Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat – 9/17/24

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks! Welcome to my first chat of September. I apologize for that — this current time slot hasn’t worked out well lately with dad duties and so I’m going to explore moving to a 12 pm time slot

Jay Jaffe: Anyway, on with the show

Insert Witty Name Here: So uhhh….where ya been?

Jay Jaffe: A lot of times that I miss the chat it’s because I have to pick up my daughter from school or (in the summer) camp.   Just tough to get around needing to happen in the middle of a chat.

Cromulent: What does your crystal ball see in 2025 for Kershaw, Buehler, Verlander, Scherzer, de Grom?

Jay Jaffe: Prediction? Pain.

I’m not terribly optimistic that JV, CK and MS have much left in the tank; penciling any one of them in for 30 starts is a fool’s errand, and while they may show flashes of previous glories when things go right, we’re nearing the end of the line on all of them.

I wouldn’t count on deGrom staying healthy for tremendously long, throwing as hard as he does, but I think he can be effective when available. Buehler needs to buy into a new plan of attack with the weapons he still has rather than trying to pitch like he did pre-surgery. Not sure it will be with the Dodgers, though.

ChrisS: Can you rank potential Yankees 1B next season: Ben Rice, Rizzo, Alonso, Josh Bell, some rando?

Jay Jaffe: Alonso is by far the best of that bunch. Rizzo looks cooked. Rice I don’t see enough bat for sustained success. Bell is the guy you trade for on July 30 when your Plan A has gone to seed.

Phil: Do you think Ohtani’s 50/50 run is in part because he isn’t pitching?  Do you think that he can put everything together to get to a 12-13 WAR season?

Jay Jaffe: The 50/50 and the lack of pitching are definitely linked. That’s a lot of extra wear and tear on his body — not to mention risk — that he wouldn’t be putting himself through if he had to start in a day or two. I can’t see him running with that frequency if he’s pitching. He may be Superman but even Superman has his limits.

Jay Jaffe: (if you are the kind of comic book geek inclined to get pedantic about Superman’s limits, thank you for riding but  please exit the bus at the next stop)

Guest: How significant was Posey’s involvement in the Chapman extension

Jay Jaffe: It would seem to be a strong signal that Zaidi’s days are numbered. When the POBO isn’t in the loop, that’s a bad sign

Sonny: If the Mets win the pennant this year would you prioritize The Hamburgler or Officer Big Mac if you were a POBO looking to make an impactful offseason addition?

Jay Jaffe: Hamburglar, as the team ranks 10th in the NL in stolen bases

Jay Jaffe: Ugh, i just realized while looking that up that Lindor needing three steals to get to 30 (to pair with his 31 homers) is much less likely given the current state of his back.

Tony: If you had to rank Machado, Jose Ramirez, and Arenado in order of Hall of Fame likelihood, how would you do it, or are all three already in?

Jay Jaffe: I think Arenado and Machado are pretty much there; Arenado has the most hardware but is also the oldest by over a year, Manny the most likely to fare well in an elder-stateseman-on-a-contender role, and Ramirez with the most work to do as far as traditional stats, but he’s fared the best of the three in MVP voting. I think all three will get in eventually but would rank their current likelihood in that order.

wheelhouse: is it really a reach at this point to say that volpe isn’t an MLB-caliber everyday hitter? obviously his defense exceeding expectations buoys him enough that he’s a good everyday player, but 2 full seasons in he’s both bad and looks like he’s getting worse

Jay Jaffe: I think that’s overstating things. Right now he’s a light-hitting shortstop, below average offensively but certainly good enough when combined with his plus-plus defense to be an everyday player. He’s also just 23, and there’s still time for his offensive skills to improve. He needs to make better decisions and better adjustments at the plate, but that’s hardly out of reach.

In short, Yankees fans complaining about a 3.5-win SS need to chill the F out. He’s not Jeter. Deal with it.

Benjamin, J: Has Clase done enough to start examining him in Cooperstown updates? If he leads the league in saves again, he would be the first closer to do so three years in a row since Craig Kimbrel and he’s posting a season arguably worthy of a Cy Young vote

Jay Jaffe: No. He’s off to a great start but closers, like everyone else, need staying power in order to build a HOF case, just like every other position

Guest: Can you please say something positive about the Tigers to give my brain the dopamine hit it needs today?

Jay Jaffe: I’m pleasantly surprised that we’re in the second half of September and they’ve still got a fighting shot at a playoff spot. I expect them to fall short but this is a big step forward after so many crummy years.

Matt VW: During Saturday’s broadcast, Youkilis suggested that the Red Sox bullpen problems have been due to overwork as the starters struggled to log innings earlier in the year. I think it’s more a matter of the available arms just not being good enough. Which way do you lean on this question?

Jay Jaffe: I think it’s both. Their rotation is 17th in innings so it wouldn’t be a surprise if some of their relievers are  overworked, but a quick look at their strikeout rates tells me they also don’t have enough high-end arms in their current unit. Relief pitching is so volatile, and player paths so malleable, that I don’t think the situation is hopeless but they do need some upgrades.

Guest: Detmers’ 3.77 ERA in 2022 going to be his career watermark forever?

Jay Jaffe: I wound’t give up hope. He’s 24 and missing more bats than ever, and his xERA based on K/BB and quality of contact is a career-best 3.90. There’s room for growth, though it would almost certainly help if he were somewhere besides Anaheim.

not Rickey: Skenes, Merrill, or Chourio for NL ROY ??

Jay Jaffe: Very tough call. Certainly impressed by Skenes and could see him winning but what the two Jacksons have done as regulars on contenders is impressive as well. If I had a ballot right now I’d lean Merrill for his taking up a new position and for his late-inning magic but I don’t think there’s a wrong answer here.

AL Central Casting: Do you think we’ll ever see a player with a triple-digit uniform number in an official game? (My thought was that eventually a team would retire so many numbers that SOMEONE would have to wear it, but maybe baseball doesn’t last that long.)

Jay Jaffe: more likely we see an 08 or 09 or something than a triple-digit number but even then it seems unnecessary.

not Rickey: Through June 1st Chourio was at a 60 wRC+ with a 27.3 K% and 0.0 WAR. Since then he is at a 151 wRC+ with a 16.5 K% and 3.7 WAR. No question just WOW

Steve: Jay, can I ask a HOF related question?  I have your book and I noticed no mention of a SP that IMO deserves mention.  I’m just curious about your opinion of this player (Rick Reuschel)?

Jay Jaffe: Because I was far past my word count (imagine that), I ended up having to cut capsules for a lot of deep cut-type candidates of yesteryear and Big Daddy was one of them. I wrote about him here in 2022: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/cooperstown-notebook-the-best-of-the-unens…

He’s a sabermetric darling who didn’t have a whole lot of star power, and so I really don’t think he’s got much of a chance under the current system.

Mike: Thanks for writing about the Twins, but man, given the state of our fandom, I don’t know who will read that……everyone on that team slumping (or hurt) at the same time is a killer. Julien forgetting how to hit is a real killer, no one saw taht coming (unlike Buxton, Lewis, and CC being hurt, everyone saw that).

Jay Jaffe: If I wrote only for the fan bases of the team in question I wouldn’t last long at this. But yeah, if you’re a Twins fan I get it, it’s a drag right now but at least the guys coming back (Buxton and Correa) are the kind of difference-makers who can really have a big impact in a short time. That pitching, though, yeesh.

Cromulent: Would Francisco Lindor be more valuable to the Dodgers than Shohei Ohtani?

Jay Jaffe: I have not read Kiri Oler’s feature yet (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/francisco-lindor-would-be-more-valuable-to…) so I’m not sure I understand the full premise. Does that mean the Dodgers would have J.D. Martinez at DH and the Mets Miguel Rojas at SS? I guess I’ll need to read to find out. I do enjoy Kiri’s outside-the-box approach to baseball questions, though, so I’m looking forward to it.

John: Ohtani 50/50 or White Sox losing 121 games, which one is more likely to happen? White Sox have 5 more games against the Angels.

Jay Jaffe: Failure is easier than success and one target is easier than two, so I’d guess that the White Sox (who need to go 7-4 to avoid that fate) have a better shot at reaching their destination than Ohtani (who needs three homers and two steals)

not Rickey: How concerning is Corbin Burnes going from a 125 K%+ and 81 AVG+ in his last two years with the Brewers to a 98 K%+ and 97 AVG+ this year with the Orioles on the verge of free anency?

Jay Jaffe: It’s a concern but — and I think I said similar in an earlier chat — he may be taking a more contact-oriented approach just because the Orioles need every inning they can get out of him given the other injuries in their rotation.

Guest: So where are Ben Clemens and Michael Baumann?  Does this have to do with the metered paywall?

Jay Jaffe: I don’t know where they are — they’re always in the last place I look — but it has nothing to do with the paywall. Taking time off in September before the grind of October is a sound strategy for a baseball writer.

Jay Jaffe: While I don’t know what it did from a membership standpoint myself, I can say that we greatly appreciate the outpouring of support received from our readers when it came to the announcement of our metered paywall system. By comparison to most paywall systems, it’s very generous and should be comparatively inobtrusive for light users. Plus as has been said before, this site functions so much better in ad-free mode.

Jason: Is there an updated version of how fWAR and rWAR is calculated? The one is the sabermetric library is from 2012 and I know fWAR uses stat cast for defensive metric. Not sure how much rWAR is updated though.

Cromulent: Did Yankees fans hate Didi Gregorious this much? From a distance it seems like the answer is no. How is they’re hating more on the guy who replaced the guy who replaced the legend?

Jay Jaffe: It doesn’t speak terribly well of those fans, but that said, Gregorius was always understood to be some kind of stopgap whereas Volpe was a highly-touted prospect who hasn’t yet reached his ceiling.

AL Central Casting: Royce Lewis looked like a legit .900 OPS guy through his first 350-400 career PAs but pretty bad since then. Is this the league making adjustments? Is he tired? Just not that guy?

Jay Jaffe: He was due for some regression given his insane early-career numbers, and given his recent slump (45 wRC+ over the past month) I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s not fully right at the moment.

Bighen: should Mendoza be getting more love for moy?  I feel like brewers manager has it locked up but Mendoza has been great for Mets.

Jay Jaffe: I see a lot of complaints about his bullpen management — the unit is 17th in ERA, and 12th in FIP — but yeah I think he belongs in the discussion.

wheelhouse: as much as this doesn’t remotely tell the whole story, the padres are pretty clearly going to have won the Soto to NYY trade in terms of raw WAR, right? Not even adjusting for $, and even as incredible as Soto has been, Cease and King are both down-ballot CY votes starters, Higgy is a perfectly fine starting catcher, and none of the guys they sent to Chicago in the Cease follow-up trade look like they’re going to burn them.

Jay Jaffe: Given that Cease wasn’t part of the Soto trade — he came from the White Sox, who did get ex-Yankees prospect Drew Thorpe in that deal – I think you’re running up the score here.

Justin P: I think the A’s lineup is looking pretty good. Feels like they could be building something if they weren’t moving to Sacramento. Am I correct in assuming it’s going to have negative affect on their players’ development?

Jay Jaffe: I’d say that’s a fair assumption

Guardcore Clevelander: If Luis Arraez gets to 3000 hits (unlikely itself, but still) is he worth consideration for the HoF, or is he just Michael Young in a different font?

Jay Jaffe: if you’re going to play around with long-shot hypotheticals let’s at least see what the context for his getting to 3,000 hits is. He’s already won a couple of batting titles. To get to 3,000 he’s probably going to have to hit at a very high caliber that would make winning more titles likely. Chances are he’d help somebody to the playoffs along the way, perhaps multiple times, and perhaps even in one of his lesser years (like this year with the Padres) so let’s see what he does there.

That said, a 27-year-old with 841 career hits isn’t a candidate for 3,000. That’s about 230 behind Silly Hypothetical candidate Nick Markakis had through his age-27 season, and he doesn’t even get discounts in Utica, let alone a plaque in Cooperstown.

Evan: Would you say that if Billy Wagner doesn’t get into the Hall, then there would be no chance for Jansen, Kimbrel, Chapman, etc to get in? Relievers don’t seem to be well regarded as HOF candidates unless they’re Mariano Rivera-like, so I’m curious as to what you think the chances of future relievers are.

Jay Jaffe: No. Both KJ and CK have higher save totals (4th and 5th, respectively, while Wagner is 8th) and much larger postseason footprints, including a championship ring.

That said, I do think Wagner gets in.

Small Bears: Did the Cubs late run raise Counsell’s first year grade from C minus to C plus ??

Jay Jaffe: I don’t think it’s been that bad. Ownership’s lack of spending has created a team with some significant holes, as sending Kyle Hendricks out for 22 starts suggests (to cite just one example).

Benjamin, J: A follow up on the Arenado, Machado and Ramriez discussion: how much more does Jose have to do to reach Arenado and Machado’s level? I feel like from a WAR standpoint they’re almost nearly identical

Jay Jaffe:

Jay Jaffe: Ramírez is about one Ramírez season away from the other two. He’s produced less defensive value than either of the others but is the best hitter and baserunner of the bunch. He’ll be fine.

Eric: How much do organizations push back against players who play the game in a suboptimal way but make the news in a positive way for it? For example, imagine if someone was on pace for 100 steals but also getting caught 40 times, or Luis Arraez on his recent no strikeout streak where he was actually hitting worse than before.

Jay Jaffe: Nobody is going to let a guy run like that and get caught 40 times. As for Arraez being worse than before? He slashed .397/.436/.473 for the games covering the streak, so you’re off base.

Justin: How many extra WAR would Ohtani have if he played an average right field and put up the same batting and base running value

Jay Jaffe: Currently we have a 10-run gap in our positional adjustments between DH (-17.5 runs) and RF (-7.5 runs) so figure 1.0 WAR over the course of a full season, maybe dialed back a bit due to the extra need for rest that comes with playing defense. You’d gain that in a year like this one, but at the cost of the value — WAR and aesthetic — that comes with him pitching in a “normal” season.

I believe we’re due for a reappraisal of those positional adjustments so the gap may actually be less.

Walton Dilcox: Wow Arraez led the league with 194? How often does the league leader have fewer than 200?

Prospect Improver: This century we had a hitter who ended his age 27 season with 242 hits, and he got to 3000 . . . so ~850 doesn’t seem like a crazy total

Jay Jaffe: Arraez ain’t Ichiro.

Smiling Politely: Hey, so, Tommy Edman — is he actually this good when healthy? The Dodger lineup suddenly looks really long after some tough stretches (ignoring the rotation, heh)

Jay Jaffe: Edman has produced 4.2 WAR per 162 games in his career and is still just 29. He’s a very useful player though I wouldn’t expect him to slug .521 for long, and even .421 might be a reach.

Smiling Politely: To your knowledge, has there been any analysis of pitcher injuries in the pitch clock era? I’ve read a lot of interviews where starters talk about pitching tired more often because of it, and it’s not hard to imagine it being a factor, but i’d be curious what that kind of study would entail…

Jay Jaffe: I haven’t seen a major study just a lot of anecdotal tales.

Prospect Improver: Is PCA a 5-WAR player next year?

Jay Jaffe: Might be a bit of a stretch but not out of the question;

Jay Jaffe: I haven’t looked into how much his batted ball stats match his second-half .277/.328/.480 slash but i do see improved K and BB rates accompanying that line

Walton Dilcox: Any current MLer you think will be a stronger second contract player v their rookie deal?

Jay Jaffe: Assuming you mean rookies who will have better “sophomore” seasons, I’d say Crow-Armstrong is one, Jackson Holliday another. Colt Keith comes to mind, too.

Jay Jaffe: OK folks, that’s enough from me today. Got a whole bunch of things on my plate around the home and some ideas knocking around for upcoming pieces. Take care, and keep an eye out for a possible time change before my next chat.