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Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat - 3/16/20

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Jay Jaffe

12:50

I'd have to think that whatever length the season winds up being, it's likely to be 1.000 years of service time for those on rosters from wire to wire. I'm sure somebody who's well-versed in contract law and labor law has better insight into the uniform player contract and force majeure, and I imagine we'll see articles on such topic springing up at some point.

Pat's Bat

12:50

What effect will a shortened season have on incentive clauses in players' contracts like games played or innings pitched? Are these things able to be renegotiated?

Jay Jaffe

12:51

(shrug). Maybe they prorate the actual innings/plate appearances/game totals to the length of final schedule? That's my best guess

LoveBravesNotBravesFans

12:51

Hello, Jay: Since there's no baseball, have you and the team at Fangraphs though about re-directing your energies to analyzing / sharing covid19 data? Collectively, you are uncannily great at gleaning insights from data and representing it in an accessible way to the data-literate. I would love to see what your intrepid folks would come up with (rates in US v other countries by state; infection rates vs mortality in us v elsewhere and by state; incorporating hospital beds available; etc). As a data nerd, I am anxious to know what's actually happening, but most media outlets don't really understand how to read this data. I would love to see a covid WAR-equivalent by geography, for example. Just a random (albeit morbid, I suspect) thought.

Jay Jaffe

12:52

I imagine that the most statistically inclined among us might be able to contribute insights in that area, but I can't imagine what my own contribution to that end would be (Viral JAWS???).

As somebody who has often said that I'm part of the liberal arts wing of the stathead movement, I'm here to try to interpret other people's findings, and I'm doing my best to sprinkle a bit of that into what I've written recently. But I won't pretend to know enough about the specific of public health and epidemic progress by presenting anything that would muddy the waters while people who do know their stuff try to cut through the noise to convey accurate information.

Guest

12:56

Possible schedule/service time solution: play 82 games, which Craig says could start around July 4 if we extend the season by 2 weeks, and make each day of 2020 service time count double. Thoughts?

Jay Jaffe

12:56

Certainly seems plausible.

Kiermaier's Piercing Green Eyes

12:56

What's for lunch today?

Jay Jaffe

12:59

I've got some pastrami, jarlsberg, and country bread on hand, and now seems like a good moment to take a short (10-minute) break to prep a sandwich. Back shortly, and feel free to keep tossing questions into the feed, or check out the livestreams from the past weekend's SABR Analytics Conference, in which I participated remotely.

Cribbing from today's roundup:

Speaking of social distancing and Netflix-and-chilling, the SABR Analytics Conference that took place over the weekend was sparsely attended given everything else going on around it, but the organization live-streamed its panels and presentations via YouTube. Friday’s stream is here and Saturday’s is here, with Sunday’s pending at this writing; timestamps in the comments will guide you to the individual events. This scribe took part in an hour-long panel on Saturday morning panel, “The Changing Baseball: What We Know, What We Think We Know, and What It Means” with Baseball Prospectus‘ Rob Arthur, SMT’s Meredith Wills, and moderator Mike Ferrin.

1:12

OK, sandwich in hand...

1:15

...but no new questions in the queue. Will tackle a couple more of interest before I go.

Snotty Scotty

1:15

who throws more innings this year, Garret Richards or Matt Shoemaker

Jay Jaffe

1:20

In our Depth Charts, which don't yet account for the stoppage of play ( I don't think, at least), we have Richards estimated at 150 innings with San Diego, Shoemaker at 129 with Toronto. Both have had a very hard time staying healthy, with respective totals of 8.2 and 28.2 last year, and 76.1 and 31 in 2018; Richards was 14 months removed from Tommy John surgery when he returned last year, while Shoemaker had a torn ACL. Based on track records and arm vs. other issues, I'll go with Shoemaker as being the better bet for a higher innings total, but the lesser performance in terms of run prevention.

Guest

1:20

Sounds like a good way to spend the rest of your afternoon picking crumbs out of your keyboard.

Jay Jaffe

1:21

I've been working from home for the better part of the past 18 years and have pretty much figured out the basics of how to eat lunch at a keyboard without a flood of crumbs or other messes.

Hurtado

1:21

Seriously. Dan Okerent for the HOF. Who says no?

Jay Jaffe

1:24

Okrent, best known for his role in popularizing fantasy baseball, is worthy of some recognition in Cooperstown, but he's one among many writers— a list that probably starts with a tier that includes John Thorn, Pete Palmer, and Bill James — worthy of such an honor but unlikely to be recognized via the BBWAA's Spink Award, which has deviated from its ranks only once, to recognize Roger Angell a few years ago.

Slapshot

1:24

Since you're more of the resident beer expert without Eno around on Fangraphs, any new good beer finds you'd like to share?

Jay Jaffe

1:29

Let's pull up Untappd (@jay_jaffe) and see what I've logged lately that I enjoyed:

Darks: Lagunitas Willetized Coffee Stout, Catskill Porter, Cooperstown Bench Warmer Porter, Critz Farm Pig City Porter (last three from upstate NY)

IPAs: Pulp Friction Motorworks (Florida), Elysian Contract Haze and Space Dust (Washington — had the latter before but not the former), Singlecut Weird and Gilly (Brooklyn)

Pilsner: Threes Brewing Vainglorious (Brooklyn)

Gina P

1:29

Does delay make it more or less likely that rookies will be able to make an impact? Thinking guys like Brendan McKay, AJ Puk, Nate Pearson etc.

Jay Jaffe

1:29

Probably more likely given that if they're on innings caps (as I think they all would be), they'll be able to cover a larger proportion of the remaining season.

Crystal

1:30

Will the delay make it more or less likely that trade chips like Kyle Seager or Lindor get moved?

Jay Jaffe

1:31

Perhaps more likely as their respective teams confront the reality of lost revenues and its impact on their organizations. But that's a wild guess.

Jimmy J

1:31

Does this delay help injured speed guys like Byron Buxton move up rankings? How much?

Jay Jaffe

1:32

I'd think that any player who might have missed the start of the season due to injuries will benefit, and Buxton, who's coming off shoulder surgery and was not yet game-ready before the stoppage, would be among them.

BANGING SCHEME

1:33

Pitching stats are gonna be wild in a short season. I would take the under at 5 total complete games in the league, and would imagine we're just going to see huge amounts of opener/bulk-innings usage. Basically everyone will be late-season Milwaukee Brewers, all year.

Jay Jaffe

1:33

If the ramp-up time is short, then yes, we could see shorter stints from starters, which might make for an interesting laboratory of experiments with ideas that have been circulating for awhile.

Hurtado

1:34

Elysian? YOURE DRINKG BUDWEISER!!

Jay Jaffe

1:37

My brother, who lives in Seattle, bought the Elysians during a family vacation. So many craft breweries are now owned in part or whole by majors that it's tough to keep track but from among the list I just gave, I also know that Lagunitas sold out to Heineken. It's a reality of the craft world and also a function of what's available at a given store, which in our case, on Siesta Key in Florida, was limited. I always prefer something from the craft realm but don't believe in purity tests.

1:39

ok folks, I'm going to call it a day on this chat. Thanks for stopping by and for being patient while I field your questions. I dearly hope you all are managing through this crisis and abiding best practices in terms of staying safe. Be well, and let's do this again next week.

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