Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat – 1/27/26

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks! It’s a very chilly day here in Brooklyn (21 degrees) with the snow piled high on the curb. I think we got 10-12″ on Sunday. My basement office is cold enough to hang meat, to borrow a phrase from the late, great voice of the Utah Jazz, Hot Rod Hundley.

Jay Jaffe: Yesterday I published the final article of this year’s Hall of Fame election cycle, my look at the next five elections. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/peering-into-the-crystal-ball-the-next-fiv…

Jay Jaffe: For the first time, I went back and audited my own performance at this exercise, which has always been more art than science. Last week of course I had the Hall of Fame results (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/centers-of-attention-carlos-beltan-and-and…) and the candidate-by-candidate breakdown (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/a-candidate-by-candidate-look-at-the-2026-…)

Jay Jaffe: Finally, I’m one of four FanGraphs writers nominated for a SABR Analytics Conference Research Award. You can vote here: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2026-sabr-analytics-conference-research-aw…

Carter: Hi Jay! Hope all is well and thank you for standing up for Minnesota.

Jay Jaffe: Gotta stand up for what’s right! Melt ICE

And now, on with the show

CubsFan52: Has there been any effect of the looming lockout threat on contract details in the recent flurrry of off-season transactions?

Jay Jaffe: I don’t have a big-picture grasp of this yet but it feels like some of the salary structures and timing of opt-outs may be linked to the possibility of the lockout. Probably something to dig into over the next few weeks as free agent season wraps up

Mr. Burrito: Your argument for Russell Martin in the HOF made me think. I still don’t agree (as much as I love Martin) but I wonder if there are any earlier catchers who might warrant a second or third look. Gene Tenace? Elston Howard? John Rosboro? I’m not arguing any of them should be in the Hall, but their cases might look different in a modern light…

Jay Jaffe: Unfortunately we don’t have any framing info on those guys. We do — or did — have some publicly-available info regarding 1988-2007 framing at Baseball Prospectus, the earlier date marking the start of the pitch-count era; the accounting had to do with Called Strikes Above Average in a WYWO model. Pre-pitch count we might at least be able to try capturing called strikeouts above average in the same way, but given the various bottlenecks in the Era Committee process and the fact that the likes of Russell Martin and Brian McCann didn’t get enough love from the BBWAA voters to remain on the ballot, I don’t think it would have any impact on bygone candidates. I think the coming candidacies of Buster Posey and Yadier Molina might at least get more voters thinking about the data but I think we’ve got little chance of working backwards

Johnson: We know there’s going to be a lockout next year and sounds like a real chance the entire season is canceled… do you think there is a chance more than 1 season is missed?

Jay Jaffe: To hell with this doomerism. Yes, there will probably be a lockout. Yes, the owners will try to implement a salary cap. That’s about all we know, the rest is just spiraling. If you have anxiety about it as a fan, just think about what those of us who make our living covering baseball have to endure.

Jay Jaffe: You’re just feeding the owners’ narrative if you *assume* there will be a season cancelled.

Tori Kland: MLB expansion anytime soon? Saw a report today the league wants 36 teams by 2034…? I dunno

Jay Jaffe: Nothing is going to happen before the CBA battle

Yeven Malaj: Why do the Yankees have no faith in Jasson Dominguez? Makes no sense to me at all

Jay Jaffe: he really didn’t handle the transition to left field — which in Yankee Stadium involves covering an oversized space well, with -9 FRV and -7 DS in 793 innings. His best shot at a clear path to playing time was if Grisham didn’t accept the QO, but he did, so it looks like Dominguez will have to spend the season as a fourth OF and take advantage of the opportunities as they arise.

Guest: Thinking back to the Crowdsource ballot: is there a certain level of crowd vote support that would make you consider voting for a player you normally wouldn’t have? More broadly: since the Hall is for fans, are there ways in which you try to consider the will of fans when voting? Have there been players that you voted for that may not have measured up for you personally, but that you voted for partly because of their wide popularity?

Jay Jaffe: I think that factored into the equation with Félix Hernández, who got 43% in our 2025 crowdsource, more than 2x his actual share. My own reckoning, JAWS and otherwise, has him short and my support is soft, but  I do think the rolling WAR stuff and the Cy Young support stuff has had an impact upon my thinking, as has the wider support of the electorate and the readers.

Jay Jaffe: Again, I don’t think he’ll progress to 75% as quickly as your normal candidate getting to 46% in 2 cycles would, but the younger voters do seem very keen on him, and the electorate will continue to turn over

Jay Jaffe: Lunch arrived while typing that answer, bear with me for a few minutes as I get my eat on.

matty25: With Peralta being traded, does Chad Patrick have a full time spot in the Brewers rotation now?

Jay Jaffe: I’d imagine so based on last year’s strong debut. RosterResource has him in there as the #4, not that the designation means much at this juncture

Cub Fan and Bud Man: Hi Jerry, What’s your take on Thurman Munson, I feel strongly he is the missing piece to his 1970s peers, being in and if Buster goes in so should Thruman.

Jay Jaffe: I’ve been making Munson/Posey comparisons for more than half a decade in terms of the way they checked off the major accomplishments (ROY, MVP, GG, multiple championships) in a shortened career. Wrote about his HOF case here https://blogs.fangraphs.com/thurman-munsons-case-for-cooperstown/

Jay Jaffe: if the nadir of Bill James’ career is his stuff about Dick Allen, his crass bullshit about Thurman Munson is near the bottom too

Jay Jaffe: WTF https://x.com/billjamesonline/status/1661081723499626534

Lord Thunder: Over or under on Vientos getting 200 ABs with the Mets this season?

Jay Jaffe: Given the non-standard roster construction with Polanco at first base, i think Vientos can get a look if he shows up and looks good at 1B. But I also think he’s a trade waiting to happen. So i’ll take the under on 200 with the Mets and the over on 200 in the majors.

krustybuckets_: At this point does it make the most sense for the cardinals to hang on to Brendan Donovan and hope he recoups some value before dealing him in season?

Jay Jaffe: What value did he lose? His 119 wRC+ and 2.9 WAR were right in line with his previous career mark, compressed into 3/4 of a season due to injuries

not the lunch guy: We’re starting to get into retirements for players who had some semblance of peak season during Covid, how much do you think that’ll affect them? Specifically talking about Yu Darvish here, on pace for a 7ish WAR Cy Young season that year, though obviously in a shorter time frame.

Jay Jaffe: Everybody lost 102 games to the shortened season, and it’s a bummer Yu Darvish didn’t win the NL Cy Young that year, but there’s nothing that’s gonna change that. He didn’t do enough stateside to have a real shot at the Hall of Fame, so I don’t think lamenting a few lost WAR makes a ton of sense, and when it comes to other candidates… look, they’re not gonna get serious HOF consideration unless they had a bunch of great seasons, so losing most of one to a pandemic probably isn’t going to be what holds them back. José Ramírez — to cite one player building a HOF case who’s in this situation — is gonna be fine.

Mitchell S: Are most teams just waiting for the new tv media contracts in 2028 to make moves? Feels like it’s really just a handful of teams signing guys these last few years

Jay Jaffe: There’s been a ton of uncertainty within the industry in recent years due to the unsettled TV contract situation, first with the collapse of the Diamond Sports Group and now the FanDuel group. That’s had an impact on some teams’ payrolls, for sure, but I don’t think it’s “Most”

Guest: do you think Delgado or Stieb ever get in, or will Vlad be the first Jay’s HOF (All my homies hate Alomar)

Jay Jaffe: Stieb is in no-man’s land as a short-career one-and-done hoping for some love from a committee that focuses primarily on career milestones and not peak stuff. Delgado, despite this year’s strong EC showing, probably isn’t going to get in unless the Hall stacks the deck even further. Vladito is a long time to wait, but I don’t see any Blue Jay cutting the line right now.

Insert Witty Name Here: The number of CF’s in the hall was shockingly low. But I asked Ben yesterday about it and he said that there are some who are classified as another position that they played later on. Any names stick out that could be labeled a CF that aren’t?

Jay Jaffe: I wouldn’t call it shockingly low. In the JAWS set — which is to say where they accrued the most value, not necessarily the most games  – there are now 21 CF, 21 LF, and 30 RF. By the Hall’s count, including Negro Leagues/Black baseball, it’s 23 LF, 26 CF (including 6 Negro Lgs/BB), and 29 RF.

Jay Jaffe: Offhand I don’t see anyone on the Hall list that i think of more in a corner.

Jay Jaffe: or vice versa, but I don’t have time to pore over it closely during a chat

12 to 6: jay, thanks for chatting. while i don’t like the “if this, then that” argument for the hall, if andruw jones is in, doesn’t that improve the argument for torii hunter? i personally wouldn’t give either my vote (y’know, if i had one), but i think there’s a legit argument that hunter’s sustained production is “of value” to andruw’s more compressed peaks.

for what it’s worth, lofton should have been in before either.

Jay Jaffe: Hunter was a visually impressive fielder but unlike Jones, that impression isn’t supported by the metrics; they’re like 200 fielding runs apart, and even if that’s off by 50 it wouldn’t change anything.

On the subject of compressed vs. sustained, it’s actually the higher peak that’s more valuable because those high-value seasons, which can affect whether you make the playoffs or not, are harder to come by. That’s one of the reasons that peak seasons are effectively double-counted in JAWS.

TameImp: Is there an expectation that these high dollar, short term contracts will have less dead money on them then the longer deals? Or is the idea being able to time a luxury tax dip?

Jay Jaffe: The variety of contract structures has a lot to do with circumstances that differ from team to team and player to player. Luxury taxes, income taxes, frontloads, backloads, deferrals — it’s all about both sides trying to handle things in ways that work better for them.

Jay Jaffe: sometimes it’s about taking the tax hit and avoiding the long-term dead money. Sometimes it’s about spreading the money out over as long a timeline as possible to avoid the luxury tax or at least make it easier to stay off a higher tier.

12 to 6: vis a vis the dodger rotation, which is chokablock with options is it safe to presume that doc and friedman will opt for a lengthened, seven-man/skip start, rotation for the first half (if not the entire year) given the burdens undertaken by yama last year (and for team japan) and the overall injury risk? yama, snell, glasnow, sheehan, ohtani, sasaki, ryan (who has looked incredible in rehab, supposedly) should all be getting reps to start the year, no?

Jay Jaffe: I don’t see them going to a 7-man rotation. I imagine they’ll start Ryan in the minors for rehab purposes, slow walk Yamamoto in the spring a bit, use Sheehan and Knack to adjust to the veterans’ other needs, and so on. the one thing you can say with certainty in late January is that you have no idea how many of those guys are going to be available as of March 25 or July 25 or September 25 because somebody is going to get hurt.

War2D2: Hi Jay! Thanks for all you do! I’ve heard essentially zero rumblings on where Framber winds up. It’s two weeks from pitchers and catchers, do you think he winds up signing a short-term, high-AAV  “pillow” deal WITH opt-outs like Bregman signed with the BoSox, and takes another crack at it next season? If he does, where do you think he winds up? I’m obviously biased in thinking he’d look good in Cubs blue, but there’s a half-dozen teams that could use him.

Jay Jaffe: Framber: obviously going to be a Dodger.

Jay Jaffe: OK, I kid

Jay Jaffe: I still think Baltimore is his most likely destination and that he’ll get something that has an opt-out rather than go for a true pillow contract.

James: Regarding the Phillies offseason, do you think they should have signed Bader instead of Garcia? Their history of one-year bounceback candidate signings is, um, not good. Love your HoF writing, it really helps to get through a long winter!

Jay Jaffe: Thanks for the kind words. Bader made much more sense for the Phillies IMO, especially because he did well for them after being traded and because their CF situation is a little unsettled. I don’t think Eric Longehagen is sold on Justin Crawford as a center fielder, at least. But as you saw, he got a multiyear deal and Garcia just a one-year, and i’m sure that probably had something to do with the way things shook out

Bog: When I picture you in my head I just see Paul F Tompkins. Is that about right? Do you own a purple suit?

Jay Jaffe: Hmm, flattered but I’m not nearly as flashy a dresser as PFT. Most of what I wear is blue, black, grey, black, blue, or grey. Sometimes with some gray thrown in there. I wear a lot of Western shirts with the snaps, he tends towards louder colors. Also our mustaches are different, not that anyone has to choose whose is better.

TameImp: Bill Freehan seems like the obvious second look option for catcher. Somewhat meh stats but 11x all star should matter

Jay Jaffe: I’ve been beating this drum since before he died (he’s got a blurb in the Casebook) but here’s my tribute when he passed https://blogs.fangraphs.com/remembering-bill-freehan-the-thinking-mans…

johnny5alive: It was a weak ballot of newcomers, but wright and pedroia made perhaps unexpected bumps.  They are still a long ways away, but in your 5 year prediction, you see Pedroia maybe finally getting in.  No shot for Wright?

Jay Jaffe: The Pedroia pick was a dart throw — I should have added the caveat so it read “Most Likely to be Elected (which isn’t to say it’s likely)” or something like that —  but it was based on several things: he made a stronger start on the ballot and is ahead despite having been on for fewer years. he’s got 2 championships, an MVP award, and a ROY as well — Wright has none of that — and he has 2x as many Gold Gloves (4 to 2). The Hall of Fame Monitor gives him an edge (94-74) and he’s a couple points ahead in WAR and JAWS. I loved Wright as a player but I don’t see anywhere that he’s got a real advantage over Pedroia in a Hall comparison.

Guest: Do you think Andruw Jones getting into the HoF and Felix doing well changes the outlook on other players that fell off in their 30s? Longoria, Stanton, etc

Jay Jaffe: Career length and achievements are still the primary driver of Hall voting, and while Andruw faded out, he still played 17 seasons and racked up 8664 PA. That’s not really a short career. Stanton’s shot at the Hall will be driven by whether or not he reaches 500 homers. Longoria, as noted in yesterday’s piece, is a close-but-no-cigar guy IMO.

War2D2: I may be a Pollyanna about the “pending” lockout, but I think at most they lose a week or two of spring training. Baseball is a money machine, and the owners aren’t going to turn that machine off. And small market guys like Fisher, who would ostensibly benefit the most from a cap, have an incredibly high percentage of their net worth tied to their club, and have existing investments leveraged against the club. If the season does get canceled then the A’s almost certainly don’t complete the move to LV. The Rays don’t get a stadium. There’s no expansion to Portland, NC,  Montreal, whatever. The players have a lot to lose, sure, but the owners aren’t exactly bulletproof. The top five or so teams are lukewarm on a cap, and peeling off enough of the over-leveraged guys that need a season to happen to keep cash flow positive shouldn’t be impossible for the union. Again, maybe I’m rosy about this because everything else is so bleak and I need baseball to keep me sane, but that’s where I’m at.

Jay Jaffe: I think this is a pretty sane take, thanks.

Andy: Have you ever considered doing a crowdsourced 5-year crystal ball? It might be interesting to see how our expectations compare to yours.

Jay Jaffe: interesting idea but not sure how to wrangle it.

Andy: In Eric’s chat last week, he suggested that the owners want to get rid of high school players in the draft so that there aren’t any 19-20 year old debuts (more like 21-22). If that were to happen, do you think HOF voters would eventually adjust their standards, or would it result in a reduced number of players making it to the Hall?

Jay Jaffe: for awhile probably more the latter. But the MLBPA is never going to go for preventing 19/20 from debuting.

Guest: Is there any hope to get Lou Whitaker into the HOF?  Sad the guy wasn’t even part of the 2026 Contemporary Baseball Era ballot.

Jay Jaffe: I believe that with Bonds, Clemens, and Sheffield out of circulation for 2029 ballot he finally gets another look, but … it’s still an uphill battle from there.

Felix: In your five-year take, you mentioned the possibility of Wright, Pedroia, and Rollins gaining momentum, and even predicted Pedroia’s election.  Do you think these candidates are all pretty closely linked?  Is the thought that Utley and Posey’s inductions will have a trickle-down effect?

Jay Jaffe: I think there are various coattails to be ridden in terms of both shorter-career guys and double-play partners… but there’s also something of a disappearing middle class of HOF candidates right now. You have obvious first-ballot guys and some with some slow growth potential but the accelerated first-year elections have left us short of guys who are gonna get in in 2-5 years, and it’s going to take some mold-breaking for some of these guys to get in.

Interesting observation from Anthony Calamis of the Tracker team:

“I think it’s fascinating that Beltrán was the first player elected on ballots 2-5 since Vlad and Hoffman in 2018, and something to keep in mind the next 5 years. Utley should become the second. From 2011–18 you saw Alomar, Larkin, Biggio, Piazza, Vlad, and Hoffman elected ballots 2-5 then 2019-25 nobody”

Hayden: What should Boston do about its OF logjam? It’s made sense for months to trade Duran or Abreu for a righty bat but we’re getting close to spring training.

Jay Jaffe: There’s still time to make a trade and I suspect we’ll see one of those two guys dealt. More likely Abreu, I think, since they seemed to be close to doing so at the deadline.

Tacoby Bellsbury: What’s the most interesting new (or new to you) music you’ve listened to lately?

Jay Jaffe: ooh fun question. Friends put me on to Sharp Pins and Lifeguard, both the brainchild of a 20ish kid named Kai Slater, and that’s been fun. Looking forward to new albums by Dry Cleaning and the Paranoid Style, the hyperliterate band of a music/sports/culture writer named Elizabeth Nelson.

Wrights_back: I don’t know much about baseball, just like I don’t know much about politics.   I don’t get paid to write about baseball (natch) – or politics.  
But if I were paid to write about baseball, I would write about baseball and not assume to share my opinions about things I really don’t know much about.

I believe the term is epistemological modesty.

Jay Jaffe: Then start your own site and share your limited opinions there. If you don’t like me expressing solidarity with the people of Minneapolis and saying “Melt ICE,” then you shouldn’t be reading me anywhere because I’m not going to let you stop thinking about the rest of the world once in awhile.

Mo’s bowtie: apologies on a likely repeated question but with beltran and jones making it, will/can that improve edmonds chances?

Jay Jaffe: Discussed this on a recent podcast with the great Bernie Miklasz on KMOX last week https://www.audacy.com/podcast/gashouse-gang-68510/episodes/the-gashou…

Jay Jaffe: A one-and-done player is in no-man’s land when it comes to getting another look on the Era Committee ballot. It’s just a very difficult uphill climb to get noticed there, especially if you don’t have big career numbers (Edmonds has less than 2,000 hits, for example), and it doesn’t help that another one-and-done with better career number (in terms of hits and WAR, at least) in Kenny Lofton is also in the same boat.

Jay Jaffe: i’d say the elections of Beltrán and Jones may improve Edmonds’ odds, but not radically.

Matt VW: Machado, J-Ram, and Arenado are currently in a virtual tie for JAWS. Which of the three is likeliest to make the Hall and whos’s the likeliest to end up on the outside looking in?

Jay Jaffe: Ramirez most likely, Machado likely, Arenado probably but his offensive decline runs the risk of making him the 3B equivalent of Andruw.

I still think all 3 get in via the writers

Hundreds, possibly thousands: Of the currently early-30s players who currently seem on track to retire with very good, but probably not HOF careers (eg Bregman, Seager, Correa, Ketel Marte, maybe Trea Turner at the top of this group), are there any that you feel better about aging well and strengthening their cases/separating themselves from the pack?

Jay Jaffe: Seager, with two World Series MVP awards and the fact that he can f’ng rake, is the one I think has the best chance because his bat would still play at 1B or DH or whatever.

War2D2: As a disinterested third party the Phillies seem like they’re in trouble to me. They’re getting old, they have basically no outfield, and between Schwarbs, Wheeler, Harper, and Turner they’re on the hook for most of a billion dollars that looks like it’ll mostly be dead money in a couple years. I love Dombrowski when he’s got the horses and he’s going for it, he’s one of the most fun POBOs on the planet, but this really has the stink of late-era Miggy Tigers.

Jay Jaffe: This is a very Dombrowski production, for sure.

Not a pirates fan: What are Cutch’s hall of fame odds if this is the end? ~50 WAR decent counting stats and a 5 year stretch where he was arguably the best player in the National League…

Jay Jaffe: Extremely low. very cool player for awhile but he’s gonna end up with a JAWS short of 45, and hit and homer totals that are solid but don’t read as HOF-caliber.

Raking Pirate: When I think of Bobby Abreu I also think of Brian Giles and how dominant he was offensively with a similar profile minus the speed.  How close was Giles to being a serious candidate for the Hall?

Jay Jaffe: Great player for a time but fell short of 2,000 hits (1897) in a shortish career and landed on the ballot at the wrong time (2015), that with an on-camera domestic violence incident on his rap sheet as well.

Jay Jaffe: IOW his candidacy was DOA

mike: Please post more band recs on bsky (or here). thanks!

Jay Jaffe: let’s make a point of me doing a music recs/question going forward.

War2D2: FWIW I am glad you share your political takes and beliefs, just as I was happy and encouraged when I came across Kole Calhoun’s and Jason Kipnis’s Insta posts about Minnesota. I have always tended toward despair in most facets of life, probably as a result of being a lifelong Cubs fan. Seeing people that I respect (even, or especially, in venues unrelated to politics) voice opinions that show a respect for basic humanity, a respect for personal freedoms, a respect for community, and a respect for the tenets that the United States was ostensibly founded on will always encourage and sustain me. Keep it up.

Jay Jaffe: Thank you!

Alby: How much expertise in politics does it take to say “Stop mistreating and slaughtering innocent people?”

JP: Lifetime Jays fan who grew up watching Delgado rake, albeit during steroid years so it seemed human.  It was not; he could hit .330 with extreme power.  He was a beast on a team where he was easily pitched around most of his career.  Do you think he makes it now that Beltran and Jones got the call?  Fun fact.  He was listed as a catcher as a prospect.

Jay Jaffe: He was primarily a catcher from 1989-94, including in his major league debut https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BAL/BAL199310010.shtml

Jay Jaffe: Delgado did surprisingly well (9/16 votes) on the recent Era Committee ballot but that’s because the process was well set up to put thumbs in the eyes of Bonds, Clemens, and Sheffield. I don’t think that’s a replicable showing that he can build upon substantially when surrounded by a different set of candidates

Jay Jaffe: Ok folks, that’s it from me this week. Thanks so much for stopping by, tip your waiters, bartenders, and delivery folks, and look out for one another.