Dan Szymborski: Greetings all! So begins another Chatxperience!

Matt: In your opinion, who is the best person currently playing in mlb? Not the best player, the best person.

Dan Szymborski: I don’t feel comfortable making those kinds of evaluations. I’m very qualified to evaluate players at playing baseball. I have no such qualifications at determing quality of a person.

Dan Szymborski: When we do the chapter BBWAA awards for the local team (Reds in my case), I always abstain from the Good Guy award.

Szan Dymborski: Szmbob! Why do I still think this season is not going to happen?

Dan Szymborski: Well, there’s a raging epidemic going on, so no matter how great a job MLB does, there’s always significant risk.

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon and welcome to my first chat of … summer camp? Spring training 2.0? The long-delayed preseason? I’m still working on what to call it. What’s in no dispute is that I’d like to start the chat with some entry music from the most badass soundtrack composer of all, Ennio Morricone:

Tacoby Bellsbury: Is the bungled start to testing grievable? If so, do you expect the players to pursue that as an Avenue? Should they?

Jay Jaffe: That’s a good question, and not being a lawyer myself, I don’t have a definitive answer. I do know that the discussion of grievances with  regards to the negotiations concerning the return to play centered around whether MLB was making a good-faith effort to schedule as many games as possible, so I would think that the union would have to prove something similar here, and I bet it would be harder given that they did in fact sign off on the health and safety protocol involving this testing regimen just a couple of weeks ago.

Jay Jaffe: Eugene Freedman, who often writes about labor relations, including for FanGraphs, would be a better person to ask on that score.

TheBighen: First round of Mets bids are due 7/9 — whatever that means.  Think Jeff Wilpon gets to stay on as COO for 5 years for all buyers?  Seemed like a reasonable request last time. Cohen has to wind up with this team right?  He’s a lifelong Mets fan and has the most cash, I just can’t see him letting someone else buy the team.

Jay Jaffe: I have to admit my eyebrows did some funny things when I saw the report that Cohen is re-entering the fray. I’d assume that he’s the best capitalized of any potential buyer, and no, I don’t think Jeff Wilpon is going to get five years this time around because I don’t think the Wilpons have the kind of leverage that they believed they did a few months ago.

Dan Szymborski: SORRY I’M LATE I WAS MAKING MITCH HANIGER JOKES ON TWITTER

Jon: I tried to make a model to project break outs and I had zero luck. Any suggestions for a beginner?

Dan Szymborski: Project Arkanoid, it was a more successful Break Out!

Dan Szymborski: Sorry.

Dan Szymborski: It may be that you don’t have sufficient variables in your model to identify breakouts.

Chris: What do you make of manfreds comments about never intending to play more than 60 games? Seems like a dumb thing for a lawyer facing a grievance to say

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to the latest Cape Cod-based edition of my weekly chat. We’re still awaiting word on the go-ahead for the wee 2020 season, and while i remain cautiously optimistic, I also know that Tony Clark and Rob Manfred are as likely to bury salad forks in each others’ eyes as to shake hands on anything.

Jay Jaffe: While the universal DH is expected to be part of this year’s agreement, it doesn’t yet appear to be a done deal for next year, as had been previously proposed. Nonetheless, I have a new piece today noodling on some DH candidates for NL teams https://blogs.fangraphs.com/a-look-at-some-nl-designated-hitter-candid…

Scott: What impact do you think the universal DH will have on the trade market?

Jay Jaffe: It wouldn’t surprise me to see some contending AL teams make moves to shore up their DH spots if their current plans go pear shaped, but until we know about a trade deadline, I’m not sure we can expect much.

Pitch_Out: Remember way back when we were talking about hosting all MLB games in CA, AZ, FL, and possibly TEX? Seems like that would have been a bad call with the way COVID is rampant in those states in particular right now.

Jay Jaffe: Very much so. It’s an utter catastrophe what’s going on in those states, driven by irresponsible politicians.