Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks! It’s been awhile since I did one of these thanks to even more July chaos than usual — Replacement Level Killers, trade deadline and Hall of Fame stuff. Glad to finally squeeze one of these in.

Jay Jaffe: On Friday, I wrote about the Padres gaining ground not just in the NL Wild Card race but also the NL West race https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-padres-have-tightened-the-nl-west-race…. I mention that because I’ve got a piece on the Braves that’s about to run, looking at how they’ve slipped into a three-way tie atop the NL Wild Card standings.

Jay Jaffe: And yesterday I took a look at the news regarding yet another lost season for Mike Trout, which put me in mind of Ken Griffey Jr.’s rough run in his 30s https://blogs.fangraphs.com/with-another-lost-season-for-mike-trout-a-…

Jay Jaffe: (grateful for the ZiPS help from Dan Szymborski on that one and yes, i’ll take the over on the post-2024 Trout projection)

Ryan: For what Preller had to cut in payroll and trading Soto I think this is his best job as a GM to date. It just seems like a more complete team then any of his previous iterations. Thoughts on the job he’s done with the restrictions placed on him?

Jay Jaffe: As noted above, I wrote about the Padres on Friday. They’ve dealt with some significant injuries but this has turned out to be a deeper squad than last year, in part because they somehow lucked into a Jurickson Profar career year after a season that might have been a career-ender, and because the Jackson Merrill center field move has paid off so well. I thought they did very well in augmenting their bullpen at the deadline.

Long story short, the Padres’ strength in scouting under Preller, and his philosophy about trading them instead of getting too attached to them, has allowed him to reinforce his rosters and remain competitive even while dealing with some limitations.

Dan Szymborski: And awaaaay we go!

Ryan: Do you think the Padres have a shot of running down the Dodgers? The offense is humming and that bullpen looks insanely filthy.

Dan Szymborski: A shot? Yes. But it’s an uphill fight. Dodgers are an excellent team. The Padres need to not just be really good, they have to have the Dodgers hit some of their swingy injury risk in their high-end talent

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS has Dodgers at like 77% this morning, and I think I’d take the over on what the true mystical probability is that we can’t actually tell

Sam: ZiPS seems to really like Danny Jansen to the Sox.  Is it because his swing is well suited to Fenway?  Similarly in the preseason ZiPS projections for 2024, Jansen’s full year projection is with the Red Sox now – is this projecting him playing half his games at Fenway?

Dan Szymborski: No, the site doesn’t reformulate the old projections

Eric A Longenhagen: Good evening and hello from the Stockyards and the 2024 MLB Draft. It’s full in here and they’ve leaned into the Texas of it all in a way that I am enjoying.

Carlos Danger: Can’t wait for the day after mock

Eric A Longenhagen: the ole’ Jason Parks move.

Guest: Latest update for top 10 surprise?

Eric A Longenhagen: It’s live now. Not a lot of dope that I trust flowing today but what I got is in there.

Eric A Longenhagen: I’ll be Woj’ing picks tonight so feel free to use that intel to make a ton of money on draft props.

Dan Szymborski: It is time.  A time for chats.

ForWhomTheBellTrolls: RE- KC Royals. A lot of fans seem to think it might be a mistake to “sell the future” for reliever rentals and whatnot, and obviously there is a balance. But to me, the farm system is so bad and the team is so far away from actually being a legitimate looking sustainable contender that it could be another 5  years before they are in this type of position again. Do you think it actually makes more sense to sort of  “go all in” to some degree for KCR?

Dan Szymborski: I think there’s something to that…if not for Cleveland.

Dan Szymborski: I think if you go all-in, you at least want to have a really good shot at the division

Dan Szymborski: and the second best record

Dan Szymborski: It becomes trickier when you’re mostly chasing a wild card