Meg Rowley: Hello and welcome to the chat!

Meg Rowley: With a little over 24 hours to the trade deadline the most of exciting move of the season is Stroman, and the Phillies trying to talk themselves into being excited about Jason Vargas!

Meg Rowley: What a time to be alive.

Theo Epstein: Do I need to do more this deadline than sit and hope Hamels, Zobrist, and Morrow come back healthy?

Meg Rowley: Some reinforcements would be nice. Whether ownership let’s you do more… that I’m unsure of. The Cubs aren’t in terrible shape. If you look at our projected WAR totals for the rest of the season, they aren’t languishing at the bottom, and are the best in the Central. But I like insurance. I am perhaps inclined to being overinsured.

Meg Rowley: That bullpen seems like an obvious spot, though that is also an obvious spot for a lot of teams with more to offer.

Dan Szymborski: The worst time of the week starts now!

Esoteric Jeff: Alas, thou hast been slain by a MagiDrakee

Dan Szymborski: HURTMORE

Dan Szymborski: In the original translation of Dragon Quest (Dragon Warrion in America), the primary offensive spell was called HURT. So naturally, the upgraded version you get later is called HURTMORE.

Kiermaier’s Piercing Green Eyes: How does the Stroman trade affect the likelihood of a Tebow callup? This is a serious question I want to know the answer to. Hopefully they’re out of it by September and promote the man for the jersey and ticket sales, but I’m concerned that this strange win-now move will preclude them from calling up a 31 year-old with a 25 wRC+ in AAA.

Dan Szymborski: The Mets are such a weird franchise. If they’re determined to call up Tebow, then they’ll do it, regardless of any conditions that would make it a good or bad idea.

Eric A Longenhagen: Hi hello good morning

Eric A Longenhagen: I have one link to share with you for now, that’s the announcement that our farm rankings (which are, aside from the player evals that drive the FV values, objective) are now live on the board at all times.

Eric A Longenhagen: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/instagraphs/farm-system-rankings-are-now-o…

Eric A Longenhagen: it’s pretty cool

Eric A Longenhagen: I’ll have another link for you later in the chat as Meg is working on editing it right now and that’ll just be the weekly ‘propsects who moved’ post

Eric A Longenhagen: I have a day AZL game today so I’m gonna try to keep this short

Jay Jaffe: Howdy folks, good afternoon and welcome to another edition of my Thursday chat. I’m still digesting my amazing weekend at the Hall of Fame inductions in Cooperstown and neck deep in Replacement Level Killers, the fifth installment of which — corner outfielders — should be up soon. Obviously, there are a lot of questions about the July 31 trade deadline, so let’s get to it.

Fry: Is pressure building up in the market that’s going to explode before the 31st or is this going to be an uneventful deadline?

Jay Jaffe: I think we’ll see a lot of deals in the coming days. This breakdown from last year, compiled by the great Eric Stephen of True Blue LA, is worth bearing in mind:
—
Last year:

4 trades during the All-Star break
1 trade on July 21
1 trade on July 22
1 trade on July 24
2 trade on July 25

Then the floodgates, 35 trades over the final 6 days (18 on July 31)
—

Thus I suspect we’ll start seeing a trickle of deals soon, and then a flood.

Niles: When it comes to acquiring Bauer, how much does his possible effect on the clubhouse come into play? The MVP Machine really spells out how much the Indians had to accommodate him and how he still alienated teammates, but on the flip side it also spelled out how helpful he was when it came to preaching his craft.

Jay Jaffe: I would imagine it’s a factor but one individualized to each team — he’s obviously not going to the Astros given the presence of Alex Bregman and Gerrit Cole, for example. I suspect that the execs of any teams who are serious about acquiring him are discreetly discussing his potential reception with a few clubhouse leaders for some added input. But talent still carries the day, and his is considerable, particularly in a market that’s stretched pretty thin and one in which some of the other top targets — Bumgarner, Syndergaard — might not be dealt after all.

gashouse gorilla : Which teams do you think might me opportunistic at deadline, both buying low and selling? Teams with economic capacity to perhaps get into a 3-team trade to take salary in return for prospects

Kiley McDaniel: Hello from ATL back on my normal chat day. Scout is napping nearby after some solid pre lunch zoomies.

Kiley McDaniel: Most importantly, my smoked wings really came out well, but also dabbled in some bacon wrapped ricotta dates and grilled peach burrata the last few days. Gonna try to smoke some ribs at some point this week, too.

Kiley McDaniel: on the baseball end of things, some cool stuff dropped today

Kiley McDaniel: video from Luis Patino from the Futures Game:

Kiley McDaniel: lots more of that at that twitter account and @fangraphs in instagram

Kiley McDaniel: also we unveiled our dynamic farm rankings and they are very purty after some hard work from Sean Dolinar: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/instagraphs/farm-system-rankings-are-now-o…

Meg Rowley: Hi all, and welcome to the chat. Allow me one more moment of marching orders relaying, and then we’ll get started.

Meg Rowley: Ok, here we go.

Meg Rowley: Hello, baseball folks.

Jimmy: I’m not sure if you do fantasy questions, but would you trade a $2 Julio Rodriguez for a $27 Carlos Correa – currently in 1st, but hate trading away the next best thing!

Meg Rowley: I do not do fantasy questions, mostly because I don’t know anything and would give bad advice.

Xolo: As a fan, how do you handle your team adding a player who you dislike for off the field reasons?

Dan Szymborski: And the chat has begun.

Dan Szymborski: I wasn’t going to address this, but there are a *lot* of questions and comments on the topic, so I’m going to make a quick comment and then no more on the subject.

Dan Szymborski: Jonah Keri is someone who I’ve known for a long time and the allegations are as completely and utterly shocking to me as to anyone else.

Dan Szymborski: His alleged conduct is frighteningly awful and I hope the justice system works as it is supposed to.

(not that) James: ZIPS has Soto projected for 48 HR in 2021.  Given his career AVE (89.6) and LA (7.7), does that seem a bit aggressive?

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS has backed off that somewhat – remember these are preseason runs.

Kiley McDaniel: Hello from ATL! Scout is sitting in her bed next to me, resting after we Trade Valued so hard it affected our sleep patterns.

Kiley McDaniel: Check out the series via the widget at the top of any page to see the whole deal https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2019-trade-value-1-to-10/

Kiley McDaniel: some other pieces that have come out in the last week to check out if you haven’t already:

Kiley McDaniel: Craig on some meta stuff with the Trade value list: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-trade-value-series-skews-young-again/

Kiley McDaniel: Eric on a weird TBR-TEX trade: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-rays-and-rangers-swap-prospects/

Kiley McDaniel: Herzenberg on some Cape looks: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/prospect-dispatch-cape-cod-league/