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Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat - 2/4/22
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AvatarJay Jaffe
2:02
Good afternoon, folks and welcome to my first chat from the absolute darkest spot on the MLB calendar, the interval between the end of the Hall of Fame election cycle and the opening of spring training, which.... ain't gonna happen for awhile.
2:04
2:05
I haven't yet gotten through Evan Drelich's piece on where things go from here but suffice it to say that if you thought you were going to see spring training games in late February or March, you should start nailing down those backup plans https://theathletic.com/3112497/2022/02/04/why-the-players-rejected-ml...
2:06
Anyway, i've been on staycation this week since publishing my five-year outlook for Hall of Fame elections https://blogs.fangraphs.com/dialing-it-down-a-notch-the-next-five-year...
Today I went to the eye doctor and I'm still dilated, so we'll see how long i can sustain this blurred/haloed vision thing while we chat
Mark
2:06
Would you ever consider leaving off a sure thing first ballot candidate to give your 10th vote to someone struggling to pass 5 percent?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:08
I'd reserve that right. Certainly wouldn't want to do anything that would threaten an otherwise unanimous vote (Ichiro?) or for just any old 5% candidate, it would have to be a player I believed was worthy
2:10
On my 2015 virtual ballot, I actually left John Smoltz and Larry Walker off in order to make a point of supporting Tim Raines and Edgar Martinez, neither of whom was in danger of being Five Percented but both of whom had lost those 5 years due to the Hall's shortening of eligibility window https://www.si.com/mlb/2014/12/26/jaws-2015-hall-of-fame-ballot-final-...
2:11
Maybe that's why Smoltz gave me the cold shoulder when we did MLB Now. LOL
mark406wins
2:11
As a long time reader of JJ, I'd like to ask your opinion of the stat-WAA(Wins Above Average) ?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:14
It's fine for some purposes, certainly. I've thought about incorporating it into JAWS but here's the thing: WAR rewards bulk where WAA does not, and much of the Hall election process is about bulk — minimum thresholds and milestones. There's real value in league-average performance, and WAR rewards that whereas WAA does not, and you don't get much sense of how much opportunity a player had with the latter; you could have 0 WAA in 6 plate appearances or 6000 and they would be equal, but you might have a substantial chunk of WAR to show for your effort.

I think that using the 7-year peak captures the "above average" part well enough for my purposes.
Howard Beale
2:14
How much do you think the Manfredsplaining of his positive test helped Ortiz with the voters and would a similar PR push have helped Bonds or Clemens?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:15
probably a fair amount; note that he could have done the same for Sammy Sosa, whose only *documented* PED violation is the same 2003 survey test, and yet he never even broke 20%.
2:16
Having said that, there's obviously an informational asymmetry at work there in that Manfred likely knows who got flagged for what, and if what Sosa was doing was clearly out of bounds one can imagine he wouldn't have received the same courtesy.
2:17
As for Bonds and Clemens, Manfred could have helped them, but we have a fair amount of evidence that they used; it's the context that's more in doubt.
Phil
2:17
Would you predict that a player with, say, Andre Dawson's numbers but Lenny Dykstra's personality and post-baseball life get elected to the Hall of Fame? Are there current HOFers who come to mind who have done time? Just trying to put the character clause into a non-PED context. . .
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:21
It would really depend on what the violations were and whether there was at least the perception of contrition and reform. Orlando Cepeda did time for marijuana smuggling in the late 1970s but worked his way back into the game's good graces and was elected in 1999 by the Veterans Committee.
2:23
I could probably overlook a drug or tax violation, and the fact remains that I have voted for players who have credibly been accused of domestic violence, though I can't say I'm proud of that fact. It's mostly about not wanting to put stock in the character clause except at the extremes.
Anita Bath
2:23
Would you not support the Hall candidacy of any player who was suspended by the league twice, for any reason, or does that just apply to PED-linked dudes? And if there are any already in the Hall, do you think they should not have been elected?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:26
In a Hall context, it's tough to imagine caring too much about a player suspended twice for fighting or spitballing or something like that. Even having said what I just said about having voted for those accused of DV, I think an actual suspension — one, not two — for that might rule that player out, and two certainly would.
Travis
2:27
First of all, thank you for all of your Hall of Fame posts. Always a must read, and a way to brighten dark winter days.

The retirement of Joe West (announced today) has sparked some HoF discussion on social media. Personally, I agree with Jon heyman's take that the Today's Game ballot is likely overcrowded as it is, but I also feel that if you're a well-known umpire, you might be doing your job wrong. Should the best umpires be anonymous/not making headlines, or does the Fame factor mean more here? What makes an Umpire HoF worthy? Was Bruce Froemming worthy? Is this 100% not your lane?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:28
I agree with Heyman on this. I would have a very hard time putting an umpire on my ballot ahead of even the fringiest player candidate and I sure as hell wouldn't put Joe West ahead of a deserving player or manager.
2:29
for umpires the Hall is mainly about longevity and West stuck around the longest, but I don't think he had a very positive impact on the game because, as you say, if you're well-known UR DOIN IT RONG
Mike
2:29
Hypothetically, if Pedroia got into the hall based on his 2007-2016 stretch (where he averaged 5.1 wins a season), would that open up a discussion on guys like Wright and Kinsler. Both had similar WARs over a decade but not much outside of that
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:33
we've already seen this happen with Kirby Puckett and Chick Hafey and some other short-career players. For me, the line starts with players like Buster Posey, Johan Santana, and Nomar Garciaparra who are around or above the 7-year peak standard (the S-JAWS adjusted one, in Santana's case) at their positions. Pedroia, Kinsler, and Tulowitzki — all eligible in 2025 and discussed in the aforementioned 5-year piece — are short of the 7-year peaks at their positions, no pun intended.
Phil
2:34
Does HOF unanimity really matter--which is to say, should it? I feel like any standard that can be thwarted by one unthinking curmudgeon is perhaps not a legitimate standard. Surely as-good-a-result-as-Griffey is as high a standard for greatness as there is?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:35
Functionally it doesn't matter at all. Aesthetically, it's about a voter being contrarian for no good reason, and that's a horseshit look that brings negative attention to the whole process.
Guest
2:35
Hey Jay, I know that pre-1969 the top team from each league won the pennant and advanced directly to the World Series. But what happened in the event of a tie atop league standings? Were there tiebreaker rules?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:38
yes, there were best-of-three tiebreakers played in the NL in 1946, 1951, 1959 and 1962 NL, plus a single-gamer in the AL in 1948; chalk up the discrepancy to the independence of the two leagues at the time.
Roger Dorn
2:39
IF you had to guess, how many games this season?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:39
140ish
I don't think the owners can afford to lose many games after losing so much in the past two years, and I think the players are more unified than in the recent past.
Bubba
2:41
What's the history of your stache?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:44
Haha, let's see... as a college freshman I grew a "beard" during finals that looked terrible, it was very reddish compared to my dark brown hair. I didn't try again for another 20 years, and grew one for giggles over the course of an xmas vacation trip to England (Dec. 2008). I shaved it off afterwards but 18 months later brought it back — it debuted the day Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett both died in 2009 (my 1st wife's birthday) and it's been around ever since.
Ryan
2:44
Thoughts on Pirates list released today? Will any other team have this many prospects listed?..So deep
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:45
Thunderclap Jackson
2:46
Two dumb questions: do players (or their families for posthumous inductions) decide what image of them is used for their HoF plaque? And your ballplayer name?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:47
I would imagine that the players and their families get to weigh in on the image and nomenclature that goes onto the plaque but i'm not entirely sure.
glt4dc
2:48
This question is actually inspired by a podcast discussion about the approaching NBA trading deadline, but it's applicable for MLB (or any other sport).  They were talking about how one NBA team, which should really be a seller instead of a buyer, but the GM is on the hot seat, so he's incentivized to make a short-term move.  Has anyone analyzed how GMs behave in the last year of their contract (or are known to be in trouble) and if they're more likely to act in a manner more focused on their job situation rather than the team's long-term interests?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:48
I don't recall anyone doing such a study but it would seem to be worth a look even if one can't get a whole lot of quantifiable data out of it
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