Jay Jaffe: Hello folks, and welcome to my first Monday chat in a few weeks. While I wait for the queue to fill up, a couple of things…

Jay Jaffe: First, I have a tribute to the legendary Steve Dalkowski, who passed away on April 19. The accounts of his career are voluminous, for he threw faster and harder than perhaps any other pitcher who has come along — but he lacked control, both on and off the fieldhttps://blogs.fangraphs.com/remembering-steve-dalkowski-perhaps-the-fa…

Jay Jaffe: Second, I have a CPBL-related piece in the pipeline for later this week

Jay Jaffe: Third, THE DUMPLING PLACE IS OPEN AGAIN, OH FABULOUS DAY

Jay Jaffe: (I have been jonesing for several varieties of Asian food but those restaurants in my area were the first to shutter)

Jay Jaffe: OK, now, on with the show

Eric A Longenhagen: Good morning from the Valley of the Sun where they lost an Aiyuk and gained a Simmons last night. Draft rankings are updated and over on The Board (you know where that is by now), hope everyone is hanging in there, let’s chat.

Greg: Cole Wilcox seems really impressive on paper. Good frame, throws hard, good changeup and improving breaking ball. What am I missing that’s keeping him out of the top 10?

Eric A Longenhagen:

1. quality of the rest of the class
2. shorter track record due to soph elig & fresh time in bullpen
3. fastball shape

bk: The Seahawks organization continues to be propped up by having a HOF QB, and his presence has given coach/GM eternal job security.

Eric A Longenhagen: I think that’s probably true. Brooks’ tape vs is strong, the rest was just okay

Chamaco: Martin and Tork are both FV55s, but where would they rank on THE BOARD among the FV55s? Also, what are their likely ETAs?

Dan Szymborski: And we are LIVE from pandemic house arrest!

Takeshi Kovacs: C.J. Abrams is obviously a long way off. But how impressed is ZIPS by his first showing in pro ball?

Dan Szymborski: Very much show, for a projection system to put him 30th in the prospect ranking based on rookie ball, is impressive.

Big Joey: In your opinion, what does Wander Franco’s ceiling look like? .330 35 20? I know he’s not a power hitter now, but I imagine he will grow into it. I’ve heard discussions about him turning into something like prime Robinson Cano but with with more speed and potentially slightly better contact skills

Dan Szymborski: A bit aggressive with BA — nobody’s real ability ever spikes that high today — but ZiPS (and I and all the scouts) think that’ll come

Dan Szymborski: He had like 40 XBH total as an 18 year old and playing above rookie ball

Meg Rowley: Hi all, and welcome to the chat. I hope everyone is staying safe and well, or at least, as well as can be expected.

Meg Rowley: A quick reminder that merch is back in the FanGraphs store and available for pre-order until May 10 – if you missed out on a hoodie or an Effectively Wild shirt in your size, now’s your chance! https://plus.fangraphs.com/shop/

Gerry: What would be your ideal walk-up song?

Meg Rowley: I have for a long time maintained that Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made For Walking” would be a terrific walk-up and I see no reason to change my mind now.

Jeff: How interested in trading Brendan McKay for say a pretty cheap, still with sweet powerful team control bat first catcher like say…Willson Contreras…might the Rays be? McKays got workload stuff to work through

Meg Rowley: Not very? McKay’s velo isn’t top of the scale, but he locates it well, works very efficiently, and is ages from arb. Contreras is older, arb eligible next year, and defensively limited.

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to the first edition of my chat in 15 days. Scheduling issues have prevented me from sticking to my usual Monday time slot, so thanks for bearing with me.

Jay Jaffe: I didn’t publish anything today, but on Monday, I looked at the start of the Chinese Professional Baseball League season https://blogs.fangraphs.com/sorting-out-whos-hu-in-taiwanese-baseball-… and last Friday, I looked at the Korea Baseball Organization’s efforts to get its season underway https://blogs.fangraphs.com/half-a-world-away-the-korea-baseball-organ…

Jay Jaffe: It was great to get to see some live baseball in 2020, and I’m hopeful the powers that be will make arrangements to stream more of it so that baseball-starved overseas viewers can partake

Pat’s Bat: Loved your article on Taiwanese baseball.  Why aren’t we all playing Taiwanese fantasy baseball right now?

Jay Jaffe: Thanks, and good question! In a league with just four teams, the prospects for a fantasy game would be somewhat limited, but I think the bigger issues are getting ahold of the statistical feeds to run a game, and to do so without losing anything in translation. There’s a potential for a lot of confusion with so many players sharing the same surnames — I counted seven Lins and three Chens in the starting lineups of the Monkeys and Guardians in the game I wrote about, and there are a couple different variants when it comes to transliterations of those names

Ryan: Someone last week in a chat asked about Hall of Famers and the opposite of Peak WAR/WAR 7. That is, which HOF player, if you added up their *worst* seven seasons, would have the *lowest* WAR total? Ken Griffey, Jr. seems to be a likely candidate to me, considering his fWAR for his worst seven years adds up to negative 2.5 WAR. Do you know of any HOFers who can “beat” that total?

Eric A Longenhagen: Howdy, everyone. I’ve gotta record Effectively Wild a little later so once again I’m holding tight to the hour (book release week and all that), so let’s get right to it.

Greg: What’s your plan with J2 rankings? Any plan to delay it since the signing deadline could be pushed back?

Eric A Longenhagen: It’s low on the priority list right now. I imagine the top of the class which is currently already on The Board will change very little, if at all, with an update. Update will be more about adding names.

J: Daniel Cabrera seems to be dropping pretty rapidly on a lot of boards. Is it because the underlying batted ball data on him isn’t great, and the threshold to provide offensive value in an OF corner is so high?

Eric A Longenhagen: I’d guess the latter but I’s add that this class is just very good and he may have been passed while his profile remains the same. I think that question is better suited for someone who has moved him down, though. I like him the same as ever.

J: How do you evaluate someone like Landon Knack who has a very atypical dev path (only been a full time pitcher for two years, questionable frame), but seems to have made an adjustment to his posture (leaned back) that has led to an uptick in velo and results as a senior? Anecdotally he seems like a guy who could have weirdo upside, but the profile might not scream it initially.

Toshi: Hi, thank you for chat. If the MLB season ends well into November, I am wondering if these games late in season need to be played in ballparks with roofs. How many ballparks have roofs?

Meg Rowley: Including the Rangers’ new digs, by my count there are eight ballparks with roofs, either retractable or fixed.

Meg Rowley: One of those is the Rogers Centre, and I suppose we don’t know what international travel might look like come November, and some of the others are in places that will be mighty chilly, but even still, with the parks in warmer parts of the country, there should be plenty of places for playoff games to be played when the time comes.

Jinder: Let’s pretend all of the covid stuff hasn’t happened, for a moment, which of these pitchers did you expect to have the best 2020: Darvish, Kluber, Lynn, or Paxton (pre-injury)?

Meg Rowley: Darvish – the way he was coming on late last season was pretty impressive.

Meg Rowley: I just bake in time lost to some sad, funky bit of nonsense for Paxton at this point.