Dan Szymborski: AND GOT HERE

Dan Szymborski: I was finishing an article and it was a race against the clock!

Danny Almonte’s fastball: If you could make a chimera of any 2 current pitchers, who would they be for: the best, the most fun to watch, the most unique?

Dan Szymborski: A Bartolo Colon who pitches like Gerrit Cole!

Dan Szymborski: AND HE WOULD BE ALL OF THOSE THINGS

Danny Almonte’s fastball: Player you love who has a surprisingly low WAR?

Eric A Longenhagen: Good morning from Tempe. Let’s have a brisk chat.

bk: Regarding the draft, will there be any real team specific, substantiated rumors leading up to it? Or is this just a year of ranking players (as you have), without any real ability to conduct a well sourced mock draft?

Eric A Longenhagen: Mock drafts are going to be tougher this year because some of who I/we attached to players was based on what personnel were at what games, and then of course that dope was rolled into more dope as we’d call around share that. Now, you have to derive more from agents and from teams without incentive to mislead you in a situation, and both of those are more often impacted by ulterior motives than “This GM is at a game in May” which is typically all signal.

Greg: How does a five-round draft change strategy for teams with extra or fewer picks than normal?

Eric A Longenhagen: Depends where those picks are, not just that there are fewer.

Buff: Which team will be your next prospect report, and when will it come out? I live for these reports, have zero interest in KBO or sim league stuff.

Meg Rowley: Hi everyone, and welcome to the chat.

Meg Rowley: I hope everyone is doing well, at least in COVID-19 adjusted terms.

Meg Rowley: A couple of things to highlight – first, Dan’s KBO ZiPS projections are live! https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2020-zips-projected-standings-korean-baseb…

Meg Rowley: Tony recapped the ESPN opener: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-wait-is-over-in-the-kbo/

Meg Rowley: Jay has Part 2 of his interview with Dan Kurtz: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/nothing-lost-in-translation-meet-dan-kurtz…

Meg Rowley: In non-KBO news, Eric is doing a video series cutting together his Diamondmind play and instructs video. The “pilot” dropped yesterday: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/yeomans-work-pilot/

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to the May 4th edition of my chat. While the queue fills up, I’m going to take a moment to bang out an Instagraphs entry on some very exciting news: ESPN and the Korea Baseball Organization have struck a deal to carry English-language broadcasts — one a day, six days a week. Yes, for most of us, the hours will be inconvenient, but if you have a TiVO or DVR you can time-shift and watch at your convenience, which is what I’ll be doing when I can. More details shortly.

Jay Jaffe: and I’m back

Jay Jaffe: Sorry for the delay, but that news is too exciting not to share. Anyway, on with the chat…

E: Without looking, where does Adrian Beltre rank in all time hitter WAR?

Jay Jaffe: (without looking): easily within the top 50.

(looking via B-Ref): 27th all-time.

(looking via FanGraphs): 33rd all-time.

mmddyyyy: Is peak score consecutive years?

Eric A Longenhagen: Good morning, everyone. I’ve gotta fix a data entry issue on The Board very quickly and I’ll be right with you.

Eric A Longenhagen: OKay, thanks for bearing with me. Rangers and White Sox bonus amounts should be populated on The Board shortly.

Eric A Longenhagen: Hope everyone’s as well as can be. Let’s escape into some baseball discussion for a while…

white sox logjam: between Abreu/Vaughn and Collins/Mercedes/Adolfo it seems the white sox have a big time pileup at 1B/DH spots. Which of the latter three do you think other teams would be most interested in for a trade?

Eric A Longenhagen: If you think one of Yermin or Collins either can or will soon be able to catch than you probably prefer that one. I think that’s Collins. But if you think neither or both then you want the one you feel has the best chance to hit, and I think you can make arguments for either of them at that point.

hurtado: Mask of the Phantasm only a 50? Are you high?