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Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat - 2/12/21
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AvatarJay Jaffe
2:02
Good afternoon and welcome to another edition of my Friday chat — this is the third week in a row I've been able to do this, my longest streak since August. So there's that.

Housekeeping-wise, today I have a piece dreaming on Greg Bird's minor league deal with the Rockies, who couldn't possibly have done worse at finding first basemen over the past half-decade.  https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/greg-bird-takes-flight-to-colorado/
2:03
Yesterday I took a look at Yadier Molina's new one-year deal as well as his Hall of Fame case https://blogs.fangraphs.com/youll-never-guess-where-yadier-molina-sign...
And on Tuesday I took a deep dive into the health and safety protocols in the 2021 MLB Operations Manual https://blogs.fangraphs.com/high-tech-contact-tracing-vaccines-and-run...
2:04
Ok, on with the show
Bauer + Ozuna
2:04
Based on the tone of your Ozuna piece, it seemed pretty clear you thought these 2 contracts did not square up with what each should've gotten. Do you think the market was too high on Bauer, too low on Ozuna, or some combination of both?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:07
A combination, I think. It's not that I don't understand the difference between a frontline starting pitcher and an outfielder who might wind up DHing, but it sure felt like Ozuna had enough interest early this wintert to get a more competitive deal.

As I tried to illustrate in the piece, the pair had in common what appeared to be career years in the shortened season. In our Top-50 list, Craig Edwards had the two only $5 million apart in terms of AAV on four-year deals ($22.5M vs $17.5M) though our crowdsource was much closer on Bauer ($29M on a 3-year deal).
kcbg
2:08
Hi Jay, thanks for the time. Who do you think will accumulate more WAR over the next five years, Benintendi or Franchy?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:09
Benintendi, who has the much stronger MLB track record on both sides of the ball at the MLB level
Marko from Tropoja
2:10
Regarding the LA Times article on Kershaw, I’m (reluctantly) allowing for the possibility that 2021 could be it. Which pitchers other than Koufax retired under 35 while still an ace?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:13
The obvious one is Koufax, who retired at 30 and still at the top of his game, and Drysdale was just 32 and a year removed from his consecutive scoreless innings streak. Some 19th century guys like John Clarkson and Pud Galvin were still very good when they retired, too, and Kid Nichols was still very good when he retired at 36.
George
2:13
How many good years does Strasburg need to have to become a hall of famer? Is he on pace?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:15
He's generally been outstanding when he's pitched but I wouldn't call Strasburg on pace. He's heading into his age-32 season with 33.4 career bWAR, and  just two seasons worth more than 4.0 WAR. He needs like five excellent seasons to get his seven-year peak within the realm of respectability.
Jeff
2:15
Jay, isn't it time to reassess how starting pitchers are rated for the HOF?  Even comparing current pitchers to 50 years ago doesn't work.  The fifth highest IP total of those who debuted in the 1960's (Carlton) had over 1900 more IP than the fifth highest who debuted since 1990 (Buehrle).  It was much easier to accrue high WAR totals then than it is now.
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:16
Gil
2:16
This may be antiquated given the drop in cable subs over the years but what's the movie that if you're flipping channels and it's on, you stop and watch it every time?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:17
we don't flip through channels anymore, we page through on-demand services, of which we subscribe to most of the major ones. Goodfellas is one that fits the description from the time when we did flip.
and any Coen Brothers movie
Jeff
2:18
So pitchers are going from a 60 game schedule, delayed by months, to hopefully a 162. What are the dangers?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:19
Managing workloads is going to be a league-wide challenge. I think we'll see a lot of injuries and a lot of teams doing what the Dodgers have done in recent years, which is stash players on the 10-day IL for the most minor of complaints mainly to keep their innings down.
Economically stressed fan
2:19
How much does Seager demand in FA/an extenstion?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:21
That's a good one to ask Szymborski, who has the projections, but i'd guess — purely guessing — it's something in the $150M range. he's gotta demonstrate he can get back to being great over 140-162 games though
KB
2:21
Your mention of WOWY in regards to historical catcher framing really got my wheels turning. I would love for someone to do this. I know Tango probably has the code and the know-how to make it happen. Probably some other people also. Surprised no-one has made a stab at that yet, or if they have at least I can't find it published anywhere. I've seen Chris Long put out basic college framing numbers and I'm sure the data he's working with is about the same as historical MLB data.
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:23
that's basically what Max Marchi did at Baseball Prospectus for the pre-2008 framing. Alas, I believe he's still working for the Cleveland front office https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/20596/the-stats-go-mar...
Schmegs
2:23
Which health good season would you prefer. Bauer pitching every four days or Ohtani as a two way star?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:24
Ohtani. We know what a guy pitching every fourth day looks like but we have only a very short history of guys excelling two ways.
Guest
2:24
What's more likely to be broken: Rickey's all-time steals or Dimag's hit streak?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:27
Statistically, DiMaggio's is harder but I don't see baseball going back to the era of anybody having 80 steals in a season. Still, it's a lot easier to imagine an outlier who would have some margin for error in day-to-day and year-to-year production than to beat the nearly impossible odds of stringing together 57 games with hits
Guest
2:27
Hi Jay, thanks for following up on comments in the Almora article and explaining how to use the Splits function- I've been playing around with that all week, it's really cool! I found one stat regarding CF defense that I thought was really interesting: for the decade from 2000-2009, it looks like the Yankee's defense was astoundingly bad, and their CF WAR for the decade was 12.7 (28th in MLB)! My follow up questions for you are: 1) Did I run this data right? 2) Was their CF really as bad as this data suggests? 3) Since they won 8/10 AL East titles during this period (and 2 WS), can I use this as a valid argument that a team can win with a weak CF defense, or would you just say they were an outlier?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:30
Man, the metrics did not love those Yankees' up-the-middle defense at all. Bernie Williams and Derek Jeter won a ton of Gold Gloves despite some pretty bad numbers (though they weren't at their worst when they were winning), and Jorge Posada's numbers now that we can see the framing, woof.

Those Yankees won because they had top-shelf offenses and high-strikeout staffs in spite of their shoddy defenses. Somewhere I think I did a study on the rarity of such teams winning, either at Prospectus or Pinstriped Bible, but it would take me awhile just to figure out how to search for it. If I find it, I'll leave a link in the comments.
Spin
2:32
Where does Mitch Moreland go, now that Boston picked up Marwin Gonzalez?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:34
Maybe as Keston Hiura's caddy in Milwaukee? Or Cleveland, which with Josh Naylor and Jake Bauers penciled in doesn't look like it has an actual plan at 1B.
Some Guy
2:35
Pitchers and catchers are due to report soon. There are 5 guys who could get 10M+ per year still unsigned (Walker, Paxton, Odor, JBJ, and Turner). Is this more than normal at this time of the year?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:38
Odor ain't getting $10 million, but even four like this does seem high. Then again recall in 2014 that guys like Nelson Cruz, Ubaldo Jimenez, and Ervin Santana didn't sign until late-February or later and Stephen Drew and Kendrys Morales were free agents well into the season.
Naming rights
2:39
JJ Cooper appeared to suggest the naming rights of the minor league leagues are being sold, a la the G-League, I guess.
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:40
The Schizophrenic Baseball
2:41
Baseball seems to have moved away from defensive prowess towards defensive versatility.  Will the deadened ball put an emphasis back on skilled defensive play?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:42
Eh, not unless we see a whole lot more contact and fewer strikeouts, which probably requires curbing pitch velocity. Part of the reason versatility works is that teams are able to position guys better thanks to analytical data, so you have a lot of Max Muncy and Mike Moustakas types playing second base and so on.
Maybe not a lot, but a noticeable amount
Mike Ortman
2:42
Any Negro Leaguers stand out as HOF worthy now that we’re working with both sets of stats? Joe Posnanski’s list was Minnie, John Donaldson, Alejandro Oms, Double Duty, and John Beckwith in order from 1 to 5 most deserving. One manager I found that I had never heard of was Vic Harris, who in 12 years won 562 games, for a .655 winning percentage. Won the league 7 times and 1 WS.
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