Dan Szymborski: And it has begun.

LFC Mike: Dan, Your new avatar reminds me of a young roguish Larry Fine footloose and fancy free with a devil may care attitude in the roaring 20’s.

Dan Szymborski: I went through all my pictures to find the weariest looking one.

Dan Szymborski: Now this is the most frightening one.

Dan Szymborski:

Stevil: Which single organization should be the most appealing to undrafted players that are determined or willing to play despite the 20k cap?

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

Meg Rowley: Before I get going, I wanted to take a second to thank everyone who signed up for a membership yesterday, visited the site sans ad blocker, or purchased merch.

Meg Rowley: We know this is a difficult time for many, and so appreciate everyone’s support of FanGraphs.

Meg Rowley: This community is really very wonderful, and we’re incredibly lucky to be a part of it.

JWDC: Will Fangraphs add more merch or other things members can buy to support your work?

Meg Rowley: Yes! We’ll have more info on this in the coming days. Plans are currently in the works for more merch (we know there are a bunch of sizes sold out), ways to pre-pay for future subs and also gift subs to others, and ways for existing members who wanna help out to do so.

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to today’s chat, where I plan to talk about baseball in at least some shape and form. I hope you’re doing all right; the Jaffe-Span household is trying to keep it together in downtown Brooklyn, where we’ve got a reasonable stockpile of supplies and are taking plenty of precautions when we do need to walk our dog (Sandy) and get our daughter some outdoor exercise.

Jay Jaffe: Some housekeeping: Please read this message from David Appelman. Like just about everyone else in the world of sports, we’re facing some lean times, and we hope that you’ll think of us.  https://blogs.fangraphs.com/a-fangraphs-update-were-asking-for-your-he…

Jay Jaffe: The Ringer’s Bryan Curtis has a piece about our situation and those of several other sports media outlets https://www.theringer.com/2020/3/30/21199460/coronavirus-sports-media-…

Jay Jaffe: I’m currently working on an obituary of Jimmy Wynn, the Toy Cannon — a highly-underrated ballplayer who was a stathead favorite. That will run tomorrow.

Jay Jaffe: And now, on with the show…

Dave: How is Sandy doing?

Eric A Longenhagen: Howdy from Tempe. I’ve got a busy day today so I’m gonna keep this to the 45-60min territory. Hope you’re all hanging in there, executing your scientific, humanitarian and patriotic duty of social distancing relatively free of mental imbalance.

Noah: Do you have an I-Love-You-Even-Though-You-Always-Hurt-Me prospect?

Eric A Longenhagen: I assume it’ll be Monte Harrison when all is said and done

Andrew: If there is a minor league “season”, would it be played at spring training sites?

Eric A Longenhagen: I have no idea. If I did I’d report it in a way that fed my ego and sense of self importance and you’d already have heard about it.

Old guy: A few weeks ago you mentioned wishing you could have seen Barry Bonds at ASU. I got that chance during a college visit. Incredible physically. Obviously stood out even on a quality college team. 80 grade arrogance. Warmed up apart from the rest of the team. Legendary coach Brock called everyone in, and everyone but Bonds hustled over. Bonds kept playing catch with a ball boy and later sauntered in when he felt like it.

Dan Szymborski: Here is Dan, with #PanicDoritos

Daniel: So, favorite and least favorite baseball movie?

Dan Szymborski: Favorite: Sandlot

Dan Szymborski: LEast: Field of Dreams. I find it treacly and overwrought.

LAXTONTO: Where, of all people, did a confernces select me to review a qualitative paper? I do heavy quant stuff all the time and I got stuck with this?!?!?!

LAXTONTO: How are you and the cats my friend?

Meg Rowley: Hi everyone, and welcome to the chat

Meg Rowley: Apologies for being a little late – had to brush my teeth. You know, how we still observe the trappings of a civilization?

I miss baseball: If there is a 2020 season, would you personally put an * next to the winner?

Meg Rowley: I think we’ll have to be aware of the statistical oddity, but in terms of it having an asterisks because it feels less valid somehow, not really – we’re going to be so happy to have baseball back

Adam: I’m sure I’m only about the 67th person to ask this, but can we please make the Carson/Dayn podcasts a regular thing again?

Meg Rowley: Regular? Likely not – I’m not sure how much we can impose on the Blue Jays generosity. But they have a standing invite.

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon and welcome to the rescheduled, on-the-fly version of my weekly chat. It’s been a rough eight days since we last connected here, for you as surely as it’s been for me, but last night I saw a flicker of hope via a YouTube broadcast from Busan, South Korea, where the Lotte Giants (who employ FanGraphs alum Sung Min Kim) played an intrasquad scrimmage, with former MLB hurlers Dan Straily and Adrian Sampson starting for their respective squads.

Jay Jaffe: I wrote more about that in today’s COVID-19 roundup, as well as some other developments involving a minor league advocacy group and the use of Marlins Park as a spot for drive-through testing https://blogs.fangraphs.com/covid-19-roundup-flickers-of-hope-and-even…

Jay Jaffe: The hope for the KBO is that they can start their season in mid-April, in which case I plan to become as well-versed as possible in the league, because baseball.

Jay Jaffe: Last year I did a bit of poking around KBO stat sites when the Blue Jays brought up Ryan Feierabend, a lefty who remade himself as a knuckleballer while pitching for the Nexen Heroes and KT Wiz https://blogs.fangraphs.com/ryan-feierabend-and-the-disappearing-knuck…

Jay Jaffe: Anyway, I’m chatting here with my 3 1/2-year daughter and her partner in crime, our mutt Sandy, underfoot. The queue is filling slowly. I’ll start tackling questions but if there’s a delay in my responses, it’s because I’m keeping the apartment from burning down or at least sticking two LEGOs together.

STRAY: Will we see 125+ games this season?