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Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat - 1/9/23
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AvatarJay Jaffe
2:39
in his writeup of the Ray/Haniger and Caballero/Raley trades, Jake Mailhot had a good summary of where the Mariners are at https://blogs.fangraphs.com/mariners-and-rays-each-make-a-pair-of-trad...
Dilly Dog
2:40
Should I temper expectations for Grayson Rodriguez? Not expecting the 2.58 ERA he put up after being recalled from the minors but is a 3.50 ERA reasonable?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:41
Dan Szymborski published the Orioles' ZiPS on November 27 and it included each player's 80th and 20th percentile projections along with the median one. Rodriguez's 80th percentile ERA is 3.49 so it's not unreasonable, just not the most likely outcome.
Guest
2:42
Thank you for 20+ years of enlightening work and engaging writing!
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:42
And thank you for the kind words.
mike
2:43
The Twins have done the least work so far......what do you think they'll do first?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:44
They're not in bad shape. Dan published their ZiPS projections today and called them an 85-90 win team https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2024-zips-projections-minnesota-twins/
2:46
To my eyes they could use another starter and another bat to put into the 1B/corner OF/DH mix
Angelo
2:46
Are you surprised at the huge gap in support bw Mauer and Utley? They seem like extremely similar candidates - very high peak, relatively limited number of impactful years. Mauer gets some pass for being a C, but Utley's career WAR is still ~10 higher and the peak was higher too. I can see how some would select Mauer and not Utley, but it's hard to imagine that Mauer spending 5 years at the end of his career impersonating James Loney should be the difference in almost double the support
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:50
Not really surprised. From the 1-1 pick to the MVP award and the other honors as well as the mega-contract, Mauer was generally appropriately appreciated at a national level even if his contract caused Stockholm Syndrome for a certain share of Twins fans. Utley, who got a later start to his career, never won a Gold Glove, and was bypassed by MVP voters in favor of more popular teammates, was always going to struggle for attention by comparison.

Let's face it, though, career totals still do have some bearing on Hall of Fame votes, and Utley being short of 2,000 hits while Mauer reached the milestone despite losing a chunk of each season to catching is a notable separator of the two.
Cold Turkey Stearnes
2:50
Should the HOF consider increasing the maximum number of players that can be voted for on a single ballot to help clear the backlog?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:51
In 2014, I was on a committee that recommended exactly that, and our middle-of-the-road proposal asked them to increase the ballot size to 12. The Hall tabled our suggestion then, and current ballots are much less crowded by comparison, so I don't see such a change happening.
2:52
That graph gives you an idea of how much stronger the 2014 ballot — the strongest in modern history — was relative to this year's.
Marshall
2:54
What do you make of Marcus Semien's HoF chances? He's putting together a very strong peak, but 2b don't tend to age gracefully.
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:55
Wrote about him last summer in my progress report https://blogs.fangraphs.com/cooperstown-notebook-the-2023-progress-rep.... He's quietly snuck into the picture thanks to some big seasons and is now at 41.8/38.4/40.1. If he remains durable and productive, he's got a real shot.
Key Flaw
2:55
Do you think if every voter's ballot was published with their name, would it actually do anything? I am all for it, but it seems that all the grumpy voters aren't ashamed of their grumpiness, and the spotlight wouldn't shame them into better voting. It is sort of like how the assumption was that people were rude and jerks on the internet because of anonymity, but then Facebook and NextDoor happened and we realized nah...they are still rude and jerks even with their name attached.
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:56
I think the effect of publishing every ballot would be minimal, because you're right, some grumps just want to do performative grumping.
LOOK AT ME, I'M VOTING FOR NOBODY BUT THREE!
Bravos
2:56
Hi Jay-  Thanks for everything you've done for HOF clarity!  As a Braves fan, I'm wondering if after all of your years of analysis -- and some of the results you talk about in your article -- make you rethink someone like Dale Murphy.  Better or worse candidate than when he was on the ballot?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:59
A bit better, IMO. I wrote about Murphy at length for last year's Contemporary Era ballot (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2023-contemporary-baseball-era-committee-c...) and my evolution in thinking. I'd much rather see a high-peak superstar like Murphy in the Hall than a serial compiler DH such as Harold Baines, and think that the positive aspects of his character would be a welcome antidote to some of the icky stuff we've been forced to confront annually in the voting.
Cold Turkey Stearnes
2:59
How does the makeup of the HOF ballot get decided?  Does everyone with 10+ years of service get a chance on it?  Looking at the 2024 ballot, I see at least nine or ten names who aren't even worthy of consideration by any measure.  We always get at least one bizarre homer vote because of that.
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:03
Everyone who appeared in 10 seasons (not the same as 10 seasons of service time — one game in a season is sufficient) and has been retired for five years is in the pool. Then a 6-member Historical Overview Committee sifts through those; each candidate needs to be nominated by any 2 members of the committee.
3:04
Most of those guys won't make the Hall, but for many, just being on the ballot *is* the honor. And the homer votes, whatever. It was one thing to get bent out of shape when there were 14 JAWS-qualified candidates crowding each other but for the most part, those are pretty harmless and add a bit of color at the margins.
Steve
3:04
If you find in your data a player who surpasses the JAWS standards, yet is rarely discussed as an Eras Committee candidate, do you believe it’s worth your time to make the case on his behalf? In other words, is it better to argue for Bobby Grich rather than introduce Joe Schlabotnik into the discussion, with the realization that it would take years for his case to gain momentum?
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:07
I've made the case for Bobby Grich, to no avail, but that case hasn't gone away. It's not like I have to rewrite it every year.

One reason why I do so much mid-career discussion of players' Hall cases is that I want people to understand what they're going to be looking at when the time comes to consider them. That, IMO, is part of the legacy of JAWS and my work. That I can write something like I did on Utley and Mauer at the end of the 2018 season (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/retiring-mauer-and-utley-both-worthy-of-co...) hasn't hurt their causes; I was concerned Utley would follow Grich's one-and-done path.
Anon21
3:07
Do you think the Braves have done enough rotation-fortifying to stay a clear favorite over the Dodgers? Snell or Montgomery would look really nice, and they only cost money!
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:10
I'd be a little surprised if they add another spendy starter and think they'll do something more depth-driven. Maybe another guy like Paxton whom they try to coax 20 starts out of for a lower price.
Rob
3:11
Have you done a Shohei JAWS calculation? His career WAR is less than I would have guessed (I might be missing something).
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:14
Wrote about Ohtani and JAWS here https://blogs.fangraphs.com/cooperstown-notebook-the-2023-progress-rep.... He's at 34.7 now. Even without accounting for his injuries, struggles and the shortened 2020 season, that's 5.8 WAR per season, and 7.9 per 650 PA. I'm not sure what the hell you expect that's going to be better than that.

Ohtani is going to be fine, Hall-wise. The stats will be part of the story but the unprecedented success he had in a two-way capacity will be the real driver of his case. And I'm pretty sure he'll get there.
Izzy
3:14
RE: Phil's question about deferments... judging by the reaction to Bobby Bonilla Day and the Dodgers, I don't think most fans understand deferments.
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:14
Very much no
Key Flaw
3:15
Ignoring Vet Committee shenanigans, how much of a boost do you think playing on certain teams (cough...Yankees...) give to a the HoF voting? How much odes playing your whole (or 95%) of your career on one team boost?
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:16
Ask Don Mattingly about the Yankee boost. Ask Andy Pettitte. Ask Bernie Williams, David Cone, or David Wells. Do you see them in Cooperstown? No? Then I don't think playing for the Yankees gives one that big of a boost.
3:17
There are players in the Hall from earlier eras who had careers equivalent to those guys, including some Yankees, but it's been a long time since candidates reaped such advantages.
Eh?
3:17
Why is service time manipulation so taboo in baseball but not other sports? In the NHL for example, a team will come out and say they are sending a player to the minors after 9 games in order to not burn a year off of his entry-level contract. If that happened in baseball, the MLBPA would be slamming the grievance button.
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:17
Because the MLBPA is a much stronger union.
Brad
3:20
Who do you think are some under-the-radar players who have been missing from the Eras Committee ballots?  Vern Stephens is a guy who I always thought never got a fair look.
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:22
Bobby Grich, Lou Whitaker, Dwight Evans, Keith Hernandez, Dave Stieb, David Cone and Brett Saberhagen are guys I'd like to see on Era Committee ballots. Stephens is 32nd among shortstops (46.3/34.4/40.3), which doesn't really do anything for me; if I want to add an old-time shortstop to the Hall it's Bill Dahlen.
Sanford
3:22
Congrats on 20 years of JAWS, Jay. If you could only make one change to the HOF voting process, would you a) make all ballots public, b) eliminate the 10-player maximum, or c) do something else?
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