JotCast | Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat - 10/31/23

Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat - 10/31/23

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Jay Jaffe

2:01

Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to the Halloween edition of my FanGraphs chat. I'm sure we'll discuss some horror stories from free agency, playoff bullpens, and more.

2:02

Nothing from me today as I plug away at my entries for our Top 50 Free Agents list, which runs next week, but I did do a piece on Ketel Marte's record-setting postseason hitting streak, which he extended to 19 games last night https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-postseason-marte-party-is-one-long-hit...

on with the show...

mac

2:03

What's your opinion of Bellinger? I feel like 29 teams could sign him and he'd sustain this unsustainable performance, but for the one in the bronx he'd be unplayable by june

Jay Jaffe

2:04

Funny you should mention that, as he's one of the players I'm writing about for the FA50. The change of scenery really worked for him, in that the Cubs found some mechanical changes he was able to implement without driving himself and everyone crazy with constant tinkering — mainly regarding his hand position and back hip — and he had a nice bounceback season. His Statcast numbers are pretty meager, but some of that is because he traded power for contact, cut his strikeout rate dramatically, and had some of the best 2-strike numbers of any hitter.

2:05

I'm not sure he hits for a 134 wRC+ again in 2024, but his power and athleticism give him a pretty decent floor for the next few years.

2:06

A return to the Cubs wouldn't surprise me.

Domingo

2:06

Could the current AAA environment be predictive of a future bump in offense in the majors?

Jay Jaffe

2:08

Color me skeptical. The PCL in particular has a lot of higher-altitude ballparks (my hometown of Salt Lake City being one of them) and the experimenting with the automatic ball and strike system caused walk rates to spike above 12%. There's no way that's going to be replicated in the majors

JC

2:09

Devil's advocate for MVP: If we're only judging "what happened" rather than underlying skill (FIP, for example), why not consider RBIs?

Jay Jaffe

2:11

Many voters (still) do, but there are plenty of other ways to measure value, and many people who do are more inclined to focus on context-neutral measures (adjusting for park, league, and position, for example) rather than context-dependent ones (such as runs scored or driven in, which depend tremendously on teammates).

Jaffe rhymes with Taffy

2:11

Hi Jay - what is your daughter dressing up as for Hallowe'en? How about Mom and Dad?

Jay Jaffe

2:11

The kiddo is going as a witch, and it's a pretty great costume. My parents went to a gala as hippies, which, omg, hang on

2:12

2:13

Eh, they were into it. Those plaid patchwork slacks date to the early 1970s, at least.

D

2:13

Do you think voters will recognize Greinke's HOF bona fides? He should be a slam dunk but other fans I've talked to don't seem to view him that way.

Jay Jaffe

2:17

Voters will absolutely recognize Greinke's credentials. Cy Young, 225 wins, nearly 3,000 Ks, 77.5 WAR, 25th in S-JAWS, and one of the most quotable players of his era.

We're just not going to see many 200-win pitchers coming around soon. Outside of Gerrit Cole, there may not be an active pitcher right now who has a chance

Ben

2:17

Where do you think Craig Counsell ends up next year and why?

Jay Jaffe

2:18

I think there's a reasonable chance he winds up in Queens due to the Stearns connection. He's an excellent manager, and if he didn't want to at least entertain the notion of leaving, he probably could have nudged his way into an extension in Milwaukee, but he may want a chance to try managing a team with a bigger budget

Yeah Well Hiura Towel

2:18

Where does Dusty rank among all-time managers? How do you even do such a ranking?

Jay Jaffe

2:21

I don't think one can easily get at an ordinal ranking for managers and I'm not about to try, but it's enough to say that Dusty is clearly qualified for the Hall of Fame given that he's seventh in wins, fourth in playoff appearances (a product of his era, yes), and the only manager to pilot five different franchises into the postseason (a topic I wrote a bit about here https://blogs.fangraphs.com/dusty-baker-job-security-and-the-hall-of-f...). He won his championship, and has three pennants; that ought to be enough for Cooperstown.

Kyle

2:21

So if you’re the Dodgers, you don’t want to pay JD Martinez $20M in 2024. But you do want the draft pick via making him a QO. What do you do?

Jay Jaffe

2:23

I suspect the Dodgers are hot and heavy enough for Ohtani that they'll forgo the QO and the risk Martinez accepts. I do think he can get a bigger guarantee, but in LA he was reunited with Robert Van Scoyoc, the hitting coach who famously helped him unlock his power and evolve from an Astros castoff to a star.

Enos Country Ham

2:23

RIP Frank Howard, a guy I didn’t realize wasn’t in the Hall of Fame. I feel like he was very famous–there’s a (terrifying) statue of him in DC! I know he had a short career, but would you tear out your hair if he got in on an eras committee, Gil Hodges-style, some day?

Jay Jaffe

2:25

I love Frank Howard, who seems to have been one of the game's genuine nice guys. One of the highlights of the 2009 SABR conference in DC was Howard, Rick Dempsey, and George Michael (of George Michael Sports Machine fame, not the Wham! guy) doing a panel trading stories back and forth. Howard's self-deprecative nature was genuinely endearing and I could have listened to those three tell stories all afternoon.

2:26

As a player, Howard was sort of an Adam Dunn type — prodigious power, big strikeout rate and TTO rate — but big negatives in defensive value such that he finished with less than 40 WAR. I don't think he belongs in the Hall but I wouldn't be saddened if he were to be recognized that way, though I think it's tremendously unlikely.

Jon

2:26

Has Fangraphs done a deep dive on base running value? It's just so weird to see Acuña not adding more value on the bases than he is.

Jay Jaffe

2:31

I'm not really sure what the beef is here. We have him adding 7.6 runs on the bases, seventh in the majors. He stole 73 but his success rate was "only" 84% in a year where 80% was average. Via B-Ref, he took an extra base as a runner only 53% of the time, well below last year's 76% and his career mark of 61%. He was very good, but not as elite as he was with the bat

2:32

If you're asking about whether him being on base helps his teammates, Esteban Rivera took a look here and found that while the hitters behind him saw more fastballs, their performance didn't necessarily improve. https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/does-ronald-acuna-jr-help-his-teammate...

Benny

2:32

I know he has been pretty cold this postseason, but if Evan Longoria had a monster showing games 4-7 and won World Series MVP, would that significantly help his Hall of Fame case or would he still be too far short for it to make any difference?

Jay Jaffe

2:35

Longoria is 18th in JAWS among third basemen at 50.2 — he's not far off — but he's a career .175/.238/.384 hitter in 194 PA in the postseason, and his other credentials are light enough (3 GG, 3 All-Star) that he only scores a 42 on the Hall of Fame Monitor, where 100 is a pretty good chance. I see him as a guy who's got respectable credentials but clearly on the wrong side of the line, and I don't think a big three- or four-game run could really change that

Scherzer

2:35

Any chance TEX uses me out of the pen during the Series?

Jay Jaffe

2:37

More likely you get deactivated. In fact, I wouldn't even wait to find out whether the spasms subside because the value of having that extra arm available for the next 3 games before Game 7 is much more than that of the guy who has gotten 29 outs while allowing 7 runs in his 3 starts — and is still likely to be a health liability in the game that decides the whole shebang.

Ownertani

2:37

Could the Dodgers offer me an ownership stake as part of my compensation? If so, how would that affect the luxury tax?

Jay Jaffe

2:38

No, it's explicitly not allowed

Dodger Fan

2:38

Joe Davis calling amazing Corey Seager plays in the WS has me feeling a wide range of mixed emotions

Jay Jaffe

2:39

I get it, particularly after a season where the Dodgers could have certainly used Seager's services. I think they erred in letting Seager get away; I'd have preferred him to Trea Turner as a free agent given his power.

dolson

2:40

Do you think there is any chance Gary Sheffield gets to 75% on his final ballot?

Jay Jaffe

2:44

It's very slim. He needs to gain 20 points (had 55% last year), and only three post-1968 candidates have gotten to 75% while gaining 20, namely Larry Walker (54.6% + 22% in 2020), Vladmir Guerrero (71.7% + 21.2% in 2017), and Barry Larkin (62.1% + 24.3% in 2012). Shef's task is complicated by the arrivals of Adrian Beltre, Joe Mauer, and Chase Utley, and the proximity of Todd Helton and Billy Wagner to 75%. Even if we get four honorees this year, Shef isn't likely to be one of them.

Kyle

2:45

Does Trea Turner need to win a World Series in Philly to have a decent shot at the HoF?

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