You are viewing the chat in desktop mode. Click here to switch to mobile view.
X
Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat – 4/14/26
powered byJotCast
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:02
Good afternoon! Welcome to my first chat of April
I was out of town last week, traveling in Austria with my family, retracing some ancestral roots and testing out my newly-acquired dual citizenship. It's very weird to drop in on baseball when there's a 6-hour time difference in that direction, to say the least
12:04
Yesterday I wrote about Andy Pages, whose hot start I followed from afar https://blogs.fangraphs.com/with-a-hot-start-andy-pages-has-turned-the...
For tomorrow I'll be writing about Davey Lopes, my first favorite ballplayer, who passed away last week.
Bob
12:05
Do you think the Brewers will regain their magic this year?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:06
if I've learned one thing, it's never take the Brewers lightly. They always seem to find a way to contend, and in that division, that's often more than enough
Jos
12:06
Hey Jay. What do you make of Ben Casparius? I was so high on him but ever since he got shuffled back and forth between the pen/rotation it feels like he's been broken (and now he's hurt again)
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:08
when I saw him getting lit up in multiple outings recently, i wondered if he might be pitching through something, especially with his velo and stuff down just a bit.
12:09
I hope it's nothing serious, he's a useful middle reliever/spot starter but probably belongs in the bullpen long term
bob
12:09
The Braves have certainly exceeded the vibes-based preseason predictions, is this good early form perhaps more valuable as they will likely get some of their starting pitchers back eventually?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:12
i'd say so! Being able to keep their heads above water with a roster that's far from full strength is something they were unable to do last season. They've bought themselves some time, particularly in a division where the Phillies are showing some significant concerns and the new-look Mets have stumbled out of the gate
CraigB
12:14
Who's more likely to fall back to earth from here, Jordan Walker, Oneil Cruz, Andy Pages, Brice Turang, or Ben Rice?  And where will the "biggest loser" land for the year?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:14
Off the top of my head I'd say Rice and Pages since their success is being driven by BABIPs above .500
12:16
not that the others are going to sustain their starts either, it's just that the overperformances versus expectation are better supported (Walker up ~4 mph in EV and suddenly elevating more frequently, for example)
Ghost of Wade Boggs
12:17
Not a question, I just wanted to share some findings I dug up. Apologies for the wordiness:

I was scouring Fangraphs game logs to see if anyone who has won the Cy Young award has ever had as bad of a night like Crochet did last night. The logs appear to only go back to 1974, but in that time, I could not find an instance where someone gave up 10 ER (or 11 R total) in a start in a season where they won the Cy Young.

But that's not what I came here to talk about - in doing this research, I found Mike Flanagan's 1979 Cy Young winning season. What. A. Rollercoaster. He had *6* starts where failed to get through the 2nd inning. 36.95 ERA in those 6 starts. He had 2 more starts where he failed to get more than 3.1 innings (7.50 ERA). He *still* managed to finish the season with a 3.08 ERA on the backs of an additional 31 games (including 14 complete games, one of which went 12 innings), pitched to a 2.13 ERA. Man. 70's/80's baseball was wild.
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:18
wow, never noticed that or had forgotten that about Flanagan's season. Now I'm just imagining how many times that season Earl Weaver told him he looked like total horseshit out there
12:20
Five shutouts certainly helped offset that, and getting very good run support on the way to 23 wins certainly helped him look good too
NobleHelium
12:21
Aaron Judge appears to have passed Mike Trout in BRef's HOF Monitor metric (not sure exactly, it might be counting this season's numbers which aren't set yet, obviously). Is Judge now a lock for the HOF given that most everyone agrees that Trout is a lock?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:23
I think it's those league leads in homers and batting average driving that. — 18-0 advantage for Judge in that department.

I do think Judge is getting close to becoming a lock, even given his late start. 3 MVP awards, 4 seasons with at least 50 homers, that will do it
Eliot
12:25
So will mcgonigle win rookie of the year? seems to me that i got a great deal for him early
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:25
our staff overwhelmingly picked him to win, with 12 votes; nobody else got more than 5 (Kazuma Okamoto) and my own pick, Carter Jensen, got just 2
12:26
Every time I see his name i think of the Simpsons' Dirty Harry parody, McGarnicle https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/McGarnagle
Guest
12:29
The Pirates have achieved a 100 win pace so far. Fangraphs has projected them for 85 wins. Which number best reflects their true talent level holding injuries constant (at 0).
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:30
i'm going to say it's much closer to 85 wins because there's a lot more going into to that estimate than just "they'll keep winning at the same pace all season long"
troke
12:31
Jose Soriano! I know he's not going to end the season with an ERA under 1, but can he keep something like this up?  Looks like he's throwing the FB more, which is maybe helping to set up the sinker better.  I want to believe!
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:33
I haven't seen much of him yet but the pitch modeling systems say his stuff and command/location have both improved, and he's doing a great job of suppressing hard contact. Michael Baumann wrote about him last week https://blogs.fangraphs.com/gimme-the-heat-boys-and-free-my-soul-no-on...
Trout Vs. Judge
12:33
I know it’s just a mid April game between 2 teams with bad bullpens, but Trout and Judge going back and forth with 2 HRs a piece was pretty fun. They’re both performing similarly right now. Who would you be more surprised if they maintained their current performance?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:34
Trout, because it's been years since he put together something resembling a good, healthy season.
Judge
12:34
You didn't even have to Jaffe Article Bump for him to power binge
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:35
The mere process of thinking, "Maybe I need to investigate" did the trick
Insert Witty Name Here
12:36
Interesting that Davey Lopes was your first favorite.  I'll always remember him for being the first base coach of the golden era late 2000 Phillies, the announcers mentioned constantly how great he was at teaching how to steal a bag, Utley's success rate shows it.  RIP.
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:39
Part of my reason for writing about him was thinking about why he became my first favorite when there were more obvious choices. I understand why teenage Jay was a Lopes fan even in the twilight of his career — he was a Bill James favorite as I was getting absorbed in that stuff — than I do why 8-year-old Jay was a Lopes fan when there were bigger superstars like Garvey on his own team
Maybe it *was* the mustache
Guest
12:40
What's gotten into Max P. Muncy?  His Statcast page looks like a Saw movie...
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:42
He's been Maximizing like his namesake. EV up ~8 mph, HH% double last year's meager rate... I should find some time to check him out.
Guest
12:42
How’s the internet in Austria? Able to telecommute?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:43
It wasn't bad for checking in but the time zone issue meant i could mainly only catch day games, and for at most about an hour here or there
Bug
12:44
I recently read a FG comment regarding Home Team “deading” balls for a SP.  Is this a common practice?  How? Does MLB test home team supplied balls prior to games?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:46
Home teams have been working such angles forever — groundskeepers watering the field down or letting the grass grow to help their pitchers, stuff like that. With balls stored in the humidor now, I'm not sure how much you can get away with now because that stuff is supposed to be monitored closely.
Guest
12:47
are there better odds neither Gerrit Cole nor Giancarlo stanton make the HOF than one of them do
Load More Messages
Connecting…