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Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat – 8/6/24
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Daniel
3:00
Do you get vibes from George Kirby that his career could end up looking special? Not just in terms of value but also traits? Would his uniqueness, in your mind, augment his chances of ending up with more historical signfiicance?
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:02
People who know a lot more about pitching than I do like his stuff a lot (which isn't to say that I don't). But in the end the significance is going to come from him sticking around and remaining very productive, regardless of how he gets there. Those guys are in very short supply right now.
Guardcore Clevelander
3:02
How far off is Ketel Marte from a potential HoF invite post-career? I recognize that he's a clear level below the Ramirez's and Lindors of similar age, but his best production has been jaw dropping each time it happens.
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:04
I like him as a player but Hall-wise he's got 30.2 career bWAR and a 29.6-WAR seven-year peak, with two seasons of 5.0 WAR or better including this one, plus a 4.9. He's going to need several All-Star seasons in his 30s to emerge as a real candidate.
Guest
3:05
Witt or Elly will have a better career?  Witt obviously is having a better year, but Elly’s age 22 season is blowing the doors off Witt’s age 22 season.
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:07
Witt, whose defensive metrics have improved so much at shortstop that I have little doubt he can stick there for awhile. I'm less sure about Elly yet on that front, for as entertaining a player as he is.
btownfritz
3:08
What kind of contract do you see Soto signing?
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:09
Something in the $47-48 million AAV range (after deferrals) to take over #1 in that department. Maybe 11/$517M with some bells and whistles (opt-outs, options)
Biff
3:10
Any chance that Marte or Lindor topple Ohtani for MVP?  Ohtani has a large WAR lead, but, as good as he is, is he good enough to win without playing a defensive position while Lindor and Marte both play up-the-middle positions and have single-handedly kept their teams in contention.
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:13
I'm a huge Lindor fan who caught hell from the idioterati for a piece in late 2022 suggesting he was having an MVP-caliber season. He's having a very similar season offensively to what he's done in each of the past two seasons, and those amounted to two 9th-place finishes in the voting, so I don't see what's going to put him ahead of Ohtani, who without playing defense has the higher WAR than either of them.
Tike Mrout
3:14
A question I've always had about JAWS, Jay: Why 7 years for the peak? Is it just to match as closely as possible the historical norms of HOF voting? And have you tested how sensitive the results are to changing to 6 or 8 years etc?
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:16
once upon a time, when JAWS was based on Baseball Prospectus' WARP, I tested a few different iterations and found that 7 years worked better than 6 or 8 or 10. I've stuck with it in part because it took nearly a decade for some people to get that I wasn't still using my original definition of peak, which was best 5 consecutive years.
Connor Norby
3:17
This dude is not good enough to play 2B for the post-deadline Marlins???
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:17
or they're messing with his service time or just keeping him away from their current garbage fire.
Matt VW
3:18
Where would you have Wilyer Abreu on an AL ROY ballot?
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:21
IIRC Rookie of the Year ballots are 5 deep. He'd be in contention for my top 5 in the AL but if I drew it up today I'm not sure he'd be on it. I'm not sure he *wouldn't* be on it, either.
David
3:23
Thoughts on who's leading the AL West on September 1 (and at the end of the year)? Astros seem to be cooling off and the Mariners schedule looks brutal.
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:25
To paraphrase what was said about the 1944 World Series, I don't see how anybody can win the division. Every time I think the Astros are dead due to their injuries, they come back, and every time I write off the Mariners, they find a way to stick around. FWIW the strength-of-schedule measure in our Playoff Odds gives the Astros only a three-point edge (.499 HOU, .502 SEA)
Ben
3:26
Austin Wells, top 5 catcher in baseball?? Expected stats seem to support but it is a bit remarkable he's outperformed his 2023 MiLB performance at the big league level
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:30
He's made some great strides defensively from what I understand (I'm not the prospect guy), and his actual production is catching up to his Statcast-expected production. In a year where two of the five best catchers from recent years (Realmuto and Contreras) have missed significant time due to injuries, he's 3rd in WAR among that group, and in far less playing time than anyone else in the top 7. It will be interesting to see whether he can sustain that, and it helps that the Yankees have another productive catcher to pair him with in Trevino
Edward
3:30
Off the top of your head, 10 biggest Hall snubs of the post-integration era (excluding those on ballot)?  Allen, Munson, Whitaker, Grinch, Keith, Cone, Hershiser, Stieb, Johan, Lofton?  Other than Allen, who's most likely to make it through the Committee process?  (As a baseball lifer, would love to see Keith, but he seems to get lost behind Mattingly depsite the JAWS/WAR differential.)
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:33
you'd have to put Bonds and Clemens among the snubs, and I guess maybe Schilling until you consider the damage he's inflicted upon his candidacy. I'd probably consider Kevin Brown and Dwight Evans for the top 10 too. Allen, Grich, Whitaker, Munson, Hernandez... It's hard to pare the list to 10.
sgb523
3:33
Are some positions overvalued by WAR such as ss and 2b?
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:35
It would be easy to say, "nope, they're all perfectly valued" and call it a day, but you know what, if Tom Tango and Sean Forman and Sean Smith and others involved in the builds of WAR have thought about this and come out where they've come out, with their positional adjustments as high as they are, I don't I have the chops to prove them wrong, and I am guessing you don't either.
AL Central Casting
3:37
Is the Twins' offense being overlooked? Due to injuries - mostly those to Royce Lewis - nobody really stands out on the leaderboards, but the unit as a whole is extremely productive.
AvatarJay Jaffe
3:39
Agreed. Most of their best hitters by rate stats (Correa, Lewis, Buxton, Miranda) have missed substantial time but overall they're pretty good.
Ok folks, still plenty of good questions in the queue but I've got to mosey on down the road. Thanks for stopping by! No chat from me next week as I will be on vacation.
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