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Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat - 12/9/19
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AvatarJay Jaffe
10:03
Good morning — or afternoon, depending upon your time zone — and welcome to the Winter Meetings edition of my lately-not-so-weekly chat. Post-Thanksgiving travel hell prevented last week's installment, which strengthened my resolve to get this one in despite being 3000 or so miles away from home. I'm in the media room at the Hyatt and thus prone to distractions like greetings from folks around me but we'll try to get this done.

Anyway, the big news here so far is last night's Modern Baseball Era Committee result, which added the ridiculously overdue Marvin Miller and Ted Simmons to the Hall of Fame; you can see my writeup here: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/marvin-miller-and-ted-simmons-are-now-hall....
10:04
And now, on with the show...
Vander
10:04
So... Whitaker... What the? Why?
AvatarJay Jaffe
10:07
I know there was a lot of hype and hope for Whitaker this time around, and I'm sorry to see that he missed out. However, if you look at this year's Modern Baseball ballot, every candidate besides Lou Whitaker and Dwight Evans had been considered multiple times by small (or not-so-small) committees, and the fact that both of those guys avoided the "less than X votes" cluster means that they'll almost certainly get other shots. Miller and Simmons had each been considered at least three times before and both had missed by exactly one vote in the past. I'm not surprised the voters decided it was "their turn."
Chris
10:07
Any chance we learn which voters didn’t vote for Miller or Simmons?
AvatarJay Jaffe
10:08
Not unless they announce so themselves, which they are most definitely NOT supposed to do.
Thanks for the chat!
10:08
Does the hall of fame ever do any sort of road show/travelling exhibits? Is there an opportunity to increase engagement by reaching out to fans in different markets with a sample of the experience?
AvatarJay Jaffe
10:10
Around 2002-03, there was a great traveling HOF exhibit called Baseball As America, which I caught twice, once in New York and once in Washington DC. I reviewed it here http://www.futilityinfielder.com/wordpress/2002/03/177.shtml. It would be great to see the Hall mount another such road show but I have no idea that might happen again.
Roger
10:10
Who is the best pitcher to never win a Cy Young and the best position player to never win an MVP (assuming, of course, that the player was active during the years after the awards were established)?
AvatarJay Jaffe
10:17
So you're saying the answer can't be Cy Young? Harumph. Cy-wise, I think you can make cases for Blyleven, Niekro, Schilling, Mussina, and Marichal, of which Niekro and Marichal have the highest WAR7.

MVP-wise, maybe Mike Piazza? That one I'd have to think about longer.
Sonny
10:17
Thank you for your Batting Average Matters! (BAM!) campaign. The stat has been appropriately reconsidered, but I agree it's gone too far. wOBA is most likely a more illustrative stat of value, but BA absolutely matters in how we think about players! Keep going!!!
AvatarJay Jaffe
10:18
Thanks. This one is still percolating though I wrote about it a bit in the Derek Jeter profile.
Minnie Monoso
10:18
If I can't get in, nobody gets in
AvatarJay Jaffe
10:18
With Marvin Miller elected, Minnie is number one on my list of Best Candidate Outside the Hall Not on a BBWAA Ballot. Let's hope we can celebrate next year.
Overbearing Padre
10:19
Got a bold prediction for the hometown Padres at the winter meetings?
AvatarJay Jaffe
10:20
signing Strasburg — couldn't get any bolder than that, but he is from the area.
Baseball Guy
10:20
My sense is the Padres-Brewers trade was unusual in that you don't see a lot of trades with major leaguers on both sides these days. Why is that, do you think? Those are the fun ones!
AvatarJay Jaffe
10:23
I don't think they're THAT rare — but this could be a subject worth studying. To the extent that they'e become rare, it's probably because so many teams are going through noncompetitive phases and willing to trade established talent for future value.
Paul
10:23
How much trade value do you think Dom Smith has? I feel like he doesn’t have a lot due to his lack of positional value and sketchy offensive track record
AvatarJay Jaffe
10:26
Well, his 2019 was pretty promising  (.282/.355/.525 with 11 HR in 197 PA) , and better conditioning played a part in that. he's still got 5 years of club control remaining and while I don't think he's going to fetch a mid-rotation starter in return, he should yield a usable piece or two in the right trade. I did an ESPN Insider/Plus piece (behind the paywall) a few weeks ago where I proposed a Smith-to-Toronto for Ken Giles trade, with additional pieces on each side to balance the deal. Maybe that's a stretch; nobody has offered me a GM job on the basis of it.
Wayne
10:27
Who would you say is the best 2B post Morgan? Do you go for peak (Utley or Sandberg), straight bat (Cano or Kent) sustained excellence (Sweet Lou), already enshrined (Alomar or Biggio) or still going (Altuve)?
AvatarJay Jaffe
10:29
By JAWS it's Cano, Sandberg, and Utley, with the first of those now having the big ol' asterisk next to his name and the last of them having by far the least playing time due to his team's foot-dragging. I'd go Utley but would also consider Alomar based upon the suspicion that the defensive metrics might not be doing him full justice.
Jerry Lu
10:29
How do you assume Fred McGriff, Jim Edmonds, Kenny Lofton, and Carlos Delgdo's future era committees' enshrinement possibilities?
AvatarJay Jaffe
10:30
I'd bet cold hard cash on McGriff getting in. The rest are longer shots and will take time, but longevity is a big deal to the committees and so I'd say Lofton probably has the strongest chance (and by JAWS, the strongest case too).
Morbo
10:30
why the hyatt and not the marriott? trying to diversify your points?
AvatarJay Jaffe
10:31
I don't choose the venues. This is actually a good one though in terms of how easy it is to get to the media room from the lobby. The sprawl of the Gaylord Opryland in Nashville or the Whatever it Was in Orlando  — to say nothing of the living hell that was finding your way around Mandalay Bay in Vegas last year — is much more difficult to navigate.
Jerry Lu
10:33
Do you believe that the stances on PED users have softened much more from the BBWAA voters in recent years? Can we envision PED users getting into the Hall one day from the Era Committees in many years from now?
AvatarJay Jaffe
10:34
I don't see a ton of evidence that they have softened much; if anything, voters have probably dug in their heels when you consider the slow growth of Bonds/Clemens' progress in the past two election cycles. Those are the next two players in my series, btw, with Barry Lamar Bonds going tomorrow.
Trent
10:34
No love for Nolan Ryan for best pitcher without a Cy Young?
AvatarJay Jaffe
10:35
He's in the picture, sure. But I think I'd take some of the other guys I mentioned over him.
Bubba
10:35
I don't care about the HOF, but I love your write-ups.  I didn't know about Billy Wagner's rough life.  Keep up the good work!
AvatarJay Jaffe
10:37
Thank you! I think it's important to remember while we crunch the numbers that these are real human beings who all did remarkable things just to get to the major leagues and thrive there, even if it wasn't for long enough to get in to the Hall. Wagner's back story — the poverty, the natural right-handedness, the size, the sheer fucking dominance — is one of my favorites of the dozens upon dozens I've covered.
Rick
10:38
How about Eddie Murray, Al Kaline, or Mel Ott for best player without an MVP?
AvatarJay Jaffe
10:40
All good choices; I'd go with Ott and Kaline well ahead of Murray though
GSon
10:40
Pirates/Yankees/Indians three way deal..who says no: Pirates get Jones, Naylor, Florial and Garcia;  Yankees get Kluber and Marte; Indians get Andujar, Bell and Dominguez?
AvatarJay Jaffe
10:41
Good gravy this feels like homework to consider balancing out,  but I don't see why the Yankees need another outfielder.
Jerry Lu
10:41
Hello, Mr. Jaffe, it's always been a pleasure reading your thoroughly written and stat-driven analyses about the Hall of Fame candidates either from the BBWAA ballots and the Veterans Committees. it's been great hearing that baseball legend Marvin Miller is finally inducted and that the obvious glaring mistake from the past voting committees have been fixed this time. I also deeply believe that Simmons, as probably a top 15 catcher in baseball history, fully deserves enshrinement. I just wonder why the American League favored committee could not agree on a third deserving candidate such as Whitaker, Evans, or Munson. Do the voters consider advanced metrics such as WAR or your wonderful JAWS measuring system at all?
AvatarJay Jaffe
10:43
To the extent that the advanced metrics get in that room, it's through the media/historian types, and some are more fluent than others, while I doubt the ex-players put much stock in them, Joe Morgan — who was on the Committee That Done Elected Baines — in particular.
brad
10:44
If the Yankees offer a vesting 8th year based on Cole making 175 regular season starts or winning 2 rings, does that get the deal done?
AvatarJay Jaffe
10:45
I've heard that the 7/$245M offer that was reported yesterday is untrue. I think he signs for far more than that (I've heard $280M) and i'd guess he gets 8 years with at least one opt out.
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