JotCast | Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat

Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat - 3/15/18

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Sam

12:51

On a scale of Buster Olney to Keith Law, where do you see yourself falling on the v. important baseball writer snark scale?

Jay Jaffe

12:52

Snark-wise, I suppose I tend towards Olney in my for-publication writing and Law on social media, but there are certainly a ton of exceptions in both cases.

Sonny

12:52

Do you have an MLB.tv team picked out for 2018? You're required to cover the whole league but is there an under the radar team you have your eye on?

Jay Jaffe

12:55

Beyond the Yankees in the Eastern time slot and the Dodgers in the Pacific one, I have tended to check in on the Nationals, Indians and Astros most often. If the Twins start well, I might check in on them more, because of Buxton especially. And I'd like to see as much Ohtani (and of course Trout) as I can, so I hope the Angels are at least watchable.

Vegan Man!

12:56

Same question for the AL CY Young (outside of Sale and Kluber). Thanks!

Jay Jaffe

12:56

Severino, Verlander, Carrasco, and if he can stay healthy, McCullers.

Vegan Man!

12:56

Can Yandy Diaz join the revolution, or are the Indians going to hold him back from getting in on the fun? Thanks!

Jay Jaffe

12:58

I was just writing the Indians' 3B PPR capsule before this chat and wondering, then I saw this Tito quote when I went looking for Jeff Zimmerman's notes: https://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/spring-training-notes-3-12-18-diaz-b.... Short answer: Indians are wary of forcing the issue.

Roughneck Odor

12:58

Do you have any inside info that pitch tipping was Darvish's problem in the WS? You seem to state it as fact.

Jay Jaffe

12:59

Beltran hinted at it, Eduardo Perez gave a pretty good explanation the day after, and Verducci reported it as well. Given the extent to which Darvish's results were so dramatically awful, and that he had the problem before in July, yes, I'll trust all of that as being as close to the truth as we can get.

Mark

1:00

Never underestimate the need for stimulation of the bored office worker baseball fan.

Jay Jaffe

1:00

Judging by the fact that some people leave upwards of a dozen comments to a single article, yes I am aware of that fact. I was a bored office worker once, too.

Ryan

1:01

Do you attribute Dexter Fowler's 2017 to dealing with injuries or the beginning of the end?

Jay Jaffe

1:04

Fowler got off to a slow start, and the shape of his offensive production was a bit different in terms of OBP/SLG, but he merely moved from a 128 wRC+ to a 121, so I don't really see a big problem there. His defense was back in the red, perhaps due to the scenery change; I know the 2016 gains were said to be related to positioning.

Charles Finley

1:04

Will AJ Pollock exceed the Lorenzo Cain contract if his 2018 campaign matches his 2015 effort?

Jay Jaffe

1:06

if that happens i think he might wind up with a deal in that ballpark, but it depends who his suitors are. The missing time and falloff in 2016-17 will certainly be an excuse for teams to try to lowball him.

Aaron Judge

1:06

What's the bigger surprise - that I openly tried to recruit Manny Machado to the Bronx, or that I did something even slightly controversial to begin with?

Jay Jaffe

1:08

The latter. The recruitment itself seemed pretty innocuous; somebody showed Bryce Harper tweeting at Giancarlo Stanton in the past, and that should have drawn as much response. Maybe my brain is too crowded by my own mental to-do lists but I don't really remember an outcry.

cooldude

1:08

Are the balls juiced?

Jay Jaffe

1:08

Yes

Zach

1:09

Very stupid hypothetical. How bad would Harper and/or Machado have to be this year to not receive a QO?

Jay Jaffe

1:10

Unspeakably bad. But if this were the NFL and they knelt for the national anthem, all bets would be off.

1:10

Dipoto's comments about how they built a team around fly ball pitchers and athletic outfielders nails a factor of the home run increase that I feel like doesn't get acknowledged a lot: why aren't owners/GMs more outraged at the league for changing the balls? A lot of GMs spent millions of dollars building teams based on known parameters and projections, and a lot of that went in the trash once baseballs started going over the fence at a historic rate. It's one thing to be wrong about a player, but to have an important aspect of the game to change without discussion/notification seems like it should have ruffled more feathers than it has.

Jay Jaffe

1:11

that's a good question to which i don't have a short, easy answer. Just putting it out there for some further thought.

Moltar

1:11

Is the Mets' injury management still an issue? Signs point to Yes. Jeff Wilpon still calls the shots, after all. Plus in his press scrum yesterday Calloway said he didn't even know that Cespedes was going for an x-ray, couldn't explain why he wasn't getting an MRI (which brings up bad memories of Ike Davis' ankle), and said that any other questions would be answered by a press release. Calloway seems like he knows what he's doing, but the way the Mets handle injuries is such a disaster, from both an on-field and PR perspective.

Jay Jaffe

1:12

As I wrote the other day while citing the latest Cespedes controversy, it seems like it could be. That was a disasterpiece.

Pete

1:14

Luke Weaver....why isn’t he getting more respect from the prognosticators? Was it the two stinko starts he ended last season on? Given Weaver’s K-BB rate....he looks pretty darn good.

Jay Jaffe

1:15

Our Depth Charts projections call for him to deliver 2.7 WAR in 140 IP via a 3.79 ERA and 3.78 FIP. For a pitcher with MLB numbers of 1.4 WAR, 4.56 ERA and 3.61 FIP in 96.x IP, that seems like ample respect.

Humboldt Crabs

1:15

Which OFers make the Dodgers Opening Day roster and which are left on the outside looking in (traded, DFA’d, optioned to AAA): Puig, Taylor, and Kike Hernandez are the obvious onces to be rostered. After that, Joc Pederson, Andrew Toles, Matt Kemp, Trayce Thompson, and Alex Verdugo need to be sorted out.

Jay Jaffe

1:19

Man, this is one clusterf*ck because of their inability to find a taker for Kemp. Barring injuries, definite no on Thompson and Verdugo, yes on Taylor and Puig. Toles is easy to send down for regular work given last year's season-ending ACL injury and the fact that he has minor league options remaining. That leaves Kiké, Joc and Kemp, which is possible to break camp with but probably untenable for very long in terms of egos and flexibility

Joe

1:19

Whats the deal with grape nuts? You open the box.. No grapes.. No nuts.

Jay Jaffe

1:20

Because my 18-month-old daughter was able to reach a box of them, I tried Grape Nuts (which my wife eats) for the first time in my 48-year life the other day and was astonished at how flavorless they were. Better used as packing material.

Carson Cistulli Sabathia

1:21

Aaron Sanchez is blister free, he says. What can we expect from his comeback year?

Jay Jaffe

1:21

I wouldn't be surprised to see him recover his 2016 form. He's a guy I'd like to write about in the next several days and take a closer look

Andy

1:21

Waino is seeing his velocity up around 92-93 in ST. Is that a sign of good things to come or is it the dying breath of a pitcher on the brink of retirement?

Jay Jaffe

1:24

Another guy I've got a mind to look at more closely. I do wonder about whether he's getting to that velo because of the shorter stints. He hasn't averaged 92 in a season since 2009 (via Pitch Info). and last year was at 90.6 by their data.

Mark

1:24

Are you a Ute? If so, I think I just found my new favorite Fangraphs writer...

Jay Jaffe

1:26

I grew up less than a mile from the University of Utah campus and started going to their basketball games in 1977-78, the height of the Chambers/Vranes era. My parents still live in that same house, but I went away to school (Brown U) and except for the summer after freshman year haven't lived in SLC, only visited. But they're my college team of choice when I choose to care.

Charles Finley

1:26

46 and becoming a dad...unreal.

Jay Jaffe

1:27

I'm a late bloomer in that area, I guess. Fatherhood is amazing — my daughter brings me more joy than anything else I've ever experienced

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