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Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat - 8/6/21
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AvatarJay Jaffe
3:01
Honestly, i don't see how he gets there
3:02
Center Field (31st):
45.9career WAR |38.47yr-peak WAR |42.1JAWS |4.3WAR/162
  Average HOF CF (out of 19):
    71.9 career WAR | 44.8 7yr-peak WAR | 58.3 JAWS | 5.4 WAR/162
3:03
He's a DH-caliber fielder who has netted 5.5 WAR since 2018. He's 34 and has 263 home runs. He could get to 300 and to 2,000 hits, but he's done putting up five-win seasons. I love having him around and hope he plays into his 40s but i don't see where he's going to summon his elite performances from.
Marshall
3:04
Following his MVP season, Harper has been pretty consistently good (in terms of season totals) but not spectacular. Even if he ends up making the HOF, will his career still be viewed as a disappointment?
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:05
do you know many guys who are in the Hall of Fame and are viewed as disappointments? I mean, maybe there's Mickey Mantle and his self-inflicted issues, but come on.
John
3:05
Was the Baseball HOF both a hall of fame and a museum from the start, or did one precede the other?
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:09
From the start. It literally began with Stephen Clark of the Clark Foundation paying $5 to purchase a baseball that was said to have come from Abner Doubleday via a a 71-year-old mining engineer named Abner Graves who claimed to have been present when the general drew up a field and revised the rules of town ball. He took his idea to Ford Frick, then NL president, in hopes of getting further donations and found that baseball wanted to do something to commemorate the centennial of Doubleday's alleged invention in 1839.
I give a brief history of this in The Cooperstown Casebook.
WinTwins0410
3:09
Jay, can you talk a little about 19th-century pitching stud Tony Mullane?  Why hasn't a small committee for the HoF ever put him in?  I realize he's ancient and played his last game in 1894, but still -- 66.6 bWAR and some phenomenal seasons, particularly early in his career.  Your thoughts?
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:10
3:11
From the Casebook.
Statistically interesting, and also way too racist.
I'm of the opinion that the Hall doesn't need any more pitchers from the infinite workload era anyway.
Kretin
3:11
Do you think the fWAR calculation will switch from UZR to OAA or other defensive metric some time in the near future?
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:11
Stay tuned.
Justin
3:12
Do you think the Padres stay in the wild card race? Or is their boat leaking too much water?
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:14
A lot depends on whether Tatis comes back and can play effectively, but I think they'll stay in. They still have a 3 1/2-game lead on the Padres for the 2nd spot, and right now they forecast to be the better team the rest of the way. Swap Tatis for Kim at shortstop and it's a lot harder to hold off Cincinnati.
Charlie
3:14
What odds would you put on Grienke being voted into the Hall by the writers?
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:15
High. He's very close to the JAWS standard, past 200 wins, closing in on 3000 strikeouts, and genuinely one of the most fascinating players of the era. Writers tend to love him.
Jean-Michel
3:16
What do you think is the biggest weakness for every AL wild card contender?
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:16
I think that's an article, not a chat question
and will file it away for potential future use.
Fart Schilling
3:18
Favorite non-deGrom pitch to watch when tuning in for a game on tv (for example Chapman’s splitter, or Touki’s curve)?
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:20
Ohtani's splitter, Glasnow's curve, Devin Williams' changeup, and Cole's four-seamer come to mind. Anything Max Scherzer, Walker Buehler, and Yu Darvish are throwing on their good days.
Leif
3:21
Who gets bumped from the Seattle outfield when Lewis returns?
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:22
Seems pretty obvious that it's Kelenic-Lewis-Haniger unless I'm missing something. Dylan Moore/Shed Long/Jake Bauers is Replacement Level Killer stuff in left right now.
bk
3:23
RE: AL wild card - the Blue Jays will make things interesting, as well!
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:23
I'm not counting them out because their starting pitching has improved considerably since the break, and I do like the Berrios addition
Terry Malick
3:24
Cody Bellinger in 2021. This is who he is or this is a blip.
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:24
We went over this a couple weeks ago. He's a mess, and this season might be a write-off but he's not a .165 hitter.
Mr. Padre
3:24
How underrated is Manny Machado?  Having another great all around year but it seems like you don't hear much about him.
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:27
I think he's benefited from having Tatis become the face of the Padres, the focus of the attention. Maybe not the elite fielder he once was but still above-average, and maturing as a hitter.
Kosta
3:28
I know everyone says the Mariners can't keep this up given all their close victories, but I think this season will help them down the line since they have figured out how to win close games. Do you think that winning close games is more flukey or more of a skill a team can use to its advantage?
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:30
From a statistical standpoint, the stuff tends to be flukey, not a skill; one year's clutch performance does not predict the next. From a psychological standpoint, I think there's value in a player knowing that he's capable of good outcomes in high pressure situations. He may not always come through in those opportunities — nobody does it all the time — but I suspect that it reduces the likelihood of panicking by trying to do too much.
3:31
Justin Choi had a look at the Mariners' historic-level clutchiness this week https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-mariners-are-trying-to-be-the-clutchie...
Richard
3:31
Hi Jay. In the past you’ve mentioned Andrelton Simmons quietly building a HOF resume, but I assume his chances of induction are all but dead at this point?
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:33
He's petering out due to injuries and the decline of his offense. There's still time for him to rebound but he's got to stay on the field, and excel at fielding while not sucking at hitting.
Brian
3:33
When was the last time a team exceeded expectations more than these year's Giants? The 2008 Rays went from worst to first, but they had a ton of highly regarded young players that all broke out largely as expected.
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:36
2014 Royals? They were young players breaking out, too but nobody projected them to win. Offhand I can't think of parallels following a a template of old guys all rebounding at once to turn a mediocre team into a powerhouse.
Jimmy Wynn's Toy Cannon
3:38
Correa likely finishes his age 26 season with ~33 bwar, which is almost halfway to the average career SS in the HOF. What are the odds he hits that mark? And do you think he has to blow past those numbers to have a chance at the HOF, given the sign stealing?
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