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

Meg Rowley: Any news that’s of interest?

Meg Rowley: Let’s get a couple of Kiley-related questions out of the way.

BJ: Meg, thanks for taking the time to chat. Will Kiley’s departure affect Prospect Week and the release of the rest of the team prospect lists?

Meg Rowley: Prospects Week will kick off as planned on February 10 – it’ll feature Eric’s Top 100 among other things, and we’re really excited for it.

Meg Rowley: Obviously the prospect team going from two people to one person will have some effect on the lists, but we’re working on a good pace (Orioles will drop tomorrow) and have been planning for Kiley’s potential and eminent departure for a little while now.

Jay Jaffe: Hey folks, good afternoon and welcome to today’s chat, which — as the first day after the Super Bowl — marks the dawn of baseball season, as far as I’m concerned. Pitchers and catchers is so close I can see it.

Jay Jaffe: I’m working on the laptop today, as my desktop computer — the Mac Mini I bought in December 2018 — melted down like 5 minutes after I set off my Dusty Baker piece last Thursday. Hence, this may not be a full-length chat as I can only take so much one-window-at-a-time nonsense with this setup. Anyway, please bear with me.

Chris: So mookie to the dodgers and prospects to the redsox? Is Jerry dipoto gonna take on salary and get involved in this?

Jay Jaffe: From what I’ve heard, Price may be in the deal as well. If this does go down, we’ll have lots of stuff here, including me on the main trade writeup

Guest: How concerned are you about Sale’s arm injuries going forward?

Jay Jaffe: people have been predicting gloom and doom with Sale since before he even reached the majors, but until the past 2 years, he’d always been remarkably healhty. Now, he’s made just 52 starts over the past two seasons and saw a fall-off in performance and velo — down 2 mph from 2018, via Pitch Info — so yeah, I’d say it’s time to be at least somewhat concerned.

Dan Szymborski: We are here, Live from Szym’s Baseball Nerdery Lab, which primarily consists of computers and cat toys.

Jared: Thoughts on the rumored Mookie for Verdugo, Downs trade?

Dan Szymborski: I’ll have more when/if it happens (I’m on the instant react). Now we’re getting into reality territory, unlike those fanciful Lux/May scenarios.

Justin: Would it be stupid to start Billy Hamilton in CF, and then pinch hit for him once he comes up in a medium-to-high leverage situation?   My gut says this is doable with 26 man roster.

Dan Szymborski: The thing is, he makes situations *worse* overall. The standard defensive replacement is a better thing, because you’re leveraging the thing he does when you *know* he’s valuable.

Dan Szymborski: Relatively speaking.

Eric A Longenhagen: Hey, chat. Good morning from Tempe, where it’ll be a sunny 72 today and we’re a week away from relevant local baseball. Prospect Week is in two Mondays. Let’s chat.

Frank: You on board with Dylan Carlson as top 10 overall prospect? What is his 2020 outllok/Rookie of Year upside?

Eric A Longenhagen: Nah. We 55’d him on the Cardinals list (still very strong, typically somewheere in the 20-50 overall range) which is short of that. I think he ends up in left field and that the cement is dry on the power, or at least close to it. Still a very good player.

Rob: Any hope for angels’ fans holding out for one more pitching move?

Eric A Longenhagen: I think that the Will Wilson deal is an indication they’re up against what ownership is willing to do. But I also like Suarez, Canning and Barria and think it’ll be fine.

The West is Wild: Hey Eric, quick question. When a player is listed with 50-60 tools across the board but gets given an overall grade of 40 or 45, what informs that final number? I’d suppose it’s something physical or something to do with projection. Take Orioles prospect Brandon Bailey for example. 50-60 grades, 40 future value. What jives?

Dan Szymborski: And away we go

LAXTONTO: Have you ever tried using SAS Enterprise Miner?

Dan Szymborski: I have not.

LAXTONTO: How do you reconsile that one of your cats can levitate and yet you have never caught him in the act?

Dan Szymborski: There’s lots of weird things in the world.

Connor: Dan, will you ever make the zips projected career war remaining that you occasionally reference in your articles publicly available?

Kiley McDaniel: Hello from ATL! Scout is perched beside me watching every owner walking their dog outside and somehow choosing to bark at 10% of them

Kiley McDaniel: We put up the Tigers list yesterday: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/top-38-prospects-detroit-tigers/

Kiley McDaniel: and we’ve got a couple of other list in progress, some prospect week/top 100 as well. amateur draft season is just around the corner, with JC games already starting, so keep an eye on our draft rankings here: https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/the-board/2020-mlb-draft/summary?s…

Kiley McDaniel: we have exactly 1,225 players in the 2020, 2021 and 2022 draft rankings so I feel like you can’t want more than that

Kiley McDaniel: I also added some notes to the scouting reports with notes from scrimmages last week. Emerson Hancock, Cole Wilcox, Tanner Burns and Carmen Mlodzinski are ones I can remember that are potential first rounders with new notes/tools/ranks as a result

Kiley McDaniel: to your questions:

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

Meg Rowley: Couple of things from the site to highlight. First, Eric and Kiley released the Tigers’ prospects list today: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/top-38-prospects-detroit-tigers/

Meg Rowley: Jay wrote about yesterday’s D-backs/Pirates trade: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/diamondbacks-add-a-full-time-center-fielde…

Meg Rowley: Dan has the Mariners’ ZiPS for 2020. Woof: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2020-zips-projections-seattle-mariners/

Meg Rowley: And Ben wrote about just how much baseball there was last year that didn’t end up meaning a whole lot: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2019-had-a-lot-of-meaningless-baseball/

Meg Rowley: Also, if you’re going to be in AZ for spring training on March 13, we’re having a reader meetup, so come hang out with us: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/instagraphs/fangraphs-phoenix-meetup-march…