Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat – 6/2/26
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AvatarJay Jaffe
12:01
Good afternoon, folks! Welcome to my first chat of June — it's lovely here in Brooklyn and I wish I could take this outside. I ... probably could except I'm not sure how strong the wifi is in the back yard. Hmmm.
12:03
Anyway, yesterday I wrote about the myriad issues that have led to the Tigers bottoming out. At 23-38, they're still tied for the majors' worst record, but last night they did win 10-9, scoring more than 6 runs for the first time since May 3 and at least 10 runs for the first time since April 16. The Jaffe Reverse Jinx strikes again!
Daniel Bergman
12:04
I know this is a lofty comparison but the Yankees rotation right now has me thinking of '98, with every starter having ace level upside.
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:09
whoa whoa whoa, that's a bit too lofty, I think. We've seen Cole and Schlittler pitch like aces, and Rodón's been reasonably close at his peak but right now is dealing with significant command issues that make it very difficult to imagine him getting back to his 2021–22 form. Warren has taken a big step forward, and I like Weathers but don't see him as having the stuff to be more than a mid-rotation guy.
Russell
12:09
Could it be beneficial for a pitcher to randomly pull out a knuckleball every like 200 pitches
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:09
I think it could be very beneficial to throw one more often than that, provided a pitcher can maintain the feel for the pitch without it being his bread and butter
jbaldino6
12:09
In such an odd year especially for the AL, but even more so because of the 2027 uncertainty, where do you see the value lying for players with 2 years left on their deals (ex: Willson Contreras) at this years deadline?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:13
One really has to be the absolute doomiest gloom-and-doomer to believe that 2027 is in such jeopardy that there may not be a season. I get that the two sides are far apart in their first proposals and that the owners are publicly floating a salary cap, but they have to know that it's not happening. I don't think we'll get to the point that there's a work stoppage that costs real games, so I don't see concerns about such a thing having a significant impact on player valuation.
odin525
12:13
Seeing the stats on slugging versus Miz brought back memories of one of my favorite pitchers in my younger days, JR Richard. I still remember reading the news and am still saddened by a great career cut short. Do you think he deserves a spot in the Hall of Fame? I would love to see his short career honored among the greats.
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:16
I'm old enough to remember J.R. Richard, how awesome he was at his peak and how tragic it was cut short. While I do think it's possible he could have had a few more great years that could have made the Hall a possibility for him, I don't see him as so unique that he should be enshrined with just 107 wins and 22.2 WAR.
dirtypuer
12:17
Do you think prospect pedigree is underrated a few years into a guy's career? Feels like there have been quite a few breakouts that no one saw coming once there was enough major league data on a guy to project further mediocrity.
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:19
I think that when well-regarded prospects struggle early in their careers, people tend to write them off too early — you see me railing about the term "failed prospect" on here when we're talking about 23- or 25-year olds. It can take longer for some guys to put it together, and I don't think we should be surprised when one does even if he's in his mid-20s or something, because at one point there was a consensus that this guy could be something special.
Jeremy Fox
12:20
Have all possible good pitches already been invented?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:22
Almost certainly not. Thanks to the combination of technology and analytics, we're seeing players and coaches design pitches by making tweaks of existing ones, and the permutations are endless. They're still going to bear some resemblance to the major types — a sweeper is a kind of slider, and thus a breaking ball — but we may see something new now and then.
pems416064
12:23
why is there a list of only 69 SP for the 30 teams?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:24
Do you mean on the leaderboards such as this one: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=al... ? (72 actually). Those are the pitchers who have enough inning (one per team game) to qualify for the ERA title and other rate stats leaderboards. you can adjust the innings threshold under the "Min Playing Time (IP)" drop-down on the right above the table.
Anonymous Member
12:27
Jacob DeGrom hitting the 100-win threshold is huge for his Hall chances, right? No one below that benchmark has been elected as a starter.
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:30
The lowest win total for a Hall of Fame starting pitcher from the AL,NL and bygone 19th-century leagues is 150, by Dizzy Dean, with Addie Joss at 160, John Montgomery Ward (who basically converted to shortstop) at 164, and then Sandy Koufax at 165, so while 100 is a nice milestone that would help deGrom's cause, I think he's gonna have to rack up a fair bit more than that. Johan Santana's got a fair bit of support from the statheads and he's at 139.
Two rats in a wool sock
12:30
The fact that Tucker’s playing like this on a $240 million contract (nearly half a billion if you include luxury tax) and literally no one cares, makes me think that a salary cap is inevitable
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:31
"here's a random fact based on a small sample, let's extrapolate this into an industry-redefining event that would require the collapse of the players' union"
12:32
Tucker has started slowly, but he improved from April to May, and the Dodgers are in first place and have bigger issues to deal with. So no, I don't see how this means that this is going to lead to a salary cap.
war2d2
12:33
Jay! The Cubs are really going through it with their rotation. If Ben Brown hadn’t found a sinker over the offseason they’d be in even worse shape. They obviously need a starter (or two…or three…), but trading at this point of the season rarely happens. If you were Jed, knowing that you have a team with a core made up of a lot of guys in walk years and a bottom-half farm system, would you mortgage the future to over-pay for some pitching help? They have a handful of 50fv guys that could be parts of a trade for upper-tier MLB talent, but dropping a couple top-100 guys for a Joe Ryan really puts a lot of eggs in a basket held together by questionable elbow tendons (that analogy kind of fell apart at the end there)
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:34
If the Cubs are still contending two months for now and hoping to deal for a top-end starter they need to be aiming for Tarik Skubal.

Note: this is not an invitation for you to ask me about trade proposals for Tarik Skubal.
(and by you I mean all of youse)
EVCinNYC
12:34
As an aside, are you going to try George Washington's beer recipe from Brooklyn brewery Talea? https://www.nypl.org/blog/2026/06/01/george-washington-beer-recipe-tal...
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:35
I like Talea's stuff, so yeah, I'd definitely give that a shot, especially now that I've aged into the Dad Sometimes Prefers Lagers Over IPAs demographic
12:36
sounds like lunch is here, stand by for a couple minutes of chaos...
12:37
Chicken shawarma platter, for those of you scoring at home...
warpath
12:39
Both the MLBPA's and MLB's proposals this past week both included some form of the following: changes to revenue sharing, and a higher baseline expectation for team payroll. Seeing as there seemed to be some agreement there (even if the mechanisms proposed were quite different), would you think that we could expect a final CBA to include these? I'd be for both as a fan
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:42
The CBA is basically about how to divide the pie, which is to say it's about revenue sharing, and yes, the mechanisms for how that will happen will be central to the negotiations. As Ben Clemens wrote, the MLBPA's proposal centers around a change in the way local TV revenue is shared, so I think we're not going very far out on a limb to suggest that we'll see some kind of change there https://blogs.fangraphs.com/mlb-and-the-mlbpa-have-made-their-opening-...
Anonymous Member
12:43
Is there a takeout lunch you would trade Tarik Skubal for?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:45
Not an existing one but I'd think hard about a deal if the Italian sandwich from the sadly-defunct Bierkraft in Park Slope was on offer: "House-roasted ham, petit jesu, capicola, prosciutto di parma and pecorino sardo cheese with arugula, tomato, onion, roasted pepper, extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar."
That or a Van Horn Fried Chicken Sandwich, with some sides.
odin525
12:46
It's interesting to hear numbers being thrown around by league execs, in some offshoot logic, to justify a salary cap. But, we all know the truth is a narrower part of that. Seems the vast majority, including the league itself looking at their proposal, believes the biggest issue isn't the handful of teams spending money (and the misleading Dodgers' "stats" don't help), it's the many more teams unwilling to spend money. A $69 million payroll in Miami? Ridiculous. A dollar out should include a dollar in.
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:46
agreed.
Thomas Nguyen
12:47
Robbie Ray to the Cubs, what say you?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:48
Unless he's pitching much better than his current 4.45 ERA and 5.38 FIP, he's a consolation prize or a back-rotation change-of-scenery guy
jdefrancesco5
12:49
Who do you think will be the next player to reach 90 WAR?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:51
Mike Trout, if we're going by fWAR (89.5), though he's at 90.2 bWAR. I think Mookie Betts has a good shot if we're going by bWAR (75.0) but he's only at 62.8 fWAR because DRS loves him  more than other defensive metrics
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