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Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat - 4/30/21
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AvatarJay Jaffe
2:47
I can't see them trading Devers unless they feel like there's no way they can retain him
Scott K
2:48
Re: Alomar   Let's not forget he also spit in the face of an umpire during an argument.  Not a great role model.
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:49
Eh, that's nothing compared to the DV allegations against him in the past. https://www.espn.com/espn/otl/news/story?id=5765281
Jay T
2:50
It seems to me that Joey Gallo is struggling.  However, he has a wRC+ of 126.  Is his current walk rate really that valuable?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:54
outs are baseball's clock, and he's doing his best not to run out the clock with that high walk rate and OBP. In a lineup where the players hitting behind him aren't producing that will have slightly less value than in the abstract; because of sequencing, a team will be more likely to fall short of its expectations for scoring. Indeed, the Rangers expected R/G via BaseRuns is 0.09 below their actual scoring, so Gallo's situation might be part of that.
Casey
2:54
Hi Jay. I was wondering your impressions on Gary Sanchez? Mine, living in Seattle, might be different from someone living in NYC. Strange player. "The kind of player that gets a manager fired". Takes good at bats. Needs a trade? Very "low motor"
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:57
I wrote about Sánchez yesterday. Not in the piece but I think that his relationship with Joe Girardi was strained and may have been a factor in the Yankees moving on, but I would not use the term low-motor to describe him. He has a reputation within the org as a hard worker even if he  doesn't project the kind of bullshit eyewash stuff that tabloid-minded suckers tend to fall for. Don't be one of those suckers.
Sodo Mojo
2:58
Mailhot had a good article about Longoria and Seager this morning.  Is there anything short of going full Beltre that Longoria can do to revive his HOF chances?
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:02
Longoria's 18th in JAWS at a position that's under-represented in the HOF (there are just 15) but the problem is that I can make a stronger case for each of the non-HOFers in the vicinity above him before I finish my morning coffee: Rolen, Nettles, Boyer, Bell, Bando, Allen. His 42 score on the HOF Monitor is higher than Bando's (35) but Sal at least played a key position within the A's dynasty and had more All-Star apperances. Longoria is going to have to stick around and reach some milestones if he's going to sniff the Hall, I think.
Juan
3:03
Is John Means for real?  3 xERA over the past 2 seasons now
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:03
Means was pretty good in 2019 (78 ERA-, 93 FIP-) so I don''t think this is sudden.
White Sox Fan
3:04
Anyone that says Jerry Reinsdorf is the worst owner in MLB or the NBA is grossly ignorant of how well he not only takes care of former players but employees in general. Two of my friends that served beer back in 2005 at Comiskey were not only flown down to Houston for game 4 of the WS along with many other employees and family but also received genuine WS championship rings.
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:04
This is part of what I was talking about before. Reinsdorf has a reputation for loyalty that sits well with his former players and employees, as opposed to the Wilpons and Monforts of the world.
Matt
3:04
Hey Jay, what do you make of Max Fried's rough start? Opposing batters are hitting him hard way more frequently than in the past and I'm having a hard time diagnosing it just based on what I can find in Statcast numbers.
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:05
He's thrown 11 innings and strained a hamstring. It's possible he was already having trouble with the hammy before he hurt it running the bases. I wouldn't squint at the stats too hard beyond that.
Dan
3:06
It seems like writers post more articles on their chat days. Is this real or just my imagination? If it's real is it something intentional by you or meg?
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:07
I have no idea whether it's "real" or not. It's something for me to do as I wait for my chat queue to fill, especially while knowing that I may get questions about a piece I've written. Seems worthwhile to make it easier to find my work, no?
Cueto's Shimmy
3:07
How is the Giant's rotation doing this? I can buy bounce back,  years from a healthy DeSclafani and Wood, but Sanchez can barely get over 90 mph. Gausman is an ace apparently? Cueto found (then lost) the fountain of youth?
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:09
Tony Wolfe took a look the other day, noting that again, the samples are small and that any of those pitchers might be ripe for a deeper dive in the near future. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-giants-rotation-is-one-of-baseballs-un...

I think what we do know is that under Farhan Zaidi, the Giants have found some useful players that other teams had written off — Mike Yaz, Donovan Solano, Gausman — and it stands to reason they'd hit on some others. Whether they can all sustain it, who knows.
Casey
3:10
Regarding Aroldis, I think it's unfair to to discredit a baseball career when 1) Nobody was there when the incident happens 2) Nobody knows the people involved 3) Everyone has had shitty days, or has treated someone poorly in their life. If I had heard that Aroldis was an obvious, repeated, terrible criminal person that would be one thing, but his overall behavior and play doesn't dampen my enthusiasm at all. All the moralizing has rendered the hall of fame rather gross to me in some ways. Its people standing in the way of people who were excellent at baseball, delighted to judge them it seems.
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:10
MLB found enough evidence to suspend him. Full stop.
Isolated Thinker
3:10
It's the Yankees, so the consensus is that they will be fine.  But was replacing Tanaka with 2 injury recovery projects instead of a solid #2 a mistake?  Seems like they may have taken Tanaka's importance for granted. Most of their other starters have question marks regarding injuries as well.
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:14
I agree with you on Tanaka — with Kluber, Taillon, Germán, and Severino combining to throw 1 major league inning last year, it seemed to me that they needed some certainty in the middle of the rotation, a good ol' League Average Innings Muncher (LAIM) as we used to say in order to mitigate the risk. We've seen some flashes of encouraging signs from the first three of those guys but not sustained quality yet. We've also seen good stuff from Mike King this year, and Deivi Garcia last year, so maybe they do have enough pitching with out Tanaka, but right now it's not obvious.
Guest
3:15
Will the Mariners send down White? He can’t seem to hit at all.
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:16
just looked at the numbers and woof. I'd think yeah, they have to send him down at some point because there's no use in playing a 1B with a 35 wRC+ and Statcast numbers that , if not quite that bad, are still pretty bleak.
Andoru
3:18
So the Angels’ staff is underperforming all their peripherals by about a run and a half. Do you see their results improving by as much?
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:21
I think they've got some defensive problems. Their defensive efficiency — the rate at which they turn batted balls into outs — is .657, 21 points worse than the next-worst AL team and 41 points lower than league average. their 17-point wOBA-xwOBA gap is the majors' largest. This isn't all on the pitchers, at all.
As to what's going on there, I'd have to look more closely but thank you for a potential article idea
Kyle
3:22
Reinsdorf and Monfort have nothing on Bob Nutting. He's not a meddler but he is content to sit by and let his front office run things into the ground, at least until he finally fired Neal Huntington a couple years ago.
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:22
Nutting deserves mention, for sure. Not sure I'd put him past Monfort yet, or Wilpon. But I can understand if Pirates fans feel differently.
Guest
3:23
Any thoughts about Carlos Rodon in the early going?
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:23
Yes. My thoughts: wow! Happy to see it happening given what he's been through
Vermonty Python
3:23
Most likely Gary Sanchez scenario: 1) traded in July as salary-offset when the club acquires a pitcher 2) non-tendered after the season?
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:24
one or the other is quite possible. He has almost no trade value right now so he'd have to start hitting, at the very least, but I'd think he'd be an interesting change-of-scenery candidate
Andoru
3:26
Yeah, Stassi, Lagares, and Rendon hitting the IL at the same time was definitely not fun. Suzuki is an inferior defensive catcher, Walsh has no business in the outfield, and Pujols has no business on the field, period.
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:26
Re: Angels
greg
3:27
are joey gallo's days as a 40 HR hitter over?
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:29
on the one hand, he hasn't hit 40 homers since 2018, and there's now a new baseball that may be making it harder to hit homers. On the other hand, his new ballpark appears to be more conducive to fly ball carry than his old one according to a new Baseball Savant feature Mike Petriello showed off earlier today https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/statcast-park-factors?type=...

That, and the fact that Gallo has shown a maximum exit velocity of 114.3 mph this year suggests we shouldn't count him out.
Guest
3:30
Giants and Royals... best teams in baseball?
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:30
It's October 2014 all over again! Enjoy it while it lasts.
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