JotCast | Jay Jaffe Inaugural FanGraphs Chat

Jay Jaffe Inaugural FanGraphs Chat - 2/15/18

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Santos

1:37

I don't understand why Vlad was considered a no doubt 1st ballot hall of famer. I'm not saying I don't think he's hall worthy, I'm saying his case seems borderline, and compares well to others who completely dropped off. Why do you think the writers jumped so aggressively in favor of him despite only 54 WAR?

Jay Jaffe

1:39

Because most writers aren't looking at WAR or JAWS (he's low by my system, so I left him off my virtual ballots) and TBF, he earned a lot of style points with his play. Just an incredibly entertaining player, especially in his Expos days.

Yellow box

1:39

So who is your favorite hall of famer?

SullivanSawchikGraphs

1:39

I bet Jeff and Travis are noticeably relieved to have great writers like you, Meg Rowley, and Matt Rian come aboard (and the return of former Lead Prospect Analyst Kiley McDaniel!). How have you been greeted by your new colleagues? With swirlies and by getting pantsed? With odes to JAWS sent via email?

Jay Jaffe

1:40

I've gotten a wonderful reception from the staff — several reached out via email, DM or text when it was clear I was coming aboard. It seems like a great group to be part of.

Eduardo Rodriguez

1:40

You think this surgery will actually stabilize my knee and make me more confident and therefore allow me to come closer to my potential in terms of both performance and durability?

Jay Jaffe

1:41

I hope so, because I want to see what a full healthy season by him looks like, but knees are always tricky for pitchers and alas, I'm not a doctor.

Scott

1:41

Have you been following Bill James' series about the best players at their position by year? It provides a different perspective, explaining why some "mistakes" from a JAWS perspective are in.

Jay Jaffe

1:44

I haven't kept up with James' writing in recent years, in part because it's been behind a paywall (iv'e intermittently had access). I know he's not a fan of WAR (of any flavor) and I think he was rather off base in that Altuve/Judge discussion from a couple months back (which isn't to say that I have an issue with the outcome of the voting). But it's probably worth seeing what he's doing these days, so I'll ad him to the list.

Pumpsie Green

1:44

Post-playing days, how is Jeter any less icky than Pete Rose?

Jay Jaffe

1:45

Uh, Jeter hasn't broken any laws or MLB rules. It's not even close to a fair comparison.

zcrates

1:45

How much will Zack Cozart regress from his 141 wRC+ last season?

Jay Jaffe

1:47

A fair bit, I think. Anaheim is a tougher place to hit than Great American Ballpark and I'd guess (and here it's a guess because I'm not pulling up spray charts or statcast) that he's going to lose some of those homers.

Shawn

1:48

Favorite IPAs? If I remember correctly you are in NY? Best breweries in the city?

Jay Jaffe

1:49

Other Half, Singlecut, Barrier and Threes are my local favorites. They're not always easy to come by though. Fortunately, I live near Threes and they will deliver to my one- (or now two-) person office.

Morbo

1:49

I don't expect an answer but re: my earlier Yadier Molina question, I read, somewhere, recently but I cant seem to find the source, that the Cardinals pitching staff has had an ERA split of roughly 1 full point. I.e. when Molina is catching, lets call it 3.38, vs not catching, call it 4.38, do you think that bolsters his case at all?

Jay Jaffe

1:50

There are a lot of issues with using catcher ERA due to the way that teams tend to pair a given backup with only one or two starters, not necessarily the best ones.

Effectively Wildest

1:50

Have you appeared on Effectively Wild: A Fangraphs Podcast brought to you by Patreon supporters? Now that you're a member of the FG team, planning on appearing (more)?

Jay Jaffe

1:51

I've never been on EW in its current form. I'm open to podcast invites because I sure as hell don't have time to create one (and I almost never listen because I can't have somebody talking to me while I write).

Matt

1:51

Vlad got in on the second ballot.

Jay Jaffe

1:51

Thanks, I wasn't paying attention.

Big Joe Mufferaw

1:51

How amazing is it that Larry Walker never played competitive basbeall "about 15-20 games a year of softball" until he was 18. He learned in the minors, and that should be made public more! Help his HOF clause as a "freak athlete"

Jay Jaffe

1:52

His is a remarkable story, one that I outlined in the Casebook and at SI.com. He was incredibly raw when he began playing pro ball, and he's got some entertaining stories about that.

Dave Kingman

1:52

Any insight into how the Brewers OF/1B logjam will shake out if they don't make a trade prior to the start of the season?

Jay Jaffe

1:53

They do have a bit of a logjam, don't they? I think we'll see Braun playing a good chunk of time at 1B unless they get a very good offer for Santana

CanRodBond

1:53

PEDS. PEDS were legal. Hard to penalize on assumption. Your three cents

Jay Jaffe

1:54

in my HOF evaluations I draw a distinction between the pre-testing era, when there was no consequence for use and no mechanism for enforcing a paper ban, and the testing era, where the consequences became clear.

Pad Squad

1:55

What would it take to get Michael Conforto to the Padres after the 2018 season? Do you like him for San Diego?

Jay Jaffe

1:56

Given his shoulder injury I'm not sure how much I even like Conforto for the Mets right now. Capsule tears are no joke. I hope he can get back to being the hitter he showed he was in 2017 pre-injury

1:57

OK folks, it feels like I haven't put a dent in the number of good questions in the queue but it's been two hours and i need some lunch. I'll take note of the best questions remaining and see if any of them fit for future article ideas. Thanks for chatting and we'll plan on doing this again in two weeks!

Billy Beane

1:59

Question: As THE Hall of Fame expert, how do you actually feel about its importance? I know a lot of analytical baseball writers basically think that the more you think and know about it, the sillier it seems, even though the players themselves think of it very highly? Has spending so much time thinking about it shaped your thinking on the issue in some particular way?

Jay Jaffe

2:02

OK, this was too good a question not to take a stab at: I think it's good that baseball has a means of honoring its greats, and that our view of greatness changes with the times and the means we have of measuring. We've gone from very much basing it on fame (pre-TV, the World Series conferred a whole lot of it, paritucarly thanks to the volume of coverage it had in newspapers) to pushing harder to tie ti to performance, and increasingly sophisticated measures of performance at that. I think about this stuff all the time, and I love the topic because it's one that just about every serious baseball fan has thoughts about — and it's a renewable resource for coverage.

OK, thanks again for stopping by today!

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