Dan Szymborski: Sorry, was busy talking about the Springfield Bear Patrol

Andrew: Which minor leaguer improved their projections the most this year?

Dan Szymborski: Dangit, why do you guys always ask questions there’s no way I can answer on the fly! lol

Dan Szymborski: Hold on, let me call up the September update and the preseason and see if I can crunch this super quick

Dan Szymborski: OK, the minor leaguers whose 2024 projections have gone up the most (hitter)

Dan Szymborski: Colt Keith, Justyn-Henry Malloy, Tyler Black, Masyn Winn, Luisangel Acuna,

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to my final chat of the 2023 regular season. I’ve got a piece today on the Astros’ September struggles (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/for-one-night-at-least-justin-verlander-st…) and yesterday dared to question the rush to anoint Ronald Acuña Jr. MVP by writing about the role of versatility in Mookie Betts’ candidacy (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/mookie-betts-versatility-has-enriched-his-…). Anyway, let’s get to it…

Jason N: Snell about to get CY award #2, but I’ve never seen him in a HoF discussion.  His awards will be pretty far apart (about 5 years).  Is this unprecedented to have a player with some far apart peak years but very little in between?

Jay Jaffe: I think it’s mostly pretty early to entertain a serious Hall of Fame discussion about any starter beyond the big four (Kershaw, Verlander, Scherzer, Greinke) and Cole, and that goes for Snell, who hasn’t even reached 1,000 innings (he’s at 992.2. The shape of his career thus far is unusual in that his two Cy-Caliber seasons account for about 63% of his 21.1 career bWAR; his third-best season by that measure was last year, worth just 2.1 WAR. I’m not sure I can find a good parallel offhand, in that even two-time CY winner Denny McClain had a 4.6-WAR season in 1965, three years before the first of his back-to-back awards. But among HOFers, Jim Kaat going 11 seasons between 5.0-WAR years (1962 and ’74) stands out, though he had some with 4+ WAR in that span

Fletcher: After the Kershaw/Verlander/Scherzer/Greinke group is inducted, how long will it be until the writer’s elect another SP? Do you think someone like Cole will get serious traction or will the reduced workloads be too much of a barrier?

Jay Jaffe: I think Cole will have serious traction if he stays healthy. Good chance to reach both 200 wins and 3,000 strikeouts (he’s at 144 and 2,147 now). It’s who comes after that that’s the question.

KC Pain: Will the Orioles have enough room for all their potential banging at the door in the minors or will they have to make a move or two?

Dan Szymborski: It’s a chat!

Guest: Has this season increased or decreased Justin Verlander’s odds of reaching 300 wins?  This season feels like a median outcome to me, but curious if Zips sees something different.

Dan Szymborski: I don’t have ZiPS open, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s dropped a little bit

Dan Szymborski: Verlander matched his projections, but remember, he wasn’t at 50% to win 300 games

Dan Szymborski: He kinda needs to beat his win projections by a bit

Guest: Enjoyed the milestone article looking 3,000 hits.  Any other milestones that you’re planning to look at soon?

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks! Welcome to another edition of my weekly chat — the first one in two weeks. It’s been a lively time around Casa Jaffe-Span lately due to pending real estate transactions; I missed last week’s caht and was late setting this one up. Since i’m also late in securing lunch, I’m going to let the queue fill up for a few more minutes and then light this candle.

Chadwick: Is this the stadium proposal that gets done in St. Pete?

Jay Jaffe: This isn’t just a proposal, they actually appear to have a deal, so yes. Other than the fact that they literally could not get any other deals done until now, what I don’t get is how this one solves one of the big problems that Tropicana Field has faced, which is simply getting to the ballpark given its location.

Jay Jaffe: Because this park will be right near the current one

Jay Jaffe: and it’s a dome, not even a retractable.

Jay Jaffe: it will be interesting to see how this ignites the discussion of expansion to 32 teams. When I wrote about Salt Lake City’s surprising bid, it was clear that solving the Oakland and Tampa Bay stadium issues was necessary and both have now been, uh, dealt with.

Dan Szymborski: Greetings, fair FanGraphs reader, it is a time for chats and chidings.

Dan Szymborski: Also, since it was being stubborn about getting on the front page, my queue is almost nothing, so this is YOUR best time for random nonsense.

Ryan Z: Hey Dan, we are starting to see talk of the next CBA negotiations taking place and what each side wants. Do you expect we’ll have another lockout? Missed games in 2027?

Dan Szymborski: While it’s too early to say exactly *what* will happen, I’m not particularly optimistic.

Dan Szymborski: The players complaints heading into the last CBA are going to be basically unchanged except for minimums salaries.

Dan Szymborski: The luxury tax threshold still grows slower than inflation and WAY slower than MLB revenue growth

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon folks, and welcome to my first chat of this sweltering (in Brooklyn where it’s 92 degrees) September!

Jay Jaffe: Hope you all had nice long weekends. Just before the weekend I did this about Tony Gonsolin’s Tommy John surgery, a now-outdated snapshot of the Dodgers’ rotation (ugh) and a look at TJS trends in general https://blogs.fangraphs.com/tony-gonsolin-and-recent-tommy-john-surger…
I’m working on something on Royce Lewis for tomorrow.

KC Pain: Better Star Wars name, Cal Quantrill or Akil Baddoo?

Jay Jaffe: Baddoo is a name that seems seems straight out of Phantom Menace, though I’d also believe that Quantrill flew alongside Luke Skywalker in A New Hope and/or Empire Strikes Back.

v2micca: Even three years in, I really dislike the extra innings ghost-runner rule.  Which is more likely, the rule is eventually applied to post season play, or the rule is removed from regular season play.  (Yes, I know there is a third option but I want to know which you think is more likely of the first two)

Jay Jaffe: I’d say more likely to be applied to postseason play BUT I very, very much doubt that will happen. The move to do so in regular season just makes life simpler for teams (and players), and they tend to like it because it gets them home earlier, but I don’t see anybody hungering to have a playoff game decided that way.