Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to another edition of my Friday chat. I’m back from a great weekend in Cooperstown, where I survived the 7-man induction ceremony in the blistering heat and got to do some cool stuff like go to the BBWAA party for Lifetime Achievement Award winner Tim Kurkjian at the Otesaga Resort Hotel, the Saturday evening cocktail party in the Hall of Fame plaque gallery, and the party the White Sox threw on behalf of Minnie Miñoso.

Jay Jaffe: I’ve been writing up a storm since returning, with just one entry to go in my annual Replacement Level Killers series, highlighting the biggest lineup holes on contenders. The corner outfielder installment just went up a little while ago https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-2022-replacement-level-killers-left-fi…

Jay Jaffe: With the trade deadline just 4 days away, i see no shortage of questions in the queue about potential trades. I’ll get to some but i’m not going to dwell upon too many because I’m not somebody who has a deep knowledge of prospects and farm systems.

Bill: Likelihood of Soto landing spots by percentage?

Jay Jaffe: Based on multiple reports it appears that the Padres and Cardinals are the two teams way out in front of the pack because of their mixes of controllable young major leaguers and high-ceiling prospects. I’d say that while it’s possible that no trade goes down, we’re looking at a 47.6289% chance of the Padres getting him (that’s an exact figure, btw), about a 31.4858333% chance of the Cardinals getting him, the Dodgers at 4.97367%, the Yankees at 3%, and then the rest of the field making up the remainder.

T: Do you think Strider and Harris would be enough to headline an Ohtani trade? And would you think about it if you were the Braves?

Dan Szymborski: It’s chat time!

Dan Szymborski: And yes, that’s a Gordon Solie reference in the teaser for the link on the main page to this chat.

Champdo: So I saw something about how most tigers hitters vertical bat angle has gone down this year. Could that explain their hitting woes?

Dan Szymborski: I saw it too and in fact retweeted it! Whether it’s the factor or not is a trickier matter. Causation is a cruel mistress. But it’s at least *interesting* and worth a deeper exploration

Dan Szymborski: Maybe I’ll look at it in August at some point. But this week is TRADE DEADLINE MADNESS~!

Dan Szymborski: or it better be!

Dan Szymborski: Good afternoon!

Dk: Who is your favorite to get Soto? When is he more likely to be traded? August or November?

Dan Szymborski: I think he’s more likely to be traded in the offseason

Dan Szymborski: I think the Padres might make a push

Dan Szymborski: Though I think where he ends up depending on how insistent they are in “bundling” Patrick Corbin in

Vic: On MLB draft night, so many Top 15 picks are spoke of in glowing terms. It’s inferred that many of them are likely a 50/50 prop to have a Francisco Lindor type career. How many of this year’s Top 15 even have a 20% chance of a Lindor type career?

Eric A Longenhagen: Hello from sunny LA and the MLB Draft. Here I am to chat. It’s quite full of people here, I’m sitting between the two sets. I won’t be tweeting out picks before they happen this year, instead I’ll be Woj’ing here. May presence may be variable as Meg and I have a bunch of site-related tech stuff to juggle with regard to adding picks to The Board.

Eric A Longenhagen: If you’re here I’m guessing you know how to navigate over to The Board to see rankings and reports.

Eric A Longenhagen: let’s get to some questions before festivities start. If other folks are breaking picks on Twitter and you guys feel like posting it in the chat queue, that’d be cool and would mean I get to be in this space more consistently. I’m off there for reasons I’m sure are obvious to most of you.

Oddball Herrera: Starting to hear some “Twins should go with Rocker so he can whiz to the major league bullpen”.  Is that realistic at all or just click bait?

Eric A Longenhagen: I haven’t heard that at all, think they’re in position to scoop someone who falls unexpectedly or cut with a college bat they like

Ethan: Any small college guys you like?

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to my final chat of the first half of the 2022 season. Bear with me for a bit as i finish a late lunch…

Jay Jaffe: some housekeeping: Just before the news that he had been cleared to ramp up his swings, I published this about Fernando Tatis Jr and the slumping Padres https://blogs.fangraphs.com/fernando-tatis-jr-remains-in-limbo-as-padr…. The article has since been revised to reflect the news

Jay Jaffe: I spent the rest of this week doing an unofficial series on some interesting All-Star selections:

Sandy Alcantara https://blogs.fangraphs.com/sandy-alcantara-is-the-games-hardest-worki…

Willson and William Contreras https://blogs.fangraphs.com/a-rare-all-star-brother-act-for-willson-an…

Byron Buxton https://blogs.fangraphs.com/byron-buxton-is-finally-an-all-star/

Jay Jaffe: and Martín Pérez https://blogs.fangraphs.com/a-second-act-in-texas-has-made-martin-pere…

Jay Jaffe: OK, on with the show…

x2R: Do you like the HR Derby? Fav matchup? What’s the Dream HR derby roster for you?

Dan Szymborski: Welcome to chat!

Dan Szymborski: Feel free to flood with questions, no matter how goofy, because this didn’t appear on the site until five minutes ago, so my queue is looking rather ribsy.

DR: Where is the FG draft week coverage?

Dan Szymborski: That’s Eric’s department! I’m sure he has stuff planned

Greg: Is run differential more or less predictive if you remove the most extreme outcomes on either side of the spectrum (i.e. remove 5 biggest wins and losses for a team and then calculate run differential). Thinking about teams like the Pirates who have some sizable losses but very few sizable wins. Are they more like a -125 run diff team or a -85?

Dan Szymborski: I think generally, considering how many games there are, it wouldn’t really change things much

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks! Welcome to another edition of my Friday chats. Apologies that it’s been awhile — travel and holidays have gotten in the way.

Jay Jaffe: A bit of housekeeping: today I’ve got a piece on Shohei Ohtani’s improvement as a pitcher https://blogs.fangraphs.com/ohtani-the-pitcher-has-overtaken-ohtani-th…

Jay Jaffe: Yesterday I looked at what’s gone wrong for the Giants https://blogs.fangraphs.com/giant-steps-backwards-for-last-years-107-g…. Earlier in the week I looked at the anticipated returns of the Red Sox’s Chris Sale (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/with-a-rough-stretch-approaching-red-sox-l…) and the Mets’ Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/for-slumping-mets-help-on-the-horizon-in-s…) as well as the disarray both rotations had been in due to injuries.

Jay Jaffe: Also wanted to share this obituary of Dodgers superscout Mike Brito, who passed away yesterday at 87. Ubiquitous around Dodger Stadium with his radar gun and his Panama hat, he signed 32 future major leaguers including Fernando Valenzuela, Julio Urías, and Yasiel Puig  https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/obituary-mike-brito-legendary-…

Jay Jaffe: [color: var(–primary-app-color);]

[/color] That’s some serious bling

Jay Jaffe: And now, on with the show