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Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat - 4/16/24
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AvatarJay Jaffe
2:01
Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to my Tuesday chat. Apologies for the technical glitch in terms of the pre-chat queue but we should be up and running.
Pouring one out for Whitey Herzog, the Hall of Fame manager best known for piloting the Cardinals to the 1982 championship and two other pennants.
2:03
And pouring another one out for Carl Erskine, a true mensch who not only helped the Dodgers to five pennants and their 1955 championship — and threw two no-hitters as well — but became “a fierce champion of human rights, racial equality and, when his late son Jimmy was born with Down syndrome, became immersed in fighting for people with special needs.”

The Hall of Fame honored Erskine with the Buck O'Neill Lifetime Achievement Award last summer https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/2024/04/16/indianas-carl-erskine...
WinTwins0410
2:03
Jay, I hate to "remember some guys" too much to start a chat, but it seems like we've lost a lot of interesting baseball guys lately -- Ken Holtzman, Whitey Herzog, Carl Erskine, Fritz Peterson, Jerry Grote and even Pat Zachry.  Curious if you plan to do a full-on article about Whitey.  I am hoping you will!
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:04
Forgot about Holtzman, who was a big part of the A's three straight championships and holds the record for most wins by a Jewish pitcher (174).
2:05
I'm thinking about whether I can pull off a Herzog tribute in a timely fashion.
bringbackpologrounds
2:06
Do you see Altuve parlaying his outstanding start into serious MVP contention?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:08
As I pointed out in yesterday's piece about the Astros' slow start (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/an-annual-tradition-the-astros-are-off-to-...), Altuve is red hot; in fact, with his three hits last night he's now batting .403/.476/.722 for a major league-leading 246 wRC+.
2:10
Obviously he won't maintain that. But can he contend for an MVP award at age 33? Color me skeptical. Obviously he remains an excellent hitter, but he's had a hard time staying healthy, with just 90 games last year and 141 the year before. Most of his time missed was due to the broken thumb he sustained in the World Baseball Classic, but he hasn't played 150 games in a season since 2017. It would certainly be something to see if he did, though!
Volpe
2:10
Not at THIS level, but, the way people thought Volpe's rookie year was going to be his offensive talent forever is pretty surprising. Not everyone is his new RF teammate.
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:13
Baseball fans tend to be impatient, and one byproduct of the Prospect Industrial Complex is that highly-touted young players who don't deliver immediately cause some seriously irrational reactions. That Volpe actually had a pretty decent rookie season at age 21 was camouflaged by his .209 AVG
2:14
He's hitting .373/.464/.542 but interestingly enough has only barreled two balls (4%). I know Esteban Rivera is going to take a closer look for us soon.
Phil
2:17
Guys like Tyler O'Neill fascinate me. Former top prospect under 30 with a six-win season in the past should be capable of producing another similar, if healthy. As a Red Sox fan watching him play, I don't understand how he got a reputation as a non-hustler, if that even is his reputation. Assuming his latest injury really is just a few forehead stitches, how shocked would you really be if he outdoes his 2021 season?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:17
I thought Oliver Marmol calling out O'Neill in April last year during a wet game for not running hard was one of the most bush league acts i've seen from a major league manager in awhile
2:19
Guy has a significant history of leg injuries, is running on a wet track, and was thrown out by Acuña? Maybe you take him aside and address your perception of the issue, but embarrassing a player publicly like that, woof.
2:22
Anyway, as i noted last week before he got banged up again (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/mookie-who-tyler-oneill-is-the-hottest-hit...), O'Neill is off to a strong start, hitting the ball much harder than in 2022 or '23, and I suspect the health of his legs has a lot to do with it. Not sure if he can match 2021 but if he can stay healthy he'll be the most productive Sox outfielder since Mookie.
Idiotic Failson
2:23
Is Goldy cooked?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:25
Hmm. He's not hitting the ball hard, is chasing more, and has a lot more swing-and-miss than usual. 28.6% strikeout rate, 2.4% barrel rate, 54 wRC+. He did decline notably from 2022 to '23, but I think it's more likely he's dealing with something injury- or mechanics-related than it s an even more dramatic fall-off, though he is 36.
Bardo Bill
2:26
Suppose Xander Bogaerts has like 9 more 3-WAR seasons in a row (with some reasonable year-to-year variation) before tailing off in the last couple years of his career. Ends his career with something like 65 WAR, ekes out 3000 hits. But it's also like a 112 wRC+ for his career with mediocre defense. Is that (and should it be) a hall of fame career?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:28
Eh, probably. Right now he's at 39.4/34.7/37.1 for career/peak/JAWS. Assuming that peak score remains untouched and he gets to 65.3 WAR, that's a 50 JAWS, which wouldn't be a slam dunk on its own but when combined with 3,000 hits is pretty clearly gonna get a guy into Cooperstown.
Matt VW
2:28
With his season ending injury, Trevor Story will post 3.5 bWAR in the first three years of his Red Sox contract. Xander Bogaerts posted 10.3 bWAR over the first two years of the same span, with nearly a full season to add on.

I know no one tries to get hurt, but this casts the Red Sox's determination to part with Bogaerts in a pretty bad light. How much of this was foreseeable and how much just bad luck?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:30
The Red Sox have made some pretty dubious choices when it comes to seeing some of their homegrown stars off in recent years— Lester, Mookie, Bogaerts — but hey, John Henry's gotta be happy with that payroll flexibility, right?
2:33
Given the Coors Field factor and his elbow and shoulder woes it was always a bit tricky to get a feel for what Story's offense would look like once he changed teams, but some of this is just bad luck. Then again, there's a reason he cost $140M to Bogaerts' $280M, so at least some of this was pretty apparent that they were taking a step down.
seth r
2:33
pitchers stuff++ arms fall off more than ever and teams don't mind grinding 22y/o hard throwers into dust, how does MLBPA protect pitchers who don't make it to free agency? force a different arb process for pitchers to get them paid earlier?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:36
I wish I knew. Over half the union is pitchers, and so many of them are willing to chase velocity in the face of injury risk — whether it's to hang onto a big league bullpen spot or to net that pre-free agency extension that acts as a safety net — that I'm not sure you could get them to agree on a tack to take in negotiations. The players really do have to prioritize getting paid earlier in their careers in general, and the situation with pitching injuries only calls attention to it even more. Not everybody can be Spencer Strider, netting a record-setting extension that guaranteed generational wealth just a year and change into his big league career.
the person who asks the lunch question
2:36
What's for lunch?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:37
A reuben sandwich, sadly not as hot as it should have been because the driver seemed to get lost in my neighborhood, winding up a few blocks south and 10-15 minutes later than expected.
Kevin
2:38
I recently read some considered baseball to have been Jackie Robinson’s fourth best sport. Have you been to the Jackie Robinson Museum, and if so, what did you think of it?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:42
I do wonder about Robinson in other sports; at UCLA he lettered in basketball, football, and track as well as baseball. His older brother Mack won a Gold Medal as part of Jesse Owens' relay team in 1936, and Jackie won an NCAA championship in the long jump. I do find it hard to believe baseball was the least of those sports but he was obviously pretty special as an athlete.

I visited the Jackie Robinson Museum in late 2022 and enjoyed it. It's not very big, so easily doable in about 90 minutes or so, but it was very well done. A bit text-heavy for kids, but worth bringing them if that's what you have in mind.

https://twitter.com/jay_jaffe/status/1596585827353534464
Lance Lynn HR Machine
2:44
Did the Royals themselves think their off seasons moves and player development would be this much of a success? Or do you think this season is even already exceeding their best expectations?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:47
I liked the Lugo and Wacha moves but I doubt even the Royals saw those as transformative. And let's not forget that early records can be particularly distorted by quality of competition. The Royals are 5-0 against the White Sox, 6-6 against everybody else; they also went 3-0 against an Astros team whose rotation is pretty depleted. They may well be the Royals team that turns the corner, and I'm particularly impressed with Bobby Witt Jr. so far, but let's see where this goes.
Jason
2:47
Are the Dodgers actually giving to give Pages a legitimate chance or is he going to get the last season Michael Busch treatment?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:51
it's not clear yet. This is mainly as a fill-in for Heyward's roster spot, which effectively puts him in the short half of a platoon with Outman, though it's more crowded than that, with the two Hernandezes and Chris Taylor also out there. If he hits, he'll stick around but I suspect this is a short-term thing for now
Ske
2:51
The NLC has had a fun start to the year. After 10% of the season, which team do you think has the best chance to pull away?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:53
I don't think anyone's going to pull away. We had the five teams forecast for something like 77.5-83.5 wins, and nobody's 10-5 or 11-6 start upends that; on the contrary, the range is now 80.6 to 84.1. This is going to be a summer-long grind.
TomBruno23
2:53
Looking at the active leaders in W and not sure anyone gets to 175 to pass Holtzman regardless of their religion.
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:53
Maybe some of them need to go to synagogue more often
2:54
Gerrit Cole has 145 wins, and I think I feel comfortable taking the "over" on 30 remaining wins, if nothing else.
Guest
2:54
How do you handle a top prospect like Jackson Holliday who starts off so poorly?  Send him back to the minors?  Stick with him?  Something else?  Seems like a very tough decision since you don't want to sap his confidence, but also don't want to hurt the MLB team.
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:58
you have to give him more than 19 PA, which is all he has so far (one hit and 10 strikeouts, yikes). If you don't do that, then calling him up was a waste of everybody's time, and sending him back down is probably going to do more harm than good. I can't imagine the Orioles haven't thought this through already  — you have to at least consider that this might happen when you make such a move, and have a plan in place. Maybe it's 3 weeks, or 50 PA or something, but you need to see whether he can adjust and how he handles the adversity. I think a lot of it depends on stuff that's not visible to us from outside or that we run the danger of projecting our own concerns into his head. But I will give the Orioles the benefit of the doubt and believe they have a plan in place.
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