JotCast | Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat 4/14/26

Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat 4/14/26

Prev Page View Full Chat

Jay Jaffe

12:51

i think the odds are reasonable that one or the other makes it. Stanton might have pulled ahead lately by being so productive during Cole's TJ outage

Guest

12:51

Do you think Wrobleski will be able to stick around at SP for LAD?

Jay Jaffe

12:55

I don't see that as a likely outcome given the quality of his stuff and the makeup of the team's roster. I think he's more of a swingman type who will be in the rotation mix as a fill-in after Snell gets back and when the other starters take their inevitable midseason breaks. They'll get Snell back at some point, and hopefully River Ryan and Gavin Stone, and there's always Landon Knack for when they get stretched thin as well.

12:56

I don't see them pushing Wrobo past 100 innings, but if he keeps pitching like. he did last night, he'll continue to get looks

Guest

12:56

Will David Cone ever make it to the HOF

Jay Jaffe

12:57

Alas, the way the Era Committee process is structured, the odds are greatly tilted against any sub-200 win pitcher who went one-and-done on the writers' ballot suddenly breaking through.

Richard

12:58

Is Kevin Appier the best player to make only one All-Star team? In JAWS he’s right between 7x All-Star Dave Stieb and 5x All-Star Chuck Finley. He was the A.L. WAR leader in 1993, which should have earned him the Cy Young (and maybe even MVP). He was one of the 4-5 best pitchers in the game from 1990-97, with only Maddux, Clemens and Big Unit decidedly outperforming Appier’s averages across those 8 years. His 7 seasons with a 4.5+ WAR are more than 1st-ballot HOFers Glavine, Smoltz and Sabathia. Yet Appier was just a 1x All-Star and received only a single HOF vote.

Jay Jaffe

1:00

I think there's a case to be made. Of the AL/NL pitchers whose careers began after 1933 (the year the ASG began), he has the highest S-JAWS (48.3, about 7 points ahead of Jamie Moyer and Javier Vazquez).

1:01

He certainly deserved more recognition in his day

1:01

Any reason for concern with Pasquantino? Bat speed down 3 ticks, K-rate up.

Jay Jaffe

1:02

Yeah, I'm concerned especially given the bat speed. 0.8% fast swing rate, what the hell? Is he playing through injury? I want to know more

Definitely Not Carl Crawford

1:04

Justin Crawford has only 1 barrel and 1 ball pulled in the air (not the same batted ball event by the way) through 54 PAs/37 batted balls. The surface stats look good, but Crawford is riding a .405 BABIP. Do you foresee trouble for him down the line if the batted ball profile doesn't change much? There is not much depth here for Philly so he will get every chance, but I worry things may get ugly.

Jay Jaffe

1:06

He's likely to be a guy who hits a lot of grounders and uses his speed to compensate for his lack of pop (20/30 grades on his game power) but yes, I'd be concerned how it looks if/when he sheds 50 points of BABIP or something

Jay Jaffe

1:08

that said, check out what Dan Szymborski wrote about Crawford here while putting him on his Booms list https://blogs.fangraphs.com/szymborskis-2026-booms-and-busts-hitters/

1:06

I'm not sure it's possible, but can you explain why Francisco Lindor is so putrid every April since becoming a Met?

Jay Jaffe

1:10

My working theory — unbacked by any real research — is that it can be harder for a switch-hitter to get going because he has two swings to iron out instead of one. Cal Raleigh, José Ramírez, Jorge Polanco, and Ketel Marte are all off to slow starts as well.

Dan

1:11

Should I worry about Cal Raleigh? What about Luis Castillo? With Hancock pitching well, does Castillo go to the bullpen when Miller is healthy?

Jay Jaffe

1:12

Raleigh is averaging just 83.9 mph in exit velo and running a 32.4% strikeout rate. I'm sure pitchers are keying on him but yeah, that has me concerned.

1:14

Regarding Hancock/Castillo/Miller, Castillo's just been BABIPed to death, his peripherals are good (3.19 FIP) and he's getting lots of grounders, and his velo and stuff are fine. I'm not worried about him. Nor do I ever encourage anyone to count starting pitcher chickens before they're all healthy.

Pivot Point

1:15

What is the news on the return of Jackson Holliday? Is Angel Martinez a pivot for the ROS?

Jay Jaffe

1:17

He's scuffling during his rehab assignment so until he shows signs of getting going I wouldn't expect him to come up.

1:18

Martinez hasn't played any 2B this year but he's really given the Guardians a nice boost with his bat. Not sure i'd call it a breakout yet but a promising step forward

Ozzie

1:18

What has been happening with Michael Busch? Are there some concering underlying statistics or just SSS bad luck?

Jay Jaffe

1:19

His swing speed is down a couple of notches, and his EV is way down, not pulling the ball very often. I'd guess his timing is off but I wonder if there are any physical issues there.

Bog

1:20

What would you do with Roki

Jay Jaffe

1:21

Probably send him to the minors at some point, but they likely need one of the aforementioned guys to show they're ready to join the rotation

oh and I forgot Knack is down with an oblique strain so that's not going to be an option for awhile either

Beto

1:21

Austrian-American dual citizen here! I love living in Vienna but it does make baseball watching rather challenging. Best of luck on your trip and congrats on the citizenship!

Jay Jaffe

1:23

Thanks! The trip was great if a bit heavy — we tracked down my paternal grandparents' residences before they were chased out of town by the Nazis in the spring of 1938. Spending a lot of time dwelling on Austrian history as one does as a tourist, through museums and sites of interest, means thoughts of that stuff are never too far away.

Jeremy

1:24

Lots of Fangraphs articles early in the season are about guys who've started surprisingly well, or surprisingly poorly (e.g., Walker, Soriano, Trout). Those articles usually show that the guy is doing something differently than he used to--swinging less, or elevating more, or locating better, or whatever. But surely any time anybody has a hot or cold streak, it's likely that he's doing *something* different, right? Finding that somebody's doing something different during a hot or cold streak shouldn't give us any confidence that that the streak is the new normal, should it?

Jay Jaffe

1:25

sometimes it's just randomness that's causing a hot or cold streak, and lots of streaks evade notice when they happen deeper into the season because they don't fundamentally change anything about our understanding of a player. But when a guy starts out hot or cold, it's natural to wonder what's going on

Resolution

1:26

SHOCKED that the first time I've seen McGonigle mentioned alongside the Simpsons bit was in a non-Szym chat. What a time to be alive.

Jay Jaffe

1:27

I'm disappointed you didn't think I might beat somebody else to a Simpsons reference.

Kellen

1:29

All off-season, every analyst said some version "the Tigers are winning the central, don't worry about it." As an anxious baseball fan, not worrying is not really my thing lol. The Tigers offense has been a relative disappointment before this Marlins series. In your estimation, is that a bit of an early season fluke or a larger concern to worry about?

Jay Jaffe

1:32

I'm not terribly worried but I get it if you're a fan. They're at a 102 wRC+ this year, down 1 point from last year; the power hasn't shown up but league-wide, homers are way down (0.99 per team per game, down from 1.16 last year and 1.06 last March/April, and March/April league-wide SLG is down 10 points (from .391 to .381). Might be worth a big-picture look soon

OK folks, I've got to go grab lunch and pay the tax man. Thanks so much for stopping by! We'll do this again soon.

Connecting…

Your current subscriptions

None

E-mail Address	Chat Owner	Status	Remove

Enter your email address to be notified when Jay Jaffe hosts a chat