JotCast | Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat 5/27/25

Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat 5/27/25

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Jay Jaffe

12:46

I kid, of course. Even if pitchers individually go outside the organization for help improving, the team plays a huge role in maintaining that, and in acquiring coachable players, so a good amount of the credit is due for the Royals here

Paul Goldschmidt

12:48

My contact quality is down compared to last year, but so is my K%, and my contact rates are way up. Obviously I won't hit .345 all season, but do you buy I can keep this contact-oriented approach up for the next 1-2 years?

Jay Jaffe

12:49

I think it's been an effective tradeoff and it will be enough to keep him employed for a few more years, but realistically I wouldn't bet heavily on success continuing at a high level a long time for any 37-year-old.

12:50

I do think he's HOF-bound, btw. Soon he'll be above all three standards among first basemen (career/peak/JAWS)

Tigers Fan

12:50

Were there other Blacksox players other than Shoeless Joe worthy of a HoF look

Jay Jaffe

12:54

Eddie Cicotte has numbers that scan as borderline (48.4 JAWS, 209 wins, 123 ERA+) but he's literally one of the players who sought out gamblers for the fix, so I don't see him getting anywhere close to a ballot. Buck Weaver may not have actively partaken in the fix but wasn't anywhere close to HOF caliber and didn't even get his 10 seasons in to qualify for consideration. The other Black Sox besides Jackson fall somewhere between those two poles — not good enough for long enough, and also culpable. Don't wait up.

Sodo Mojo

12:55

With Cole Young recent hot streak (172 WRC+) over the last month why have the Mariners not called him up especially with Polonco recent slump?>

Jay Jaffe

12:57

Probably at least in part because Polanco did so well earlier in the season that his job isn't in danger. I suspect Young will get a look at 2B sometime in the not-too-distant future since the M's have had to cobble things together with their injuries, so I'd keep an eye on how often he's getting reps there at Tacoma (not many, lately).

Farhandrew Zaidman

12:57

Which current managers do you think are destined for Cooperstown as a manager? I guess I'm surprised there are only 24 all time - that's a WAY lower hit rate than players, isn't it?

Jay Jaffe

1:00

Getting to Coooerstown is hard! Bochy, Roberts and Francona have probably all checked the boxes they need for election. Counsell is building a case but needs more postseason success. Everybody else has a lot more work to do.

Reasonable Shot

1:01

I mean, if anyone is in Koufax-peak territority right now it's probably Judge, right? But I actually think he's going to end up with a WAR total fairly similar to Pedro (peak heavy low 80s) which I think makes sense alongside his "no righty has done this" wRC+/WAR peak seasons with lowered offense the way Pedro's PED mastery worked out.

Jay Jaffe

1:03

I'm reluctant to compare HOF hitter and pitcher candidates to each other but yes, Judge is probably the most Koufax-like. He's only got 1,106 hits right now and it still seems clear he's done the heavy lifting for the Hall

Petey Bienel

1:04

Ken Rosenthal observed that MacKenzie Gore is at the same distance to free agency as Juan Soto was when the Nationals dealt him, and as a Boras client, the likelihood of agreeing to an extension before free agency is low. Can you think of a comparable pitcher dealt at the deadline recently?

Jay Jaffe

1:06

Offhand i can't think of a starting pitcher in Gore's position control-wise being the headliner of a deadline trade but the comp to Soto is off base — Soto had clearly established himself among the game's elite hitters by that point and it was obvious it would take a mint to sign him. Gore is a good pitcher who may become a great one but he ain't there yet.

Kevin

1:06

What’s something you know about baseball you didn’t know five or ten years ago?

Jay Jaffe

1:07

The extent to which teams can now help craft new pitches thanks to technology and analytics is a big one for me, but I bet we're gonna wind up learning so much about swings with the new bat-tracking metrics that it will be huge.

Sonny

1:08

deGrom needs X seasons at current levels to make the Hall? What about Gerrit Cole post TJ? He felt closer based on more traditional stats but the injury at this age throws a wrench in things

Jay Jaffe

1:15

There's no real point in solving for X for a 37-year-old pitcher with two TJs — we haven't seen the BBWAA elect any starter with fewer than 200 wins since Koufax, and it was 17 years before that when they elected the previous one (Dazzy Vance, who came close with 197). Even if you imagine JdG can average 15 wins per year he would still need 7 seasons after this one to get there, which isn't realistic.

Now, of course we're probably heading for the day when a starter with fewer than 200 wins does get elected, but I still think that pitcher is going to have to get in the ballpark of Koufax, and Cole is at least nearly there (153 vs. 165). But he's got a lot of work to do on the WAR/JAWS front to look like a strong candidate.

Corey Seager

1:15

will be a hall of famer I think

Jay Jaffe

1:15

can't even stay on the field.

1:16

If he could, i'd be optimistic, but we're talking about a player with 1 season of more than 140 games out of the past 8.

Alec

1:16

Will Warren has put together a solid month of production, 7 strikeouts in each of his last four starts including the rain-shortened outing on Sunday. What have you liked most about his performances so far, and do you like his chances to contend for AL RoY?

Jay Jaffe

1:19

I'm a big fan of pitchers who can miss bats and generate groundballs, and he's been exceptional in the former and above-average in the latter. I think he's in the ROY picture but he's going to need to sustain this performance for awhile to have a shot especially given what Jacob Wilson and Carlos Narvaez are doing.

Shaq_diesel

1:19

Will the Rays play a playoff game in the Stein, if they get there? A potential LCS and even a World Series in a MiLB ballpark?

Jay Jaffe

1:21

I'd bank that they move them to Miami for the playoffs, at least after the Wild Card round — if they even make it that far (29.1% odds). I can't see MLB standing for the revenue hit they'd take by hosting an extended run in such a small ballpark

Ken

1:21

He didn't have a great career like Jackson, Rose, or even Cicotte, but are your thoughts any different when it comes to Buck Weaver? If memory serves, he only knew what the others were doing, but didn't get involved.

Jay Jaffe

1:21

He's in the Hall of Teachable Moments.

1:23

Solid player, not a star; from 1915–20 he had a 99 OPS+ while averaging 2.9 WAR.

Ken

1:24

Yankees are looking for rotation help and a right handed bat, who can handle 3B. Who do you think they'll get?

Jay Jaffe

1:24

Yoan Moncada is my best guess. Switch-hitter having a nice rebound year on a going-nowhere team.

Ken

1:25

Some of the A's players are grumbling about the AAA stadium. Is there any pressure the union can put on MLB to do something else (e.g. go back to the Coliseum until the Vegas stadium is built), or was the grievance threat to get Fisher to spend some all that mattered?

Jay Jaffe

1:26

Barring something catastrophic, I doubt the union can do much besides extracting minor concessions at this stage.

Andrew Rohrman

1:27

Hey Jay - to what extent do you think a player's playoff success should contribute to their legacy, when it comes to Hall of Fame voting? Zack Wheeler may be the poster child for this discussion - his counting stats and accolades are sorely lacking, but his peak and sustained dominance in the playoffs to me open the door for legitimate HoF candidacy.

Jay Jaffe

1:28

It's a factor but if Andy Pettitte's postseason volume isn't enough to get him over the hump, I don't see where Wheeler, with better run prevention in a smaller sample (but no rings) isn't going to get it done.

1:31

the October heroics of Bumgarner and Lester won't be enough given their career numbers, so unless he turns into Bob Gibson...

M's fan

1:32

What do you make of the M's: pretender or contender?

Jay Jaffe

1:33

Contender. Improved offense and still a lot of starting pitching.

1:34

It’s an arbitrary mark of course, but all the non-PED 500 HR guys are in the HoF. There are active players like Schwarber and Eugenio Suarez who have a plausible shot to get there but will fall way short of any WAR-based standards. Do you think enough Hall voters will vote yes based on the shiny number or is there a critical mass that’s sophisticated enough to keep them out?

Jay Jaffe

1:38

I don't think their shots are all that plausible because their all-around games aren't strong enough to withstand huge dropoffs in production and — this is key — their batting averages are already low (nobody below Ray Schalk's .253 enshrined, and even the most Schwarber-like slugger, Harmon Killebrew, is at .256, 25 points higher than KS). Schwarber is already a DH with serious negative defensive value and a ton of swing and miss. Suarez is a solid defender and prolific slugger but he has a 112 career wRC+ and that's not going to stand out.

Sean A

1:38

Hey Jay! Wondering what the skin color of the Soto detractors has to do with the criticism? You referred to them as ‘old white men’ in a previous chat as well.

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