Archive for Chat

Eric A Longenhagen: Good morning from Tempe, where the monsoon was in full effect this week. Happy to be home after a long, productive Area Codes. Thanks for stopping by, let’s hit your questions…

rux12321: Any thoughts/insights on recent draftees Cole Prosek and Connor Comeau?

Eric A Longenhagen: I was in Surprise yesterday. Prosek had a big day on the Royals’ side of the Complex. Homered and doubled, big move forward, nice to see him squaring pro pitching out the gate. I was on the Rangers side until they were done (only seven innings yesterday) and Comeau played well at shortstop, took good at-bats. Didn’t sizzle anything but looked good, much more projectable than Prosek. Seong-Jun Kim pitched, 93-94, four pitches, strikes.

Eric A Longenhagen: More through the portal: The Board | FanGraphs Baseball

mistersparkle: Do you see Ethan Salas being promoted to the majors by the end of this season? If so, are the Padres rushing him or does he seem big-league-ready?

Eric A Longenhagen: I think so long as Campy is hitting like this that Fermin/Campy is the duo they’ll go to the mattresses with.

Brendan Gawlowski: Hello everybody

Brendan Gawlowski: Apologies for the delay but we’re here now

Brendan Gawlowski: This will be my last chat until September, taking a few weeks off starting with the weekend

Brendan Gawlowski: Just got back from area codes with Eric, so if you have questions about 17 year old baseball players, this is a great time

Graham Lewis: Drew Cavanaugh gonna get a lot of run the rest of the season. A cool story. Are you coming around on him as a possible regular at all?

Brendan Gawlowski: It’s possible but I think others in the system are more likely to win the job in the long term.

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks!

Jay Jaffe: Welcome to another edition of my Tuesday chats. In less than 24 hours, I’ll be en route to Salt Lake City with my family as we gather to celebrate my father’s 85th birthday.

Jay Jaffe: I’ve got a piece on Dalton Rushing’s UCL tear, his various controversies, and the state of the Dodgers’ catching depth chart in the pipeline. Yesterday, i wrote about Max Scherzer cracking the all-time top 10 in strikeouts as well as feats by Gerrit Cole and Jacob Misiorowski, with JAWS and ZiPS odds updates on both Cole and Saturday’s opposite number, Chris Sale https://blogs.fangraphs.com/max-scherzer-headlines-a-big-weekend-for-s…

Jay Jaffe: On Friday I looked at some precedents to the Adley Rutschman trade, where contenders brought in a new backstop via a midseason deal https://blogs.fangraphs.com/catching-lightning-in-a-bottle-a-history-o…

Jay Jaffe: And that’s where we are.

drplantwrench: which trade at the deadline do you think is most likely to be brought up in 5-10 years as That One Trade where it backfired and the prospect substantially overshadows the main piece?

Dan Szymborski: To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: Except maybe SzymChat.

war2d2: Dan! Good news! I just realized you can sing your name to the tune of “Black Betty” by Ram Jam. Do with this information what you will.

Dan Szymborski: I’m not sure if the lyric “Szymborski had a child bam ba lam” really works

Chandler White: How does Zips react to a player repeating a minor league level and performing much better? The general notion is that it’s expected from potential major leaguers but was unsure if Zips is only factoring in age and other league factors or if there was something built into the algo to reference a repeat in level.

Dan Szymborski: There’s a bit of a penalty for repeating after a previous stint of at least 1/2 a season

war2d2: I felt the Cubs did an okay job at the deadline, addressing the needs they had with decent options (ZiPS seems to agree, judging by your piece on the deadline). Obviously I’m disappointed they didn’t land Skubal, as I think anyone would be. You had said previously that, from a playoff odds perspective, Skubal made the most impact on the Cubs’ chances out of anyone. Would he have made more of an impact alone than the package of Gausman et al did in aggregate?

Brendan Gawlowski: Hello everybody

Brendan Gawlowski: Sorry for the slight delay, I was getting coffee

Brendan Gawlowski: I’d link to all the stuff we’ve done lately but, well, it’s a little overwhelming

Brendan Gawlowski: So let’s just get going

miggy80: Is Kane Kepleys stock increasing now that he’s showing some pop?

Brendan Gawlowski: Talked with a scout who said something along the lines of “I don’t normally like this type of player… but I like him.”

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, and happy post-trade deadline day!

Jay Jaffe: I’m still recovering from the past few days. I stayed up until an ungodly hour writing up the Luis Castillo trade on Saturday night (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/squeezed-out-of-seattle-luis-castillo-land…) even while knowing that the Tarik Skubal trade would become the bigger news

Jay Jaffe: Wrote about the Gausman to the Cubs trade https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-cubs-land-a-potential-playoff-starter-…

Jay Jaffe: Rang the Adell bell https://blogs.fangraphs.com/former-angels-in-the-outfield-jo-adell-is-…

Jay Jaffe: and finally gave Dustin May his day https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-brewers-tap-their-farm-system-to-add-d…

Jay Jaffe: If you missed anything — and I’m still catching up, because when i was writing, deals were flying around like it was a dust storm — the landing page for all of our coverage is here:  https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-2026-fangraphs-trade-deadline-roundup/

Eric A Longenhagen: Hi hello how are you, it’s another 115+ degree day here in Tempe, time to chat.

Big Fan: Philosophically, do you feel like contenders value their prospects too much?  Not enough?  The right amount?  I’m sure the answer varies by team, but it’d be interesting to hear which teams typically fall in which bucket.

Eric A Longenhagen: It varies by executive even more than team. The small market teams covet the surplus value, and the way GM trees have grown the last 20 years has made it so the folks who helm those teams have migrated to the bigger markets, and those philosophies are then employed by the Dodgers, Mets, etc. One’s need to hug prospect is inversely related with their ability to draft and make more. WHen you’re a well-oiled machine like the Rays, you should be more aggressive and push the chips in now and then.

aglossman: I have no interesting or original questions to ask. Do you think the Sox will trade Arias? I hope not

Eric A Longenhagen: Nah, if they do it’d have to be for someone so good you might feel otherwise after it’s done.

Big Fan: The Braves have recently promoted a handful of prospects.  Do you think the timing was to juice their value in models without giving a player long enough to be exposed at a new level?