Meg Rowley: Hi all, and welcome to the chat. Allow me a brief moment to refill my coffee, and we’ll get started.

Meg Rowley: Ok, am sufficiently caffeinated. Let us begin.

Spider Puig: Do you give Gray any chance at the Cy Young this year?

Meg Rowley: This year? No. The top is too good, he doesn’t edge anyone in ERA or FIP, doesn’t lead the second half. But if you’re the Reds you have to be thrilled with his season. Dude looks great.

JustCurious: Who wins the NL awards?

Meg Rowley: Yelich, Scherzer (though deGrom will keep it interesting), and Alonso imo.

Jay Jaffe: Hello and good afternoon! Welcome to my first chat in this new time slot — real life events (mainly my daughter starting preschool) have necessitated changing from my Thursday slot, and thankfully, Dan Szymborski was able to accommodate. You’ll still get the same artisanal blend of sense and nonsense as I usually dish out.

Jay Jaffe: I’ve got a thing in the pipeline today about Michael Pineda’s suspension and its impact on the Twins. And now, onto the questions…

JH: How weak is it that Red Sox ownership isn’t going to discuss Dombrowski’s firing with the media?

Jay Jaffe: That is a particularly weak move as it leaves Alex Cora and the players to answer questions without knowing all that went into the decision or what the future holds

Wicho: Presumably, the new regime is going to have to cut payroll in Boston but how are they going to do that? Most of their big money players are not worth their contracts and they don’t have the prospects to attach to them.

Jay Jaffe: Well, I suspect that J.D. Martinez will opt out and that the Sox might decide that their chances of re-signing Betts are better if they haven’t committed $100M+ to him. Beyond that… they’re going to have to get creative and hope that some of their young players pan out.

Eric A Longenhagen: Good morning from AZ, where we’re waiting for the heat to start to break.

Tank: A few weeks back in a chat you said you didn’t really trust pitchers stats in the Texas League. Any reason?

Eric A Longenhagen: did I phrase it like that? and did I say Texas or Southern? If I said Texas, I meant Southern. It’s just been a putrid offensive season in the Southern League, most team ERA’s are below 4 and the ones that aren’t are just barely above it. So what I meant, more specifically, is that pitcher’s stats should be viewed through that lens

Nick A: Over/under on Yermin Mercedes career homers: 19.5

Eric A Longenhagen: under, but the wager is void if an electronic strike zone gets implemented

Guest: What do you make of the Yankees trading for international slot money right after missing out on Diaz? Also does reneging on that deal affect their ability to sign J2 prospects in the future?

Dan Szymborski: And thus it begins.

Matt: So about the zips prospect rankings? When it happening?

Dan Szymborski: Yup!

Guest: What do you make of the Yankees missing out on Jhon Diaz and then immediately trading for international spending money? Also does the Yankees reneging on their deal with a J2 prospect impact their ability to make future deals?

Dan Szymborski: There’s perhaps something in the story I have missed as I only know the basics. IIRC, the Yankees ran into cap issues from previous international signing.

Dan Szymborski: I doubt it will affect anything long-term.

Kiley McDaniel: Hello from ATL, Scout is resting alongside me as she’s about to begin nap #3 of the day.

Kiley McDaniel: We just posted some changes to THE BOARD on twitter that are reflected on the site

Kiley McDaniel: here is the board link: https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/the-board/2019-in-season-prospect-…

Kiley McDaniel: here be the tweet:

Kiley McDaniel: I’ll probably be sneaking out to the Gwinnett/Columbus playoff game tomorrow, waiting to hear back but expecting Logan Allen v Kyle Wright with Pache, Waters, Riley, Alex Jackson vs. Zimmer, Daniel Johnson, Bobby Bradley. That would be good

Kiley McDaniel: the prospects landing page has prospect leaderboards, graduation tracker and all of our content: https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/

Eric A Longenhagen: Hey everyone, hope you’re having a good day so far. And if you’re not, hang in there. Let’s get to some questions

Brandon J: Mitch White, Josiah Gray, Leo Crawford, Gerardo Carillo. Who are you taking long term, and which one is least likely to pan out?

Eric A Longenhagen: Gray is in our overall 100. White is near-term potential starter who has had injury/consistency issues. Carrillo has more variance but def a relief risk. Crawford sits 86-90.

John: Hey Eric, you guys had a brief glowing paragraph on Jeferson Espinal. Am I right to be really excited about him?

Eric A Longenhagen: Swing efficacy is behind but he’s so young. 70 runner with some physicality and hand-eye coordination. Yeah, he’s fairly exciting.

Cubs Boi: Which MI should Cubs fans be more excited about — Luis Verdugo or Pedro Miguel Martinez?

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to another edition of my Thursday chat. While I wait for the queue to fill, a couple of housekeeping notes. First off, either next week or the week after, I will be migrating my chat to another day, not because I don’t love you Thursday regulars (well, most of you) but because my daughter’s preschool schedule requires a bit of juggling responsibilities within our household. People always ask, “Won’t somebody think of the children?” and here, I have.

Jay Jaffe: So please do not be shocked if my next chat is on, like, a Monday or a Tuesday (the day is still TBD). Embrace the change.

Jay Jaffe: Second, my piece on Aaron Judge’s recent hot streak, and the great team home run race between the Twins and Yankees, is up here. I think I set a personal best for bells and whistles — GIFs, vids, tables, spray charts — added to a piece, and so you will have plenty of things to entertain you but most notably, a Judge sentencing baseballs to die.  https://blogs.fangraphs.com/aaron-judge-is-mercilessly-punishing-baseb…

stever20: what do you think is wrong with Jansen?

Jay Jaffe: Velocity. Via Pitch Info, here’s his progression for his cutter:
2016 94.2
2017 93.5
2018 92.7
2019 92.1

Jay Jaffe: That’s two full clicks gone, and with it some movement — about 2 inches of horizontal movement and an inch of vertical movement. Not great, Bob!

Meg Rowley: Good morning and welcome to the chat.

Meg Rowley: What a nice day for a chat — allow me a moment to fetch a seltzer.

Aaron: After watching the A’s last week, if they had this year’s team with last year’s bullpen performance, they might we a top-3 team in MLB. What on earth happens to bullpens when they plummet like this? Why does bad relief pitching seem to snowball so much?

Meg Rowley: For any one reliever, it isn’t a ton of innings, they have more limited repertoires than starters do, which makes it harder to adjust if things go badly, and if more than a couple are ineffective for a while, you get other dudes pitching more than might be advisable. It’s just a recipe for volatility.

Lucas: Has David Appelman ever done a chat about the business of Fangraphs? I would enjoy that, and I’m sure others would as well.

Meg Rowley: David’s not much for chats, but (and my delay has been in trying to find the episode) he did a guest spot on Effectively Wild that might be of interest