Jay Jaffe: Hey folks, sorry for the delay, which will extend just a few more minutes. I just filed a piece on the Astros’ rotation question marks behind Justin Verlander, who left yesterday’s start with a triceps complaint. Let me get situated and I’ll begin tackling the questions.

Jay Jaffe: OK, i’m back. White knuckle Monday morning spilling into afternoon, but lunch (sushi) is on the way and so are some answers.

Dave: Congrats on your promotion to EIC! What big, sweeping changes will rock the site under your rule?

Jay Jaffe: LOL I was misidentified as the EIC this morning in a tweet promoting my appearance on Chicago’s 670 The Score, but co-host Connor McKnight set the record straight:

Dave Kingman: Are you worried about Verlander (scale of 1-10)?

Jay Jaffe: i’d say maybe 3-4 on a scale of 10. The comparison has been made to his 2015 absence, which lasted into mid-June, but the Tigers appear to have mishandled the initial diagnosis and he also strained a lat during rehab. If I’m throwing out a wild guess before the MRI results come in, I think this points to him starting the season on the injured list but returning by mid- to late April.

Eric A Longenhagen: Morning from Tempe. I’m gonna keep it tight to the hour today so I can, among other things, watch Kiley on today’s ESPN spring training broadcast.

Brendon: Looking forward to the Jays list! What’s the most interesting thing you’ve learned after making calls about the system?

Eric A Longenhagen: That aside from Pearson, Roither Hernandez is the hardest-throwing dude in the system.

Vslyke: Curious why Nick Green didn’t make the Yankees list? Not a great 2019, but he was a guy FG had been fairly high on at one time.

Eric A Longenhagen: Could’ve been a 35. Like the ground ball-getting stuff, but two years of command regression on a 24y/o isn’t great

Alan: Likelihood that Franklin Perez debuts in DET this season?

Meg Rowley: Hello all, and welcome to the chat

Meg Rowley: Hope everyone is having a good week amongst all the stressful Real World things – a few baseball-related distractions:

Meg Rowley: Jay wrote about Cole Hamels and the Braves rotation: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/cole-hamels-cranky-shoulder-will-test-brav…

Meg Rowley: Craig has a double feature. First, on the Mets’ outfield situation: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-cardinals-messy-outfield-situation/

Meg Rowley: then on the injuries befalling the AL East: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/injuries-are-throwing-the-al-east-for-a-lo…

Meg Rowley: Also, yesterday Ben Clemens took a look at the dramatic spin spike Trevor Bauer saw last September: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/trevor-bauer-might-have-conducted-another-…

Eric A Longenhagen: Good morning, everyone. Let me tweet a chat link and we’ll get started.

Eric A Longenhagen: Alrighty then

Eric A Longenhagen: Let’s do some links…

Eric A Longenhagen: I was on the inaugural Keith Law Show over on The Athletic which they somehow cut down to 40 minutes. https://theathletic.com/podcast/168-the-keith-law-show/

Eric A Longenhagen: I did FanGraphs audio https://blogs.fangraphs.com/fangraphs-audio-a-dispatch-from-prospect-w…

Eric A Longenhagen: There are two new lists which can be accessed via the prospects homepage https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects

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.