Jay Jaffe: Hi folks, welcome to another edition of my weekly chat. I ducked out last week to see Noah Syndergaard have himself a day, and just got a piece about the Nationals’ annual dumpster fire off my plate, hence my tardiness. Give me a couple minutes to order some lunch and we’ll light this candle.

Jay Jaffe: OK, I’m back.

Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe: Can’t wait to read your piece about the Nationals. Spoil something for me…is the entire article about how Davey Martinez is out of his league?!

Jay Jaffe: While I eventually turn my attention to the recent firing of the pitching coach and the vultures circling Martinez, the gist of what I wrote is that their problems have been driven by a dreadful defensive performance; they’re either last in the NL or last in the majors in several advanced defensive metrics. Injuries — particularly to Trea Turner and Anthony Rendon — have been part of that, but the bullpen has been a festering sore for years. I think Mike Rizzo and Tigers-era Dave Dombrowski might actually be the same person when it comes to skimping on bullpen budgeting.

lunch: why is it that every year all the pundits pick the nationals to win the east, and then every year they just kind of…….flail about? Is there some explanation for why they seem so much better on paper than their actual performance?

Jay Jaffe: Via our Steamer and ZiPS projections  — which in general are pretty good as those things go — the Nats have been projected to win the NL East in each of the past two seasons, but injuries, some of them completely unforeseeable (Victor Robles’ elbow, Trea Turner’s finger) have had a major impact, and have exposed their lack of depth. At the same time, the bullpen woes are a repeated and foreseeable problem, which, when combined with the revolving door at manager, points to Rizzo as the culprit.

Kiley McDaniel: Was slightly delayed by some Scout shenanigans in the backyard, then I cornered a wasp and smothered it with a towel, then tough talked it like a real hero.

Kiley McDaniel: but also hello from ATL! heading out to check in on CJ Abrams playoff doubleheader later today, working out a mock draft and getting industry thoughts, but don’t want to spoil too many of the scoop-y nuggets we have

Kiley McDaniel: draft board was just expanded today to 350 players and it’s getting updated daily at this point: https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/the-board/2019-mlb-draft?type=0&so…

Jorby: Scout’s take on the upcoming storms?

Kiley McDaniel: she feels it in her bones but also I’m going out of town this weekend for a crazy run of draft prospects so we haven’t covered it in much detail

Greg: When’s the next mock?

Meg Rowley: Hello all!

Meg Rowley: Welcome to the chat.

BEES: BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

bob:

Big League Choo: Which weighs more: 10 pounds of baseballs or 10 pounds of bees?

Meg Rowley: On my soul? The bees for sure. Much harder to dodge.

Dan Szymborski: The hatches are battened, the sails are trimmed, the splines have been reticulated, and the hedgehog has been hidden, so let’s do this!

Gub Gub: If you were a long-haul trucker, what would you name your truck?

Dan Szymborski: Trucky McTruckface.

Colin: Dan, do you think Jose Ramirez turns it around? What would you project ROS?

Dan Szymborski: I still suspect that he does.

Dan Szymborski: Though I still don’t quite get why he’s so BABIP anemic.

Eric A Longenhagen: Hey from Tempe, folks. I’m going to try to move through questions quickly today as I’ve much to do before UCLA/ASU (which should be dope)…

Reid: Hi Eric, thanks for the chat. I’m curious as to what you think is the least common 20-grade tool at the major league level. My first thought was hit, because it’s incredibly difficult to be valuable as a .200 hitter, but I also can’t really think of what a 20 grade arm would look like.

Eric A Longenhagen: I guess *someone* has to have a 20 arm somewhere (Kris Davis, maybe?) but even the wettest of noodles I can surmise (Ben Revere, Juan Pierre) I’d probably 30

Eric A Longenhagen: but yeah, i think you’re right, it’s probably arm

GraphsFan: Question about weighting tools… All else being equal, is a 70 Hit / 40 Game Power prospect = 40 Hit / 70 Game Power? Is there a hierarchy to which tools are more valuable than others when rolling it into a FV?

Eric A Longenhagen: hit uber alles, there are probably better ways to show, with a number or two, the way the this and power tools interact for a given player through the use of batted ball data

Kiley McDaniel: Hello from ATL! I’m living in a writer’s personal hell today as there’s 8 people installing a new roof and they’re all banging as hard as they can for going on 5 hours now. Scout is slowly adapting to being in the climactic scene of a Matrix movie but is still sitting next to me in case something goes down.

Kiley McDaniel: We’re getting into the stretch run for the draft and ___ guy won’t get to pick ___ is getting a little more concrete. The draft rankings for every class (https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/the-board/2019-mlb-draft?sort=-1,1…) are getting updated daily and here’s last week’s mock for those interested in such things (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/mock-draft-1-0-the-top-ten/). And lastly, here’s your draft order/pools (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2019-mlb-draft-signing-bonus-pool-and-pick…).

Kiley McDaniel: My tentative weekend game plans look doomed by weather, so I may stay local this weekend around SEC country. I’ll go get at least one of the two games CJ Abrams is playing Thursday and next week will likely be making a run in North Carolina. After that I should be able to get the Luis Robert/Cristian Pache/Drew Waters series in Birmingham.

Kiley McDaniel: Sorry, had to step away to deal with the source of that noise

Kiley McDaniel: to your questions!

A big dumb idiot: See my username, but is there any changes to one’s opinion of Cavan Biggio with him demolishing AAA?

cavebird: Do you think they should allow Carter Kieboom to get the Boxburger exception to the no emojis rule for player’s weekend?  And if he does, what if his brother is also up that weekend?  Of course, they would have the same name on the back of their uniforms in normal games, too.

Meg Rowley: I really can’t imagine caring what a player puts on his players’ weekend jersey so long as it wasn’t a slur?

Greg: The top 5 teams in defensive runs above average are the Giants, Dodgers, Padres, Diamondbacks, and Rockies. Is this a weird coincidence? https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0…

Meg Rowley: Given some of the individual guys those teams have, it isn’t super surprising, but also, I would warn against looking at a month’s worth of defensive data and thinking it’s anything so meaningful.

The Chop is for Chumps: Meg, what do you make of all the young, superhyped, Atlanta arms flopping at the big stage i.e. Kyle Wright, Touki Toussaint, Bryse Wilson, Luiz Ghohara, and Sean Newcomb?

Meg Rowley: That pitching is really hard and that there is a reason that we were all a little nervous about a pitching-forward approach to building the farm?

Dan Szymborski: Happy April!

Matt: My friends keep telling me to reach out to Don Szymbarski to ask about baseball, so here I am, Don. What are your opinions on baseball?

Dan Szymborski: Don can go spit on a sparkplug

Dan Szymborski: (that’s a reference to the TV-version-edited line from Barry Corbin in WarGames)

Canik: In your experience, how does minor league BABIP translate to major league BABIP? I figure that with less batter ball data, less shifting, and inferior fielders in general, it’s safe to shave off about 15 points (or more for pull-heavy guys)?

Dan Szymborski: I have a zBABIP that I use for minor leaguers, as expected it doesn’t translate cleanly