JotCast | Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat 9/16/25

Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat 9/16/25

Jay Jaffe

12:01

Good afternoon, folks!

12:02

For the fifth straight Tuesday, we're doing this — which I think might be a season high. A lack of travel will do that.

12:04

Anyway, on Friday I wrote about Mookie Betts' turnaround (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/mookie-betts-may-salvage-his-season-yet/), and yesterday he was named the NL Player of the Week and had a big night against the Phillies in a losing cause, with a solo homer and a pair of sac flies.

12:05

Yesterday I wrote about the Mets' slide; remarkably, they've gone 32-49 since Senga was injured on June 12. Their problems basically stem from running out of arms. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/amid-the-collapse-of-their-pitching-the-me...

I'm working on a piece about the remaining playoff races. it's not Team Entropy but it's what we have, and it's helpful to understand the tiebreakers and remaining scenarios

12:08

Pouring one out for Robert Redford, whom I particularly loved in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and The Sting (both with Paul Newman). If you're young enough that those movies aren't familiar to you, by all means waste no time in seeing them. As for The Natural and the baseball connection, eh, i don't hate the movie like i do Field of Dreams, but it's got problems.

Anyway, on with the show...

sb4321

12:08

Cal Raleigh's framing numbers are all over the place. DRS has him at 5. Statcast has him at 4. FanGraphs has him at 9.9. Baseball Prospectus has him at 11.4.

Which number is closest to accurate in your opinion?

Jay Jaffe

12:08

Good grief.

12:10

All of those are estimates based on models drawn from years of empirical data. They take similar inputs, but might draw from differing sample sizes, and there's no right or wrong.

12:11

Those are all in the same ballpark, and as with any defensive data, that's about as accurate as you're likely to get. Personally, i tend to focus on our FRM and on Statcast's framing, since it breaks down the data by areas of the strike zone.

Cal Raleigh's framing is worth somewhere from half a win to a win.

Playoffs, these guys?!

12:11

Hey Jay, clearly the brewers have some regular season magic. Do you see them doing anything in the playoffs this year?

Jay Jaffe

12:14

Sure. They're going to get a first-round bye and then play the winner of one of the Wild Card Series; right now it would be the winner of the Padres/Cubs series. They've got exceptional pitching and it wouldn't surprise me if they stop any of those teams in their tracks — including the Dodgers, from whom they swept the season series.

12:15

As for whether they can get to the World Series, I think their fate will have at least something to do with the injuries the other NL teams are dealing with. But I think this is a strong team.

sodo mojo

12:16

After the White Sox set the modern era for losses in the modern era in 2024 the Rockies were like hold my beer and are about to set the record for negative run differential by a team in the modern era. Is there an obvious cause for this other than both these teams seem to be horribly mis managed?

Jay Jaffe

12:18

The run differential thing certainly owes a fair bit to Coors Field, but both of those teams are indeed horribly run, and mostly unwilling to spend money. I think the Rockies are the worse one because they change directions every couple of years to no avail.

Mike Trout Mask Replica

12:19

Jay - I know Nick Kurtz effectively has AL ROY locked up...but I have been wondering whether Dillon Dingler still has rookie eligibility? He has had a very good, perhaps underappreciated, season. I have been surprised not to see him mentioned yet as a ROY candidate...but if he's not eligible, that'd explain it.

Jay Jaffe

12:20

Dingler isn't a rookie due to the number of days he spent on the Tigers' roster in 2024. It appears he was up from July 29 onward

War2D2

12:21

Hi Jay! Speaking of magic numbers, what’s your gut feeling on the playoffs? Just a wild-ass guess on the CS and World Series matchups. I’m guessing it’s Philly v. SD and TOR vs. Seattle, SD vs. TOR in the WS. Basing that on nothing but current vibes and who seems to be heating up.

Jay Jaffe

12:23

Throwing darts here, Phillies-Brewers NLCS, Red Sox-Tigers ALCS, Phillies over Tigers World Series.

I have absolutely no idea how Boston would pull that off except that I presume they'll smoke the Yankees in the ALWC.

Sleve McDichael

12:24

Has there ever actually been a commissioner who's a good person? Seems like they're all only shills for millionaires/billionaires and shitty towards the players. (Obviously they're paid directly by the owners, not the players)

Jay Jaffe

12:27

I think there's something to be said for Happy Chandler, who approved Jackie Robinson's contract and was generally supportive of integration, and established the first pension fund for major league players, which made him "the players' commissioner." That said, he was heavy-handed when it came to the Mexican League

12:28

He was a politician from Kentucky before he became commissioner so I'm sure he had some questionable actions in that capacity, so i can't say whether he was a good person, but he might have been the best commish.

Jeff from Toronto

12:29

How excited should Jays fans be about Yesavage?

Guest

12:29

trey yesavage >> skenes

Jay Jaffe

12:31

Great debut last night, obviously. I think it's a stretch to think he's better than Skenes though I imagine that one was submitted firmly tongue-in-cheek. I think anytime a playoff-bound team calls up a player in September who looks like they can help in the postseason — who can be the October Surprise — it's particularly exciting, but like any young pitcher I expect he's going to face his share of challenges and I doubt he's going to be anointed the Game 1 starter

The M’s only win when I’m abroad

12:32

What’s your beef with Field of Dreams?

Jay Jaffe

12:34

As I've said in this very forum, my main beef with the movie is that it never confronts the matter of race, which is particularly relevant when they changed the character played by James Earl Jones from white in Kinsella's book to Black on the screen — and then he rhapsodizes about Old Timey Baseball without acknowledging the misery of segregation.

There's a lot more; I'll defer to Craig Calcaterra https://craigcalcaterra.com/blog/field-of-dreams-is-absolutely-terribl...

12:35

Does Mike Trout ever win a WS ring with the Angels?

Jay Jaffe

12:35

not unless Arte sells and they strip the org from top to bottom

Johnny5Alive

12:39

Also re: the mets. On paper, their bats are having good to great years, but when the games matter - late and close - they are completely absent. I mean has a team every not won a single game being down in the 8th inning in a season? surely even the rockies and whitesox have won some of those games.

Jay Jaffe

12:41

I saw that they're something like 0-60 in that context and yes, that looks bad, but that's just one cherry-picked stat. it doesn't explain why, for example, they have 8 walk-off wins, which is tied for ninth and just three fewer than the leading team (Brewers).

12:42

That said, the Mets' clutch score — a measure of how much better or worse a team hits (or pitches) in higher-leverage situations than lower-lev ones — is the majors' fifth worst on the offensive side... and third-worst on the pitching side. ouch

Jaymes

12:42

Hey Jay, Guardians are heating up, and are facing 6 games against the Tigers, and 3 against the playoff hungry rangers. Do you think they have a chance to sneak into the 5th or 6th seed, or maybe even win the Central?

Jay Jaffe

12:44

our Playoff Odds give them a 1.5% chance of winning the division — which would require them to overcome a 6.5-game deficit with 13 to play — and an 11.1% chance of making the playoffs. That's a significant shot but not one you should get your hopes too high about. I don't see the Tigers rolling over for them, for one thing.

bringbackpologrounds

12:45

I enjoyed the Betts article, Jay. Do you think he has a chance at 100 bWAR? He has to average about 3.5 WAR for the last 7 years of his contract.

Jay Jaffe

12:46

It's probably a long-shot. he's got 4.8 WAR in a down offensive year but he's not going to be an above-average SS forever, and he's prone to getting banged up. I'd guess he's got about ~15 WAR remaining

Phil

12:46

Julio Franco's remarkable career came up during today's Effectively Wild. Guest Adam Darowski opined that Franco would have had 3100 or 3200 hits if he'd spent his whole career in MLB. Would this make him a Hall-of-Famer, to you?

Jay Jaffe

12:48

if he got to 3,000 hits, with his near-.300 AVG he'd absolutely be in the Hall of Fame.

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