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Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat - 8/18/20
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AvatarJay Jaffe
2:09
Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to a slightly delayed edition of my weekly chat. I just walked in the door having pried a nearly-4-year-old away from water balloons on the playground and will need a few minutes to get settled
2:13
I'm back, with a bit of housekeeping... here's today's story on Mookie Betts' progress towards Cooperstown https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/mookie-betts-is-building-a-case-for-co... and here's yesterday's story about the Yankees' mounting injury concerns https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/with-injuries-to-stanton-judge-and-lem...
and now, on with the show
stever20
2:14
Should the Nats shut down Stras for the season?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:17
I'm not sure anyone knows enough to say that's a necessity. He apparently has carpal tunnel neuritis but I have yet to see anybody offer a timeline for recovery. Obviously, the team shouldn't push him to pitch if he's not healthy, but if waiting a month and ramping up allows him to be ready to contribute in the postseason (assuming the Nationals make it; right now they're tied for the eighth and final seed with the Mets), then that's a reasonable course of action.
Estevão
2:17
How much the current struggles of the Red Sox pitching staff increase Dombrowski's reputation as a winner but destroyer of farm systems or is that set in his legacy
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:17
I think that's already pretty much baked into his legacy
AD
2:18
If you don't want a guy to hit a grand slam on a 3-0 count down 7 runs the recipe is pretty simple. Don't be losing by 7 runs, don't allow the bases to get loaded, don't throw three consecutive balls with said bases loaded, and don't throw a meatball to the hottest hitter on the planet. Blame yourselves, not the guy doing what he is paid to do
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:19
Amen. This Fernando Tatis Jr. controversy is just so damned tedious. As I said on Twitter, if I'm the commissioner I suspend both Chris Woodward and Jayce Tingler for three games for their insufferably horseshit responses to the grand slam.
Jazz
2:19
Not sure if Meg chats anymore. If she doesn’t please tell her she is missed.
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:21
In any given week it can be a scramble for any of us to chat thanks to the irregularities caused by the pandemic. Power outages, parenting, editorial cluster****s... it happens. I'll relay the message to Meg and hopefully she'll be back chatting soon.
Estevão
2:21
Couldn't the Red Sox have gotten any pitching from the Dodgers in the Betts trade
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:23
Under the original parameters of the deal, they were supposed to get Brusder Graterol from the Twins, but that part got ensnarled for reasons that weren't quite clear. The Dodgers were prepared to give up Ross Stripling in a separate deal with the Angels that fell apart as well, but they were never going to trade Urias, May, or Buehler in a Betts deal.
GSon
2:23
Thoughts on the punishment for Clevinger and Plesac.. Does service time manipulation appear to be "over the line"?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:26
For violating MLB protocols, team rules and basic common sense while placing their teammates at a greater risk for the virus? Hell no. They screwed up and deserve every ounce of the medicine they're getting. There's very real anger at them in that clubhouse.

I'll be the first person to stand up for a Vlad Guerrero Jr. or Pete Alonso having his service clock delayed, but this isn't the same thing. I suspect at least one of the two pitchers has thrown his last pitch in a Cleveland uniform.
Jazz
2:27
Which MVP candidate do you have more confidence in reaching that status this year, Bellinger or Bregman?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:28
Bregman is carrying a 141 wRC+ and .500 SLG right now, to Bellinger's 57 and .330. There's been a lot of tinkering with stance and swing at the MLB level for Bellinger, whose struggles Dan Szymborski looked into yesterday. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/cody-bellingers-struggles-arent-just-small... I do think he'll get it sorted out but it will take a bit of time.
Estevão
2:30
If Castro were to maintain his 172 hits total of last year over the next seven after this one. He'll reach that 3k mark. Very unlikely but he'll be 37ish by then, it's possible and I'm pulling for him
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:31
The problem is that he's actually been a below-average player in recent years, with a 94 wRC+ and 1.5 WAR per year over the past half decade. To assume that he can hold onto a job while his performance erodes from that baseline seems pretty damn optimistic.
Chris
2:33
Kyle Lewis for Mike clevanger sure is an interesting risk for both teams
Felipe
2:34
Do you expect Matt Olson to turn this short season around and get his BA up to .250 in the next 30 games? Will he get an actual double this year!?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:37
I'm not terribly worried about Olson, who despite his .179 batting average has a 114 wRC+. His BABIP is an unfathomably low .135 — about 100 points lower than the annual BABIP for pitchers hitting — which is due for some positive regression. FWIW, his  xBA based upon his Statcast profile is .259, again suggesting better times are ahead.
FunFella13
2:37
Jay,

I was wondering if you had any philosophy or done some investigation of using mean WAR/JAWS versus median WAR/JAWS when calculating hall of fame standards on a per-position basis.  I wondered whether extreme outliers (e.g. Mays, Cobb, Speaker in CF) influenced the threshold for qualification more extremely for some positions, and whether that was intentional because e.g. those positions are where the best players play historically and thus it should be graded on a higher curve.
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:41
Yes, I've considered the median and there are two big knocks against deploying it as the default. One, it produces far too many positives on a given ballot, making it much less useful as a first-cut mechanism for deciding two to vote for; and two, it's much less consistent from position to position than the mean. Somewhere on Twitter I've got a more detailed answer to this; if I can find it, I'll paste a link in the comments later.
GSon
2:41
water grenade balloons are the best !! Just the right size for a four year old's hand.. but, make him throw it lefty !!
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:41
her, not him, and she still demonstrates some amount of ambidexterity when it comes to throwing balls and water balloons. Look out, Pat Venditte!
Kurupt FM
2:41
What team has changed your expectations the most so far this season?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:43
In a positive direction I'd say the Rockies, who are 13-9 and look as though their young rotation has rebounded after a rough 2019 season. They're worth taking seriously.

In a negative direction, I'm genuinely surprised that the Red Sox and Angels are this bad. Given the state of their pitching, I think it's going to be awhile before Boston looks like a playoff contender again because the just haven't shown themselves the ability or commitment to produce pitching from within.
David
2:44
At one point there was talk that teams would pick their opponent in the new first round. Did they go with that? I haven’t seen any update on that
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:45
Yes, apparently each division winner will be able to choose its first-round opponent. This a dumb little flourish to an idea I already dislike. Bury it in a ditch along with just about everything else from 2020.
Chris
2:46
Jay why are the Mariners playing 2 games in LA followed by 2 games in Seattle over 4 days against the dodgers? Isn't travelling a huge risk factor for covid, why not just play all 4 in LA or Seattle?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:50
I'm a little surprised at the prevalence of 2-and-2 interleague series but they're commonplace throughout the schedule this year. We've seen outbreaks and other delays lead to some of those series being rescheduled in one venue with the home team batting as visitors when necessary. In general, teams have handled traveling pretty well with regards to protocols; it's been suggested (but not definitively) that the Marlins' outbreak was related to travel but it league-wide it hasn't been a prevalent factor.
James
2:50
Does the unwritten rules handbook explain why it would be OK if Tatis hit a grand slam on 3-1 pitch while the team is up by 7 but not if it’s 3-0? I skipped that section in school.
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:52
this all hinges on the delicate mores regarding swinging 3-0 in a lopsided game but since comebacks from down seven runs have become more commonplace in this high-scoring era — including Tatis' Padres last year — the handwringing is pure BS.
Catchers In General
2:52
What do you think about the current, Catchers making it in the hall, conversation? IMO Posada might not be a HOFer, but a one and done? .275/.374/.475  123OPS+ (10th Best for catcher since 1921!), 275 HR over 1000RBI, 5AS, 5SS, 2 Top 6 MVP and 5 WS to boot! But we have a bunch of defense 1st catchers that seem to be getting more buzz coming up, yet catcher WAR has a long way to go. Are we not evaluating them properly, by penalizing Offensive catchers by WAR since catcher offense is soooo rare, shouldnt their uptick in offense be valued more?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:57
I really enjoyed watching Jorge Posada's career with the Yankees and think that in another era he might have had a longer stay on the Hall of Fame ballot, but to the extent that we can quantify his defensive shortcomings, particularly when it came to pitch-framing, it detracted from his value enough to keep him out of the must-haves for Hall of Famers.

I'm not crazy about any of the versions of WAR when it comes to catcher defense; i prefer Baseball Prospectus' WARP, which incorporates framing as well as blocking and throwing. The problem is that the data only goes back to 1988, which limits our ability to compare recent catchers to those from the past
For my money, Thurman Munson is the Yankees catcher who has been jobbed by voters, and Joe Mauer and Buster Posey both belong in Cooperstown once they're eligible. Some people feel that way about Yadier Molina, too, but if we're going to consider the measurable impact of pitch framing then I have Russell Martin and Brian McCann ahead of them. See https://blogs.fangraphs.com/framing-the-hall-of-fame-cases-for-martin-...
bighen
2:57
Are there any steps that Manfred or MLB can take to prevent the Mets from doing something dumb with their sale?  Like the reports coming out are just silly.  Jeff Wilpon is a clown, are they going to let his feelings of being called a clown have an impact on the sale?   The Arod team doesn't have the liquidity to run that franchise and it will be way worse if they don't get SNY as part of the sale
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:00
Sure. It takes the approval of three-quarters of the other owners (so, 22 of 29) for a franchise sale to go through. If, for example, the Wilpons want to sell to A-Rod & Co. despite them bidding $50 million less than Cohen, they can vote against the sale on the perfectly reasonable grounds that it devalues their own franchises.
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