12:01 |
Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks! For the first time in awhile I’m on my second chat of the month, as the Hall of Fame election is now behind us
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12:02 |
Jay Jaffe: Before I forget: I’m going to be part of Nick Pollock’s PitchCon this Friday at 3 PM, doing — what else — a Hall of Fame-related presentation while helping to raise $ for ALS research https://pitcherlist.com/pitchcon/2025/
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12:02 |
Jay Jaffe: Please check it out if so inclined
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12:02 |
EonADS: Hey Jay, thanks for all the hard work you put in on the Hall of Fame information for Fangraphs each year. I know I certainly appreciate it.
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12:03 |
Jay Jaffe: I’m very lucky to be in a position where FanGraphs give me as much space to cover the candidates and the Hall of Fame process. It’s a lot of fun, and i know it’s something people care deeply about. As I like to say, it’s been my dumb luck to happen upon a resource that is practically a renewable source of energy
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12:04 |
Alby: Harold Baines and Dave Parker were excellent hitters, but most consider them weak choices for the Hall of Fame. Does it feel like veterans’ committees have given more weight to offensive statistics than to other factors, making such players look more like HoF’s to them?
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12:05 |
Jay Jaffe: Given that the Veterans/Era Committees are generally about 50% players, it’s not surprising that they default to the more mainstream statistics which are not only usually offense-related but also centered more around old-school stats (AVG-HR-RBI, W-L) than new-school ones. That’s a lot of what drives the choices — with less thought to defense
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12:06 |
Jay Jaffe: which isn’t to say that WAR and JAWS don’t get mentioned – I’ve been told my stuff gets circulated in the room but that’s not to say it’s driving voters’ choices
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12:07 |
Zach: I get that Hamels and Félix are close in peak via bWAR, and that’s what informs S-JAWS, but by fWAR there’s over 8 wins separating their top 5 seasons.Since that gap aligns with how they were viewed by, say, Cy Young Award voters,
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12:08 |
Jay Jaffe: I’ve specifically chosen not to use fWAR in my pitcher deliberations because at the career level, differences in sequencing and BABIP are meaningful. At that point you’re better off looking at actual run prevention as your starting point
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12:09 |
Jay Jaffe: and while Felix did win a Cy Young and Hamels did not, i think it’s a stretch to assume it was fWAR driven. It was FIP driven, that much was more clear at the time
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12:10 |
Pettitte Problems: Assuming that Andy Pettitte isn’t elected by the BBWAA, how do you foresee his candidacy for a Veteran’s Committee group? I would presume he’s more well-liked by his contemporaries than a Bonds or Clemens, and think a committee with a Torre, Rivera, etc. would be more receptive to his candidacy…but I don’t know for sure, because the HGH complicates things. (As ever)
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12:12 |
Jay Jaffe: yeah there are two opposing forces that could affect his Era Committee candidacy, so to speak. A lot would depend upon who’s on the committee, which is something the Hall has control of. we certainly saw them stack the deck against Bonds and Clemens with vocal anti-PED voices (Frank Thomas, Ryne Sandberg) and have seen committees with favorable makeups for Baines, McGriff, Parker in terms of former teammates and execs
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12:14 |
Jay Jaffe: I do think HGH would draw less ire than straight steroids but it’s still gonna be a tough hurdle for Pettitte to surmount
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12:14 |
Matt VW: Given the brevity of his career, I’m not surprised Zobrist didn’t make the 5% threshold needed for a longer look. But is it surprising that he was shut out entirely? I get that for most voters he’s not David Wright, but I wouldn’t have thought he was Fernando Rodney either.
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12:15 |
Jay Jaffe: Yes, I’m a bit surprised he was completely blanked when even somebody like CarGo and Adam Jones received at least a couple of votes. Zobrist left a much larger footprint on the game from a historical standpoint
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12:16 |
FG BET: O/U 1.5 writers’ ballot inductees in 2026?
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12:18 |
Link: From a HOF perspective, what is the difference between Dave Parker and Darryl Strawberry? They’re rough contemporaries with similar off-field issues, but Straw has the higher bWar, more All-Star appearances, and is a local legend. Is it the MVP?
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12:20 |
Jay Jaffe: Interesting question. I think one thing that separates them is that when Parker’s name surfaced in the 1985 drug trials, he was publicly shamed and put on notice by MLB that he couldn’t mess up again. Strawberry was suspended three times for substance abuse and it effectively ended his career
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12:20 |
Link: More broadly on the topic of Straw and Parker, why do similar players get treated so differently by the Era Committees? Why are we always talking about Mattingly, but never Hernandez (longer career, higher bWar)? Does it all boil down to how they performed when they were on the ballot years ago?
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12:22 |
Jay Jaffe: That’s some of it. it’s always puzzled me why Hernandez has failed to even crack an Era Committee ballot because he checks so many boxes. Even his cocaine issue is right in parallel with Parker’s so it shouldn’t be an impediment. Plus he’s remained in the game for decades as a broadcaster, which certainly played a part in the election of Jim Kaat
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12:23 |
Jay Jaffe: But I think Hernandez’s big issue is that his offensive profile doesn’t look like that of a modern Hall 1B
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12:23 |
Hayden: Do you think Pedroia could follow Wagner’s path from 10% to election, with voters gradually becoming less concerned about the length of his career? I think Utley rising could also help him with more traditional voters–Utley has a clear lead in WAR but they compare well on most counting and rate stats, and Pedroia has a bit more hardware.
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12:25 |
Jay Jaffe: I think there’s potential for it to happen but there’s a lot of inertia to overcome. Let’s remember that the writers have yet to elect anyone from the post-1960 expansion era who finished with fewer than 2000 hits, and it wasn’t until the 2022 election of Tony Oliva that an Era Comittee did so. Andurw Jones, Chase Utley, and Buster Posey all have the potential to knock down that barrier on the BBWAA ballot. If that happens, i think it opens up a lane for Pedroia, but I do want to see how much he increases his support next time around
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12:26 |
Donkey: Given the Schilling/Bond/Clemens backlog, will we ever get underrepresented 1980s and 1990s starts into the Hall? Yes, maybe Kent comes off the list next year, but then he’ll be replaced by Pettite. Given the changes in the electorate, if the Committee goes by BBWA performance, there’ll always be an Abreu or Pedroia or Wright to consider without making room for a Whittaker or a Hernandez or a Cone.
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12:28 |
Jay Jaffe: The current formatting is just so frustrating for that reason. Especially when we keep getting fed Parker and Garvey and John, etc. My frustration with the Historical Overview Committee that builds the ballots is well-known, but the Hall’s decision to lump things together the way they have doesn’t help
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12:29 |
RH: Who is th most deserving Hall of Famer that doesn’t fit into one of the existing ways you can get in?
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12:31 |
Jay Jaffe: Well, I think Curt Flood kind of fits that category. Yes, he was a 7x Gold Glover and 3x All-Star who helped the Cardinals to 2 championships and a pennant, but the brevity of his career means he’s not going to get picked on the basis of his stats, and for whatever reason the HOC has never prioritized putting him up for a vote. We can’t discount the possibility of executives stonewalling him the way they did Marvin Miller — he once pointed out to me how many executive voters either dated to the pre-free agency era or were sons of those who did — but at least getting him on the ballot builds some momentum.
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12:32 |
Cameron L: Any further thoughts on Longoria/Donaldson’s candidacies with the likes of Arenado/Machado/Ramirez coming up behind them? It seems like there will be a glut of third basemen and those 2 will be near the bottom of the pecking order.
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12:35 |
Jay Jaffe: Yeah, while nobody from the latter trio has won an MVP award yet, Arenado and Machado are virtually even with Longoria in JAWS and Ramirez is close. All already have higher 7-year peaks than EL/JD and are still going. Let’s not forget that both Longoria and Donaldson fell short of 2,000 hits (Longoria by just 70) so they have that additionally working against them, where Machado should get there this year and Arenado next (Ramirez still needs 500)
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12:35 |
Kid: Why do you see Pedroia as more likely to gain traction than Wright? I would think they have almost identical cases (awards and post-seasons, notwithstanding).
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12:37 |
Jay Jaffe: because awards and postseasons do matter for HOF voting purposes. Bill James’ Hall of Fame Monitor does a decent job of capturing this; Pedroia scores 94, where 100 is a good possibility and 130 a virtual cinch; Wright scores just 74.
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12:38 |
Alby: With Felix vs. Hamels, Felix was the best pitcher on his team, Hamels usually wasn’t, which makes Felix feel like the better pitcher even if the stats say they’re about even.
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12:41 |
Jay Jaffe: I get that, but “feel” is a pretty small part of what drives my point of view on this. Also, Hamels didn’t have half a decade of slow-motion sliding into oblivion while a fanbase’s heart shattered into a million pieces
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12:42 |
Jay Jaffe: Hamels’ only seasons with an ERA+ below 100 were 2009 (97, plus a lousy postseason) and his one-start 2020.
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12:42 |
Jay Jaffe: if he was available, he was generally very good to excellent.
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12:43 |
Grand Admiral Braun: Have you even run a correlation on those players that have lead their league in fWAR (like Zobrist did) and didn’t make the HoF? **For those eligible for the HoF. It’s gotta be a smaller number!
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12:43 |
Jay Jaffe: no, not directly. But it’s hardly unheard of for one who led the league to miss out
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12:43 |
Dancing Dan McGrew: Acuna would’ve been a free agent this year had he not signed an extension, what do you think he would get on the open market?
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12:45 |
Jay Jaffe: That’s a tough one given his frequent injuries — he’s played in 120 or more games just twice — but I’d think over $250 million based on the ceiling
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12:45 |
Dodgers’ Future HOF Candidacies: Do you think Freddie Freeman’s HOF candidacy will be hurt at all by the current handwringing over the Dodgers’ spending and acquisition of talents like Sasaki? I’d imagine that the BBWAA is less prone to catastrophize or hold the team’s roster management against Freeman, but I’m curious to get your take.
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12:46 |
Jay Jaffe: No. They’ll remember the consistency and the World Series grand slam. nobody thinks about team payrolls when voting for a superstar in a Hall of Fame context.
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12:47 |
Dancing Dan McGrew: Suppose Tatis goes on to have a hall of fame career, does his PED suspension hinder him or would it be so far in the rearview mirror that it’s a minor issue?
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12:48 |
Jay Jaffe: we’re just going to have to wait about 20 years to find out. I always say “Never and forever are very long times” when it comes to Hall of Fame elections but somebody else who tested positive and got suspended is probably going to have to set the precedent
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12:49 |
Jay Jaffe: at the very least, if an Era Committee elects A-Rod or Manny, for example, then maybe there’s a precedent in place.
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12:50 |
Pythagoras: Is Cal Raleigh on your HOF radar at all?
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12:51 |
Jay Jaffe: You can see the Big Dumper from space without a radar but he’s got 13.9 fWAR through age 27, which ain’t a lot at a position where guys tend to wear out.
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12:53 |
WinTwins0410: Jay, I’ve a question about Eras committees. Feels like we’ve more or less seen enough data from committees to understand that one of the things that committees — even as their compositions change, cycle to cycle — must seriously consider is…how a guy did last time with the committee. Doesn’t that bode well for Tommy John in 3 yrs? TJ finally broke out of the pack this year. Looking at committee votes in recent years, most guys who break out don’t fall back later into the face-saving “fewer than X votes” category. It’s happened to several deceased guys like Bill Dahlen (sadly, I fear that few alive care about Dahlen), Danny Murtaugh and Maury Wills, plus living guys Dave Concepcion & now Steve Garvey. But in general, it seems like once a guy breaks out of the pack with a committee, it’s often inevitable that he’ll eventually be elected by a future committee. For TJ, it’s a data point of 1, and I realize Lou Piniella also has broken out but not gotten across the goal line yet. Thoughts?
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12:54 |
Jay Jaffe: Unless you’re a near-miss, it’s actually pretty inconsistent from election to election because the format, competition, and voter panel changes
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12:55 |
Jay Jaffe: You’re right that sometimes they break out of the “fewer than X votes” and don’t go back, but I’ve never studied it closely to see who does — often those guys don’t get a second shot.
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12:55 |
Patrick: Did you know Cole Hamels’s #1 Comp (Similarity Score) on bbref is Felix? And Felix’s #1 is Hamels?!?! weird!
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12:56 |
Jay Jaffe: As I think I wrote somewhere, they have some pretty obvious top-line similarities in terms of basic stats.
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12:56 |
Ryan: Jay, to me Blake Snell is like a Brett Saberhagen or Corey Kluber with 2 Cy Young’s but not a Hall of Famer. If he would win a 3rd does that change the conversation? Or is this magical thinking in the vain of is Nick Markakis a Hall of Famer if he got to 3000 hits.
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1:00 |
Jay Jaffe: Saberhagen had a much more substantial career than Snell or Kluber, finishing with 58.9 WAR — more than Snell (23.4) and Kluber (34.0) combined! Also the only one of the three with a World Series MVP.
I do think a third Cy for Snell would at least make him an interesting and perhaps groundbreaking candidate, but… I want to see it happen before I start worrying about what it means
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1:02 |
Corey seager: Do you think he’s on the HOF path? He seems a little shy by JAWS but I imagine the playoff performances will help
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1:03 |
Jay Jaffe: There’s a lot of slack in Seager’s line (36.8 career WAR/32.7 WAR 7/34.8 JAWS) in that three of his seven best seasons are less than 4.0 WAR but the guy has got to stay on the field
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1:05 |
Reds Enjoyer: Do you know off the top of your head what year (or decade) in Major League history saw the most future hall of famers active at the same time?
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1:08 |
Jay Jaffe: I believe it’s 53 from 1930, not including Negro Leagues players
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1:08 |
Jay Jaffe:
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1:09 |
Jay Jaffe: This graph is a couple years old but there is a very high concentration of Hall of Famers per team per year (and in total) in the late 20s and early 30s. Negro Leagues adds to that
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1:09 |
Matt: Hey Jay, wanted to ask the obvious question: Sammy Sosa is now in the Cubs HOF. Is his next stop Cooperstown?
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1:10 |
Jay Jaffe: Maybe if he drives there. He’s not getting in anytime soon, I’m not even sure he gets on the upcoming Era ballot (didn’t last time) given his meager showing on the writers’ ballot
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1:10 |
I am the Walrus: If Buster Posey is a hall of famer (and it seems likely that he will be), then where is the love for Thurman Munson? Their old school and new school stats plus awards and honors (per BRef) are very similar.
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1:10 |
Jay Jaffe: You’re preaching to the choir on that one. reasonably similar pattern to their careers aside from the obvious tragedy
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1:10 |
Yeah Well Hiura Towel: All the fans clamoring for a salary cap are just plain wrong.
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1:12 |
Jay Jaffe: Very. That MLBTR poll showing the % of fans who would be willing to sacrifice a season for the sake of getting a salary cap is just horrifying but <broad gesture at the current hellscape> we’ve seen people gleefully vote against their own self-interest if they feel like somebody somewhere is getting a better deal than them
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1:14 |
Nick Z: Who would be the Ruth, Cobb, Wagner, Young, & Mathewson of Sandwiches?
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1:16 |
Alec: Any fun HoF swings you’re willing to take in terms of a current player who may not currently be on track / at the necessary thresholds for induction but you think will improve enough over the rest of their career to reach the Hall?
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1:16 |
Jay Jaffe: Jackson Merrill doing what he did at age 21 is super impressive in terms of having a chance Hallwise
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1:17 |
Jay Jaffe: Likewise Jackson Chourio at 20.
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1:18 |
Patrick: You’ve mentioned how tough it will be for players of certain eras to even get on a Veterans Committee ballot. Given that, does Edmonds have any chance at the HOF?
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1:18 |
Jay Jaffe: i wouldn’t hold my breath. If Lofton can’t get on a ballot with his big career numbers, Edmonds aint’ getting on one anytime soon either.
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1:19 |
Mike: Does Chappy have a long shot if he miraculously replicates his 2024 season a couple times over the length of his contract?
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1:20 |
Jay Jaffe: Yeah I’d say if he puts up a couple more 7.1 WAR seasons, which would give him 5 of at least 7.0, he’d be a serious contender for Cooperstown. As it is, even one such season would put his WAR7 above 40, a strong indicator of future election
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1:20 |
Broken Bat: Honest question, do you prefer to limit your responses to HOF area or is any baseball topic in your sphere? Fine either way, just wanting to know for future questions.
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1:21 |
Jay Jaffe: Any non-fantasy baseball topic is in my sphere but as we’re in the aftermath of HOF season I’m getting mainly HOF-flavored questions today
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1:21 |
Jim Mccormick: Jay will I ever get in the HOF? I’ve been dead for 106 years but my Jaw 76.2
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1:23 |
Jay Jaffe: Doubt it. The structure of the Era Committees is such that you’re competing with everybody from Negro Leagues players to Tommy John and Luis Tiant just for ballot space. There’s little call to put another ancient dead white pitcher in the Hall especially one who thrived when the rules were so different.
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1:24 |
Cat Stevens Singing “Father and Son”: Looking at prospect lists I saw a fair number of sons-of-former-major-leaguers. It caused me to look up the fact that Larry and Lee Mazzei are the only father-son duo in the HOF. Care to pick a year in which we’ll have our first father-son player duo elected to the HOF? I’ll go out on a limb and say 2043 Vladito gets in.
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1:26 |
Jay Jaffe: I think you mean Larry and Lee MacPhail. If Vladito is going to make it he’s gonna have to start putting up some serious numbers on a consistent basis but… he’s probably the best bet for awhile. It ain’t Cavan Biggio.
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1:26 |
EonADS: My question is, since we’re pretty likely to see a change in the outlook on pitchers within the next few years, how much of a change in standard should we expect? Does it elevate a guy like Hamels or King Felix enough to get in? Or is it more like Greinke, Scherzer, and that tier getting a firmer, easier entry?
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1:29 |
Jay Jaffe: I don’t think anyone really knows where this is going, and one problem is that once you even get down to the tier where Hamels is, there are a lot of statistically similar pitchers in terms of top-line numbers
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1:30 |
Jay Jaffe: As i said when doing a deep dive on Corey Kluber a year ago, “The crux of the whole HOF starting pitcher standards situation is that if we decide a run like Kluber’s 2014–18 is worthy of Cooperstown then there are literally dozens of pitchers with similarly impressive runs, and logistically I don’t think there’s a way to honor an equitable share of them.”
You can swap in Felix and 7 years for that and you’ve still got far more candidates than you can manage and no way to get all of the deserving ones in
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1:31 |
Cromulent: Year 1 of Paul Skenes puts him on an HOF path? Harder to stay healthy than the 2 Jacksons but arguably even more impressive season.
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1:32 |
Jay Jaffe: I’m not going to bet on any rookie pitcher surviving the myriad obstacles that can prevent one from reaching Cooperstwon
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1:32 |
snood: Any case for Wheeler/Nola?
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1:34 |
Jay Jaffe: I’m very lukewarm on both. Wheeler got a late start — his 35.2 WAR is on part with Nola’s 35.3, but Wheeler just finished his age-34 season and Nola his age-31 season. Either or both is going to have to pitch very well for several more years to have a real shot
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1:35 |
Tom: When do you think the Hall shakes up the Committee process again? They want eyeballs, and shoving Garvey and Mattingly down our throats to be rejected every three years can’t be delivering them. We talk a lot about electing guys while they’re still alive — but we should also emphasize electing guys while their fans are still alive.
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1:35 |
Jay Jaffe: For the Hall’s purposes an Era system that’s producing 1-2 honorees every year is working just fine and is less likely to change than one that’s obviously dysfunctional, as the 3-Era system was
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1:37 |
Jay Jaffe: but at a minimum I suspect the Hall wouldn’t even consider a change to the current system until 2x through the order (so, after 3 more years).
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1:37 |
jj hardy: Hypothetically, lets say Jackson Chourio in two separate timelines has the exact same career statline. In one, he plays with the Brewers for 18 years and leads them to first WS. In the other, he plays with the Brewers for 8, then switches to LAD and wins 1 WS with them (superteam). Assuming his stats are borderline HOF, does he have a better chance at getting in with scenario 1?
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1:38 |
Jay Jaffe: a single-team candidate probably has a slight advantage, but it could easily be offset by the added exposure via the 2nd World Series.
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1:39 |
Jay Jaffe: Ok folks, that’s it for me this week. Thanks so much for stopping by with so many great questions!
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1:39 |
Jay Jaffe: We’ll do this again soon
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Brooklyn-based Jay Jaffe is a senior writer for FanGraphs, the author of The Cooperstown Casebook (Thomas Dunne Books, 2017) and the creator of the JAWS (Jaffe WAR Score) metric for Hall of Fame analysis. He founded the Futility Infielder website (2001), was a columnist for Baseball Prospectus (2005-2012) and a contributing writer for Sports Illustrated (2012-2018). He has been a recurring guest on MLB Network and a member of the BBWAA since 2011, and a Hall of Fame voter since 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jay_jaffe... and BlueSky @jayjaffe.bsky.social.
Jay, I wish my work schedule would allow me to participate in these chats, but know that there’s a ton of us who read the transcripts. Your work is priceless, and we greatly appreciate your efforts. Thanks!
Appreciate you dropping by to share a kind word, Matt! Thanks for reading and for being a member.
Seconded. Also, Kershaw and Freeman have kids on the same little league team if you wanna play the long run on father/son/teammate HoFers!