Eric A Longenhagen: Hello hello from the kitchen counter in scorching hot Tempe, AZ.

Eric A Longenhagen: Let’s get right into it.

Jeb: Can you please enlighten me and everyone what the hell the Pirates are doing? None of yesterday made sense whatsoever

Kevin: Cherington has to be gone by the end of the year, right? Right?

Eric A Longenhagen: Lots of Pirates fan discontent in the chat. I am curious what their best offers were for IKF, Santana and Heaney during the last couple of weeks, I know they like Stafura more than I do, I think they got a couple short term role playing pieces (Flores, Devanney) and I think we need to see these guys, Yorke, etc. the players they’ve acquired in these seemingly always medium deadline deals actually be given the opportunity to do something

Eric A Longenhagen: I’m not about to call for anyone’s job when I know they’re underfunded.

Eric A Longenhagen: Howdy howdy, hope everyone is well. I’m back at the kitchen island in Tempe to chat with everyone, do some draft postmortem, prep for a Top 100 update which will go live on Monday, talk trade deadline… the gamut.

Eric A Longenhagen: Thanks, as always, for your wonderful support and readership during the list cycle and the draft. Time to start 2026 draft prep in earnest (East Coast Pro and underclass Area Codes get going right after the trade deadline) and update some contenders’ systems prior to the deluge of deals.

Eric A Longenhagen: But for now, let’s chat…

Scotty: It was reported that Alejandro Rosario still hasn’t had TJS… any insight on this? I try not to speculate but it feels like some off the field problem and are we looking at a player who might never get on the field again…

Eric A Longenhagen: This is a Chris Young quote from Kennedi Landry’s reporting in February: “..it’s likely UCL, I don’t want to officially say, but yeah, it’s elbow and will probably require Tommy John. … He’s going to require surgery. As with all these things, we want to check the boxes and make sure we get multiple opinions. We don’t want to sit on this and not announce it when we know he’s going to be out, but we’re still figuring out the next steps.” I

Eric A Longenhagen: Here’s an Evan Grant tweet that Scooter is referring to…

Dan Szymborski: I’m here, sorry, got caught up in Hulk Hogan news!

Justin: Hi Dan, what is it about someone like Brandon Marsh that allows him to consistently have a high BABIP?

Dan Szymborski: Solidly above average speed, while he’s not a grounder machine, he hits a lot of *hard* grounders

Mitchell: Seems every article on deadline trade candidates includes Ryan McMahon. I get the guy packs a good glove, but he hits like a second division 2nd baseman, and that’s playing half his games in Denver. Why do we think he’s a desirable asset for a team trying to win?

Dan Szymborski: Theres’ the hope he got his crap together after an AWFUL April. He’s actually been solid since

Ryan: What lower level prospects are you intrigued by who no one is talking about?

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks!

Jay Jaffe: It’s been a few weeks since my last chat. I missed one because of vacation, another because of the All-Star game, and last week at this time, I was sweating bullets because my Mac Mini, which I bought in late 2018, finally bit the dust to the point that its indicator light was flashing a Morse code S-O-S.

Jay Jaffe: Fortunately, I was prepared for this — had scoped out which model I was buying and was backing up my work like it’s my religion (I use Time Machine for on-site and BackBlaze for off-site). So I was up and running within 27 hours and didn’t miss a day of work. Anyway…

Jay Jaffe: Today is D(backs) Day at FanGraphs, in that Michael Baumann and I have done a point/counterpoint regarding whether Arizona should sell or buy at the July 31 trade deadline. My take just went up https://blogs.fangraphs.com/point-the-diamondbacks-should-sell-at-the-…, Michael’s will be along at 12:30, and David Laurila spoke to Merrill Kelly, one of their big trade targets, for another piece https://blogs.fangraphs.com/merrill-kelly-is-a-trade-target-who-thrive…

Jay Jaffe: Yesterday the D-backs popped up in my Worst Defenses Among Contenders roundup https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-worst-team-defenses-among-contenders-2…

Jay Jaffe: And last week was my Replacement Level Killer series, which begins here https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-2025-replacement-level-killers-introdu… and covers 6 installments.