Kevin Goldstein: Hi everyone. I’m here. Tess is here, Eric is here. We hope you’ve enjoyed Prospect Week and our Top 100 list. Thanks to Eric and Tess for all the work they put it, and thanks to behind the scenes folks on this like Meg Rowley’s gigantic editing load, Sean Dolinar’s crazy great tech work, and Luke Hooper’s wonderful design work.

Eric A Longenhagen: Hello from Tempe and thanks for joining us

Kevin Goldstein: Anyway, let’s chat!

Tess Taruskin: Hey everyone!

Guest: Luis Medina at 60 overall seems to suggest at least a reasonable chance of becoming a starter?

Kevin Goldstein: Reasonable chance, yes, but it’s far from a guarantee . . . very far in fact. Stuff is fantastic.

Jay Jaffe: Hey folks, good afternoon and welcome to my chat! I’m running a few minutes behind here as lunch just arrived and I had a home appliance situation to tend to . Gonna need 5-10 minutes to get settled

Jay Jaffe: your patience is appreciated

Jay Jaffe: OK, I’m back

Jay Jaffe: My piece on the Juan Soto extension offer went up earlier today https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-nationals-350-million-extension-offer-….

Jay Jaffe: Yesterday, we published my piece on S-JAWS and the dearth of Hall of Fame starting pitchers from recent decades https://blogs.fangraphs.com/cooperstown-notebook-the-incredible-shrink…

Jay Jaffe: And earlier this week I had a look at the owners’ CBA offer from last Saturday https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-owners-latest-offer-gets-us-no-closer-…

Dan Szymborski: Welcome to a no doubt very upbeat chat!

Sirras: If MLB made an offer consisting of:

• Ownership can only fire one player per month, where “fire” means lighting a player on fire.
• The CBT threshold is lowered to $10 and players on teams over the threshold are subject to daily whippings until the team gets below the threshold

Sirras: Then:

• How likely do you think MLBPA would be to accept?
• Why won’t the players negotiate in good faith?

Dan Szymborski: lol

bk: Dan please, I am starving. A ZiPS top 100 Jays teaser, I need it.

Dan Szymborski: Hey, we gotta keep you guys coming back for SOMETHING. It’s just next week!

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks and welcome to my first chat from the absolute darkest spot on the MLB calendar, the interval between the end of the Hall of Fame election cycle and the opening of spring training, which…. ain’t gonna happen for awhile.

Jay Jaffe: It’s an appropriately gray and rainy day here in Brooklyn, and as i write this, the players’ union has told MLB what to do with its request for mediation to settle the lockout, which was completely unnecessary to begin with

Jay Jaffe: I haven’t yet gotten through Evan Drelich’s piece on where things go from here but suffice it to say that if you thought you were going to see spring training games in late February or March, you should start nailing down those backup plans https://theathletic.com/3112497/2022/02/04/why-the-players-rejected-ml…

Jay Jaffe: Anyway, i’ve been on staycation this week since publishing my five-year outlook for Hall of Fame elections https://blogs.fangraphs.com/dialing-it-down-a-notch-the-next-five-year…

Jay Jaffe: Today I went to the eye doctor and I’m still dilated, so we’ll see how long i can sustain this blurred/haloed vision thing while we chat

Mark: Would you ever consider leaving off a sure thing first ballot candidate to give your 10th vote to someone struggling to pass 5 percent?