Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat – 6/16/26
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showbusiness77
12:51
Do you believe in Devers (having a really down year) rest of season over players like Seiya, Casey Schmitt, JJ Bleday?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:51
I'm writing about Devers for later this week, and my preliminary impression is Take Someone Else.
war2d2
12:53
Jay! That poster saying Yamamoto being a righty instead of a lefty is a “knock” got me thinking. We baseball people historically have put lefties in general on a pedestal, but I’m not sure they deserve it (Spahn, Koufax, Carlton, Glavine, Kershaw notwithstanding of course). I know it’s an imperfect way to look at it, but if you look at BbRef WAR leaderboards it gets dire in a hurry. My personal rule of thumb for whether or not I’ll support someone’s case for HoF inclusion has always been: are you better than Chuck Finley? Well, Mr. Chinley has 58+ bWAR, putting him at #15 all time among lefties. Among righties you have to get all the way down to #50 all time (Saberhagen) to drop to that level. No real question, just an observation about cultural biases among the baseball-literate populace, as well as an obvious excuse to showcase my favorite spoonerism.
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:56
Along those lines I looked into why CC Sabathia was only the third lefty to reach 3,000 strikeouts (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/cc-sabathia-joins-the-3000-strikeout-club/), with Clayton Kershaw the fourth. Among the lefty pitchers I found what seemed to be a disproportionate number of hard-luck stories in terms of injuries that have contributed to both your observation and mine — certainly there have been more talented lefties who did not have the longevity of Finley.
Phillip Denny
12:57
Are you yea or nay on the idea of expansion? Is the talent level deep enough league-wide, and/or enough AAAA type players that expansion teams have a reasonable shot of not being cellar dwellers for their first 5 years of existence?
mike sixel
12:57
I live in Portland. No way we have enough big companies to buy up the season tickets. The tax base is shrinking....
AvatarJay Jaffe
1:01
I'm generally in favor of expansion because the player pool has grown so much since the last round of expansion in 1998. Having said that, I know that for cities, getting a franchise is something of a boondoggle that results in large chunks of money being transferred from the public (subsides) to private (owners), with a lot of handwaving and propaganda about economic benefits that study after study has shown simply don't exist.  

Portland seems to be a site that missed a window of opportunity for expansion, which might be a sign that it was a less-than-ideal locale for that purpose in the first place. I have roots in Salt Lake City, and I see them as having the inside track because the public has been more willing to subsidize a potential site than most, but environmental factors pertaining to global warning and the evaporation of the Great Salt Lake could turn the whole thing into a fiasco.
Marc Kartman
1:02
Has anyone noticed that Jackson Chourio has been one of the best players in baseball since he came off the IL and had a few weeks of "spring training" after that?
AvatarJay Jaffe
1:02
Somebody probably has, but I'll admit he'd flown under my radar. .322/.370/.572 in 35 games is pretty great!
1:03
it's worth a round-up of guys like him who got late starts to the season and aren't on the leaderboards
Jeremy Fox
1:03
Over/under on number of AL teams that make the playoffs with losing records? 1.5?
AvatarJay Jaffe
1:04
.5. maybe one slips in but no way there will be two.
kingkash7788
1:04
Do you think someone like matt chapman ever makes it to the hall? As the value of defence has increased in the public eye, along with the value of WAR, I think that archetype of pretty good hitter + elite defence will be viewed differently
AvatarJay Jaffe
1:08
It already has been! Guys like Scott Rolen, Todd Helton, and Larry Walker were elected in part on the strength of their WAR/JAWS, with impressive defensive metrics helping to cover for less noteworthy counting stats.

Chapman is sort of at the periphery of my radar because he has 3 7-bWAR seasons so far, though his 7-year peak score (37.3) is still shy of that magic 40.0 mark where the needle points to "more likely than not." it will be interesting to see whether the Giants try to deal him this summer as they look to, uh, do whatever it is they think they're doing these days.
Jeremy Fox
1:09
Re: expansion, how generous should an expansion draft be to the new teams? What are the pros and cons of erring on the side of generous, from the perspective of setting up the new teams, and MLB as a whole, for long term success?
AvatarJay Jaffe
1:13
I don't think you have to be terribly generous to the new teams, who are going to have to pay an arm and a leg to get 1/32nd ownership of a massive stream of revenue but I do think one thing that needs to be done as with the 1998 additions is starting their player development pipeline a couple years ahead of the big club's debut. So, if we're getting 2 new teams for 2032, they start drafting and fielding rookie-level teams in 2030, and adding Single-A the next year. Could look at stretching that out by an extra year — the point is that you want these teams to have a chance at growing into something good.
kingkash7788
1:13
who do you think the next unanimous first ballot hall of fame is going to be, and why is it Mike Trout?
AvatarJay Jaffe
1:13
it won't be him. Somebody is going to Be Very Mad he didn't demand a trade away from the Angels.
And going to look at his injuries and forget just how awesome he was in his 20s.
kingkash7788
1:16
let me reword that then, will there ever be another unanimous first ballot hall of famer. I feel every player has at least a hint of controversy (and mo would not be unanimous if voted in right now)
AvatarJay Jaffe
1:18
I think Shohei Ohtani is probably the best bet, but I also think we should probably spend less time fretting about it because to do otherwise is to reward one cowardly, anonymous piss-baby hater with the attention he does not deserve.
Jeremy Fox
1:19
Two views of the Phillies, which do you lean towards? Glass half empty: they only have three good hitters, three good SP, and three good relievers. They're only in a playoff spot because of a combination of the expanded playoffs, good sequencing luck, and being surrounded by other mediocre teams. Glass half full: they're likely to make the playoffs, and once they're there they're going to be very tough to beat because they have 3 good SP and three good relievers.
AvatarJay Jaffe
1:22
I tend more towards the second view — they're a decent-to-good team — but hardly invincible even with three good SP. They have some holes right now and a whole bunch of underperformers, some of whom will turn it around this season and some of whom will be patched over. the thing the Phillies have going for them is an ownership willing to devote resources to winning, so if they have to take on some money to get what they want, they can do that.
warpath
1:24
For the first time since 2022, we don't have a team at midseason vying to set records for futility (2023 A's, 2024 White Sox, 2025 Rockies). In fact, there are very few teams who are truly out of it at this point, and only very few teams have separated themselves as clear favorites. Am I wrong in saying that this is the most parity we've seen in the league in quite some time?
AvatarJay Jaffe
1:27
parity is a pretty nebulous concept and as such it's tough to compare, especially at the drop of a hat. What I can tell you based on my 5-year dynasty calculations (see https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-dodgers-dynasty-takes-its-place-among-...) is that the current standard deviations in winning percentage in each league (76 points in the NL, 65 in the AL) are both lower than last year but not as high as 2023 or 24.
dan999999
1:29
Who is that player that if someone says they don't belong in the Hall on baseball talent grounds your opinion of the speaker flips from "small hall proponent" to "someone who fundementally doesn't understand baseball"?
AvatarJay Jaffe
1:29
Steve Garvey!
I kid.
1:32
I do think there's something about Jack Morris that still pushes my buttons with regards to his proponents waving off the fundamental importance of run prevention, but it's not like he didn't rack up some big counting stats that parallel others in the Hall.

I'm trying to think of something I read in the past month that was decades old and proposed a fairly outlandish choice of a potential HOFer — somebody very mid, as the kids say — but it's escaping me right now. Shoulda written it down.
jackberris
1:32
I know it sounds crazy, but is there a world where Kevin Gausman pitches himself close to hall consideration?
AvatarJay Jaffe
1:33
I jut noticed the other day he has a sub-.500 won-loss record for his career (116-117) so even with nobody really caring a whole lot about that stuff anymore, it's very difficult to see unless he has a couple of seasons like 18-4 or whatever during the back half of his 30s.
1:34
and even then, his run prevention has been unremarkable, and he needs almost another thousand strikeouts to get to 3,000.
1:35
back to the previous question, I do have things to write down, so I'm going to call it a day. thanks so much for stopping by!
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