Marc Hulet: Hi all,

I’m filling the Friday prospect chat hole this week with Mike Newman unavailable. Obviously the Major League draft is on the brain today with the first two rounds going last night and the remainder of the draft picking up again today at 1 pm eastern. I haven’t been following the draft coverage as much this year as in the past but we can talk about the draft in generalities, if you’d like. For more information about last night’s events, please check out Al’s 4.5 hour FanGraphs chat…

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/al-skorupa-fangraphs-draft-chat-6613/

If you have any prospect questions, please feel free to ask… For background on me, here is my offseason work that included the site’s Top 100 list and individual Top 15 prospect lists..

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/fangraphs-top-100-prospects-2/

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/fangraphs-top-15-prospects-lists-a-recap/

If you want to expand from talking about prospects, we can also chat about this year’s MLB rookie class… I recently wrote about my monthly recap of the Top 5 rookies in the Majors, over at Prospect Insider…

http://prospectinsider.com/view/rookie-watch:-miller-leads-charge/

I’m opening up the chat now. We’ll start at noon but you can post your questions beginning now.

Comment From Milhouse
Have you seen Carson Kelly live? Thoughts? I know he’s young.

Marc Hulet: We’ll officially get started…. I have not seen Kelly live but I’ve seen video and have also spoken to talent evaluators who are high on the young hitter. He’s struggling a bit but is still just 18 in the Midwest League… the org is very high on him.

Comment From Milhouse
Has your opinion of Daniel Robertson changed from the offseason? Is he a guy I should be trying to acquire even if it’s a slight overpay?

Marc Hulet: I’m surprised he’s been as steady at SS as he has been… a lot of people expected him to become a permanent 3B right away. I’m very happy with the early returns.

Comment From Hunter Pences Thorax
Astros GM Jeff Luhnow recently said George Springer is staying in the minors. Is this a money thing, or a Springer thing, or both?

Al Skorupa: Welcome to the chat! Please leave your questions and we’ll be starting around 6:30. In the meantime I’ve got some videos for you related to the latest rumors from my buddies Steve Fiorindo and Tyler Bullock.

E Tyler Bullock:

Steve Fiorindo:

Al Skorupa: I wanted to discuss some draft basics before we begin. First off, let’s remember that the baseball amateur draft is a different creature than the other pro sports drafts. We hear a lot about “best player available,” but this draft has never really been about that – it’s about the best mix of value and talent. Cost is a major part of the equation. This isn’t teams being cheap – this is about how to best use limited resources on some… less than stable investments. As a logical extension of that, prior to the new slotting could a team have gone crazy and spent four times what every other team spent and got great results? Yes… but at a very poor ROI. Projecting teenagers and young men physically and in terms of how their skills would develop is HARD. Just like the people around you in your life when you were young there are an infinite number of variable that will determine their success or failure in life. This is very, very far from an exact science and that’s why I have a tremendous amount of respect for amateur scouts and the near impossible job they’re given.

Al Skorupa: I also think a common misconception is that there is a real consensus out there on players. There really isn’t much of a consensus. Scouts differ all the time on players. It’s pretty wide open. Watching some of these guys on the Cape last year who will be taken early tonight and I’d come across cross checkers who would tell me a guy nearly everyone projects for the first round “can’t hit” and they wouldn’t take him. Teams look for different things. Individual scouts look for different things and the process is nowhere as exact as many people imagine.

Al Skorupa: That brings me to… myself. Who am I and why is it worth you reading my chat? Well, I write about prospects for Fangraphs and you can find my work other places – primarily bullpenbanter.com, a site I started with fellow FG prospects writer JD Sussman and a few other talented writers. I do a lot of amateur coverage over there and I’m glad to bring some of it over to FG since I enjoy watching amateurs (as opposed to minor leaguers – who I also enjoy watching!).

Eno Sarris: Will be here in 14!

Eno Sarris: Lyrics of the day are actually the frigging chorus. But yeah, it’s a bit obscure.

Sunny, sunny, sunny whether
Joely wasn’t altogether true
Still our cousin knew
I, I, I, I, no, I, I, I, me me me me
More I want to
Bren coughed boo hoo hoo

Eno Sarris: Also, if I leave or disappear abruptly, I’m sorry. David Walker from Firestone Walker is supposed to call me about the BeerGraphs meetup tomorrow, and, well, yeah.

Comment From Simon
Camped out for your chat trying to get in early bfore lineups lock. I feel like I’m waiting in line over night at K-Mart for tickets to see the Rolling Stones – yeah, I’m that old! Anyway…

Pick 2 of the following streamers with the best ERA/WHIP
Hughes a SEA (Harang),
M. Gonzalez @ HOU (Norris),
Pettitte , a SEA (Saunders),
Jackson v PIT (Burnett)
Phelps a SEA (F. Hernandez)

Eno Sarris: You are first. So you get an answer! It’s like getting tickets in the front row! or something. I like Pettite and Phelps. Hughes scares me a bit. Like he’s looking for something.

Comment From Swoon
Gorgeous Peter Bourjos, expectations for him ROS? Can you also please tell him to actually try and steal once and awhile, since he is so fast. He also has pretty eyes.

Dave Cameron: The queue is now open. We’ll definitely talk about the BioGenesis report, but I’ll be honest, I don’t have that much to say about it at this point. So hopefully you’ll ask about other things too.

Comment From Keith
So what do the Royals do from here? Trade Butler, Gordon and Shields and start over…again?

Dave Cameron: My guess is they’ll do very little in season and Dayton Moore will be fired during the off-season, leading to a new regime and maybe a new plan.

Comment From JEB
I think the big news here is that Chris Perez was picked up last night for recreational drugs!

Dave Cameron: Chris Perez just seems to do so many things wrong.

Comment From Greg
Should the White Sox be looking to trade Sale at the trade deadline to rebuild their system?

Paul Swydan: Hi everybody! Just another day around here at FanGraphs. I was busy pulling off the steal of the ESPN Franchise Player Draft:

http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/9341222/jurickson-profar-steal-franchise-player-draft-mlb

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/page/franchise130603/espn-franchise-player-draft

And Jeff was busy introducing a new and very helpful injury finder:

http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/mash-report-6413-introducing-hidden-hitter-injury-finder

And Chris? Well, Chris is still on vacation, so he’s useless. But Jeff and I are putting in enough work to cover for him. And we’re STILL ready to do more work for you, the people. Join us at 9 pm ET and we’ll cram some baseball down your cramholes!

Paul Swydan: By the way, we’re taking suggestions for Jeff’s injury tool. Early front runners are the reader-suggested acryonyms HURT Score (Hitter’s Under-performance from Recent Trauma), or PAIN (Player’s Abiding Injury Number).

Paul Swydan: Hi guys, let’s do this! Sorry if you couldn’t submit questions for awhile, I closed my computer like a dum-dum. But the phone lines are open now!

Comment From Doo bob
Subtracted Performance Runs After Injury Notice (SPRAIN)

Paul Swydan: That’s a good one. Jeff will be along in a sec, btw.

Comment From Roster Rooster
How about F-HIM (Forecaster of Hidden Injury Metric)

Jeff Sullivan: New excuse for this today!

Jeff Sullivan: I lost my contact lenses!

Jeff Sullivan: I found them though. And now we can begin our customary baseball live chat about baseball.

Comment From Steve
It’s past 12:03! Jeff must be dead!

Jeff Sullivan: I couldn’t see 🙁

Comment From Jimr
Is the 3rd base issue settled with the Braves?

Dan Szymborski: LION-O, IT’S TIME FOR DAN SHIMBORSHKEY’S WEEKLY CHAT SNARF SNARF!

Comment From Chris
I missed your scent. I missed your musk… When this all gets sorted out, I think you and me should get an apartment together!

Dan Szymborski: I haven’t showered yet today, so you probably don’t actually miss my musky scents.

Comment From Jonathan Broxtons Belt
Am I the most underrated player in the league?

Dan Szymborski: Heh.

Dan Szymborski: Perhaps whatever’s keeping C.C. Sabathia’s pants up

Mike Newman: Hello all, thanks for joining me today! We’ll get started in about 15-minutes. While you wait, please check out my piece from earlier today on June leaders for the top prospect in baseball heading into 2014.http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/whos-the-no-1-prospect-june-edition/

Mike Newman: Also, last week I angered a few readers who ripped me a new one for getting frustrated at chatters for not reading up on my work before asking questions. I wanted to apologize for that.

Mike Newman: You know what. I’m here, questions are in the queue, let’s get this started a little early….

Eno Sarris: here in seven

Eno Sarris: lyrics of the day! I actually think this guy sounds like Bruce Springsteen on quaaludes. Am I crazy?

Everything I love is on the table
Everything I love is out to sea

Comment From person hscer
I picked Ryan Zimmerman and Eric Stults in Fangraphs The Game yesterday. Go me. If only I had picked Dioner Navarro, but at least Erik Kratz hit ONE HR.

Eno Sarris: Grats

Comment From FIFA
Hi ES, approximate date of J-Fer shutdown? thanks.

Eno Sarris: I think he can throw 150 IP this year.

Dave Cameron: The queue is now open. We’ll get started in 15 minutes or so.

Comment From Jeff From Austin
What in the world would you do with Bossman Junior?

Dave Cameron: Play him and wait for the slump to end. It’s just a slump, and it will end.

Comment From the Gregorius D.I.D.(i)
if you were the O’s would you demote Gausman at this point or let him keep taking his lumps at the MLB level?

Dave Cameron: It’s two starts.

Comment From Ryan
The Cardinals, Reds and Pirates (tied with Texas) have the 3 best records in baseball. How many (and which ones) make the playoffs?