Baseball Prospectus - Chat with Jeffrey Paternostro

Chat: Jeffrey Paternostro

Welcome to Baseball Prospectus' Tuesday March 31, 2020 12:00 PM ET chat session with Jeffrey Paternostro.

Jeffrey Paternostro is the Lead Prospect Writer for Baseball Prospectus and the co-host of the Three-Quarters Delivery podcast.

Jeffrey Paternostro: Current quarantine status: Listening to The Greatest Showman soundtrack a lot for some undefined reason.

Mike (Phoenix): Would Nick Gonzales be a top 100 dynasty prospect right now (or in open player universe)? Top 50?

Jeffrey Paternostro: Projecting draftees forward is even more of a pain now than it would be otherwise, but I'm guessing he goes top ten in the draft which absent any other information makes him a bat-first top 101 guy so probably. 50 might be a bit steep until we see him in pro ball outside of a launching pad.

coffeeguy8806 (Chicagoooo): Does you position change on players after the draft when they are exposed to pro-ball? IE those abs that a player may get right out of the draft (ie Kelenic). He seemed to perform well amongst doubts of his HS competition providing a good read on him. Thanks!

Jeffrey Paternostro: It can (although I saw Kelenic post-draft and it didn't move the needle a ton, the big gains happened last year). I wrote last year about the difficulties in dealing with draft-year guys generally.

https://www.baseballprospectus.com/prospects/article/50479/the-view-from-behind-the-backstop-summer-catch/

Brady (Living room): Have you seen Ironhead Fujita vs. Go Shiozaki from NOAH’s empty arena show yet?

Jeffrey Paternostro: Brady I haven't watched a NOAH match since SUWA screwed up his neck

Brady (Living room): Have you seen Ironhead Fujita vs. Go Shiozaki from NOAH’s empty arena show yet?

Jeffrey Paternostro: Brady I haven't watched a NOAH match since SUWA screwed up his neck

Tom (Arizona): Who is more likely to be the closer in 2021: bummer or Ginkel?

Jeffrey Paternostro: Bummer has a much cleaner shot, although he's been good for exactly one season and reliever variance is nasty.

Venaseph (PA): Assuming there's no season this year, how would you speculate they will handle the contracts and eligibility issues moving forward? Would this non-year count and anyone on a 1 yr contract be again elig for free agency, etc.

Jeffrey Paternostro: This was mostly worked out by the recent agreement where players would get duplicated 2019 service time for 2020, so almost anyone on a one-year or in their final year of arb would be a free agent.

Sean (Charotte): Given the service time that will be granted due to the new agreement is there a chance that Kelenic or rodrgiuez will start the 2021 season? Or come up during the 2021 season?

Jeffrey Paternostro: Doesn't apply to people not on the "roster" so I assume it freezes stuff like Rule 5 years and MiLBFA. There wasn't a huge chance either was up with a full season this year (Kelenic more likely than Rodriguez) and I'd assume that rolls over for 2021 given the lost development time. This is very fluid depending on when and if they start playing games of course.

Sean (Charotte): Given the service time that will be granted due to the new agreement is there a chance that Kelenic or rodrgiuez will start the 2021 season? Or come up during the 2021 season?

Not Collin (Not in Austin): Assuming wrestling is fully back by then...fantasy book the G1 winner and next year's WrestleKingdom main event.

Jeffrey Paternostro: Poor Naito, he finally gets his big coronation and then the world shuts down. I suppose on the plus side this gives him time to heal up some. It sure seems like they want to push Jay White this year, which would, uh, not be my choice (he's fine, but not a top guy for me). I'd be tempted to have Hiromu win it, but they are already going to that match and they've never really pushed a junior like that in G1. I guess the safe play is something like Ibushi over Ospreay in the finals and run Ibushi/Naito as a big match one last time. I'd personally put Ibushi over to get some fresh matches up top, but given the truncated year, I suspect Naito gets a longer run in terms of defenses.

Mike (NY): if Many low minor teams fold and no minor league ball possibly to next year, do teams start rushing prospects through the minors when play resumes?

Jeffrey Paternostro: I think team's main concerns will be having a taxi squad in the upper minors they can dip into given the compressed schedule. I think they'd be fine keeping most of the low minors guys in the complex and running stuff from there. They are obligated to run minor league teams if there is a season, but that can be handled with a bunch of 20k UDFA seniors they can than cut bait with next Spring. If there's no season, I assume we see a robust instructs, fall ball type situation, maybe teams even run some winter league type thing in warm-weather areas, but we are really in uncharted territory here.

Mike (Phoenix): Zac Veen reminds me a lot of Jarred Kelenic as a prospect. Does that comp have legs to you? How would you view Veen as a dynasty asset?

Jeffrey Paternostro: Keanan saw him recently and comped him to Riley Greene. I'd say Kelenic was more presently physical and more likely to stick in CF at the time of the draft.

Jeffrey Paternostro: That's the queue, sis.