Jay Jaffe: Hey hey, folks! Welcome to another edition of my Monday chat. I’m back from a week spent in sunny Siesta Key, Florida — no baseball, just family stuff like watching my daughter and her cousin splash in a swimming pool and build sandcastles on the beach.

I just finished making a presentation about baseball to my daughter’s preschool class, which was wild. We gave out baseball cards, popcorn, and sunflower seeds, and sang “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” Did not get into the various flavors of WAR.

Jay Jaffe: Gah, the poll didn’t post there.

Jaffe rhymes with Taffy: Happy Monday!  The Astros are in for a tough year, especially on the road.  At what point in the season do you think we might start to feel for them for all the booing, vitriol etc.  Self inflicted of course…but….how long?

Jay Jaffe: Hmmm. I can’t see mustering much sympathy for the players who were involved if they’re getting razzed about it daily. I do think I’d reserve my sympathy for those who weren’t part of the 2017-18 teams and may catch some collateral damage.

Thank you for the chat!: Who ‘owns’ article series between authors and publications they work for? Do you agree on ownership before jobs? Part of exit negotiations? Also, how does it tie to book deals? Do you have to work profit sharing out with the publications? I imagine all this could get complicated

Jay Jaffe: It varies from publication to publication and sometimes from writer to writer. At Baseball Prospectus, the rights for each piece reverted to me after a period (18 months I think). At Sports Illustrated, they retain the copyright but are pretty cooperative about granting permission to re-use, such as for my book or to update as part of my JAWS series. Here, I retain the rights to my work.

Eric A Longenhagen: Good morning, chat.

Eric A Longenhagen: There’s watchable Major League Baseball on today, which is lovely. I’ll be back on the team list grind starting next week (Philly and other Tampa cluster teams are up) but for now let’s chat all things baseba..

Toshi: Hi Eric,

Thank you for the chat. While ago, you mentioned during a chat that the Mariners got much better at developing pitchers. Is that because of (1) hiring new people who are good at it, (2) started embracing new philosophy or technology, (3) got better at drafting, or (4) something else? Thanks!

Eric A Longenhagen: 1 and 2. I was in Peoria to watch George Kirby and Sam Carlson throw bullpens earlier this week and they have a rapsodo and edgertronic going in the ‘pen. The dev staff changes have worked out (mostly, one very prominent example did not)

Matt: Where would oscar colas rate by fv from what you’ve heard/seen? And any rumors on who lead(s)?

Eric A Longenhagen: 35, he’ll be on the list of whoever signs him in the honorable mentions. Had a director comp him to a lot of the DH-only type 4A guys

Eric A Longenhagen: Good morning from Tempe, everyone.

Eric A Longenhagen: Today is prospect week’s halfway point, which means the 100 is out. You know where to find it. Let’s get right to your questions…

Jeff: I love Brujan too, amazing plate discipline plus athleticism combo. Is Perdomo with the D’Backs a potential giant version? Maybe not as twitchy but similarly crazy easily

Eric A Longenhagen: Perhaps. Perdomo’s swing really started to have juice in the fall, more from the left side than right. He also has a better shot to stay at SS, in my opinion.

Adam: Is there anything that Wander Franco needs to improve upon?

Eric A Longenhagen: I don’t think I’d say he *needs* to improve, but as I wrote in the piece, he’s a lower launch guy. But are you really gonna tweak the swing?

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon and welcome to today’s chat. As I spent the weekend in Cooperstown at the Friends of Doubleday Hot Stove Weekend event, i’m scrambling to catch up. The chat will begin in a few minutes; thank you for your patience…

Jay Jaffe: OK, I’m back.

Sirras: Are you surprised that LAD somehow managed to pay both MIN and BOS more to complete this deal?

Jay Jaffe: they paid more but they got more, I think. Giving up Downs and Wong was trading from considerable organizational depth — they already have lots of 2B options including Lux, a top-10 prospect ready to take over, and they still have both Will Smith and Keibert Ruiz as catchers, with Wong looking more like an Austin Barnes type. Graterol works as a win-now addition in the bullpen, something that IMO they still needed to add. And if they intend to trade Joc and Stripling, they can further reconfigure.

Jay Jaffe: Leaving the Angels non-deal aside, I’d say that the Dodgers paid more but in doing so also improved their 2020 roster by a larger increment than they had previously done

Nick: Any thoughts on Hinch’s interview regarding sign stealing?  His decision not to expressly deny the use of buzzers was interesting, to say the least.