Eric Longenhagen Chat- 8/14/2020

12:17
Eric A Longenhagen: howdy howdy howdy

12:18
Eric A Longenhagen: Hope you’re all enjoying all the spoarts, I know I’m mainlining them basically all day, I’m even watching hockey for the first time in years.

12:19
Eric A Longenhagen: Baseball uber alles, of course

12:19
Eric A Longenhagen: let’s talk about it

12:19
Justin: Do you expect you will gain access to any of the tracking data from alternate workout sites that clubs are going to share to help along trades this year?

12:19
Eric A Longenhagen: I’m certainly going to try. I’ve been able to do it in years past, hopefully can swing it again.

12:20
Bearry: What do you think of Choi’s switch hitting???

12:20
Eric A Longenhagen: It’s awesome, does anyone feel otherwise?

12:20
Mike: What are your thoughts on how the draft order for 2021 should play out? Do you think Manfred will keep it at reverse standings or do some sort of lottery?

12:21
Eric A Longenhagen: I think they should do away with the draft

12:22
Eric A Longenhagen: I’m not sure what they’ll do, it’s going to be another weird year (it already has been, 2021 evals have been totally disrupted by COVID) and no college football means a bunch of programs are going to fold

12:23
Eric A Longenhagen: Maybe they should push next year’s draft so there can be some extra college-aged player eval during the summer? I haven’t spent any time thinking of potential solutions because a) it’s not like MLB would ever listen to someone like me b) I don’t think we know all the potential problems yet

12:23
Mike: Curious if you completely shelved the (formerly) J2 content and will release that sometime at the end of the year? Do you see things changing between now and then (i.e. deals/teams changing)?

12:24
Eric A Longenhagen: Readership seems to want that stuff when the signings happen, not months in advance, and based on the state of the world, of course things could get weird. Hell, one of the top kids already has a PED positive

12:25
Hopeful Tigers Fan: What do you think of the situation with Lux? Do you think his FV is still 70 or would you lower it?

12:25
Eric A Longenhagen: The Board is live, so he’s still a 70

12:26
Cody: Hi there, in your write-up of Simeon Woods Richardson you state that he “may look a little too good on a pro scouting scale” (Longenhagen, 2020). What exactly does this mean? Does it simply imply that his physical maturity makes plays too large of a role in his successes to fully evaluate his talent. If this is the case, what does he have to accomplish to reach a 55 FV? Would simply repeating his statistical performance at AA be enough to mitigate the concerns surrounding his physical maturity? Thanks!

12:28
Eric A Longenhagen: I say “he might look a little too good on the pro scouting *model*”, you gotta get it right if you’re gonna quote me, dude. It implies age drives the models but that I think there are situations where it should be manually adjusted based on physical maturity, and this is one.

12:28
Hopeful Tigers Fan: Why do you have CJ Abrams rated higher than Riley Greene? Seems Greene has a better hit tool and his current defense in the outfield is plus based on spring training and summer training.

12:28
Eric A Longenhagen: Abrams’ hit tool is better and he’s going to stay up the middle, Greene is not

12:28
Jim B: What do you make of Luis Patińo’s bag of mixed results thus far?

12:29
Eric A Longenhagen: He’s a child facing the best hitters on Earth

12:29
Salem-Keizer Soze: Do you think contenders will be noticeably less inclined to trade prospects for one year rental upgrades this year than in other seasons for risk of the season ending early/legitimacy questions about the year?

12:30
Eric A Longenhagen: No, I think some of them need to push some chips in either for 40-man crunch reasons or because they’re under pressure to compete from ownership. The offsite camps situation also means parent clubs have more on their guys relative to other teams than is usual, and I think that means comfort dealing prospects you don’t think will burn you.

12:30
Gery: As a Braves fan, am I right to be frustrated with pitching development in this organization? It had tons of young, promising arms and not much to show for it. Are my expectations too high? Hard not to think of what orgs like Cleveland, Tampa, LA could do with this group.

12:32
Eric A Longenhagen: I think some of the up/down stuff has maybe been detrimental to some of their dev, but some of it needs to be placed on the collective prospect writing contingent for over-evaluating them, or at least not fully understanding how fastballs work when we did.

12:32
Salem-Keizer Soze: Have you been particularly surprised by Evan White‘s struggles/Kyle Lewis‘ success? I think many would have expected the inverse in looking at their profiles prior to this year.

12:32
Eric A Longenhagen: Nah, White made a huge leap from Double-A to the big leagues and it’s been like two weeks.

12:32
Philosoraptor: Hey Eric! Just a note that Javier D’Orazio shows up twice on the Jays list on the Board – cheers

12:33
Eric A Longenhagen: ope, thanks, will see what’s up with that after we wrap here

12:33
bk: Eric, I’m desperate for reports from the Jays camp in Rochester. Do you hear anything from that site?

12:34
Eric A Longenhagen: Got nothing and, just based on journalistic principals, I wouldn’t trust anything I was told about what was happening there. Only Jays personnel are allowed there, is anyone gonna tell me Jordan Groshans looks lost? Nope. Issue of incentive there.

12:37
Billy G: Will Franklin Barreto ever get a chance in Oakland?

12:38
Eric A Longenhagen: I’m starting to think no. The quality of his at-bats is not good and Oakland really seems to prioritize guys running deep counts, which I get. Kemp and Pinder are clearly ahead of him on 2B depth chart

12:38
Trevor: Any word on the prospects at the padres taxi squad? Seems like there is some buzz on Weathers

12:38
Eric A Longenhagen: I saw Weathers in the fall (he was 86-91) and then again in the spring (velo back into the mid-90s) so that’s where I’m at with him

12:39
Joe: What are your thoughts on Paddack’s curve this year and his new cutter?

12:40
Eric A Longenhagen: It’s still a very vanilla curveball and I think the uptick in cutter usage the last few starts is indicative of the curvebll’s ceiling being limited, which we already knew was likely to happen because that’s true for all curveballs. He’ll deal with growing pains similar to Cole Hamels ’09-’11 I think

12:40
Bichette: Has his FV moved up, and past Vlad? 65/70?

12:40
Eric A Longenhagen: He’s passed Vlad for me, and yeah I should have 70’d him

12:42
MJ: are the Mets the only team that don’t have their top hitting prospects at their alternate site?

12:42
Eric A Longenhagen: I don’t know off the top of my head but I can point you to the Roster Resource pages that have the offsite camp rosters and prospect rankings in one place, which means you can find the answer you’re looking for

12:43
rjd: replace the draft with what? complete free market?

12:43
Eric A Longenhagen: sure

12:43
Tacos in the Fall: Are you concerned about Luis Robert’s swing and miss issues? Who is his best comp at this point?

12:44
Eric A Longenhagen: Specifically I worry he chases a lot. Even if it’s never remedied, he’s still probably a great player. I put a Starling Marte comp on him as a prospect but Robert is a superior defender and has more raw juice. Right church wrong pew, that comp (and comps in general) are bunk.

12:45
Blake: I just saw Gregory Soto on DET for the first time recently. Is he the standard blazing FB with poor control reliever?

12:46
Eric A Longenhagen: Had a 35+ FV on him as a prospect (basically an up/down reliever because the command was so bad) but he’s throwing a full two ticks harder now, his zone rate is not bad (50%), so yeah he at least looks like a 40 FV now

12:47
Erik Gonzalez: Am I good now, or will pitchers adjust and I become bad again? My exit velocity and ISO suggest I am good? help me

12:48
Eric A Longenhagen: Still hasn’t walked, but the launch angle and ground ball rate are different. We don’t have enough PA’s for that stuff to be considered stable, statistically, but if he’s made a clear swing change (I haven’t seen enough of him to know, they really mix time between Riddle, Tuck, EGon and Newman an awful lot) then maybe you wanna buy before everyone else is comfortable with him

12:48
Andy: Is Castellani a viable #4/#5 starter now? Looked really improved in his first start. Is there reason to believe he can keep this up?

12:49
Eric A Longenhagen: still 40 fastball velo, feel pretty comfy with a 40 on him

12:49
Guest: Angels send Justin Upton and his awful contract along with Brandon Marsh, David Fletcher, and Patrick Sandoval to the Nats for Adam Eaton and Wil Crowe…..who says no in this out of the box trade?

12:49
Eric A Longenhagen: The Angels

12:50
Blake: Are you permitted into any forms of amateur baseball right now?

12:50
Eric A Longenhagen: technically, yes. But I have some pretty obvious objections to going as well as some pretty public financial barriers right now

12:51
Kyle: Logan Allen is on the Indians list twice as well

12:51
Eric A Longenhagen: there are actually two of those

12:52
Anthony: Mulholland Drive or Blue Velvet?

12:52
Eric A Longenhagen: Blue Velvet is better but Mulholland Drive is my favorite, if that makes sense.

12:53
Funky Bunch: With the Cardinals missing so many games thus far, is there really any way that they can complete even 50 games before the scheduled playoffs? Will MLB determine playoff spots by Percentage or by total wins?

12:55
Eric A Longenhagen: I have no idea but, as this week progressed, i had more and more of a gut feeling that this was going to be tough to squeeze in properly

12:55
Eric A Longenhagen: Hey, I hear my cat in a fight outside…brb

12:57
Eric A Longenhagen: back

12:57
Bob: Assuming health are you bullish on Triston McKenzie and Josiah Gray?

12:57
Eric A Longenhagen: gray

12:57
Eric A Longenhagen: actually has shown repertoire depth TMac has not

12:58
Jason N: Would you take Tatis’ production or Wander’s potential?

12:58
Eric A Longenhagen: I think I’d take bird in hand, Tatis just looks like what I hope Wander will be

1:00
Guest: Am I crazy for thinking the Twins might have a top 5 offense, defense, BP, and SP staff when/if everyone is healthy? Tbh their defensive improvement has been the biggest stealth surprise for the team this year imo 🤷‍♂️

1:00
Eric A Longenhagen: no, i think that’s right

1:00
Guest: What did you mean about lack of understanding fastball? Spin ? Movement. ?two seam vs four seam?

1:00
Eric A Longenhagen: spin+axis/efficiency+approach angle

1:00
Clint Westwood: Those Tempe stray cats are a pretty tough bunch

1:01
Eric A Longenhagen: Archie weighs 14 pounds so I’m pretty confident he can throw down when he has to, but if I can stop it from happening then I feel like I should

1:01
Quincy: Thoughts on tj antone? Seems like he came out of nowhere. Any other reds pitchers who seem to have benefitted from the new regime?

1:01
James: Thoughts on Yermin Mercedes insane AAA numbers? DH candidate for another team with NL DH now no?

1:02
Hopeful Tigers Fan: Luis Robert still FV60 for you?

1:02
Jefferson: Has your opinion changed at all on Andrés Giménez? He is doing surprisingly decent for never having a AAA at bat.

1:02
Eric A Longenhagen: These questions and others can be answered by heading over to The Board

1:02
Eric A Longenhagen: which is live, and I’m sliding guys around in real time if what I think changes

1:03
Eric A Longenhagen: you can also see what has changed either by following @fg_prospects on twitter, or if you’d like to avoid twitter (which I think is smart) you can check the right margin here: https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects

1:03
Eric A Longenhagen: where the updates also feed

1:04
Eric A Longenhagen: with that, I shall depart. Enjoy the weekend everyone, go Flyers and Grizzlies, go healthy baseball players.





Eric Longenhagen is from Catasauqua, PA and currently lives in Tempe, AZ. He spent four years working for the Phillies Triple-A affiliate, two with Baseball Info Solutions and two contributing to prospect coverage at ESPN.com. Previous work can also be found at Sports On Earth, CrashburnAlley and Prospect Insider.

Comments are closed.