Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat – 9/1/26
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AvatarJay Jaffe
12:01
Good afternoon, and welcome to the first chat of September! Which means that yes, you've been called up to the majors and added to the roster.
12:02
Yesterday I wrote about Tristan Peters, a former Savannah Banana (from their days in wood-bat collegiate summer leagues) and unheralded prospect who's been one of the top rookie position players in the game this season. This was a fun one to put together https://blogs.fangraphs.com/tristan-peters-has-gone-bananas/
12:03
Last week, I did my annual Hall of Fame progress update, dividing players into those who have had rough seasons that have hurt their cause (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/cooperstown-notebook-a-rough-year-for-gian...) and those who have helped their cause (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/cooperstown-notebook-chris-sale-and-others...)
12:05
I'm mulling writing something about position players pitching, which is on the rise again. So, let's do a quick, unscientific poll...
12:07
Position Players Pitching
It's fine, please chill out (40.9% | 36 votes)
 
Never, except in an extra-innings emergency (30.7% | 27 votes)
 
The rules (trailing by 8 or more, up by 10 or more in 9th) need to be tighter (28.4% | 25 votes)
 
Total Votes: 88
Let's see how that does with our readers here (small sample size noted)
warpath
12:07
Hey Jay, thanks for the chat.

Today is September call-up day. Do you have any general thoughts on September callups? I personally love them, but I wish we had the old rules where teams can carry more than 28 guys. I think this lead to a lot of minor league depth guys getting an MLB shot when they wouldn't otherwise.
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:10
I do kind of miss the days when practically the whole 40-man roster could overrun the dugouts and bullpens but even so I'll concede that was taking things too far. On the other hand, I think the 2-player increase (to 28) is too restrictive. It's nice to reward top minor leaguers (and the occasional organizational lifer) with a September callup, and see some of these guys get their first taste of the show. I'd be in favor of expanding to 30 or 32 but effectively creating a taxi squad where only 26 or 28 players could be active.
12:11
I think the danger of that is just using it for More Reliever Churn, which I dislike.
Jeremy Fox
12:11
Tigers season wrecked by some of the worst sequencing/cluster luck in history? They're underperforming their Pythag by 12 games (!) and their BaseRuns by 11 (!)
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:12
Yeah that's pretty crazy. I'd have to dig to find what the records are — but I know we don't archive our BaseRuns Projected Standings for some reason, so I could only answer the Pythag one.
12:14
I know offhand that the 1993 Mets were -14 (73 projected, 59 actual). not sure if that's the record but it's gotta be close.
Eugenio Velez
12:14
Hot Opinion: Negative WAR seasons should not count against a Player’s career WAR total. The lowest a Pkayer’s WAR can be for a season aggregating on career should be 0
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:17
I can see the argument for excluding them when considering Hall of Fame worthiness, but I'm very lukewarm on that one. I don't see any reason to stop actually counting what happened though, and negative WAR really does represent play that decreases the likelihood of winning. Now, if we're talking about a position player who generates -0.5 WAR from a single pitching appearance, that's one thing — the leverage was so low that it had no actual effect on winning — but we have WPA and context-dependent stats to evaluate such things. The point of WAR is to weigh contributions in a context-neutral environment.
Cris E
12:18
Can we see teams calling up their top prospects as a sign that organizations are not expecting to lose a lot of games in 2027?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:20
Eh, I don't really think the two teams are related. Teams are calling up players to evaluate them in a major league setting. It's the presidents of baseball operations and general managers making these decisions, with the input of others from the organization. Lockout stuff is first and foremost the province of owners, not baseball ops.
JustinPBG
12:20
Strong, mature behavior from the Red Sox commentary crew. Even better 'sorry you were offended' apology. Just banner behavior
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:22
I really thought that was particularly weak sauce on Will Flemming's part, especially the piling on any player of color – in this case Jazz Chisholm Jr. — for "not playing the game the right way" really does come off as a dog whistle. I am not familiar with Will's work; i think highly of that of his brother Dave, but to the best of my knowledge Dave has never stepped in it like this or even come close.
12:24
In the pieces about Flemming's half-assed apology, nowhere did I see him address Chisholm directly. If anyone saw an article that counters that, please enlighten me.

Also and more generally: 7-1 is not such a rout that players need to stop competing. It's not within the realm of allowing a position player to pitch, for example. Steal a base if you judge it necessary.
Gunther042
12:26
Hey Jay, what are your thoughts on Alex Bregman’s HOF chances? Obviously his 7-8 WAR seasons are behind him, but IF he can be a plug and play 4-WAR player through this contract and reach 2,000 hits, he should have a chance.
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:28
Wrote about Bregman among the players who have improved their chances, see above. He's never matched his 2018–19 stats in either a traditional or advanced sense, and hasn't banked a single 5.0 bWAR season outside of those, but he's on track to do so this year (4.6 so far). If he keeps doing that for a few years he's got a shot, but in his age-32 season, he's playing from behind.
12:29
I don't know how much of the Astros' sign-stealing will stick with him. He's not Jose Altuve, and he's unlikely to have the kind of career numbers of Carlos Beltrán where somebody applying a less-than-total-disqualification penalty (in their own assessment) would still be swayed to vote for him.
Bud Smith
12:30
Just want to note that the "extra innings emergency" where positions pitchers used to pitch seems pretty unlikely now with the Manfred Man
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:33
I'm not exactly sure how rare it is without digging through Stathead but on May 18, the Nationals' Jorbit Vivas entered what had been a 6-6 tie with the Mets in the 12th inning but had devolved into 11-6; he came in and five more runs scored.
Reds Enjoyer
12:33
How much credit does a manager deserve for his team's overperformance of its pythag wins? Can't help but think Tito deserves some credit for squeezing what will ultimately be 75ish wins out of an awful Reds roster, awfulness that is fully reflected in their run differential.
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:34
It's something to keep an eye, especially because bullpen use probably has the biggest impact on deviation from Pythagorean records (relievers having particularly high/low rates of success in high-leverage situations), but there's so much that's still beyond his control. Can't force players to hit with runners in scoring position, for example.
Matthew VanWinkle
12:34
The problem with excluding negative WAR is that it underrates the slow leak a player chasing more traditional milestones can produce.
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:34
Yup, that's one thing.
grandbranyan
12:35
re: BaseRuns, looks like past years going back to 2002 are now available via the drop down menu at the top of the page
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:35
Holy smokes! Our devs team is so busy and so damn good that even as a staffer I can't keep up with all the stuff they keep adding.
12:36
2016 Rays were -13 wins in BaseRuns, just to cherrypick one data point
Hot damn
hamiltonthebabeporter
12:37
I don't understand why batters try and swing for the fences when a position player is pitching. Doesn't this throw off their timing? If I were a batter, I'd either just swing as fluidly and unaggressively as possible or I might even bat from the other side, just so as not to get out of rhythm. What do you think?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:38
well, it may be that just swinging for the fences is a BETTER tactic for not throwing off their timing. Just stop thinking about it  and hack away.
hibbert
12:39
Yandy Diaz has not challenged a single pitch all season, including last night with 2 outs, trailing by a run in the ninth with a runner on, and with two challenges remaining when he disagreed with both strike 2 and strike 3.  I don't even have a question, I'm just flabbergasted.
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:40
Yeah it's absolutely wild how much variance there is from player to player. Sal Stewart had a major league high 46 challenges and has won 26 of them, which has been worth four additional runs
12:41
Diaz is the only player with zero challenges who has had calls against him challenged by catchers (or pitchers) https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?pos=all&stats=bat&type=...
angryyankeesfan
12:42
Much has been made of the mediocrity of the AL, but I recently noticed that the Rockies have the worst team WRC+ in baseball at 91. That seems higher than usual, at least over the last ~5 years (the Pirates and Rockies, at times, have gone below 80 for a season). Is this just a general symptom of parity or part of a larger issue?
AvatarJay Jaffe
12:43
With regards to the Rockies, my hunch is that this is a data point about the DePodesta regime finding better players, and likewise for the Pirates. Maybe there's a competitive balance angle to it but I can't say offhand.
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