Dan Szymborski: I WANT MY ELEPHANT

Dan Szymborski: Begin communiqué.

Andy: Is it unfair that some teams can use like an 8 man rotation, and just send some of the players to triple A and not use up roster spots?

Dan Szymborski: Next year, minimum option times are going to be 20 days.

Dan Szymborski: err 15 days

Dan Szymborski: 2020

Eric A Longenhagen: Good morning from Tempe. Please give me a minute to do something to the Royals list (which runs Monday) before I forget.

Eric A Longenhagen: Thanks, let’s begin

Chris: What do you see out of Spencer Howard, Daniel Lynch and DL Hall? Can any of them develop into being a #3 or better?

Eric A Longenhagen: Howard and Hall have a chance for 3 pluses with fringe command, Lynch could be a bunch of 55s with 55 command. That’s right on the #3/4 fringe depending on the inning load

Lilith: Why do you prefer Abrams over Witt?

Eric A Longenhagen: Better feel to hit

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon folks, and welcome to today’s chat. I’m going to give the queue a few moments to fill up while I order lunch, please hang tight.

Kenny Williams: Does a rebuilding baseball team have a responsibility to put a team on the field that is moderately entertaining?  Or is losing and planning for the future the only priority?

Jay Jaffe: Ok, poke bowl ordered. On with the show

Jay Jaffe: Kenny, that’s a fundamental question that the union and owners really need to think hard about in advance of the next Collective Bargaining Agreement, because the current rules have clearly made rebuilding — while profiting handsomely by fielding low-payroll teams with much less threat to decreasing revenue — an enticing option. Baseball is a business, but also entertainment, and if you can’t convince fans that you have SOMETHING to see, even if it’s green prospects finding their way at the major league level for the first time, then something is wrong. I do think the next CBA needs to work on tightening the connection between winning and revenue (especially revenue sharing) in order to prevent so many teams from being non-competitive at the same time.

Ben: How much of the Yankees early issues can be blamed on the injuries? They have been massive, but even the healthy players aren’t performing – Britton looks bad, and Boone has made some awful decisions lately

Jay Jaffe: For all of the lineup’s losses (Stanton, Andujar, Gregorius, Hicks), the offense has scored over 5 runs per game and is fourth in wRC+ (127). Where they’re feeling the injuries the most, i think, is the bullpen, where Betances’ absence has exacerbated the struggles of Britton, Green, Kahnle and even Chapman.

Let’s remember that the one thing that makes managers look the worst in the public eye is when the relievers he calls upon don’t do the job — regardless of his options or what the data says, the knee-jerk reaction is that he’s chosen poorly.

Kiley McDaniel: Hello live from Orlando with Scout in tow. I came back to Florida just for you people. Got the top prep arm in the country last night, Matt Allan

Kiley McDaniel: here’s some high speed via twitter, two more pitches on the @fangraphs instagram:

Kiley McDaniel: Carter Stewart got canceled for today, so plan is to head to Lakeland to get Spencer Howard/Clearwater tonight, then tomorrow double up noon Freddy Tarnok/Will Stewart with Riley Greene/Dylan Crews matchup at night.

Kiley McDaniel: to your questions:

Greg: What did you think about Matthew Alan last night?

Kiley McDaniel: He was 94-96 t97, with a 60-65 CB and CH only in warmups, then rain hit and he came back more 91-94 with a 60 CB and a little less command. Not the slam dunk top 15 pick type for me specifically, but I’m low on most prep righties and the industry says Allan is the consensus top guy (unless Priester keeps coming on like he did last time out).

Meg Rowley: Hello and welcome to the chat!

Estuary Ruiz: Hey Meg! Are there any FG meetups scheduled for this summer?

Meg Rowley: We will definitely do a meetup in Boston before Saberseminar, as is our tradition.

Meg Rowley: And it is sounding increasingly like we will do a meetup in Cleveland around the All-Star game, as we’ll already have a number of folks in town for Futures Game stuff

Meg Rowley: more details/certainty on that in the weeks to come but we will be sure to keep everyone posted!

Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe: If Trevor Rosenthal pitched to Chris Davis in an empty forest, would it make a sound?

Dan Szymborski: Oh god, I’m here exactly at the time I intend to be here. IT IS TIME TO PANIC

Marvin Shabazz: What’s with this whole baseball thing?

Dan Szymborski: Smack hard balls with hard sticks, but not in a homoerotic fashion.

CamdenWarehouse: What would happen if Trevor Rosenthal were to face Chris Davis right now?

Gub Gub: It’s Rex Manning Day.  What are you going to do about it?

Dan Szymborski: First question: Baseball would lock up and blue screen of death and we’d have to start 2019 over again.

Jay Jaffe: Hey folks, welcome to my first solo chat of the 2019 regular season. I’ve got a short thing on Randal Grichuk’s extension up this morning (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/randal-grichuk-joins-the-extension-parade/) plus yesterday’s big piece on catcher framing and its impact on Hall of Fame consideration (https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/framing-the-hall-of-fame-cases-for-mar…). on with the show!

RR: Are projections updated as the season goes on? The Mets won the last 2 games but their Proj wins fell… Not sure how that is possible without the underlying team strength changing. Any ideas?

Jay Jaffe: Our projections are updated, yes. I don’t know the specifics of why the Mets went down in this instance but it could result from revisions in estimated playing time on their team or elsewhere in the league. If, for example, the Braves were to sign Kimbrel, that would improve their projection and take a bite out of the competition’s projections, with the effect felt most within the division (since that’s who they play the most frequently).

Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe: Small sample size, etc., but this sure seems like the season of bullpen meltdowns.

Jay Jaffe: Via our splits, nine teams have bullpens with ERAs over 5.00 right now, and seven teams have bullpen FIPs over 5.00. That’s <checks notes, pulls out slide rule and abacus, does math> not great.

Andrew: Trevor Rosenthal is having a really rough start: 3 appearances, 7 runs, 0 outs. I can’t remember the last time I saw someone fail to record an out in his first 3 appearances in a season.