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Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat - 1/23/24
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AvatarJay Jaffe
2:00
Good afternoon and happy Hall of Fame election results day!
2:02
I've got a lot on my plate today but since my chats have been so scarce lately i figured I'd spend a bit of time answering questions here as a way to burn off some nervous energy. Hall of Fame and hot stove q's take precedence. Speaking of hot stoves, our new range arrived today, replacing the 20+ year piece of junk that this house came with. it had better heat more evenly!
2:03
Here's my look at our Hall of Fame crowdsource ballot results and a preview of election day https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-envelope-please-our-2024-hall-of-fame-.... I'll obviously have more this evening
And here's a Twitter thread linking to the most likely honorees and a few other key pieces in this year's series https://twitter.com/jay_jaffe/status/1749868791738097982

OK, on with the show
Refugee
2:03
FanGraphs voters are small hall? What the heck?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:05
I wouldn't exactly say that. While the two candidates elected in this year's crowdsource poll was fewer than in any of the previous five years, voters averaged just shy of 8 names per ballot; it's just that those were spread more widely than we've seen
Doug
2:06
This is more of a comment but as someone in his mid 20s I was leaning no on Wagner for HOF. But for me Hader is someone who def deserves HOF consideration and he would basically need to keep up this performance through his late 30s to match Wagner. As such, Wagner is in for me
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:07
Hader's got some good seasons under his belt but his -1.1 WAR 2022 dud still looms large. He's definitely going to need longevity into his late 30s to have a shot. But I'm glad he helped you gain a greater appreciation for Wagner, who looks as though he might be a near-miss this year but set up for election next year.
Kevin
2:08
Hi Jay--wondering what it's going to take to finally get Luis Tiant into Cooperstown? I look at s-JAWS and see him tied with Jim Palmer, and ahead of four other contemporaries (Sutton, Drysdale, Marichal, Bunning) plus Sabathia, who ought to fly in on the writers' ballot. I'd hate to see him get the Dick Allen, Minnie Minoso treatment where he's not honored while alive to enjoy it.
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:10
He's in a tough spot because he's now pooled with all of the other potential candidates in the pre-1980 group for next year's Classic Baseball Era Committee, for players, managers, execs, and umpires who made their marks prior to 1980 — including those from the Negro Leagues and pre-Negro Leagues Black baseball. What's more, he never made much noise in his times on previous Era Committee ballot. Maybe our greater appreciation of pitcher longevity and volume will help turn the tide but I'm not holding my breath.
Oracular Pig
2:10
There was an amusing argument on one of the Baseball Prospectus podcasts about whether Gary Sheffield should be absolved of his poor defensive value because he lived in a non-universal-DH world. How much do you or do you not ding him for his defense?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:12
JAWS takes a big chunk of his value due to what's rated as the second-lowest total of fielding runs in Baseball Reference's system, ahead of only Jeter. I find the numbers to be a bit beyond belief, and so I've voted for him on all four of my official ballots, even though he's a bit below the JAWS standard. Generally 50 JAWS is my cutoff for non-pitcher, non-catcher candidates and he's at 49.3
Cube Jockey
2:12
Regardless of the size of the talent pool and the number of deserving expansion cities, is there a limit on the number of teams MLB can have before it's too unwieldy?  I'm thinking that after the next round of expansion, the average drought for a title will be 32 years.
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:15
Well, 32 teams has some appeal in terms of the way it can be cut into 4 or 8 groups in a way that 34 does not, but I don't think it makes a ton of difference.
Yeah Well Hiura Towel
2:15
If Sheffield doesn't make it, it might be pretty hard for him to get elected via a committee, considering the PED stuff.
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:19
Yes, it will be much harder because he'll be alongside the statistically superior Bonds and Clemens on a panel where the Hall gets to choose who votes. We saw last year that the institution is inclined to try to bury those guys to make a point — they received such low shares of the vote that we didn't get their exact totals, just  “fewer than four votes." There's some separation between Bonds, for whom we have voluminous evidence of usage, albeit at a time before MLB had testing and penalties in place, and Sheffield, for whom we have much less evidence as well as his testimony that he stopped training with Bonds and Greg Anderson once he learned that what he was being given was illegal.
Darp
2:19
The Buerhle dropoffs are really disappointing. Given the roids, shouldn't Pettite be punished more harshly than MB?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:21
It wasn't "roids" for Pettitte, it was human growth hormone, and he's confessed to using it during the "Wild West era" of PED usage. Not everybody gets worked up about transgressions from that time period, when MLB, the owners, and the union had a complete institutional failure when it came to policing the game. As for Pettitte/Buehrle, many people view the former's huge body of postseason work as a separator; that's what it came down to for me when picking my 10th spot on the ballot.
Richie Allen and the Ebonistics
2:22
I periodically express my annoyance at the fact that Mr. Allen still isn't in the HOF. Thanks for Your consistent support of His candidacy.  Should've happened while He was alive.
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:22
We're going to have to go through this all again next year. It's gonna be emotional, for sure.
Justin
2:22
I know you'll do more prognosticating in articles over the next week or two, but off the cuff: Assuming a class of 3 and that Wagner has to wait, and that both Jones and Beltran stay above 60%: is there any chance of a 5-man class next year? I know the odds are strongly against it, but I would love it. I suppose more likely is 3 or 4, with remaining free votes going to intriguing down-ballot folks?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:23
highly, highly doubtful. We'll get Ichiro, perhaps CC and hopefully Wagner, but as we've seen this year, even a share in the high 60s is often two steps from election instead of one, particularly on a crowded ballot.
Blake
2:24
Do you think some Hall of Fame voters or other baseball writers have an outsized impact on voting? As in are their voices that hold a lot of sway and pull other voters towards their arguments?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:27
Yes. Just like in any other field, those who have earned the most respect from their peers and have the largest audiences tend to carry more influence within this process than others. If a career excellence award winner such as Gammons or Stark communicates a strong rationale for voting for a particular candidate, that voice is going to carry further than somebody without that profile.
10,000 Rakes
2:28
If Johan hadn't dropped off after his first ballot do you think he would have eventually gained support?  Not even get elected but he deserved more support.
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:28
yes it probably would have accumulated over time given the contrast to the few other starters who have come up for consideration since.
Insert Witty Name Here
2:29
Did Chase do worse than you thought he would on the public ballots?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:33
In the Ballot Tracker team's VIP poll, I estimated Utley with a first-year showing of 17%, which you'd figure might at best have something like a 22%/13% split. Instead, he's right around 40% in the Tracker, which is a pretty solid start. He was always going to be a candidate who needed time on the ballot to grow his support.
Da Bear
2:33
Which will be greater: The number of votes for Colon, or the number of voters passing on Beltre?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:35
Tough call. I've said (somewhere?) that we'll be able to count the Beltré-no votes on one hand, so a maximum of five unless you're Antonio Alfonseca. I'll take the over for Bartolo. Maybe 6 for him, 4 off for Beltré.
Farhandrew Zaidman
2:35
Do you think we'll ever see an MLB manager traded again? There's a historical precedent, and we almost saw it a few times this year in the NFL.
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:36
Yes, given that we've seen it happen three times in this millennium, last in 2012 (John Farrell from Toronto to Boston).
Matt VW
2:37
The Red Sox this weekend suggested that they can coach up the infield defense to produce a 9 win improvement. They were truly abysmal last year, but even with Story available and returning to fielding form for a full season, this has to be malarkey, right?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:37
Ell Oh Ell
Felix
2:37
Have you written about John Franco before?  If Wagner gets in, does he, along with Lee Smith, indicate Johnny should get further attention?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:40
I must have written about him at Baseball Prospectus in the context of the 2011 ballot. He's got the 5th-highest saves total and a 138 ERA+ in his favor but he didn't strike out a ton of guys and doesn't fare well in either version of JAWS (53rd in original recipe, 28th in R-JAWS). I imagine he'll get more attention if Wagner gets in but for some voters, Wagner seems to be as low as they'll go.
Morgan
2:40
If Billy Wagner's not gonna get into the hall, will it be more because of the amount of innings or his postseason record?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:42
I think it comes down to a combination of both — but given that he's gotten to 68%, he's a likely Era Committee honoree if nothing else. The problem for a guy like Franco, who got just 4.6% in his lone year of eligibility, is that BBWAA ballot performance is a significant factor in determining who gets onto the Era ballots; it's rare that a one-and-done gets a chance.
guest
2:42
How is it that Beltre is still not polling at 100%? if he isn't surefire HOF whose voting abilities do we need to revoke?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:43
it's mathematically impossible to get back to 100% when 2 voters have already come out of the woodwork to make asses of themselves. As it is, he's likely to wind up with one of the top shares of all time, and that's gonna be pretty damn cool.
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