Paul Swydan: CLEVER INTRODUCTION!

BASEBALL!!!

Polls coming later.

Paul Swydan: Oh, also, 9 pm ET is the start time. Be there!

Jeff Zimmerman: Question. I am going to examine individual park sections for the THT like I did with the league with this article:

http://www.hardballtimes.co…

I already plan on looking at Oakland’s foul area, Green Monster, Houston hill. Any other requests?

Paul Swydan: Help Jeff out guys!

Comment From JV
Scooter Gennett is getting the start again today (this time vs a lefty). Safe to say he is not in a straight platoon with Weeks???

Paul Swydan: I don’t think it’s SAFE to say, but it’s certainly trending that way.

Jeff Sullivan: Hey guys!

Jeff Sullivan: Shut up!

Jeff Sullivan: I chatted three and a half damn hours yesterday. You take what you get and you like it.

Jeff Sullivan: Let’s talk about the baseballs!

Comment From Guest
Going to be a long season for Toronto?

Jeff Sullivan: Going to be a long season everywhere! 162 games is a whole lot of games and they usually don’t play more than one in a day

Jason Collette: bienvenue…let’s chat

Comment From AL Pitching Coach
Yordano Ventura, and to some extent Tanner Scheppers, have picked up a ton of fantasy buzz over the past week or two. Thoughts on what to expect from them in 2014?

	Jason Collette: Eno and I discussed both guys on the podcast that dropped overnight. I like Ventura more than Scheppers, but Ventura’s delivery worries me. “his arm looks like it is attached to a rubber band” is the phrase I got from a pitching guru and that’s not a good thing.

Comment From Tony the Tiger
How badly does the loss of Iglesias affect the fantasy values of Porcello and Smyly?

	Jason Collette: It certainly does not help.I was really looking forward to seeing what that infield could do for Porcello. Knocks them down a round/round and a half and a $1

Comment From Guest
Miggy’s contract is the n-th worst contract in baseball in the last 25 years. n equals???

	Jason Collette: Vernon Wells, Joe Blanton, Albert Pujols, 50 feet of crap, Ryan Howard….so maybe 6th?

Comment From jocephus
swydan is not a fan of martinez/rosenthal going into BP without chance at starting…yer thoughts?

	Jason Collette: I side with him on this, to a point. You’ve already started down the path with Rosenthal, so if you’re going to stretch him out, do it in the minors. Martinez has drastic R/L splits and would be better served in the minors working on that as well, but I get putting both on the major league level in their current roles.

Comment From Chris
What is your outlook on Jose Abreu? Does he have the ability to be an elite first baseman

	Jason Collette: He was a hot topic of discussion at Foley’s last Saturday night. Crowdsourcing his numbers gave me a .270 avg with 32-35 homers

Eno Sarris: here in 12 minutes it looks like

idumea25:

Eno Sarris: Enjoy this upbeat tune in the meantime.

Comment From Jon
Should we still be worried about Doug Fister?

Eno Sarris: Only a tiny bit more than any other pitcher, given his age and something that might have given him DL time in the regular season.

Comment From Regarding Jeff Zimmerman’s Injury Zone Report…
Hi Eno…do you have a link to this report? You mentioned it a week or two ago on a chat and how Shields and Fister were on there. I did a search and couldn’t find this particular report for this year. Wanted to see who else is on there. Thanks!

Dave Cameron: Welcome to the last pre-season chat of the year. The queue is now open, and we’ll talk Positional Power Rankings, Opening Day, or any other non-fantasy subject you’d like to tackle.

Comment From Roenis Elias
Ummm… who the hell am I?

Dave Cameron: A non-prospect being pushed into a rotation spot because an organization failed to actually build real depth over the winter.

Comment From SRN
Do you put any value in Moustakas’ Spring performance? Any reason (yet) to suspect he’ll outperform projections?

Dave Cameron: No and no.

Comment From the Average Sports Fan
The Reds not a top 15 rotation? Please explain.

Paul Swydan: Hi everybody! I will see you tonight at 9 pm ET and we’ll talk some baseball. Lots of injuries and positional power rankings and new books about the Expos and all sorts of other junk going on. BASEBALL!

See you soon!

Paul Swydan: Hey hey hey. Let’s talk some talk.

Paul Swydan: FYI, Jeff may join us later, but he’s off watching college baseball at the moment. Or was, and is now en route to his house. Or something. Either way, he’s not here right now. So you’re stuck with just me.

Comment From Kevin
With Phelps not making the rotation in NY, how available is he? Seattle seems to be a team that could use him, and maybe NY could create a package to get Franklin, seems logical to me.

Paul Swydan: While the Mariners are desperate for pitching, I don’t think Phelps is capable of being the centerpiece of a deal for Franklin, and the Yankees system is thin enough in the upper minors that I don’t see this happening.

Paul Swydan: I see Phelps as being who he is — a swingman who makes 10 or so starts a year, but is not a guy who is part of Plan A in the starting rotation.

Jeff Sullivan: Hello there, friends and others!

Jeff Sullivan: I can already tell this chat is going to be littered with questions about Nick Franklin and Didi Gregorius.

Jeff Sullivan: So we’ll deal with that on a case-by-case basis. I’ll also have you know it’s my intention to chat for less time than usual, because today will be an unusually busy day outside of this.

Jeff Sullivan: So I’ll try to chat a little faster to make up for the reduced duration

Comment From juan pierres mustache
Mets just sent Dice-K to minors…you think Mejia gets the 5th spot now?

Jeff Sullivan: Looking that way to me. Which means a temporary delay in jerking him around!

Dan Szymborski: Cover it Live has something called “prep mode” which I do not use because no Cover it Live features scare me.

Dan Szymborski: First things first, I usual initial off-topic business, the Electoral Brawllege.

:

:

Comment From Texas Dolly
Hey Dan. Thanks for doing the chat today! Thoughts on Tanner Scheppers and his emergence into the Texas rotation? What should we expect from him this season?

Dan Szymborski: As a starter, I expect him to be league-averageish, maybe a skosh below, but safely above replacment.

Eno Sarris: yo

digthecrates:

Eno Sarris: Just because.

Comment From Teddy
Hey eno i got a slight problem,

Eno Sarris: I know, I’m addicted to fantasy baseball too.

Comment From Matt Davidson
When do you expect me to play my first regular season game for the White Sox?

Dave Cameron: It’s both the first day of the Positional Power Rankings series and the last chat before MLB games that count are played. We can chat about the PPRs, the Australia games, or anything else (non-fantasy related) that piques your interest.

Comment From ACC
Any chance that Baez starts the year in the bigs???

Dave Cameron: I would guess virtually none. There’s no reason for the Cubs to give up a year of service time by letting him accrue a full season.

Comment From Lily
What is your feeling on Carlos Martinez … does he get a shot in rotation out of spring training and what is his ceiling??

Dave Cameron: I doubt it. I think he’s a reliever both now and in the future.

Comment From fivetoolmike
Where should MLB put their next “opening series” after Australia?