JotCast | Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat

Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat - 6/11/21

Jay Jaffe

2:02

Hey folks, good afternoon and welcome to my first chat of June! I'm on something of a working vacation with my family's annual trip to Cape Cod. Got a bit of sand between my toes, a bit of fried seafood in my stomach, and some local craft beers as well.

(not yet today, last night that is)

ChuckNChino

2:02

Missed you last week -- hope all is well.

Jay Jaffe

2:03

Thanks. Missed last week due to festivities for the end of my daughter's school year and thus her preschool experience. It was pretty emotional but in a positive way

Slapshot

2:03

I saw your retweet yesterday of MLBN's question about who is leading for AL MVP between Vlad and Ohtani. Assuming they keep up their current pace (Vlad for hitting, Ohtani for both sides) with fairly close WAR, who do you see getting the title between those two at the end of the day? Also, do you see writers giving Vlad more of an edge if he somehow nabs the AL Triple Crown along the way?

Jay Jaffe

2:04

The MLB Network screenshot was incredibly inane

Who's your AL MVP frontrunner and why?

2:05

relying on Triple Crown stats in an MVP argument is a totally outdated paradigm, and reducing Ohtani's pitching performance to an afterthought equally so

Might as well add the wins and the RBI and call that "analysis"

2:08

Which isn't to say that voters shouldn't consider Vlad Jr.'s MVP case if he wins the Triple Crown, but any analysis of his candidacy's merits should consider more than that, and likewise Ohtani. What he's doing is something that hasn't been seen since Babe Ruth's 1918-1919 transitional stage, and damn, that's just incredibly cool.

2:09

As to how the voters will handle either case, I'm just gad we're not in 2012, with supposed adults hurling "nerd" insults at those of us using advanced statistics in our arguments.

Curtis

2:09

Other than DH...why is there such imbalance in the HOF (NFL too FWIW) position by position?

Jay Jaffe

2:13

This mainly concerns catchers and third basemen, plus center fielders as well. The short answer is that I don't think there's been a full appreciation of the value of defense at those positions, or the injury risks and constraints placed on catchers' playing time. Likewise, I think that third basemen suffer because people don't appreciate the balance of offensive and defensive expectations there, an issue I wrote about at length in the Ron Santo chapter of The Cooperstown Casebook.

Fat Spielberg

2:13

Did the sand turn your feet black? Like in Maine?

Jay Jaffe

2:13

No, it was a bit orangey because of the underlying clay I think

copecru

2:13

Are you (or any Fangraphs writer) doing a piece on Mike Marshall? from a Seattle Pilots fan...

Jay Jaffe

2:15

I debated whether to do a Marshall piece and ultimately passed on it, mainly because I just didn't have the bandwidth to pull off something at the level of my other tributes. I kind of regret that, in that he was a fascinating individual, a true iconoclast, but doing him justice would have meant spending only so much time on his playing career while going a lot further afield in some areas than I had time to do properly.

Ben Cherington

2:16

Do you have a Mitch Keller theory? I'm all out of ideas with this kid. Is there any chance he performs well without me having to trade him and Oneil Cruz to TB for Chris Archer?

Jay Jaffe

2:18

Ben Clemens and I talked a bit about him on yesterday's Twitch stream of the Dodgers-Pirates game. Ben is much more well-versed in Keller than I am but he had come up in my Snell piece. The short answer is that based on the prospect reports it seems like he should have the stuff to be a competent starter but he's walking too many, not striking out enough, and has a batted ball profile that can't withstand that. As to the underlying why, I'll leave that to people more familiar with his mechanics and scouting report.

Derek

2:18

Bigger surprise so far: Cedric Mullins II's 2.9 WAR or Buster Posey's and Brandon Crawford's matching 2.3 WARs?

Jay Jaffe

2:21

Good question. From an odds standpoint, two aging players at key defensive positions BOTH having All-Star caliber first halves on the basis of their two-way work might be higher (imagine each player having like an 80th percentile season so maybe a 1-in-5 chance at this level) versus a breakout for a youngish player who's never demonstrated this level in MLB, that while giving up switch hitting. I think I'd go with Mullins as the bigger surprise just because we've never seen him do the stuff he's doing in the majors.

Ironcurtin

2:22

Kelenic was sent down to AAA after going 0-39. First two games at AAA? 0-8 with 5 strikeouts.

Jay Jaffe

2:23

Whether it's mechanical, mental, or physical, or some combination of those factors, Kelenic has landed in a bad spot after the Mariners did their worst to ensure he was under an incredibly powerful microscope. This isn't his failure so much as it's an organizational failure. I hope he gets right and comes back and kicks ass.

Pat

2:25

With Kimbrel back dominating, he's pretty close to becoming borderline HOF level, no? With 363 saves, he's about 2-3 months from being 8th all time in saves & of those above 8th not in the HOF (Wagner, Franco, K-Rod), he is much more dominant than Franco & K-Rod & Wagner is possibly on pace to make the HOF himself.

Jay Jaffe

2:29

I wrote a bit about Kimbrel's rebound and the revival of his HOF chances on April 13 (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/craig-kimbrel-is-dominant-once-again/) and he's continued to kick ass. If he can maintain some level of dominance beyond these first two months he has a fighting chance at a Hall spot but I think we need to see a couple seasons of above-average work. It looks like he has it in him but he'll need health and consistency

Curtis

2:29

.330 this year is like .370? If DeGrom beats Gibson's ERA mark, does he win MVP + CY?

Jay Jaffe

2:29

very possibly

Fat Spielberg

2:29

Why do pitchers have such high WARs on bbref as compared to FG? Is it because FG attributes some of their success to pitch-framing catchers?

Jay Jaffe

2:31

Yes, that has a lot to do with it. B-Ref bases its WAR on actual runs allowed with adjustments for a team's defense whereas FanGraphs' WAR is based on FIP components (plus popups IIRC) and so the two values might wind up very different even without the framing stuff.

Fat Spielberg

2:31

How long after Robo-Umps start calling balls and strkes do we have our first MLB game cancelled because of a software glitch? Or a ransomware attack?

Jay Jaffe

2:32

Haha that's a question I haven't seen before but I would imagine that if there were such an occasion, the game would go on with umpires calling balls and strikes as usual

Derek

2:32

Lol that is some lazy data presentation/graphic design by MLBN

Jay Jaffe

2:35

To be fair, there's always something lost in showing only the visual without hearing what's been said about it and the players involved; I've done enough MLB Now to know that the graphics are a supplement to what's being said, and that it doesn't always line up because people may have talking points but they're not going to be able to go as in depth as, say, a FG article

bxchief

2:36

Salutations Jay, my questions is regarding the Steamer charts; what's the difference between the Steamer RoS and depth charts RoS, the numbers are slightly different in terms of games and ABs projected? which one should one use going forward when making decisions..thank you beforehand..

Jay Jaffe

2:38

the Depth Charts use an average of Steamer and ZiPS, which sometimes offer contrasting projections, especially on players who are either early or later in their careers (young players, old players, guys coming back from injuries). I usually look at the Depth Charts ones first, and consider the individual systems as kind of bracketing expectations for the most likely outcomes.

Matt V

2:38

This gets a little circular, as postseason success becomes part of the case, but very few teams win a World Series without a future Hall of Famer on board. (I'm guessing the most recent one would be the 2015 Royals.) Do you think there might be an admittedly arduous blueprint for doing that, or are these occasions just a bit of noise riding the signal?

Jay Jaffe

2:41

Postseason success has always played a role in HOF selection, and perhaps moreso in bygone eras when it was 8 teams in each league vying to go to the World Series with no other rounds. Go back and look at some of the pitchers in the Hall whose cases don't measure up in either wins or WAR to the long-term workhorse aces (300-game winners) and you'll inevitably find guys like Chief Bender and Lefty Gomez and Jesse Haines and Rube Marquard who had a couple of brilliant World Series to go with some good regular season work

2:43

Having a HOFer isn't a prerequisite for a championship team by any means. Great players help teams win but not every great player sustains that greatness long enough to get serious HOF consideration, and it's in the winning that guys boost their chances for the Hall but only if they have careers of substantial length and quality

Mike

2:43

Thoughts on Kyle Tucker? 3 OAA and 6 DRS defensively, 5 SB, and .408 xwOBA and 123 wRC+ offensively. I feel like he's on the path to superstardom, but I don't think enough people know his name to realize that.

Jay Jaffe

2:46

I woudn't call a 123 wRC+ (or a .323 OBP) superstardom, but he's more or less replicated what he did in the short season, and seems to be fulfilling the projection that he'd be a 60 FV player — an All-Star type.

Sloan

2:46

Has the Pujols long decline made you or anyone else think about negative value differently? It seems like currently it's more of a non-entity than an actual negative. Like if a standard hall player ended his career with like 3 seasons totalling -15 WAR or something, should they be taken out of consideration?

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