Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat – 11/10/26
Good afternoon, folks! Welcome to my first chat of the offseason. Last week I had my parents in town and the site was mostly dark for election day, so we hit the Jackson Pollock/Lee Krasner exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art — I can't recommend it enough!
Last week also marked the announcement of the 2027 Contemporary Baseball Managers/Umpires/Executives Era Committee ballot, for which I gave the overview here:
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/dusty-baker-and-bruce-bochy-head…
It's the most stacked ballot, I think, since the change to the 8-candidate, 3-vote format in 2023, and at some point it might rival the 2022 ones in terms of future Hall of Famers.
Since then, I've run profiles of Lou Piniella, Bill White, and yesterday Joe Maddon (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2027-contemporary-baseball-era-c…). I'm deep into researching and writing up Dusty Baker for the next one. What a fascianting career and life!
It's awards season, but no, I don't have a vote. As I'm in the New York chapter, it's not hard to find enough voters for the various awards, but in smaller markets, my FanGraphs colleagues do get to vote. I know Meg Rowley was among those who voted for the NL Rookie of the Year last night; she had Carson Benge and JJ Wetherholt and Nolan MacLean ahead of Sal Stewart, who won. I would have done the same — I think I had them here in that order awhile back, and some took umbrage at my not elevating Stewart with his big RBI total over them. Jeff Zimmerman voted for Kevin McGonigle in the AL ROY vote, which is whom I'd have chosen. https://bbwaa.com/26-nl-roy/
I expect Dan Szymborski has a vote somewhere in here, and there may be others.
Are you kidding? It's a very dead spot on the baseball calendar, and MLB, MLB Network, and the BBWAA are happy to provide four evenings of programming.
Eh, I know that sentiments like that are often played for laughs or outrage, and I'm not above that flavor of hyperbole once in awhile, but the point of a vote, rather than a statistical system or an award for leading the league in WAR is to let human judgment into the equation. You can't give people an opening for subjective decisions — especially when it comes to the very vaguely defined "value" — and then demand they all see things the same way OR ELSE.
That said, I do expect PCA to be a unanimous choice given his late-season surge and Ohtani's collapse.
I'm pretty sure Boone was among the players in the first two packs of baseball cards my mom bought me, the Topps 1978 set. My younger brother and I pored over those cards and tried to pay the game on the back (each card had a batter outcome — single, double, triple, home run, strikeout, etc). I still remember most of those cards because visual memory is a superpower i inherited from my paternal grandmother. Kent Tekulve, Manny Sanguillen, Billy Martin, and Rob Picciolo were some of the ones in that subset; later I went back and completed the set.
Boone, of course, was a staple of the Phillies, who made the playoffs five times from 1976-81, and so I saw a lot of him on TV during those postseasons against the Dodgers and when the Phillies won it all in 1980. He was a good glove man and handler of pitchers, and at his peak he could hit reasonably well. He lasted forever at catcher, so long that when he retired he held the record for games caught before Carlton Fisk and Ivan Rodriguez (Pudge and Pudge) surpassed him. And of course he was the middle man in a 3-generation dynasty, the son of Ray and father of Aaron and Bret. A pretty full baseball life. RIP
Hmm. I'll pass that along. I've never seen a setting to autoplay when I embed videos, so I'd check your browser preferences
I wouldn't hold my breath. Both Vic Harris and John Donaldson made pretty solid showings on the 10-man ballot that elected Buck O'Neil and Bud Fowler on the 2022 Early Baseball ballot, for which the candidates' main contributions happened prior to 1950, but both received five or fewer votes on the 2025 Classic ballot for those whose main contributions happened before 1980. Unless and until the Hall makes it easier to consider those players in a context more reflective of their era, it's going to be hard to get any of them elected even with the explosion of research (and MLB's belated recognition of their leagues as major) in that area.
I'm hopeful Whitaker will be on the 2028 Classic ballot a year from now. Ideally Grich as well, but so many candidates from that era have been endlessly recycled that they've crowded him out, and the new rule about eligibility on the next ballot, double-edge sword though it is, doesn't officially apply to the 2025 vote.
Particularly for ROY, I don't think one has to go strictly by the numbers because some key rookies often aren't in the majors at the start of the season, though the PPI system has changed that equation somewhat. I get why Stewart is popular but man, I'm never gonna wave the pompoms for the RBI guy winning out when we have better measures. Benge going 20-20 with excellent defense should be every bit as exciting to a ball-knowing fan as Stewart driving in runs.
I hope he's healthy and productive but the dude has averaged 90 games, an 87 wRC+, and 0.8 WAR in the past three seasons so I'm not exactly optimistic.
Thanks for the kind words. I see Francona as a stronger case for the Hall than Maddon but not necessarily the more interesting and innovative manager. Maybe you're right about how things would have played out on the alternate scenario you've suggested but what strikes me is how abruptly Maddon's tenure ended in Chicago. I think it was Ricketts (and Theo) being wary of long-term investments in players and I'm not sure Francona wold have fared better.
I would put Johnson ahead of Maddon in the short career/innovative and influential/1 World Series win batch even before considering Johnson's solid major league playing career.
The problem with what you're suggesting is that even before Manny and A-Rod were suspended for violating a policy of which they had to be aware, both were reported as having failed the 2003 survey test. Yes, that was supposed to be anonymous, and in my ballot deliberations I haven't used that as disqualifying (e.g., I voted for Ortiz and Sosa), but that was because neither of those two guys were shown to have violated the post-testing rules.
The fact that Manny and A-Rod illustrated their lack of common sense in other ways in public doesnn't help their cause either. I don't see myself flipping for either of them.
My "want" list isn't in order of JAWS — we know why Bonds and Clemens aren't in the Hall even apart from what the numbers say. The numbers are great, and I'd prefer they were in the Hall, but if I had to choose Bonds or a criminally overlooked guy like Whitaker for wom my metric brings things into focus I'd choose the latter.
What's more a lot of the guys on my want list are eithe Negro Leagues/pre-Negro Leagues Black baseball candidates or nonplayers , so we can't go by JAWS there either.
it's the *National* Baseball Hall of Fame, which meant USA when it was established in 1936 and has been expanded to include Canada because it's part of MLB; put an MLB team in Mexico City and those players would be eligible too. Membership is voted upon by American and Canadian writers who had the most exposure to those players, whereas they didn't get to see or cover players in Japan, Cuba, etc.
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I don't like the newish "two strikes" rule but I'm hopeful that if either Rose or Jackson is on the next Classic ballot that they'll be rejected so resoundingly (5 votes or fewer) that they'd be ineligible for a 2031 ballot, and then if that were to happen a second time, they'd be "permanently" ineligible.
I'd be surprised if the two-strikes system gets that far. Some great manager or Negro Leagues legend is going to slip through the cracks and the blowback of ruling them out permanently won't be great for the Hall.
The decision on who gos on the ballot is made by the 11-member Historical Overview Committee, not the Hall itself., and it's possible Scioscia narrowly missed inclusion. That he won just one pennant while Maddon won two might have been the separator. Of course, down the road this could work out to Scioscia's advantage given the possibility that Baker and Bochy get in, but then again, Francona is going to be a strong candidate at some point down the road.
There's probably some truth to what you're saying. I did note in the Maddon piece that the sentiment that he had become less hands-on with and accessible to players was conveyed to him by Theo in the 2018–19 offseason. Maybe it was too late by then
I just pulled up our new-ish Projected Standings archive, which shows that the Cubs were 7 wins below their Pythag and 5 below their BaseRuns projected records. We tend to credit managers for teams that outperform those things — sequencing is kind of random, but bullpen usage can reflect the manager's touch — so it makes sense that we at least note when they underpeform.
Thanks. I can't say I don't *care* about guys using in the pre-testing era, just that I've tried to separate rumor (the bogus "positives list" that circulated back in those days) from reported information, and the leaks do place those guys in a separate category.
Mostly, though, it all sucks and I'm goad I don't have to expend as much energy thinking about this as I did 5-10 years ago.
Yeah I think their elections help both players' causes. I suspect we'll see Lofton on the next ballot, maybe Edmonds at some point too as the two-strike rule at least stimulates some churn among the candidates.
Given how hard most elite relievers are throwing these days I suspect 100+ innings isn't a sustainable model. Pull up a list of 90+ inning relievers in the Statcat era and the top two entries are for Ryan Yarbrough (2018 and '24), he of the opener/bulk framework and the sub-88 fastball.
In fact, a look at the top 10 shows there's only 2 guys whose four-seamers averaged 95 or higher, AJ Blubaugh in 2026 (96 IP, 95.8 mph) — we don't know if he can follow that up — and Derek Law in 2024 (90 IP, 95.1 mph), 9 innings in 2 seasons since due to arm problems.
custom table there.
I wouldn't suggest that any active starting pitcher 3 years into his career be subjected to a Hall of Fame narrative. Let's see if he's still pitching at a high level when he's 30.
Lindor because he's already close to the JAWS standard and playing a skill position that helps him accrue value even when his bat isn't great.
Mets. With an opt-out somewhere early.
We've gone longer since the last round of expansion than we did at any time between 1961 and '98. The player pool has enlarged greatly in that time through US population growth and the influx of elite Asian players. Remember, prior to Ichiro's 2001 arrival, no Japanese position player had even come over.
I wouldn't go so far as to call it a perfect storm but: 1B with non-traditional offensive profile, added value from defense that could be ignored if only focusing on triple crown stats, anti-Coors Field bias, and the ease of ignoring the Rockies due to their perennial loserdom. Tough break.
I'd guess he either tops Yamamoto's $325 million or Scherzer/Verlander's $43.3 million AAV for the purposes of bragging rights. not sure about where the opt-outs would be but one after year two or three makes sense.
OK folks, I gotta see a man about a toothpick so it's time to wrap this up. Thanks so much for stopping by, and have a great week!
