JotCast | Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat 1/14/25

Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat 1/14/25

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Jay Jaffe

1:01

I think their hubris cost them spots in the Hall of Fame. They knew the consequences for violating the Joint Drug Agreement, and they did so anyway. they're not getting in via the writers' ballots, they'll never even approach the ~66% that Bonds and Clemens got unless you add their shares together.

Mark

1:02

Hi Jay, what would it take for Mark Buehrle to gain some significant ground in the voting and do you see that ever happening?

Jay Jaffe

1:03

Pettitte getting in would trigger a longer look at Buehrle, but he's going to run out of eligibility before that happens. Maybe he'll show up on Era Committee ballots but so long as Bonds, Clemens, Schilling, Sheffield, and Kent account for vote shared 3-5x what he received it's tough to see him breaking through for election.

Phil

1:03

I wanted to thank you for your pieces on Martin and McCann. After a lot of thought, I have come to disagree with you--I think framing falls under the category of influencing the game, akin to the effect of "lineup protection" and simolar hard-to-quantify categories, and HOF voting should focus on direct effects such as hitting, catching, and throwing a ball. But your pieces were provocative, they made me think, in exactly the way one wants from writing on tricky topics.

Jay Jaffe

1:06

I'm glad you enjoyed the pieces and that they provoked some thought but I think your comparison is off base. People have searched for a "lineup protection" quantification and never found one but we've got a ton of objective data on the value of swinging a 2-1 count to 1-2 (for example), the volume that a starting catcher accumulates in this are, and its basis as a repeatable skill from year to year (subject to aging like other skills).

kim

1:06

do you think the dam has truly broken open on The Coors Problem in hall of fame voting?

Jay Jaffe

1:07

Well, we've got Walker and Helton as Hall of Famers, Tulo as a one-and-done given his career length, Arenado looking very strong in JAWS. How much of a problem is there, really?

mmddyyyy

1:07

Would Martin/McCann (or other borderline candidates) have more support if they'd played for a single team?

Jay Jaffe

1:08

A Molina effect? Maybe. But again, I think it's telling that smart teams sought them out as acquisition targets.

Talfred

1:08

I really dislike when sportswriters refer to a player as a "future hall-of-famer". It feels like they use the term most often when referring to a borderline candidate, and the repeated references can influence discussions in a way that's not helpful. What are your thoughts?

Jay Jaffe

1:10

I think it's part of human nature to try to sort these things out as they unfold. We're not always right, and yes they can sway the discussion, but you might have better luck holding the ocean back with a broom if you think you can produce an electorate that is free of this "bias" — which, after all, has its basis in long-term coverage of the game.

Jeff in Jersey

1:10

Do you see a reckoning coming among HOF voters re: the importance of peak seasons for players with shorter careers? I keep thinking about how much extra teams are paying for elite players vs. very good ones. Obviously I'm thinking of Felix here--but also Pedroia, Wright, etc. I say this despite feeling that innings pitched are far undervalued in WAR for starters...but obviously eliteness really matters.

Jay Jaffe

1:11

I think it's a frequent topic of discussion but aside from Utley — whose JAWS is high enough to be right near the standard — we're not seeing much to suggest these guys are going ot get elected anytime soon.

War2d2

1:11

Quick ballot question: Car-Go is on the ballot, but Car-Go is not. Both have eerily identical career WAR numbers. Is it because Gonzalez is strongly identified with one team (Rockies) but Gomez was more of a journeyman? Or that Gonzalez got all his value from hitting and Gomez was more of an all-around player? I guess the question I really have is: who makes the call on which player gets to be on the ballot?

Jay Jaffe

1:14

That's a good question, one I spent a few minutes mulling but it never made it into the piece (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/jaws-and-the-2025-hall-of-fame-ballot-carl...). The separator, I think, is that Gonzalez won a batting title (and finished 3rd in the MVP voting) and had a couple of Coors-driven big offensive seasons, where Gomez didn't have big bold-faced numbers. I can't discount the possibility that the latter may have rubbed some people the wrong way with his antics but my guess is the batting title is the biggest separator.

Idiotic Failson

1:15

Sale is a fHoF, right? I was just looking through career WAR and noticed he's the only guy in the top 100 with >11k/9, which for a starter is...uh...ludicrous.

Jay Jaffe

1:17

I think his Cy Young-winning season puts him back on a Hall path, maybe the second-most-likely guy after Cole (excusing the trio of obvious ones who have already done enough, Kershaw, Verlander, and Scherzer). He. Has. To. Stay. Healthy. Though. And I hope he does because I think he's got a better case than Félix already.

Jeff in Jersey

1:17

Eno Sarris noted that Molina, McCann, and Martin have the top framing seasons of all time, right around the same time. They were ahead of the curve on framing, but now they'd be essentially league-average or better. In other words, framing is important, but an average catcher can learn it--not like Rickey stealing 130 or Ruth hitting more homers than anyone in the league (a different kind of outlier). Does that factor into your thinking at all about their value?

Jay Jaffe

1:19

There was a huge early-adopter advantage... and it wasn't unlike Babe Ruth figuring out the value of uppercutting the ball and knocking it out of the park when everybody else was hitting it on the ground. Being vastly better at something that not everyone understands yet has a lot of value. The new market inefficiency blah blah blah

Mr Burrito

1:19

I love Russell Martin and feel like he was grossly underrated during his career. But would you have traded Martin for, say, Jim Edmonds? Or Troy Tulowitzki? Or Felix Hernandez? In a heartbeat, yes. But all those guys are Hall of Very Good, not HOF….. Also, want to say I love your work and look forward to your insights.

Jay Jaffe

1:23

Thanks for the kind words. I always have a problem with these hypothetical Hall of Famer trades. Would I trade Martin for Edmonds? What does my roster look like? What do their contracts look like? What does my farm system look like? Am I going to be fired if I don't win the World Series this year? I'm not tremendously inclined to think hard about an oversimplified scenario when life puts enough ambiguity and complexity on my plate.

Beyond that, I think Edmonds is a cut above those other guys you mention besides Martin, someone whose WAR and JAWS (60.4/42.6/51.5) are much more in line with other Hall of Famers at his position.

Link

1:24

Speaking of the SP crossroads, does it look like a "rising tide lifts all ships" situation for high-peak, short-career cases with Andruw & Utley giving a boost to the Wrights and Pedroias of the world? Historically, the HoF had made seemingly room for a number of such candidates (Dean, Kiner) though that trickled off at some point.

Jay Jaffe

1:25

Again, there's a big difference in that Jones and Utley have WAR and JAWS similar to the average HOFers at their positions, whereas the Wrights and Pedroias are short. Not every voter thinks in terms of WAR and JAWS but when they're considering the volume of a player's career, those numbers obviously do carry some influence within the voting body.

Jay

1:26

Alex Bregman to yanks holdup due to losing draft picks and/or luxury tax ?

Jay Jaffe

1:28

Probably more the latter. but I can't say anyone looking at his career has to be so confident in where it's headed given his trend arrows. He's not the 2017–19 guy anymore (cough) and his wRC+ has declined in each of the past two seasons.

Why_Wright

1:29

Why do you emphasize the moral component for a player (eg, see discussion on K Rod).    I get dinging a player for cheating, but who are we to assess a person's moral stature based upon news (and/or criminal) reports?

I don't confuse the art with the artist.   I'm gonna go see Pablo Picasso's work whenever I can, no matter his alleged behaviours.

Would you stand outside the met with a sandwich board protesting Picasso?   Would you tell your wife/girlfriend "I don't think we should go to his retrospective, I've read he was a bad man?"

Jay Jaffe

1:34

Criminal reports tend to stick out like a sore thumb and in most cases are far worse than the on-field stuff that some voters are concerned about (PEDs and sign-stealing). Not everybody uses them as a disqualifying factor (I've voted for Bonds and Andruw despite their DV baggage, not that I'm 100% comfortable with that choice) but some people do, and I'm not going to tell them they shouldn't.

Your Picasso example falls flat, for me. I have enough understanding of his place in art history to know that he's one of the greats, but that doesn't mean i go see every exhibit dedicated to him at MOMA or have to anoint him with my seal of approval every year under heightened scrutiny. I think K-Rod was a very good closer, but I don't think he belongs on my ballot or the Hall based on his body of work. The ugly stuff is there but isn't the deciding factor for me.

Key Flaw

1:35

Can HOF Plaques be changed? Like, for example, if the Orioles decide to retire Mike Mussina's number (but let Adley use it) and welcome him back as an Oriole (I'm still bitter they didn't pony up the money to sign him), could he change his mind and say "yeah, I'd rather have an O's cap"?

Jay Jaffe

1:37

Almost certainly no. The Hall did recast Jackie Robinson's plaque because the original made no mention of his role in integration, which eventually became a wrong worth righting especially when Larry Doby's plaque mentioned his role, and when Rachel Robinson weighed in (https://www.mlb.com/news/why-jackie-robinson-hall-of-fame-plaque-was-c...).

A cap choice is pretty trivial by comparison.

1:38

OK folks, it's been great chatting with you all. Thanks for stopping by. Next week is kind of touch and go — it's the day of the announcement and my fingers will be flying already but I may opt for a short chat. Until then or whenever, take care!

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