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Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat - 3/21/19
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AvatarJay Jaffe
12:03
Hi folks, welcome to today's chat! I'm in a brief not-rain delay as I finish up a quickie Instagraph on Ichiro. Will join the party soon.
12:20
OK, I'm back. Had a quick brainstorm for something to say about Ichiro that I found interesting. Thanks for waiting that out, happy 2019 MLB season to those celebrating, and on with the show!
Russell
12:20
Do you think MLB/HoF will make Ichiro wait a full five years or make a special exception for him?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:21
I briefly address this in the forthcoming post but at this point, I don't see the Hall making an exception. He'll be eligible for the 2025 ballot instead of 2024, but I think the tradeoff — the chance to retire on his own terms, in his native country — was well worth the delay.
Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe
12:21
Jesus Luzardo is out for a month. What a bummer!
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:24
Fuuuuuuuuuuuudge.

I've only seen bits and pieces of his work but I've been a Luzardo fan since I first heard his name, on the basis of its similarity to The Jesus Lizard, a kick-ass 1990s band that is either number 1 or 1A when it comes to live acts (the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and the Waco Brothers are the other two vying for that title). They blew the doors off every venue I saw them at from about 1990 to 2017, when they came out of retirement for a final tour. Oh, and their best album is called GOAT.

Get well soon, Jesus Luzardo.
Travis
12:24
Given the recent FG update for Pitch Framing/WAR, and seeing how that has affected career WAR totals in a way that stands out (Molina, McCann, Martin, etc.), how has this affected your thinking on Catchers and the Hall, and/or do you foresee yourself adjusting JAWS accordingly or leaving well enough alone? I know you use BR WAR for your system, but the discrepancy seems large enough that it merits consideration.
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:26
psweeting
12:26
Is Ichiro a unanimous HoFer?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:27
Now that the barrier has fallen, I think it's entirely possible he will be. If I were a betting man, I'd put $20 on it today.
DDD
12:27
Love to hear your take on the Trout contract. Also, what do you think that means for Betts?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:31
Count me as somebody who's happy for Trout for guaranteeing this massive payday but also believing that, as Craig Edwards put it, he left money on the table. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/mike-trout-leaves-money-on-the-table-again...

Given the way the free agencies of Bryce Harper and Manny Machado played out this winter, I'm glad we'll be spared the months of speculation and nitpicking that come with the free agency of a superstar, all the bullshit about what Mike Trout isn't. It's become a pretty joyless aspect of the hot stove season. Who cares whether Trout would be recognized in a mall? And as Pedro Martinez would say, who is Colin Cowherd?
Rothbert
12:32
In this era of cold stove free agency it's easy to over look how underpaid Lorenzo Cain is. What happened here? Do teams not like stud center fielders? Did the Brewers (and now Padres) uncover a new roster building strategy where you pay good players to join your team?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:36
I think Cain's 5/$80M deal had much more to do with the changing free agent market for over-30 players (he was heading into his age-31 season) than specifically about center fielders. And while I labeled it a team-friendly deal last March (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-most-team-friendly-free-agent-deals-of...), I tried to show that it was a pretty fair one based upon our dollars-to-wins reckoning. "In all, it’s more of a fair deal than outlandish one."
Archimedes
12:37
First Tim Salmon, now Mike Trout. Who will be the next fish-named player to spend his entire career with the Angels?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:39
Does Salmon or Kevin Bass (1986 All-Star with the Astros) have any kids? Given that Trout was the son of a former minor leaguer, and that current prospect lists are topped by the progeny of Vlad Guerrero and Fernando Tatis, I have to think that bloodlines will matter for this otherwise-fishy exercise.
LP
12:39
Ichiro is my all time favorite player. Who is yours?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:41
It would be tough to pick just one. Hank Aaron, whom I was too young to see play, was the first star I learned about. Davey Lopes and Reggie Smith were my early favorites with the Dodgers (c. 1978), Fernando Valenzuela surpassed them for obvious reasons in 1981. Gaylord Perry, Tim Raines, Edgar Martinez, Larry Walker, David Cone, Clayton Kershaw, Yasiel Puig, Mike Trout, Bryce Harper and many others would be in the conversation as well.
Sanford
12:42
Now that framing data has been added to catcher WAR, Molina becomes a near-lock for the HOF now, right? (Especially given that he's closing in on 2000 hits.) Also, how much have guys like McCann and Martin improved their chances?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:43
I'll get into this in the forthcoming piece but I'm less sure that the framing stuff guarantees Molina's HOF election than I am that this clouds the issue because of how people view McCann and Martin. There's a lot to unpack.
Scott
12:43
If Ichiro came to the majors at 30 and had the same stats in the subsequent years, would he still be a Hall of Famer?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:44
Dude arrived late and got to 3,000 hits with a pretty thick resumé along the way. You do that, starting at any age, and you're going to get into the Hall (so long as nobody turns up a PED scandal).
stever20
12:44
Who do you have going to the final 4 for basketball?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:48
As I've been buried in our Positional Power Rankings, I haven't even seen a bracket, let alone filled one out. I have come to abhor the NCAA  — whose entire governing body should be launched into the f'ing sun — and have watched just one college game this year (Utah beating USC in LA in February, watched a few minutes with my father when I was in Salt Lake City).

Still, I've done this enough times to tell you that Duke, Kansas, North Carolina and Michigan are going to the Final Four. I don't even care whether some of those teams made the tournament or would meet in an earlier round; they'll all find a way to wherever its being played.
g4baseball
12:49
What is the outlook for Wilmer Flores? Will his bat overcome his defensive inadequacies?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:51
I have a soft spot for Flores, but I don't see anything changing for him. He is what he is, a fringe major leaguer whose combination of offense and defense makes him a poor fit for a starting spot.
RR
12:52
Do you know how far back (i.e how many years) catcher framing will go?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:53
Right now it goes back to 2008. I think we'd like to do a 1988-2007 version, covering the pitch-count era, in a With You, Without You manner as Baseball Prospectus has done. Given the information available, that's as far back as we can reasonably go.
Dave
12:53
you get +10 points for knowing jesus lizard
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:55
I got paid to write about music before I got paid to write about baseball, then stumbled into 15 years of work as a graphic designer.
Slurve
12:55
In your learned opinion, which HOFers SHOULD have been unanimous and what's the single best argument AGAINST their unanimity?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:57
Too many to list. All of the original 5 (Cobb, Ruth, Wagner, Johnson, Mathewson), Hornsby, Lajoie, Cy Young, Foxx.... many others from the pre-WWII era. Jackie Robinson, Frank Robinson, Hank Aaron, Musial, Mantle, Mays, Ripken, Bench... like I said, too many to list.
Rudy L
12:58
Harper or no, I still think the Nats are better than the Phils, now and for the next few years. Your thoughts?
AvatarJay Jaffe
Chicken Little
1:00
Is Trout ever going to get in another playoff game? NY and Boston seem like locks for the next few seasons as do the Astros in the West. That leaves on WC spot for them!
AvatarJay Jaffe
1:02
Unless you've got airtight information on a coming meteor's collision with Earth, it seems pretty silly to rule out the possibility of any team not making the playoffs at all between now and 2030.  OK, maybe not the Marlins.
Matt W
1:03
After trout, is Chaz Roe the most dominant fish-named player in MLB currently?
AvatarJay Jaffe
1:04
He's got the edge over Anthony Bass, at least in terms of innings.

Not current, but I discovered the existence of this guy https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/e/eellsha01.shtml
Harry Eells!
Roger
1:05
Pujols and Ichiro won the 2001 ROY awards.  Has there ever been a pair of ROYs to be first ballot HOFers?  (Not to get ahead of ourselves, of course)
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