Dan Szymborski: CHAT IS HERE

Justin: What does a fair trade for Felipe Vazquez from, say, the Dodgers look like?

Gub Gub: Where’s the beef?

Dan Szymborski: Oops, scroll

IsIt2020Yet?: Huntington says no way they’re trading Vazquez. With this core looking at best like a .550 team, why the heck not? Who cares if he’s still closing a handful of games for a middling team in four years?

Dan Szymborski: They probably should. While I wasn’t the least bit crazy about the Archer trade, my belief was for it to work out, it had to mean that they were going to double-down and finally adopt a win-now priority in the offseason.

Eric A Longenhagen: Hey, everyone. Only link I’ll press upon you this morning will be our July 2 stuff. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/instagraphs/july-2-international-amateur-p…

Lilith: Should I be worried about Trammell? He seems to have lost all of his power over the past year. I heard a rumor that he changed his swing? Is that true?

Eric A Longenhagen: I wouldn’t worry about it. I don’t think he’ll ever hit for significant power, it’ll be an OBP/defense thing.

John Coppolella : What chance do you see of Kevin Maitan ever tapping into his (once) immense potential?

Eric A Longenhagen: maybe 5%? If he were a junior college prospect he’d probably be a 400k sort. Still a prospect, and it’s important to look at him with the context of his amateur reports, but his career probably died when some combination of the player and Braves let his body get out of control.

Brandon J: What do you make of Josiah Gray? Could you see him surpassing Jeter Downs as the better prospect of the Dodgers/Reds trade?

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon folks, and welcome to another edition of my Thursday chat. I’m back from a (mostly) restful vacation on Cape Cod, and today I’ve got a deep dive into the soaring home run rates; I think we’ve reached the point of “Too Many Homers” https://blogs.fangraphs.com/weve-reached-the-point-of-too-many-homers/

I Won a Phone: How come FG on mobile is such a spammy wasteland?

Jay Jaffe: I have no idea because I never encounter this, as I get to sign into my account. I know that if you become a member, you get an ad-free annual membership (https://plus.fangraphs.com/product/fangraphs-membership/), and if your woes are happening even with that going on, well — we’ve got something that needs fixing.

Cove Dweller: Do you think that MadBum gets Jack Morris-like consideration for the Hall?

Jay Jaffe: I think he’s going to have to pitch well for a long time for that to happen, and right now, given that he’s staring a third straight season with fewer than 10 wins (yawn) in the face, with a set of peripherals that have generally been moving in the wrong direction for years, I have a hard time imagining him getting the bulk numbers on which to base such a case that would obviously play up given his postseason accomplishments.

Ryan: Hi Jay, thanks for the chat. When you’re looking at historical stats, how do you decide what date cutoffs to use? I’m looking at team records following a loss using baseball-reference data, and I was thinking only looking at seasons from 1900-present day would make sense- thoughts?

Kiley McDaniel: Hello from ATL! Starting a little early and will run a bit shorter today since I’m tightly scheduled on my last day before I head to Florida for the MLB PDP event, my first of summer showcase season

Kiley McDaniel: As always, all our content and the graduation tracker are here: https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/

Kiley McDaniel: and THE BOARD with all our real-time rankings of every non-big-league baseball player on Earth of consequence is here: https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/the-board/2019-in-season-prospect-…

Kiley McDaniel: and the big content this week is the unveiling of the J2 Board, with a preview and links to everything here: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/instagraphs/july-2-international-amateur-p…

Kiley McDaniel: to your questions:

Greg: I think you said last week 65% chance Matt Allan signs. Where would you put that percentage now?

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

Meg Rowley: It is nice to be back after a little vacation break.

Richard L: Hi Meg,

Billy Beane: Hi Meg.

Meg Rowley: Hi there.

Tim I: Hi Meg, 12 tm 5×5 standard: Moncada for Nola straight up? I can afford to trade offense and need SP. Thanks,

Dan Szymborski: Uh oh

Dan Szymborski: Just letting the queue fill up a bit more. The post wasn’t going live so I had to re-do it.

Dan Szymborski: We’re going to start off at about 12:30 PM

Dan Szymborski: Maybe earlier if you guys build up a mighty buffer.

Dan Szymborski: OK, let’s get this strangely scheduled party started.

Magic Kingdome: I don’t feel tardy

Kiley McDaniel: Hello from ATL! I’m on the couch and Scout is on her bed eyeballing my lunch, which is leftover meat I grilled last night

Kiley McDaniel: (andouille sausage, shrimp, chicken thighs for those curious)

Kiley McDaniel: I would normally link to all the stuff I wrote the last week but I was commanded to not do stuff this week

Kiley McDaniel: but here’s the FG prospects page where all our stuff is, including the graduation monitor so you know when guys will graduate from our lists: https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/

Kiley McDaniel: and also Eric and I have quietly done lots of work on the 2020 draft rankings, which one scout called “absurd” yesterday and I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad: https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/the-board/2020-mlb-draft?sort=-1,1…

Kiley McDaniel: showcase season has begun, as Eric was at the first event of the summer and I’m going to the next two (PDP and college team USA)

Dan Szymborski: “Dan Szymborski is chatting now.”

Dan Szymborski: OH GOD HE ISN’T PANIC

Dan Szymborski: Now I am.

The Other Dave: Is there ANY hope left for the Reds at this point? Or should they start exploring some trade scenarios? It just feels like if everything clicks, they should be a very good team. They just can’t seem to win any 1-run games.

Dan Szymborski: It kinda sucks, but their poor fortune is baked into the cake.

Dan Szymborski: Yeah, they’re 8 games under their Pythag. But the thing is, you don’t get those games back. You expect them to match their Pythags going forward, not get an extra helping from the good luck carnitas.