You are viewing the chat in desktop mode. Click here to switch to mobile view.
X
Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat - 2/24/20
powered byJotCast
View Full Chat Next Page
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:03
Gah, the poll didn't post there.
Jaffe rhymes with Taffy
12:04
Happy Monday!  The Astros are in for a tough year, especially on the road.  At what point in the season do you think we might start to feel for them for all the booing, vitriol etc.  Self inflicted of course...but....how long?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:05
Hmmm. I can't see mustering much sympathy for the players who were involved if they're getting razzed about it daily. I do think I'd reserve my sympathy for those who weren't part of the 2017-18 teams and may catch some collateral damage.
Thank you for the chat!
12:06
Who 'owns' article series between authors and publications they work for? Do you agree on ownership before jobs? Part of exit negotiations? Also, how does it tie to book deals? Do you have to work profit sharing out with the publications? I imagine all this could get complicated
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:07
It varies from publication to publication and sometimes from writer to writer. At Baseball Prospectus, the rights for each piece reverted to me after a period (18 months I think). At Sports Illustrated, they retain the copyright but are pretty cooperative about granting permission to re-use, such as for my book or to update as part of my JAWS series. Here, I retain the rights to my work.
Matt
12:07
My 3 year old daughter has a cursory interest in baseball, essentially she likes randomly yelling "Go Phillies!" and likes Bryce Harper.  what do you recommend for getting her really into it?  Would she get something out of a spring training trip?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:10
Spring training is fun but tickets have gotten very expensive. I'd suggest a well-run minor league team's games because they're low cost and very geared towards capturing kids' attention. My daughter has really enjoyed the Cyclones games she's gone to.

Funny thing about mascots. She loves Mr. Met but when I was in Cooperstown a few weeks ago and touring the museum to get some ideas for this presentation, I sent my wife a picture of the Phillie Phanatic, and daughter was like WOW, so I bought her a Phanatic figure (phigure?), too
Nathan
12:11
Who do you see with a better season, Lux madrigal or urias?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:12
Right now, I'd say Lux, who's the better prospect (#2 on our list!), is healthy, and I think has the clearest path to a starting job.
Guest
12:12
Question on joe torre and his hall of Fame induction.  Can he still be inducted as a player? As a front office person?  Or does his election as manager override the other two categories ?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:15
Kurupt FM
12:15
With the white sox aiming to be competitive in the near future and the real possibility of a step forward competitively this year do you feel as if they should've been more active in adding this offseason?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:17
They were one of the most active teams, signing Grandal, Keuchel, Encarnacion, Gio Gonzalez, Cichek, and trading for Mazara. You could quibble about the wisdom of some of those moves, but they kept busy and look to be an interesting and much-improved team.
1987
12:17
Is there a loophole to be exploited by big money teams w/r/t time value of money?  Ie, what if, instead of a 8 year $300M contract, the Dodgers offer Mookie Betts a $200 M / eight year contract, with a $192M signing bonus and annual salaries of $1M?  This may be an extreme example and I didn't work out the math, but seems like this would be a way to manipulate the luxury tax numbers of a contract.
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:18
The time value of money comes into play a lot with regards to deferrals. The thing about signing bonuses is that for luxury tax purposes they're averaged out over the course of the deal (AAV) but from an individual taxation standpoint, the hit would be much, much larger for a player getting that much money up front.
Jacob Degrom
12:20
If I win the Cy Young again this year, am I on a path to the HOF?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:22
I think it would certainly help. Wrote about deGrom for ESPN Insider/Plus (behind the paywall) in the context of players who could give their Hall chances a big boost in 2020. https://www.espn.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/28571688/five-players-most.... I gave him about 500 words so it's too long to excerpt here coherently.
John
12:22
Thoughts on the severino injury situation ? Very odd
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:23
It's a bummer, but I don't think we know enough to say whether it's odd. We know he missed most of last year with shoulder and lat stuff, and that he's got a loose body in that elbow. Pitchers, man...
I Like Her Not
12:23
How do you the three-batter minimum rule playing out from a strategy standpoint?  If you bring in a Loogy with two outs and he doesn't record an out, isn't he hung out to dry against the next batter(s) in an inning?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:25
Yes, that's a problem, and I think you'll see some of the lefties with more extreme splits struggle to gain roster spots for that reason. I'm not a big fan of the rule, because I think that while it will shave seconds off games, it could also lengthen them because some of those guys will get pounded within the context you mentioned.
Pre-School Troll
12:25
Excuse me Mr. Jaffe but why do you have such hard-on for Pete Rose getting into the hall? Can I Have a juice now please...
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:25
Excuse me? I'm as anti-Pete Rose getting into the Hall as anybody in this industry.
Dave
12:25
re: Pre-schoolers and baseball-- after going to a game and him seeming to like it, a fun thing I started doing with my son last summer (2.5 at the time) was going over the Nats' line-up for the day at bedtime each night.  It was repetitive (so helped him get sleepy), but he also started to learn the positions and players.  And it prompted a great text exchange with my wife when I wasn't there-- "Why does [kid] want to know who's pitching for the Nats tonight??"
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:26
that's awesome.
ResumeMan
12:26
How would you suggest the HoF improve the 5% rule to get rid of the no-chancers and minimize the possibility that a goof excludes a legit candidate?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:27
I think a sliding scale minimum is a workable solution. Maybe something like, a player must get to 5% at least once in his first 3 years and be at 10% by year 5 or he falls off. You can play with the times and thresholds but I think that would clear the ballot sufficiently while giving guys a second look.

Fun fact: originally (c. 1979) the 5% rule applied to a player's first two years on the ballot.
12:28
Ok, maybe that fact wasn't quite as fun as advertised.
John
12:28
It always seems to me that projection systems struggle with handicapping someone who was injured (known or unknown).  Do any systems have injury overrides?  For instance if you know the date Luke Voit was hurt -  should the system weigh the before and after differently?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:30
Projecting players is hard! Most of the manual control comes in the form of estimating playing time, which is where knowledge of the timing of a player's injury comes in. If you have 2 guys the same age and skill level who threw 180 innings last year but one had TJ in October, obviously, you will adjust their estimated innings accordingly.

Now, if somebody played through injury and it dragged their stats down to the point of affecting their projections, that's a different matter, in which case it's probably more helpful to look at percentle performance if that's offered.
Gil
12:30
The projected standings are bullish on the Mets. What do you think needs to happen for them to meet or even exceed a win total of 88 games? Do you think that's likely?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:33
I mean, 88 wins basically means that the players as a group perform as expected — the rotation's top arms pitch well, the rotation and lineup stay healthy, and the team isn't wiped out by injuries. Now, in reality we'll se a much wider spread of performances; the key is having the depth to account for injuries. Right now, the team looks to have a good bit of near-term depth (Wacha as the 6th starter, Lowrie as a spare infielder, Cespedes hopefully useful), but of course things could go pear-shaped rather quickly, and then if somebody important gets hurt, that's trouble.
Dylan S
12:34
What do you think of the young pitchers in Oakland?
devin has cheeto lips
12:34
Out of the 3 lefties in the A's starting rotation(Puk, Manaea, Luzardo), who has the best year?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:36
Ganging those questions up. I think it's an exciting time to be an A's fan given their young pitching, which could make them legitimate contenders for the AL West title if the Astros take a step backwards, which seems possible given the state of their rotation and the self-imposed distractions they have coming their way all season.

Of the three lefties, I like Luzardo the most in terms of ceiling. They'll all have their workloads carefully monitored, though, and I think it will come down to who has the best fortune to fill out his innings complement.
Alby
12:37
I think by "having a hard on for" the questioner meant you're against it. I don't know why the phrase works this way -- it seems backwards -- but I've heard it used that way before.
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:37
that's a pretty weird way to describe something, then.
Cespayless
12:38
If Cespedes proves he is healthy can the Mets trade him asap?  The restructured contract would help, no?  He seems a better fit for an AL team with the DH.  Plus, the Mets don't need to further clutter the OF logjam and deal with him potentially complaining about playing time.
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:39
Well, he still has full no-trade protection, so that's a hurdle that would have to be surmounted. But I'm not yet sure they can afford to trade him if he's performing well. Keeping Nimmo and Conforto healthy and productive in the same lineup has proven to be a challenge and J.D. Davis' fielding in the outfield (or anywhere, really) costs him considerable value, so...
Connecting…