years, would it make sense for KC to trade Perez + prospects or Lucroy or just Perez? Lucroy is a better hitting and isn’t credit for pitch framing, but the contract isn’t as nice as Perez.

Paul Swydan: I mean, it’s an interesting thing to ponder, but I don’t see the upgrade being enough for the Royals to sacrifice all the knowledge that Perez already has of their system and their pitchers, etc, etc. Don’t see that one happening.

Comment From Minty
No one knows what their respective teams will do, but when would you debut Correa and Seager?

Paul Swydan: Not before the Super 2 deadline passes in June.

Kiley McDaniel: I’m here. Let’s start.

Comment From Tim
How can the Braves get Josh Bell from the Pirates?

Kiley McDaniel: The Braves have 8 prospects that I deem to have the same or more trade value than Bell, so there’s 8 of the ways they could do it.

http://www.fangraphs.com/bl…

Comment From Jeff Gross
With Bryant/Russell graduated to the majors, where would the Cubs farm system rank now? Have the performance of enough guys like Vogelbach and Schwarber ticked up/maintained more grades overall than have disappointed (e.g., Johnson) to keep the Cubs in the top 5 overall?

Kiley McDaniel: More on this in the coming weeks

Comment From Peezus
How high are you on Tyler Glasnow and when do you see him coming up?

Dan Szymborski: And awwwwaaaaay we go!

Dan Szymborski: First off, since we’re back to normalcy (Mondays and I don’t have an hvac guy distracting me), back to presidents.

:

:

Dan Szymborski: Oops, didn’t trim down the image, but it still works

Comment From Josh G
Thoughts on the Brewers giving Counsell a 3 year deal?

Jeff Sullivan: Well, we’ve done it again

Jeff Sullivan: We’ve successfully opened a live baseball chat, ten minutes after the scheduled beginning

Jeff Sullivan: One of these weeks, I’m going to be early. Stay on your toes!

Comment From Julio Pepper
When we say a hitter had a good game, what we really mean is that he got relatively lucky in his 5 or so plate appearances. Similarly, is a “good game” for a pitcher a real thing, or a result of stringing together lucky innings? It looks to me like there are days when pitchers have their stuff or don’t, and people talk this way, but has anybody looked into this?

Jeff Sullivan: The way I think of it, it’s easier to tell if a pitcher has a good game than a hitter. A pitcher goes out and throws 100 pitches or so against a bunch of different guys, while a hitter might see 15-20 pitches and he has no control over what they are or where they go

Jeff Sullivan: So while *all* single-game analyses are complicated, I think a single start is more revealing than a single game in the lineup. You can evaluate a pitcher just by seeing how he’s locating. What’s the batter equivalent?

Eno Sarris: I’ll be here shortly

{“author”:”aubolessi”}:

Comment From Thorn
How excited should we be over Foltynewicz? Thinking of dropping Dickey or Niese for him in my 15 teamer.. thoughts?

Eno Sarris: No changeup, no command. Still, I guess I might drop Dickey.

Comment From Every Cub
Facing Gerrit Cole and Arqiumedes Caminero in the same game should be against the rules. SAVE US MR. MANFRIED

Comment From Zack
I just traded Adrian Gonzalez for Jose Abreu *drops mic*

Dave Cameron: It’s Wednesday, so let’s do some chatting.

Dave Cameron: I’ve opened up the queue a bit earlier than normal, but we’ll still start around noon.

Dave Cameron: Alright, off we go.

Comment From Brandon
So is Hutchison officially bad yet

Dave Cameron: No, but he should be a contender’s #4 or #5 starter, not their #2.

Dave Cameron: One minute break…